Over the past four months, my son and I have settled back in at my Mom's homestead almost completely.

Other than a few differences between the pre-computer and computer-dependent generations and the usual gender differences, the one glaring canyon between my Mother and my Son has been her lack of knowledge of his favorite cartoons, games and movies.


Whereas my son and I can riff off of each other for hours, doubling over at little nuances in voice or action, my Mom looks on as if we'd grown a few extra heads.


Today, we all decided to take a real day off. Leave the laundry, the dishes, the homestead chores. Well, except for the care of our animals. That cannot be ignored. Otherwise, we all went in search of our respective bliss.


My son was playing with the dogs outside. My Mom was watching a National Geographic special I'd already seen before. I was at my SOHO (small office, home office), looking out the window and trying to concentrate on my daily writing quota [NaNoWriMo].


Perhaps I dazed off because I was definitely startled by the loud laughter coming from my Mom's room. Whatever it was, my Mom and my "Baby" were cracking up. Big time.


Imagine my surprise to see them both watching Barbie and the Three Musketeers!


As soon as they saw me enter the room, they both began raving about a doggie-behind kicking cat, an old lady who "so rocks" [CJ's words] and emphatically stating we "so need to get this movie".


Um. Oh-kay.


Guess my Mom understands how/why I know so much about CJ's interests. They suck you in, man, they suck you in!

Wishing you much peace, happiness and success,

Penny (CJsMonnie)

Every couple of months or so, I adopt a new "theme song" to help me either keep my concentration on my goals/work or to deal with whatever is going on in my life at the time.

Everything from Akon's "Beautiful" to Nickelback's "Never Again" has had it's turn on my "repeat song" setting. Yeah, some have been slower, Em's "Beautiful" for example, but I prefer upbeat stuff I can dance to. Rock, rap, dance, classical .. I am not snobby. As long as it helps keep me going, it's all good.


This song helps me to keep in mind life isn't fair but heck, none of us are perfect so we aren't always playing fair either. Sometimes we may not realize we accidentally hurt someone else and/or we cut our own opportunities off unintentionally.

Right now, I'm processing the last few years. I'd been living one of those fast-lane type lives where I was always busy and on the go. Now that I'm not commuting between NY and TX for half of every month, I have time to think.

Whether or not that is a good thing, I dunno. Perfectionist me wants to wrap up loose ends. Sentimental me wants to hide my head under a pillow. I've decided to just let it go and live.




This song represents that to me: letting go and living. Realizing that nothing is perfect and no matter how "good" or "right" we try to be, we may get the short end of the stick now and then. Shrug it off. Run your town. Run your life.

Wishing you much peace, happiness and success,

Penny (CJsMonnie)

Now, I know that everyone and their momma has a "special salsa recipe" and they all say their version is the definition of "all time best" or hottest.


All I'm saying this is my family's daily salsa. =)


We add this to veggie dishes (beans, rice), meat dishes and well, pretty much everything except dairy items.

Grandma Lane's Everyday Salsa

• 32 Chiltepin peppers
• 4 garlic cloves
• 6 cilantro leaves (optional)
• 1/3 teaspoon table salt
• 6 tablespoons water

Using your preferred mortar and pestle tool, a molcajete in our case, smoosh the chiltepin peppers, garlic cloves and cilantro leaves into a pulp.


Mix in the salt. Add the water once the mixture is well blended and voila!

Wishing you much peace, happiness and success,

P.S. If you aren't used to the hot stuff, I really recommend having some refreshing water handy. tee hee 

Penny (CJsMonnie)

Although it has been several years since I discovered Dynamic Drive, it remains one of my favorite go-to sites.

What keeps me going back to the same site? In short, the free tools and community support I get on the forums hooked me from day one.

[su_list icon="icon: check" icon_color="#ff1493"]

• FavIcon Generator
  Quickly and easily create your own favicon.


• Email Riddler
  Encrypt your email address to keep it safe from spammers and their harvesting bots.


• Script Forums
  A fantastic listing of some cool tools and add-ons. Also has a thread on Coding Tips & Tutorials.
[/su_list]


Looking for a specific script but didn't find search results you were happy with?
No problem. Post a new thread.




Need help with a script or project?
There is a Paid Work Request section.




Forms, menus, games, calendars, mouse effects .. if you are looking for a good script, chances are Dynamic Drive has it!


[signoff]

Unknown

In a previous post, I mentioned how my roosters kittehs run at warp speed around the house. As they are all adopted boys under 2*, some research helped me to discover their potential origins. 

Voila! I present to you, the Roadrunner + Coyote Love-Child theory:

* We are currently a five cat, two dog**, shelter and rescue-friendly family. Two boy kittehs were shelter pets, two boy kittehs were private rescues and the last, but not least, kitteh is the 11-year old daughter (Kitana) of my last ranch*** cat (Sassy).

** In the last two months, we've lost two of our googies (dogs). They developed an addiction to sneaking off for the thrill of chasing cars and bitting the tires. It did not end well for them. One was a shelter adoption (girl), one a private rescue (boy). The remaining two are also a shelter adoption (boy) and a private rescue (girl).

*** When I was growing up on the ranch, pet health care took a back seat to survival and human needs. Kitana is the first of the kittehs in my household to have ever received proper medical care. It's no coincidence, she's also the longest living kitteh too. Compare Kitana's 11 years and counting to the previous record of 3 years by one hardy tom (the average lifespan was 1 year 3 months). A good relationship with your veterinarian really does make a difference!

Eh, enough with the footnotes. You want to know more about our kittehs, googies and why I'm talking writing funneh? Go here: Jensine Pet Resources If you like LOLcats/dogs and bukkits, you can find me at icanhascheezburger.

