Christmas 1957

Every year my family sent out lots of cards at Christmas time and received many in return. In the photo above, there are over 90 cards on our living room wall. Mama always like to display them festively, doing something different with them annually.

Candles and bells were my parents’ favorite illustrations on Christmas cards. Those seemed to have been among the most popular depictions in the 1940s and 1950s.

I associate them with my parents and because of the fond memories of happy and simpler times, candles and bells are some of my favorites symbols of Christmas, too.

The fondness for this tradition is evident is this passage from Chapter 3 of Miss Read’s cozy tale, A Christmas Mouse:

“Mary sat down thankfully and drew the packet of tags towards her. The presents were destined for neighbours, and the tags seemed remarkably juvenile for the elderly couples who were going to receive the baskets. Father Christmas waved from a chimney pot, a golliwog danced a jig, two pixies bore a Christmas tree, and a cat carried a Christmas pudding. Only two tags measured up to Mary’s requirements, a row of bells on one and a red candle on the other. Ah well, she told herself, someone must make do with the pixies or the cat, and when you came to think of it the tags would be on the back of the fire this time tomorrow, so why worry? She wrote diligently.”

This post is linked to Vintage Christmas Monday ~5 at Anything Goes Here.

Shirley Booth and Don DeFore

From Good Housekeeping, December 1964:

“Shirley Booth, like the generous person she is, gives Sally Edwards credit for these tarts.

CHESS TARTS

l package piecrust mix or favorite pastry for 2 crust pie
2 eggs
1/4 c. butter or margarine
dash salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup seedless raisins
1/2 cup snipped, pitted dates
1/2 cup chopped California walnuts
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup heavy or whipping cream
candied cherries
slivers of preserved orange peel
slivers of preserved citron
green seedless grapes

Make day before serving as follows:
1. Make up piecrust; then, on lightly floured board, roll it out 1/8-inch thick. For each petal tart shell, cut out 5) 2 1/4-inch fluted pastry rounds. Place 1 round in bottom of each of 6) 2 3/4′inch muffin-pan cups. Wet edges of rest of rounds, then press 4 of them to sides and to round in bottom of each cup, overlapping edges slightly.

2. Prick well with 4-tined fork. Refrigerate 30 minutes; bake at 450 degrees F. 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Cool; lift each carefully from cup; store at room temperature.

3. In saucepan beat eggs well; then add butter or margarine, salt sugar, raisins, dates. Cook, stirring constantly, until thick. Refrigerate this filling, covered with waxed paper.

~About an hour before serving:

1. Stir walnuts and vanilla into filling; then pile some filling in each tart shell. Whip cream; use to top tarts. In center of each mound of cream place a cherry; surround with orange peel and citron. Refrigerate.

2. Arrange tarts on pretty serving plate; pass, with tiny bunches of grapes. Makes 6.”

Jim Manago has written a book “Love Is The Reason For It All – The Shirley Booth Story”. You can read about it here. His site is very impressive with lots of photos of Shirley Booth as well as stories behind the scenes of “Hazel” and other celebrities like Whitney Blake, Karen Carpenter, and Joyce van Patten.

Don DeFore was one of my favorite actors and it was fun to read the interview with his son. It makes me like him even more to know that he was an active conservative.

For those interested in purchasing the book, Jim recommends that you go to bookfinder.com.

These photographs were taken in peacetime:

U.S.S. Arizona

U.S.S. Arizona, Pearl Harbor

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h97000/h97398.jpg

Naval History and Heritage Command is an excellent source for historical information about the attack on Pearl Harbor and all of the above photographs come from their site.

National Archives page with radiogram and original documents.

U.S.S. West Virginia, Pearl Harbor

The United States and Japan were not at war with each other when Japan attacked our military installations on Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941. Our country had failed to understand the evil and underestimated the threat.

May we learn from our mistakes.

