Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas...

My quilt circle friends and I went to a Christmas tea last week. We decided to do something different this year. I just love having scones and clotted cream, something I never have in my regular life.

My friend Jenny made me this Beatles wall hanging, to show off the Abbey Road patch she bought me on a trip to England this past summer with her family. Isn't this cool? She even printed out the apple and glued it on the top of the hangar.

My Christmas cards were in the mail yesterday, an anomaly for me. Some years are so busy I never get to sending the cards at all. I used one of my own photos this year, and had the card printed with our names. That made things easy. When I got out my list, I realized quickly I hadn't ordered enough of them. The photo was taken from my front door last February, the night we had 18 inches of snow. I happened to be up in the middle of the night (as a night owl, I often am awake at odd hours) and was watching the snow, marveling at how bright it was outside. Finally I had to get out the tripod and camera and take the picture. I then added the bit from The Night before Christmas to the card because it was so perfect. I have never experienced a quieter, more beautiful snowfall. If even a tiny bit of the beauty of that night comes across in the card, then I accomplished my goal. Happy Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!

Google Youself

If you ever want to see what kind of a presence you have on the Internet, try googling yourself. What an eyeopener! I was surprised to find that my web presence has increased from a few references on page 1 (which used to be related to my Quilt Circle and my Library Board service) to mentions of me all the way to page 5 of my search. It's not that I've increased my presence so much, despite the website and the blog, but that others (like the newspapers) have posted their information on the web.

The references included things I said at a school board meeting that were reported in the newspaper, to my inquires about genealogy at forum websites. Every forum I've posted on is included, meaning every related name. Places I've donated to that list their donors on the web include my name. Comments that I've made on other websites are flagged and of course there's a reference to my Facebook page. The Library's newsletter is now online, so anything I contributed to that publication is online now. My blog and website took up most of page 1 and page 2, and there was even a reference to the death notice of my mother last year (another newspaper article).

I'm not complaining, mind you. Anyone with a website and a blog can't be totally unhappy to find their profile increasing on the Internet. I just find it interesting that everything you put out there is so .... trackable. In Catholic school, the nuns used to tell us that your permanent record will follow you forever...well, so does the Internet.

After googling myself, I then googled the rest of my family. My sons are extremely good at staying hidden on the Internet. I applaud their efforts at staying 'under the radar' in this information age.