Neddy's Palaver

“The Five Finger Prayer” was received from the Internet without attribution. I altered it into a “Prayer of Gratitude” as I have been reading G.K. Chesterton, and have always subscribed to this thought of his: I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” ~~G.K. Chesterton

1. Your thumb is nearest to you. Begin your daily prayers by giving thanks for those closest to you; they are the easiest to remember and to pray for our loved ones is, as C. S. Lewis wrote, a “sweet duty.”

2. The next finger is your pointing finger. Remember to give thanks for those who are “pointing” you and your loved ones in the right direction: teachers, doctors, and the clergy. Bless them in your prayers.

3. Next comes the tallest finger. Thank God for the good and faithful leaders He has provided you. Ask God to give them the guidance necessary to lead those following them in the path of righteousness.

4. The fourth finger is the weakest finger. It reminds you to be grateful for your strengths. It reminds you to remember those who are truly weak, in desperate circumstances, or in physical agony, and to ask God to give you the strength to help them.

5. The little finger is the last finger and the smallest of all. The little finger reminds you to give thanks to God for His greatness and for His mercifulness to one as small as you are in relation to God.

Be Grateful. It is the way to happiness.

See my new SeeqPod music player. It’s on the Internet - no need to download anything. Cool.

Some of My Favorites —

More of my favorite playlists are at “My Vanishing Memories.”

The “Incredible Magic Liquid Sponge” not only cleans your house spotless, it kills everything in your house that makes it dirty - including YOU!

Keep Those Email Warnings Coming – such as this one, sent to someone, somewhere:

JUST WANTED TO LET YOU ALL KNOW THAT I AM A HUGE FAN OF THE “INCREDIBLE MAGIC LIQUID SPONGE” CLEANER … HOWEVER, I HAVE A FRIEND WHOSE SON STUDIED ENGINEERING IN COLLEGE AND HE NOW WORKS FOR A HUGE EUROPEAN CONGLOMERATE THAT IS ALWAYS THE FIRST TO KNOW ABOUT RECALLED PRODUCTS LONG BEFORE THE NEWS IS RELEASED TO THE MARKETPLACE. WELL, MY FRIEND PHONED ME LAST NIGHT AND SAID THAT HER SON TOLD HER THAT I MUST STOP USING THOSE “INCREDIBLE MAGIC LIQUID SPONGES” AND THAT THEY ARE ALREADY BEING BANNED FROM EUROPEAN MARKETS BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN FORMALDEHYDE. YES, FORMALDEHYDE, THE VERY SAME CHEMICAL THAT IS USED TO PRESERVE DEAD PEOPLE. THE “INCREDIBLE MAGIC LIQUID SPONGE” CONTAINS NOT ONLY THAT TOXIN, BUT HAS ANOTHER DANGEROUS CHEMICAL ADDED TO THE FORMALDEHYDE — AGENT ORANGE. THIS CONCOCTION IS HIGHLY DANGEROUS TO HOUSE PLANTS, PETS, YOUNG CHILDREN AND CAN BE HARMFUL TO YOU, YOURSELF, SO STOP USING THESE LIQUID SPONGES IMMEDIATELY! THROW THEM AWAY AND DON’T BUY ANY MORE. ALREADY TWO YOUNG BOYS HAVE DIED — ONE DRANK THE LIQUID SPONGE AND THE OTHER BOY ATE IT. SOME OF THE “INCREDIBLE MAGIC LIQUID SPONGE” SPLASHED UPON A TODDLER WHILE HER MOTHER WAS WASHING DISHES AND ERODED THE CORNEAS OF THE BABY’S EYES. HUNDREDS OF BELOVED PETS HAVE MET THEIR DEATHS AFTER WALKING UPON FLOORS MOPPED WITH THESE LIQUID SPONGES. ONE YOUNG BOY WHO WAS HELPING HIS MOTHER ERASE CRAYON FROM WALLS, SUFFERED CHEMICAL BURNS TO HIS FACE WHEN HE ATTEMPTED TO ERASE CRAYON ON HIS FACE AND CHIN WITH THAT SAME “INCREDIBLE MAGIC LIQUID SPONGE.”

