Site's been slow loading for the last few days now. It's those blasted Ticker things. Honestly they were cute when they first started and now it's like hearing the song from the movie Titanic over and over and over and over and OVER again. I've seen people who've had as many as 3 tickers in their signature.... "It's been 3 (THREE) days since I cut my toenails... "Only 16 more days until the end of the year..." "232 more days until my next birthday... blah blah blah. "2 pounds down and 400 to go Can you tell that 1) I don't follow the crowd and 2) I don't think it's too swift when people take up half the page with all sorts of unnecessary stuff like extra large and colored fonts and wild and crazy signatures that are 15 lines long. Ok, ok so instead of calling me Missus Crabby, just chalk it up to my web background of not wasting bandwidth and causing the whole site to slow down and have problems.

The tickers that we have shouldn't cause any lag at all because they are on the same server. The ones from Tickerfactory were causing lags, which is why we hired a programmer to write a version for us. Also, the images that people link to from other sites cause lags, and this includes anything in signatures or photos in posts. We try to keep everything here, so it loads quick.

We might change the rules to ask people not to link to external images, that might help

No WAY could I ever repeat all the comments I made whilst reading since the last time I posted. Note to self: Turn the telepathy ON before reading.

Grandkids were great. The youngest one selected a kid-sized guitar for his birthday present from us and I spent Saturday afternoon being serandaded by a composer. Very relaxing. Very talented (of course). I would have picked something more active - a soccer ball, for example - so I was very surprised. Actually, he wanted the Stink Blaster but his Grandma of No Guts said no.

I FINALLY got all of my Christmas cards out. The International Set will most likely receive theirs by Easter, as promised.

The next 5K is January 15, so I need to keep up the training. If the weather cooperates, dearest Hubster and I will run outside on Christmas Eve for training. He'll run 10K and I'll run 5. I can't run the entire 5K yet. The last race I ran over a mile and then walked and ran the rest. Ran more than walked - I'm working on it! I can run 30 minutes on the treadmill, but outside is different.

One more day of work and then I'm home until Jan 3!

I can't find the elf showing his bum, so I'll just say :merry:


p.s. I tried to find the Three Days Since I Shaved My Legs ticker just for Happy but didn't have any luck. I'll keep trying.

Actually Tig, a ticker of "it's been xxxx number of days since I last shaved my legs would be pretty funny..." I was just trying to say that some people do overkill. What do you expect from someone who's favorite flavor of ice cream is vanilla? Well except at Christmas. I do like a good peppermint once in a while.

I am trying to toss more out in the trash and get things in some semblance of order for packing next week. It does seem like more and more the impossible task.

Teel and Linus - can I listen in on your instructions to one another - I'm more intested in joining in after the wine bottle has reached the half way mark.

Tig good job on the training for the race. How's the weather down by you these days?

Holly, hope your neck feels better. A bit of yoga sounds like exactly what you need right now - a break from the chaos.

Shad enjoy your days off. You're doing great at the gym, will you be renewing your membership - can't remember I thought that was a pressie from the DS last year or am I confusing it with the spoiler for your car?

Shaker, congrats on the promotion. I know what you mean, sometimes you wonder if it's worth all the extra work and stress. We have I think 3 different kinds of real Christmas trees here - firs, pines and spruce trees. Some are heartier than others, some have a better scent. I like the scrawny ones that smell pretty. I have a huge 30 foot pine tree outside my bedroom that I got for Earth Day back in 1990. It's my baby that I've lovingly cared for since it was a 2 foot seedling. We used to decorate it for Christmas until it got too big. Now I step under the bottom branches, admire the birds who perch there and get a whiff of that lovely pine smell. I do hope the new owners take care of it - it needs a spraying in the spring so the red saw fly larvae don't destroy all the new needle growth. I would be so sad if we came back later next year and it was gone. Anyway we have a very pretty artificial tree but some years I just want a real one so I go make DH get me one. They can range from $30 to $60 for a 6 foot tree.

Candlelady I hear you on the dentist. I was telling my sister tonight that I am starting to regret my lost youth. When things on the old body "break or break down" recently it sure is getting might expensive to fix.

Hugs and kisses to Mel - rest easy girlfriend.

