I wonder how I could find out about the shelters in Houston. I could house a few people and feed them.
I am so grateful that we went to New Orleans a couple of years ago.
If you haven’t seen it yet, New Orleans WWLTV.com is a great source of information–it is a blog, updated every few minutes as news comes in. Natural disasters are unbelievably moving and frightening. I wish I was able to help those people in some way beyond just sending money. I wish I lived closer and could provide shelter and food and water to those who need it. I want to do that when the disaster is halfway across the globe, and I really wish I could do it here.
New Orleans is such a beautiful city, I am so sad to see it like it is today. I desperately pray that the surrounding communities in Mississippi and Louisiana are filled with giving people, who have a sense of community. And I also pray that this disaster, and others like it, will give those people a reminder of what a sense of community is all about, so they can have it all of the time.
Please, if you are nearby, take in someone who needs shelter and food. If you are not nearby, donate to the Red Cross if you are able, as it is the safest and most honest and helpful charity (worldwide) that is available, and you can be assured that if you mark your donation as Hurricane 2005 fund, that is exactly where it will go.
A little more morning mush for the sleepy brain…
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Joe Normal 39 % Nerd, 30% Geek, 17% Dork |
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For The Record:A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored less than half in all three, earning you the title of: Joe Normal. This is not to say that you don’t have some Nerd, Geek or Dork inside of you–we all do, and you can see the percentages you have right above. This is just to say that none of those qualities stand out so much as to define you. Sure, you enjoy an episode of Star Trek now and again, and yeah, you kinda enjoyed a few classes back in the day. And, once in a while, you stumble while walking down the street even though there was nothing there to cause you to trip. But, for the most part, you look and act fairly typically, and aren’t much of an outcast. |
Well, during our international MRSA chat yesterday, I was informed that Tony Field is NOT coming to interview us. I guess that is fine-he has more important things to do while he is here anyway. The director of the documentary says he is still coming, but he was disappointed that Dr. Daftarian had decided not to join us. I don’t really blame her–as I could not guarantee her that this was not going to turn ugly towards the doctors, but I really don’t think that it will. I wouldn’t have done it either, had I been her–too much liability these days.
To me, this whole MRSA issue is pretty simple, you do a better, more thorough job cleaning your hospitals and offices. Cleanliness in these areas is not where you can skimp and trim your budget. Tony is a real activist, and we really are not (well, I am not–Marshall probably could be if he had the time). Marshall’s story is a very good, hope-inspiring one, but I am not sure that is what they are looking for in this documentary. I guess we will see!
At any rate, I am done wearing myself out working on “This Old House.” I will wait for more improvements until family reunion time gets a little closer (and it gets a little cooler outside!).
My buddy from Blog of Each Of These Daze is puppy shopping, and I want to show him my shelter babies–they are the best dogs I have ever had, by a long shot. Rock goes and gets his daddy the paper every morning, and is the best hunter ever. I thought Penny was going to be my little princess, but it turns out she is the best cow dog going. But she still sleeps with me in the “big bed.”
Rock (a lab/hound mix):
Penny (a terrier mix):
What a huge relief it was last weekend when I realized I had 2 weeks to get ready for Tony Field’s arrival rather than one week. I don’t know what I was thinking. While he is here visiting, they will be shooting a documentary on MRSA, and Tony’s visit to the United States-and will be interviewing Marshall and I at our house in the process.
What a nightmare this could be! We live in an 80 year old house built by Marshall’s grandfather, and jeri-rigged by every other Jones since. There is always something breaking, and there is a good bit of cosmetic work that needs to be done. Marshall’s illness last year put any hopes of home decorating to a grinding halt. But, Marshall being back to work, along with this documentary and the upcoming Jones family reunion has sparked some life into the home decor fund.