Pllymouth Rock www.plymouthrock.tv/rock/facts.html

Three years ago, I accompanied Joe on a business trip to Massachusetts and was so excited to finally get to visit the place I had read about 40 years ago. And although I had plenty of time to explore the Plymouth area, unfortunately many of the sites are closed in December, but I visited what I could. One of my first stops was Pilgrim Hall, the museum established and built in 1824.

Pilgrim Hall - I call it the Politcally Correct Palace

It was politically correct to the Nth, nauseating degree. I couldn’t believe it. They kept emphasizing that all those stories we read before were false; of course that was before the enlightened ones starting writing the history books.

(A few years before that we’d been to the Smithsonian and I was absolutely shocked at how PC it was. The exhibit on World War II was overwhelmingly focused on the Japanese internment. What little space that was devoted to the American GI was negative. It described that everywhere our soldiers went, there was rape, venereal disease and unwanted, half-American children.)

(I had better cover myself here because I don’t have a lawyer on retainer – the following is my opinion. Liberals tend to be sensitive and lawsuit happy.)A rhetorical question:are the same jaded, hair-shirt-wearing, self-flagellating, over-educated nincompoops in charge of all the museums dedicated to the American experience?

Please, say it isn’t so.

View of the bay, Plymouth, Massachusetts

Even the unofficial town website doesn’t have any history, but they do have another one of those little boxes. They aren’t warning us about hate. It tells us about International Day of Climate Action! (exclamation mark theirs).

But there is hope! (exclamation mine) The following quotes are from an article from the Plymouth Guide titled Putting the Thanks back in Thanksgiving – New book embraces treasured Pilgrim saga.

Hooray for the Plymouth Guide.

A big double hooray for Jeremy Bangs.

“Strangers and Pilgrims, the 928-page history of the Pilgrims by Jeremy Bangs, explores the religious and political foundations of the Pilgrims in England and Holland and finds historical basis for much of the treasured Pilgrim tradition.”

“Bangs, for instance, points to the false notion that the Pilgrims never referred to themselves as Pilgrims. While some have suggested the name was invented in the 19th century, Bangs said the title of his book, Strangers and Pilgrims, comes from a quotation published by Robert Cushman in 1622.”

“Bangs said he has no stake in how the story plays out, but admits he is amused to see so many of the original notions about the Pilgrims have proven to be more or less accurate.”

If I had it to do all over again, I’d still go through the exhibit, because it does contain the actual belongings of the Pilgrims which is incredible to me, but I’d ignore their little plaques signs and explanations.

Doll from Mayflower passage, 1620

I wonder who made it. Mary? Her mother? In England or Holland? Maybe on the Mayflower itself.

As a lover of textiles, I consider it a real American treasure.

First Congregation Church - Middleboro, Massachusetts

organized in 1694 by the children of the Mayflower Pilgrims.

Ceiling of First Congregation Church

Auditorium - First Congregational Church

Across the road is an old cemetery. Some thoughtful person had placed flags on the graves of U.S. military veterans.

This headstone marks the grave of a Revolutionary War soldier.

Cranberry bog - near Middlleboro Massachusetts,

And incidentally, if it’s a can of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce that you open on Thanksgiving, you might be interested to know that O.S. is not a corporation – it’s an agricultural cooperative of the growers. If you ever find yourself in Middleboro or Lakeview, Massachusetts, give yourself a treat and go see the Ocean Spray headquarters. A winding drive, the little bridge over the stream with swans swimming on it and the white colonial style building, it is the nicest business office I’ve ever seen.

Here in our region we have Big Lot stores, and they’re pretty good, but I’ve never seen anything like Ocean State Job Lots. I could spend hours in that store. Just take an extra suitcase and a little extra cash is all I have to say. I bought everything from poppy seeds to gourmet snack items to dishes to stamp pads to tools and blenders in there – all at very good prices.

