TRALKJUA

Just a quick thought

Whenever I leave a comment on blogs of my friends who have the "word varification". . . . .

I can't help but wonder why it's called that in the first place.


After all,

ISTERNIS,

DADFRYIET,

HYGT,

ACRIDT,

RULDES,

and any of the other number of really weird configurations aren't actual words as far as I know.

Or. . . .

Is there some sinister new language that nobody knows about.


What about that?

All you conspiracy theorists out there?

Should we be slightly afraid?



Dum, dum, dum, dum, Dum, dum, dum, dum,

Happy Birthday Elisabeth

Happy Birthday precious girl.

I thought our family was wonderful before, but then Heavenly Father sent you to us and now we are even more richly blessed than we could ever have thought possible.

Mama and Daddy love you.

Your sissies love you.

Grandma and Grandpa and Oma, love you.

All of your Aunts and Uncles love you.

Your cousins love you so very much.

And just because you are so dear and courageous and pure,

so sweet and loving,

wanting for nothing but to be surrounded by the people you love,

many, many, people that you don't even know and will most likely never meet you,

love you too.

You are a gift

not only to your family who loves you but to the world.

The whole Earth is just that much happier of a place because of Elisabeth Elva.

You may not know anything about birthdays.

You may not know a single thing about receiving presents,

or, blowing out the candles on a birthday cake.

Your sissies will be happy to take over that chore for you.

You have no idea that you have not only just turned two, and what a miracle in itself that is.

But the things that you do know are the things that matter the most.

You love being with your family and listening to all of our happy voices surrounding you.

You love snuggling with Mama.

You have your own special place right under her chin where you put your head.

Every time.

I love the small things that bring you joy.

One of the newest is how much you love to hold open the little back window of your stroller and look out at the world.

And how much you love it when we peek in at you.

Or put our hands through the little window to ruffle your hair.

Or when one of your sissies pokes through a favorite toy.

I think that one of my most favorite happy things, that you do, is when you take your two, little, dimpled, hands and hold Mama's face with them.

To me that will always be what I think of when I picture pure joy.

Elisabeth, you are a miracle.

You are such a blessing that we, your family, need to thank our Heavenly Father for you on a daily basis.

You ask for so little, but you give so much.

September 24th 2007, truly is a day for all of us to celebrate.

And we will.

Every year that we have you in our lives, is a good year indeed.

Happy Birthday sweet girl.

I realize that a few of my blog friends may not know of my youngest granddaughter Elisabeth and how special she is. If you want to meet this precious child then go here to my lovely daughter-in-law's blog. You won't be disappointed.

A good bathroom

I was in the bathroom at my local Burger King today.

The one by the Kennewick Walmart. It's convenient since it's more or less up the street for me.

Anyway, back to the bathroom.

While I certainly wouldn't call it the finest of public restrooms, I did notice a few things that I highly prize in that sort of public facility.

A. The purse hook .
The purse hook was down fairly low.
I know that may seem a small thing, and it is, but I like it nice and low.
The fact that a,"How to avoid being a victim while traveling" show,
pointed out that a thief could always reach in and grab your purse from the hook just under the top of the door, has made me even more cautious than usual.

Granted, even I have to admit that the logistics of such a theft seem pretty unlikely.
But, better safe than sorry I always say.

Back to my pleasant restroom experience:

B. The sink.
The sink was another high point.
It was a nice, normal, easy to reach the faucet, pedestal sink.
It seems that these days a lot of public sinks are made for looks more than proper functioning. One of the new designs is to have one long and very deep sink, with several water spouts and soap dispensers included in it's one piece design.

Attractive; Yes.

Functionally Appropriate; No.

The problem with those streamlined sinks is that the water faucets are set too far back into the sink itself.
You have to lean across the stupid thing to use it.
And just try to find a child who can navigate the silly thing without leaving a huge puddle of water right in front of it.

I am SICK of getting my clothing wet because of all the water you can't avoid. I guess for those lucky few who are more than six feet tall it probably isn't a problem. But,for we, the shorter majority, well you just better plan on using plenty of paper towels.
Of course the paper towels provided do little when it comes to soaking up the small lake in front of the sink.

I know.

I've tried.

Side note: It has been my experience that Hotel sinks are the same way. There's no way to avoid getting toothpaste globs everywhere because the faucet (the source of the water you know) is so FAR away!