We have a room in our house that is what I call the back room. It is between the main part of the house -kitchen, dining, living, kids rooms- and our bedroom and the office. This room was originally the back porch of the house, but now is just a big space with no real purpose. To top it off, it has the cheapest paneling walls money can buy, and a hideous drop ceiling, because the original (wood) ceiling is apparently a real mess from water damage years and years ago. This room is my mission for the week. I have spent the last two days painting paneling–I Kilz’ed it yesterday, and today it has one good solid coat of cool white semigloss. So, I am ready for whatever fabulous technique I am going to come up with. Who knows what it might be?? I still am not quite sure. I found a really nice faux painting website today here, that has tons of really good ideas and inspiration. What I know is that I am giving the paint overnight to dry, and then I will start back up in the morning with whatever I choose to do! I found an “oops” paint at Home Depot in a brownish color, and will mix that with glaze, maybe in varying amounts with some of the white, and might try some kind of ragging something or other. I hope it comes out alright, I guess it could not possibly be worse (read: uglier) than it was before. I tell you what, it looks way better already!
Here is a shocker:
Mother of Jackson accuser is charged with fraud.
The woman whose son accused Michael Jackson of child molestation in a trial
that led to Jackson’s acquittal was charged with welfare fraud Tuesday in a
five-count complaint alleging she collected $18,782 in payments while
making false claims she was indigent.
I just hate the way so many people in the US are sitting around waiting for their Golden Ticket to arrive. I’m glad it didn’t work for this woman (again). And how on earth is her child going to grow up thinking he actually has to WORK for a living?
I read a great article today at testicularfortitude.blogspot.com about sociopaths and psychopaths. I think my feelings are similar, although I did not recognize them before becoming aware of Dennis Rader.
As opposed to Marshall wasting his weekend off shopping for my birthday, I so graciously offered to choose my own gift. LOL I have been eyeballing this airbrush tanning system for awhile, and so yesterday was the day! Wasn’t that nice of me?? Now I have to teach my daughter how to use it so I won’t be brown as a nut on the front side and my usual pasty white on the backside. She isn’t the slightest bit interested in using it herself. She has a lot to learn 
Happy Birthday to Dr. Hsien Lei–she has the same birthday as I do. I knew I just loved her!
Birthdays used to be so fun. Now they are something I just dread. Now that Marshall is not home much during the weeks, I get to celebrate twice this year. Once yesterday (Saturday) and once on Monday (the real dreaded day). Thank goodness the years don’t add up quite so quickly.
But really, we had a nice day. I took an enormous nap (which I needed badly because I can’t sleep during the weekdays), and pretty much did nothing. We went to the Outback for dinner, and I had a yummy prime rib because they took my favorite prime ribeye off the menu. I tell the waitress every time we go in that I am not pleased about that. Maybe sometime they will bring them back, they were well worth the extra 6 bucks (at least to me).
Right before we were walking out the door to leave, Zoe brought the mail, and in it was a teary card from mom, and an Outback gift card, thank you mom! We are going to save that for a romantic dinner for 2!
It is 1:30am, it is time for bed. Nitey nite!
BTK Killer Sentencing from Fox news: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,166072,00.html
I have a hard time with my feelings about the BTK killer (Dennis Rader), and I am not sure why. I have never felt this way about anyone who has been convicted of a crime like this (or killing anyone, for that matter).
He is, by his own admittance, a monster. I know he is crazy, he is very, very guilty of everything he was charged with and prison is where he belongs. I understand that there is no rehabilitating a person like him.
Why do I feel sympathy for him then? I don’t think sympathy is the right word, but I cannot come up with the right one. I don’t feel sympathetic for him in any sort of way like I think he should have a light sentence, or that he is not deserving of the most harsh punishment that could be given to him. In fact, I think it is a real shame that they did not have the death sentence as a possibility for him. I don’t feel any sense that he did not do what he has admitted, and been convicted of doing. What he has done is truly horrible and inhuman and completely psychotic, and I don’t believe that people like this have a chance in the world of being rehabilitated. Why then do I feel this way?
I feel like he has tried to fight his psychotic homocidal urges. He held a marriage together for 25 years. He was the president of his church congregation. And I think he got himself busted because he was about to lose control and kill again. Maybe some of the sympathetic feelings I have come from the fact that he was Lutheran (like me). I really don’t know, or understand why.
