Applause!

When I was a kid, I once asked my mother why we don't applaud the special music singer in church. 

The answer I received was because applauding gives the glory to the singer, not to God.  When people sing in church, it's an act of worship.  They don't do it to seek attention, or to draw praise for themselves.  So, we treat their song as such.  An act of worship, rather than a Las Vegas stage show.

All this, of course, has changed in the last 30 or so years.  People applaud in church all the time now.  I don't.  I still treat the singing as worship, and not entertainment. 

Applauding in church seems to be the thing to do these days.  I just grit my teeth and bear it, and attribute it to the same loss of solemnity and reverence that says it's OK to wear shorts and flip flops to church.  This new attitude of treating God as a buddy and a pal instead of the Almighty King Of Heaven. 

The church I attend applauds everything.  They even applaud the announcements from time to time, which I find to be utterly ridiculous.  Laughable, but still tolerable.   

But when you get to the point where you are applauding baptisms, well, that's just going a little bit too far.  I mean, baptism is a serious thing.  It symbolizes death, burial, and resurrection to a new life in Christ.  It's a commitment, not an award.  You're starting a new life, not winning an Oscar.  Yet, that is exactly what applause reduces it to.  An award.  A prize.  An "oh goody goody".  It deserves better than that. 

Can we please get back to treating worship with reverence and respect? 

Please? 

Random Friday Photos

My newest Christmas dishcloth.

I know some people get their panties all up in a wad if stores put out Christmas decorations out any time before December 23, but I get excited when I see them. I still love Christmas.

People, just because the stores cater to people who like to do their shopping sometime before December 24th, doesn't mean you have to forget about Halloween and Thanksgiving.  Stores are businesses.  It's their job to sell stuff, and not everyone wants to wait until the last minute.  But stores  don't control your life or your calendar.  So just stop the whining already.  It really is tiresome.

And when you think about it, stores have been putting out Christmas stuff mid-October for-- well, for as long as I can remember.   We always got the Sears Christmas catalog in time for my parents to buy stuff for my brother's birthday, and that's October 16th.  I knew as soon as we got the catalog that stuff would be in the stores soon, and it was.  Oh, how quickly we forget.

Speaking of Christmas--or birthdays, mine is next month, you know --here's a new thing for my list. 

A pink bb/pellet gun.  Now, I've never really been an OH MY GOSH IT'S PINK!!! kind of person, but I do kind of want a pink gun.  I really want a Hello Kitty AR-15.  They're real. And pink.  With Hello Kitty on the stock.  I've seen them.  Honest and for true.  I'll tell you one thing, though, if this one had been purple, I'd have bought it on the spot.  But it's pink, so I didn't. 

I did, however, buy these on the spot.

And this:

I've only seen the first season of Duck Dynasty.  I'm still waiting for Netflix or Amazon Prime to get the other two seasons up.  I really love Uncle Si.  He is quite the character.

On the way home from the store, I passed this.

It's cotton picking time!  And here is another picker about to head out into the field. 

This field is right across the street from the plant where I work, and only about a mile from my house.  Come to think of it, this may be why I had such trouble breathing today.

They do stir up quite a bit of dust, them cotton picking machines do.

One final note, after paying bills and seeing how much --or how little, rather-- money I have left, I decided not to go up to Hank Of Yarn for the clearance sales.  I don't know how much longer we're going to be on these short hours and I need to conserve as much money as I can. 

I think I've got enough yarn to tide me over. 

Maybe. 

We'll see...

Look At The Snowflakes

I had the strangest dream last night.

Yes, me!  Stop laughing now.  Seriously.  Stop.

I had the strangest dream last night.  I was in a fabric store in Houston, Texas, looking for Charlie Brown fabric.  I wanted to make work shirts out of it.

While I was perusing the fabrics, looking for Peanuts patterns, it suddenly started to snow.  The door of the shop was open, and big old snowflakes were drifting inside.  These were some massively big snowflakes, like dinner plate size.

And nobody seemed to notice.

I caught one.  A big, gorgeous ice crystal and carried it around the store trying to get people to look at it before it melted away, but they all ignored me.

Hunched over their tablets and smartphones, no one could take the time to admire this bit of intricate fragility, and I wept for them as it melted in my hand and became nothing more than a damp spot on the floor.

Later, after I'd woken up and thought about it, my dream really is a reflection of what our lives have become.  We sit and stare at the TV or computer, hunched over our tablets and smartphones and miss the beauty in the world around us.  We miss living.  We miss life.

Snowflakes gently fall around us and melt away, and we never even notice. 


*Images courtesy of SnowCrystals.com

It's Christmas!

