Shopping With Eler Beth

Our local Value City Department Store is closing, and right now everything they have left is 70-80% off.

They had lots of cute shoes and boots in our sizes still on the shelves, and they were all 80% off their regular prices.

Need I say more?

I Wonder Where She Gets Her Sarcasm?

You know how picky I can be, right? Eler Beth was doing some geometry today, and I reminded her that you always put a period at the end of the abbreviation for "inch". And then I reminded her that you never use a period at the end of any metric abbreviation. She was writing "cm", so I said (with emphasis), "Never, ever, put a period after 'cm'."

She answered, "What! Will they sue me if I do?!"

Mission Accomplished!

At least, I think it is.

I posted my query about the poem on the Heyer Reading List Yahoo group to which I belong, and a very resourceful member named Robin found a poem quoted in a book of sermons that seemed to fit what I was looking for. I did a google search using a different line from the poem and was able to find it and the author. At least, it's very close to what I remember, so it must be it. Here it is.

One Day When We Went Walking
by Valine Hobbs

One day when we went walking,
I found a dragon's tooth,
A dreadful dragon's tooth.
"A locust thorn," said Ruth.

One day when we went walking,
I found a brownie's shoe,
A brownie's button shoe.
"A dry pea pod," said Sue.

One day when we went walking,
I found a mermaid's fan,
A merry mermaid's fan.
"A scallop shell," said Dan.

One day when we went walking,
I found a fairy's dress,
A fairy's flannel dress.
"A mullein leaf," said Bess.

Next time that I go walking -
Unless I meet an elf,
A funny, friendly elf -
I'm going by myself!

I'm still searching for more information on Valine Hobbs who was apparently a teacher in Texas, who published a lot of children's literature, and who has a scholarship in her name. She was a teacher back in the 30s and 40s, I think, so my mother could very well have read this poem when she was in school!

I'm On A Quest . . .

to find this poem. I'm hoping that someone out there can help me locate it. The last two lines of the poem are:

"The next time that I take a walk, I think I'll see an elf,
'Cause the next time that I take a walk, I'll take it by myself."

This was in a scholastic literature book back in the seventies when I was in elementary school. The poem was a few stanzas long and was about two children taking a walk. One child is very imaginative and the other isn't. The imaginative one keeps seeing fanciful things and drawing the other child's attention to it; for instance he may see a leaf and tells the other child that it's an elf in little pointed shoes, but then the other child says, no, that's just a leaf; so whatever the one imagines he sees, the other one bursts his bubble by telling him what it REALLY is. So the first child finally decides that the next time he takes a walk, he'll go alone so he can see what he WANTS to see. It's a wonderful poem!

My mother, who is 85, thinks she remembers the poem from when she was young, so it could be very old (then again, she may just remember reading it in our school book). I am in America, but it could be a poem from another country. I have googled the last two lines but so far haven't been able to find anything. If anyone has heard of or read this poem or remembers reading it in school, please let me know all that you remember. And if anyone knows the name of the poem or the author, I may have to leave you something in my will!

Thank you!

Mara's Father

Mara, of I Have Tea, lost her father on Friday. He had been ill for a while and is no longer in pain. If you know Mara (or even if you don't) please call 'round to leave a word of sympathy. I'm sure she would appreciate it.

"And this our life, . . . finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." William Shakespeare ~~

(From As You Like It, Act II, Scene I)


It is quite sunny and nice here today, even if it is only 49°F at the moment. I'm trying to make the most of it today because we're once again supposed to have rain and cooler temps tomorrow.

Nine days ago I made my first attempt at the Friendship Bread, and I never did post what kinds I made. Thomas loves anything with lots of raisins, so the first one was just simply cinnamon and raisin. Then I made a cranberry/raisin/apple/cinnamon/almond, and it was a big hit. The third was the chocolate/chocolate chip that I'd mentioned, and the fourth one was banana and walnut. We each had some fresh and hot, then I sent most of the rest to work with Thomas where it went over very well with the guys and gals in the office. Tomorrow it's time to make some more. My sister made a chocolate/cherry last week that I might have to try, and Thomas would like something with peaches, so we'll just see what I'm in the mood to put together and what kind of ingredients I have on hand. I think one or two will be going to a neighbor.

I've been reading a lot lately and have several books to write about and recommend on my book blog. Also, has anyone here ever read The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson? I did recently, and one of my favorites is "The American Scholar's Address". I would recommend it. I'm definitely going to write about it on DP Book Shelves.

That's it for now. Just felt like popping in to say hi to everyone.

Today's SALUTE from my visitors' locations goes to ~~

Ocala, Florida

population 53,491

and located 664 miles from me

(and which is also the home of my niece Sheila -- Sassy, is that you visiting from Ocala??)

Sa-LUTE!

An Honor Received

I almost forgot!

Last week I logged on to find that Sunday Beth had passed on a blog award to me and that on Monday so had Yasmin.

