C. S. Lewis once suggested, difficulties of faith are more often due to a lack of sleep than the result of serious rational objections.

  Mainline Florida: Link to Mainline Florida. 

I am making more use of links, music and visual. Click on them and then you might have a second link to search. Some locations, such as YouTube generate revenue for your "free" viewing by running ads, so be patient. On occasion there is a "skip ad" button. Sometimes it will load and start when you go there, sometimes you need to click on the white arrow in the red box.

I hope you enjoy the updates to my art and life as presented in this blog. IF you don't like the political stuff and don't want to receive future blogs just say so, no hard feelings. So far, only five have taken me up on the offer. With that in mind, remember: BELOW THE FOLD is where (most) of the controversial stuff is placed. Sometimes stuff is a hybrid, say humor and political. Nevertheless, I do this blog for me, it clears my mind and then I do it to share stuff I think is interesting, fun, needed to be considered, etc. I like, also, the feedback I receive, either on a specific article or the concept in general. Right now there are about 70 of you who receive this directly. Claude

ART:

 Three minute warmups, then 20 minute poses, pastel. 

OTHER’S

 AP block print given to me 

Click on article to read, if needed

Inside you feel like you are in a crown of jewels as the sun “moves” and the sparkle dances across the floor…

Coming to Saint Louis this summer…

A BRIEF COMMERCIAL: In Linda’s memory

For the boy’s high school and Linda’s role as room mother for Greg…

You can use this link:  https://www.chaminade-stl.org/support-us/support-us/named-scholarships/named-scholarship-donations.

Under “Designation” use the drop-down menu to find the Class of 2008 Scholarship.

 

Through the contributions that we received in memory of your mom last year, the scholarship award for next school year has increased from $800 to $1,200.

 

Reach out if you have any questions about the online gift form.

 

Julie

 

Julie Lohr

Director of Development

(O) 314-692-6652

(M) 314-369-2633

www.chaminade-stl.org

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

LISTENING:

These links are generally to YouTube, some have a brief ad, you can usually skip them on a tab in the lower right of the frame. Enjoy!

FUN: BRAD and JOHN>>>>>.     Link to live Why Georgia Why…when the crowd erupts😊

We stumbled across a John Mayer concert at Murray State when looking at colleges for Dom…a wonderful, unexpected evening. He did a great concert. 

This is special because I saw this band back in the day about 20 times at various Teen Nights in St Louis. It’s their cover but fits the horn section perfectly and when the low note pops in…perfect. Oh, and the lead singer was from my HS, murdered in a real-life love triangle. 

Link to You Got Your Troubles, I’ve Got Mine…I can relate😅

The Fortunes: 

I see that worried look upon your face
You've got your troubles, I've got mine
She's found somebody else to take your place
You've got your troubles, I've got mine

I too have lost my love today
All of my dreams have flown away

Now, just like you I sit and wonder why
You've got your troubles, I've got mine
You need some sympathy, well so do I
You've got your troubles, I've got mine

She used to love me, that I know
And it don't seem so long ago
That we were walkin'
And we were talkin'
The way that lovers do

I too have lost my love today
All of my dreams have flown away

And so forgive me if I seem unkind (And if I seem to you, my friend)
(That I ain't got no pity for you)
You've got your troubles, I've got mine (Well, that ain't true)
(You see I lost my, lost my, lost my little girl, too)

I'd help another place, another time
You've got your troubles, I've got mine
You've got your troubles, I've got mine
You've got your troubles, I've got mine

Songwriters: Roger John Reginald Greenaway, Roger Frederick Cook. For non-commercial use only.