Linus and Teel, do not adjust or try to adjust your page. The reason the page is so big or at least was so big on the last page was the big wallpaper size piccy that Meadow put there. It pushed the boundaries so to speak. But we are back to normal now. We forgive Meadow because she is so fond of her AB but maybe she might make them a little smaller (bigger but fewer pics of the bloke maybe) Anyway not to worry. I had some problems a few weeks back and Suzanne said it was because I was trying to post when the backup was going on. Apparently the time I was trying to post and comment was after midnight the day before - if you know what I mean and she talked about when the backups were, which made me reach for the world clock again to find out when not to try to get on the site. If you want the days and times go have a gander at the Journal FAQ forum. Look for the famous photo!!!!

Happy I have now taken down my tickers for the hours till the next shower and the time to kill until I have to drive back to the gym again and the one which took a bet on whether HM Sunday the Cat will eat all her tea tonight. Can I come back to play???? Actually though I have to agree with you in a lot of respects. Some of the tickers were very elaborate and the new ones are just fine.
Mel tells me she hopes to be back tomorrow sometime. She's still feeling a bit weak and washed out but is better than she was. The bare assed elf we are all talking about features below Tig. No maybe not. It won't upload. If you want I will put it in an e-mail for you. Speaking of Mel reminded me of the elf as she sent it to me. Umm do I have your e-mail addy??? It must be here somewhere.

Well the brother has been and gone. Come round with the latest hard luck story. Mind you, it appears that his pay has not yet gone into the bank, so I have given him some food so that he can pay the rent with what money he has left. Okay, enough of that.

Time to go get on with planning Saturdays menu so I don't forget what I am doing or having or being or whatever. See you tomorrow.

Just peeked in this morning to see what everybody was up to. There is not much to report from Texas except we got a 2 inch snowfall yesterday. It was so beautiful, they are very few and far between in Texas that we get really excited.

I am not sure but the problem with the forum could have been that worm that infected several message boards. It completely wiped out another one that I visit but they got it back up yesterday late.

Just want to say hello to everybody and hope you have a wonderful day. I have tons of stuff to get done and am feeling pretty poorly the last few days, just call me the Christmas scrooge.

Good afternoon to all from a beautiful sunny blue sky day here in England. Sorry for lack of smilies as the link still isn't playing the game today.
You are right, Shad, the page is correct again on this page. Thank goodness for that although I still cannot access the ticker page properly. Please, please Meadow , can you downsize AB in future pictures as it is causing tremendous problems for me at least! Sorry to be a kill-joy.
CANDLE I hope you are feeling better now. You are not allowed to be ill over Christmastide...
HAPPY my good friend how are you? Frazzled I expect with the house move and starting a new job and trying to keep body and soul in one piece. Take it easy. Love and best wishes to you esoecally during this difficult time.
SHAD I hope you have a good time over the next few days. I bet Sunday is pleased to have you home where you belong and not camping out on ds's knee.
MEL the same for you. I hope your eyes are sorting themselves out and you are fit and ready to go over the Christmas season.
SHAKER good wishes to you and a big welcome home to the site! Well done on the job promotion.
LINUS I hope all is well up in Scotland for you and DH and C and C.Hope your back is feeling a lot easier today. NO MORE crawling around on the floor!!!

I see our esteemed leader Suzanne has been on our thread...I hope she left with a good impression of us all...she must think we are all mad! She came up with a good thought though about not letting people use external links as they slow down the site quite considerably. Suzanne, if you pop back in, HAPPY CHRISTMAS to you and all the family! And thank you for all your hard work on the site!

Ok that's all from me. I have now noticed that the blue sky has gone completely and it is all grey out there. Ho hum.Still quite mild though.
Love to you all. Bye for now.
Teel xxx

Our sky is a blur of white.Blizzard here. Only -4 C though. My kids were out before 8am running through snow drifts up to their arm pits. It looks like fun.
Every one is healthy here today.Hope it stays that way!!! I still have atense neck. More yoga. I doubt I will have extra kids today. They will be snowed in.
I delivered all my baking yesterday. It was fun to play Santa.

Tig~I guess there is no snow in Fla! You are dedicated to run Christmas eve.
Candlelady~are you out making snowmen??
Shad~sorry about the Bro.One step forward 2 back....Hopefully he will keep going forward.
Happy~purging the house is good therapy,LOL. I went a little bonkers here in the fall.DH and DS were rumaging through bags looking for "good stuff".DH has a 1500 sq ft shed FULL of important bits of things.
SHaker~ Hi, nice to meet you.

Kids are back in and staving must go feed them.

