Ok. So we had our meeting at the SJ church tonight. It started at 7:00 p.m. There were a lot of people in attendance. The final word is that we don't know if the school will be closing or not. There seemed to be enough people there that were interested enough in keeping the school open that it may just make a difference. One of the parishioners and long-time employee of the church and school stood up and made a HUGE pledge to the school. He then challenged everyone in the building to write down their name, phone number, and amount they felt they could give, whether it be weekly, monthly, or a one-time pledge. I left at 9:15 because I thought everything that could be said was said and I needed to get out of there. No other good reason except I'd put in a full day already and a meeting needs to have an "end time." You know what I mean? I didn't walk out in the middle of it like some people (namely the people you saw on the news tonight) did. Anyway, I think there's still hope. Just to set the record straight, the school is NOT officially closing their doors. That is misinformation. The media is sooooo good at that!!!! All I know is if the school stays open, I will continue to work there and I will do all I can (within my power) to make it the kind of Catholic school people want their children to attend.

Wow! There sure are a lot of websites to keep up with! But that's a good thing. Speaking of websites; I guess it's possible I will be eliminating one of the websites I regularly maintain. It was the fun one too. Well maybe that will motivate me to do a personal one. I just don't know what to have as my "theme." You know what I mean?

"Dreams, visions, or psychic insights might point the way towards new ways of increasing your income, dear Gemini. Your unconscious mind is especially active right now, and is processing information even when you aren't aware of it. Therefore, don't be too shocked, even if what comes up seems rather unconventional. Tip: make sure of your insights by consulting with others who might know something valuable. That way you'll feel more secure." Now isn't that an odd horoscope for today. I don't know if you ever bother reading your horoscope. I find it interesting if nothing else. Today was our meeting at the school and I guess all we can do is pray that we get enough support from the parishioners to keep our school open for another year. I'm keeping a positive attitude though. Later............

I just reached a 28% win rate on Spider Solitaire. I have won that game 149 times and lost it 378 times. I added the number of games here because I realize that if you've only played 4 times and won once, you have a 25% win rate. Anyway, I'm pretty excited. That's playing the medium level by the way. I've tried the hard level and get discouraged REALLY fast! Is it even possible to win that level?

Is it July 24th already??? Wow, how the summer flies. Well it's amazing how fast time goes as you get older. Have you noticed? I once heard that the older you get the faster time goes by. I don't know how true that is but I do feel like it goes by much faster now than when I was a child. I got this cool program to make collages. I'm not sure if that's spelled right but in this book I'm reading, that's how they spelled it. I'll have to check. Anyway, you start with a blank page, click on 'add something' and click on picture from: either 'my computer' or 'digital camera' etc. You repeat this process until you have all the pictures you want on your collage. You select the picture and give it special effects (if desired) and there you have it. It's very simple to work with. Every picture you add is another layer. You can reorder your layers if you like. Basically you can do anything that your imagination allows you to do. I've only made one collage so far and I do plan on doing some more and printing them out. On a much different note: The whole staff at SJS has been called to a meeting Wednesday at 11:00 am. I've been thinking about it off and on during the day wondering what could possibly be said at this meeting. I can only wait and find out tomorrow. We shall see..............

I'm glad it rained today. It got really dark and started thundering around 10:00 this morning. Then the lightening started. I think that went on for about a half hour before it finally started raining. It stayed nice out until the sun came out and it got HOT.Yuck! We closed up the house again and turned on the air. We did some work around the house and I started reading "Insomnia" by Stephen King. It's been a long time since I've read one of his books. I just finished "The Testament" by John Grisham and that was a good book. I also cross stitched again. It was a good day. Mike's supposed to come home one more time before he goes overseas. He still plans on taking Alex to Ceder Point. I'm so glad because she's been looking forward to it. I thought about joining them but it would probably be a big wasted of money since I don't have any desire to go on those big rides. I'll probably end up not going after all.