Wishing you much peace, happiness and success,

Penny (CJsMonnie)

Did you know that the "Hands of Time" like to keep things nice and tidy? Oh yes. No longer are they simply a scourge, withering our youth into gnarly, spindles of flesh. You see, that is a long-term project. What was a Hand to do while it punches the proverbial clock, day in and day out?

Why, clean of course!

Indeed. The "Hands of Time" are now employed by the invisible arm of the Jiffy Maid service. Guaranteed to clear your mind in 10 minutes or less.

All you have to do is open about 20 tabs in two occurrences of Google Chrome, have a written plan of action mental tasks for today's business goals, and then let your home office environment do the rest. For illustration purposes, let me suggest a visual:

Kitty meow, purr, swivel, swish, cottonballs to the face and body on the laptop.
Uh. Love you babes but you gotta go somewhere else.
Eventually remember where you were and resume your task.

Mom. MAH-OM! I can't find my big Ben 10 watch.
Honey, I'll be there in a minute. Let me just finish this bit of code.
Run off, come back, eventually remember where you were and resume your task.

Mijita (Spanish endearment for my daughter), what were you going to make with the stuff you got out of the refrigerator?
Ay, Mom, I'll be right there.

Crash.Oh jeez. My kid just fell/crashed into something/got hurt ...
Run like a cat with a burning behind to see wth happened.

Okay, I admit it. I locked myself out of my blog AND my email again. Dang Hands of Time got me. Wiped my memory clean, they did. I came back after that 20 minute little "break" and ... nothing. Total mental blank.

Oh well, there was a Silver Lining just waiting to be discovered.

For those of you who are new to my little circle, I have a thing about silver linings. No matter how tragi-comic my life may be, I always look for the silver lining. Some say I'm a hopeless, rose-colored glasses person. Others think I am inspiring. Me? I can't explain why I do it but I know for a fact that one little habit has saved my sanity (and my life) more times than I care to remember.


Which reminds me why I got locked out of my accounts again. I couldn't remember! Ah, those datardly Hands of Time at it again!


Anyway, I had to search for my blog manually because I could not get in to my Gmail and I couldn't remember my Blogger name. Duh, right? So here I was typing "pen" and waiting for Google Chrome to autofill the address. No luck. Oh you would have had a field day, laughing at me, as I tried every variation of my nickname, Blogspot and Blogger.


Finally, I reached a real, working blog that was within some of my parameters. Pennyful. My first reaction was, what the ... ? Someone hacked my blog?! Then I realized I was missing an "L". Pennyfull. As in PennyFull (of) Thoughts. Penny Full of Thoughts.


Yeah, I know you are probably groaning and rolling your eyes now but it seemed like a cute fit at the time.


Turns out, this other Pennyful is pretty cool. Soon, I was using that nifty little Blogger bar at the top to explore several of the other blogs available and adding a few to my "Blogs I Follow".


Anyone ever see the movie version of Clue? There's a line where they say, "to make a long story short" and the others say "too late!" I know it's too late to make this short but ...


Hi! My nickname is Penny. Welcome to my little piece of the asylum Interwebz. I've been away for a while but I'm back with some interesting entertaining? lots of thoughts!

Wishing you much peace, happiness and success,

Penny (CJsMonnie)

The Holiday Season is upon us and it is time for our annual Holiday Gift Guide. Our theme is “Making A House A Home: What Matters Most”.

Click here to recommend a business or home themed website. Don't forget to add your own business too!

No matter where you live or what you live in – even if you are in a shelter and using a public library’s computer to read this – we’ve always known that our families are what really matter.

 

It’s time to celebrate the Year of the Family. Regardless of what is going on with the economy, we can all choose to have a wonderful and blessed season. Even the simplest of gifts mean the most. Reminisce. Bring out the old photos. Tell them how much they mean to you and maybe give them a little dollop of whipped cream on that mug of warm cocoa.

[signoff]

Unknown

Although there was a lot going on in my house last week, I was definitely feeling the pressure of looming deadlines and unexpected expenses. It truly seemed that although I knew I was distracted and frazzled, the only logical solution was to work through it. To challenge it and own it. You know, take the bull by the horns and all that.

Decision made, I grabbed my reusable water bottle and settled down to tap away at my favorite writing program. Now, I have to admit, almost nothing gets me as excited as a new program or an update to a program I already have and like. You just know I'm going to be clicking over to that as fast as my TouchPad will let me and today, I saw that little "upgrade available" notice. Did I mention I was using my favorite writing program?

That part of the story is a bit long and boring. We'll just cut to the chase and say I had to import my files to make them compatible with the new ones.

Allowing myself to get distracted by all the craziness around me, I frustratedly clicked "update file". I growled at the "are you sure you want to overwrite this file?" question and clicked "yes". Then I watched as my word count went from almost 14,000 to 0.

My stomach realized what that meant before my brain did because it dropped to my feet before my swirling thoughts grasped the implications of what had just happened.

The message here is three-fold:

1. Don't make important decisions while distracted.

2. Taking time to relax and refresh will help you accomplish more in the long run.

3. Always back up your files!

The tears and nausea passed as I remembered that I had started the story on pen and paper. That meant I at least had half of my work. Somewhere. Glaring at my reflection in the monitor, I let my eyes drop and noticed a little green padlock in my taskbar. Carbonite! Maybe I hadn't lost my work after all!

Thankfully, I was able to recover my old files and restore the part of my soul I had given to my novel-in-progress. This time.

Please take my experience to heart. Implement a backup plan as quickly as possible if you don't already have one. If you already have a system in place, test it periodically.

Wishing you much peace, happiness and success,

Penny (CJsMonnie)