****************************

FUN FUN FUN (not The Beach Boys but) Led Zeppelin on David Letterman: 

Link

HUMOR:

This is for Joe Biden to watch in his bedroom where he now spends most of his days while Susan Rice runs the country 😂

Link to Babylon Bee article :30-other-things-found-in-bidens-garage

A continuation of Aging funnies and insight, previous publications parceled them out, this will finish the list…I need disc space😅

"Middle age is when you’re sitting at home on a Saturday night and the telephone rings and you hope it isn’t for you." - Ogden Nash

"It’s important to have a twinkle in your wrinkle." – Unknown 

“I have successfully completed the thirty-year transition from wanting to stay up late to just wanting to go to bed." – Unknown 

"At age 20, we worry about what others think of us… at age 40, we don’t care what they think of us… at age 60, we discover they haven’t been thinking of us at all." - Ann Landers 

"When I was young, I was called a rugged individualist. When I was in my fifties, I was considered eccentric. Here I am doing and saying the same things I did then, and I’m labeled senile." - George Burns 

"I complain that the years fly past, but then I look in a mirror and see that very few of them actually got past." - Robert Brault 

“Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.” - Larry Lorenzon 

“The older I get, the better I used to be.” – Lee Trevino 

"You know you’re getting old when you can pinch an inch on your forehead." - John Mendoza 

"I was thinking about how people seem to read the bible a lot more as they get older, and then it dawned on me—they’re cramming for their final exam."- George Carlin 

"I don’t feel old. I don’t feel anything until noon. Then it’s time for my nap." - Bob Hope 

"I’m 59 and people call me middle-aged. How many 118-year-old men do you know?"- Barry Cryer 

"All men are the same age." - Dorothy Parker 

"I don't do alcohol anymore—I get the same effect just standing up fast." – Anonymous

“By the time you’re 80 years old you’ve learned everything. You only have to remember it.” - George Burns 

“Old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative.” – Maurice Chevalier 

"Getting older. I used to be able to run a 4-minute mile, bench press 380 pounds, and tell the truth." - Conan O’Brien

"I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don’t have to." - Albert Einstein 

"Grandchildren don’t make a man feel old, it’s the knowledge that he’s married to a grandmother that does." - J. Norman Collie 

"You know you are getting old when everything hurts, and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work." - Hy Gardner 

"When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old." - Mark Twain 

"There’s one advantage to being 102, there’s no peer pressure." - Dennis Wolfberg 

"I've never known a person who lives to be 110 who is remarkable for anything else." —Josh Billings 

"At my age ‘getting lucky’ means walking into a room and remembering what I came in for." – Unknown 

"Old age is when you resent the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated because there are fewer articles to read." – 

"People ask me what I’d most appreciate getting for my eighty-seventh birthday. I tell them, a paternity suit." - George Burns 

"Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician." - Anonymous

"It’s paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn’t 
appeal to anyone.” - Andy Rooney 

 ==========================

More from Babylon Bee, go to their site for the full parody, and yes, I DO google the actors in Hallmark Movies😂😂😂

   

 Reparations madness…

*************

                         ***************

THINGS IF FIND INTERESTING:

...its what you never knew , thought you knew, never heard of....or worse...you didn't know that you already knew it........

A little something to help get you through the day.....watch out for the last one !!
       
            Men can read smaller
            print than women can; women can hear better.
           
            Coca-Cola was originally green.
            
            It is impossible to lick
            your elbow.
           
            The State with the
            highest percentage of people who walk to work:
            Alaska
           
            The percentage of
            Africa that is wilderness: 28%
            (now get this...)
           
            The percentage of
            North America that is wilderness: 38%
            
            The cost of raising
            a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: 
            $ 16,400
           

            The average number of people airborne

            over the U.S. in any given hour:
            61,000
           
            Intelligent people
            have more zinc and copper in their hair..
            
            The first novel ever
            written on a typewriter, Tom Sawyer.
           
            The San Francisco
            Cable cars are the only mobile
            National Monuments.
            
            Each king in a deck
            of playing cards represents a great king from history:

            Spades - King David

            Hearts - Charlemagne

            Clubs - Alexander, the Great

            Diamonds - Julius Caesar
          
        
            111,111,111 x
            111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987, 654,321
            
            If a statue in the park of a person on a horse
            has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle.
            If the horse has one front leg in the air,
            the person died because of wounds received in battle.
            If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
            
            Only two people
            signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4,
            John Hancock and Charles Thomson.
            Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
         
            Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what?
            A. Their birthplace
      
            --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
            Q. Most boat owners name their boats.
            What is the most popular boat name requested?  
            A.  Obsession
        
            --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
            Q.. If you were to spell out numbers,
            how far would you have to go until you
            would find the letter 'A'?
            A. One thousand
     
            --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
            Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes,
            windshield wipers and laser printers have in common?
            A. All were invented by women.
        
