What You Have To Be Thankful For...

I am thankful for the mess to clean after a party because it means I have been surrounded by friends.

I am thankful for the taxes I pay because it means that I'm employed.

I am thankful for the clothes that fit a little too snug because it means I have enough to eat.

I am thankful for my shadow who watches me work because it means I am out in the sunshine.

I am thankful for a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning and gutters that need fixing because it means I have a home.

I am thankful for my heating bill because it means I am warm.

I am thankful for the spot I find at the far end of the parking lot because it means I am capable of walking.

I am thankful for all the complaining I hear about our government because it means we have freedom of speech.

I am thankful for the lady behind me in meeting who sings off key because it means that I can hear.

I am thankful for the piles of laundry and ironing because it means my loved ones are nearby.

I am thankful for the alarm that goes off in the early morning hours because it means I have a reason to get up.

I am thankful for the weariness and aching muscles at the end of the day because it means I have been productive.

I am thankful for all my friends and family because it means that I am loved and can love.

Author Unknown

Old Sayings

A Lick And A Promise

'I'll just give this a lick and a promise,' my mother said as she quickly mopped up a spill on the floor without moving any of the furniture.

'What is that supposed to mean,' I asked as in my young mind I envisioned someone licking the floor with his or her tongue. 'It means that I'm in a hurry and I'm busy canning tomatoes so I am going to just give it a lick with the mop and promise to come back and do the job right later. 'A lick and a promise' was just one of the many old phrases that our mothers, grandmothers, and others used that they probably heard from the generations before them. With the passing of time, many old phrases become obsolete or even disappear. This is unfortunate because some of them are very appropriate and humorous.

Here is a list of some of those memorable old phrases:

A Bone to Pick

(someone who wants to discuss a disagreement)

An Axe to Grind

(Someone who has a hidden motive. This phrase is said to have originated from Benjamin Franklin who told a story about a devious man who asked how a grinding wheel worked. He ended up walking away with his axe sharpened free of charge)

One bad apple spoils the whole barrel

(one corrupt person can cause all the others to go bad if you don't remove the bad one)

At sea

(lost or not understanding something)

Bad Egg

(Someone who was not a good person)

Barking at a knot

(meaning that your efforts were as useless as a dog barking at a knot.)

Barking up the wrong tree

(talking about something that was completely the wrong issue with the wrong person)

Bee in your bonnet

(To have an idea that won't let loose)

Been through the mill

(had a rough time of it)

Between hay and grass

(Not a child or an adult)

Blinky

(Between sweet and sour as in milk)

Calaboose

(a jail)

Catawampus

(Something that sits crooked such as a piece of furniture sitting at an angle)

Dicker

(To barter or trade)

Feather in Your Cap

(to accomplish a goal. This came from years ago in wartime when warriors might receive a feather they would put in their cap for defeating an enemy)

Hold your horses

(Be patient!)

Hoosegow

( a jail)

I reckon

(I suppose)

Jawing/Jawboning

(Talking or arguing)

Kit and caboodle

(The whole thing)

Madder than ole wet hen

(really angry)

Needs taken down a notch or two

(like notches in a belt. usually a young person who thinks too highly of himself and needs a lesson)

Ain't No Spring Chicken

(Not young anymore)

Persnickety

(overly particular or snobbish)

Pert-near

(short for pretty near)

Pretty is as pretty does

(your actions are more important than your looks)

Red up

(clean the house)

Scalawag

(a rascal or unprincipled person)

Scarce as hen's teeth

(something difficult to obtain)

Skedaddle

(Get out of here quickly)

Sparking

(courting)

Straight From the Horse's Mouth

(privileged information from the one concerned)

Stringing around,

gallivanting around, or piddling (Not doing anything of value)

Sunday go to meetin' dress

(The best dress you had)

We wash up real fine

(is another goodie meaning we look good when we get cleaned up)

Tie the Knot

(to get married)

Too many irons in the fire

(to be involved in too many things)

Tuckered out

(tired and all worn out)

Under the weather

(not feeling well. This term came from going below deck on ships due to sea sickness thus you go below or under the weather)

Wearing your 'best bib and tucker'

(Being all dressed up)

You ain't the only duck in the pond

(It's not all about you)

Well, if you hold your horses,

I reckon I'll get this whole kit and caboodle done and sent off to you. Please don' t be too persnickety and get a bee in your bonnet because I've been pretty tuckered out and been so busy and I'm no spring chicken. I haven't been just stringin' around and I know I'm not the only duck in the pond, but I do have too many irons in the fire. I might just be barking at a knot, but I have tried to give this article
more than just A lick and a promise.

Source: Stephanie

English Is A Crazy Language

Let's face it-English is a crazy language.

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France.

Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted.

But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history
but not a single annal?

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preacher praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike?

How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another.

Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent?

Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable?

And where are all those people who Are spring chickens or who would Actually hurt a fly?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.

Author Unknown

The New Hoover Dam Bypass - A Definite WOW!

THE WIDER VIEW: Taking shape, the new bridge at the Hoover Dam

Creeping closer inch by inch, 900 feet above the mighty Colorado River, the two side of a $160 million bridge at the Hoover Dam slowly takes shape.

The bridge will carry a new section of US Route 93 past the bottleneck of the old road which can be twisting and winding around and across the dam itself.

When complete, it will provide a new link between the states of Nevada and Arizona .
In an incredible feat of engineering, the road will be supported on the two massive concrete arches which jut out of the rock face.

The arches are made up of 53 individual sections each 24 feet long which have been
cast on-site and are being lifted into place using an improvised high-wire crane strung between temporary steel pylons.



The arches will eventually measure more than 1,000 feet across. At the moment, the structure looks like a traditional suspension bridge. But once the arches are complete, the suspending cables on each side will be removed. Extra vertical columns will then be installed on the arches to carry the road.

The bridge has become known as the Hoover Dam bypass, although it is officially called the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, after a former governor of Nevada and an American Football player from Arizona who joined the US Army and was killed in Afghanistan. Work on the bridge started in 2005 and should finish next year. An estimated 17,000 cars and trucks will cross it every day.

The dam was started in 1931 and used enough concrete to build a road from New York to San Francisco.

The stretch of water it created, Lake Mead , is 110 miles long and took six years to fill.

The original road was opened at the same time as the famous dam in 1936.

An extra note: The top of the white band of rock in Lake Mead is the old waterline prior to the drought and development in the Las Vegas area. It is over 100 feet above the current water level.