I can’t even begin to imagine what goes through your mind when you are a serial killer, but for some reason, I see him as more than just a monster, but a man who has fought the Devil for his whole life, and finally admitted defeat. Thank God he did, or there might have been even more killings. Maybe this makes him a more horrible monster than any of the other mass murderers in history. I just don’t know, and I probably don’t want to know.
I pray that he will be taken from this world soon, and that wherever he ends up, that he will be freed from his madness.
Oh the fabulous Shai Coggins is at it again! Check out this article by Shai at About.com about Texans getting married via weblog. Thats HOT. That is SO Texas!
At one point my husband and I were a little unusual because we met online–I guess that is just old stuff these days!
Feel free to copy and answer these yourself if you are as brain dead as I am this morning
I found these questions at Blog Of Each Of These Daze
You are finding them at Christina’s World!
Ok Here goes……..
1. When you look at yourself in the mirror, what’s the first thing you look at?
My skin
2. How much cash do you have on you right now?
$122.00
3. What’s a word that rhymes with “TEST”?
Best
4. Favourite plant?
Rosemary
5. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone?
My hubby
6. What is your main ring tone on your phone?
Some wretched screeching ring that I can hear from the rest of the house
7. What shirt are you wearing?
army green tank
8. Do you “label” yourself?
just a geek
9. Name brand of your shoes currently wearing?
Sketchers
10. Do you prefer a bright or dark room?
Bright!
11. What did you have for breakfast?
Slimfast
12. If you could be doing anything anywhere right now what and where would it be?
Power Lounging with my hubby in a swanky hotel
13. What were you doing at midnight last night?
Working on a press release
14. What did your last text message you received on your cell phone say?
You have received a pic!
15. Do you ever click on “Pop Ups” or Banners?
Occasionally
16. What’s an expression that you say a lot?
Crap!
17. Who told you they loved you last?
My son
18. Last furry thing you touched?
My cat
19. How many hours a week do you work?
about 50
20. How many rolls of film do you need to get developed?
none
21. Favourite age you have been so far?
Seventeen, by far!
22. Your worst enemy?
No comment, he/she/it might be watching
23. What is your current desk top picture?
boring–good ol winxp hilly field
24. What was the last thing you said to someone?
Thank you, you too, to the lady at the convenient store.
25. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to go back in time and fix all your mistakes which would you choose?
A million bucks. Thankfully, I don’t have any mistakes to correct worth more than that.
I have a whole list of things to do now that Tony Field’s arrival in the US is imminent. I had a plan of renting Oaks Park Pavillion for Tony to do a talk on Friday, Sept. 2nd, but naturally plans got changed. Now I am going to talk to my father in law tomorrow and see if he has any strings he can pull to get us into the George Bush Presidential Library. I have no concept of how to do this, but I have gathered phone numbers and email addresses to support this cause. I will get on the stick tomorrow.
Also on the list is a call to Alan Fritsche, football coach and biology teacher and best friend of Marshall, about Tony. I am not sure why, other than he has several different reasons he might be interested in it, although I am sure they will be playing Bryan High football Friday night. Hmm, the entire town goes there on Friday night, perhaps I need to rethink that plan. Good grief. Saturday, I think, will be spent filming. Marshall came up with 2 great ideas about where to film the documentary here–places that “mean something” to him and his MRSA. First we will go to the camphouse, where he missed out entirely on hunting season last year. We will take “The Rock,” he will always make a grand impression! Then go to Kyle Field, where Marshall missed all of A&M’s football season last year. Those are 2 of Marshalls very favorite things, I think that they will be great.
I ALSO need to try to contact Dr. Daftarian one more time to see if she wants to join us on the documentary. Methinks she has gotten cold feet.
I need to try to reach Dennis Varvel about Tony’s arrival. He played football with Marshall in high school (well, actually against Marshall), and his teenaged son passed away in February from MRSA. That will be a difficult call to make–the kind I avoid like the plague.
And then there is that pesky 50 pounds I would like to lose before the camera adds it back on. By September 2. HAHAHAHA!
