Daughters of the Shadow Men

Carlene who writes Horseshoe Bend said the same thing happened to her and she told me just where to find the button to delete the partially migrated blogs.  Ann who does Beauty and Art which I must look at before AOL shuts down told me exactly how to go about correcting my sidebar info on Blogspot that talks about photos that aren't there!  It takes energy to go through a tech correction, so I will be building up steam to accomplish that task!

I see on the Internet that after some huge plunges the stock market is now experiencing a big rally.  Looks like it is going to be that way for an unforseeable length of time.  I called and asked my sister Linda what she was going to do now about the mortgage she has so much trouble paying.  She has taken in my son Dan as a boarder. He has taken over her son Scott's bed, so when he comes to town he has to sleep on the love seat with his feet dangling over.  Linda's BF is still working.  I called and asked my oldest son Gary last night if his construction firm was still getting work.  He said yes, we work cheap. My daughter Ronda will have graduated as a nurse by the end of the year and plans to go to work to help out the family finances in case her husband experiences a slowdown in the company he works for.  He is a manager, so he will probably always have work, as long as the company is healthy enough to survive. 

Raymond is on his way to Phoenix to see about doing a second season of Caffeine.  He does not know if that will fly or not.  He plans to take a truck load of his belongings back to Utah before he decides where to spend the winter months. 

I am happy to see a lot of the journalist friends I have come to enjoy and love over on Blogspot.  I got up in the night inspired to write a poem about autumn.  I snagged a graphic from Missie but she said some of the animation was not coming through, but the message was still there. Haven't felt like writing a poem for a long time.  I also suggested to Raymond that he might want to start blogging on blogspot eventually.  I know he could do a very interesting and creative one.  I am looking forward to coffee with him across the street to the Farmer's Market tomorrow morning.  Doc and I are going over to get a watermelon first thing.  That fresh produce tastes good! 

Here is my blogspot link:  http://gerry-daughters-of-the-shadow-men.blogspot.com    So come along and we will all be merry!   

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this

I migrated my journal but nowhere was it to be found after I made a new entry, got comments and everything.  So I decided that I had not saved it as I should, since it was not there, so I started to import it again to see if that would cause it to appear.  Half way through it said duplication error.  So I started again (yes, brainy me)  And now I go to my new journal spot to discover my old journal has miraculously appeared complete with new entry and followers, along with two more copies half way done, imploring me to finish them!

I can find nowhere to delete the two extra partially completed copies.  Plus my ability to edit my profile and other features have appeared also after a couple of days  One of the copies is under AOL blogs and the other is under the same name.  Dear me.  Can anyone help this poor soul? 

I could not find any blog help to solve this peculiar problem.  My new blog name is http://gerry-daughters-of-the-shadow-men.blogspot.com

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this

But would you believe I kept messing up because I could not read the darned letters right, so it took me a lot longer than it should have done, but I hope I have done everything that will make migrating my journal simple.  I visited Nelishia's journal yesterday, but did not yet have my gmail account so I could comment, so I am just sending e-mails until I get over there.  Some say they are just saving their journals and are not migrating, but maybe they will feel like going later.

In the meantime I watched the debate last night which I wrote about in my other blog:  http://www.azcentral.com/  G4LIFE so I am not going to say much about it here except that it was too boring, mostly I thought McCain's fault who has a quarrelsome approach to debating.  I hate quarreling, so I thought that was a serious mistake. 

I just turned on The View so I could see what the ladies are saying about the debate.  They are talking about the idea McCain has of offering $5,000 tax break for people to purchase their own health care, with mixed reactions.  They think if people get this break they probably won't be able to afford the health care anyway!  Can they be forced to purchase it?  I don't think so. 

I did go to my favorite thrift store and found these  thongs decorated with turquoise and amber I am showing below for only 70 cents!  With arch supports yet! Yes, it was senior citizen day, and the regular price was 99 cents  I just love them and made Doc take this photo of me in my burnt orange outfit.

See you eventually at blogspot.  I hope to visit more of you today. 

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this

I think tomorrow is when we get the word about blog migrating, but some have explained how to save your journal in your documents, but I already have a volume of memoirs on there, plus several plays, and I am afraid of filling up my memory, so I won't do that.  I did save my memoirs and my poems. And I probably have a few more photos to save from hometown.  This moving is quite the process, but I have been to visit some of the new blogs of the journalists even though I have not yet signed up so I can comment.  I am just acting as a guest.  I can't see but what photos are being posted and all is going well in the new place, and if we have many of our old neighbors surrounding us, I do not think we will be lonely.  I like the follower feature, don't you? 

