Some Serious Christmas Video

Zaya is the one saying his line (of course) but the second line is not Mim's, as she was still too young for a line of her own. Ah well, child, maybe next year. You can see her playing with her red skirt there at the end.

Christmas Photo--Hazel's Bows

At Still Waters Run Deep, my cousin posted a Christmas picture of her twin daughters wearing party hats. This picture is proof that: "It runs in the family" and that "They are perfectly normal girls."

A Thursday Thirteen Meme

Follow the instructions to come up with 13 pseudonyms for yourself. The following are mine:

1. Your rock star name (first pet, current car)
Sneezix La Saber

2. Your gangsta name (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite type of shoe)
Coconut Crocs

3. Your Native American name (favorite color, favorite animal)
Scarlet Kitten

4. Your soap opera name (middle name, city where you were born)
Annie Magnolia (Not exactly true, but internet anonymity must be considered)

5. Your Star Wars name (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 of your first name)
Lixli (See #4)

6. Superhero name (2nd favorite color, favorite drink)
Emerald Coffee (yeech!)

7. NASCAR name (Made from names of your grandfathers)
Lloyd Elijah Paul

8. Your cooking show host name (A cooking activity, a favorite vegetable)
Broiling Potatoes

9. TV weather anchor name (your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter) Montezuma Monroe

10. Science Fiction Writer Pseudonym ( a planet name, an descriptive adjective beginning with the same letter)
Mars Magnanimous

11. Spy name (your favorite season/holiday, flower)
Spring Lilacs

12. Cartoon name: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now)
Banana Belt

13. Hippie name (what you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree)
Toast Oak

Beautiful Bows Handmade by Hazel...and a Tiny Bit of a Song for You

This Christmas all the packages at my parents' house looked like they had been professionally wrapped; It was Hazel again. She had spent hours making elaborate bows--flowers and teensy little bows inside of bows. Well, see for yourself. They were exquisite. Before we opened the presents, we sang together...twenty four voices in the den. It was great...well, I'm sure it lacked something musically, but for earnestness it was superb. After that we visited, or played "Sorry" or "Apples to Apples", or sneaked into the kitchen for little slivers of coconut pie (in the hope that multiple small slices would confuse the calorie count into making an exception to the laws of mathematics--a vain hope, I might add, but it seemed rational in the fog of the day.)

She Loves Video Cameras and Frilly Red Dresses

I've discovered a new program on my computer--windows movie maker. So far I've learned to string a bunch of little videos together, chopping off the endings which, in this case, are all the same: She bounds toward me asking: "Now can I see it?" So here are a bunch of videos of the granddaughter.

I Believe...

...That life matters.
We are not little blobs of energy bumping blindly around in a plasma screen, nor yet are we cogs on a giant machine, following our fate in a grinding, grueling march to the grave, but we are alive. We are humans, created and capable of creation, destined and able to determine our own destiny, fallen, yet able to grasp the hand of our maker and stand again.

...That God matters.
We do not understand this love we find within us, until we have come home to our Father, and felt his love; we don't know mercy, until we see his supreme gift on the cross; we cannot see, until He has opened our eyes.

...That death matters.
We were not meant to die, to age, to falter; but we do. And so we find the door to eternity. What lies beyond is determined by the choices we made in life, by the hand we hold.

So life matters.


Our Sunday Scribblings Prompt was I Believe.

It's That Time of Year When...

...sweet remorse sets in because of all the overindulgences of the great November/December sugarfest. I sat here struggling with the woes of my computer (which sounds like more exercise than it is)consoling myself with an occasional teaspoon full of vanilla coconut spoon fudge, and finally decided it was time to face the inevitable. So I waddled up to the little gym on the square and slogged away for an hour--one round with the exercising machine dragons and nine chapters on the treadmill. For me, that's the only way to do it. Set the machine and start reading a good book. I don't know how long I walked past the end of the program and into the cool down cycle...Hey, it was an interesting book, although a little too eerie for my taste. What I really needed was a cheery, English countryside mystery a la Chesterton or Sayers or Christie. Dekker is a great author, but I prefer books that don't keep me looking over my shoulder. If things are happening to people far removed in social station or locale it doesn't seem as threatening, but this author uses names of towns I've been to, and his people are just ordinary citizens of the earth, people who eat too much candy at Christmas and go exercise to pay the price.

My Computer is a Barren Wasteland

Yikes.
It all started when I asked for an external hard drive for Christmas. (Yes, I'm a little weird that way). Well, the computer was just too full to function well, and, even though it is getting old, by computer standards--one year equals twenty, I thought if I just gave it some more room to grow, it would serve me faithfully for a few more years.

So I hooked up the mass storage device. In doing so, I had to plug the printer into the front usb port, because there are only two in back (That should tell you). I had the good sense to transfer all the documents over to the new drive. Then I had another idea--transfer all the program files and reboot the computer. Then I could pull all the program files back and Voila---more room without all the junk. Well.

I rebooted.

I didn't lose the documents.
I lost everything else.
All my windows updates.
My printer.
My e-mail letters and addresses.
Every software program.

Reinstalling is a major pain. I've been setting at the computer for two days and still don't have much to show for it. My printer doesn't work yet. THERE ARE TWO MILLION LINKS TO DOWNLOAD UPDATES AND FREE DRIVERS AND THEY ALL LEAD TO SOFTWARE THAT DOES NOTHING BUT SELL ITS DIAGNOSTIC SELF.

Why can't I leave well enough alone?