I thought I had accomplished a lot of things today, but it isn’t looking so good now. I guess I will go bombard Dr. Jones with all of this stuff in the morning while he is getting his old house bulldozed down. I can’t wait to see that!
MUST GO TO BED!
I am interested in finding just a couple of bloggers for both of my websites, NailTechSecrets.com and MRSAResources.com (division of NTS.com). For the MRSA site, I would be interested in a couple of people who have been affected by MRSA (directly or indirectly), and for the NailTechSecrets site, I would welcome hairdressers, aestheticians, nail techs, or really anyone with an interest in the business. Email me at CC@nailtechsecrets.com if you think you might be interested! I will provide you with the web space and the blogging software–the content is up to you, and it does not have to stay within the MRSA/Salon genre, although some reference throughout your blog would be appreciated!
Come join the blogging world!
Marshall’s story is officially featured on Dr. Lei’s blog beginning today, Sunday, August 14. I finally got it finished enough for the feature, and I am so grateful to her for giving me the push I needed to finish it!
I have been working my hiney off trying to get Marshall’s MRSA story ready for primetime (feature on Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei’s Genetics and Public Health Blog), and I have at least reached a point where you can now see at least that he is doing very well, and see some of the things that have helped him get where he is today. Check it out here.
Zoe had her birthday on the 10th, and we went to Dallas with her girlfriend Desiree to Six Flags. We had a blast! Now we have come home to a major flea problem (darned cats!). Sigh.
We got Zoe’s trumpet for school yesterday. I can see that we are going to have to set her up down at the barn to practice that thing! LOL But I am sure she will be playing like Chuck Mangione in no time
Oh! The baby donkey’s name is Lucy
I do love babies! But every baby needs a name…hmmm I think “Legs” is good for a start–look at those things!
This is one reason I really love blogging: When things in our world, or my life, irritate me, I love this platform to get it off my chest. Who knows who will read it, but it just doesn’t matter, the point is, it is off my chest. And if it doesn’t quite get all the way off my chest, I can blog about it again!
Martha Stewart. For the life of me, I do not understand why “they (whoever they are)” have tried to make such an “example (of what?)” out of her. I have never been a Martha Stewart fan, I always thought she was about as cold and out of touch with reality as they come. I did make a VERY cool wreath out of overgrown okra in my garden one time that I saw in her magazine, but that was years ago, and that was about the extent of my interest in her.
Ok, so “they” put her in jail. Thank goodness–I feel much safer now with Martha Stewart in prison. Was she guilty of a crime? I guess she was. I think a much more beneficial punishment would have been to have her fined out the wazoo, rather than PRISON. How many dangerous criminals are on the streets that need to be in prison, and they are wasting their time/prison resources with MARTHA STEWART??? How many dangerous criminals are on the street that “they” are just leaving on the street because they are scared of them, are getting funded by them (or for some other dishonest reason)? This makes no sense to me, at all.
My respect for Martha Stewart has grown over the last year, I think she has taken all of this like a true American should. She has been dignified, has not used her status for sympathy and favors, not whined about it, and basically just took all of this mularkey like a champ.
So today, I read an article from USA Today, informing us that Martha Stewart has had her house arrest extended for 3 more weeks. Oh, thank goodness again, that will be another 3 weeks that the world will not be subjected to the fear of MARTHA STEWART running around free in the streets. What did she do? Take an unauthorized yoga class??
Does any of this make sense to anyone???
I really hope that Martha’s career blossoms after this, but I really have a feeling she is finished. That Apprentice show she is doing is a bad idea, in my opinion. I really think if she is going to continue her success that she needs to get back to her roots, and try to create some warm fuzzies again (this was never her forte to begin with) with a nice crafty/cooking show rather than a business oriented, Trump-associated show like she has chosen. But who am I to say. She is/was Martha Stewart Omnimedia, not me. I know I won’t watch it, it is just not my cup of tea. If she had something warm and fuzzy coming up, I would watch just to give her the support.