We've been watching a lot of movies lately. Because I have the Entertainment coupon book where you can rent one, get one free, we've been taking advantage of it. I don't usually watch much television but now is a good opportunity (especially with this heat) to check out some movies that are out there right now. We saw "John Q" tonight and it was a good movie. The hardest thing for me when it comes to watching tv is sitting there for an extended length of time. The only place I usually sit for a long time is at the computer. You could say I've been 'vegging out' a bit this summer. It actually feels ok. No, it feels good! I sometimes sit and cross stitch while watching tv; it depends on how much of my attention the program requires. But I've also been entering library books into the computer at home. My goal is to do 3 milk crates of books per day. (That's about 100 books.) So far, so good. I need to get my hours in. Plus, I'm trying to make life easier for Linda when she becomes the new librarian this year. There's no room for extra spending in the summer! Now THAT'S a bummer! Oh well. Life IS good!

I just deleted the first blog I wrote this morning because once I clicked on 'post and publish' for the last one, the other one published too. Anyway, about the kind words thing; I find it especially hard to use kind words when something like this happens (and when I have to interact with unintelligent people, when it's 95 degrees out, oh, I could go on) but I realize it doesn't do any good to be nasty. It only makes ME feel worse. I just wanted to elaborate a bit on that subject. More later.

Ok. Now I'm really confused. I blogged this morning and clicked 'post and publish' and it didn't. When I signed in just now, I see it on the bottom of my page as if it's there. But it's not. Anyway, in case that other one doesn't ever show up, this one's close.

"Always use kind words..............for once spoken, they cannot be unspoken." Boy if THAT isn't a challenge; but one worth taking on. I must say, Dad has been a real inspiration to me when it comes to taking digital pictures. I drove down the road a few nights ago to get some shots of the sunset because from where we're at, it's not visible. I guess I may have assumed that once you've seen a sunset, you've seen them all. Not true. By the way, I'm "re-blogging" this due to the fact that the first time (8:30 this morning) it wouldn't publish. Thus, words of wisdom from Mom: "Always copy and paste into a word doc." We live and we learn. Some of us just live. Anyway, back to the sunset shots...............they turned out quite nice and quite a bit different from the sunset shots I got at Hamlin Lake. I'm starting to really pay attention to what I'm taking pictures of. I think that's the key; pay attention. Of course that's the key to LOTS of things. I was looking at my bulletin board at home this morning and noticed that it's almost filled up with pictures! They're all pictures that I've taken and printed out myself. Until next time.......

I wonder where they get the blogspots that they feature on the home page. Do you think they just pick them randomly? Wouldn't it be cool to see your blog there one day? I got some more training in tonight and earned another day off without having to use a vacation day. I'll be getting paid for the extra hours starting next week though. I'm going in early tomorrow to do checks before the office opens so I won't have too many (if any) interruptions. I'm looking forward to doing the bookkeeping and I'll be the official bookkeeper beginning January. Until then I will do all the checks and learn how to do month-end and year-end. I'd like to think I don't require that long of a training period; just that they want me to get comfortable with the whole thing. Come July 1, 2003 we will be switching bookkeeping programs. The diocese is requiring all parishes to switch to one program which is probably a good idea. I wish it wasn't going to be 95 degrees tomorrow. You can ask me any time of the year and I will tell you I HATE the hot, humid weather. Some people, in the dead of winter, will tell you, "I WISH it was 90 degrees right now." I don't recall ever saying that. I love the cool weather. Not too cold but not too hot either. I guess most of us would fall into that category, eh? If I had to wear sweaters and sweatshirts all year long, that would be just fine with me. Thank whoever invented air conditioners that they did. I almost said, "Thank God for air conditioners." But God didn't invent them. So, thank you, whoever you were. P.S. I never uploaded photos to dotphoto because I couldn't find my cd with the pics on them until this morning. Maybe tomorrow. Almost bedtime.................

