ALWAYS MODERATE YOUR COMMENTS!

OK. I have no idea what is going on!
I just came home from work and the green light on my modem is flickering and the phone has a dial tone! I ran to the computer and YES!  I have Internet!
The guy is coming tomorrow to disconnect my phone and set up the line for "wireless without a phone". When the guy came out to my house on Monday he said that there was NOT a problem with the line OUTSIDE (which would have been free to fix), so it had to be INSIDE, which would mean that I would be charged $110.00.
Luckily I wasn't home for him to get inside.
Whew! Dodged that bill!
So that's what got me thinking about possibly going with cable. But first I decided to call the telephone company and she waived the INSIDE inspection charge and new hook-up charge and I would start getting wireless for $10 a month less than I HAD been paying. Such a deal!
Today we are having 50 mile an hour winds...and everything is working (for now anyway.)
The phone line goes from the house and up through my weeping willow tree and across the backyard to the giant power pole at the corner of the yard.
Me thinks it was OUTSIDE!
SCAMMERS! Grrrr, Spit, Phew!
At least the customer service woman on the phone was nice.
So, now on to moderating comments.
I just posted Robin's question on the last post about "word verification" and I will answer her here:
Go to your Dashboard page, then to "Settings", then under "Comments" scroll done to "show word verification" and click on NO instead of YES.
BUT make sure you have checked ALWAYS under "comment verification"...
WHY?
because as SOON as I took word verification off the comments I had a bunch of comments waiting in my email to be moderated from Anonymous and they were links to Porn, Body-Part Enlargements and Viagra......one of them had maybe 25 links attached to it! Luckily I had the ability to delete them all.
So there ya go! I'm going to go read some other emails now before the wind blows the line around and disconnects me again!

NO INTERNET and NO WORD VERIFICATION

OK, yes. I DID say that I wanted to back away a bit from the computer...
but THIS is ridiculous!
My phone line AND my wireless are DOWN.
I'm posting this from work, WHILE ON MY LUNCH BREAK (in case some one from work actually reads my blog).
SO - I am getting rid of that OLD landline (only telemarketers called me on that anyway) and getting just wireless. Unfortunately they can't come to install it until Thursday.
:(
but there is GOOD news. 
I've gotten rid of my "word verification" thingie!
So now people won't have to jump through hoops (while squinting) to leave me a comment!
:)
Hope to see ya back here on Thursday night!
XOXO - Cindi

CAN YOU LOVE AN INANIMATE OBJECT?

is it possible?
It isn't living, breathing...there's no soul.
But...
My sister and her family have several cars and one of them was an OLD Toyota van.
The van was almost to 300 thousand miles.
300,000
They have driven that thing EVERYWHERE!
They would pack it up and go to Wisconsin, to the lake.
They drove it to Chicago for weekend visits when the older girls were in college.
They drove it in the dead of winter through the snow when other cars would have gotten stuck.
They would drive over to get me and we would all sit bundled up in the back as we rumbled out into the country for Christmas Eve at our Step-Mother's.
They would load their dogs up in it for a trip to the vet or a hike in the park.
We used it to load it up with great steals at Estate Sales and Fabulous Finds along the road.
We carted bags of mulch and trays of flowers.
They could pack it up with metal stuff to the scrap yard and with papers,cardboard and plastics to the Recycling Center.
And worn out and damaged junk to the Dump.
It would be vacuumed and cleaned out for the annual Spring trip to Washington D.C. to see cherry blossoms.
It became the school car for the girls to drive and then their work car.

So my youngest niece, Lily had been driving it. She just got her license this year.
They had that van since she was a little toddler and she had been there when the radiator had it's problems and when it had a flat but she always felt safe inside and now while driving it.
So this winter we all gave her many driving tips. She was driving it to her very first "real" job and had to travel the Interstate.
My sister told her if she ever hit a slick spot not to jerk the wheel or it might cause a rollover.
This winter hasn't had a lot of snow but one day there was freezing rain and then it stopped.
In town the roads didn't appear bad and she decided to travel out to get her paycheck.
She hit an icy patch.
She didn't jerk the wheel but the van spun out, hit the guard rail, whipped around and landed backwards in a ditch.
Other motorists called the State Police.
She was OK. Frightened and crying but fine.
My sister told me about it on the phone. Her voice cracked as she told me how the old van's airbag had inflated and protected her.
In my mind I could visualize the old van reaching out and wrapping it's arms around Lily keeping her safe from harm.
The van was badly damaged so it was towed to the car-scrap yard.
My sister went down to settle things, and to make sure it really was beyond repair and sell it for scrap.
She called to tell me that she didn't know why but she just had to turn the key one more time...
and it started right up.
She went home and told her husband about it that night.
He said they couldn't just LEAVE it there.
She told him that it was just a van and that it had to be.
But I think the thought of her old friend and protector of her children sitting abandoned in that yard...broke her heart a little bit.

JUST DROPPING IN...

...for a moment!

I've made a small dent in my "stuff I need to get done" list.
I've done some writing!
A little bit of doodling...
Yep, I have actually gotten a lot accomplished by staying off the computer
OK, I haven't been completely OFF. I've checked email and Facebook.
Lately I am really hating Facebook.
If I read an article on Yahoo, they post that I read it. What's up with that?
Now everyone knows I had to stop and watch Taylor Swift's spooky video.
And these "friends" that I KNOW on Facebook are bugging me.
One of them posted this very NOT politically correct poster about learning Chinese.
It wasn't funny. They probably don't realize that my nieces are 1/4 Chinese. (My brother-in-law is half.)

