I'm as excited as I was this time last year and I'm looking forward to tomorrow with the same enthusiasm! We can't manage a get-away this year as we did in '24, but it's still an event!!

         Bren's presence in my world makes me think about a song by Alanis Morrisette. She sees every negative thing about me and she's still here.

         Thank you, Just A Reader .

I have three questions for everyone.

1 & 2)Do you collect physical copies of your MBs? If so, do you collect them all or only specific ones? For instance, MBs received for your actual writing (as opposed to ones received for being thoughtful or generous or whatever).

3) Is this font actually Verdana? All the Verdana fonts I've ever used have horizontal capitals atop the "I", a characteristic I like because it helps differentiate between "I" and "l." In some fonts it's hard to distinguish the "1" as well. It's possible that there are variations of the Verdana font that I've just not been aware of (other than the usual bold, italic, underscore, and strikethrough).

A somewhat odd thought occurred to me yesterday morn. I wrote it down, but I don't know why I used this style and phrasing. What are your thoughts?

         Ev'ry kiss by maiden blown is a tempest, which fury doth set aloft the fancies of youthful boys like the quills they flutter in poetic answer to those quiet lips.

         Thy poems, boys, doth light more gently 'pon those pristine hearts than ever shall the wind-borne love upon your grasping hands.

         My writing might slow down a wee bit now, but only for a while. It can't be stopped. So dinna fash owre that. What happened, eh?

         Well, about a month ago the "G/g" key on our laptop (only computer) stopped working. Today, the whole laptop just refused to power-up. I think it might be as simple as a low CMOS battery, but I know very little about computer innards. It's an older laptop, as I wouldn't wish a modern one on my worst enemy (if I had one). The one person I trusted (95% trusted) to work on my computers passed away in late October 2024. The current non-functioning laptop is one of two we own. I guess I need to find time to learn about computers, so as to be able to effect repairs. We have many irons in the fire at present, so tech issues will slow my writing down, but they can't stop it!

I aspire to be the world's next big failure.

I just found a laminated mini-poster I had put into a drawer and forgotten about. I never forget its content though. It tells of a few people who failed before succeeding BIG TIME.

The Beatles were turned away from Decca Recording Studios, who said, "We don't like their sound. They have no future in show business."

Steve Jobs was devastated and fell into depression after being ousted from the company he started.

Albert Einstein couldn't speak until he was nearly four years old. His teachers told his parents he would "never amount to much."

Michael Jordan went home, locked himself in his room, and cried after being cut from his high school basketball team.

Walt Disney was fired from his job at a newspaper in southern California for "lacking imagination" and "having no original ideas."

Oprah Winfrey was demoted from her news anchor position because she "wasn't fit for television."

Failures are stepping stones on the path to success and I plan to keep stepping!

         The natural world always keeps me awestruck. Here's an astounding fact about it.

         The quarter-inch long Himalayan Jumping Spider is the only living thing in its biome, the highest point on earth. Nothing else lives at the top of Mount Everest. This means it has no natural enemies and also no prey. It feeds on frozen dinners in the form of insects blown there randomly by strong winds.