The Life of Mrs. Miles

SPARKLE SWIRL ELEMENTS

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Thank you all for your encouraging comments and your prayers and my chat with my sister Nina, and the quick hello from my sister in law Judy - you all made me feel ok to be grumpy once in a while. Its good we uplift one another and lend our ears, shoulders. It confirms my blog works both ways - I count on YOU to feed me too! Thanks for you for giving me 'good counsel' when I needed this, and for holding me accountable too. I've recieved some great advice from you - great critique, which I take to heart. I appreciate and welcome your wise advice - and your delivery of it.

Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.

"Reckless words pierce like a sword,

but the tongue of the wise brings healing."

Proverbs 12:18

I played 'ketchup' yesterday. (nonslang: catchup) - did all the laundry, made sure the house is in order and spent 1/2 the day working outside. It was a beautiful, sunny day and I managed to get a bit of welcome color back in my skin. Its been a long winter this year and I made it through without having to 'fake and bake'... This was the first year for a long time, but I wanted to give my skin a break. I get SAD in the winter, and when I get grumpy Miles knew if all the other bases were covered (eg: the neccesities - food, companionship, money, fun, etc) then he would ship me off to the tanning bed. It worked 99.9 % of the time. So the sun is back and I am good.

LAYOUT BY LUCY - my next-town neighbor

Credits: all papers and elements by Barb Derksen

fonts - mariah and mystic

Thanks Lucy - I love sharing your layouts - keep them coming!

Won't YOU all send me your layouts using my 'stuff'', please? I would love to feature you!

I hope you might find a moment or two to slip over to Amy W's blog today. Firstly, its a great place to visit. Amy spends her own time assembling links to good freebies on the net for al l of us! Today, she's featuring an add-on for her pretty Amy's Birthday Bash kit - you just gotta have it!

Amy posted a pic today, of her sweet 'lil dd . Emma, her darling, got into some mischief! ( those of you who are mom's to little ones probably have tales to tell too...) Apparently, Emma got her fingers into some Spackle - you know, the stuff they stick on your cieling, and she got it smeared EVERYWHERE... LOL... poor Amers - but she finally got Emma cleaned up and taking a nap, with all her variety of stuffed animals. Amy, did you get a picture of the SPACKLE SMEARING incident?

Do you have a funny story of the mischief your own darling child got into? How did you deal with it? Do you have pics? And, speaking of this, reminds me of Rebecca from New York.... I MISS YOU? Don't you have inernet any more? If you do, please connect - let us know you're doing well!

LOCAL WINERY AND B&B

I did promise to share some photos from our hike last saturday - so I'm posting a few today. It seems like the hike was a month ago, the days slip by so fast! We live in a stunningly beautiful area. If you are new to my blog, we live in Paradise, really. The Okanagan Valley of British Columbia is a firtile one, with orchards and vineyards and lakes, stretching from one end to the other. At our end, we boast Canada's only Pocket Desert - and this gives us a very unique landscape, filled with exotic plants and animals you may not see anywhere else in this Province.

OUR FRIEND, ROMAN, OVERLOOKING OSOYOOS LAKE

Our friend Roman, invited us to go for a hike up a mountain. There is no 'formal' trail here, and its a VERY steep hike to the top! Roman is in good condition from farming, and he had us gasping for breath by the top! Imagine - some people go to the gym when they could work a farm... At any rate, our burning lungs and legs were rewarded by a tremendous vista - and we spent a quiet hour enjoying the beauty. We saw a plethora of flora and birds as well. Quiet little dells and craggy rock faces. I'm so glad we captured it all on 'chip' (guess its not 'film' anymore!)

MILES OVERLOOKING THE VALLEY

I'm still working my way slooooooooooooooooowly through the Colour book by Victoria Finlay - I try to get a few pages in at night... right now I'm working my way through Orange - and how important it was to get that special colour on the famous Stradivarius violins. The unique finish has kept people searching for the recipe ever since, as it was a secret! So many people have tried to figure it out - but no one has been successful.

I found it interesting that one ingredient which people from Cremona, Italy, tried was propolis - the sticky substance which bees collect from tree resins. The bees use this resin to protect their hives from invasion. If a mouse entered the bee's city, they killed it! Because the body of the mouse is too large for them to move, and because they don't want it laying around stinking up the place, they mummified it in propolis! Remember I mentioned people using honey to mummify? People use propolis an an antiseptic - or in an ingredient in varnish. It has the added bonus of scaring the woodworm away. Apperently, every propolis is varies according to place - and the one from Cremona was said to be very fine for varnish!

Today in History:

1571 - Johannes Kepler - by his own calculations - is conceived at 4:37 AM

1770 - Marie Antoinette marries future King Louis XVI of France

1866 - Congress authorizes nickel 5› piece (replaces silver half-dime)

1872 - Metropolitan Gas Company lamps lit for 1st time

1920 - Joan of Arc was canonized in Rome

1929 - 1st Academy Awards (Best film is Wings)

1975 - Japanese Junko Tabei became 1st woman to reach Mt Everest's summit

Birthdays in History:

1763 - Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin, chemist discoverer of chromium beryllium

1801 - William H. Seward, bought Alaska at 2›/acre

1905 - Henry Fonda, actor (Mr. Roberts) Grand Is Nebraska

1919 - Liberace (Wladziu Liberace), candelabrist

1952 - Pierce Brosnan, in Israel

BARB'S HANDY TIP #262

Shine Your Rep!

Well, really, your reputation is priceless. It says in the bible that our reputations are our witness - and we are to work very hard to keep them spotless. We ARE human, though and we all make mistakes. Used to be in the old days, that one could simply wait for a while and it would all 'blow over' - the only ones who knew were where you were from or who knew you. You felt very safe.

Now, I personally believe, there are consequences for our past mistakes - and I think God can use us through those 'mess ups' I also know we are accountable to God, not man. However we also live in the reality of the times, with everything we say and do, especially on the internet, being collected and catalogued all along the way - sometimes without our knowledge or permission. I've been listening to some pretty interesting artlicles on the radio and it's been an eye opener. Did you know Google keeps something like 10 yrs of all internet stored? I don't think its earth moving for me, but I heard them say that some companies 'Google' prospective employees - and hire or not hire on that basis.

Also, peoples lives change, they grow out of teendom (we all do stupid things when teens) and perhaps someones marital status has changed, and so you want all previous info removed... etc.

So, with this, companies are being created with the sole purpose to 'clean up' peoples reputations by removing and deleting information from the net - for a price. This is harder the more famous you are, because if you're really famous there's too much for them to remove. So... if you need to get 'cleaned up' on the net, you can go to the following site:

REPUTATION DEFENDER