My Own Thoughts

are expensive compared to here. There is only one house below $160K that is anything like what we have here and in a decent Austin location. I’ve been gone too long. That seems atrocious to me. But we didn’t live in Austin. We lived in Pflugerville and there are still houses in that area available [...]

Last year Evelyn brought a macaroni and cheese casserole to my home when I was ill. My husband loved it. Finally, 13 months later, I have obtained the recipe: 2 c elbow macaroni 12 oz cheddar cheese 8 oz some other kind of cheese 1 stick butter 5 c milk salt and pepper to taste. [...]

Very. Thanks to the rain we’ve had in the month of June, we are very green. Go see the state through satellite pic here.

My keyboard outside needs replacing. They had to order the part. It’s a thirty minute wait. I’m glad I dropped the boys at the bookstore.

I am spending a little over an hour three times this week with ten kids going into fourth grade, helping them to read. We are reading books, talking about them, and then they are reading the book out loud to someone. I have been looking and looking for a book that we can read as [...]

are something like trying to ride a crocodile. You don’t get anywhere and it’s a bit scary. Or maybe like riding a tiger… There was a young lady from Riga, Who smiled as she rode on a tiger They came back from the ride With the lady inside, And a smile on the face of [...]

Half of Americans are in the middle of reading a book. (Oops! I just finished mine. Better start another.) The median number of books read a year is 5. (I probably push that one high, or would if someone would just ask me!) 83% of Americans report having read a book in the last year. [...]

I found all kinds of disturbing reading information. But there’s nothing about reading online. It doesn’t even count. Yet I read 100+ blogs everyday. I think that’s reading. Most of this I found at Para Publishing. One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. 58% of the US [...]

As any long term reader knows, I have written the first of a trilogy in fantasy and am working on the second. I am about half way through the first version of that. I have the outline for the third. So what did I find about people in the US writing a book? 81% of [...]

According to the National Institute for Literacy: According to the 1999 National Household Education Survey, 50% of the population aged 25 and over read a newspaper at least once a week, read one or more magazines regularly, and had read a book in the past 6 months. I don’t meet that. I read a book [...]

I was using Stumble and I found: a hobbit home built as described in the Tolkein books with georgeous architecture and pictures. Stacks of pennies to show how bridges are built. It is the replacement for the domino effect and the card towers as a time waster. But cool looking. The History, Art, and Culture [...]

If you are interested in history, this map of Europe will let you see the changes through the centuries.

This site has a bunch of pieces of Greek pottery with pics of animals and hunting and butchery on them. Food for the folks. There’s a chicken on a stick being roasted over an open fire and marinated with wine. Might be useful for Dielli.

It is George W. Bush’s birthday today. It also would have been Donna and Martha’s birthdays. But they both died this last year. I called their remaining sister, just to say hi. I wonder if I should call Mike. But you don’t want to remind them if they forgot. How likely is that?

men talk as much as women. A study involving 400 university students showed that both sexes average about 16,000 words a day. They did have a high (47,000) and a low (500). Both of those were men. Interesting. I’m fairly sure M is in the high end.

Jaime Martinez is home in the US for his sister’s funeral; she died of cancer. He went to the emergency room two days ago for a pain in his finger. He was treated and released. The infection worsened significantly. He is having surgery. The doctors think they may have to take the hand. One of [...]

an email to my brother: I’m still looking for the original Mexican Steak recipe. But I found this. And I know that there was some orange juice or orange zest in the orig. Also, R made a dish that smells very similar once cooked, but doesn’t taste as sweet. You might want to try it. [...]

I went online yesterday and read a bunch of one line stories. Some of them were boring. Some funny. Two of them were heart sickening. One was I went to a party the day we had an abortion, it made me feel good not having to be a parent. -We, honey, didn’t have an abortion. [...]

This is an interesting array of numbers. On any given Sunday, about 450 people are counted. That means they’re sitting in the auditorium ten or fifteen minutes into the sermon. So I wondered where the folks are coming up with 700. And where we are getting 80-120 youth. So I started counting. I went through [...]

During wartime cities were told to turn down the lights and what does New York do? It sets up the brightest lights in the country, a beacon that could be seen from 20 miles away! It was, at once, a defiant gesture and spiritual recognition of the lives lost. And we will remember. On March [...]