So little by little I am visiting you in your new blogspot home as well as checking to see if you have entries in your AOL journal still here I have not read. Kelli of Noonmom has been ill, so I hope everyone will send up a prayer for her as she may need major surgery.

I forgot to say that I also went back on my family site and am doing a little writing on there, too, so I have lots to keep up with.  I am seeing less of Doc, and that's better. I talked to my son Raymond quite a long time yesterday again, and he has plans to come and get the belongings he has stored to my sister Linda's and is going to take them back to Utah to his own storage unit, before he goes anywhere for the winter months.  He is enjoying fall in his new home, Boulder, and if you could see how beautiful Boulder is in the fall, you would envy him. 

Down a country road in Boulder

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this

I assume that the new blog links I have received for blogspot indicate that some of these have already been migrated.  I am so busy with my other blog on the Arizona Republic blog site G4Life on http://www.azcentral.com/  and my Youtube video account gerryking40 that I decided I could not do another one since I want to migrate my journal, Daughters of the Shadow Men, because I am very interested in the possibility of doing a book of the memoirs I have been writing there.  I stopped at the age of 30, and think that would make a good first volume complete with photos, so I sure want to look into that.  Then I will no doubt start writing the rest of my memoirs, but not until after the election!

Some of the videos are doing very well, especially the last one I made with Doc present called Gerry defends Pro Life Palin.  I have around 237 hits on it now.  I also got enough comments to fill up the comment slot so I can't reply, but on my G4Life blog I have been getting sometimes 2 pages of comments on some entries.  They give you more pages and urge you to write on issues discussed in the newspaper.  I love love doing a political blog in Arizona, so I want to keep that one up. 

I have also been trying to make a semi-break from Doc.  I will still be using the video camera and his computer to edit and upload, but I want to see less of him.  We are not a couple, so I don't like feeling so tied to him, and having other people think we are one when we are not.  He is not quitting drinking so I think he should branch out and do other things with other people who will tolerate him.  He has gotten dissatisfied with my cutting down on our time together, but I am sorry that is what his drinking has caused me to do.  He sometimes has so much alcohol irritability I don't think he knows what he wants, but I am loth to start any more of these play series with him the condition he is in. 

I am tired of just him and me acting in them, and I think he would find it too hard to tolerate other people.  Surprisingly that is what kills a lot of theater, the fact that people have so much trouble with a collaborative effort.  A play, say with a cast anywhere from 5 to 50 or so as Raymond used to have at the high school, has many chances for conflicts that are either highly stressful or threaten to shut down the play entirely.  All that stress plus a bad hip is what caused Raymond to burn out. 

He will be coming back soon and I hope to make a video with him giving a preview of his new show, maybe.  The 2 bulldogs attacking a worker in the park here in a park recently and putting him in the hospital has caused me to be more determined to do a video of Dante talking about his dog attack.  He had a miracle escape from very serious facial injury.  As a matter of fact, a skilled surgeon at St. Joseph's who specialized in children's dog bites, operated on him for 5 hours.  I am trying to get him primed to make a video warning children, as he shows his scars.  Ironically his aunt suffered a severe bite on her face when she was a child, and it was not sewed up properly and left a disfigured lip.  If a policeman had not been called and shot both bulldogs the man might have been killed. He shot one and the other came after him!

So I will hang in here until I get my journal migrated.  Hoping to see you soon!    

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this

I have received so many new blog links that I am now seriously thinking of starting a new one myself besides migrating my Daughters of the Shadow Men.  I am trying to think of a new name that indicates my mood of today, sort of departing from my past now that I have talked about it enough to get my grievances out of my system a little.  I am not ready to see my Daughters of the Shadow Men go by the way side, but I would like to be strike a more positive note in a new blog. 

We will see.  I am very interested in the comings and goings of all of you.  I can see you are all thinking hard and getting ready for change.  I was always intrigued by blogspot, so I am glad to find out that this where our journals will be migrated.  I am waiting for news on how to facilitate that move. In the meantime I am transferring back to My Pictures some of my photos in aol hometown I may have deleted. 

My thoughts about a new name have not coalesced.  I am still cogitating.  In the meantime, I wrote an entry in my new political blog today.  If you want to check it out go to http://www.azcentral.com and put in my blog name G4LIFE.  I wrote this morning about another article written by Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post Group published in the Arizona Republic who says she got some very nasty threats from the right wing about suggesting to Palin she wave good-bye. But hardly any members of the press, even she, who I regard as a good columnist, conservative and surely pro life, are focusing on the abortion issue except in passing.  Had she done so, she would have gotten some very violent reactions from the left wing, too, from the pro choice crowd, no doubt.  I read that Roe vs Wade will be addressed tonight in the debate between Palin and Biden, but I doubt for long, this is such a battle ground. 

