You know I cannot have enough bookmarks (yes, because I go on and on about it, haha).
I’m also a fan of Sherlock and Harry Potter and Merlin and … oy!
I want, I want! 
These are bookmarks made by Beth Yates and sold in her Etsy shop, bethydesigns. They are utterly a.d.o.r.a.b.l.e.
Meet John Watson and Sherlock:
Nothing to see here, folks, ’cause I’m busy reading my favorite blogs, so go away, go away. 
Oh wait… HAVE A GREAT YEAR! May you have lots to celebrate and an offline life so rich you must make time to go online and tell us about it.
I’m sorry.
I’m so, sooo sorry.¹
I had three slices.
Yes, three.
Tres.
Trois.
Tita Buds
*****
( ¹No, I’m really not. It was gooood. )
“It is a hard matter, my fellow citizens, to argue with the belly, since it has no ears.”
~ Plutarch ~
Remember the little guessing game we had earlier this week? Today, it’s time for the little reveal. Here’s that picture of the item again:
Were you able to guess what it is? My sisters and brother say they can’t make heads or tails of it and Kid Bro says I should have allowed comments, hehe. For the record, I showed it to them months ago and their reactions were all along the lines of How Silly Can You Get? which makes this Whatsit perfect for this blog.
Ok, here it is from another angle:
See those words? They should now clue you in on the purpose of this little wooden contraption, hehe. So…tadah!
Oh, look!
It’s a ______________.
???
(I’ll tell you on Friday) 
*****
I’m just having a little fun so comments are closed on this one, hehe.
Hi everyone! I decided to write this (temporary) post about the barrage of emails re: comments that I think some of you have been experiencing recently. I was mostly offline these past days so I wasn’t aware of it until someone called my attention to it after she commented on my post today.
WordPress made changes in our comment forms so that the ‘Notify me of follow-up comments via email’ option is now checked by default. If you forget to uncheck it, you receive a lot of emails about subsequent comments on that post. Continue reading
(I’ve been wanting to share this story with you. It’s a bit long but I feel it is worth telling.)
In 2004, my Dad suffered a massive stroke. Thankfully, he survived but it left him with the right side of his body paralyzed, thereby impairing his mobility to a huge extent.
That in itself is difficult enough, but I believe the worst part of it for my Dad was that the stroke also severely constrained his ability to communicate. You see, Dad loved words — he read a lot, wrote essays and articles for local newspapers, and had the easiest time speaking in public (he was a politician and a teacher and had a local radio talk show). He also loved to sing.
The stroke put a stop to all that. While Dad’s brain was unaffected (he can read and can recognize classmates from high school), it had become ‘disconnected’ from his ability to speak. As a result, his vocabulary basically became limited to yes, no, and OK. He often got them mixed up, too and would say ‘no’ when he meant ‘yes’. It caused a lot of confusion on our part and much frustration for Dad. He would yell and curse at us because we could not grasp the message he was trying desperately to get across.
Let me say right off the bat that that is not an accurate illustration of me up there, haha. I haven’t lost that much weight since my last post. The salbabidas still stubbornly cling to my torso, making me a shoo-in for the ‘Before’ in an ad for liposuction.
But that is certainly a good illustration of how I feel, that is, much better and much healthier compared to how I was at the start of the year.
I wake up every morning refreshed instead of cranky. The body aches and pains are almost gone and housework and walking up the stairs no longer leave me breathless. On top of all that, for more than a month now I haven’t had a single bout with hypertension. Yey! This is a huge improvement because until earlier this year, I suffered from high blood pressure once or twice a week.
I took the slow but sure route to this point. During the past weeks, I focused on establishing healthier habits. It’s taken more than a month but so far I’ve made these three small lifestyle changes:
A few weeks ago, I put on a favorite t-shirt, looked at my reflection in the mirror and (because I love me some drama) gasped at what I saw.
I had three tiers of boobs on my torso.
OK, not really. I hadn’t turned into a mammal with 3 pairs of udders. But beneath my actual boobs were two more lumps that made me look like I had a salbabida (lifesaver) around my ribcage and a giant fanny pack under it.
