A Lost Week and a Road Trip

I've been a bad girl about keeping up with my social sites, but made progress in other things.

Ed and I actually took a road trip (two actually, but that is another story) so I could drool over all the lovely rocks and gems.  The show was in Springfield, about 150 miles from here.  With Ed's encouragement, I brought some goodies home.

The pictures are of tourmaline from the Congo, an aquamarine from New Hampshire and a piece of Ulexite from California.

I can see an angel in the aquamarine :)

Ulexite is found with the mineral borax and can be found in a vein-like bedding habit composed of closely-packed fibrous crystals, also known as "TV rock" or "TV stone" due to its unusual optical characteristics. 

The fibers of TV rock act as fiber optics, transmitting light along their lengths by internal reflection, and when a piece of TV rock is cut with flat polished faces perpendicular to the orientation of the fibers a good-quality specimen will display an image of whatever surface is adjacent to its other side. 

Progress! But Outside, not on the Computer

What a lovely day we almost had yesterday.  The temperature managed to get up to 50, but the sun wasn't out as much as I was hoping for.  

First thing accomplished was getting flowers in the window boxes.  As these are artificial, I didn't have to worry about when our last freeze is.

The major effort yesterday was working on the utility trailer.  When Ed moved it last time, he managed to run into a tree and damage one side.  We made a run to Home Depot to get 3 sheets of  OSB (oriented strand board).  Between Ed's arms and my legs we managed to get them in and out of the Suburban.  Then it was removing the crushed panel (at least 1000 screws. bolts and nuts had to be removed first),then putting the new panel in.  We  didn't quite get all the nuts bolts and screws back in, but that can hold off  until warm weather returns.  Ed will still have to unbend one of the bars, but he says that will be easy.  We should be OK by the time we leave next month.  

I was a bit broken last night after all the heavy work, but am doing good this morning.  Today I need to do grocery shopping, laundry and cleaning today, so will probably not get anything done online.

Following Blogs

My new attempt at updating my tech skills is following other's blogs.   BorneoDiva started a thread over at Bonanzle to have each of us follow each other's blogs.  As I write this, I am following 34 new blogs.

I missed posting here and on Twitter yesterday because we had a tree crew here to remove almost all the trees in our front yard. (I did talk Ed into saving one old oak.)  The problem was that most of the trees were pines and were too tall.  Any high winds could have brought them down on the house.  Also, we were tired of getting pine needles out of the gutters.  At least we still have a lovely oak out front.  And now I can plant some ornamental tress and shrubs.

The animated GIFs from yesterday didn't animate for some reason.  Will have to see if there is some way to fix that.

The More Things Change

Today is just a reminder that in basic ways, things still stay the same.  This was popular over 40 years ago.

The Merry Minuet (They're Rioting in Africa)

Written by:Sheldon Harnick  

Intro: There are days in my life when everything is dreary

I grow pessimistic, sad and world weary.

But when I'm tearful and fearfully upset      

I always sing this merry little minuet:  

They're rioting in Africa They're starving in Spain 

There's hurricanes in Florida And Texas needs rain.  

The whole world is festering With unhappy souls 

The French hate the Germans, The Germans hate the Poles  

Italians hate Yugoslavs South Africans hate the Dutch 

And I don't like anybody very much  

But we can be grateful And thankful and proud 

That man's been endowed With a mushroom shaped cloud  

And we know for certain That some happy day 

Someone will set the spark off And we will all be blown away

They're rioting in Africa 

There's strife in Iran 

What nature doesn't do to us 

Will be done by our fellow man. 

I Blew it Yesterday :-(

No blogging, no tweets, no new items on Bonanzle yesterday.  

Too tired yesterday.  Not much better shape today, as I am fighting a migraine.