It's Sunday already..................sigh. We had a pretty good weekend. Friday night Alex, Rebecca (Alex's friend), and I went to the River Walk in Bay City. It was a nice evening to take a walk. Also a good opportunity to get some pictures of the two of them and ducks. That's about all there was to take pictures of there. Saturday I cleaned most of the day (various places; mine included.) It's hot today so I closed up the house once again and put the air on. Why do the weekends go by so fast? I REALLY need to get on those websites and update them. I tried to upload some pictures from my computer onto MSN but that option wasn't there at the time. Bummer. I think I'll upload some photos to dotphoto.

My training session went well. The three hours flew by! I'll probably go in again next Tuesday night for some more training. Repetition is the key to learning. Tomorrow is Friday! Yeah! The week sure goes by fast when you take Monday off!

I've been reading all my family's blogs and I find them quite interesting. I hope to keep mine up to date and I hope everyone else plans to do the same. We had a very productive day today. Mom and Dad's yard is really shaping up! It makes me feel good to do stuff like that. There's a bit more work to be done but summer's not over so I think we can do it! Tomorrow night I'll continue my bookkeeping training at St. John's. I'm not looking forward to working at night but I AM looking forward to taking on a new challenge and of course I won't be working at night all the time; mostly through the training period. Either I'll go in a couple hours early or go back at night for a few weeks. With my hours being down at school, it works out fine. Alex is at a sleepover with Donna and her kids at Kim's house tonight. I'm glad she went even though I miss her when she's not here. I finally have the computer to myself and what do I do? I watch a movie! It's funny how we humans are, don't you think? We are such creatures of habit! So here I am on the computer at 1 something in the morning.............................by the way, I rented "A Beautiful Mind" and I recommend it. It's over two hours long so make some popcorn if you watch it. I did.

Another beautiful day ahead of us..................yeah! Of course every day is beautiful when you think about it. Sometimes it's not easy to remember that but I always try to be grateful for the day no matter what the weather brings. I don't know what possessed me to do so, but I decided this morning to go to some strangers' blogs to see what they're all about. I'm not sure why someone would want to read a blog written by someone they don't know but I did so there must be a million other people that would too. I KNOW I have better things to do! One person wanted to know why they call it a blog. He said, "Call it a website please!" I think he's crazy. I think 'blog' is a unique word and I like it. I stayed up a little too late again last night (2:00). It makes 7:00 come awfully early! I kind of like having some extra time in the morning though before I go to work. It gives me time to blog and check my mail (the little that I get) and play a game of Spider Solitaire. I'm not brave enough to try the 4-suit game. It would mess up my percentage of wins. I must get ready for work.

I LOVE this weather. My windows are open and my air conditioner is off! I think I'm going to get some extra hours in at St. John's in the next few weeks. That's a good thing since I'm not working as much at school. I wish I could live on one job because I would do a lot of stuff that I never seem to have time to do now. I've been cross stitching the last few days and as a result I may just have some new Christmas ornaments hanging on my tree this year. I could really get used to this. I really gotta get my pictures from this weekend uploaded to dotphoto soon. I have a bunch of them. Some are even pretty good I think. I read Mom's blog and she tried to make me feel better about my blog name I think. I appreciate that Mom. And I appreciate Dad helping me figure out how to get rid of the stupid line numbers on my word doc today. I was so frustrated! I spent the first 45 minutes at work trying to undo what somebody did on my Word program and left it as the default setting! When I got my new computer at work I asked if I could be the SOLE user of it because people go on there and change things around. I HATE that! I like it the way I have it. You know what I mean? My computer has Windows 2000 (don't ask me why they didn't get one with Windows XP) and when you log on you have to put in a password. Nice feature. I didn't leave the password under a tray in my desk this time. You don't have to hit me in the head twice! Time to cross stitch before I retire for the night!