This is the Marie Antoinette Award, and apparently it is for people who blog about real things. I really am honored, simply because I respect both Yasmin and Beth, and am humbled to think that they think that my pen-scratchings are worthy of being mentioned. I am supposed to now pass this on to at least seven more bloggers whom I believe are "real" bloggers who write about "real" everyday life. That describes so many of the blogs that I read, so I'm just going to have to pick a few of the many that I could name. Many of those on my reading list have already been honored by someone else, so I'll try not to duplicate anyone. I picked a random group of good reads, bloggers of different ages and backgrounds; people I read for different reasons, maybe. So here are the rules and my list of recipients.


The Rules

1. Please put the logo in your blog
2. Place a link from the person, from whom you received the award
3. Nominate at least 7 or more
4. Put the links of those on your blog
5. Leave a message on their blog to let them know



My nominees are:

Anne (Saturday's Child)

Donna (DBP) (Dust Bunny Protecter)

Mara (I Have Tea)

Traci (My Life As A Transplanted Yankee)

Marti (Porch Stories)

Chefkelly (Pride and Prejudice)

Linda (Still The Cutest Grandbaby)

And thanks again Yasmin and Beth!

Blurgal-ing. My New Word

I have been rather sick. It started with allergies, stayed in my head for a while, and then traveled to my chest. I'm doing much better, but I'm getting the winter blues. Usually at this time of year I don't journal too much (I think I'm going to invent a new word -- "Blurgal". For some reason I don't always like to say "blog", but "journal" doesn't seem right anymore. I like "blurgal".).

While I've been blah-sick, I haven't really been out-of-commission-sick. I've wanted to clean and sort and organize and putter and cook and bake and read. So I've kind of been doing all those things. I have actually mentally composed several entries for my book blogs and for "I Stand Corrected", I just haven't got around to actually writing them. So I may not do much in this blurgal for a bit so that I can concentrate on the other ones. If you don't see me here, don't worry.

I've been sorting and organizing files, both hard files and files on my computer. I have hundreds of pictures that need to be sorted as well, and I'm actually in the mood to do some scrapbooking with them. Whether I will or not is another matter. I have a lot of research material that has needed for quite some time to be sorted and organized and put into binders, and I am still doing the interviews with my mother that I have to transcribe and then put into some order.

Where am I going with this? I have no idea. I was going to write about feeling blah and going through a bit of depression, which I usually do when it starts getting cold and gloomy; and before I could even get to writing that down I felt I had to start defending myself and reassuring everyone that I'm fine and keeping busy with projects that interest me right now. So are you reassured? lol I do feel the darkness start to shut in every year about now, and I fight it off, and it eventually goes away. I have my good days and my bad days. And I really do have several projects going that interest me, so please don't think I'm hiding under the covers or in a corner somewhere. I just may not feel like updating Dusty Pages very often for a while with day-to-day activities, although I may pop in with a random post now and then.

But I can update a bit now. We have three big stores closing in our area: Clarksville's K-Mart, Circuit City, and Value City. Big signs that the economy is bad. They all have sales going on right now. I went by the K-Mart today and picked up a few things. I got some very pretty folders and binders to store some of those notes and files that I've been organizing and sorting. And they had the ink that my printer uses for two or three dollars cheaper than its usual price.

Eler Beth wants to go see "Bolt" this weekend. She actually wanted to go today, but I said tomorrow would be better. We will probably go. It looks like a cute movie. I first saw the previews at the theater a couple months ago when we went to see "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" (which was actually kind of cute -- much better than I had expected it to be).

Eler Beth is over her cold/virus and should be able to go hunting next week. Thomas has already got two deer, one buck and one doe. So she has some catching up to do.

The weather has been okay I guess. We had a few snow flurries yesterday that didn't amount to much, and it was actually very sunny today, just not warm. I have a feeling we're going to have a real winter this year, which won't be so bad actually.

And I guess that's all I've got for now y'all. I'll try to get by to say hello to everyone this weekend.

And I guess that's all for now.

More Life Lessons

On Sunday Eler Beth's new cockatiel female, Nadia, laid her first egg. If you remember, Boris and Nadia were the two given to Eler Beth a few months ago by a neighbor whose son had decided after only a couple weeks that cockatiels were too noisy and too much trouble to take care of. We had doubts about Nadia actually making it at the time, so Eler Beth purposefully didn't let herself get too attached. She even entertained the notion of giving her to our pet-shop-owner-friend, but decided to keep her and Boris.

The gray one is Boris, and the yellow one is Nadia. Between them is Egg #1.

On Tuesday Nadia laid her second egg, which was right on time. They will usually lay them every other day until they are done. On Thursday morning she laid her third egg. All three of them were rather large, and we could actually see the large round mound of egg inside her little body before she laid it.

On Thursday evening we saw Nadia come out of the nesting box to get something to eat, and Eler Beth drew my attention to her swollen lower parts; she had another egg, and it looked like she was ready to lay it at any time. This rather worried me because I was pretty sure she wasn't supposed to have laid another so soon.