Going into Benny’s in Raynham, Massachusetts was like time travel for me. In 1950’s and 1960’s Tulsa, we had OTASCO stores (Oklahoma Tire and Suppy Company). Benny’s is so like them I could’ve believed I was a kid again. From the traditional looking shopping center and sign out front to the smell when I walked in the door, I felt like I was in a time warp and I enjoyed every minute of it. I actually did a lot of Christmas shopping there, too. If I lived in that area, Benny’s would be one of my regular stops.

Coming back around to the history of the region, the people of New England are so blessed to be surrounded by history everywhere;this region is absolutely rich with roots in our country’s founding and early days. I wish New Englanders viewed that as something to be treasured rather than something to be embarrassed about.

http://www.knox.edu/Academics/Distinctive-Programs/Lincoln-Studies-Center/Burlingame-Abraham-Lincoln-A-Life.html

KU subscribes to BrainPOP! Take advantage of this cool resource to find animated content to use with your teaching. You can even post lessons, activities, etc. of your own! (Think of how cool that will look on your resume.)

http://www.brainpop.com/

About BrainPOP.com:

image courtesy of BrainPOP.com

Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, BrainPOP creates animated, curriculum-based content that supports educators and engages students. Our award-winning online educational resources include BrainPOP Jr. (K-3), BrainPOP, BrainPOP Español, and the newly launched BrainPOP ESL. All are supported by BrainPOP Educators, which features free lesson plans, video tutorials, professional development tools, graphic organizers, and best practices for our teacher community.

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Let me confess a prejudice: often I jump to conclusions about someone because of their appearance. Probably not in the way that would first come to mind about prejudice; not racially, but affluently. If a person looks … I’m not even sure how to say it … if they look wealthy or glamorous or very professional, I assume they’re unapproachable.

I Samuel 16:7 tells us that “man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.”

The Lord taught me the first of 2 gentle lessons about this on the weekend.  Last Friday I had another really wonderful day with friends. It involved my favorite place in the Fort Worth/Dallas Metroplex – Lone Star Antique Mall – here and here. Map here . My friend, her daughter and I went for lunch at SimpliciTeas. The tea room was full; as we sat on the old church pew waiting for a table, we saw a really beautiful purse hanging from the back of a customer’s chair. All brocade and lace and lovely fabric. My friend’s daughter wanted to ask the lady if she could take a photo of the purse. I recognized the style as a really expensive handmade kind ($400-1200) and told her that people who buy purses like that usually don’t want someone copying it. What I was actually afraid of, was that the girl would be rebuffed by an encounter and get her feelings hurt. The girl was behaving better than me because she wanted to ask for permission; I simply snapped the photo without asking.

After we were seated, I could see the lady clearly. She was beautiful. Model beautiful. Really thin, long blond hair with highlights, a lace blouse, cream colored wool skirt, a knee length crocheted jacket, white boots and lovely jewelry. I’m a fairly friendly person, but I would never approach someone like that. Been burned too many times in the past. A few minutes later, she was passing our table and my friend’s daughter spoke to her. After the initial look of surprise, she was so gracious and friendly and we chatted for a couple of minutes. She mentioned that she was going to Branson, Missouri and I asked her if she read blogs (she does); I asked if she had ever read Warm Pie, Happy Home which is now Sugar Pie Farmhouse because that blogger lives in Branson. She said no, but that one of her favorites is Cherry Hill Cottage.

Now that’s ironic for 2 reasons. First: on Thursday one of my favorite blogs, Sweet Cottage Dreams, featured Cherry Hill Cottage as it’s most recent post. Second, when I went to Cherry Hill Cottage, I saw that she listed Sugar Pie Farmhouse in it’s list of favorites.

Second Lesson:  Friday night and Saturday morning was the annual District Singing convention in Decatur.  I look forward to this all year.  (I plan to post more about it later this week.)  One of the songwriters who attends is another beautiful woman who wears lovely clothes.  Now here’s another ugly thing about my prejudice.  I thought her husband looked like a humorless, cold person.  Now I realize that I based my judgment solely on how serious he looks when he’s singing in the quartet.  This was crazy and wrong on my part!  On Saturday, they sat down next to us at the lunch table and were both very friendly.  He said that they had never even seen those songs before they sang them that day.  No wonder he looked serious – he was concentrating.