            --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
            Q. What is the only
            food that doesn't spoil?
            A. Honey
       
            --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
            Q. Which day are there more collect calls
            than any other day of the year?
            A. Father's Day
        
            --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
            In Shakespeare's time,
            mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes.
            When you pulled on the ropes, the mattress tightened,
            making the bed firmer to sleep on.  Hence, the
            phrase...'Goodnight , sleep tight'
      
            --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
            It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding,     the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink.
            Mead is a honey beer and, because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month, which we know today as the honeymoon.
        
            --------- --------- ---------
            In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts... So in old England , when
            customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them 'Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down.' . . .     It's where we get the phrase 'mind your P's and Q's'
        
            --------- --------- ---------
            Many years ago in England , pub frequenters had a whistle baked
            into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill , they used the  whistle to get some service.  'Wet your whistle' is the phrase  inspired by this practice.
        
            --------- --------- ------ --- --------- --------- ---------
            At least 75% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow!
       
            --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------

            YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING
            IN 2023 when...

            1. You accidentally enter your PIN on the microwave.

            2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

            3. You have 15 phone numbers on a smart phone to reach your family of three.

 

            4. You send a text to the person who works at the desk next to you.

            5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they

            don't have e-mail addresses or cell phones.

 

            6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to  help you carry in the groceries...

            7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.

            8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't even have the first 20 or 30

                (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic, and you turn around to go and get it .

 

            10. You get up in the morning and go online before getting breakfast or coffee.

              

            11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : ) and use several hand gestures to

                   punctuate your statement  ....       

       
            --------- --------- ---------

                                Go on, ......try to lick your elbow! 

 

 

             12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

             13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.

             14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

             15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list .

                                                   ~~~~~~~~~~~AND FINALLY~~~~~ ~~~~~~~

            NOW you're LAUGHING at yourself!

            Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be  

            amused!"      (Unknown Author)

************

More insight from Archbishop Barron: 

“ To live the good life is not finally a matter of autonomy but of obeying commandments: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”

Mind you, listening to commands is tied closely to love on the part of the one who commands, and since love is nothing but the willing of the good of the other, the obedience that Jesus speaks of is a surrender to the one who massively wants what is best for the surrenderer.

When, through faith, we see every moment and every creature as an ingredient in the divine plan, we live in joyful surrender and with a sense of wonder. What is God doing for me now? What path is opening up to me? Why did God send that person, that trial, that pleasure to me just now?”

**********************

Amazing story, really…Link to us-pilot-shot-down-four-soviet-migs-in-30-minutes-and-kept-it-a-secret-for-50-years. 

JUST PLAIN FUN INFO, I trust it is accurate…you know how the internet is😅

 

