Below are the 14 most recent journal entries recorded in grannylera's LiveJournal:

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
1:19 pm	iBook Rules I'm in a class on TTHF that has 22 students. Nine students use computers for taking notes. EIGHT of those computers are iBooks. The instructor has his iBook for PowerPoint. No wonder I like these people so much. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 26th, 2007
8:04 pm	I am the most awful and negligent of grannies. Five days to Halloween, and I did not get either grandson a Halloween card. Perhaps they will find a place in their adorable small hearts to forgive me. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 12th, 2007
4:28 pm	What if? If a handful of people had not prevented the election of Al Gore in 2000 and if he still won the Peace Prize this year, what would it have been for? (How different the world might be.) Or maybe what he's done since 2000 will make a more significant contribution than what he would NOT have done as President. There still are guys who wear white hats and black hats (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, October 5th, 2007
6:06 pm	I got caught talking with the mockingbird today. "What's in there? What is it?" And then she flew away. Current Mood: sad (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007
11:34 pm	I spend five hours this evening trying to draft out a paper that I am not enjoying writing at ALL. When I got home, I discovered that I must have accidentally deleted about 50% of it. It was a terrible draft anyway. I probably should almost start over--this way I have to. Current Mood: stressed (Comment on this)
Monday, October 1st, 2007
7:42 pm	To Talk to a Mockingbird As I was walking along the sidewalk today, a mockingbird lit on the NO PARKING sign nearby. I stopped for a long time and talked to her, and she listened. Sometimes I miss my birds, dogs, cat, children, and grandchildren a lot. Current Mood: nostalgic (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 30th, 2007
8:24 pm	all for the loss of a remote control I decided to bring my TV-DVD player back with me a couple of weeks ago, but couldn't find the remote control in any convenient boxes. So, I picked a universal remote at Wal-Mart, thinking I could use it. Well, I can't. I've read the instructions a dozen times. The best I could ever do was get the DVD tray to go in and out. So I decided just to forget about using a remote and control the DVDs manually. Then when I found out that for $13.00 I could get rabbit ears that would allow me to pick up a handful of stations, I bought the little antennae, thinking a little bit of TV wouldn't so bad. EXCEPT that the only way I could get antennae to work was to go into the menu on the TV to make some kind of adjustment. Without the remote, I can't get into the TV menu. So I called Sylvania customer service to see if I could order a replacement remote, and they're not shipping anything for another week. Do you know how many HOURS I've spent trying to get simple things to work? All for the loss of a remote control. Once life was simpler. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 26th, 2007
8:19 pm	Who needs craigslist? I sent an email to the church community telling them I had a number of items to sell before I moved. Within 48 hours I had offers on all but one item PLUS someone who needed extra money to help me pack and clean the house after I left! No hassle, no special payment plans either. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, July 23rd, 2007
9:51 pm	Escape . . . for a while So I fly out tomorrow, escaping from boxes, piles, clutter, and RAIN. Ah, for real summer weather--sunshine and hot weather . . . in Toronto?? Maybe. Certainly no cooler or wetter than here. (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 19th, 2007
8:13 pm	I'm off to Austin tomorrow to learn more specifically what I'm going to be doing for the next 18 months. It's very strange to have someone else telling me what my plans are, especially since I'm pretty used to doing it all myself, but it's rather nice--like when someone you really trust plans the trip and does the driving. (Comment on this)
Monday, July 9th, 2007
5:38 pm	One-track mind, working overtime I have spent the past day and a half arranging and rearranging and then re-rearranging the next six weeks of my life. Of the remaining 35 days before orientation begins, I'm gone from home 19. So that leaves me 16 days to: 1) figure out what I might need for the next eighteen months that will fit into a 450 sq. ft. efficiency apartment; 2) clean up a storage unit so there's room in it for the left-behind furniture and belongings; 3) pack & hire movers to get things into storage; 4) pack & get myself moved to Austin; 5) unpack & move in enough to be ready for orientation. . . . . . And I thought my life was materially rather simple. This is not interesting to anyone else, of course, nor do I want to think about it anymore, but the trouble is that the obsessive-compulsive brain matter won't stop thinking about it, day and night. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 7th, 2007
9:54 am	Annual spring invasion Daylight and warmer weather today brought a plundering army of well-groomed cedar waxwings passing through Comfort. They really do act like a devastating horde. First of all, they look like soldiers or well-disciplined bandits. They are very sleek and crisp with feathers so smooth they seem to have skin rather than feathers. Then they have villainous-looking black eye masks and bright yellow tips on their tails and sharp red stripes on their wings. They come in huge numbers, stripping trees and bushes of berries and have an unquenchable thirst. A series of platoon-sized groups finished off the water in my birdbath in about half an hour. After this pillaging, they then deposit their dark blue-black droppings all over lawn chairs, vehicles, and anything else that might be under a temporary roost. And some people question the avian world’s similarity to the human one. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 6th, 2007
11:44 am	Another addiction It's all those catalogs that come in the mail. They set me to thinking about what all I could buy: cute little things for the porch, bright spring clothes, more canvases and brushes. Clever little marketers, create images that are slick and stick for days. Something else to give up for Lent: remove them from my mailbox, walk six feet to the trash can at the p.o, and deposit immediately. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 4th, 2007
1:15 pm	Addiction I decided I'm really addicted to buying books. It occurred to me that last week I bought four. Four, that's so bad you say, but four last week, four next week, fifteen or more a month. This might be serious. I begin to feel very uncomfortable if I don't have one ordered and on the way. Like an alcoholic who has to know where the next bottle is stashed--I just have to feel I know where another is coming from. Just a bit ago as I was making cheese toast for lunch, I remembered the scene between Wemmick and the the Aged P where they make cheese toast over the fire. Then came the uncontrolable longing: I want to read "Great Expectations" again! So far, I've not ordered the book. It's Lent, I remind myself. But that hasn't helped much yet. (4 Comments |Comment on this)