WELCOME to you 2010!

Absolutely nothing to report this week. We have been in the house more than out. Hunkering down taking notice of the intermittent rain showers on the roof, reading, listening to music, watching TV, cooking, cleaning up and doing all the other things you non-fulltiming folks do out there every day. No travel, no adventure, no excitement of any kind. Phil did get his fold-a-boat put together and he also bought his fishing license. I think he may be thinking about going fishing … but time will tell. Even so, as you well know, (and, as my sister, Robin tells me) even though I have nothing to write about, I can still fill up a page!

Who knew? FYI! The words on the list in last week’s blog are called, homographs=words spelled the same but pronounced differently. Since I am a lover of words aka logophile/logolept/verbivore I have decided to share my passion with my readers by presenting a teaser each week. As my English teacher used to say to me, “If you don’t know what it means, look it up!” So, let’s all learn together …

Word of the week: Here is an easy one to get us started: oxymoron

Many bloggers conclude their blogs with a "thought for the day" and I really enjoy reading them so I’m going to try and remember to add one at the end of my blog each week. I’ve been collecting these thoughts for years so it will be fun to share them and see if they mean anything to anyone else.

Thought for the week: This one cracked me up!

For all those young men who say, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”, here’s an update for you. Nowadays 80% of young women are against marriage. Why? Because they realize it’s not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!

I’ve also decided that since I love to read and I love to read about books other people are reading (book reviews) I think as long as we are parked in one place (with a pretty good library on site) I will share my thoughts with you about the book(s) I have finished in the past week. On a scale of 1-10 (one being the least desirable and 10 being the most) I will also rate the book.

.

Book Review: ‘Tis by Frank McCourt … I have yet to read Mr. McCourt’s first book for which he received a Pulitzer Prize in 1997, titled Angela’s Ashes. At the time, I decided against it because the reviews made it sound like a depressing read (pain, alcoholism, destitution and the like). Then, in 1999 his second book, 'Tis also received rave reviews so when I came across it in the lending library here at the park I decided to give it a whirl. Since he taught English for over 30 years, his style of “run on sentences” surprised me. I found myself many times coming up for air mid sentence. Lack of punctuation however did not take anything away from the raw and revealing prose of his struggles after returning to his birthplace (he was born in New York City, then his immigrant parents returned to the old country). As a young man, after growing up in Ireland his descriptions of his poverty stricken lifestyle here in the land of his birth are unpleasant but they scream reality if you have ever been there. If not, they might be inconceivable and sound a bit far-fetched but whether we hide our heads in the sand or not, Mr McCourt’s rags to riches story is equally eye opening and heartwarming. Now, I am looking forward to reading Angela’s Ashes

.

Rating: I give it a solid seven. Not exactly a page-turner but since it was autobiographical, and I knew the ending, it was very interesting to see how he achieved his nearly impossible goals.

.

Note: Frank McCourt died in July 2009, he would have been 79 years old in August.

.

RECEIPT SCANNER SAGA:
Is it just me? Why does everything have to be so darn complicated? I have taken the tutorials (twice), I have read the directions over (and over) again, I have installed, stalled, uninstalled returned and repurchased then installed again, but what to do next still escapes me! According to the reviews and propaganda on the box, my new receipt scanner sounds like the best thing since sliced bread to receipt savers like me. Okay, why then is it so difficult? Finally, it scans the receipt and finally it puts it in a “folder” and finally, it gives me a screen where I can edit the results to make sure it has read the receipt correctly. But (with me there is always a but) what do I do from here? However, never fear—I will continue to work with it until the light bulb goes off over my head. Until then … give me time, but most of all, give me patience!

Thanks for stopping by!
Until next time,