When I was down at Notre Dame the other weekend, I noticed that they had a grotto just out side of the Basilica.  It was a hole in the side of a hill and it was lined with  stones.  In the front of the grotto was a place to pray and light candles.

Of course, right next to the grotto was the extremely ornate Basilica.  So, there were the two extremes right next to each other.  Personally, I think that the grotto should have been built in a more rustic location, but what ever.

Of course, there are advantages to having the two of them right next to each other.  If you are hung over and have over slept, the grotto might be a better option.

I saw a dating profile the other day from a woman who had horses.  It looked like she might be boarding them by the appearance of the barn behind her. So, I thought, “if the horses are boarded, then she might not be so consumed with them.”  But, I was wrong.

Under “free time activities” she had listed “grooming horses, cleaning out stalls, feeding horses, get the picture?”.  Well, yes I did get the picture.  Her life would always be centered around her horses.

She seemed nice enough, but, since I am not interested in giving my life to horses, I will pass.

While it is important to post a picture of yourself on your dating site, please make sure it is a pleasant photo.

Now, this may seem to be an irrelevant comment.  Unfortunately, it is not. Just the other day, a woman posted a picture of her self.  And, she had the most sour look on her face!  No smile.  Just a bulldog look.

My initial thought was that if this is the last woman on the face of the earth, I should consider running as fast as I can in the opposite direction.

What was she thinking?

The other day, one of my dating web sites matched me with a woman from west Michigan.  Since she was close and seemed interesting, I thought that I would send her an email expressing my interest.

But, before I started to write, I checked her profile for points of commonality.  Well, her profile was one long whiny tirade about how men always view her profile but never bother to check her out in person.

Despite her “whine”, I decided to write to her anyway.  After all, I was some what interested in her.  And, I wanted to prove her wrong.

But, then I got to thinking, What if I take her out and I don’t like her.  Will she be worse off than if I hadn’t taken her out?  I mean would I be building false expectations?  And, since she had provided very little information about herself, I was having a hard time deciding if we had any commonality.

I finally decided that her “sour attitude” would probably carry over into any relationship and may have been the reason for her divorce in the first place.

I passed on writing her because I didn’t want to feel guilty should I decide that she is not the one for me.

All of the social and dating websites have a place to post pictures.  And you are encouraged to post at least one photo of your self so that people know what you look like.

So, in an effort to get a photo of them selves, some women have resorted to standing in front of their  mirror and taking a picture of their reflection.  Unfortunately, most of the pictures are taken in front of the bathroom mirror.  So, not only do I get to see them, I also get to see their bathrooms.

And, what do I see in their bathroom?  I see the bathrobe hanging from the back of the door, I see the wadded up towel on the floor, I see the toothpaste and hair care products on the counter, I see the toilet paper on the shelves, I see the toilet with the seat up which makes me wonder if there is a man in the house.

And, while photos are important, please make sure that they are showing everything that you want them to show.

One of my co-workers has a desktop Zen garden in her office here at work.  It consists of a small wooden box with some very fine sand, several colorful rocks and a couple of small rakes for moving the sand around.  Several of my co-workers like to stop and play with the Zen garden.  They rearrange the rocks and rake the sand around and seem to get a large measure of satisfaction by doing it.

Of course, good ole Ned, with his sick sense of humor, buried a little rubber skeleton in the Zen garden.  It wasn’t more than a few days later that I heard a “Hoop” coming from the office.  I knew right then and there that someone must have dug up the body.

Bad Karma!

A K9 tracking dog was recently brought in to help find a missing Alzheimer man.  Unfortunately, the dog took off after a deer instead of the missing man.  The remains of the missing man were eventually found but the dog is still missing.

Maybe the dog caught the deer and is preferring the deer over Alpo.  Or, maybe the deer is preferring the dog over acorns.

My kitties have taken to singing to me at night.  About 3AM, my one kitty starts singing.  Of course, what she is really doing is fighting with the cat on the other side of my glass slider.  Howls and growls and spitting, she is one tough cat as long at there is glass between her and the other cat.  In the mean time, I can’t sleep.

Well, I am grateful that I can pull a pillow over my head.

I am in the process of redoing my kitchen.  And, part of that redo includes add some additional cupboards and eliminating others.

One part of the remodel involves a new pantry.  This, of course, means moving the old pantry.  And, with the old pantry comes checking for expiration dates on old cans.  But, more to the point, what should I stock in my pantry?

There are, of course, the basic staples such as toilet paper and Kleenex as I buy these in large quantities.  But what about cream of mushroom soup?  Or evaporated milk?  While these are things that I use from time to time, they are not things that I consider to be “staples”.

Staples should consist of the things that I use regularly in my house hold.  Sugar, flour, salt, butter, etc.    But, unless I am an Italian, any recipe needing tomato paste or stewed tomato s is going involve an assortment of other  ingredients.  And all of these ingredients will  need to be purchased including the tomato paste and stewed tomato s.

So, I will need to make a trip to Meijer (regional grocery chain) to purchase what I need so why have specialty items in the pantry?

From now on, the pantry will only carry items that are purchased in bulk,  are non-Meijer specialties, or are staples.

I play in one of the several worship bands at church.  And, normally the bands play a little prelude before the service.  After the prelude, the venue pastor offers a greeting and then we sing 3-4 songs.

But recently, the church decided to try something different.  Instead of a prelude, the church has decided to have a 10 minute timer.  This timer is projected on all of the video screens through out the church.

The idea is that people will look at the screens and know when church is going to start.  Then, when they see that the service is about to start, they will enter the venue and sit down.

But, in reality, it doesn’t work.  People are too busy talking to look at the screens.  Plus, they are used to entering when they hear the prelude.  So, no prelude, no people.

Some of the venue realize this and play a prelude anyway.

It will be interesting to see just how long this last before we all go back to playing a prelude.