Titles are fun!

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Entirely Miss Reverend Lady Jill the Extemporaneous of Grasshopper in the Hole Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

I think I can live with that. I like the "Entirely" part.

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Reverend Earl Bernie the Innocent of Withering Glance Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Bernie always looks so innocent too. How did they know?

Painting day...more later!

First lines: A restrospective

A challenge from Dawn, to record first lines from the first posting of each month.

June: Amazingly, half of the year 2006 is over.
(A visitor was kind enough to point out that the year would be half over July 1st....oops!)

July: Ever read Ellen Goodman?

August: These first two pictures are a close up of the Sally Victor panama straw.

September: It's pretty busy around the gardenia bush these days.

October: It was an interesting week.

November: I'm in.

December: I headed to Kroger and just got my two little trees.

My favorite post was this one on earworms , even though it didn't have any pictures.

Life is still delightful here in Salt Lake. It was sunny and clear today, and we went tubing. I still marvel at how snow glistens. The little sparks that flash from untouched snow is such a marvel. I imagined God making snow, and then at the last moment adding the sparkle. What an amazing touch!

We watched Oregon State WIN in the Sun Bowl. GO BEAVERS!

Jeff and I picked out paint for his guest room. "Iconic Sky". Whatever that means. It is kind of a turquoise color, and we went with a slightly bolder color than I first thought to. Tomorrow we paint!

Then off for Mexican food, and now we'll watch "The Devil Wears Prada."
Two nights ago we watched "The Black Dahlia." Ugh...skip it, even though it did have some great hats!

Any fellow bloggers are welcome to leave a comment to go to their site to read their first line retrospectives. And please select your favorite post from your own blog as well!

New Year Resolutions

He looks a little sad, doesn't he?

He used to have three balloons, tiny Christmas ornaments on wires.

I'll have to get busy when I get home and make him some new balloons. Maybe that will cheer him up.

I'm not a big fan of clowns, and white faced sad clowns just make me feel guilty.


Like I need to do something to cheer them up.
Who needs guilt from a clown?

I do like big feet on clowns. That's my favorite part, and Clown Mouse has huge feet!
My only real fur mouse. It always amazes me that our cats have never chowed down on this mouse.

I do paint and draw, so of course I received Artist Mouse one year.

Nice beret!
I can't remember if this mouse was for my BS degree or my Masters.

Either way, I am happy that that rigmarole is over with.

It's funny though.

Sometimes there will be a commercial about getting your degree in truck driving or medical transcriptions or something like that, and my ears will prick up.

Or a conversation will be going on around me about "going back and getting my degree" and my mind will start rummaging around, thinking about if I should go back to school and get my degree. Then I remember...oh yeah, I already have a degree.

I also find myself listening to stories about how to pay for your kids college, then I go "Oh yeah, that's right, they're already through college, and its all paid for, we're done!"

I guess that just shows how compelling some commercials are. I actually feel stress building while I listen to them.

By the by...Re: paying for kid's college. We put ours in Community College first. Cuts the cost of a four year degree by about a third. Then they went to state schools. We didn't put aside a dime for the kid's college fees, as I was a stay at home mom with very part time jobs, there wasn't an extra dime to set aside!
Once the kids started college, (a year apart, oy!) I went to work full time and helped pay the tuition with my income for a couple of years. The student loans were paid off in five years, which included my Master's degree in the mix.

I say this to encourage those who worry about such things.

If I were to go back to college it would be to get a Phd in Storytelling.

No kidding.

There is a college in Tennessee that offers that degree. It is a fascinating field, not just "once upon a time..." stuff, but instead it looks at how people and groups tell their stories. Firemen, soldiers, nurses, librarians, teachers etc etc all have "stories".

Anyway, I'm not in any hurry to get on with getting a Phd in Storytelling.

It's just nice to know there is something I might like to do someday.

I've noticed the older I get the less I want to do. My "wanna" drive seems to be stuck in neutral.
Doing stuff is a lot of work!

Which brings me to New Year Resolution Making.

1. I will not study to be clown.
2. I will not do any painting that involves using a palette on my thumb (ouch!)
3. I will not enroll in any course work that involves semesters.

See how easy it is to make resolutions that you will keep?

I'm writing this in my pajamas at 12:30 pm local time, with snow flakes drifting outside, and my big fluffy grandkitty curled up asleep on the couch.

The DH and DS are off for day two of skiing; I am heading for curling up with a Christmas romance novel.

A cup of tea, maybe even raspberry hot cocoa, an cozy blanket, a book and NO ONE here ask me to do anything.

