The mighty oak is Iowa's state tree.

Word Of The Day

SEXAGENARIAN - a person of the age of 60 years old or between 60 and 70.

OLD PIRATES NEVER DIE THEY JUST RETIRE AND SELL CORN FOR A BUCK AN EAR.

sailing off into the sunset

This Day In History

SEPTEMBER 28


1955
The World Series was televised in color for the first time. The game was between the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers.
1974
First Lady Betty Ford underwent a mastectomy to remove a lump in her breast.
1989
Ferdinand E. Marcos died in Hawaii, in exile, at the age of 72.
1991
Marion Barry, former mayor of the District of Columbia, was sentenced to six months in prison for possession of crack cocaine.
1991
In response to U.S. President Bush's reduction of U.S. nuclear arms, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev promised to reciprocate.
1997
The 103rd convention of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) was held in New York City, NY. The official debut of the DVD format was featured.
2000
The U.S. Federal Drug Administration approved the use of RU-486 in the United States. The pill is used to induce an abortion.

Word Of The Day

WILLIES - nervousness or jitters.

A Barb In William's Side

I was once a legal secretary to a young law clerk who passed the bar exam on his third try. This fledgling attorney worked hard on his initial pleading, which should have read "Attorney at Law" at the top of the first page. After I submitted the finished document for his review and signature, I was embarrassed when he pointed out a critical typing error. "Must you rub it in?" he asked. I had typed: "Attorney at Last."

Work N Women

I was glancing over the cover of a women's magazine I'd just bought. One title caught my eye: "Men's Secret Fear About Their Working Wives." I decided to get a firsthand account. "What's your innermost fear about my working?" I asked my husband. "That you'll quit," he promptly replied.

Word Of The Day

GULLIBLE - easily deceived, credulous, naive.

Days End

Another day comes to a close on the shores of a pristine lake. Makes you feel serene doesn't it?

Word Of The Day

TENABLE - defensible, reasonable, justifiable, excusable.

GOOD TO THE LAST DROP

IS COFFEE
YOUR DAILY
GRIND?

Hold Me

I was excited yet apprehensive about my job as a receptionist at a large bank. One day when a regular customer called, I politely put him on hold in order to answer my other lines. In my haste to return to him, I heard myself ask, "Are you the man I was holding?" "Yes," he replied. "And it was wonderful."

Welcome Autumn

Today is the first day of Autumn.
It is my favorite season. Feel the crispness in the air, the smell of apples, the bright colors of corn, pumpkins and leaves. It warms my soul.
My artwork reflects my vision of this time of year. Go out and enjoy this wonderful time of year.

Positive Thought

Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress.- -- Nicholas Murray Butler

You should lock your wine up in a cabernet.

Word Of The Day

GARRULOUS - tending to talk a lot, loquacious, chatty.

21 Pieces of Advice

ONE. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.
TWO. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.
THREE. Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.
FOUR. When you say, "I love you," mean it. FIVE. When you say, "I'm sorry," look the person in the eye.
SIX. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.
SEVEN. Believe in love at first sight.
EIGHT. Never laugh at anyone's dream. People who don't have dreams don't have much. NINE. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.
TEN. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.
ELEVEN. Don't judge people by their relatives.
TWELVE. Talk slowly but think quickly.
THIRTEEN. When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, "Why do you want to know?"
FOURTEEN. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk..
FIFTEEN. Say "bless you" when you hear someone sneeze.
SIXTEEN. When you lose, don't lose the lesson
SEVENTEEN. Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others; and responsibility for all your actions. EIGHTEEN. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
NINETEEN. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
TWENTY. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.
TWENTY-ONE. Spend some time alone.

Fishermen often argue over de-bait.

Word Of The Day

ENCOMIUM - warm praise, commendation, plaudit.

Word Of The Day

Digress - to wander from the main path or the main topic, deviate, drift.

Today was the annual Hawkeye -vs- Cyclone football game. It is always a big game for these inter-state rivals.

Hawks won 27-17 GO HAWKS !

I haven't blogged in a few days. I started a new job and have been working crazy hours. Work is sure cramping my night owl life-style. This getting up at 4:45 AM is for the birds, but the job is going well.

I had a scare when I got home from work today. There was a message on my machine to call the hospital ER. My daughter had fallen off the roof of her house and broke her wrist in two places and had a compression fracture on her L-1 lower lumbar vertabre. I made a few phone calls and made a mad dash to the hospital 65 miles away to see her.

She was in pain, but the doctor didn't think she would need surgery, but will need more X-rays to make sure. She will wear a full torso body cast and a cast on her arm. I imagine lots of physical therapy when she heals. I think she felt better just having her mom near her side and fussing over her.

I guess we should be thankful it wasn't worse, but still it is a bad deal. She won't be able to work for quite a while, doesn't have insurance and had just moved and started a new job the first of August.
My mother would call it character building life lessons that we all go through at points in our lives. I say we are already characters.

And how was your day?

Flutter By

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.- -- William Morrow

This Day In History

On September 12
1609
English explorer, Henry Hudson, sailed down what is now known as the Hudson River.
1916
Adelina and August Van Buren finished the first successful transcontinental motorcycle tour to be attempted by two women. They started in New York City on July 15, 1916.
1922
The Episcopal Church removed the word "Obey" from the bride's section of the wedding vows.
1943
During World War II, Benito Mussolini was taken by German paratroopers from the Italian government that was holding him.
1953
U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier.
1954
"Lassie" made its television debut on CBS. The last show aired on September 12, 1971.
1974
Violence occurred on the opening day of classes in Boston, MA, due to opposition to court-ordered school "busing."
1983
Arnold Schwarzenegger became a U.S. citizen. He had emigrated from Austria 14 years earlier.
1984
Michael Jordan signed a seven-year contract to play basketball with the Chicago Bulls.
1991
The space shuttle Discovery took off on a mission to deploy an observatory that was to study the Earth's ozone layer.
1992
Police in Peru captured Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman.
1992
Dr. Mae Carol Jemison became the first African-American woman in space. She was the payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Endeavor. Also onboard were Mission Specialist N. Jan Davis and Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Mark C. Lee. They were the first married couple to fly together in space. And, Mamoru Mohri became the first Japanese person to fly into space.
1994
Frank Corder was killed when he crashed a stolen, single-engine Cessna on the South Lawn of the White House.