Now the dilemma, do I ignore it or do I make a comment that I find it offense? This is someone I have to deal with in my work life.
Then I have several people preaching their religion to me and others their politics.
It drives me crazy. I know what I believe and who I will probably vote for.

Sigh, I suppose many of my "friends" are wishing that I'd stop with all the cute dog/cat stuff.

Anyway, I'm thinking of staying off Facebook for a while too. (email me if you need me!)
XOXO - Cindi

DIALING BACK

I started blogging in June of 2009.

It won't be long until it becomes 3 years. What started as a little hobby has taken control of my life.

I look at everything as whether it would make for a good "post". I'm on the computer all the time.

I want to change my blog around and bring more Followers in.

I want to treat it more like a Business and have it more organized around things I've created and/or written.

Instead I feel it's just become a hodge-podge of ramblings and rants...

and that's what Facebook is for right? LOL! Not my blog.

I choose the name OLDBLACKCATBOO, that was the name I used when I had sold some paintings on Ebay and I liked that it was in memory of my special little cat. My sister had thought it might make people think that my blog was just about cats and I had defended it by saying that it someone didn't like cats, I didn't want them to follow me anyway. While this still holds true, I don't want it to appear that it's only centered around cats and of course the funny thing is that I think that I've written more about my dogs!

Anyway, I digress.

I want to change things around and become more known by my name.

I've noticed that most Artists and Writers just use their names for their blogs.

I thought about using Cindi, but there is already a well-known author out there with my name and actually Cindi is just my nickname.

So I decided to use Cynthia. There was a famous Playboy bunny named that and that's what comes up first if you Google my name.

She apparently was the very first "Playmate" and also was in the "Valley of the Dolls" movie. She passed away this year.

There is also a glass artist that comes up right after that.

So, I guess it really doesn't matter what I go by but Cynthia is what I've decided on.

But back to my addiction with the computer.

I'm on Pinterest constantly. I love it. But then I still have to read all the blogs I'm following and leave comments.

and I check in on Facebook.

I've considered doing the Twitter thing too.

Then I have to figure out what to talk about on MY blog.

I find that ALL I do is TALK anymore. I never seem to DO anything.

I get some much JOY out of seeing that I have a comment waiting to be posted that I'm always checking to see if there's something that needs to be moderated.

sigh....

I need to back away. and DO some stuff.

I need to REALLY work on my book about BLUE and I have all these ideas for an inspirational book about Kanga....

and I want to be painting again.

I need to sit down and figure out JUST how I want my blog to be and how I want it to look.

So....that's what I'll be doing. Working on things for awhile.

Actually DOING instead of just talking about it.

That being said, I'm not dropping out, just dialing back.

XOXOXO - Cindi

YOU CAN'T CHOOSE WHO YOU LOVE...

you just do.

Happy Valentine's Day!

CAMPING

I already posted this on my Facebook page but it's so cute that I had to post it here too!

yep...

WHY DO I LOVE DOGS?

because they are not people.

Present company excluded of course.
I adored all of YOU!
I wish that the people that I have to deal with daily were as great as the people that I've met through blogging.

Dogs don't stab you in the back and pretend to be something they are not.
and Cats?
God, I LOVE Cats!
You can't fool a cat.
They know Evil when they see it!

THIS IS HARD

I love my new camera but I actually had to read some of the manual.
I NEVER read manuals but this has a shorten "quick" version
and then there's a DVD to watch for detail.
I'm gonna have to watch the DVD.
I'm not complaining, even though I know it sounds as though I am.
I'm trying out the ZOOM thing and I can't believe how it just sucks the TV screen right up to me.

 and I have a SMALL TV!

Maybe I should watch the TV through my camera.
No, that would be kinda pathetic...

It's cool how I can focus on Ghost's face as he stands on me.

But now I can see how incredibly messy and dusty my house is.
Oh well...
So much to learn but I'm loving it.

WEDNESDAY - Good News, Bad News.

Good News, Bad News.
First the Bad.
My camera bit the dust. To be honest for the last year I've had packing tape around the corner of it.
And lately I would push the "button" and it took forever for it to actually take the photo.
It was just a little digital point and shoot. I had it for at least 5 years and I've taken photos of everything with it and then Monday night I couldn't find it. It wasn't in my handbag and then I remembered that I had uploaded the "broken hearted cats" with it.
But it wasn't on my desk by the computer.
Then I saw it.

Laying there dead under the side table below my printer.
I would blame Mimsy, I didn't SEE her do it but I'm pretty sure she's the one that pushed it to it's death. She's always jumping up on my chair to peer into my mug and see what's inside. Or to see if I have left a dinner plate with some crumbs on top of the printer.
(Not that I'm admitting that I eating dinner while surfing.)
Yeah, pretty sure it was Mimsy that offed my camera.

Now for the Good News.
I was given an Amazon gift certificate for Christmas. I had planned on buying a nail gun with it but then I found out I would need an air compressor thingy too and how many things am I going to really nail?
AND I found several books I wanted to order...so I hadn't used it yet.
Thank God.
After hours of reading camera reviews and then watching some kid on YouTube talk about this particular one, I got a new camera.
It's by GE. I know! Who knew? GE makes cameras?
It's called a "bridge" camera?
I guess that's a step up from "point and shoot" but not quite the cool "everything" camera.
It has16 megapixels, where the old camera only had 5.
And an awesome ZOOM lens.
I don't really know anything about cameras but it's pretty.
And it cost less than my old one did when I bought it 5 years ago.
And even less with my gift certificate.
So, I'm supposed to get it in the mail Friday (at work, where no one can swipe it off my porch) and a couple of art books too.
Wahoo! I can't hardly wait for Friday!
Of course I always feel that way anyway.