In the middle of the night Nadia's strange-sounding chirping woke Eler Beth. She woke me to tell me that Nadia was trying to lay her fourth egg. Before we really knew what was happening, she was calling to me to come quick because something was wrong. By the time I got to the nesting box she was gone. She'd become egg-bound; that fourth egg just wasn't coming out.

I was really worried about how Eler Beth was going to take this. She kept assuring me she was doing fine. I told her it was all right to not do fine. We didn't get Nadia's body out of the box right away. We let Boris go inside with her for a few minutes. Then Eler Beth came to report that Boris was nudging Nadia. She and I both started crying a bit at that. We got it out of our systems and then we took her out of the box. This morning first thing we called our pet-shop-owner-friend who told us that if Boris wanted to take care of them, it would be best to let him. He has sat on them all day. He came out only for a couple minutes this evening to eat a little. We don't know if they are fertile. Eler Beth is going to take a pen light and try to candle them to see if she can tell. Our friend also assured us that you just never know when a bird will become egg-bound. She has had females that have had several clutches (is that the right word?) of eggs and raised a lot of young ones, only to suddenly become egg-bound and die. And once you realize your bird is egg-bound it is usually too late to do anything about it.

I'm very proud of Eler Beth. She is handling it very well. I hope at least one of the eggs is fertile, but if not, maybe we'll see if Lucy and Boris would like to make a couple. She isn't going to give up on trying to raise baby cockatiels.


Nadia, sitting on her eggs.

Did You Wonder?

Did you wonder how Eler Beth was going to handle being without her animals for several days? My sister doesn't have any pets; not traditional ones, at least. But where Eler Beth goes, Eler Beth finds animals. Below is a little lizard of some kind that she found in Palm Bay where we dropped off Andrew. She put it in a container, carried it around a bit, had a photo shoot, then turned it loose.


Here, at my sister's house, she tours the yard looking for "critters". The stick in her hand was purely just accidentally picked up. I assure you she didn't use it to knock "critters" out of the palm tree! lol



She intrigued her young male cousins by finding this interesting-looking toad when they came by to visit.



But her favorite by far were the little Anole lizards, known as Florida Chameleons. This little fellow she found and captured several times along with many of his relatives. He very obligingly turned brown for her and then turned back to green. That was pretty amazing to see first-hand.



Yes, that is a piece of yarn. She brought him in, tethered him, and walked around with him for a bit. She did let him go of course. (Poor little anole.)


He is cute, though, isn't he?


These are palm fruits.


And this is a squirrel in the palm tree warning you to leave his palm fruit alone, or he'll pelt your new Santa Fe with them!


Okay, that's all the pictures for today.


I woke up this morning to sleet. Sleet! Eler Beth has a head cold, with stuffy ears and achy head and neck. So we doctored her up today and yesterday. I have a bit of something, too, but I think it's mostly allergies. I haven't required too much of myself the past few days. (Another way of saying that is "I've been lazy".)

This is the kind of weather that makes me want to cook a lot and bake a lot. My sister, Maxine, (the one in Florida) sent me home with an Amish bread starter, so I've been working that all week. On Friday I'll be able to bake some. I joked to her that for years I've successfully avoided letting anyone give me a "friendship" cake/bread starter until now. But seriously, she made some of the best cakes while we were down there. I think my favorite was her cranberry/walnut/apple/cinnamon. On Friday I'll divide the batter into four portions, so I'll either have to bake three cakes, dispose of some, or give some away. I think I'll bake three and give two cakes away. Any votes for what kind I should make? Andrew says Chocolate/chocolate chip. Eler Beth says something with cranberries. Thomas doesn't care. And I don't know. Guess it'll just be a surprise to all of us.

I should be in bed, but I finally got the chance to read about two dozen blogs and comment; I've uploaded more pictures; and I've cleared out a bunch of computer files -- three things I've been trying to do for three days. If I haven't been by to say hi yet, I'm on my way. If you don't hear from me this week, please drop me a line to remind me of your blog address, because I've been moving things around in my Google Reader, and I'm hoping I didn't lose anyone.

I'm going to pick back up on my "Salutes" again, now that we're all getting settled. And today's Salute goes to a little community in Kentucky that I've never heard of and would like to know more about. So if you're from this community reading my blog, please email me with more information.

Today's SALUTE goes to:

Plummer's Landing,

population ???

179 miles from Jeffersonville

Sa-LUTE!

Brrr!

Today it finally feels like Fall. I think our highs will be in the 40s and 50s all week, and we're expecting some rain.

When we got back from Florida all the leaves had begun to fall; had a yard full at our house. Eler Beth loves to rake and make a big pile to play in every year, but I like to have them on the yard for a while (until I figure the neighbors are getting irritated!) because I love the way it looks and I love the way it feels to walk through them and the sound of them crunching under my feet. But I let her rake up some yesterday and she and the neighbor kids played in them. Ranulf (my cat) started running and jumping in them, too; he'd tunnel into them and then pop up out of them.

He camouflages well, doesn't he?