Now while I'm on the subject of paper towels, I do need to include my general approval of them.

C. Paper towels.

Yes they are worthless for sopping up all of the excess water.
But brother, if I have a choice between a pitifully weak hand blower and a handful of paper towels, you better believe that I'll take those towels every time.

I have found ONE exception to the typical,wimpy, lethargic, hand blower.

Target,
the new one in Richland, not the old Kennewick one, for those of you who are local.
Their bathroom employs the use of a hand blower that is so strong I bet it could power an Airplane.

I LOVE that thing.

You get to watch as the skin on your hands, tries it's hardest to jump ship. I never realized just how loose the skin on my hands was until I used that thing.
How they fit a category 3 hurricane into that innocent looking, little silver hand blowing machine on the wall, is a mystery to me.
But damn, I love it!

Well that is pretty much it as far as Burger King's bathroom is concerned.
It was clean.
It had a decent sink.
Plenty of paper towels.
And a nice low, theft preventative purse hook.

By no means a grand bathroom.
No automatic anything.
No decor to speak of, not even any noticeable color.

But as far as public Restrooms go, I have to give it a Big Thumbs Up!

Ten BIG points for you, 27th Ave, Kennewick, Burger King!

An Eye Opening Experience. . . . Literally

I had an appointment with my optometrist today.

I have developed a spot in my left eye.
I first saw him (The optometrist, not the spot) about two weeks ago about it. He couldn't really find much but he was interested enough to have me come back in two weeks later to re-check it.

Today was re-check day.

His assistant did the preliminary stuff as usual, and during the process she asked me if I was having any other problems with my eyes.
I still don't know what made me bring it up because I didn't think it was important enough to mention.

I guess I was just in a rather "talky" mood.

I told her that quite often it felt like there was something in my eye, but I could never find anything.
I didn't realize that I had, without meaning to, described an actual symptom of an actual problem.

Dr Hill (my Optometrist) was quite concerned and the bulk of my appointment was spent on further testing.

Who knew?

I will keep it really simple here. (mostly because I can't remember all of the technical jargon.)

I am the proud owner of . . . . . .

Dry Eyes!

Yes, you got that right, dry eyes.
There is one really fascinating thing I learned today.

It is possible when sleeping to have your eyes partly open.

I kinda knew that already because quite often Don has his eyes open just a little bit while sleeping.

I've always felt kinda smug about that.

I get a little jealous of him when it comes to sleeping because he can sleep any time, in any position, in even the most noisy or chaotic of circumstances.
A bad night for him is if he wakes up. He always goes immediately back to sleep. But to him that is a bad night.

Poor guy.

I, on the other hand, have a hard time,
getting to sleep,
staying asleep,
and just generally trying to be comfortable enough to not wake up 7 or 8 times a night.
Not to mention that every single time I wake up I seem to think it calls for a bathroom break.
I scold my mind all the time about that, but does it listen?
Not even once.

So the fact that Don sleeps with his eyes open just a tad, has always secretly pleased me.

You know?
Sure, he may sleep and sleep well, but at least I sleep with my eyes closed.

Well, I have nothing left to be smug about. It turns out that I, apparently, sleep with my eyes open a bit myself.
Do you know what happens to eyes that don't close all the way when sleeping?

They dry out.

Yes. That little slit that for whatever reason stays open, drys out while sleeping.
Eyes do not like dry conditions.
In fact eyes will even go as far as to protest such treatment by drying that little strip of exposed eye out.

Then, because they are dried out, the lids decide that they don't want to be left out and they also become dry.

Dry eyes? Dry lids? Outcome?

They get a bit sticky. And because of that stickiness, they stick.

To each other.

So what I am left with, are eyes that are constantly irritated from all of that stickiness.
They become tacky.
Eyes don't do well with tacky.

And I'm not talking about bright purple eye-shadow with florescent green eye-liner and gold dust mascara.

I mean tacky as in sticky.
Hmm, have I made that clear enough?

The moral of this story,
is that I am left with sore eyes that constantly have little scratches on the cornea and therefore always feel like they have something in them.

I am told I need eye-drops.

I went to Walmart and got a bottle of GOOD moisturizing eye-drops.

Now I have only one problem that I need to find a solution for. . . . . .

How to hide them from Shawn, so that he doesn't sneak into them and use them all up in less than a week.

Oh well, it's always something.