hard to find time, but trying to poke at the new site with a stick here and there. and this site could use some tlc— and i mean improving, not tlc the girl group.
mad props to blue dozen design for patiently answering my wordpress questions while i promptly reply back that nevermind, i figured it out. it’s like wordpress therapy, minus beanbag chairs. blue dozen design, ya’ll for all your smart snazzy design needs…blue dozen design, got it?
‘Round this time o’ year we wish our JDDog a very happy birthday…and soon, same to Uncle Lane.
It’s important to not just wish them a happy bday, but thank them for this blog…once upon a time, JDDog, Uncle Lane, and Uncle Doogie gave me a forum for my words on FreakinAsheville.com…now, they never said I was any good, mind you, but they gave me a space and said “do your thing.” And words are my thing. They gave me a corner of the world wide web and let me spew my randomness…and when FreakinAsheville was no more, JDDog kept me truckin’ on a new domain.
Even though they are the ones with the birthdays, they gave me the gift: the gift of doing my thing. I know now that read or unread, writing a decade of words has kept me sane. A place to write, a space to fill, has been my life raft in some dark times and my playground on happy days. Thanks, thanks, thanks…and happy birthday.
http://www.madarasdesign.com
http://image420.com
My Facebook news feed has been full of friends giving thanks daily, and I imagine they’ll keep on truckin’ through Thanksgiving. It’s a nice concept; I like it. I certainly don’t post it on Facebook, but I try to stop and find something to be grateful for daily all year long. When the day has just sucked, finding something to be thankful for is at least a momentary attitude adjustment.
What am I thankful for in 2013? Oh, all kinds of things, both important and silly. I am thankful for my siblings, all of them. I am thankful for gigantic flannel shirts with sleeves that cover my hands. I am thankful for friends that disregard all the pet hair and have a good visit anyway. I am thankful for kindred spirits who think my craziness is perfectly normal. I am thankful for oversized mugs filled with cozy beverages. I am thankful for friends who reference episodes of “The Young Ones.” I am thankful for my kiddo and the fun we have on adventures, just the two of us. All this, and more.
Give thanks. Usually there is a bright spot in even the worst of days…and as the saying goes, it takes darkness to see the stars.
Often the world is a selfish place, but I wanted to pause a note some awesomeness, some helpfulness.
A friend I haven’t seen in 20 years not only answered a question I had about setting up something for my lampwork glass work area, he took photos of his work area and type out detailed explanations for me better than I’d found anywhere on the vast Internet. How cool, how helpful! Gestures like that restore my faith in the world.
My blog blew up…and another kind soul put it all back together with ninja-like deftness and even with a few tweaks that made it better! I was a litle freaked, worried my content was lost again…in years of blogging, an upgrade here or there has eaten my posts before, so I was sweating it a little…or a lot, really…a lottle. But poof! Content restored, and blog improved, yeah!!
So thank you, kind friends, for all the things you do. You make me smile!
Craigslist, like a lot of good things on the Internet, is now rampant with scam artists and weirdos, but there are still good folks out there.
Around our house, Santa delivered a teeny weeny turtle a few days early since it was going to be too cold to deliver said turtle Christmas Eve. Well, turns out the elf in charge of Santa’s livestock department didn’t realize this wasn’t a fully aquatic turtle, neither was this turtle one that could be on land 100%, thus the free apartment the turtle arrived in was not going to be adequate housing. This little turtle is of the variety that needs to bask, so she needs a place to swim, but she also requires a place to climb out of the water and completely dry out as well.
I decided last night I needed a ten gallon aquarium for this new little critter and looking around MiniMe’s room, I realized it was going to need a stand to go on or there was no place for such an aquarium other than the floor. All this defeats the damn purpose of accepting the free turtle and her free turtle apartment now that I’m pondering on buying her a new house and a stand and whatever else. So much for free!
I turned to craigslist last night hopeful to find a bargain. Right away, I found a listing for a free aquarium and stand, but I got no response, so someone must’ve gotten to it before me. Bummer. Free was the right price.
This morning, I looked and found a brand new listing for an aquarium and a stand for $20. I made arrangements to pick it up this evening, half-fearing the tank would be full of spiders and the stand would be some rusty pile of metal that required a tetanus shot…but you know what? The tank was great–no cracks, no black widow infestation, just a little dusty. And even more perfectly perfect, it came with a screen top, and we were going to need one of those, so yay! And then, not only was the stand in good repair, it’s actually quite nice! And to top it all off, the seller was genuinely pleased to send it all off to a new home, happy it was going to be put to use since she’d had it in storage for ages. We all win!
Thanks to the good folks who still use craigslist to buy, sell and trade with a kind heart like the person I dealt with today, and for that matter, I guess I have to thank the weirdos, too, since your posts in the personal section amuse me every day (did the guy looking to date a werewolf or werecat ever find his true love, I wonder?). Anyway, it’s always comforting to know there are good folks out there, even on the Internet.
Queensryche on YouTube… (link in case the player doesn’t work for ya)