How gracious the Lord is to me in the way he showed me this sin. Not with harshness and embarassment, but lovingly, in a beautiful place and eating wonderful Orange Cream Cake. He showed me that it isn’t enough that I don’t condemn a person because they look disheveled or odd. Years ago I learned that lesson from our sons’ friends. Our older son had punk friends. Red mohawks, piercings, awful clothes but they were never rude or disrespectful to me.

How thankful I am that God’s ways are not my ways.  Oh, to be like Jesus!

Here are a few photos from the booths at Lone Star Antique Mall. (I asked for permission.) I hope to take a few more next time I go.

The Time Machine – Short interactive video story about some blokes and an unusual time machine. Web User Magazine Feb 2009.

Lucky Escape – Short story. Web User Magazine Feb 2009.

The Formorian – Short story. Web User Magazine Feb 2009.

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(Information is from Science Matters -from NSTA – another great link to bookmark!)

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(Info was taken from the site itself.)

Our first television, me and my sister, about 1959

It’s been a whole year now. Last October I was so fed up with the extremely biased election coverage that I decided to end it. ‘It’ was a lifetime love affair/obsession with TV.

My parents bought their first one shortly before I was born in 1954, so I was the first in my family to watch television my whole life.  I’m not sure exactly how to compare current prices to those in 1952, because everything has not gone up at the same rate. Milk was .96 per gallon, but the price range for a new Ford was only $1,526 – $2,384 and gas was only .20 per gallon, and postage stamps were 3 cents. So let’s say that generally things now are about 9 times higher. The average income was $3,515, now it’s $31,410. That would make that 1952 Sears model, $2,659.77 which is a lot more than I would pay now. I digress.

Carla Edens April 1967, first color set

Up until I was a teenager, I was a walking TV Guide. I could tell you what was on any channel at any time. Of course, we only had 3 channels then (the local PBS station didn’t count; they were on the air only part time and besides, NO ONE that I knew watched it.)

The really old cartoons (from the 1930s and 40s) before school. The 3 Stooges after school. Play outside. My dad came home and watched the news. Eat dinner. Then Ozzie and Harriet or Have Gun Will Travel or Maverick or Wyatt Earp. Gunsmoke was on at 9 o’clock (I think on Saturday night) a family event always accompanied by popcorn and pop. Then my parents watched the news again while we got ready for bed.

Warner Brothers Cowboys

Saturdays and Sundays were a wasteland, except for Bugs Bunny and Jonny Quest. Children played outside a lot then. It may not sound like it, but we did. However, if it was rainy or my friends were all gone to visit their grandmothers or something, and unless I had a new Nancy Drew to read, it was back to TV. Saturday afternoons were movie time; the local stations must not have had much in their budget for daytime movies because they rarely showed anything good. I mean, anything that girls want to watch. Occasionally there would be the beloved Ma & Pa Kettle or Abbott & Costello feature, but mostly it was stuff that boys would like. For instance, Tarzan or I Killed Hitler’s Brain or something like that. Then my dad would come home from fishing or hunting (depending on the season) and he had first choice. For him it was always wrestling followed by Porter Wagoner, etc. Not my cup of tea.

I didn’t watch on Sundays because my mother and I were 3-services-a-week Baptists and there just wasn’t time. Even though my mother taught Sunday School and had plenty to do (in my early years we didn’t have a dryer; everything had to be ironed and of course, no dishwasher), she got dinner in the oven before we left for church. Afterward, she just had to heat the vegetables, then dinner was ready and we all sat down together and ate as a family.