I'm reading a couple of blogs about Tweeter, to see if I can figure out why the heck anyone would want to follow anyone.  Here are the sites, if anyone is interested:

http://twitpwr.com/4R8/

http://onceateacher.wordpress.com/2009/02/18/a-teachers-guide-to-twitter/

http://markmarshall.edublogs.org/2009/03/09/twitter-what-is-it-and-why-would-i-use-it/

I will probably finish reading C.S. Friedman's Wings of Wrath, the second book in the Feast of Souls series.  Really good book, but I should have re-read the first book, as I forgot some of the threads.

Is it Spring yet?

The calendar says it is almost here.  The high temperature the past few days says it is still winter.   It really should be above freezing by now!

But in spite of the cold, I decided to get a start on spring cleaning today.  So far I have started the  automatic oven cleaner on the stove, cleaned the burners, the outside of the stove and the drip plate.  I have also taken 6 bags of clothes to the car for donations.  It isn't much, but it is a start!

I have decided to keep Twitter up, and to just post to it once a day.  There is no way I can keep up with all the people there, and to tell the truth,  I really don't see what it is all about.

I did manage to get a couple more items listed on Bonanzle yesterday.  Since I have sold 2 things, there is hope that I can sell more.  I do get a reasonable amount of traffic to my booth.  For Jinger, as she loses my URL:

 http://www.bonanzle.com/booths/jilwil

Another day older and further behind

I just noticed that I forgot to title yesterday's blog.  I guess that is technically another mistake.

It seems like yesterday was another busy day.  Took lots of pictures, some of which I can actually use.  Researched the jewelry that I took pictures of.  Of the 10 items I was working on, I only managed to get 2 listed.  I guess at 20% I get an F for accomplishments!

I stopped following the person that was giving me all the followers on Twitter (mrtwitter), but I am still getting too many people following me that I don't care about.  I finally had to stop getting the emails telling me I have new followers.  I have posted at least once a day on Twitter, but I may soon just ignore it.  I still don't see the usefulness or entertainment value.  Maybe just spam my followers occasionally with my stuff from Bonanzle.

The sun is shining today, but we won't get out of the 30s.  It will be a tossup between staying inside and getting work done or playing in the cold sun.

It's a new day and I've already discoverd new problems to fix . 

First booboo - I somehow made myself my own follower.  And I can't find a way to get out of it!  I guess I'll just have to keep looking like an egotist.  Hmmm...I guess that is OK as I beleive anyone feeling their opinion is worth blogging about probably is one LOL

The other mistake was following someone on Twitter that promises new followers.  It did as promised, but I see absolutely no reason to have thousands of folowers.  That is just playing with numbers.   I have no need for someone who is just looking at numbers to follow me and vice versa.  Also, I really didn't need all the emails telling me that someone new was following me.  Rethinking this...If I use Twitter to promote Bonanzle, it might make sense.  Will ponder this some more.

It is amazing how much time the social networking takes.  While playing with Tweeter, I wasn't working on items to put in my booth.  It also didn't help that I couldn't seem to take a good pictures yesterday.  Some of them I had to take over 3 times.

I'm also going to have to relearn some HTML.  It has been too many years sisnce I played with it.  It would be nice to make this blog a bit more intersting than just typing. 

Learning to Blog

I am trying to keep up with the newer technology, but it seems to be advancing faster than I want to keep up with it.  I have been involved with computers since the 1970s so my age (60) and my gender (F) does not mean I don't know what I'm talking about.  It is amazing how many young people seem to think that gray hair means computer illiteracy. But as my body slows down, so does my desire to have the "Latest and Greatest".   I still want to keep my mind active, so I am going to try out some of the newer technologies.

I used to have a personal web page, but that isn't worth the upkeep any more.

I have set up a booth at Bonanzle to sell things that I no longer need to have cluttering up my home.  I have  joined Facebook to keep up with the younger generations of my family's families.  I have set up a Twitter account to see how that works.  And now I am learning to blog. 

So here is where you will get updates on all the above adventures.