Starting to get back into a routine here. It took me a couple of days to rest up. Eler Beth's classes will start back up tomorrow. Usually this time of the year I enter an apology ahead of time for not being around as much or making very many entries, so I am doing that now. I may be here often, or I may not, it just depends. Usually until after the first of January I never know what I'm doing from one day to the next. It's a busy time. Also my brother will be having surgery next month, and he has several pre-surgery appointments before then, so I'll be helping out with those as much as possible.

Because it is so chilly here today, I thought I'd leave you with a few sunny pictures from Florida.

Lemons on my sister's lemon tree.

Early morning fishing from the pier.

Getting acquainted with the beach on the first day.

Having a lot of fun on the last day.

"I Have Measured Out My Life With Coffee Spoons; . . ." T. S. Eliot

For the past 10 days I certainly have done so!

We got home from Florida on Wednesday, and I have been running (either physically or mentally or both!) ever since.

I grew up in a family that keeps the coffee going fresh all day long; and though they aren't quite that bad anymore, it's still common to have your
morning coffee, your afternoon coffee, and sometimes an evening coffee as well. And my sister Maxine, with whom Eler Beth and I stayed while in St. Augustine, carried on that tradition. She uses Maxwell House Lite, and it was the most delicious coffee I've had in ages, better than any expensive brand I've tried lately. Maybe it's her water that makes it so good; whatever it was I drank a lot of it!

I have pictures to show and interesting tidbits to write about, but I'll be back to do that later when I have more time and brain matter to put to it. I will say this -- Eler Beth is an excellent traveling companion. She was a joy on the way down because everything about the trip, everything she saw, was something new and amazing to her, and I wish I could still feel that exuberance and pure joy she felt. I did remember a lot of things about traveling to Florida to visit Maxine when I was a kid, and that was fun having those memories pop into my mind. Above, Eler Beth, with her boogie board, and Maxine heading out to the
beach the last afternoon we were there; Right, taking her board out into the waves; Below, having a blast!

Andrew, on the way down, was just eager to get there. He has called every day since we deposited him in Palm Bay, and he has been having a great time. The friend he is visiting is going to be moving up here next year (if all goes well), so this may be the only chance he has to visit her and her family in Florida, and I think they've made the most of it. Eler Beth was my only companion on the way back home, and she kept me awake and entertained.

Two weekends ago I was so full of grief for our young friends that I forgot my big news. Thomas went out that Friday and bought me a Hyundai Santa Fe! He had looked at one a couple weeks before that he felt was too high, and the dealer wouldn't come down. The one he bought was two years newer and $4,000 cheaper than that one, and it and I have bonded. I drove it to Florida, and it did great. It has great pick up, and the gas mileage wasn't bad. My Honda Accord will now pass to Andrew.

And speaking of our young friends, J and her mother are doing pretty well. They have a big support group of family and friends who are keeping them busy. Andrew talks to J practically every day by phone. The two sisters are doing better, but it is still difficult. The retired couple who have acted as their guardians for so long actually do have temporary guardianship of them, which is what the mother wanted. Andrew talks to or texts one or the other of them about every day too. Their lives are slowly getting back into a routine now.

Thomas cared for all the animals while we were gone, and he did a great job. No one died or disappeared, lol. And I know Eler Beth has already written about Nadia and the new-male-that-doesn't-yet-have-a-name mating. So we expect eggs to be laid within the next two weeks.


We had ordered a fancy hutch for Clark, and it came while we were gone. On Thursday Eler Beth wanted to put it together; I wanted her to wait for Thomas to help her. She convinced me to let her at least get it out of the box to look at and see how hard it was going to be. I told her she could and I went to take a nap. Then she woke me up and begged to be allowed to go ahead and at least start on it. I gave in, and told her to do it in the driveway so she wouldn't lose anything in the grass.

The next thing I knew she was waking me up, telling me she'd put it together. And she had! All by herself! The next day she prepped the ground where we had decided to set it, I helped her lay down some bitty brooder wire and cover it with earth, then we positioned the hutch and wire so that nothing could dig in and 'possum can't dig out. She seems to be very happy with her new home.

I guess that's it for now. Sometime next week I'll be back in a regular routine, and I'll be around to see what everyone has been up to.

My Thanks, and I Need Your Email Address

First of all I want to thank everyone for their very nice comments to my previous post.

We went to the funeral home Monday evening to see J's dad. There were more than 500 people who came through and signed the guest book. The funeral Tuesday was packed. He really was a very good and much loved man. His wife and daughter are doing as well as can be expected. Andrew was on the phone with J tonight for almost two hours. I know he's not the only friend who is keeping an eye on her.

As for the sisters who lost their mother, well, they're hanging in there too, but they are still pretty torn up. It's going to be exceptionally rough for them for quite a while I'm afraid.

