Is that phenomenal or what? Beth Ellen Nagle, an extraordinarily
talented photographer and fellow blog-commenter, took some pictures of
snowflakes and graciously gave me permission to post one. Here is the
link to her site with another couple of them, and trust me, they're
well worth seeing.
I cannot even imagine being able to capture a single, perfect flake like that. 
Stop by and tell her Anne sent you. 
A friend of mine in New York kindly sent me a Lindt gift card for Christmas. This morning I decided to see if there are any Lindt shops in the area, but sadly, there weren't. No problem, though, I thought....there IS Lindt.com/USA.
Ha.
Turns out that to ship their product to Texas, Lindt requires either next day ($24.95) or Saturday ($49.95) shipping! That's more than the value of the gift card, for pity's sake! 
I called their "customer service" line - using the term loosely - and was informed by a bored voice (who called me "sir") that she's sorry, but that's the company policy and there's nothing she can do about it. 
This creates a sticky wicket. What to do with an effectively unusable gift card? It could be used where there IS a Lindt shop, or within their ground shipping distance, but neither of those conditions pertain to Fort Worth. Should I send it back to the giver with mingled apologies and gratitude? 
I really hate to have it go to waste, thus giving Lindt the full value of the card without them ever having to fork over the chocolate. Pure profit for them, in that case! Certainly don't want that. 
I'd hoped to have some photos and video of Dan's dog, Max, running and playing at Fort Woof, Fort Worth's dog park, but 'fraid not. Dan carefully kept Max on his leash after entering the "large dog" area, wanting him to get acclimated first, and a good thing!
Almost immediately two dogs - one Max's size and one even larger - came bounding up to Max, pushing and sniffing at him, to Max's obvious alarm. The owners of the dogs were talking, maybe a hundred feet away (I'm dismal at estimating distances), but were certainly aware of their dogs crowding Max. Both Dan and I shouted for them to call their dogs, but nope....they just watched and kept chatting. Max's ears were back, his eyes wide, and he even growled once. No matter how Dan tried to shield him and Dmitry and I batted the other dogs away, they kept crowding, pushing and sniffing at Max, so we gave up and left.
That was SO RUDE of those horrid people. 
BTW, here's a photo of Dan and Max:
'Meanest mom on planet' sells son's car
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Jane Hambleton has dubbed herself the "meanest mom on the planet."
After finding alcohol in her son's car, she decided to sell the car and
share her 19-year-old's misdeed with everyone -- by placing an ad in
the local newspaper.
The ad reads: "OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally
uncool parents who obviously don't love teenage son, selling his car.
Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life
found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the
planet."
Hambleton has heard from people besides interested buyers since recently placing the ad in The Des Moines Register.
The 48-year-old from Fort Dodge says she has fielded more than 70
telephone calls from emergency room technicians, nurses, school
counselors and even a Georgia man who wanted to congratulate her.
"The ad cost a fortune, but you know what? I'm telling people what
happened here," Hambleton says. "I'm not just gonna put the car for
resale when there's nothing wrong with it, except the driver made a
dumb decision.
"It's overwhelming the number of calls I've
gotten from people saying 'Thank you, it's nice to see a responsible
parent.' So far there are no calls from anyone saying, 'You're really
strict. You're real overboard, lady."'
The only critic is her
son, who Hambleton says is "very, very unhappy" with the ad and claims
the alcohol was left by a passenger.
Hambleton believes her son
but has decided mercy isn't the best policy in this case. She says she
set two rules when she bought the car at Thanksgiving: No booze, and
always keep it locked.
Ha! Way to go, Mrs. Hambleton! 
Get drunk and drive your vehicle into someone's house and they're gonna basically call you stupid:
Then I noticed his name. 
Bless his heart, don't you know he's endured jokes at his expense for years? I think I'd have changed it by now, personally. No point making an idol of your name, after all.
That's what is claimed in this article, 8 reasons why your house is unsellable.
First is the list of flat-out undesirable elements, likely to make one's house a hard-sell:
My house is sorta average-small. Not unusually so, though. Not sure what a "popcorn" ceiling is, exactly, so don't know if that's what we've got or not. No basement, so that bullet's neatly dodged. No second floor, either, meaning no staircase, spiral or otherwise. However, we don't make out so well once the "trends on the way-out" are factored in:
We do have separate living and dining rooms. And a small master bath. 
Not that we've got plans to sell our house, but still, one likes to think if one wished to, one could.
It's very depressing!
Still, it was marvelous getting to see them for the time we did. This morning Don and I got up a whole lot earlier than we normally do on a Saturday morning to head to the airport for one more hug.
Returning home after Christmas guarantees hauling back more stuff than one brought:
Taking leave of our poppets was hard!
Here are three Ivys plus a possum who somehow slipped into the photo:
Hannah Handful was awakened earlier than she wanted, so wasn't feeling especially cooperative.
If the LORD is generous with sales over the next several months, we're going to try to get over to Japan for Thanksgiving. Fall of '09 is simply too far away!
On a completely different note, Beth pointed out that the statue in the D terminal struck her as not totally suitable for an airport:
I think she's right. When it comes to air travel, one rather hopes luck has nothing to do with it.
Please pray for a smooth, uneventful flight for them, and that the children behave. Thirteen hours in the air is a loooong time, bless their hearts. 
From the local CBS news website:
Sixty years old qualifies as elderly?
This is how the new year starts? By being implicitly told I'm three and a half years away from elderly? 
I hope this isn't a harbinger as to the rest of 2008, that's all I can say. 
It's 2008 somewhere! 
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