Email Fraud

I received a suspicious email from a Dr. Denis Moore.



He says I have inherited fifteen million dollars.

Since my relative was a foreigner I can only collect 30 percent of it. All I have to do is give a Nigerian bank my account information...Wait a minute.

I smell something fishy here.

Even if I hadn't seen a news report a few weeks ago about the scams coming from Nigeria, I would have known this had fraud written all over it.

If you've inherited money, you do not need to give out your bank information. They just send you a check or at the most you would have to attend a reading of a will at an attorney's office.

Never, never, I repeat, never, give out your bank account number or social security number to anyone on the internet or telephone.

I called the attorney general's office to report this and she said that Nigeria sings songs about how dumb Americans are and how we give our money away.

This is a picture of an email scammer who got caught. He doesn't look like he's singing.



Keep your money and credit safe. Shred all documents with your account info on them before throwing them away.

Legitimate people will not ask you for personal information via the internet or telephone.

Dang! I coulda used 5 million dollars. Oh well. :o)

Year of the House

This will forever be remembered as the year of the house in our family.



My oldest son and his fiancee closed on their new home and moved in over the weekend. They are so happy they are giddy.



My sister-n-law, however, was not so lucky. Her home burned early Sunday morning. Her daughter, son-in-law, grand baby and their two dogs were visiting her. The humans all got out in their pajamas. The dogs didn't make it.

The house was a total loss. Even though the first floor was the only one burned, smoke and water damaged the rest.


My sister-in-law has good insurance and will be taken care of, but there are always those things money cannot replace. Pictures, children's artwork, heirlooms and memories.



My house being in disarray now seems trivial in comparison. I've often felt grumpy because the remodeling is taking longer than I thought it should. I've been self absorbed in my own troubles, not thinking about how lucky I am to have a roof over my head.


I could be living under a tree.






And while we're on the subject of being without a home, here's a burning question on everyone's minds.

Memorial Day Weekend

Gas prices are too high to go anywhere but that's Okay. Mother Nature took care of that.





With the record rain fall our streets have turned into rivers and our ponds are now lakes. No need to go to the river, just dress the kids in their swimsuits and send them out to play in the street.



There's always a brightside to everything.




I hope you're having a marvelous Memorial Day weekend.

Stop Surfing And Write!

Oh, sorry. That was for me...and you, if you need the prod.

Do you find yourself playing on the internet instead of using it as the tool it was intended to be?

Maybe you need:





We all need a little help from time to time.

Yesterday, I went to a little local cafe for lunch. I keep a small notebook in my purse at all times--you never know when you might have an inspiration and a few minutes of waiting time. I took out my notebook and wrote about four pages. Now we're talking 4X6" pages but still, there were no emails to answer or other distractions the internet can bring.

The internet is a wonderful tool, don't get me wrong. I use it almost daily. But sometimes it gets in the way of the purpose in which I bought a laptop to begin with.

I have taken my laptop to cafes and wrote before, but now you can get WIFI at many of them and you still have the distraction. Even McDonalds and Burger King have WIFI now.

The library used to be a good place to go. I had access to research material, in the form of books, so I didn't have to use the internet. But now they have WIFI too.

The best way I've found to get away from it is to go back to the dark ages of pen/pencil and paper.

Imagine that. :o)

Celebrity Hoopla

Is anyone else sick of the celebrity hype?

I personally don't care if Brittany Spears shaved her head or not. She can afford a nice wig and/or hair extensions. Unlike the rest of us who have to wait years for our hair to grow back out.

And for goodness sake, yes, put Paris Hilton in jail, please. She should have been put there years a go for indecent behaviour. Where is this girl's mama? That's what I want to know. If she were my daughter I'd have jerked a knot on her head.

I'm also tired of hearing who has gone into rehab. What is this celebrity rehab anyway? Apparently it's nothing like the one regular people attend. This week they're in there and next week you see them coming out of Starbucks carrying a Latte. Hello! I thought rehab was sorta like jail. They locked you inside until you promised to never use drugs or alcohol again.