Sage Advice

No doubt, you have heard the old expression "Never put all of your eggs in one basket." I have a different take on that advice. "Never put all of your begs in one ask-it."

Remember

My artwork was inspired by the sunny yellow flowers on my patio. They make me smile.

I was inspired by the full moon and made this drawing. Gaze at your favorite star, howl at the moon, feel the awe of looking at the universe and make a wish.

Word Of The Day

DECORUM - decency, ettiquette, appropriate conduct or behavior.

Life Expectancy

As sand through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.....

How long do you expect to live?If you're a woman, you'll probably accurately estimate your life expectancy in line with national averages. But if you're a man, you're likely to give yourself a few extra years.That's what the department of sociology at Ohio State University found when surveying 2,037 people and comparing their estimates with life expectancy tables. As reported in the journal Social Science in Medicine, women were generally accurate but men tended to be optimists, and anticipated three years more than the statistics indicated. African-Americans expected to live six years longer than the tables predicted.

Some where along the line I got the idea in my head that I would only live to the age of 52, if so, that leaves me 6 years to live it up. More likely I'll be 90 years old, grumpy as hell, surrounded by 10 cats and my daily thrill will be peeking out the windows watching the neighbors and talking back to my TV.
Hopefully I'll keep my wicked sense of humor.

Plant Tip

Use the "packing peanuts" you get in packages as a base for repotting plants. They provide drainage and are lightweight. Crumble the peanuts and place them in the bottom of your pot, put in the potting soil of your choice and plant as usual.

Sick?

Feeling Blue?
When you look sick, it usually means you have a runny nose and your eyes are red and baggy.But what happens when you feel emotionally ill?According to the psychology department at the University of Michigan, one of the key signs of emotional distress is facial asymmetry.As reported in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, symmetry, when the two sides of the face look like each other, is known to be a standard of good looks and sexual attractiveness.But when you're sick or emotionally upset, the two sides actually get unbalanced, and you really don't look as good.And, the research concludes, if you're having emotional problems, the lack of symmetry may be the only sign that something is wrong.

Word Of The Day

BACCHANALIAN - drunkenly festive, revelous, carousing.

I Was Just thinking About You

Many people have experienced the phenomenon of receiving a telephone call from someone shortly after thinking about them -- now a scientist says he has proof of what he calls telephone telepathy.
Rupert Sheldrake, whose research is funded by the respected Trinity College, Cambridge, said Tuesday he had conducted experiments that proved that such precognition existed for telephone calls and even e-mails.
Each person in the trials was asked to give researchers names and phone numbers of four relatives or friends. These were then called at random and told to ring the subject who had to identify the caller before answering the phone.
"The hit rate was 45 percent, well above the 25 percent you would have expected," he told the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. "The odds against this being a chance effect are 1,000 billion to one."
He said he found the same result with people being asked to name one of four people sending them an e-mail before it had landed.
However, his sample was small on both trials -- just 63 people for the controlled telephone experiment and 50 for the email -- and only four subjects were actually filmed in the phone study and five in the email, prompting some skepticism.
Undeterred, Sheldrake -- who believes in the interconnectedness of all minds within a social grouping -- said that he was extending his experiments to see if the phenomenon also worked for mobile phone text messages.

I'm good at guessing who calls or e-mails me also. I'll be thinking about them and bam, there they are. Pretty cool I think.

Word Of The Day

VACILLATE - to sway physically, be indecisive.

Back To Work

Yeah Me! I got a job finally. It is nice to be gainfully employed again.
It's nothing fantastic,but I know I will feel much better having a purpose and a place to show my talents.
I didn't get the position with the Police Dept. I had tried so hard for and that caused me some depressed days, but sunny days have returned.
I've come to the conclusion that finding a job is the hardest job there is, besides raising children.

Word Of The Day

DESICCATE - to dry out thoroughly, drain, parch.

Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

NapTime

Remember nap time when you were a small child? You might still need an afternoon nap to refresh you.Sleep researchers cite the "midday trough" -- the period between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. -- as when people lose energy and feel sleepy. This time period also has a significantly higher number of industrial and traffic accidents than at other times. A parallel trough occurs between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m., when humans are most likely to die.Many countries in Europe and South America have a leisurely lunch followed by a rest before returning to their business schedules. Maybe in the on-the-go United States, we need to take a break.

When he tripped and fell in the wet concrete he left a bad impression.

I had gone to a lumberyard to buy two posts for my new hammock. "How long will the posts last once they are sunk in the ground?" I asked the clerk. "Longer than you will," he responded. Encouraged, I bought them. Another customer who was standing nearby grinned and asked, "Did it ever occur to you that he might be saying that you're not looking all that well?"

Word Of The Day

EXONERATE - to clear of blame, exculpate, acquit.

The Literal Husband

I had been thinking about coloring my hair. One day while going through a magazine, I came across an ad for a hair-coloring product featuring a beautiful young model with hair a shade that I liked. Wanting a second opinion, I asked my husband, "How do you think this color would look on a face with a few wrinkles?" He looked at the picture, crumpled it up, straightened it out and studied it again. "Just great, Hon."