light

 

I've read that sleeping in total darkness is good for you. It's never dark in my room. I've got so many little blue, red and green leds, you'd think it was a space ship. Or a Circuit City.

I like it, it makes me feel high tech, and like I, I don't know, have stuff. lol. A lot of the leds are on the same things and on very inexpensive things, but I like them anyway. And if I unplugged everything - please don't bombard me with eco-carbon-footprint stuff, (there's an Eastman Chemical Company on the other side of town), there'd still be a lot of light, because I have white blinds and thin white curtains, and there's a big ol' street light down the block.

I don't like it when some of these leds are attached to things that beep though. It took me forever to figure out that the reason my computer often sneezes, is that when one of my 'buddies' signs on to AOL, there's a sneeze wav that plays. I didn't know what was making my computer sneeze, until I started opening my buddy list and I looked up all the wavs and stuff. Actually, there's not a sneeze one, but I'm assuming, or just making it up...that at one time there was, and she got the wav then. Hey, when I "figured?" that out, it stopped driving me nuts anyway. And there are wavs like coughing and doorbells and dogs barking.

Once a few years ago, there was a very faint beeping in my house. Listening, repeatedly muting the TV, and sneaking around, eventually led me to the garage. In the garage, I tracked the noise down to a big, dust-covered box that had been packed away for a couple of years. I pulled it down off the shelf, and slowly and carefully opened it. (I grew up watching all those police shows where there was usually a beeping time-bomb involved.) And we don't want to talk about how umm...rich... my imagination is. So, I open the box, and start removing the contents, as the beeping is getting louder. A bunch of clothes hangers and empty baby food jars later,  I see an old smoke alarm. It was beeping to let me know the battery was low and needed replacing. So, of course, I went to Wal-Mart and got a 9-volt battery for it, came back and replaced the battery, put it in the box, piled the hangers and all but one of the baby food jars on top, taped it up, and put it back up on the shelf.

quiet

 

I've seen a few blogs on sound and quiet topics lately. Instead of getting carried away writing comments, I thought I'd write an entry myself. Quiet. Living in a small town in Tennessee, you'd think it was very quiet. But it's more of a - I can't say suburban, but it's a residential neighborhood. The lot size is 1-2 acres, so we're not right on top of each other, but it's close enough to hear each other's cars, dogs, kids, etc. And close enough to traffic to hear sirens. After midnight, it's much quieter, but there are a lot of shift workers here, and young people, so there's some traffic on the street all night.

The street....it's very narrow, barely big enough for two cars, and a horrible curves that I don't get used to. I can't see around them to see who's coming, and I hate that. I would not have chosen the house to buy for that reason alone, but...people here learn to drive on those curves as young teenagers, and they don't have a problem at all. I learned to drive in the middle of downtown Tampa, which made me a good city driver, but when I'm in the mountains, I'll pull over when I have a chance to let the locals by. They were more understanding when I got here with my Florida plates, but I guess by the time you have local plates you should be able to handle these curves and hills. And since my accident, I'm afraid of what 'might' be coming over the hill. Like a huge yellow speeding school bus.

So, anyway, back to noise and/or the lack of it. I lived in a little beach town in Florida, close to St. Pete, where I heard gunshots most nights. I've lived in city and rural environments. The noisiest place I ever lived was also the most rural. There were no houses or people for almost a mile. I rented, but it was on several acres of land, and came complete with a swimming pool, a pond, and 20 head of cattle. At night, the sound was deafening. The frogs and toads at the pond. Oh my. With the windows open, you couldn't hear the television. And the cows loved to come up to the bedroom window and moo in the middle of the night. Nope, I don't know why.

Question About Views

When I look at my 'Views', sometimes where the person came from is listed, but often it's not. If it's not, why?

