Grand Experiment Update

Life is good.

At this moment I am wearing a dress that I haven't worn for nearly a year because it was too tight around the hips. Now there is a little room to spare.

And the people at Nutri-System sent a red teddy bear with 10 embroidered on him to celebrate my first 10 pound loss.

As of this morning, I've lost 15 lbs.

Stolen from Neal Boortz

24 Fun Things To Do In An Elevator...

1. Grimace painfully while smacking your forehead and muttering: "Shut up, dammit, all of you just shut UP!"

2. Whistle the first seven notes of "It's a Small World" incessantly.

3. Crack open your briefcase or purse, and while peering inside ask: "Got enough air in there?"

4. Offer name tags to everyone getting on the elevator. Wear yours upside-down.

5. Stand silent and motionless in the corner, facing the wall, without getting off.

6. When arriving at your floor, grunt and strain to yank the doors open, then act embarrassed when they open by themselves.

7. Greet everyone getting on the elevator with a warm handshake and ask them to call you Admiral.

8. On the highest floor, hold the door open and demand that it stay open until you hear the penny you dropped down the shaft go "plink" at the bottom.

9. Stare, grinning, at another passenger for a while, and then announce: "I've got new socks on!"

10. When at least 8 people have boarded, moan from the back: "Oh, no, not now, damn motion sickness!"

11. Meow occasionally.

12. Holler "Chutes away!" whenever the elevator descends.

13. Walk on with a cooler that says "human head" on the side.

14. Stare at another passenger for a while, then announce "You're one of THEM!" and move to the far corner of the elevator.

15. Wear a puppet on your hand and talk to other passengers "through" it.

16. When the elevator is silent, look around and ask "is that your beeper?"

17. Say "Ding!" at each floor.

18. Say "I wonder what all these do" and push the red buttons.

19. Listen to the elevator walls with a stethoscope.

20. Draw a little square on the floor with chalk and announce to the other passengers that this is your "personal space."

21. Announce in a demonic voice: "I must find a more suitable host body."

22. Make explosion noises when anyone presses a button.

23. Wear "X-Ray Specs" and leer suggestively at other passengers.

24. Stop at every floor, run off the elevator, then run back on.

Let's revive a memory.

I was reading John Alan Turner's blog and he posed a questions that brought forth a memory. The question concerned the core values that we want to instill in our children. This was my contribution to the discussion.

Don’t argue over biscuits.

When my children were young a dear older lady, Mrs. Oliver, told me about her first day of marriage. They got up before dawn, as farmers are prone to do, and he headed outside to do whatever it is farmers do before breakfast while she started cooking. Or rather, hauled in the wood to heat the stove so she could start cooking.

Anyway, by the time he returned she had laid out a spread that would put Shoney’s breakfast bar to shame - including freshly baked bread! He washed his hands, sat down, looked it over, and asked, “Where are the biscuits?”

She replied, “I didn’t bake biscuits. I baked bread.”

He commented, “I’ve had biscuits for breakfast every day for as long as I can remember.”

Mrs. Oliver was young at the time, but she had already learned that biscuits aren’t worth a battle. She got up and baked biscuits. And continued to bake biscuits every morning until her beloved husband died.

It took many years for me to get the hang of it, but I have finally learned to save my arguing for things that really matter. And biscuits don’t matter.

It's a man-thing.

Dilbert for 09/21/06:
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/index.html

It had to happen...

http://www.bendshire.com/

News Story

I know. News is Sarah's territory. So I'm a meddling mother-in-law.

Ann Richards (former governor of Texas) has died.

I didn't agree with her politics, but she was an entertaining character and produced one of my favorite quotes: The rooster may do the crowing, but the hen lays the egg.

May she rest in peace.

100 Years Ago

The year is 1906.
One hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!
Here are some of the U.S. statistics for the Year 1906 :

The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.

Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost $11 dollars.

There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S. and only 144 miles of paved roads. The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.

The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents per hour. The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year . A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at HOME.

Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION! Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press AND the government as "substandard."

Sugar cost four cents a pound.
Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.

Five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska had not yet been admitted to the Union.

The population of Las Vegas was only 30!!!!

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea had not been invented.

There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.

Two out of every 10 U.S. adults could not read or write. Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Eighteen percent of households in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.

There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A. !

Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years!

Sarah at bat

I'm getting the hang of my picture-taking cell phone

I took this last year when Alice and Schroeder met for the first time.