Shad, I know you are a bit aways from Tasmania but did you or Shaker feel the quake?

Holly - don't get lost in the blizzard. Can't say I'd love to switch places with you. Perhaps you can build a snowman like DH and I did last month.

Teel, glad you figured out your problem accessing the site. Are you going to lead us in song?

It is interesting to note that Happy gets the Tassie news before me. I know nothing about an earthquake down there, but will be watching the news with interest tonight. Places here are not built to withstand earthquakes.
Didn't feel a thing.

Here's the news story from Yahoo. 8.1 is nothing to sneeze at...

World's Biggest Earthquake in 4 years registered off coast of Australia

Perhaps my map was rather small but DH said something about Canberra and it didn't look like Brissy was all that far from Canberra - about the difference between Memphis and Chicago. Of course we would not feel one in Memphis if we were here. And oh, found out that Memphis lies on a MAJOR fault line so we will be having to get earthquake insurance when we move...

Hum, geography lesson coming up. I went to the nzoom.co.nz site to see what was going on as my friend in Az thought it was in the South Island of NZ.

Appears the earthquake was some 1500km southeast of Tasmania and south of NZ's South Island by about the same amount. It hit McQuarie Island archipelago which is Australian governed territory. About the only things that live on McQuarie are the seabirds (they would just pick up their nests and go elsewhere) seals, (don't feel that much under the water - oooooh that was a big wave dear!!!!) and a few mad scientists who went mad because they live there. The quake was 33km deep. There may be a few large swells developing out of this and the quake was felt in Southland, Westland and Te Anau regions of the South Island of New Zealand. If you read the article from nzoom you will find the archipelago is made of deep earth crust, magma and very old rock. It's interesting to read what the seismologists from Aus say compared to the NZ seismologists as an earth tremor in Aus happens once in a blue moon and almost every week in NZ most are not small enough to feel. The Aussies have to go offshore to study earthquakes since they don't have enough of them here.
Don't get me wrong 8.1 is a bloody big earthquake but they are few and far between. Start to feel sorrier for the people in Hokkaido in Japan who had a big one some weeks back (after all the typhoons they had suffered during the summer) and who are praying for a mild winter because they are living in school gymnasiums and classrooms until they can get new accommodation because everything fell down flat during the earthquakes and after shocks.

Gotta go. There is two more shops to visit. Bread and biscuits. Last things on the list and I forgot them while there earlier today. Have a good night.

This is the Christmas spirit that isn't and this is as good as it gets. So Merry Christmas to you all. The fat man cometh tonight (my time) the rest of you will have to wait, and wait and in Meadows case wait some more.

Have a good one.

Shad, thanks for the geography lesson!

I just finished my run. The weather was perfect - cool (well, cool for Florida- 62*F) and overcast. I ran 4.8 miles in an hour and 5 minutes. I ran 2 miles straight then short walk and more running. I ran most of the time with very little walking. Really felt great! Dearest Hubster ran a 10K (6.2 miles) while I was running my 4.8 loop. I think if I stick with my 4.8 mile loop at least once a week, the 5K (3.1 miles) race in January will be easier. My goal is to run a 5K without any walking.

The plans for this evening are the children's church service at 7:00 (just because I love to watch kids at Christmas) and then we'll go back to church for the 11:30 PM service because Dearest Hubster is serving as lay reader and chalice bearer.

I like these little elves! :merry: Everyone!

:merry:

1 more sleep!!! The kids are excited. Okay I am excited!! Last year I was so exhausted it was all a blur. I am thankful to be feeling so much better now!!!

DH is off today so the kids didn't wake me. I woke to the voice of a Mom in the hallway. OOPS! She got to see the frightening just rolled out of bed me.

I went to bed at 9:30pm to read. Nothing on the tube. I was restless.I got up at 11, wandered around the house,admired the beautiful tree shadows on the snow, played on the computer, went back to bed ,read for a while and then had glorious dreams of a red headed,kilted Scot tearing around the Highlands with me in tow. Yum!
I am not as tough and hearty as I think. My back muscles are seriously aching after 2 hours of snow shovelling yesterday.
I got tons of housework done.It looked lovely for about 2O min, LOL!
Coffee is done, kiddies fed, some dishes done. I really want to clear off the diningroom table before the day is done.
I need to get a few groceries this aft.

Tig~ you are inspiring!!!!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!!

CHEERS!!!