On Sunday afternoons we went visiting. My dad was the youngest of 7 children, so it was off to one of my aunts & uncles house, or a cousin’s or occasionally to family friends. Back home and get ready for evening services. I think What’s My Line and Candid Camera were on when we returned.

I loved it. When I was about 10 or 11, Mama and I would watch Saturday Night at the Movies on NBC. The lead-in had this great shot of a movie theater with hundreds of lights glowing. We’d have popcorn and watch The Man Who Knew Too Much or Rebecca or even Hamlet.

When we married, Joe didn’t want to have a television but I insisted. I couldn’t imagine life without it. We just had rabbit ears to get reception and when we lived very far from Tulsa, the picture could be really bad. Then, in the late 1970s, for a short time we lived in an apartment that provided basic cable at no extra charge (or we wouldn’t have had it.) We only used it for Star Trek and westerns reruns.

The Big Valley

Our older son pleaded with us to get cable in the mid-80’s and we tried it. For one month. And in 2004, that son and his family were living with us and he couldn’t stand it. So we had satellite installed and had it for about a year. My husband agreed to it only if we edited out problem channels and I was the only one that had the access code. When our son was posted to Ft. Drum and they moved to NY, we sent the equipment with them.

We were watching less and less, but I still wasn’t ready to give it up completely. How could I live without I Love Lucy, Perry Mason, Andy Griffith and especially Leave It To Beaver? One of the local stations had already abandoned classic westerns (Rawhide, the Rifleman, etc.) for Spanish programming. For for years we had watched very little in prime time. Mystery on PBS, Antiques Road Show, Foyle’s War and a few others. But then I had to put up with their incredibly PC ads, and that became worse and worse.

So it took the absolutely outrageous campaigning of the American media during the 2008 election for me to quit cold turkey.   Actually, the turkey had been cooling for a long time, but that was it. I couldn’t get away from the news coverage because of station break news, etc.  It was always there in my face.  I realized that for my own peace of mind I had to stop.  So that day was the last.  We didn’t even unhook the antenna.  We just quit watching. When the signal changed it finalized the decision.   Our set is not new and therefore  isn’t compatible with the new broadcasting signals; we didn’t get the conversion box.

Television demands attention. Try being in a room with a program running, one that you dislike and you have no power to change it or turn it off (like at a friend’s or a waiting room). It takes sheer force of will to not watch it – even when you don’t want to watch!

It’s been quieter around here and that’s a good thing. I listen to music a lot more. Finetune and Playlist have great selections and I have music folders to fit almost any mood, if that’s what I want to do. For news I listen to the radio or read it online. I prefer reading news on the internet rather  viewing it on television, anyway. It enables me to get more depth on stories that I’m interested in . The scope is much broader – Drudge Report gives a huge list of top stories every day.

We use the television set for watching DVDs and our old VHS tapes. I read a lot and when we go to the library for books every week, we often check out movies or old television programs to watch. They have a very good selection. There are a few programs that we don’t have or can’t check out, and most of them are online at hulu. Youtube is a great source. My favorite movies are the classics and so many of them are there. Also, I’ve subscribed to several sites that post Fox News excerpts (and here). I don’t feel deprived at all. Its’ true that when we stay at hotels, we usually watch HGTV, Nick at

Nite or Fox News. But not always. Sometimes we don’t even turn it on.

Piano Man and Piano Grandson

So, this year has been The Year of Living Peacefully. Not merely quieter; we live out in the country, and it’s very quiet anyway. Our lives are more peaceful. We aren’t worried about filthy commercials in front of our grandchildren. It’s embarrassing that it didn’t occur to me before, but my husband must have felt that I didn’t want him to be playing the piano, because the TV was on so often when he came home from work. Now he plays daily, I read a lot, we play board games, dominoes, cards and Scrabble. We have more time to do what we want, what’s important to us. And thank the Lord, television is no longer very important to me.