And now, Janie, I need your email. I have that link for you, but you don't have a contact email set up in your profile, and I can't find your AOL email address for some reason. So please email me or leave a comment and leave me your email. I think Donna had brought this up before -- whenever we leave a comment it shows our name as a link to our profile. And if the person whose blog we're commenting on is getting emails for each comment, then that email comes from a "no-reply" address unless we put a contact email in our profile. So, Janie, when I got your comment email, it told me it was from "Janie", and it linked back to your profile, but I don't know which email address is yours.

Okay, I'm off here for now. We just got back from a quick visit to my Mom's. I'll post another entry before we leave for Florida. Eler Beth is feeling better, thankfully, so the trip is on.

It Has Been A Tough Weekend

Two deaths hit very close to our family late last week, and it has been a long and hard weekend for us.

Sometime Thursday night the mother of two of our good friends committed suicide. The girls are 17 and 15 and very close friends of Andrew's. Actually we are all very close to them; they are like family. They were "adopted" by a retired couple who are friends of ours, and that's how we really got close to them. K and B (the retired couple) are devastated and grieving as well, and having to deal with the girls' grief. I'll call the girls Ann and Sue because I don't want to use their real names or even their initials right now. Their personalities are very different from one another and they are grieving differently. I put my sister, Dennice, in touch with them over the weekend because Dennice has done grief counseling in the school system where she works, and I think that helped and reassured K, who was very worried about Ann who is withdrawn. We spent quite a bit of time with them over the weekend.

The other death was just as tragic and unexpected. The father of Andrew's ex-girlfriend had a massive heart attack on Friday. He was at work operating a forklift, and they said his expression changed, he fell over, and was dead instantly. His wife was in shock on Friday, but was able to cry on Saturday, which was good. The daughter, J, cried non stop Friday and Saturday until she started vomiting. She told Andrew on the phone today that she still isn't eating and that she can't cry anymore because she's dehydrated -- there are no tears. We are going to the funeral home this evening. The funeral is tomorrow, and I'm not sure if we'll be there, but we'll spend the evening with them tonight. J's mom is someone whose family my family has known for many years, so there was a connection there even before Andrew and J were dating. He and J are still good friends and we and her family have many mutual friends. As a matter of fact, J is friends with Ann and Sue, and all of the crowd that Andrew does things with knows all three of the girls. So we really have a "community" in mourning right now. But at least both families have a LOT of friends and family who are sharing their grief and going out of their way to do whatever is needed for the girls.

I'm not sure how much I'll be online today. This is the first time I've had time to sit and just relax, so I think I'll visit some journals (I can't say blogs anymore), if not now, then when we get home tonight.

Andrew is going to Florida next week, and instead of flying him down, Eler Beth and I have decided to drive him down over the weekend so I can see my sister and Eler Beth can visit the beach. It will be a quick trip, so I won't be able to meet up with anyone this time, but in the Spring we're taking a longer trip down, Thomas too, so we can do some ocean fishing, and when we do that I expect to meet up with Martha, and possibly others.

I'll be back later.

What Reading Level Is My Blog?

I thought this was cool, and I'm going to have to put it on my sidebar:

I Wonder How We Underline A Word? -- And Other Random Thoughts

Hmm? Does anyone know? There is no underline option here, and I don't see any shortcut for it either. Does anyone know a shortcut key?

Is everyone aware that we have a Magic Smoke/J-Land Hub blog here on blogger? I wanted to make sure that all have the address. Guido has been making entries there, and he is asking that all of us check our old journals lists to see if there is anyone we were accustomed to reading who has not journaled in a while. If so, please send him a link to their journal, their name, and/or their AOL screen name. He is trying to save as many dormant blogs as he can. Here is the link to Magic Smoke on Blogger: http://jlandhub.blogspot.com/.

We finally got my daughter's journal migrated over to Blogger. It took us several tries. At first her google email address wasn't being recognized. We tried everything that was suggested or that I could think of. Finally I went to my own email, pulled up that email from AOL with the migration link in it and clicked on it. I put her gmail address and password in from there and it worked! I don't know if it decided to work, if someone on the migration team did something to make it work, or if it had something to do with my doing it from my own browser and my own email -- surely not. Anyway, she's set up and has already been visited by several of her journal readers. She had fun playing around with the different templates and very quickly got the hang of everything. She even put up a play list on her sidebar. And thank you, Connie, for that great tag.

It's cool and rainy here today. Hopefully that will bring on the Fall colors full force!

My nephew, Jacob, about whom I've written before, made it safely to his work site in Africa. He is working on a project for The History Channel, a series where they are following the routes of certain expeditions. The one he will be working on is Stanley and Livingston. According to my sister (his mother) he, his luggage, and his equipment got there safely.

I'm finally getting around to a lot of journals and keeping up with many of them. If I haven't been by yet, I will, I promise.

I hope everyone has had a good week.

Monday . . . Again!

I just made an entry in I Stand Corrected in its new home, and I invite you to check it out. I hope I stay in the habit of writing over there.

This has been a fairly nice day here in Southern Indiana, a bit overcast, but warm. Mondays are always Mondays, aren't they, even when you're a stay-at-home Mom? Eler Beth was a bit grumbly during school today, and I was a bit grumbly in return (which is what prompted the entry in I Stand Corrected.)

