Here at our house we have so many things to be thankful this year... as we do every year. From our House to Yours, I would like to wish you all a very Happy Turkey Day.
**And for those of you not living in the U.S.... I hope you also have many things to be thankful for!
The above is a screen shot of one of my favorite programs for doing blog posts. Live Writer is a free program that you can download. Why use an offline Blog Post Editor? One reason is avoiding that annoying thing the editor online at Blogger does where what you see isn't necessarily what you get when you hit publish. Live Writer allows you to see exactly how your blog post will look when it is published. This way you are sure that your pictures are in the right spot and things are spaced as you want before you hit publish.
Another advantage is the way you insert pictures. You are given option#1 of inserting the picture from your computer (and having it uploaded to Picasa) , or choosing option #2 to insert the url of your graphic from some other service where you have uploaded the picture to... all without going into html.
Option#1 Option#2
Once a picture is uploaded, you are also given some pretty good options for things like changing the size of the picture. You are offered small/med/large... but you are also offered the choice of the original size it was uploaded at or even to choose the height and width that you choose with the ratio locked.
One more advantage? It's an offline editor... Your post is on your computer till you hit publish, so if something happens on the way to posting you don't lose all of your hard work!
There are a lot of other features, but I will save them for another time... or if anyone is interested enough to ask LOL! Oh, and I am not in anyway associated with this program, I just like it!
I was just over at My Day My Interest Photoblog. Betty has a wonderful story on her blog today, perfect for this Veteran's Day. I don't know if it is true, but I really, really hope it is.
Go Here to read this touching story, and try to keep a tear from forming in your eye.
It is the Soldier
Father Dennis Edward O'Brien
It is the Soldier,
not the reporter, who has given us freedom of press.
It is the Soldier,
not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the Soldier,
not the campus organizer, who gives us freedom to demonstrate.
It is the Soldier
who salutes the flag,
who serves beneath the flag,
and whose coffin is draped by the flag,
who allows the protester to burn the flag.
posters courtesy of U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs
This is a first for me... I have never done a Saturday Six, but I have a lot of blogging friends who do. Patrick always seems to come up with great questions, I just never have participated. I think this weeks set of questions spoke to me because I spent the last several months tutoring my friends daughter who is home schooled, and I miss doing it since they moved up north.
1. If you had to fill in as a substitute teacher at a local middle school, what subject would you be most comfortable teaching?
Math! This was a no brainer. Math is my favorite subject, and I like it because there is no question about the final answer. This is the question, and this is the answer! Not always true of other subjects LOL!
2. When you were in school, what was a better indication of your true understanding of what you were learning: class participation, the accuracy of your homework, or your test scores?
I think that if a child is participating in the class room and seems to be understanding the matter at hand, then that is the best indicator. After all, the homework could be done with the help of a parent (although not mine, my mother was always "Do it yourself or it has no value")... and as for tests?? How many of us crammed a bunch of stuff into our heads the night before (or even an hour before ;0 ) a test only to forget it the moment we put our pencils down and didn't need the information??
3. You meet someone for the first time and have a brief conversation with them. If you run into them the next afternoon, how likely are you to remember their name?
Nope! I'm lucky to remember my own name. This is a running joke in our house because G remembers everyone's name after only a casual introduction. Me, not so much. Names are always hard for me... on the other hand if they were in the company of a pet, that name I will remember. Often I speak of someone as "Rex's Mom" or "Muffin's Daddy" LOL!
4. Take the quiz: Do You Have Gaps in Your Knowledge?
| There Are 1 Gaps in Your Knowledge |
 Art Where you don't have gaps in your knowledge: Philosophy Religion Economics Literature History Science |
5. If you had “gaps” in your knowledge, did you expect to have them where they were predicted? If you had none, which of the listed subjects would be the ones you’d most expect gaps to be?