Bliss!

The Ladies of Mouseville, and Christmas pt. 3

Granny Petite Point and her friend Sally Stitchery.
I love the little work they've done, the reader glasses perched on the nose, and the red velveteen dress.

These three ladies were purchased in the UK at little tourist shops. I think the sled was a happenstance that made its way into the collection.






Hey, wait a minute....aren't you a MOLE?????

OK, you can stay, because you have a cute hat.

All who wear cute hats are welcomed around Jill's World you know.


So, in case you are wondering... what is really going on is this:

I knew I wouldn't be able to download from my camera to Bernie's laptop during this trip, as it is the laptop he uses for business. Pictures just gum up the works.

So I uploaded pictures ahead of time to my old blogger site that I created as a back up, back when I foolishly signed this site up for Blogger Beta last summer.

Blogger Beta: THAT was a nightmare.

I still can not load pictures directly to this site.
I have to upload to my old blogger site, publish, copy, log into this site, and then paste in the the Html from the old site.

Yup, what a pain.

But at least it works.

I am holding my breath that when the fine folks of Google and Blogger switch my back-up site to the new format that I will still be able to up-load pictures. (Hi to Kate...I feel your angst!)

I'm in Salt Lake City, where the temperatures rose during the night and melted all the snow away. It is raining now, DH and DS (those letters stand for Dear Husband and Dear Son...hi Mom!)
are up in the mountains skiing. We're supposed to get a huge amount of snow tonight! Hurrah!

This morning the three of us sat around the Christmas tree and opened gifts. I had gift opening with my in-laws on Sunday night, then gifts with my folks Christmas day, and then here we are again. I like this! Very nice to spread out the joy for three days.

I'm hoping I will be able to download my pictures into DS personal computer, and get to his Picasa. If it works, I'll start blogging pictures of this vacation.
There is LOADS of fun stuff to see.

Meanwhile, let me paint one word picture from the trip. I didn't get a picture of this, but my Canadian readers might enjoy this story:

I was invited to go to the San Diego Wild Animal Park with my long time friend Chris Stewart. She brought along her daughter Jessica and her daughter-in-law Heidi Stewart. All of our husbands went off to play golf for the day.

Now Heidi is ready to birth a huge baby boy any minute now. So we rode a tram through the park, and were entertained by the tour guide. The tour guide stopped the tram regularly to point out various new born critters, each time stating "This is another example of the successful breeding program that we have here."

I kept looking at Heidi, and wishing I could have slipped the driver some money and had him say something like:

"In the sixth row back in the tram there is a pregnant Canadian who is expecting a baby boy any day now. This was a unique breeding opportunity, with conception occurring in Scotland, between a Canadian and an American. Another example of a successful breeding program here today at the Wild Animal Park."

The Day after Christmas

Christmas over, mommies get back to caring for their babies.

I had two babies myself, a girl and a boy. So two baby mice for my collection.

I suppose the littlest should be in a blue blanket.

I just saw my baby girl, LauraRN, an hour ago at UCSD Thornton Hospital, where she is working in the Bone Marrow Transplant unit. I got to meet her co-workers, and be reminded once again that a day of health is a gift to be appreciated greatly.

I'm writing this from the San Diego's Lindberg Airport, waiting for our flight to see the boy baby in Salt Lake.

We had Christmas Eve at my in-laws, Christmas Day at my folks, and we'll have Day after Christmas in SLC.

Three Christmas's!!!!! A record for us!

Of course as a Mommy Mouse, I did a lot of House Mouse stuff.

It would have been much more fun if I could have worn a little cap and blue gingham while I swept.

I usually wore jeans.

What was I thinking, how dull.


I loved to garden.

In jeans.

I don't think I would have liked to garden dressed like this mouse.

She reminds me of Tasha Tudor, the children's book illustrator who dresses and lives as if it is still 1830.

I'm looking forward to attending a showing in Feb. that will include a collection of Tasha's gowns from the early 1830's that she collected over the years.

Something to look forward to, for certain.
Hmmm...I suppose it would have been fun to clean up the house dressed like this.

She's also one of my original mice, and has a poem, which ends with Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in French.

Cleaver little mousie.

Joyous Christmas

Angels came....
Kings came too...
Santa Claus....he came waaaaaayyyyyy later:

Come! Worship the Son of God, He whose Name is Emmanuel.
He Who is STILL and ETERNALLY able to Save Us!

The BEST Gift ever given. Ever. Let all creatures great and small say:

Amen!