Four Generations and a New Toy

If this post doesn't generate a comment from one side of the family, then nothing will!

I bought myself, or maybe will say Gary bought me, a slide scanner for Christmas. Well, it wasn't really for Christmas, but it could be, since we never know what to get each other.

Like many missionaries, I have tons of slides that are sitting in the closet. My idea is to scan a few each day until I've done them all. I can save them onto CDs or just use them like all my photos in online photo albums, etc. I can't exactly call this archiving my photos, but at least I can use them if they are scanned.

I've installed the machine and the fancy photo editing software on my computer--now I just have to learn how to use it! For instance, if I knew how, I could probably make the above photo less blue.

After I finish my slides, I'll see if anyone else want to borrow or buy the machine from me.

Dueling Mixers/Duplex Cheesecakes

Last weekend Rachel and I made cheesecakes together. She brought her mixer over to my side and we went at it together. Hers was chocolate and mine was plain and they both turned out pretty well.

See some more photos and explanation on her latest blog post.

I Have Something to Be Thankful For--It's a Baby!

Don't you think he* looks like his dad? Too bad, his mom is lots prettier.

*which isn't to say it's a boy.

New Freezer, Old Phone, New Old Computer

A few days ago I decided I wanted to buy a very small, upright freezer to replace the one that died a few years ago. I found one online for $300 at Home Depot's website, so we went there yesterday to see if we could get one. Well, they didn't have the one I had found online, but they had a different one exactly like I wanted on the clearance rack for $95. Yay!

We had a bit of drama yesterday after getting the freezer. Rachel lost her phone, and for anyone of her age, losing a phone is traumatic since it contains all the phone numbers of their friends and coworkers. Several hours later we recovered it, thank the Lord. A kid had found it in the parking lot at Wendy's and her mom answered it after I called the number about 500 times.

Sweet David (at least at the moment I say that!) has donated his not-very-old laptop to Rachel because her laptop is on its last leg. It arrived from Houston late last night, so I'm cleaning it up and installing some new software before Rachel takes it on. I'm trying to talk her into NOT using this computer for games, since I think downloading games messed up her old one.

Rain Joke

Need Rain?

It's so dry in Georgia that

the Baptists are starting to baptize by sprinkling
the Methodists are using wet-wipes
the Presbyterians are giving out rain-checks
and the Episcopalians, Catholics, and Lutherans are praying for the wine to turn back into water.

Update

Not much news this past few days. The weather has been warm until today, but we could use some rain. Rachel only worked a half day today, then spent time this afternoon preparing for teaching children's church on Sunday. She's pretty good at all this stuff.

Daddy's Home

Gary arrived home from NYC safely last night. His flight was late, and changed gates at the last minute, so we found even more reasons to call him on his cell phone. Well, actually, he called us and asked us why we were late!




Today we phoned Mr. Jim's pizza from the church parking lot, picked up a large everything 15 minutes later, and headed for the park to eat it. The weather here is still very warm, so we wanted to take advantage of it. We are supposed to have rain tomorrow. We need a little rain.

A Call from NYC

Gary got to NYC late this afternoon and tried to call home. First he got no one at home. Then he got no answer on my cell phone or on Rachel's. He left a message, "What's the point of having a cell phone if no one will talk to me??"

Sorry, we decided to act impulsive and went to see a movie.

I did finally get hold of Gary. He had taken a couple more subway rides than necessary, and had a hard time finding his hotel, but he had found a good plate of Chinese food for cheap. No phone in his room, no desk either. Just a tiny room with a double bed.

He will need to do some walking tomorrow, NY University is about a mile from the hotel, and the place he's going for dinner is further than that. He plans to have dinner with an old HS friend whom he hasn't seen in 35 years.

First Call!

Gary got his first call on his cell phone. The Dallas Morning News must be reading my blog because they called him and tried to get him to buy their newspaper.

I had already registered his new number with the National Do Not Call list too, but it takes 30 days for it to go into effect.

Call Me!

It really wasn't a good financial deal, but I did convince Gary to let me buy him a cell phone. Not just any cell phone, but rather, a cell phone for old people! This is a prepaid Jitterbug phone which features a large phone, large number pad, large writing on the screen, and a large speaker--all good features for us old people who are getting hard of hearing and hard of seeing!


Now if any of you relatives out there think to buy one of these, consult me first. They have deal where if you buy a second one, the two phones can talk to each other for free.

Gary goes to NYC this week, so now he can call me in spite of the fact that no pay phones exist anymore!


I decided to throw away our old ripped up tent yesterday, but I couldn't quite bring myself to throw it away. So, instead, I invented a new kind of tent that just has a floor. And then if you put the rain bonnet on it, it has a floor and a roof. So it could be used to go camping on the beach when you want to get out of the sun! But it wouldn't do much to keep the snakes out.