And what's with the guy eating a burger off the floor? He's lost his parental visiting rights until he can prove he's quit drinking and also so he doesn't beat his daughter senseless for posting his drunken self all over Youtube. Okay, I made up the last one, but can you imagine?

The next time you think being rich and famous will solve all your problems watch the news. Those people are messed up.

Apparently a lot of people care what the stars are doing because I can't even get a decent tornado warning without a news report of who has gotten arrested or who's divorcing who. I'm sure some people consider it right up there with a national disaster, but frankly I just want to know if I need to crawl into my bathtub or not.

Oh and blonde is back in. The celebs who dyed their hair brunette over the winter have now bleached their tresses blonde for the summer. Just thought you'd wanna know. :o)

Ramble Writing

Do you ever sit and just write whatever pops into your head? I call it ramble writing or rambling. There maybe a technical term for it, but I'm not aware of one.

It doesn't have to make any sense. Just write words.

When I can't think of anything to write I sometimes do this. It clears the cobwebs and sometimes...sometimes an idea will appear that has potential. Not always. Often it is just a big mess, but you might try it sometime. You can always shred it afterwards or delete if using the computer.

I started a story one day from my ramblings. It isn't finished and I'm not even sure if it has potential, but it is words on paper.

Some critics will argue that you should just take a break from writing if you can't think of anything worth writing and I'm sure this works for them.

I have talked to other writers who ramble, so I'm not the only one. I even had a teacher that suggested we do this. He didn't have a name for the technique, he just said write whatever pops into your head.

Some of my blog entries are ramblings, but then you probably already figured that one out. :o)

For those of you who care, I got an email that said Miss Snark is retiring her blog. I personally don't care for her but I know there are many out there who do. Just wanted to pass that information along.

Mamas don't name your babies...

Reading the paper this morning I decided that some folks need help in the baby naming department.

There was a young girl who was upset enough to stab someone and is now in jail. Could it be the fact that her name is Melisia? Sounds awfully close to Militia to me. It really doesn't matter how her mama thought it should be pronounced. When teachers call roll or nurses read her name off of the clip board it will be mispronounced. That's a fact.

Whatever you do, don't name your baby girl Ima or Iwana. Just in case you haven't had your caffeine yet and need a little help, here are a few examples of why. These aren't real combinations, but they are real last names.

Ima Weiner
Ima Doody
Ima Butts

Well you get the picture. You may think, "Oh, we have a fine normal last name this won't hurt." That's fine and dandy until little Ima grows up and marries Richard Weiner a real combination, I didn't make this one up

Surely you don't want your daughter to go through life as Ima Weiner.

Celebrities are notorious for naming their children ridiculous names. Probably all the cocaine they've ingested. They have enough money to hire body guards to beat up anyone who makes fun of little Dweezil Zappa or Zowie Bowie, the rest of us, however, do not.

Naming a child is serious business, no matter what the stars think.

For heavens sake make sure your sober when you pick that name. Your son or daughter will thank you. :o)

My Celebrity Look A Like

I found this site that will show you what celebrities you look like. No joke.

All you do is download a picture of your face and it will scan your bone structure and compare it to famous mugs.

To get your own celebrity look-a-likes, go to:

I Have the Answer to the Energy Crisis

I don't know why scientists haven't figured this one out already.

You know all those menopausal women out there having hot flashes? Well, all we have to do is hook them up to electrodes and we could power the world.



According to statistics most of the population is over the age of 40 and most of them are women. That's a lot of hot flashes. Let's put those baby's to good use.

The way I figure it, there's enough of us that we wouldn't have to be hooked up full time. We could work in shifts and it's not like real work, oh no. You could read, knit or even watch t.v.


And don't forget those teenaged girls out there. Forget wind power, what about chat power? There's gotta be a ton of energy coming from all those telephone calls.





