Whatever happened to Peace On Earth?
Willie Nelson, 1933 – living ‘09, wrote it on Chr. Day 2003
    & performed it 01/03/04, to raise money for Dennis Kucinich’s presidential campaign.

Just so you know — I have given up learning WP on my own & purchased a couple books to help me. Maybe I can get some hings happening after they arrive & I am over this flu bug, eh?

I have been very lazy about my work in recent weeks. Mostly because I find it so daunting, trying to find a webhost who can handle it. Instead, I have read books I’d not read in years… and played games on FaceBook. I’ve gotten rather hooked on Hatchlings/Eggs on there, I must admit.

Do you see the picture at the top of my page? The covered bridge? I picked it because it reminded me of The Old Stone Bridge just outside Manassas Va (west of Wash.DC) where the two civil wars were fought of Bull Run Creek. They rebuilt the bridge and it was a favorite walk of mine in the years we lived nearby…  and this picture reminds me of that one. It is a quiet place with a nice elevated walk thru the woods right along the busy highway.

Right now my life seems to be the lovely quiet place with the busy road right there waiting for me to get back on the freeway. Ijust need to “start the car”, only for now, the battery is low and the “car” doesn’t want to start.

After more than a decade of running my websites… I am forced to the realization that I am very tired. I am burned out. Even my contrary, bullheaded nature is not enough at this time to get me going again.

I think for now, I still just want to linger along this quiet bridge… and rest. I hope those waiting on me will understand.  Blessings!

Yuletide Blessings!
Happy Hanukah!
Merry Christmas!
Happy Kwanzaa!

I do recognize Christmas out of habit, but in truth my real hoiday is Yule. Let me explain…  long about Dec.  21st is the day called ”Yule” (y-ul) and this is the “Winter Solstice” (shortest day of year). It marks the God’s rebirth from the Goddess, and reminds us that Death’s product is Rebirth!  Dec. 22nd is then the start of the Zodiacal Sign of Capricorn.

Through the Autumn the days have grown shorter, but upon the astrological Solstice, the days now start to grow; this is when the birth of the God comes into manifestation. Older religions celebrated on the 25th, Old Yule and because it is a traditional day of holy births, the Christian leaders had Jesus also born on this date to replace the Pagan births and celebrations. In 274, Emperor Aurelian had Rome celebrating the “Feast of the Invincible Sun” on Dec. 25th and by the year 529, Christmas had become a holiday celebrated by time off from work, unless you cooked or did something to enhance the festivities; this made into law by Justinian. If you wish to celebrate the “Twelve Days of Christmas”, which of course are also Pagan; then you might wish to do this Dec. 25th thru Jan. 6th.

The American Heritage Dictionary says modern “yule” is from Middle English, “yole” or “yule”; which comes from Old English “geol/geohhol”; from Common Germanic, “jehwla/jegwla”, meaning “unattested”. However, the Ency. of Traditional Symbols, pg 197: “yule, is from the Gallic gule, meaning a wheel.” While other sources say that “yula” is Anglo-Saxon for “wheel”. While Druid friends assure me the word is Germanic.

I loved my great-auntPeggy’s holiday cheer and decorations. And my aunt Shirl kept things festive too. In my younger days, my favorite trees were completely covered in hand created decorations. There is one Christmas on the farm that I did love — Christmas Eve is began to snow thick heavy flakes. There was no wind and for hours it came down as D. watched tv and I sat by the window watching. M. per usual, hid for a couple days in her bed because she hated the holiday. It was fairly late when D. came over to look out the window too and just then a nearly full moon came out and the whole valley awoke in brightness and the snow sparkled and glistened beautifully. I think it must have been about 1968-69.

Here in Florida we have been flitting about the low 80’s and today we have a little rain. It’s rather odd after growing up in eastern Ohio and living many years in northern Virginia, to walk about in shorts, see cars with their tops down, and worst — be buzzed by mosquitos! on Christmas Eve.

On the personal news — I just recovered nicely from a chest cold. We had a nice couple days here and I was even able to make us a nice turkey dinner today. Crys couldn’t be here just now but she’ll be back out this way in March.