This post is linked to Frugal Friday @ Life as Mom.

http://kids.mysterynet.com/  solve the mystery

http://www.kideoplayer.com/ family safe youtube

http://video.kidzui.com/ largest video collection for kids

http://www.crayola.com/coloring_application/ colour galore

http://www.storylineonline.net/ stories to be red toyour kids

http://www.noggin.com/ preeschool at home

http://kids.mysterynet.com/  solve the mystery

http://www.kideoplayer.com/ family safe youtube

http://video.kidzui.com/ largest video collection for kids

http://www.crayola.com/coloring_application/ colour galore

http://www.storylineonline.net/ stories to be red toyour kids

http://www.noggin.com/ preeschool at home

Scholieren en jongeren komen er maar bekaaid vanaf wat liefde en seks betreft. Het is allemaal gericht op ouderen, vooral op de oudere man, die zich -lijkt het wel- heel Internet heeft toegeeigend ….

En overal worden jongeren met een kluitje in het riet gestuurd omdat ze zgn. te jong zijn of er nog geen weet van hebben…. Men is misschien wel erg snel bang voor misbruik.

Subtiele discriminatie?? Je moet de jongeren er zelf maar eens over horen….

http://www.scholierenliefde.nl

My newest Screen Junkies is article is up, just in time for the new Harry Potter coming out this Wednesday. A tribute to famous magical cinematic and televised babes from years past all the way up through to Hermione. Enjoy and please digg!

A little belated with this link, but better late than never. From Screen Junkies, my list of 11 Terminally Typecast Actors.

Its been waaaay too long since I last posted here – but for once, I do have a good excuse. For the last 4 – 5 weeks (though it seems much longer) I’ve been without my PC. I’d known deep down for a while that my power pack needed replacing, but kept putting it off and putting it off, till it finally gave up the ghost and fried my entire system. Joy.

Both Jeff and I knew it was going to be a while before I could replace the system, even second hand, these things aren’t cheap. In the meantime, Jeff said I’d just have to use his Mac. Double joy.

I never realized before exactly how much of my time, and what my PC means to me. I chat on MSN, I spend WAY too many hours on Facebook, I check my email two or three times a day for news updates and emails from my family, I play Sims 2 plus expansion packs religiously (though I’d be much happier if my sim would stop falling for people of her own gender!), and in between all that, I also get paid for posting on forums, and for writing product reviews. Wow, life is never dull eh?

I couldn’t do anything like this while I was stuck using Jeff’s mac, and all of my reviews and everything that I had saved on my old hard drive will now have to wait another couple of weeks to be recovered. I just hope that hasn’t been fried too!

As for my new system, well, it is second hand, but it works. I mentioned to a friend of mine at the bar one night that I was looking for a new PC, and if he happened to know of anyone selling one, to pass my number along to them. As it happened, HE was selling one. He had his son look it over at the weekend, and he got in touch to say that, rather than charge us for it, he would give it to us for nothing, because his son couldn’t get the CD drawer open. He had his doubts that it would work basically. On top of that, he threw in the keyboard, the monitor, AND a Laser printer! All for nothing!

Today, Jeff and I spent an hour at it. We took out the old CD drawer from my pc, and replaced the one that wouldn’t open in my friend’s PC. Then once we managed to get that done, it was time to see if we could get Windows XP installed on it. That all worked out fine, so, once I got my Antivirus back, and Mozilla downloaded, I was ready and raring to go.

Of course, I’ve installed the Sims 2 back on, and it works like a dream. With my old system, the game tended to lag a bit. Not on this system! I’ve just been having a ball. Finally, after waiting for what seemed like forever, I’ve got a new baby to play with and I couldn’t be happier.

However, I’m not hanging around here too long, I’ve got emails to read, and messages to check on Facebook ….

Ciao.