Don't ground those girls, hard wire them. Put all those senseless phone calls to good use.


Might as well get junior involved. Yesiree. Those button pushing youngsters can keep the city lights going. All those video games and remote controls can be hooked up as well. Why we'll have this energy crunch under control in no time.






You no how dad complains about the price of gas? Well I have a solution for that one too. Most dad's have a **ahem**gas problem of sorts themselves. Well, what if dad's gas could power the SUV? I think it could work. Give ol' dad that burrito and send him off to work. :o)

Blogging on MySpace

I'm a hands on, self taught learner. I have taught myself many things by reading books and watching others. This is the reason I knit backwards, but that's a whole other story.

It's not always easy to come up with new material to add to my blog. I know it's hard to believe that I, of all people, could possibly run out of things to say, but it does happen from time to time.

Having a MySpace blog, in addition to this one, was going to make it tricky to come up with enough material.

I discovered that you can write your usual entry on your main blog, copy the first sentence or two and paste it in your MySpace blog with a hot link to your main blog. Now you only have to write your blog once and you've connected people to your main blog.

I know, I know, some of you clever people already knew this, but give me a break. I'm still learning.

If any of you know some handy dandy MySpace tips please feel free to email me with them or add them here as a comment.

Now I'm learning how to add music to my MySpace page. Who knows? I might even figure out how to add music to my Blogger Blog. :o)

Writing For Teens

Anne Brashares the author of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants doesn't write slang or brand names into her novels which gives the books a timeless quality.

Make sure, when writing, that you don't date your book by adding terminology that will be out of style in a few years. This could possibly be a turn off for young readers.

Read the classic stories. They don't talk about a brand name or use language that dates the book. You may not think it can be done, yet authors are doing it every day. Those are the books that will remain on library shelves for years to come.

Kids like to be able to relate to the main character in a story. If the character sounds too much like their parents talking they won't read the book. They also don't want to read about what was hip or fashionable ten years ago.

When you consider that it can take sometimes five years to get a book published, you realize that trends are not a good idea to write into your piece. What's hot today won't be five or especially ten years from now.

Describing a character's clothing in great detail isn't important. Let your reader imagine their own idea of what your characters are wearing.

Read lots of kids books, especially the great ones, the ones that have won awards and have had movies made from them. Examine the bones and disect the style in which the author wrote the book.

We don't want to imitate the author's work, but learn from their technique until we develop a style that makes the reader want to stay up all night to find out what happens next and then to mourn the loss of the end of a good book. That's what we strive to do as writers.

Happy writing. :o)

Happy Mother's Day

Netscape Giving Me Fits

Okay, there's something squirrely going on with Netscape and Blogger.

Netscape works fine until I try to sign into my blogger account and then it says there has been an error and it will have to close. So it closes all my windows. Oh, but for my trouble they'll send an error report. Lot of good that's done. It still hasn't been resolved.

I tried to find a website where I can email Netscape but can't find anything but places to sign up with internet service with them. I already have Cox.

I know it's a Netscape problem because I can sign in through Internet Explorer with out any trouble. So Blogger is fine as well.

I thought it would eventually resolve itself but it's been three days now and still happening.

I prefer Netscape over Internet Explorer. IE is owned by Google and, don't get me wrong, I love Google for searching, but when I downloaded IE Google trys to take over my entire browser page and add things I don't want on there.

Because I've boycotted letting Google take over my computer I can't download a certain video software. Can't think of the name of it right now.

What did we do before computers. Wrote letters and run ads in newspapers I'm thinking.

Sorry for the rant. Phew, I feel better now.:o)

Day 8 of PriNoWriMo

Well, I haven't gotten as much writing done as I would have liked to. I have got to do better.

I originally was going to start a new novel called "No More Moves", about a girl who is on the run with her mother from an abusive father. She is tired of moving around and has made some good friends where they are currently living. To her chagrin they move anyway and the tale unfolds.

