Haunted Mansion with Eddie Murphy

We saw this cute movie. The ride by the same name is my favorite Disney ride. I enjoyed seeing the characters and hearing the music from the ride. This is a good movie for older children (age 8 -10). My husband and I liked it, too. I loved the old mansion, the ghosts both nice and evil, and the lady in the ball. This was just-right children-scary and good for several laughs.

My only complaint? While it had a good-looking woman in it, there were NO good-looking men in the whole movie.

Photoshop Tips

Here's a link to many Adobe Photoship tips and tutorials, the latest being how to get a photo to look like it appeared on a jumbotron board at a ball game. These are good tips -- ones I've never seen before.

Photoshop Tips (Scroll down to see the other links.)

P.S. It snowed a little bit here -- very early this morning. I took a walk, listened to  Christmas music and enjoyed the mood.

Busy Day

I had a million places to go today. First, my mother and I went to the last major craft show here. The Von Braun Civic center in the middle of town is a mess right now. There's much construction, blocking off several entrances. As with the previous  craft show, we drove around back and found that parking lot closed, too! It was drizzling, but we had to park at a neighboring medical mall and walk. Later we found out that a circus, a teacher's convention and the craft show were all scheduled at the same time. No wonder it was chaos.

Online Snowglobe

This is funny -- another slightly interactive card to send folks. It's a snowglobe with animated figures. Shaking it up causes all kinds of chaos: http://ww12.e-tractions.com/snowglobe/globe.htm (Thanks to my sister, D.P., for sending this.)

Check Your Credit Rating

I've never tried to check my own credit rating. It must be a lucrative thing to do since I keep seeing ads for it. There's a cheap way to check your credit rating. Just count the number of credit card offers coming in the mail. That says it all. This is the number one junk mail I get via snail mail. Still, I prefer junk snail mail to junk e-mail any day. It keeps the shredder busy.

Although lately, I've been getting catalogs. I like to go through them, but haven't had time so there's a huge stack of them on my kitchen table. Every so often, the stack falls over, making a mess. I know the cat hates them. They are taking up the spot where he likes to sit. Maybe he's the one pushing them over when I'm not looking.

Microsoft Launches a Blog Service

They are a little late jumping on this bandwagon, but they finally see the value in it: Microsoft's Blog Service. I remember when Bill Gates made remarks about the Internet not being that significant.

Rain and Christmas Decorations

Rain was predicted. I wanted to put up Christmas decorations anyway. The first drops were falling late yesterday afternoon while the wind blew. I ignored it and kept arranging the lights and assembling an outdoor tree. Better sense was telling me to wait a day or so, but I had my momentum going and did not want to stop. Last night, my lights looked pretty good. This morning, they were a mess over the ground and the star on my outdoor tree was broken off and cracked .. the price I paid for impatience.

During Halloween, I put window clings up. Last night, I cleaned off the window and put a nativity scene up. While the Halloween scene stayed up all month, the Christmas scene was half on the floor by morning. I wonder if some window clings are not made as well as others. At least everything is repairable.

It was a day for bad luck. My caller I.D. globe did not shut off at the right time. I checked and it was set correctly. Somehow it ignored the shut-off time and kept buzzing. Oh well, pulling the plug fixed that.

On a happier note, C.M. sent this link to a nice interactive Christmas Card: http://holidays.blastcomm.com. This is a good one to share with friends.

Going to the Dentist

When I was a kid, I ate a lot of candy and did not brush my teeth often enough, I guess. From my mother, I inherited a tendency to get cavities easier than others. Fortunately, my husband and daughter are practically cavity-resistant and born with perfectly straight teeth - darn lucky souls. I am jealous.

At her last cleaning, the dental assistant asked my daughter who her orthodontist was. My daughter said she never wore braces or a retainer and the dental aid did not believe her because her teeth were too perfect. My husband was told by his dentist that he had a perfect mouth and teeth.

I went to the dentist today for more work. I have visits every month for the next 4 months. I go so often that I know everyone there by first name. Sigh.

(By the way, I have an excellent dentist - Dr. Michael Knight in Huntsville. I highly recommend him.)

Keywords to this Page

I don't know how folks are finding this page, but recent keywords to my page coming up in a search include sex, flamed, paris, hilton, tape, and backgrounds. I don't remember ever writing about Paris Hilton. I did enjoy seeing the Hilton Hotel in Akron, Ohio. The hotel was built in old silos. The rooms were round and the hotel lobby was a museum to Quaker Oats (Akron is the home of Quaker Oats).

Don't Buy One of These ...

... unless you plan to put it in a noisy room. Impulsive shopper that I am, I saw this and fell in love with the moving text and "floating in air" effects so I bought one. I brought it home, got it working right and winced at the loud buzz it gives off. It's like a cheap aquarium motor. Otherwise, it works beautifully, showing caller ID names and numbers, dates, time, holiday messages and any text you add. It's convenient to see the caller ID across the room.

But the darn thing buzzes and vibrates. It drives me nuts! I took it back and exchanged it for another one. The store clerk said 1 in 10 buzzes too loudly. I brought the new one home. It quietly purred for a day (still buzzing, but bearable). The next day, it was whining loudly again.

Sure, these things look good in a noisy mall, but they need to be placed in an already loud room to be bearable. I now use mine as an alarm clock. It comes on, buzzing loudly enough to get me going, then turns off 15 minutes later.

My Sister-in-Law is Here

It was their first time in Alabama. My husband's sister and her husband are visiting today from Idaho. They are fun to be with and wonderful. He ran for a political office once in the Burley/Rupert/Heyburn area. (Pictured are sister and brother.)

They were impressed with the friendliness of the people -- said they stopped in a restaurant in Athens and the worker told them her life story. We went to visit my daugther at work (a nurse in the hospital) and someone in the elevator struck up a nice conversation with them. We walked along the greenway and nearly everyone we passed said hello. I was proud of our state.

Free Quality Backgrounds

This site offers nice artwork, several photos are free to download and use as wallpaper: DigitialBlasphemy.com. This is a picture of snow, trees and mountains - a breathtaking winter scene.

(The Santa here is from my sister's wrapping paper. I took a photo of it since it was wrapped on the package and could not easily be scanned in.)

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