Well it's back to work today. I'm glad it rained last night. It'll keep Alex employed mowing lawn. I'm not sure how she feels about that but she'll appreciate it afterwards. I had a very good loooooooooong weekend. I better get going or I'll be late!

You know, I was just thinking how stupid this name sounds: OttO's BlOggOs. Oh well. I guess I'll keep it anyway. In case any of you already thought that, I just wanted you to know that I did too. And here's a P.S. on the previous blog: Wireless internet is TOO COOL!!!! I'm saving my $$ for it now. I figure in three months I'll be ready!

I should have blogged at the cabin......................Friday night we had a fire out by the water. That was after Alex and I went on a boat ride. Saturday morning someone was knocking on our cabin door at 6:00 a.m. I thought it must be 8 or so, but no, it was Dad saying, "If you hurry, you can get a good shot of the sunrise." So I got up out of bed and went outside and got some shots. I think they came out pretty good. I also learned something about my exposure settings. It made it all worthwhile (getting up at 6, that is.) I was going to go back to bed but I decided not to and I'm glad. We had a busy day ahead of us. (That's a good thing.) Dad, Alex and I went on a boat ride around the lake while Mom was situating things in the big cabin. I volunteered to help but she said no. We got back from the boat ride and we all cleaned up and packed up for the trip to the Ludington State Park. What a beautiful park! I got a lot of pictures there. We walked on some trails and after a while decided it was time to have lunch so we picked a table overlooking the river. We then took another walk on a different trail and it was nearing 3:00 so we thought we better turn around and go back so we could prepare for our evening with the Bourdons. We got there around 6 and cooked hamburgers on the grill and we had potato salad and cucumber/tomato/onion salad. It was a good meal. Then we went on a pontoon boat ride. Lisa got to drive. She was pretty happy about that. She even got to do a "doughnut" and "open it up." It was a beautiful evening for a ride on the lake. The sunset was another opportunity to get some pictures so of course we took several. I thought it was pretty cool getting sunrise and sunset shots on the same day. Then came the fireworks. I couldn't figure out how to time my shots so I decided to put my camera in the movie mode. One of the movies came out ok. The thing about that though is the resolution is much lower than still shots. Dad got his tripod all set up and ready to go on the land. He got some good pictures. We made it back home around 11:45 or so. I was going to turn on the computer but I was a little tired. The next day I slept in until 8:30. We decided we'd just lounge around the cabin that day and relax. We had a nice lunch and before we knew it, it was getting close to the time when we had to leave. It was a great weekend away! I'm sure we'll go back again this summer.

We made it to Mom and Dad's cabin!!! Yeah! The weather is gorgeous! Just how I like it. I'll blog some more tomorrow. Until then....................P.S. We got some good digital images.

It's the 4th of July. We had some pretty amazing fireworks down the street here last night. I don't know how people get away with that kind of stuff. They were definitely not legal ones. Well the trip to Lila's cabin was too boring for me and Alex. The most interesting part of the 2 days was when Lila and I tried to make breakfast on the campfire. I ended up putting the bacon in a pan to finish cooking it. We made toast and english muffins on the fire. I didn't even try eggs.................. We did swim some but you can only stay in the water so long. It must have been 99 degrees out there and that was by the water! We did go on a boat ride in Lila's daughter's boat. Honora went tubing. That was fun too. I was going to try it but when I saw that she was going 30 mph and how Honora was bouncing around in that thing, I changed my mind quickly. The rest of the time, we basically did NOTHING. I guess I don't have that "contemplative" nature in me. The 3 co-workers we went with were in their glory though. We got home at 9:00 p.m. Monday night after sitting in a restaurant in Mio for a whole hour and a half! The meal was ok and served in a timely manner, but when those women decided they wanted pie.....that was when I got frustrated. We must have waited 45 minutes for the pie to come. Not worth it as far as I'm concerned. This weekend we'll be heading for Ludington. I'm looking forward to that.