News for my brothers – Stevie’s mom is pretty sure we have a half-sister out there born around 1975 or so. The woman left Homer Laughlin where D. worked, soon after her pregnancy began showing but Stevie’s mom has given promise to asking around and see if any gossip comes up. She just remembers the rumors of that time.

On the webpage news – bad news. Other among my friends have been hit. Their sites downloaded and uploaded with a couple problem links. I’ve learned that such links can give vistors “viruses”, or take over their computers, or grab their address books. It just depends on what the bad guys want to do with such computers. WE as the web owner can do nothing to protect ourselves but get good hosts… we have to rely on our webhost for protection. Obviously some can’t, at least for us little people???  I have not given up, but must admit I am feeling a bit depressed over this.

Happy Holidays everybody, no matter how you celebrate… please have a wonderful week at this holy time of year. Den

Interesting week & in some ways fun, some ways fun – NOT!  Got jury notice but my asthma should keep me out of that. That’s all I need with my lousy lungs & allergies… shut up with people & their perfumes, after shave, cigarette smell, & who knows what else. I’d last 10 minutes, maybe.

But I LOVE my new iPod… got the Classic with 120 GB memory… so been working with my music, movies, etc etc etc & this has got to be one of the best gifts I ever gifted myself.

We had intended a back bedroom in this house to be my office but it’s too hot in summer & too cold in winter. Moving my office into the “dining room” has been problematic in the constant interruptions as hubby comes & goes when he is working form home. Put iPod on, turn music up – no more problem. I’m a writer – writers hate people so much as walking past when they are working. Poor man… he got a lot of “the look”.

Got my old web-hosting account all shut down now. Looks like all the domain names are displaying my “got hacked” message except for the primary denelder.com one, so need to try & figure that out later. Decided not to look too hard for a new host until Jan, now. I’ve got enough stress going on, I need to take it easy on me for a bit here.

Although I must say, life in central Florida is pretty good right now. Sure beats the heck out of those years in Miss, fer shure.  They actually had snow the other morning! I think I only saw snow 3 times in the 7-8 years we were there… & always wanted to. And yet down here, I don’t have any desire to see snow. I’ve not figured myself out on that one yet. Deep snow in Ohio though was awful pretty… until you had to hike the nearly mile thru snow drifts to catch a school bus. Then there was the mornings that you stood for an hour, a wolf-head wind blowing up your skirts (no pants permitted back then!) only to have somebody finally stop their car long enough to yell, “hey kids, didn’t ya here? school is closed today!”  Well if we heard would be standing out there?

Yeah, I am loving Florida.

What an awful situation in India the past few days. Please consider stopping & giving the innocent people & their families & loved ones, a little prayer.

Despite the mess with my website, this has been a really nice week for me. I not only heard from my 3 surviving brothers but my sister-in-law of another, posted me too. And while I didn’t hear from the 1 sister, she is still recovering from her cancer ordeal, tired but ALIVE, thank Goddess! and no sign of cancer anywhere. As to the other sister, karma can be a B* and she’ll get her’s.

I have spent this past couple weeks over-hauling all my separate web projects into a single one. Boy howdy, is this working much better under Front Page (thanks again, Mark!).  I am now on the 840th ShiAbbey chapel page & all of us are looking at each other — “she knows *how many* people?!”  ha!

And I was totally BAD & went out the other evening & I bought myself a super-duper nice iPod for myself. I think it’s called “Classic” but then has over 120 MB memory to it. Daughter set me up with iTunes when she was here last week, so am well on the way to be tech-savy… how scary is that?  But music, pictures, movies, who knows what all I can put on this thing, hee! hee! hee!

AND I am actually having fun on FaceBook, sending critters & Christmas decorations & such, to my couple “friends” there… so thanks Dory, for getting me started on that.  Books I am reading is back to that series by Stephanie Myers. OK, I’m a little old for these but they are fun! How she took that twittie girl and made somebody like me read all 4 books, well, the woman CAN write! Hope she gets rich with the movies and all, she well deserves it, IMO.

Happy Thanksgiving people… and to those 2 special guys in Beaver Falls, luv ya Bro’s!

This is my first entry and I would like to thanks my sister of “MeowMansion”, who encouraged me in this new communication tool. I am here this morning particularly because somebody hacked my website at DenElder.com and I had to yank it. So I wanted some place, my circle of friends could find me and know I’m still about.