Everything is status quo. I am grateful to everyone that has been visiting http://miracleali.org and hope that if you can’t afford to donate you would be so kind as to include a link on your own site. Most of my readers are not (that I am aware of) independently wealthy, but maybe some of yours are…One never can tell, can one?
Abby Normal asked about the picture on the header. Well, the new software I am using allows the use of pre-made “skins” which makes it a lot easier to work with when getting started. This one is from a guy named Andreas Viklund, a 27 year old web designer from Jokkmokk, Sweden. I went to his website and contacted him and asked. He said,
The picture is an edited and somewhat manipulated photo of a snowy street in the small town of Porjus, northern Sweden (see www.porjus.se for its official website or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porjus for the Wikipedia article).
The town has a population of about 400, and it is where I lived the first 20 years of my life before moving to the larger town Jokkmokk, 45 kilometers south of Porjus. The photo shows the main street, the tourist information center and a café – and the same building as the café (the right house) was where my mother Yvonne worked as a hairdresser and stylist for more than 10 years. Mom died at age 43 in year 2000, so to me the photo is a tribute both to her and to the beautiful village which I grew up in.
The event shown on the photo is the small “christmas market” in the beginning of December 2004, an annual village event which usually draw 80-100 persons out into the cold to meet and get into the christ. That was a cold day, probably around -25 degrees Celsius [ about -13 Fahrenheit ht] – and the afternoon light and the cold air gives a really beautiful effect to the image.
Also note the power lines in the sky, which lead to the powerplant that Porjus is mostly known for.
This made me think of my hometown http://www.shawanoleader.com/2008_Answer_Guide.pdf and surrounding area, which reminds me that I should update you on my dad. He had his gallbladder out on the 31st and doesn’t feel like he can have any more surgeries. He didn’t like it and he’s “too old for all that.” Now, since he has his own experience and has decided this, I can accept it easier than when I knew his arm was being twisted by many different sources. Fortunately for him he’s still got a pretty strong arm. *sigh* I haven’t met anyone yet, with any experience or knowledge, who thinks he would truly benefit from chemotherapy and I really don’t know, myself although not being there I could not have much influence anyway. Well, that’s cheery.
Here are a couple of pieces that are attributed to Jeff Foxworthy, http://www.jefffoxworthy.com/homepage.shtml but which came from floating around in cyberspace and eventually e-mailed to me by Carter. I did a cursory look and couldn’t find out one way or the other. If he’s ever been to Wisconsin then probably some of these are his.
ON WISCONSIN
(Attributed to Jeff Foxworthy)
If you consider it a sport to gather your food by drilling through 38 inches of ice and sitting there all day hoping that the food will swim by, you might live in Wisconsin.
If you’re proud that your region makes the national news 96 nights each year because Park Falls is the coldest spot in the nation, you might live in Wisconsin.
If you have ever refused to buy something because it’s “too spendy”, you might live in Wisconsin.
If your local Dairy Queen is closed from November through March, you might live in Wisconsin.
If you instinctively walk like a penguin for five months out of the year, you might live in Wisconsin.
If someone in a store offers you assistance, and they don’t work there, you might live in Wisconsin.
If your dad’s suntan stops at a line curving around the middle of his forehead, you might live in Wisconsin.
If you may not have actually eaten it, but you have heard of Head Cheese, you might live in Wisconsin.
If you have worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you might live in Wisconsin.
If you have either a pet or a child named “Brett”, you might live in Wisconsin.
If your town has an equal number of bars and churches, you might live in Wisconsin.
If you have had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you might live in Wisconsin.
If you know how to say Oconomowoc, Waukesha, Menomonee & Manitowoc, you might live in Wisconsin.
If you think that ketchup is a little too spicy, you might live in Wisconsin.
If every time you see moonlight on a lake, you think of a dancing bear, and you sing gently, “From the land of sky-blue waters….”, you might live in Wisconsin.
YOU KNOW YOU ARE A TRUE WISCONSINITE WHEN:
Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway.
“Vacation” means going up north past Hwy 8 for the weekend.
You measure distance in hours.
You know several people who have hit deer more than once.
You often switch from “heat” to “A/C” in the same day and back again.
Your whole family wears Packer Green to church on Sunday.
You can drive 65 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard, without flinching.
You see people wearing camouflage at social events (including weddings and funerals).
You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.
You think of the major food groups as beer, fish, cheese and venison.
You carry jumper cables in your car and your wife or girlfriend knows how to use them.
There are 7 empty cars running in the parking lot at Mill’s Fleet Farm at any given time.
You design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.
Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.
You refer to the Packers as “We.”
You know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction.
You can identify a southern or eastern accent.
You have no problem pronouncing Lac Du Flambeau.
You consider Minneapolis exotic.
You know how to polka.
Your idea of creative landscaping is a statue of a deer next to your blue spruce.
You were unaware that there is a legal drinking age.
Down South to you means Illinois.
A brat is something you eat.
Your neighbor throws a party to celebrate his new pole shed.
You go out to fish fry every Friday.
Your 4th of July picnic was moved indoors due to frost.
You have more miles on your snow blower than your car.
You find minus twenty degrees “a little chilly.”
You actually understand these jokes, and you forward them to all your Wisconsin friends.
So, that’s it for now, remember, the Good Book says, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die[…]A time to weep, and a time to laugh…”
