Digital Scrapbooking: Therapy for Maniacal Insomnia

I have discovered a new hobby..digital scrapbooking. I've been wanting to scrapbook forever, but no funds. This digital online interface works well with my latest neurological deficits. You can mail camera phone shots directly to your photobucket albums. The Scrapblog application allows you to upload any image from your photobucket albums. After saving your scrapbook,it becomes a slide show in your photo bucket album. Each page of scrapbook becomes a JPEG file capable of being edited and shared independently. Fun program, but a memory hog. Its moves PAINFULLY slow on my old IBM T40 512RAM. And really it must have been designed for a 17 inch screen...I wasted hours trying to find the 'done' button which does not display under normal IE browser settings.To navigate program's full dashboard, I had to toggle the browser window zoom between 100% and 200%. There were a million other bugs that had to be overcome before successfully publishing the final product. I lost an entire page I painstakingly worked on because it would not save my edits. The results were so pleasing I will probably toture myself to create another scrapbook during my next maniacal insomniac episode.

No that's not a view through my window

Unless you count Windows XP...its my holiday screen saver! This is all I need to take down before New Year's Day

Luppie Brain Confession: Forgotten Gifts

I took great care shopping around the internet to decide on these two well wrapped gifts. I ordered them custom wrapped in November well ahead of Christmas! But that was November 2007. I hid them from myself, neglecting to deliver them for Christmas 2007! Well undiscovered until Spring 2008, I decided to just wait for Christmas 2008. Hopefully they'll be just as appreciated this year, and that last years ommision has been forgiven and forgotten. I make my confession for the sake of fellow sufferers from luppie brain events!

New Improved Toilet Seat

Pops finished installing this cushioned toilet seat that replaced the old hard wooden one. With no room for chair, also provides a soft comfortable place to sit instead of standing in front of the bathroom mirror to groom at the vanity after my shower. Its the little everyday comforts that really improve the quality of our lives.

Santa "St. Nick" Claus and the 3 Magi: Why We Give

Fortunately, I discovered the real Santa Claus as a young child. Prior to kindergarten I read my Childcraft Encyclopedia. My favorite volume, was dedicated to explaining holiday culture around the world. Even then my favorite holiday was Christmas. I learned about many different customs different from my own. Most important, I learned about St. Nick the real Santa Claus. Santa Claus is the variation of Saint Nicholas. "Nick-Claus" He was a real live Christian whose generosity was so great he was venerated as a saint. Legend has it that he delivered gifts to children that were "good" passing by those guilty of misbehavior. Some of the motivation to stay off "naughty list" has remained in contemporary Santa.

Canon JIM ROSENTHAL ( Founder, UK/USA St. Nicholas Society ) says...

St. Nicholas was a real person — not a fairy, not someone who's flying through the sky with reindeer, but an actual person who lived and worked and died and had a full life. He had a Christian life because he was actually a bishop, a pastor.

Jim Rosenthal visits churches to help spread the Saint Nicholas message. READ MORE »

Most Americans, Christian or not are also familiar with the costars of every Nativity scene,The Three Wise Men or Magi who arrived at Jesus birth one silent night led by a star to a Bethlehem manger.

11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Matthew 2:11 (Today's New International Version)

Somehow the biblical story of the wise men's gift giving to celebrate the birth of The Messiah and the legends of the "gift giving saint" led to our Christmas gift giving custom. Children still enjoy the magic of Christmas through decorations and gifts, but where's the lessons from the original stories. The motivation to be good year round. The reverence for Christ and the principles He brought us. Like Jim Rosenthal I worry the original messages of altruism and devotion will disappear. Believe it or not the current secular mythology of Santa Claus was introduced by a minister in the famous poem "Twas the Night Before Christmas".

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack. His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow; The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath; He had a broad face and a little round belly, That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf. . . .

Coca Cola forever defined the jolly fat black belted,gold buckled, red suited, white bearded Santa Claus we know today through his commercialization in their advertisements. The current American Christmas has been sabotaged by the religion of capitalism. Buying and selling has become the most important ceremony of the holiday. Our retail industry is completely dependent on the Christmas shopping season to turn a profit and get out of the red every year. ( hence Black Friday after Thanksgiving ) There's no crime in holiday shopping. I just hope that we don't lose the original stories celebrating Christianity which inspired the tradition of giving gifts. Merry Christmas!

Santa, Ashes and Reynolds Wrap Metallic Silver Christmas Trees

Like most American kids I was given the sleigh driving version of Santa Claus to believe in. The legend in my rural southern small town included the usual expectation of toys under the tree. There were caveats however to the magic. One eve, I vividly remember laying stiff under tucked covers giddy with anticipation over arrival of Santa, but most important I remember the fear and anxiety of trying to keep my eyes tightly shut. With my excitement, I'd given up all efforts to actually fall asleep, but I was told that children had to go to sleep Christmas night or Santa wouldn't come. That night as I gave in to peeking there was a magical reddish glow cast from the embers through the cracks of the hot black stove. I panicked at the thought of the mound of ashes growing at the bottom. Visiting older children had warned that if I was caught peeking Christmas Eve night, I would face the sure punishment of ashes in my eyes. This was the southern rural Negro take on mainstream 'coal in your stocking' tradition. Well our humble homes didn't have fireplaces nor cold bins of Victorian nostalgia. We kept warm by cast iron stoves fueled by kindling wood. I strained to hear the sounds beyond the walls. I was perplexed by my imaginations for Santa's sleigh navigation. We rarely had snow. Actually at this preschool age, I had only once witnessed snowflakes from a skimpy flurry dusting the ground with no accumulation. Our chimney was a pipe connected to a hole in the wall from the iron stove I was watching. Yet I heard activity. My grandma usually said prayers and went to bed with me. But this night I was sent alone. Was Mama out there assisting Santa? Perhaps this was a requirement for folks without the big fireplaces or grand roof tops I'd seen in my story book and on television.

I had witnessed the real live Santa Claus at the parade that circled the court house in town. He waived at me from a sleigh that was pulled by a tractor. Then I met him in person when we made that long car ride down the highway to the big city to Christmas shop at the fancy stores with elevators. I was led from a line to get on his lap and tell him what I wanted for Christmas. I didn't want to miss the opportunity to give him a list but I didn't care to sit in his lap. In fact I just didn't care for him at all. I did what I was told. They even took a picture that we took home in a pretty Christmas tree shaped card. Eventually, I fell sound asleep then awoke before dawn's light. The open door and smell of brewing coffee gave me permission to go see what Santa brought. Still dark outside, I stepped from the threshold of the bedroom to the "front room" of our little house. Bright red, green, yellow and blue beams of light were rotating across the walls bouncing off our low ceiling. Instead of one of the many green cedar trees cut down from our land, there was a fantastic adorned tree with shining silver needles like shredded Reynolds wrap. Each revolution of the colored light made the tree turn a different color. Underneath lay an assortment of unwrapped toys and clothes. I knew they were all mine. Santa Claus had landed his sled! Never found out how. Maybe Grandma simply let him through the front door.

Halved my size

Decreased meds! Halved my size! Last year's white linen cropped pant size 2X: 2008's replacement, sized 16.