A little taste of winter

It is pretty cold here today with plenty of wind. Nothing you would want to hang out in for no reason. I've been to the mailbox twice and I keep an eye on a big sweet gum tree right by with most of it's limbs ripped off but lots still just hanging. That's how almost all the trees anywhere around here are. I'm sure most of them will die slowly turning my little jungle into my little prairie. The tenacious vines and unwanted weeds will thrive, however.

Making a little progress cleaning up the porches with the help of my X's sister. She comes by about once a week and always finds something to do. My storage room that has never been completely finished needs to be done so I have a place for the things that I plan to keep from the storage building that was tossed over on it's side leaving all the things in it just setting there on the cement slab. I don't plan to keep much of that stuff and will have to try to find someone who wants what I don't. No luck so far :( I even saw a "frog gig" out there. As for all the downed trees, that is really gonna be a slow process as everyone around here has the same problems to deal with.

My daughter and grand daughter are enjoying the city life in her apartment about twenty-five miles from here. She's working in a day care center with about eleven little kids between two and three. My grand daughter has dance class after school on Mondays and will start today.

My son has lots of damage to his back and goes to the doctors about once a week. My X's sister also takes him to all his appointments since he still can't drive. His right leg hurts as well as his ankle. Just imagine getting hit by two different vehicles! He won't be going back to work for a very long time. He finds a new pain somewhere just about every day.

Signing in ???

I am still having to sign in even though I check the box "remember me" and then sometimes (a lot) I still get the blank page with the little zero left side. I can come back a few hours later and get in just fine without signing in. I can't believe I'm the only poor blogger who has this problem (or am I?). If anyone knows how to correct this problem in the "settings" p l e a s e let me know. I did get a Gmail address so I wonder if that has anything to do with it. Any help would be sooooo much appreciated.
Have a great day friends :).............

AOL journal transferred :)........

After some trials and failures to transfer my journal over to here, it is finally here!

Getting here ............

........ At least I'm trying to. Just spent at least thirty minutes trying to get into this blog and kept having to sign in with my username/password and it would come up nothing but a blank page with a small zero in upper left corner. I finally decided to go ahead and just put in the Google's Gmail address and it worked. I always check the "remember me" box but it doesn't seem to work :( Can't decide if I want to save my aol journal or not and wouldn't you just know I can't find anything on Magic Smoke for the link to do so. I know it's in there, I just couldn't find the danged thing.
I have been doing more clean-up as usual with a new shopvac but I don't see that it's any more fun using a new one than the old one :) I've got to get a new vacuum that pulls itself or one of those that crawls around all the time by itself. I can just hear it banging on the door trying to get outta here!! I hate vacuuming!
OK, enough of the bitching for awhile. It is nice to finally see the hay cutters out front of the house raking it and getting it ready to bale or roll. Whatever, it will look nicer out that way at least. I just have to keep my rose colored glasses on when looking other directions around here. Catch you all later :).........

Not private :).........

Karen has told me that she couldn't access my blog as it said "private" so I checked all the settings and they are all the same. I'm hoping it was just a temporary thing but if you have that problem getting in here, please let me know.
The weather here today is so nice with an expected high of 76 and cloudy so I think I'm going to do a little outside "piddling". Got a little bit of kitchen duty left to do as well after I read a few other blog entries :).............

Hello to all~~ I'm finding it so hard to find the time to post anything 'cause most of my time is still spent on the extra work that Ike created. It is a very slow process and can take over a year at least but I have to try to do some little something each day even though right now it doesn't seem to show. Then there's just the daily routine that's not that easy to keep up with. When I do get in here, I find myself visiting all the other pretty blogs. They help me to know that I'm not the only person in the world who has to deal with unexpected problems and life's little obstacles. Sometimes they are large ones. So the best we can do is just enjoy every moment of the good things that come our way and keep them in mind for a rainy day. Now my break is over and I have to find something in the fridge. My mind is doing a mental scan and not coming up with anything but ice cream (wondering if that's one word or two) and ?????

I think I've finally crossed over the bridge

and the grass does look much greener

on this side. Everything is getting easier to do all the time.

Posting pictures or animations is a breeze compared....well, you know:)

At several's advice I'm going to set up a Gmail if I don't already

have one that I forgot about.

The FEMA man has been out here and did his initial investigation

and then later another will come and do the real inspection like

getting in the attic and on top of the house or whatever it takes

for him to decide what is what. I had two places in the

house that leaked and that is just a miracle! You cannot imagine

eight to ten hours of solid sound of a train and you just think it

will never end and then find out you still have a roof on the house.