I feel as though I were really struggling in deep muddy ground when I talk about some of these things, but feel it is very important to do.

In the meantime, it's moving time and the spirit has come upon me to clean house and get more up in my last days!  What, what can I name this new thing that is being born in my mind? I have considered many names for a blog, but none quite do it for me yet.     

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this

A milestone reached, after many years of trying to get pro life letters published, at last I have succeeded, probably because I created a blog, g4life as well, which has been going strong also.  My video called Gerry defends pro life Palin was hit 137 times in one day, so people are responding.  I saw a quote on a youtube video made by the Catholic church on what a fetus looks like from birth which was by Mother Teresa.  She says something like this, to take the life of the unborn to make life better for yourself is evil. 

I have had a number of comments from people who remind me of the mean school girls I encountered away from home, as a country girl, thinking sophistication is everything.  Palin has to brace herself to meet a hostile press.  I saw parts of Saturday night live displayed on cable where the commentater hee hawed because Palin's actual words were so hilariously stupid, none had to be made up for her character.  They will try to lead her away from her strengths, but I welcome this test of her character.  Nothing is going to change in this country unless people with convictions like hers step up to the challenges of facing the lionnesses of the press.  Of course they are going to be mean.

One called me an old fart on Youtube rambling off the subject, probably my meds.  The subject?  What subject?  Whatever subject they think is important, which won't be what I think is important. I welcome their challenges.  And I will be right there at 6 pm Thursday night to see if McCain and friends are able to give Palin an infusion of confidence to go out there and face Joe Biden with her inner strength and conviction. I sent words of encouragement to McCain's headquarters here in Arizona.  I hear that Palin is in his home in Sedona, Arizona preparing for the debate.  I called their attention to my g4life blog and to my youtube video.  I am sure they will see my letter on the editorial page today.

I don't want to see McCain's gutsy vice presidential choice to be nullified by the sophisticates of the press. Pure and simple, they are on the defensive when it come to right to life. 

I am most gratified to be doing a political blog in Arizona, and I am looking forward to the move by aol to take our journals to another location.  If they aren't making money with these journals, that means they deem not enough people are looking at them.  I feel aol has been extraordinarily generous to give unlimited free blog space these years, to have worked so hard to create an aol community.  The journals editor says she will be taking Magic Smoke wherever they are going to help keep the community spirit going if possible.  That says a lot.  That says that they value what they have done and what we the journalists have done.

I have already expanded to Youtube and to my Az blog to find more viewers and readers.  I will be looking to do the same with a new location for my aol journal.  I am going to try what they offer as that will remain one more outlet for me, and I am hoping to stay in contact with the friends I have made among the journalists.  I am certain if we try we can keep the connections going we value, and will be the better writers for adjusting to the necessity of change.  I never had it so good before. 

I was busy for 3 hours last night copying and pasting all my memoirs into my documents, where I plan to work on them further.  My sisters want me to aim for a book.  The journals editor says that the new blogging service will offer opportunities to create books, which I think many of you good writers should look into.  Some of you have written oustanding memoirs and entries.  I also copied and pasted all my poems as I did not want to take a chance on losing them. 

I know change is upsetting, but I hope you will all look for the advantages that may come.  Some may find opportunities on their own.  I have already gotten e-mails from some journalists who are doing that.  I just want to encourage everyone not to be too upset with the changes.  A change is a challenge, and what challenges us makes us stronger.        

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this

 Martha tells Joe that Jimmy the drifter has finally moved on, he is 50 miles away by now accompanied unseen by Laura, and it is safe for him to go to the light! See the last episode of Happy Hello, Sad Goodbye with Gerry and Doc.

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this

I rushed down to Doc's to make this video this morning when I read that columnist Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post Group was calling for Palin's resignation, and Parker is conservative, I thought pro life!  Doc was a reluctant participant, since he is allergic to strong pro life opinions.

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this

Tilda walks in her sleep and spoils their fun in the XIII episode of Happy Hello, Sad Goodbye.

Post Script: My son Dan finally got a day off and was able to come over and fix Doc's computer. He was 45 minutes on the phone waiting for instructions, but the new part worked.  He said the power outtage probably burnt it out, as it didn't work right after. I have one more episode after this one to upload and that will be the conclusion of Happy Hello, Sad Goodbye!    

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this