I have continued saving my journals manually, even though I believe everything transferred over all right, because I want to print them out and put them in a binder. I like having a tangible version I can pull out and read (and leave for the kids to read).

Thomas replaced my brake line yesterday so all is well in that department. And I guess that's about all I have in the way of news. I hope everyone is having a good week, and I'll be back soon.

Wading Around In Blog-Land

I am having a hard time settling down to make regular entries in my BRAND NEW BLOG! (That's a family joke, by the way. Remind me and I'll tell you about it later.)

I subscribed to most of the journals I read on Google's feed-reader, and I have them organized to my own personal specifications. Now that I am "following" these migrated journals on my Dashboard I find they have also been imported into my feed-reader -- which is good, don't get me wrong, because I really prefer that over the Dashboard thingy -- but they were all out of place! So I have spent hours today organizing the blogspot journals I plan to follow, and I still don't have all of them done. And I can't seem to think about making any regular entries on my own journals until I get everyone else's in their rightful places.

While I was spending hours organizing blogs I spent some quality family time with Thomas and the kids, or mainly Thomas and Andrew. Thomas had pulled out his B. C. Rich guitar and was sitting in here trying it out, when Andrew decided to join him. It is rare that he and Thomas sit and jam together. Eler Beth had gone to the Harvest Homecoming in New Albany this afternoon with a friend, and she went to bed not long after she came in. So I sat and listened to the guys playing and talking guitars and music while I grumbled over finding and matching up Journalers with Bloggers (or Spotters, as Ken says) and AOL Journals with Blogs and putting them in their new permanent, nice and neat, well-organized homes on my computer screen. Not a bad way to spend the evening.

Is there a limit on how many blogs show up on the "Blogs I'm Following" list on the front page of your blog? I don't want just a few to show up; that wouldn't be fair. I went to my Dashboard, went down to the Reading List and clicked on Manage, and was blown out of the water by the number of Blogs I am following. Oh yes, it tells you that right at the top! I'm not going to tell you how many it said. I had no idea I was reading or keeping up with so many journals. (That's why I have them organized; it doesn't seem so daunting that way.)

I still haven't uploaded any of the pictures we took last weekend on our camping trip or even the zoo pictures Eler Beth took a couple weeks ago. Perhaps I'll tackle that project tomorrow. Speaking of projects, Thomas has to replace a brake line on my car tomorrow morning. I was sitting in the drive-thru at Burger King when my foot, which had been resting on the brake pedal, suddenly went all the way to the floor. I drove home very slowly, making good use of my clutch and the neutral gear, and irritating anyone unlucky enough to find himself driving behind me. But I got home safely.

I may be around to visit everyone tomorrow or Monday. I feel like I have a cold coming on, so I may stick around the house tomorrow even after Thomas fixes my car. The weather here is still very beautiful. I hope we have a few more weekends like this one and the past few we've had before the real cold temps set in. And I hope this cold I feel coming on is nothing more than that.

I hope that everyone is settling in; hope Donna and others who are still having trouble migrating can get moved over soon, hopefully Monday; and if I haven't been by to greet you in your new home or if you've just set up, please leave me a link to your blog in a comment or email me. Everyone have a good rest-of-the-weekend, and that's all I've got for now.

Pam/His1Desire

I don't know if anyone else saw this, but Pam's daughter, Christina left a comment on the last entry of her mother's UK journal. She says she has her mom's journal copied on paper, and I'm really glad to know that. I guess if any of us want it or any of the other dormant journals saved, we'll have to copy and paste them ourselves.

Dusty Pages Successfully Migrated

I was able to successfully migrate my AOL Dusty Pages journal to blogspot. I have named it Dusty Pages Archives, and the URL is here:
http://dustypages-archive.blogspot.com/

I may re-post some of my favorite entries and pictures here, but otherwise, if there's anything you want to re-read, you'll have to go to the archives. I kind of like being able to keep all my old entries and yet be making a new start here. Sort of having my journal cake and eating it too.

Thank you to the AOL Journals team members who did work hard to save our journals and make this transition smooth, and thank you to the migration team at Blogger. My migration of Dusty Pages was interrupted twice, but I was able to re-start it. The other three journals migrated smoothly with no interruptions.

I'll be dressing up my new blogs that were just migrated in the next week or so; looking forward to doing that.

Getting To Know Georgette Has New Home

Getting To Know Georgette has successfully been migrated from AOL Journals to Blogger. I hope other GH fans find me and share with me their own opinions on her and her books. The new URL is: http://getting-to-know-georgette.blogspot.com/

Dusty Pages' Books Shelves Has New Home

I'm so happy that the migration from AOL Journals went well. I do enjoy writing about the books on my shelves, and I plan to continue to do so here at this new location. Please check back in with me once in a while.

