Scattered Thoughts . . .

Kenzie is holding up a couple of figurines from my Dickens Village as she watches little people on the train video... Just about everyone knows I enjoy trains and model railroading.  I've always been drawn to trains as far back as I can remember.  I asked for my first train set when I was only four years old and I have been hooked ever since then.   Lukas and Mackenzie were with us today and I couldn't help but notice how excited, entranced and mesmerized they became while watching three videos of model trains that I received just today.  They were very animated... jumping... dancing... screaming "dains" as they point at a new train entering the scene on the television screen... making chugging sounds... running up to the television and looking as though they think they could just reach out and grab a train for themselves. I've never seen them so glued to the television for so long! So, what is it about these little models that causes almost all kids to

I have always hated having to try to decipher some code and type it into a box before being able to proceed with something I want to do online.  Most often, that code is so hard to read that it requires three tries to get a code correct before I actually get the code right!  This can be extremely infuriating!  As a result, I have always avoided using this step on my blog, however, it is time for a change. I am having to sort through far too many comments each day that are only spam.  I want to keep comments available to anyone, including those who don't have any account with Google or Blogger, so my only other option was to enable a word verification procedure for each comment in order to eliminate spam comments.   In essence, the word verification procedure is less of a problem than the spam I need to sort through every single day.  The crazier thing is that only a tiny fraction of a percent of the comments on my blog posts are real posts...  hmmm...  Maybe I should just elimi