Scared ya, didn't I?

It's not really Christmas, but the preparations continue.  I finished another washcloth last night.

And cast on a third this afternoon.  Also this afternoon, I got the stuff I'd ordered to go with said washcloths.

 

Lotion, shower gel, bubble bath, lip balm.  Gee, it almost makes me want to make one for myself. Hey, I think I will!

Speaking of holidays...

I managed to drag the box of fall decorations out of my closet last weekend, but that's as far as they've gotten.  It's just been too hot to want to decorate for fall.  But we've had a cold front come through today, and it's already cooling off.  It isn't supposed to get out of the low 70s through the weekend, so maybe that'll put me in the Fall decorating mood. 

One thing it has put me in the mood for is chili.  I love a good pot of chili, so fixins when on the shopping list.

A bit of sad news...my favorite yarn store, Hank Of Yarn, is closing next weekend.  I'm really going to miss that store.  Amy, Kat, Christi, and I had some good times up there.  I thought about going up there this weekend and getting some yarn on clearance.  I'll have to see how the money goes, since we're still on 4 day work weeks. 

One final note, I'm not sure why my readership has doubled in the last few weeks, but I'm sure glad it has.  I appreciate each and every one of you who stops by and reads my daily scribblings.

Y'all come back and bring a friend.

Chats On The Farmhouse Porch

We've got a cold front headed our way! I'm so happy. I'm so tired of being hot, I'm ready for some cooler weather. In fact, it looks plum dark outside right now. Let's have our chat in the kitchen, just to be on the safe side.

I've got various hot drinks, including pumpkin spice coffee, and peppermint mocha, tea, cider, and hot chocolate.  Help yourself.





Questions

1.  How many animals do you have? 

 Let's see...one cat, 2 1/2 dogs, and seven snakes.  Now, I know some of you are wondering how I have half a dog.  Well, Not My Dog spends so much time at my house that I halfway count him as mine, even though he's not.  My dog, that is.

2.  Have you begun Christmas plans, travel, decorations, crafts, menu, etc.? 

Yup.   I've ordered stuff to put into my gift baskets, and have started knitting the washcloths to go along with them.  The nephews just get gift cards, but I'm still wondering what to get the menfolks.  
 
3. Do you celebrate Harvest Season or Halloween? 

Neither, really.  I like Halloween, but Cody is adamant that we not celebrate that "pagan holiday born of devil worship".  Of course, now that he's grown and gone, there really isn't much to celebrate.  I do have a fake Jack O'Lantern that I put out, and I watch It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, but that's about the extent of my celebrating.

4.  How do you heat your house? 

Electric heater.  I wish I had a fireplace, though.  One day....
 
5.  Do you like dishes with white centers or centers with patterns? 

Honestly, I've never really thought about it.  The ones I have are plain, with the design around the edges.  When I was a kid, we had some with designs in the center.  So, I'm good either way.  Just so long as they have food on them.


I hope you've enjoyed this week's chat.  We're going to cut it a bit short so everyone can make it home before the storm arrives.  Drive safely, and be sure to join us again next week.  

My New Favorite Song

I'd heard references to it. I'd read quotes from it. I'd even heard a bit of the melody.  But it wasn't until I saw someone singing it on an episode of The Cafe Saturday night that I realized, "Hey, that's  a real song!"

Off to YouTube I went, and found it pretty quickly.  I think now it is my new favorite song.  



I sang it all day long.  And I do mean all day long.  By lunch time, I was really wishing I could remember more of the words, if you know what I mean.


The big news is, I got a huge chunk of my Christmas shopping done, and I've started knitting the other half.  I'm going to go ahead and post photos, since none of the recipients read my blog.  Except Beverly checks in from time to time, but she's not really an I've-got-to-be-surprised kind of person, so it's OK.

What I usually do is to buy bath gel, lotion, etc. from the Avon clearance book, then knit a washcloth to go with them.  This year, it's going to be a Christmas theme.   All the bath stuff I ordered has holiday scents and Christmas packaging, so I'm knitting Christmassy cloths to go with them.  I got the first one done last night.

I've got several more patterns, too.  They won't be all this one.

I decided to do them all in natural cotton instead of dyed.  They will all fade eventually, so I think it would look better if they just start off plain.

The small news is, I have no idea what to get the guys on my list.  I'll get to that when I get to it. 

I'm open to suggestions, though.

I Love Surprises!

Well, the new laptop and I are slowly getting used to each other.  I've got the e-mail problem figured out, but I can't fix it on my end.  See, the new e-mail program on Windows 8 doesn't support POP e-mail, which is what mine is.  I'll have to get ahold of AT&T customer service to see if they will switch it for me.

