Thursday, December 11, 2008

SNOW! Here, yes, snow!


As many of my online friends know, I live in the South. Way south. Like Southeastern Louisiana, not too far from New Orleans and even closer to Mississippi. Well, believe it or not, those white covered objects in these pictures are mine. My house, my car, my fence, my cactus, my banana trees, my grass, ect... Didn't think to snap one of the orange tree which was still full of lovely oranges...

It was over seventy here a couple of days ago, and in a couple more days it will be back up there -- but today...

Well, let's go back to last night. It rained all night. This morning about five I had gone back to bed and was listening to the rain fall. My husband, who had made it to work, called to tell me it was sleeting and that there was some snow mixed in. I thought sure, a few flakes. Never even stick to the ground. A few minutes later I got another call. It was really snowing, so I was told. I grumbled and crawled out of bed, figuring I'd be lucky if in the glow of the porch light I could see even a few tiny flakes. I made my way to the back door and opened it to look out.

It was really snowing! It was really snowing real snow!

In a few minutes, it was really, really snowing. I ran and dragged my daughter out of bed with the news. By the time we made it back to the door, the flakes were huge, falling fast, and actually sticking to things. We rushed and dressed, and my son who is a married man now and lives next door, came over with his wife in tow just as I was slipping on my shoes. We all ran out into the dark, into the falling snow and watched in wonder and laughed like children.

By the time the sun came up, we found ourselves in a winter wonderland, like those we have seen on TV. We built a snowman, the kids threw huge snowballs back and forth at each other. We slipped and fell on the ice and laughed even more. We let the dogs out and they tip-toed around through this white unknown and then began to run and play too.

There was much fun had by all the two legged and four legged family members. Even hubby got sent home from work before noon. The schools were closed and when we tried to watch TV, all normal programming had been pushed aside so all of our local, which is New Orleans for us, news programs could broadcast about the snow that was falling. It continued to snow until noon. We got five inches of snow. Snow that stayed on the ground. It's night now, and there is still snow on the ground, though the patches of non-snow are getting bigger and bigger.

It's been an amazing day for us! Smile Hope something made yours just as nice. Most of us spend too little time smiling and acting like kids. Smile



Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Gifts for Writers -- Laser Printer & Word

If you are looking for a great gift for a writer, even if that writer if yourself, then I've got a couple in mind, and right now Amazon has them with lots off, up to 52% off.

First up is a laser printer. If you are like me, you've been wanting one forever, both for the speed it prints and the much cheaper price per page. They've always been way up in price, my idea of way up anyway, and the ink for them was also too high. I found a really great one though with ink that won't break you. It even comes with a starter toner cartridge that prints a 1000 pages. It's the Brother HL-2170w 23ppm Laser Printer with Wireless & Wired Network Interfaces. It prints high-quality 2400 x 600 dpi resolution and has a 250-sheet capacity tray.



When you order it, go ahead and oder the Brother TN360 High Yield Black Toner Cartridge to go with it. It prints 2,600 pages. That means between it and the starter one you get with the printer, you are good to print 3,600 MS pages. Pretty good deal!


If you aren't in need of a good printer, check out Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007. It includes the 2007 versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and One Note. I perfer to use Word, since you'll find that it's the standard most editors and agents, even in articles and such, request you use when they want a copy of CD or e-mailed to them. It's at a great price right now. I personaly don't use Excel or PowerPoint, but I have a daughter in college, and she often has work she has to do in one or the other, so with this program I covered myself and her. If you look at the price of Word alone, or Excel or PowerPoint, you will see what a great deal this is. Hey, as writers, we have to save every cent we can. Smile.