The new URL is: http://dustypagesbookshelves.blogspot.com/

I Stand Corrected Has New Home

I Stand Corrected has a new home at Blogger. We have migrated over, and I would like to invite you to save our new URL and drop by to visit us. The migration went very smoothly, and I'm so relieved!

Our new address is: http://i-stand-corrected.blogspot.com/

Can't access after journal is deleted . . .

I just tested something, and it didn't work.

I saved a private test journal to my documents, then I deleted it. I was NOT able to read the journal. I could pull up the first page of the journal, but no previous posts, no archives. So I'm very much afraid that saving to your computer and even to a CD is going to be a waste of time.

I am still copying and pasting everything just to be safe.

Email Me!!!

I just tried out three different ways to save your journal to your computer, and I print-screened each step of each way. It's probably too much to put in an entry here, and I would have to load the print-screen shots separately as pictures, so I'm going to send it out to anyone who wants it by email. You can save to eBook if you have that on your computer, or you can save to your documents, or to your desktop. I did mine using my AOL browser, but then I went back and did it using IE and print-screened each step of that. So I'll gladly send this to anyone who is having trouble, in case it will help. Just send me your email address.

Saved To CD

Last week I was able to save my old AOL Journal onto my hard drive as an eBook. On Friday my son wanted to make sure that it wasn't connected by some link that would require the internet to read it, so we disconnected the internet and were able to open it as an eBook on the computer. All of my pictures and graphics were there except the few pictures that I had loaded onto my journal from AOL Pictures (since I've already moved those pictures for safe keeping). So now I'm fairly sure that after the journals are deleted from AOL, the eBooks that have been saved will still be safe.

So then Andrew wanted to see if the journal could be burned on a CD. We burned it successfully. When we opened the CD, NO pictures or graphics are on there, but everything else, the layout and the text are there. I tried opening the "Show Recent" comments, but it tells me it's loading and then never loads. I'm going to try again, though. (Also, it opens in a browser window -- Firefox for me, since that's what I'm set for, but it would open in IE if that's your default browser.) So if we can save the dormant journals onto an eBook, they could be copied to CDs and sent to anyone who wants them, but there would be no graphics or pictures on the CD, only on the eBook. I'm not sure if the eBooks can be emailed or saved to another format that can be shared, but I'm going to play around with that when I have some time today.

As I figure more out about this avenue I'll share what I know.

Of course, I've been gone all week, so perhaps someone else already has all this information out there? I have a lot to catch up on I know.

Home From A Lovely Weekend

I logged into my email this afternoon and saw that I had 247 waiting for me! Aaack!

We had a wonderful weekend camping. I had a few minutes on my computer Saturday, and that was it. We got home late Sunday night, and all I did yesterday was sleep! So slowly but surely I'm going to get caught up some today, see where everyone is and what's going on with the "migration", and I'll be back later to make a proper post with some pictures hopefully.

I hope everyone had a great weekend.

I'm An Idiot!!!

Guess what I just saw. Talk about a "Duh" moment!
I clicked on the add image icon.

And now I can type this the way I want it with my image next to it.
Yes, if someone finds me, please keep me safe.

It's a bit unwieldy, and isn't EXACTLY what I wanted, but it'll do for now.

Have a nice day!

Urgent Message From Guido

Guido, (Northern Trip)while out of town this weekend, took the time to leave us a message that is very important. I copy his first paragraph here:

Greetings from Inverness.

I urgently need to tell you that it has proved impossible to migrate the dormant journals, including those written by the deceased, to Blogger. If anyone does have access to them, it can be done; if not, copying the entire journal manually is the only option. Lori [helmswondermom on AOL] mentioned on her Blogger journal that saving it as an ebook is apparently an option - please check her journal. Haven't got the link here, and have only very limited time.

I am desperately sorry about this.

Guido had offered to migrate dormant journals and was more than willing to take on that daunting task. But apparently the journal owner or someone who can access them as the owner has to be the one to do it. So if you want the journal of someone who is deceased or who no longer journals on AOL, for whatever reason, you will need to save it yourself, either manually or onto your own computer as an eBook. I don't know any other way to save it on your computer, but perhaps someone else does.

I wrote about this in a previous entry, but I'm going to outline it again. Apparently a couple of other people have tried it and it worked for them using Internet Explorer. I did it using AOL software.

So, either from your AOL browser or Internet Explorer, open the journal you wish to save and expand it to fill your whole window.
Click on FILE at the top left of your screen
Click on SAVE AS
Now when I did that it opened up the Save Web Page box and saving it to My eBooks was the option already opened and ready for me.
I hit SAVE, and it did
I went to My Documents, click on My eBooks folder, and there it was in its entirety, minus pictures that had been uploaded from AOL Pictures

I don't see why this would suddenly disappear once journals are gone, but I guess anything is possible. Other than manually copying and pasting, this is the only way I know that will save it to your hard drive. But, again, if anyone else knows, please get the word out.