AND … PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW, ESPECIALLY THOSE WITH PLANTS, PETS AND OR YOUNG CHILDREN. AND … (the part I love the best) IMMEDIATELY STOP CLEANING YOUR HOUSE BEFORE IT KILLS YOU!

What We Never Learned About the Thanksgiving Holiday

Most Americans, including Southerners, have been taught that it was the New England Pilgrim’s non-religious Thanksgiving Feast that was the very first Thanksgiving in our New World. However they forget that the Spaniards in what is now Florida probably held religious Thanksgiving services, and … long before any Europeans, including Spaniards, set foot in the Americas, the native peoples celebrated harvest festivals with dances and rituals, such as the Cherokees’ Green Corn Dance.

The first documented European Thanksgiving service held in North America happened on May 27th, 1578, in Newfoundland. Later, a Thanksgiving service was probably conducted by British Europeans in New England, the Popham Colony of what is now Maine, in 1607, and that same year there was the documented Thanksgiving at Jamestown in Virginia. The Jamestown colonists gave thanks for their safe arrival, and held another Thanksgiving service in 1610, after the arrival of a long-awaited supply ship. Virginia settlers at Berkley Hundred were required by their charter to celebrate a yearly Thanksgiving service observing the day of their first arrival, which they did until an Indian uprising wiped out most of the Virginia colony. All of these Thanksgiving services in America were held years before the three day Thanksgiving celebrations of feasting, gaming and drinking, in 1621 and 1623, held by the Pilgrims at Plymouth Plantation, Massachusetts. It was the June 30th, 1623 religious and social festival of the Pilgrims which seems to have been the origin of today’s Thanksgiving Day.

After the Revolutionary War, in 1789, Elias Boudinot, a Massachusetts solon, moved that a day of Thanksgiving be held to thank God for giving the American people the opportunity to create a Constitution to preserve their hard won freedoms. The motion was approved by Congress and on October 3, 1789, the President George Washington proclaimed that the people of the United States observe “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer” on Thursday, the 26th of November.

(Reference: Encylopedia Smithsonian)

My forgetter’s getting better,
But my rememberer is broke
To you that may seem funny
But, to me, that is no joke

For when I’m “here” I’m wondering
If I really should be “there”
And, when I try to think it through,
I haven’t got a prayer!

Oft times I walk into a room,
Say “what am I here for?”
I wrack my brain, but all in vain!
A zero, is my score.

At times I put something away
Where it is safe, but, Gee!
The person it is safest from
Is, generally, me!

When shopping I may see someone,
Say “Hi” and have a chat,
Then, when the person walks away
I ask myself, “who was that?”

Yes, my forgetter’s getting better
While my rememberer is broke,
And it’s driving me plumb crazy
And that isn’t any joke.

Received from the Internet without attribution, as the sender (Martha) cannot remember from whence it came.

The desk of the thoroughly modern Grandma Neddy. Yes, indeed, she can use two laptops at once, plus a couple of flash drives at the same time. Here’s another of those emails that Granny gets from her other Granny friends. This one is from Elaine VB.

Jesus and Satan Are Wired Too!

Jesus and Satan were having an on-going argument about who was better on the computer. They had been going at it for days, and frankly God was tired of hearing all the bickering.

Finally fed up, God said, “THAT’S IT! I have had enough. I am going to set up a test that will run for two hours, and from those results, I will judge who does the better job.”

So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboards and typed away.

They moused.

They faxed.

They e-mailed.

They e-mailed with attachments.

They downloaded.

They did spreadsheets!

They wrote reports.

They created labels and cards.

They created charts and graphs.

They did some genealogy reports

They did every job known to man.

Jesus worked with heavenly efficiency and Satan was faster than hell.

Then, ten minutes before their time was up, lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, rain poured, and, of course, the power went off.

Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the underworld. Jesus just sighed.

Finally power was restored, and each of them rebooted their computers. Satan started searching frantically, screaming: “It’s gone! It’s all GONE! “I lost everything when the power went out!”

Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files from the past two hours of work.

Satan observed this and became irate. “Wait!” he screamed. “That’s not fair! He cheated! How come he has all his work and I don’t have any?”