Glass   takes one million years to decompose, which means it never wears out and can be recycled an infinite amount of times!     Gold  is the only metal that doesn't rust, even if it's buried in the ground for thousands of years.     Your tongue   is the only muscle in your body that is attached at only one end.     If you stop getting thirsty    you need to drink more water. When a human body is dehydrated, its thirst  mechanism shuts off.     Zero  is the only number that  cannot be represented by  Roman numerals.       The song Auld Lang Syne  is sung at the stroke of midnight in almost every English-speaking country in the world to bring in the new year.     Drinking water after eating reduces the acid in your mouth by 61 percent.  Drinking a glass of water before you eat may help digestion and curb appetite.     Peanut oil  is used for cooking in submarines because it doesn't smoke unless it's heated above 450F.     The roar  that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear.     Nine out of every 10  living things live in the ocean.     The banana  cannot reproduce itself.  It can be propagated only by the hand of man.     The University of Alaska  spans four time zones.     The tooth  is the only part of the human body that cannot heal itself.     In ancient Greece  tossing an apple to a girl was a traditional proposal of marriage. Catching it meant she accepted.     Warner Communications  paid 28 million for the copyright to the song Happy Birthday,  which was written in 1935!     Intelligent people  have more zinc and copper in their hair.     A comet's tail  always points away from the sun.     Caffeine  increases the power of aspirin and other painkillers, that is why it is found in some medicines.   The military salute  is a motion that evolved from medieval times, when knights in armor  raised their visors to reveal their identity.     If you get into the bottom of a well or a tall chimney and look up,  you can see stars, even in the middle of the day.     When a person dies, hearing is the last sense to go. The first sense lost is sight.     In ancient times strangers shook hands to show that they were unarmed.     Strawberries and Cashews  are the only fruits whose seeds grow on the outside.     Avocados have the highest calories of any fruit at 167 calories per hundred grams.     The moon  moves about two inches away from the Earth each year.     The Earth gets 100 tons heavier every day due to falling space dust.     Due to earth's gravity it is impossible for mountains to be higher than 15,000 meters.     Soldiers do not march in step when going across bridges because they could set up  a vibration which could be sufficient to knock the bridge down.     Everything weighs one percent less at the equator.     For every extra kilogram carried on a space flight, 530 kg of excess fuel are needed at lift-off.     The letter J does not appear anywhere on the periodic table of the elements. I found the U of A time zones really amazing. And, I reported previously, Happy Birthday earns to most royalties of any song; most restaurants sing a fake version when they gather around your child’s birthday table so they don’t have to pay a royalty for singing the teal words.  ************************ Local interest story… My grandmother and her sister were orphaned in the 1918 Spanish Flu Before and after (makeup) recently disgraced Amy Robach of ABC    Important piece for anyone interested in Pro-Life… LINK here And, for anyone who thinks it is ok or good for a woman to be able to pay someone to kill her unborn baby.                                         *********************** Furthermore, and I am asking you to be honest with yourself…    Well, to begin with, though all such numbers are a bit uncertain, roughly 55 million people die, globally, every year. And numerous public health organizations intensely scrutinize the slightest increase or decrease in mortality, in a laudable effort to identify what factors may be harming or helping the health of diverse peoples around the world.           That number does not include the number of babies killed by elective abortions, however, which at one time would have been thought a rare, emergency measure. The Guttmacher Institute, an advocate for abortion, estimates that there are roughly 56 million abortions around the world every year. So allowing for the statistical uncertainties, we can say in broad terms that as many innocents are slaughtered every year in the womb as there are deaths from all other causes in the entire world.           That’s the kind of mayhem you associate with murderous ideologies like Nazism and Communism, not “reproductive health.” ** Susan Venker.   I have featured this STL writer before…I am hearing more and more this discussion… A young woman I know sent me a TikTok recently, one of those short POV clips, showing a stay-at-home mom explaining to her husband why she isn’t bringing in an income—despite having a Masters degree. I’m hearing this same theme over and over again: Millennial and Gen Y wives having to justify to their husbands why they’re not working or why they don’t want to work post-baby. This is what fifty years of feminism has done. It should be patently obvious why a woman wants to raise the babies she brings in to the world: That’s how she’s supposed to feel! It’s called being normal. She should not have to explain either her desire to do so or the value of her doing so. And yet she must—because all men have heard their entire lives is how women want to live their lives the way men live theirs. All men have heard is that it takes two incomes to survive. All men have heard is that women lose their identities if and when they stay home with their babies. Why wouldn’t men need an explanation? I have a client right now in this exact boat. She left a very high-paying job to stay home with her one- and three-year old boys. Her husband is a high earner too, so there’s no issue there. But while he supports her choice to do so, he doesn’t have a clue what her days are like, nor does he understand the needs of children. Why would he know this? Where would he have learned this information? Most modern men and women are in the dark about children’s needs. They just have no idea goes on in the first three to five years of a child’s life and why it’s