I got an email from someone who had read Guido's post who was panicky because she thought he was saying that our own journals can't be migrated. NO, our journals will migrate. But any journals who's owner is not available to access the journal will not be migrated. There are several journals out there that the community does not want to lose (Pam, Penny, etc.), so I know some of us will want to save them. I don't know if they can be transfered from one to the other of us as an eBook, but that is something I'm getting ready to try with mine right now.

Yes, but how . . .

Thank you to everyone who left a comment answering my questions in my previous post.

I guess what i really wanted to know was how to do wrap-around text. I want my picture to sit beside my text entirely, and not just have one line next to the bottom of the picture or above or below the picture.

I've never taken the time to ask how to do this before, and I know it can be done. So I thought since this is a new venture, I'd try this new something too. :)

Two Questions

I have a couple of questions --

What about videos we may have uploaded onto AOL Videos?

How do I inserts pics or graphics into any part of my text that I want? (It's going to involve html, isn't it? I just know it is!)

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Please be sure to schedule your yearly mammogram if you haven't already, and continue to Be Breast Aware. Get familiar with your own breasts by doing monthly self-exams.


Don't forget to click every day:

Saved As -eBook

I can't now remember in whose journal I read this -- so please, if you see this, contact me and let me know so I can give you credit or correct me if I'm wrong --

I opened my AOL Journal in the AOL browser (haven't tried this with Firefox)
I expanded it to fill the page
I clicked on File at the top of the page
I clicked on Save As
And it automatically gave me the option to save my journal as an eBook
I clicked on that, and then I went to My Documents
I went to my eBooks file, opened it, and there was my journal, complete with comments, graphics, and pictures, but minus the pictures that I had had stored at AOL (very few) because I'd already moved those.

I don't know if this is a permanent thing, but I thought it was another good option for backing up, other than copying and pasting. I navigated all around my journal in the saved eBook format, and the whole thing is there. Thought I would share, and I wish I could remember who figured this out first.

Great Backgrounds!

Okay, thanks to Janis I've found some really neat backgrounds to use. And it only took me about six tries to figure out how to get one on here! I really liked this Fall background, but I also like the "Minima" template that Blogger offers. I'll use this one for a while, and then I may just change back to minima. Or I may change to different ones each day until I find what I really like. For now, this is it.

Officially Blogging

Well, welcome to Dusty Pages at Blogger. I am going to mirror some entries for a while, but as soon as we’re allowed to migrate over I’m going to do so.

I do like that I can preview my new posts before I publish them.

I don’t like that there are so few fonts (and no sizes) to choose from. (I am typing this in Word and I hope it will transfer well.)

I’m sure I will get used to the new format in time.

I don’t think I like the template that I chose, so that may be changing.

I am really wasting a lot of time today, how about everyone else? I’m going to give myself an hour to read and comment in other people’s blogs today, and I’m going to allow myself to play around with my own some more. My kids are on their own this afternoon. Lol

I did spend some quality time with Thomas this morning before he left for work, so he can’t complain. But the house and all other responsibilities are going to be neglected today I’m afraid.

EXCEPT that it is a gorgeous day here in Southern Indiana, and I just may have to go outside and do some yard work. We actually got some rain on Monday night/Tuesday morning – our first real rain in weeks. Today it is cool, barely 60°, but sunny with a bit of a breeze. My favorite kind of weather. I guess this is a pretty good way to start out the month of October, all in all.

Moving Along

I actually got emails that I had comments left here. So at least I figured that part out.

Apparently when our old journals migrate, it has to be in a new blog. I could keep this one as a practice blog, under a different name, and then when the migration takes place, open Lori-DustyPages, migrate AOL Dusty Pages over, and then seriously begin, OR I will just continue with this one and start a new blog called Archive DustyPages for the AOL journal to go into. I can have a link on this journal to the Archive one if anyone should ever need to go there. Hmm, decisions, decisions.

In the meantime, I'm going to continue as I mean to go on, and go ahead and keep up with everyone who has sent a link to their Blogspot (can I abbreviate it to B/S without anyone taking offense?) location, and hopefully not get behind.

My book journals and "I Stand Corrected" I will wait to move over. There is a way to do shared blogs here at B/S, so Guido, Beth, and whoever else is interested, we can continue to do I Stand Corrected in a shared format.

I can't wait to get this page looking a little neater!!

Okay, well, I'm off to continue copying and pasting into Word. I'm not taking any chances.

Moving Day

Okay, well, here I am. I guess for now, at least, I'll be moving my own cheese and starting a new Dusty Pages here at Blogspot. I'm assuming that when AOL Journals migrate, all my entries will migrate into my archives here. I hope. (Will be saving them some other way as well, just in case.)

So, here I am, and please let me know your blogspot addys or other blog location addy if you have one (or as you get one), and I'll make sure I have you on here. This doesn't seem too bad. It's not quite as easy as AOL journals, but there are a few bright spots. I may be calling on those of you who are already here to help me out if I have questions. I guess I'll be moving my other journals as well.

It's a rather gray day here in Southern Indiana, weather-wise, and now it's rather gray journal-wise as well. Oh well, forward we go!