Familiar Faces

            About a year and a half ago, I was on facebook checking out their statistics, though I generally don't put a lot of stock in what results are given.   According to facebook, my husband Roland and I are the most opposite of me and any of my facebook friends.  I can believe that.  According to facebook, my soul mate is Carolyn - who I had known less than a year.  I've now known her for almost two.  The more time I take to get to know her, the more it feels like we have in common.  I guess facebook was right.

            Not only that, but every time I added a family photo, facebook will automaticlly tag the pictures and actually get most of them right.  But every time my mom is in the photo, facebook puts Carolyn's name on the photo instead of my mom's. I guess there is a resemblance.  I do see more between my mom and Carolyn than I do between my mom and Peggy Bird.  Peggy was our neighbor from across the street.  I bet  one was mistaken for the other at least once a week.  None of their children saw it.

            I know I have a face that often looks familiar to most people.  Perhaps that is why people always used to talk to me on the bus; they thought they were talking to somebody else.  I know for a fact that some doors were open to me on my mission because they thought I was somebody else.  We would start our approach and they would look at us and then our name tags and finally figure out I wasn't who they thought I was.  That was weird.

            Carolyn said she thought my mom looked younger than her.  I would have never guessed that Carolyn is as old as she is.  She and my mom are two years apart.  Carolyn is younger.  I had mentioned that my mom had passed away in 2013.  She was quite disappointed and said she wanted to meet mom.

            "You will," I assured her. "But just let's hope you don't meet her soon."

Lost In a Cloud

            As with everything, there are always pros and cons to having a cell phone, internet service, cloud storage, etc.  I must be old fashioned in my way of thinking.  I would like my phone to act as a phone and my watch to tell time . . . although the watch has nearly become a thing of the past for me as I refer to my cell phone for the time and since I don't wear my cell phone around my wrist, it hasn't bothered me the way a watch often does.  It's a nice feature - though not necessary.  It is convenient.

             My first cell phone was through Voice Stream.  My mom and I had both purchased a phone plan that came with this Nokita - a phone my mom refused to give up until after she got dementia.

            I had mine for over ten years and may have had it longer but it seemed to have vanished during a day trip that I had taken with Roland and the boys.  The weird thing is, I don't remember having even left the car - so I don't know how my phone would have.  But whatever.  I had to get a replacement.

            I liked the size of my new phone and had asked mom if she would like a new phone also. She didn't wish to give it up because it had good reception. She didn't trust that the new technology would offer a very long. I think she was onto something.   Seems like many electronics that are offered today are meant to break down.  They become relics in less than two years anyway - so what's the point of making them to last? I like Adrian Covert's description here.

             When Roland upgraded his phone, he decided he would need the internet and thus got a touch screen phone.  That's all well and good for him, but I cannot use touch screens for the life of me.  Either it will not recognize that I am touching the screen or it will be hyper-sensitive and disappear altogether.  The touch screen for me, personally, is way more frustrating than it is worth.  Besides, if I am going to write something, I would rather have an actual raised keyboard and not a postage stamp-sized keyboard that is even more challenging to my actually small fingers that have somehow grown to the size of the entire keyboard. Not to mention having to read in such a limited space.  Give me a full blown monitor, please.

            Roland's last phone came with the option of a built in speaker to use rather than typing it out.  It didn't punctuate - not for me anyway.  Plus it is frustrating to have your words misspelled or butchered at "Google" thought you were saying something else.  And so I'd have to proof-read and make corrections - which actually seemed to amount to more work than if I had just typed it all in myself.

            Phones do not think - or do they?

            I hadn't charged my camera for quite some time, but Roland has a camera built into his phone.  The quality of picture is actually pretty good. I took only four pictures at Jaime's birthday party before the battery gave out.  We used Roland's phone to get more.  I was devastated when we took his phone home to charge it and it wouldn't charge.  It has been persnickety about its connecting devise.

            Roland took it to the big city of Roseburg to see if it just needed a new battery - or what the deal was.  It was beyond repair.  Oh, no!  The pictures!  I hadn't even looked at them.

            Roland not only purchased a new phone, but is now on a different plan.  Now I am impressed by the technology of the cloud.  Restored all the pictures not only to his phone, but I had him photo/Google the internet on his work computer - and there they were.  Wow.