Past Week

I had such a good time with my daughter L, and grandson. R is 11 years old, and owns 5 game systems, and of course spends a good deal of time playing video games. He had the best time here. We have a PlayStation 2, and he brought his WI and I have a Nintendo DS. He spent very little time with any of them. We even rented 3 new games for him. We went to Roan Mountain State Park, and he loved it. The weather was perfect for being outside in the mountains. We went on the Appalachian Trail, for about 10 minutes, while I told him some things about it, and now he can say he's been on part of it. And we talked to a couple of hikers and gave them a box of PopTarts. It's always a good idea to feed AT hikers, can you imagine how many calories they use a day? Then he stood with one foot in North Carolina, and one in Tennessee, and thought that was pretty cool. He hung out with me and his mom, and listened to family stories and history. At one point I realized there were four generations sitting in the living room talking together. Pat, L, R, and I played....BOARD games! I thought he would not be interested in that, but he found some, Outburst and a Monopoly game that was a Virginia State Parks theme, and wanted to play. We played both for hours. Oh yeah, I guess I should mention, he won Monopoly by about a gazillion dollars. He's very intelligent, and sat and told us all kinds of Virginia history. He lives in Newport News, which is by Norfolk and Williamsburg. His school class went on lots of field trips and taught them so much history! This is his first year there, after moving from Phoenix. I learned a lot! In the evenings, we made a fire in our little fire pit, and sat outside under the stars watching the lightening bugs and talking. It was so nice. I miss all my kids and grandkids so much. 

Drunk Driving

An aquaintance of mine died Monday. He's driven drunk on a daily basis for many years. Sunday night was the last time. He wrecked, and didn't make it. He was in ICU for a few hours before he died. His funeral was tonight. I'm so glad he was the only one injured, physically anyway. There's a 21 year old girl, whose car he hit, and a 25 year old guy, whose pickup truck he was thrown under and who ran over him. There was no way to avoid it, I know it will affect the guy for the rest of his life, and probably cause quite a lot of trauma for the girl too.

Within the past week, two of Pat's relatives have also died. It was expected, but that doesn't mean it makes it easy. Rough week.

The GOOD part is, my daughter and grandson from Newport News are visiting! They came Tuesday and have brightened up my days that's for sure.   

Saving Photos

I've been working on a photo project. I'm trying to get my photos into a digital format. I'm putting them on my computer, and backing them up on Picasa and on DVDs. This sounds so easy. It is extremely time-consuming. And you know what? There are so many pictures that I'm thinking...why am I saving this? I've always kept every photo, and at the time it seemed like a good idea. I have so many that are either not relevant to anything or anybody I know, or there're 29 shots of a birthday cake, whose I don't remember. Do I need 29 shots of a birthday cake? If it were the Queen of England's, I still don't think I'd need 29 photos of it.Would I dare throw a photograph away? Do you? Is it okay? Will the photosaving police come get me? Really? Will they take me for ice cream? Oh, got carried away. I have limited space where I live, in my little room, and I have 3 ginormic storage containers of photos.And I don't want to say anything about the organizational system I use with them. lol.     jan 

Okay, One More

Old, but I came across it and laughed again.

 

Tiger Puzzle               
A blonde calls her boyfriend and says, "Please 
come over here and help me.....I have a killer 
jigsaw puzzle, and I can't figure out how to get it started" Her 
boyfriend asks, "What is it supposed to be when it's finished"? The blonde says "According to the picture on the box, it's a tiger." Her boyfriend decides to go over and help with the puzzle. She lets him in and shows him where she has the puzzle spread all over the table. He studies the pieces for a moment, then looks at the box, then turns to her and says, "First of all, no matter what we do, we're not going to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a tiger". He held her hand and said, "Second, I'd advise you to relax. Let's have a cup of coffee, then ..........." he sighed, "let's put all these Frosted
Flakes  back in the box."

Tiger Puzzle 
A blonde calls her boyfriend and says, "Please 
come over here and help me.....I have a killer 
jigsaw puzzle, and I can't figure out how to get it started" Her 
boyfriend asks, "What is it supposed to be when it's finished"? The blonde says "According to the picture on the box, it's a tiger." Her boyfriend decides to go over and help with the puzzle. She lets him in and shows him where she has the puzzle spread all over the table. He studies the pieces for a moment, then looks at the box, then turns to her and says, "First of all, no matter what we do, we're not going to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a tiger". He held her hand and said, "Second, I'd advise you to relax. Let's have a cup of coffee, then ..........." he sighed, "let's put all these Frosted
Flakes  back in the box."