Fickle Finger of Fate"

 In one of the books that we are digitizing there appears this plat map.  The odd shapes are the lakes and ponds and the solid lines are streams.  I am always amazed at the amount of water that is lying around here in Maine.  Everywhere you look there is a trickling stream, rushing brook, flowing river, small marshy area, larger filled with water pond exhibiting cat tails growing in the middle of it, larger ponds, huge lakes and it is amazing to me - not only from an Arizona living experience, but from living in Australia where water is also scarce.

 David wanted to see our apartment.  Well, here it is - this is our bedroom and I hate to admit it, but the quilt is from Walmart and made in China.  Pretty scarey when you have to use one of these when a perfectly good Eagle quilt lies on the bed in Prescott................

 This is our office.  Notice the wonderful table on which we have our printer?  It is the best Microwave box table we could afford.

 This is our eating area.  Notice the Picasso pictures done by our grandchildren on the wall.  This is our only artwork on the walls of this apartment.

 This is our living room.  We keep the blinds up to allow as much light to come in as it can.  I ususally sit in the chair nearest the craft lamp and windows to do my blog so that I can see out at the trees and Riverside Drive.  I can also see the sun come up from this position.

 This is our kitchen.  It is in close competition with the space available in our first home that we bought in Johnstown.  It is so tiny that we do not have to wander too far from the stove to the sink to the refrigerator to get the meals under way.

 The gray pile of 'stuff' in the top 1/3 of this picture is what remains of the snow that was scraped off the parking lot this past winter.  It used to occupy the whole picture area and even into the parking lot when we had lots of snow.  What appears to be a sandy beach in the foreground is not a beach at all but the sand that they put on the snow and ice for safety in driving during the winter.  It has remained on the grassy area as the snow and ice has melted.

 the Kennebec Savings bank has this wonderful display of crocus growing in their garden.  It brings gladness to the heart to see such wonderful colors after the drab grey of winter lasted so long.

 These two pictures of trees in the Kennebec bank garden are very pretty.  I do not know what kind they are but they resemble miniature magnolias.  They do not seem to have a perfume that I could discern, but they are wonderful to see.  they look like large snowflakes on the trees as we view them from the street passing by.  I suspect that after the flowers are done these trees will leaf out and be green.

When I was in college in Hawaii, we used to watch a TV program called “Laugh In”.  It was totally hilarious and took our minds off the daily grind of classes, homework and young adult problems.  One segment was called “The Fickle Finger of Fate”.  Well the Fickle Finger of Fate is alive and well in the digitizing arena of our lives.  I guess we will never understand or harness the relationship between LSI, Focus, Grey Scale, Megapixel Camera and the mysterious auditors and their scrutiny of our work.  We are now well past our half way mark in this mission and our understanding of the mechanics of this process still escapes us.  We received an email telling us that all our submissions last week passed but not with flying colors.  In my mind you either pass or you do not pass a “Pass with Reservations” leaves me more than puzzled as to what is really needed, wanted or expected.  But we will take the PASS and move on.  We have another shuttle loaded with about 17 folders to be sent off tomorrow and we send it off hoping that our constant checking of focus etc. is on the money.  Like I said, the fickle finger of fate is hard at work.

David has been busy on the cell phone lately.  He has planted some seeds and they have come up and look good in the pictures he has sent.  However, he failed to put a marker on the seedlings container telling him what he planted so he sent me pictures on the cell phone asking me to identify the plants.  I never did very well with the game “20 questions” and did about the same with this challenge.  One bunch of closely growing seedlings (read that way too many for the success of any but the truly hardy and virulent) in the survival of the fittest container, closely resembled zucchini squash seedlings.  Another picture looked like a pumpkin or melon seedling.  Some spindly seedlings looked like they were too frail to survive and he did not remember if they were parsley, basil or chives.  Only time will tell what they turn out to be.

I am glad that he has his garden to tend.  A garden is always a learning experience and I am sure that he will learn a lot with this endeavor.  Someone helped him with the railroad ties to make the raised bed and he purchased mulch etc. to make the soil for the plants to grow in and he told me that he irrigates the plot twice daily.  Drowning the plants may not be such a good idea, but then it is his garden and my hope is that he is kept busy with it to the point that he is kept from some other practices he has adopted since moving into the group home.

As an exercise program we have been attending Western Line Dance classes.  At first I was not impressed that the dances consist of 4 or 5 particular steps performed over and over, but as time goes on, I have begun to really like this form of exercise.  We went to a gathering for line dance recently and I saw the advanced class doing their dances and I guess it is safe to say I am hooked.  They were performing some very intricate steps and as they moved in unison it reminded me of some performances I saw when Sara was dancing with her dance school groups.  Sara had a poster on her wall when she was taking dance classes that said, “The feet may learn the steps, but only the heart can dance” and I think that this is literally true.  As I watched the dancers doing the advanced moves, I could see that the feet did know the steps, but these people were dancing with their hearts and it was more than pretty to watch – it was fascinating.

So just for fun, I asked my GPS on the Iphone to find me Western Line Dance in Prescott, Az and it pin pointed the Adult Center on Rosser Street – less than a mile from our home.  That gives me heart since the Adult Center has appeared to be out of range with its fees etc. and seemingly only offered Bridge groups and meals on wheels to the seniors, we may take them up on the Western Line Dance activity when we get back to Arizona.

I have spent a long time with Weight Watchers losing weight and achieving good results but on this mission I am afraid that our physical activity is at about zero level and my weight keeps going up and up.  I may qualify for a job as the “fat lady at the circus” when I get home and I can hear my WW Leader gasping when I stand on the scale when I get back home.  Perhaps I will not attend meetings until I can at least be somewhat lighter than I was when I stood on the scale this morning.  The crazy thing is that I can still fit into my clothes that I brought with me.  That makes me wonder if they are expanding with my body size or if they were given the wrong sizing tags in the store or what is happening here.  I feel good and am functioning really well and have not been sick this whole time on my mission.  I do watch what I eat and try to keep to the program and do not gorge on food.  I guess this is another example of the “fickle finger of fate” syndrome.  Lack of consistent exercise has a great impact on my weight.

When we moved here, each morning I used to mark where the sun was among the trees.  I could not see it from where I am sitting but now that it is spring, the sun has moved higher into the Northern Hemisphere and I can see it easily from where I sit typing this blog.  The world truly does wobble on its axis, seasons come and go and joyfully I greet the light each morning.  Light is something I have truly missed seeing here in Maine.  When we first came it got dark at 4.30pm then I noticed it was completely dark by 4.15pm and became despondent when it was dark at about 10 minutes to 4pm.  Then the Earth wobbled on its axis and it was dark at 4pm then 4.15pm then 4.30 pm and over time it now is light until around 6pm and I feel a lot better with the light being available for longer periods during the day.  They tell me that in the summer here in Maine it is still light at 9pm…….I look forward to that.

So, Fickle Finger of Fate, do your job this week and pass our 17 folders that we have done - most of them are reworks from the time that we had the lens that turned out to be a dud.