Message Board

I just realized that I need a post to put my notes; to organize lists, projects and life in general. If you’d like to leave a question or comment on any post,  you will need to click the top “Post Header” of the blog article you would like to comment on and it will take you to that screen.

If you want to ask me a quick genealogy question here is the post to do that!

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“Whether you believe you can or whether you believe you can’t, you’re right.”
-Henry Ford

~~~~ s M j ~~~~

 

Too many books

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an ‘x’ after those you have read.
2) Add a ‘+’ to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) Tally your total at the bottom.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen x
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien x
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte x
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling x
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee x
6 The Bible x+
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte x
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens x+
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott x
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare x
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier *
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien x
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger x
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot *
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell x +
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald x
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens * (parts)
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy x
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams x
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh x
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky x
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck x
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll x+
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame x
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy x
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens x
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis x
34 Emma – Jane Austen *
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis x+
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres (parts)
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden x
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne x+
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell x
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown x
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez x
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving *
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery x++++
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding x
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan *
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen x
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens x
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley x
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck x
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov x
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt *
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas x
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac *
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding *
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville x
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens x
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker x
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett x
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce x
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath *
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray x
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens x+++
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker x
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert x
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White x+
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Alborn ?
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle x+++
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery x
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks ?
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole *
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas x
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare x
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl x++
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo x++++++++

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52 books and counting…

 

A Pet’s Plea

If it should be that I grow frail and weak
And pain should keep me from my sleep
Then you must do what must be done
For this, the last battle, can’t be won.

You will be sad – I understand
Don’t let your grief then stay your hand
For this day, more than all the rest
Your love and friendship stand the test.

We’ve had so many happy years
What is to come can hold no fears
You’d not want me to suffer, so
When the time comes, please let me go.

I know in time you too will see
It is a kindness you do to me
Although my tail, it’s last has waved
From pain and suffering I’ve been saved.

Don’t grieve that it should be you
Who has decided this thing to do
We’ve been so close, we two these years
Don’t let your heart hold any tears.
~Author Unknown

As we prepare for the loss of little Doc Holiday Dawson, we all share in his life and love for his family. It is important to realize that when the humans (adults and children) are upset, the pet is, too. While difficult, it is important that the family try to lend support and comfort to their animal friend in this last time of need. Seeing their humans upset may upset the pet, too.

Our pets are as much a part of our daily lives as our family and friends, we need to show them, all the love and compassion they have afforded us.

Doc Holiday, go in peace.

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God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. You must take it. The only question is how. ~ HENRY WARD BEECHER

 

Count your blessings…

For today and its blessings, I owe the world an attitude of gratitude. ~ CLARENCE E. HODGES

 

POPSICLES

1 pkg Kool Aid
1 (3 oz.) box Jello, same flavor
1 cup sugar 200 g (240 ml)
2 cups boiling water 480 ml
2 cups cold water 480 ml

small 3 oz. (88.72 ml) paper cups, plastic Popsicle molds or an ice cube tray
tooth picks, Popsicle sticks or plastic spoons

1. Place Kool Aid, Jello and sugar in 1 ½ qt. (1.5 l) pitcher.
2. Add boiling water. Stir well.
3. Add cold water. Stir without causing foam.
4. Pour into Popsicle molds. Ice cube trays may be used by placing cling wrap over tray and inserting tooth picks in each cup or by placing a stick into each cube or cup.
5. Freeze.

Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale. ~ Someone with a soul

 

A visit from Bea Pearson (Delbert)

Yesterday, as I sat doing nothing in our garage, Anthony’s aunt Bea from Oklahoma and her daughter Kathy from Anderson , Indiana just drove up our driveway. What a nice surprise?   I could not have been more thrilled. I’ve talked to Kathy Kircher, a Realtor from IN a few times over the phone, but this was the first time, I’ve got to meet her in person.

I was saddened to hear she lost her brother and then her nephew. Her nephew, only 19 years old was killed last month in Afghanistan. We sometimes forget they are still over there fighting but this really brings it home.

They only stayed about an hour and a half and swapped old stories of living in Apache Junction when they were young; about 34 years ago. And, how everyone was doing now. Chris was here and he could remember being 4 years old and falling into a cactus patch and them striping him down on a table and all the kids plucking him. LOL Anthony remembered the chicken fights and other old stories. A nice time was had by all.

I do hope they come again soon.

Best Wishes,
Sheila Jean Adkins Metcalf

 

Don’t overlook life’s small joys…

while searching for the big ones.

Savor life’s tiny delights – a crackling fire, a glorious sunset, a hug from a child, a walk with a loved ove, a kiss behind the ear. ~ JOHN ANTHONY