People who know me know how I feel about making phone calls.  I don't even like doing the instant chat thing.  It's preferable to the telephone, but only marginally.  So, I've been putting this off for two days.  I've got to get it done soon, though, because all my bills go to that e-mail.

I did spend some time this morning downloading all the bazillion updates new computers seem to need.  Kind of makes you wonder, though.  If they are brand new, why so many updates?  I guess software becomes obsolete just that fast.

But, on to better news...

A few years ago, a friend of mine wanted to open a fine yarn and pottery shop.  She asked for volunteers to knit up some samples for the shop.  You know, so people can see what the patterns look like in real life, and how the yarns knit up and such like.  Of course, I volunteered.  She sent me the pattern book and the yarn, and I knit up the hat for her.

Those of you with especially good memories, may recall Mr. Frosty volunteering his butt to block it over. 

Well, recently, she has decided to stop selling yarn, and focus solely on the pottery aspect of her shop, so she sent me the hat back. 

Totally not necessary, but appreciated nonetheless.  She also sent me a few other gifts, just because she is such a terrific person, despite being a Steelers fan.  One thing we are both fans of, though is the old show Firefly , she knew I'd love this ornament. 

She made that in her shop.  She also has a passion for journals, so she sent me these two.  I will never ever write in them!

The paper is so smooth, so creamy, that I just want to sit all day petting the pages.  They will be reserved for something very special indeed. May e I'll write about how blessed I am to have such good friends.

We were back on 4 days this week, so I was off work today.  The plan was to get up and go grocery shopping, bathe Jake, and do some other stuff.  I didn't do any of it. Ragweed has been in full bloom this last week.

That is evil stuff, I tell you.  Evil.  I'll bet America could return to her prominence as the world's only superpower if we just tell Russia and China that we have ragweed and we're not afraid to use it.

Basically, I've had terrible headaches all week.  My head was hurting so badly one day that it felt like my face would explode.  If you see someone walking around Grenada with no face, it's probably just me during ragweed season.

Whatever, I decided to be lazy today.  I stayed home and rewatched all the episodes of Sleepy Hollow on FOX.com, and finished up these socks. 

Finally, I found me some new fall jewelry.  Cute, huh? 

Dear CoWorker

No, I am not after your man.  I don't want your man. 

In fact, you couldn't pay me enough to take that man from you.

So, please be so kind as to refrain from giving me the Death Glare every time you walk past me.

Otherwise, I might be forced to take offense.

Thank you.

That is all.

I'm Back!!

Well, technically I was never really gone.

The Computer Doctor called and said that they'd tried to reinstall the OS, and when that didn't work, they tried to install a new hard drive.  That didn't work either, so the only option left was to try to replace the mother board.  He said that it would be so expensive to do that I might as well get a new computer.

So, straight to Wal-Mart I went, mostly just to look and price what they had.  I found one I really liked that was on clearance for $350, but they didn't have any more.  While she was looking for one, the sales clerk found a different one for the same price.  That's the one I got.

It's only a 15" screen, but has the same RAM as my old one, and 500 gig hard drive.  It's got Windows 8, which I'm not sure I like yet.  It's going to take some getting used to, that's for sure.

I still can't get into my Bellsouth e-mail account, though.  It keeps saying my username or password is incorrect, so I'll probably have to call them and get something reset.  It's very frustrating, because that's the address all my bills get sent to. 

I've still got as lot of figuring out to do, but right now, I've got too bad of a headache to deal with it. 

I feel like my sinuses are about to explode and blow my face right off my body.  So if you see someone walking around with no face, don't panic.  It's probably just me.

Chats On The Farmhouse Porch

The Computer Doctor called today, and they think they are going to have to replace my hard drive on my poor, sick laptop. They are going to try a few more things before going that route, but they don't seem too optimistic that anything is going to work.  Still, it's cheaper than buying a whole new computer, but it's an expense I can't really afford right now. Nevertheless, we must soldier on...




1.  Are you doing any crafts or DIY projects now? 

I have exactly 3,498 knitting projects on the needles right now.  OK, no not really.  But sometimes it seems like it.  I cast on a new hat Sunday, as if I didn't have enough going already. 

2.  If I could snap my fingers, I'd make____________ for dinner. 

My egg allergy go away.  I love eggs, from my head down to my legs.  If I weren't allergic to them, I think I could live on them.


3.  What author would you like to have lunch with? (It doesn't have to be someone alive now. We could use a time machine or something. :) 

Laura Ingalls Wilder.  She was my heroine growing up.  I wanted to BE Laura.  So much so that I wore my hair in two long brown braids for years.  I even took to calling my parents Ma and Pa for a time.  My dad was OK with it, but my mother didn't like that so much.