I got the idea, sort of, from one of my neighbors. She's been my neighbor for about 12 years now but she moved here to get away from an abusive husband. I thought it would make a good story and still may do something with it someday.

I have been instead, working on my Henry and the Map story. It's coming along but I have had an epiphany and decided to not bring Granny along on the journey which will change much of the story. I'm taking notes and will just make those changes later in the editing process.

I need to be working on my next non-fiction book, "Mom's Guide to Raising Kids", but a lot of the material is prewritten and wouldn't be fair to the process.

So it's Henry and me and I will at least have a finished novel that I can edit when all is done and who knows, maybe it will be worth sending out into the world. :o)

Rain!

You folks that prayed for rain are getting it...all at once.

I live on a small hill and my yard is a veritable swamp. You can not walk across my yard without getting your feet soaked. Luckily, I don't have to go anywhere today, so I'm staying indoors, writing.

A squirrel, desperately tried to get some food from my squirrel proof feeder this morning, slipped and fell into a puddle. He jumped up, shook himself off, truely disgruntled, and ran up a nearby tree. He normally eats the seed the birds drop onto the ground, but his dining space is now a pond. I felt sorry for him but laughed anyway because it was funny.

My storm radio showed a flash flood warning this morning when I got up. Living on a hill does have it's advantages, but I fear for those not so fortunate.

Summer will come soon enough and dry up all of this moisture and we will mourn for the wet days of Spring. There's no pleasing us. Whatever the weather we complain.

Our ponds, lakes, and rivers are refilled where once lie dry, cracked soil. Wild animals will now have a place to quench their thirst.

I personally enjoy a good rain. Being a tree lover I see the benefits and enjoy the water no matter how we get it. :o)

Complicated Projects

My husband is one of those guys that can't do a simple project. Oh no. If it's too simple he'll turn it into this major deal.

He should have been an architect or interior designer. He can make any room look great.

Take our kitchen tile, for instance. Another man would have had it tiled by now, but not my husband. He got on the computer and using Freehand software has designed an elaborate creation that I wouldn't have tackled. It kind of reminds me of my quilting, only with tiles.

It will be beautiful.

You have to have patience to be married to my husband. If you're in a hurry, you might as well forget it.

He did the same thing on our front bathroom. He took out the furdown, switched the placement of the bathtub and toilet (with a concrete slab, no less), replaced the bathtub with a jacuzzi and added a niche in the wall. We had a cupboard above the toilet, that you knocked your head on; he took that out and replaced the wide cabinet, that held the sink, with a pedestal sink. The cabinet was replaced with a tower cabinet beside the toilet instead of above it.

I know it's hard to picture what it looks like. I wish I had before and after pictures. You would be amazed.

At first, his ideas worried me. I didn't think many of them were possible, but he soon proved me wrong.

Sometimes dreamers see possibilities where others do not. :o)

Day One

Well, it's day one of our little PriNoWriMo. Not sure how well I will do today because, I have obligations all day that take me from my office. I am going to take my laptop with me, so I can work in the waiting room at the doctor's office.

I have two doctors appointments this afternoon. Nothing serious, just my yearly check-up. One with my Gynecologist and the other is a mammogram. Important, but not serious. I like to get my torture all done in one day. :o)

Every Tuesday I go to my church and quilt with some friends of mine. So you see, it will be a challenge to get my word count in today.

For the NaNoWriMo your supposed to do 1,667 words in a day, but that's a 30 day month. I will have to ask my PriNo buddies if since we have an extra day if we have extra time or if we are going to stop on the 30th. Hmm, I'll get back to you on that one.

I've dug out my "No Plot? No Problem!" book by Chris Baty, the founder of NaNoWriMo. It's a great little book that can be a cheerleader at best and distraction at worst. It does have some great information and tips in it to help with the dark days of writer's block and helps you realize that it can be done.

I succeeded in finishing my 50,000 words this past November and I can do it again.