Lots of people didn't and I feel so sorry for them. Others aren't

alive any more to know what happened to anything and that is the really hard part of disasters like this. I can still just walk right by my mess and it doesn't bother me at all 'cause I know in time it will be cleaned up and ready for another one. Two in three years is unusual for this area. Growing up I did not even know the word. I'm now so much more appreciative of autumn, winter & spring :)............

Another awesome autumn 2008

Here it is autumn and I barely noticed summer except for Ike the hurricane. Ike changed my attitute about hating winter and loving summer. I'd rather be bundled up and fussing about how cold it is than wondering when the next hurricane is gonna head this way. That's what I do here in the mornings since they are very cool and then it warms up during the day.

I wanted to put this graphic on my side bar but found no way to get it there. Regular graphics, yes; but animated, not!! I know there has to be a way but my digging has turned up nothing yet. So maybe I'll accomplish that today. NOW ..........more coffee!!!!

Practicing

It's working here without the border/frame or whatever. Hoping it will publish that way :).........

As I compose here, I have an animated graphic that says "hi". Now I'm wondering if it's gonna show up when I publish it ??????? This is experimental so don't expect much. Here goes........
Uh oh, it had the square around it and I tried to make it disappear. I don't see it here, but when I published it, there it was. Where's the magic wand ?????????

This is turning out to be quite an experience. Oh well, you know what they say about teaching an old dog new tricks! It does seem that most have made the transition just fine while some like me are just a little bit slower for one reason or another.

Oscar & Meyers must be adjusting from the trauma of Ike very well. My X's sister's husband said he would love to have Meyers for a squirrel dog so I told him he could have him. It is NOT an easy chore to bathe them and one is plenty for me to take good care of and I knew he would have a good home and be taken care of. So yesterday sil came by and finally asked if I wanted her to go ahead and take him home with her. Sure.......... They had been right there listening to it all and when she tried to pet him he gave her an untrusting look and backed off. So I, risking more sciatic sin, picked him up and put him in the back of her truck cause she didn't really want him to ride in the truck:( I told her he would jump out and sure enough, within five minutes she was back and so was he looking confused. She relented and said he could ride in the back seat and I tried to put him in there. Well, that was equal to trying to bathe an unwilling cat!!! He was determined to stay here and I just didn't have the heart to try to convince him that it would be to his better interest to go with her. I had already told him about how he would get to go to their camp and hunt squirrels and all the leftover food he would have access to not to mention his regular dog food. So yeah, he is still here and he must have forgotten all about the horrible experience of Ike here. NOW I just don't know if I can actually make him go in a carrier. I don't think I can:( Can't believe how these little critters can get under your skin and into your hearts.

A way to get email alerts for comments.........

I just discovered is to just go to your blog and send yourself a comment and there it has a box to check if you want email on comments. You can do that on anyone else's blog but I don't do that. I tried it and it does work. There's probably a way in settings but this just seemed quicker :)..........

Making myself at home........

and it is getting so much better. Thanks Joyce for the advice. Want to at least keep in practice until I know all the settings, etc.

Now here's my first graphic that I snagged from someone and can't remember who but it looks autumnish. Loading this picture was nothing compared to all the steps I had to make to get any on Journals. It was done in no time as to countless minutes it took before. YES, I'm lovin' this even more now!!! Hope everone else is as well :)

Forgot my flashlight.....

and it's rather dark in here. So I'm feeling my way around very slowly. Everyone else's blogs look so nice and pretty like you've been here forever and mine barely has framework. I did find the dashboard but I don't think I have a windshield. Am I the only one fussing about having to read goofy letters and then a username and password just to make a simple comment. I think I'm missing something here cause that could really get time consuming; something I don't have much of. Anyway, that's why I haven't left a comment yet cause I just read and go on to another one as I get time to do so. Not even wondering about animation at this point:( Now I'm gonna read some more and maybe learn something I can use :)..........

Not too clear what I'm doing but..........

can't be that different; you think? First off I'm wondering if you can do animated graphics on here. This is going to be short and sweet so I can get a glimpse of what I may be doing. Hope to catch up with all who came to Blogger if I can figure out how to get alerts from each of you. So far I've been putting you on my "favorites" until I can find out more about this. Hope to see you here :)............alice ps any and all help/suggestions appreciated!