4.   I wanted to tell all of you folks at chats______________________.

How much I've enjoyed getting to know you all, and meeting new blog friends.  I'm apologizing for the sad state of my own blogging lately.  I hope it'll pick up when winter comes.   That's when I feel most alive.  

5.  ________________________ has been on my mind a lot lately. 

Money.  How am I going to get all these bills paid?  And we are on 4 day work weeks for probably the rest of the year.  My biggest fear is that this is just the precursor to the second dip of our double dip recession.  We were on 4 days long before anyone else felt the effects of the current recession.  

Thanks for dropping by.  I hope next week to be blogging from my trusty laptop, and not this old dinosaur of a desktop. 

When It Rains

Annnd Saturday morning, my laptop died. 

I was perusing Facebook when it crashed.  I tried several times to restart it, but it wouldn't restart.  I found a diagnostic and ran it.  It said there was a hardware problem.  Today after work, I took it in to the Computer Doctor to see if they could do anything for it. 

So, now we wait. 

In the meantime, I'm left with my phone and my semi-functioning desktop. 

Yesterday morning, I woke up feeling soooo bad.  How bad did I feel?  Well, I'll tell you.

I felt so bad, I fell asleep during the football game.  Not just any football game, the DALLAS COWBOYS football game.  I missed most of the third quarter.  Now, that's bad.

I still felt pretty bad this morning.  So much so that I almost called in sick, but I toughed it out and went to work anyway. 

I felt a little better after I kicked Group Leader Fernando's butt.  Literally.  I kicked his butt.  With my foot.  In the butt.

"I know she did not just do that," he said to Vanessa. 

But I did feel better. 

I got home this evening, and it was cool enough to open the windows.  Then it got too cool and I had to close the windows.  But it was nice to get fresh air in the house while it lasted. 

It finally feels like fall.  But we don't have any color yet, so you're just out of luck there. 

I tried to post an old photo, but this desktop is just too slow.  So, you'll have to wait until I get my laptop back. 

My sincerest apologies. 

Conversation Between Coworkers

Overheard at work today:

Male Coworker #1:  "You smell good.  I'm going to come stand over here by you today."

Female Coworker:  "That's not me.  That's [Male Coworker #2]"

Male Coworker #1:  "uh....."

A New Adventure

A couple of weeks ago, in what is probably just another vain attempt to control that mass of frizz that grows out of my head, I bought myself some curlers.

I say probably, because so far, I haven't been able to leave the things in my head long enough for my hair to dry.  I'm giving it yet another try tonight. 

I'll let you know how it goes.

I get to go deer hunting this year.  I've never been deer hunting.  I've been varmint hunting and such, but this'll be the first time I've hunted deer.  Oh, I always could have gone.  All I had to do was ask.  I just didn't want to go.

But now, with our reduced hours, I need to get some meat in the freezer.  So look out, Bambi!  I'm coming for you.

The good news is, we are working tomorrow.  This'll be the first five day paycheck we've had in a long time. 

Well, I've made it through this post without taking the curlers our of my head, so maybe there's hope. 

I'll let you know...

Spider Lilies

I said I was going to have a bunch of them...

Chats On The Farmhouse Porch

Yay! Netflix has finally gotten season 3 of The Walking Dead available for streaming. That's all I've been doing the last couple of days. Well, except I watched Bones and Sleepy Hollow last night.  I've been enjoying Sleepy Hollow, but to me the best part of the show is watching how Ichabod interacts with modern technology.  Once he's all adjusted and stuff, I'm not sure if the show will still hold my interest.  We'll have to wait and see.





QUESTIONS 

1.  When you pass the salt, do you automatically send the pepper with it? 

Well, since I'm by myself, there's no need to pass the salt or pepper or anything else for that matter.  And since I don't really like salt (which can make things difficult since sodium is required by our bodies), I don't use it on anything anyway.  

2.  How many fingers do you usually type with? 

All of them.  I still type the old fashioned way, like I learned in my typing class in high school. 

3.  Do you keep interesting coins when you run across them? 

Yes, I do.  At one time, I was a fairly active coin collector, but not so much any more.  I still keep the unusual or interesting ones.

4.  Did you enjoy September, or did it fly by too quickly? 

No, I didn't particularly enjoy it.  I didn't particularly dislike it, either.  It's just another month to me.

5.  If I could _________, I'd get more done each day. 

Quit work.  Or stay off Facebook, take your pick.  


Now, if you will excuse me, I'm off to watch some more Walking Dead.