so crucial for Mom to be home. So of course the average husband wonders why his wife got a degree if she’s “not going to use it.” That’s exactly how I’d expect a man to react—it doesn’t seem logical. Full disclosure: The women in my family all have higher degrees—my mother had an MBA and was a stockbroker—and still ultimately chose to stay home. Never once did I associate here value as a woman or as a mother as being inextricably linked to her ability to earn money. One simply had nothing to do with the other. So if you’re a wife in the same position as my client or the woman on the TikTok clip, here are some things you can say when you explain to your husband why you want, or have decided, to stay home: Getting an education is not about earning money, per se. It’s about becoming educated. I don’t get it. Would you rather have a less educated person raising our children? Babies need their mothers. What goes on in the early years cannot be quantified on a spreadsheet. It consists of a thousand small interactions that, with time and consistency, form the person our child will become. If a baby or toddler gets passed around from caregiver to caregiver throughout his young life, he will never learn that he’s worth any one person’s time and attention—and that will stay with him for life. The first five years are a critical period for language and attachment in the brain. It’s a time when your ordinary, day-to-day life has an inordinate impact on who you will become. It is an enormous amount of work to teach a baby and toddler how to eat and sleep. This alone, in the early years, is a full-time job. If we skimp on it or let that go, we will have loads of problems later. Sleep deprivation causes massive behavior problems and can even lead to ADHD diagnoses. I don’t want that for our family. I want to create a home, not just have a house where we sleep and shower. A house can’t become a home if we’re rarely in it. Finally, keep in mind that staying home is a temporary state. It’s a blip in a very long life, and there are countless ways to work from home or work part-time or move in and out of the workforce as the needs of children change. The main thing husbands will want to know is, How are we going to afford it? This is where you’ll need to get creative and dive into the weeds of your budget. It is reasonable for your husband to appear unsupportive if he was under the impression you weren’t going to stay home, and you both therefore made financial decisions that depended upon two incomes. If that happened, this was a mistake. But what’s done is done. If there’s one thing COVID lockdown proved, it’s that people can live on far less than they think when they have to. Necessity is the mother of invention. So, really, this isn’t about money. It’s ultimately about what we value. Here’s a quick way to make a decision: If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, would you do things differently?                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Link to What SHOULD be said at a Catholic funeral, after all it more than a celebration of life, its a sending of the soul. +++++++++++++++++++++ WHY I LOVE HOCKEY: Power shot  ****************** BELOW THE FOLD: WARNING: The January 6th  “Insurrection”   By: Victor Davis Hanson January 12, 2023   Here is what we do not understand about the January 6th Committee—if it truly was intended to appear as a disinterested investigatory body.   1. Why for the first time in memory did Speaker Pelosi forbid the House Minority Leader’s pro forma nominees to a special House committee? Fairly or not, the result was that the only two Republicans who did serve shared two embarrassing requisites: they would likely be out of office, and not by their own volition, in January 2023; and two, they despised Donald Trump and voted for the second Trump impeachment.   So, what were the Democrats afraid of to make them break all precedents with past hearings? Pelosi, in other words, ensured that there would be no cross-examinations of any witnesses, no disagreements about witness lists, no contrasting interviews to the media about the work of the committee, and no diversity in staff interrogatories.   2. Why did the Committee not investigate whether the FBI had numerous agents and informants present on January 6th? Michael Rosenberg, the New York Times assigned a reporter to the demonstration, claimed they were ubiquitous. Were they?   3. Why did the Committee not review the circumstances in detail of the deaths of Officer Brian Sicknick and the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt? These were the two most high-profile and controversial deaths on January 6th, and Babbitt’s perhaps was the only violent death at the direct hand of a known other.   4. Why did the Committee not investigate and release all the communications between the House leadership and the Capitol police to learn why the Capitol was virtually open and unsecured on a day that everyone knew would be the scene of mass protests there?   5. Why did the Committee not investigate all incendiary speech by major elected officials at iconic Washington buildings, deemed inflammatory and allegedly resulting in violence at a subsequent time? For example, in 2020 then Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer screamed to a large demonstration massed at the doors of the Supreme Court: "I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”   “You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price”? “Hit you”? Did Trump say to supporting demonstrators on January 6th anything like, “Pelosi and Biden, you released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”   Had Trump said that, would he now be in jail?   Note that not too long after Schumer’s threats, protestors appeared to swarm the homes of conservative Supreme Court justices, including a would-be assassin.   6. Why did the Committee not investigate all organized rioting by activist groups that also damaged federal properties, such as in 2020 a federal courthouse that was torched and attempts to storm the White House grounds to endanger a president?   7. Why did the Committee not release all the full transcripts of all those it interrogated, and why not all the arrangements and conditions with witnesses it finalized to make them appear? ******************