Hmmm... Art was my deficiency... Actually I'm surprised that it wasn't History LOL! G is a big history buff and it always annoys him that while I have a general knowledge of when things happened and why, I can't remember which person did what to whom with the correct date. It was the music question... I wasn't sure if it was Beethovan or Mozart who was deaf.... guess it was Beethovan ;p
6. If you could go back to school for one semester free of charge and “try again” with any subject, which one would you choose and why?
If I could go to school for one semester I would choose to study Graphic Arts... not that it is a 'try again', but that it is what fascinates me. If I was going back to do a subject I didn't do well in... then I would have to choose History for the reason listed in the answer to #5
This was fun... maybe I'll have to do one of these again in the future. If you want to play, be sure to go over to Patrick's and check it out.
The short answer to the Halloween Puzzle is.... after 8 years together, G. and I got married.
The long answer is: The 2 gold circlets were our rings. The braided cord was for the handfasting part of the ceremony. Each of the colors of the braided cord stand for something: Red is for passion/love, white for purity, and green for prosperity. I braided the cord myself. The broom was for jumping over at the end of the ceremony. The chocolates and strawberries for our first 'meal' as a married couple.
The ceremony was held at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens under a beautiful oak tree. The tree is even called "The Wedding Oak" and it's the reason we chose to be married there. The day was beautiful. Sunshiny, low 70's, and just enough puffy clouds in the sky to make it pretty.
There are no pictures since it was just us, the Reverend, and 2 witnesses... and I was participating in the ceremony and too busy to take pictures <g>. However, we do plan to go back and have some nice pictures taken at some point. Many of the flower pictures you see here, including today's, are from the gardens. It is a favorite destination of ours... especially since they are very dog friendly and Morgan loves to accompany us there.
In my last post about my big adventure I let you all know our final destination: The Big E in Springfield, MA. We had arrived safely and had a few days before the kickoff. This turned out to be a good thing because due to circumstances (weather, delivery schedules, trouble finding certain products) I got to strip and re-bed our 10 stalls 3 times LOL! Quite the work-out. Between that, the crazy schedule of shows, and stripping and repacking everything at the end, I managed to lose 10 pounds without even trying. Combined with the weight I had lost during the spring and fall of this year helping with the training and general upkeep of the horses, my weight is now back to what I consider a good one!
We were very happy to wake the morning after our arrival to sunshine. After all the rain on our trip, the sun was a very welcome sight. We got ourselves set-up for the next couple of weeks and spent some time seeing who else we new as they arrived. It wasn't surprising that we knew some of the people because we were there for Sylvia and the horses to perform with The Big E Super Circus and this was not the first time Sylvia had performed in this venue. The picture they use on this link is one of the ones I took of Sylvia earlier this Spring... I felt sort of famous. It was fun seeing old friends and making some new ones.
In answer to some of the questions in the comments of the last Adventure entry.... The horse hauler will haul 12 horses, but we were hauling only 10. Yes, there is an area in the front for a person to sleep, and actually that is where I was bunking during the trip and the show.
For anyone interested in what the horses do in the act, here are links to two videos of Sylvia and the Horses. It's in two parts, but is actually just the one act. I had to split it because of the length of video was too big for You Tube.
Hope you enjoy the horses!
G. and I did something special for Samhain (Halloween) this year. It involved the use of a very long braided cord made from 3 colors of cord: Red, white and green. We also had 2 gold circlets, a new broom, chocolates and strawberries. Can anyone guess what we did??
Happy Halloween All! I hope that if you have little ghosts and goblins that they got all the candy they could desire... and that they shared the little candy bars with you. If you don't have little ones, I hope that you got to enjoy the sight of other peoples little ones all dressed up. Unfortunately, I live waaaaay out in the country, so we don't get little Trick or Treaters. I have to go to town to the Halloween Candy Walk downtown if I want to enjoy them. LOL!
And for stopping by my little corner of cyberspace on your Trick or Treat rounds, I have a little Halloween treat for you: Go here and check out Cat Bowling.....
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