             I was able to pull up some pictures from my computer of ones we had taken in 2012 - which were also from his phone.  I don't know why.  I could obtain pics through his phone on my computer until Dec 2015.  Everything more current had to be obtained through his computer.  Not sure how that works.

             And, okay, I get that the GPS thingamabob (gadget) that is located in the phone would know where we were when each picture was taken, but what impressed me was how it labeled the photos.  They were sorted into places and things.  So the folders were labeled "Christmas", "Sky", "Rainbow", "Cars" - how did it know that?  Okay, the folder labeled "cars" was more of houses though I suppose there were cars in the photos - but it certainly wasn't the main focus.  Actually, I don't know what was.  Roland said I had wanted the clouds.  How pathetic.  I have been told that I am "trigger happy" when I am taking pictures with the touch screen.

            So here are some pics that we discovered in the cloud:

Her pose reminds me of her brother, Randy 

Majestic Beauty

I LOVE the way the sun glistens through raindrops right after it rains.  I have tried several times to get pictures of what I see with my naked eyes - but it isn't always what the camera lens captures.

Just before the first meeting started for Church yesterday, I looked out the window and saw many drops hanging from a tree and though the branches are brown, they seemed a brilliant white as though frosted in snow.  The sun glistened over the tree and through the drops resembling so many interpretations of Lehi's tree. 

I tried to photoshop something similar to what I saw.  I failed.

I attended a Sunday School class and the instructor talked about his love for waterfalls.  They really are awesome.  Most all forms of water are:

Back to School . . . perhaps

                Jenna is supposed to return to school this morning.  Thus far the buses have been delayed for two hours because of the frozen roads.  Last time I got the same message (over a year ago) school ended up being canceled altogether.  It's hard being off for two weeks and try to go back to a routine - at least for me.  Roland didn't seem to have a problem with it, and Jenna has been ready to return to school since before her vacation was over.  She was dressed and ready to leave the house since 5:30 this morning.

                I checked on my class just once yesterday.  I decided to save the lectures and posting for today.  I planned to do so just after she left the house, which she hasn't done yet and may not depending on the conditions on the road.  I'm afraid she may feel abandonment today if she should stay home.  I'm half-heartedly listening to the first lecture right now and will be returning back to it several times.

                During the holiday, the school offered a fun class of sharing recipes, gratitude, pictures and new year's  resolutions.  I participated in posting to a discussion.  It was fun.  We didn't have to have stupid references for every little thought.  But now that I'm back to an actual class, I realize I have to do some research again.  Bah, humbug.  I am so not in the mood.

                Jenna and I shared a fun day yesterday.  To start the day off, we looked up the speed limit on this site and found that only 14 states and Washington DC acknowledge that there is a speed limit low enough to be 55.  I don't think DC really has to enforce the speed limit.  It's always bumper to bumper and it's hard to believe that anyone could even drive as fast as 55.  Vermont is the only state that actually recorded a speed limit lower than 55.

                Later in the day, Jenna asked both Roland and me if we would like to go for a walk with her.  I did not mind going for a walk - but a level walk, not a climb.  I told Jenna I would drive us to the park so that we could walk an actual path (no climbing) but passed the park going downtown and headed for a coffee shop to say hello to my water aerobic friends who have decided to meet once a month just to keep in touch. I parked by the coffee shop and Jenna and I walked toward the park, but took a detour and explored the area in which the train tracks run along the river.  We had never been there before but had seen the tracks from the other side of the river.  Jenna had seen a cave near the tracks and wondered if we could explore.

                My camera was being charged, but I did have my granny cell phone.  I took a boat load of pictures, not even knowing if any would turn out.  I was pleased that many came out clear.  There are many that are fuzzy.  Some look more like paintings than photographs.

south Umpqua bridge in background

the cave too narrow to walk through

south Umpqua river

treasures found along the way

                I didn't even realize until after we'd been home for several hours that  our calendar has given  January the name of "Creativity Month"  so here are my "creative" pictures:

          Perhaps I should have taken the time to drive to Canyonville yesterday to honor the 55 mph and take some packages to the post office as Roland said it was open; the one in Myrtle Creek was not.  I don't know if I am willing to drive on the roads right now.  I was planning on going to Dollar General after I go to the post office and school.  I need to pick up some chocolate covered cherries and some whipping cream.  Today is chocolate covered cherry day and Thursday is whipping cream day.

                       Happy Holidays (real or not) everybody!