Good luck Martha, I am afraid you are going to need it.
Here is our new baby girl! She wouldnt get up for me when I had the camera, of course, and I thought her mama was going to trample me if I came any closer, so I couldn’t roust her. Isn’t she a dollbaby?
Let’s see…
After I got all nasty and sweaty pulling furniture out and scrubbing floors, I went outside to move around two big piles of dirt that Marshall’s uncle brought me to fill in some holes in the yard. The holes came from last winters floods (that is what we get in TX rather than snow!), when Marshall was barely able to walk and I had to pull the Suburban up to the front door to get him into it to take him to the doctor. I got stuck once, my brother in law got stuck another time–and the resulting gaping holes in the yard tripped Marshall and his Z-Coils today and he landed square on his belly, flipped his shoe under the car and bruised the fire out of his second toe (and probably the top half of his foot by morning).
So, I filled holes (my back will most likely go kapluie tomorrow). Then, like an idiot, I got into some stupid promotion on the internet, trying to be greedy and get “$500 of MAC cosmetics for free!” I am so stupid. I bet I spent an hour and a half vegging here and doing that. Now I have 8 things I have to cancel before they start charging my credit card, AND I think I caught a virus from it. NICE GOING DINGBAT! I filed all of those emails in the A-1 SUCKER folder in Outlook.
So, as I was in safe mode, running McAfee, I went to clean up the supper dishes–and was already irritated as all get out–and what happens? My sink pipes break. Of course they do! So I go to the barn for the plumbing bucket to re-glue some pipes. Do we have pipe glue? Sure we do. One big fully gelled ball of pipe glue. So the sink problem moves to tomorrow, and my kitchen looks like a war zone with all of the under-the-sink stuff strewn everywhere. At least the one room that was really nasty is clean now!
The highlight is that I am on my computer now, and I think it is ok–but my mouse is deader than a doornail, and we are now lacking a mouse in the house (we have 4 computers, and 3 mice now…good grief).
Nighty nite!
Today is home blessing day (user-friendly word for housecleaning). Generally this consists of about 2 hours of basic goings over of everything. A round of windex, a sweep with the feather duster, changing sheets, vacuuming my 2 rooms that are left with carpet in (I have been pulling carpet out of here for what seems like forever), and sweeping and mopping floors (this is what I hate the worst).
Today, for some ungodly reason (I think my FLYlady blog at The Beauty Blog) I decided to pull furniture out from the walls and scrub the floors under it and around the baseboards. It is a disgusting and sweaty job, and I hate it, and I thought I would let you know
It just makes me feel better, thanks for listening
C.
I emailed my most beeeutiful friend (both inside and out!), Dawn Tesh, yesterday, in hopes that she will do a short email interview for me for The Beauty Blog.
Ooooh I hope she will
As you might have found, if you have explored my goings-on, I am deeply involved in the “cause” of informing the public about the dangers of MRSA, and helping MRSA patients find relevant information (see my site, MRSA Resources for more info…).
Today my mission is to contact some people in my community that might be interested in Tony doing a speaking engagement with them while he is here to interview Marshall for his documentary of his US visit. He is driving way down here to central Texas from NYC, and I surely do want to make his visit worthwhile! That is a HUGE drive!
Tony is a former financial advisor, from the UK, who acquired MRSA from the hospital following two consectutive hip replacement surgeries. He has been left on crutches, and is lucky to be alive. He is the chairperson of the MRSA Support victims advocacy group in the UK. Every time I meet somone who has fallen victim to this horrid bacteria, it once again makes me so very thankful that my husband has been spared (so far, anyway) of any crippling repercussions from his illness.
I am going to call: Dr. Daftarian (who I hope will appear with Marshall in the documentary), BVCAA Health Clinic, Dr. Lemos (Infectious Disease), and the Texas A&M Health and Science Center in the School of Medicine. This is NOT my forte– I have emailed Tony’s group, MRSA Support, this morning, to see if he has a CV available that might give me a little more confidence in this area! I think I best call Denise as well, I bet she has all of the info I might need…….
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