As many of you know, I suffer with a condition known as PTLS.  I still receive comments to a post I did about this condition three years ago, on this same blog.  At last count, the comments were at 184, all but a couple of them were from women saying “Thank you for proving to me that I’m not going mad!“

To that extent, I’m always looking for ways to get the word out about PTLS.  I needed a way that would reach a lot of women without them needing to have a blogger account, or have a MySpace account, but yet find support and information easily accessible.  You’d think on the internet that this would be easy.  For days I’ve pored over the question, willing myself to come up with the answer that seemed to be just at the tip of my tongue.

Last night, at 4am as I lay there with my mind refusing to shut off, I had that “Aha!” moment … you know, where you just feel like a lightbulb went on above your head??  Yeah, one of those moments.  And the answer was so gloriously simple I don’t understand why I hadn’t thought of it before.  Facebook!  I’ve been on Facebook for over a year now (or close to it anywayz) and everyone knows that people start up new groups all the time.  Some of them are good, some are funny, and some are downright pathetic.  The good thing about Facebook groups is that you don’t have to be on anyone’s friends list to join – in fact, you don’t even need to be on facebook unless admin set that as a condition of the group.  The information is there, readily accessible for women to read, and they’re welcome to comment if they so wish.

My group is called Post Tubal Ligation Syndrome Awareness and is designed to be a place where women can get the support they need, and reassurance from other sufferers that this isn’t just “in their heads” like their doctor told them.  It’s a place where they can get the information they need about the condition, and talk to others about what they’re going through.  A place where they will find understanding, because the others that they’re talking to are going through the exact same thing

PTLS doesn’t just affect women, it affects entire families.  Husbands feel helpless when their wife is in so much pain.  They get frustrated when the doctor says they can’t find anything wrong, and then in turn, get angry with their wives because the doctor said there was nothing wrong.  After all, Doctor knows best right?  Wrong!  And in the middle of it all, the children.  The ones who know that mommy is in a lot of pain, and Daddy is angry at mommy because she’s in pain – which to a child, makes no sense whatsoever.

I have had contact with a woman whose husband actually divorced her because he didn’t understand what was going on.  Like many others, her doctor had told her that he couldn’t find anything wrong, and ultimately, her husband thought she was doing it for attention.  Its a sad state of affairs when women find it so hard to get the help and support they need.  Hence my Facebook group.  If you are a sufferer of PTLS, or know anyone who is, I urge you to join, or get the person you know who is suffering to join.  Only when we all band together can we make our voices heard.

Ciao.

I’ve been reading a lot of tumblelogs the past week. I first saw KD’s sfe.tumblr.com and was curious about the site. I like the simplicity and themes of the blogs so I started my own at trav15.tumblr.com, and yawningiscontagious.tumblr.com. The trav15.tumblr won’t be updated, but the YawningIsContagious.tumblr will hopefully be a music and picture dump blog that will get weekly, if not daily, love. Now I have yet another thing to keep me on the computer, clicking away, while not really doing anything at all.

The problem with tumblr’s is that because it’s so simple, it’s not easy to integrate several media types, like pictures, audio, and movies in the same post, especially if you like to ramble on like me. But I guess that’s the charm in the tumblelog, the simplicity. They make good photo dump blog’s and here are some of my favorites thus far:

• http://yimmyayo.tumblr.com/
• http://hardgraft.tumblr.com/
• http://unamazing.com/

For the top 50 tumblelogs that will “make your inspiration go nitro!” check out Inspired Magazine. Don’t be surprised if you see the same stuff on different tumblelogs; tumblr has made re-blogging the cool and easy thing to do. If they could only do the same for Re-Percussions…

….has now been dugg over 1,000 times over at Digg.com! Pop open the champagne, we gotta celebrate!

Oh yeah, and just in case you were wondering, here’s the article itself, courtesy of Screen Junkies. Enjoy, dear reader.

A long, sad, hilarious history this little boy has had, and in a tribute to all this deaths and near-deaths, all the “oh my gods” and “you bastards,” I give you my article on Screen Junkies: South Park’s 13 Most Twisted Kenny Deaths. Peace.