God just shrugged and said …

JESUS SAVES. And … YOU, of course, already knew that.

The image, Granny’s Laptops, was originally uploaded to the Internet by barneykin. It was posted here by Neddy of .

As everyone knows. I am a big fan of Picasa 2 software for photo editing. I made a post recently about an Annie Leibovitz photograph of Queen Elizabeth the Second: “The Munster Queen.” In the post I wondered if that great photographer Annie Leibovitz had used Picasa2’s “Focal Black and White” feature to create her famous picture of the queen, seen below. I called it “Revenge of the Picasa 2 Nerds.

Then I took a snapshot of myself and rendered it artsy by using Picasa 2’s “Focal Black and White Effect”. If only I could have found a long black cape to don and a backdrop of a wild and gloomy English moor, I could have turned myself into a “Munster Queen” too. Here is my example:

And here are some posts by another blogger (I Used Picasa) who has created various tutorials explaining how to use many of the features that are included with Google’s free photo software, Picasa 2: “Hin’s Tech Corner.”

Picasa 2 Site

The image, On The Nature Trail, was originally uploaded to the Internet by barneykin. It was posted here by Neddy of .

“And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
~Ephesians 6:4

When I am:

• Four years old: My daddy can do anything.
• Five years old: My daddy knows a whole lot.
• Six years old: My dad is smarter than your dad.
• Eight years old: My dad doesn’t know exactly everything.
• Ten years old: In the olden days, when my dad grew up, things were sure different.
• Twelve years old: Oh, well, naturally, Dad doesn’t know anything about that. He is too old to remember his childhood.
• Fourteen years old: Don’t pay any attention to my dad. He is so old-fashioned.
• Twenty-one years old: Him? My Lord, he’s hopelessly out of date.
• Twenty-five years old: Dad knows about it, but then he should, because he has been around so long.
• Thirty years old: Maybe we should ask Dad what he thinks. After all, he’s had a lot of experience.
• Thirty-five years old: I’m not doing a single thing until I talk to Dad.
• Forty years old: I wonder how Dad would have handled it. He was so wise.
• Fifty years old: I’d give anything if Dad were here now so I could talk this over with him. Too bad I didn’t appreciate how smart he was. I could have learned a lot from him.

Father’s Day Web Sites
What’s a Dad
Annie’s Fathers’ Day Page
Happy Father’s Day by Charlene
Dazzle Lady’s Father’s Day
Jess Cannon’s Home Page
Cyber Grandma’s Happy Father’s Day

Another rockin’ Saturday night for Grandma Neddy, watching PBS between its super-long info-commercials. “Hang Down Yer Head Tom Dooley” by the Kingston Trio? Is there anyone still alive in these United States who remembers that popular song, … except for me? I was still in high school when that song became popular. Imagine - there are still people who like to hear it and there are still people alive who remember.

Tom Dooley was a real person whose real name was Tom Dula, pronounced “Dooley”.

There were two sisters of County Clare,
Oh, the wind and the rain;
One was dark and the other was fair,
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.
Johnny gave the dark one a gay, golden ring,
Oh, the wind and the rain;
He didn’t give the other one anything, crying,
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.
Then he pushed her into the river to drown,
Oh, the wind and the rain;
And watched her as she floated down,
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.
And she floated till she came to the miller’s pond,
Oh, the wind and the rain;
Dead on the water like a golden swan,
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.
And she came to rest on the riverside,
Oh, the wind and the rain;
And her bones were washed by the rolling tide,
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.
Down the road come a fiddler fair,
Oh, the wind and the rain;
And found her bones just a-lying there, cried
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.
So he strung his fiddle bow with her long yellow hair,
Oh, the wind and the rain;
He strung his fiddle bow with her long yellow hair, crying
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.
And he made fiddle pegs of her long finger bones,
Oh, the wind and the rain;
He made fiddle pegs of her long finger bones, crying
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.
And he made a chin rest of her little breast bone,
Oh, the wind and the rain;
Whose sound would melt a heart of stone,
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.
But the only tune that the fiddle could play was
Oh, the wind and the rain;
The only tune that the fiddle would play was
“Oh, the Dreadful Wind and Rain”.

(Traditional - from an ancient English ballad)