Pictures of Lily

Now that Crit has posted some pictures of Lily on her blog, I can, too. I've been excited about this little one since the first moment I heard of her existence -- I'm almost surprised at how excited, considering I'm a great-aunt and not a grandma. What a blessing babies are (and, oh, don't those big cheeks look familiar)! I'm really happy for you, Christy & Tom. I'm so looking forward to seeing the three of you when we come down in March -- tell Lily her auntie's on her way soon!

Arnold Ziffel

The year of the pig (and the cute little pic I chose) made me think of one of my favorite pigs, Arnold Ziffel! Here he is, for all of you who remember him and, especially for those of you who don't.

Happy New Year!

Today marks the beginning of Chinese New Year -- and 2007 is the year of the pig. According to one site:

"Pig is a Lucky and Mild-tempered Animal
President Ronald Reagan was born in year of Pig. He was very happy to know that Pig is a very lucky animal in the Chinese horoscope. The Chinese see that pigs eat food all the time, enjoy sleeping all day long and worry about nothing during their entire lives. Therefore, pig is a lucky animal.

According to Chinese Five Element astrology, the animal sign Pig contains Water and Wood. Pig doesn't fight with Metal, because Metal, Water and Wood have a Circulating Relationship. Pig doesn't fight with Fire, because Water, Wood and Fire together have a Circulating Relationship as well.

But the Water element will fight with the Earth element. Earth animals are Cow, Dragon, Sheep and Dog. Cow contains Earth, Metal and Water. Cow and Pig don't fight directly, because Earth, Metal, Water and Wood are in a circulating sequence. We can find the similar circulating relationships between other Earth animals with the Pig, so it doesn't have a face-to-face conflict with the other animals.

Snake and Pig have a Fighting Relationship. But Snake contains Fire, Earth and Metal. If we put Snake and Pig together, we can still find Water, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal in a circulating sequence. This means that the fighting relationship between Snake and Pig is not that serious. The conclusion is that most of people born in year of Pig don't have any unyielding argument with other people. Since Pig-type people have more peaceful lifestyle than others, they are therefore luckier."

I was born in the year of the Snake. According to this site, in an explaination of the Chinese Zodiac, Snake people say little, are very wise, have financial fortune; but also can be vain, selfish & stingy. I'm glad (I guess) that I don't believe in Zodiacal truths.

So HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR, everyone!

the chickens' auntie seems to know everything . . .

I had some fun on the last two post's of jonemo's dailylondonphoto blog and got an honorable mention! Check it out here. I don't know everything, but I sure knew those two -- I LOVE LONDON!! The only bad thing about the daily photo blogs from England is that they make me want to be there all the time, even more than I already do.

Weird Al didn't win!

The Grammys are over and, sadly, Weird Al Yankovic's album "Straight Outta Lynwood" didn't win the Best Comedy category. As the mother of 3 boys, I've heard a lot of Weird Al and am disappointed by this, as I'm sure you all are. You can, however, catch this video of "White & Nerdy" from YouTube. I think this could be right there with "Amish Paradise" as one of my favorites. Enjoy (but beware -- it will be stuck in your head all day)!

Snow in South England

Today it was sunny and in the low to mid 20s and it felt downright balmy! People were walking outside without coats, just as though it was spring. Now I know why God sends us -9 degrees and a week of sub-zero windchills -- so we'll think 25 is warm!

We've had snow on the ground since right after New Year's; not alot, but enough to stay around. On the other hand, snow in the London area is so rare that all the bloggers take photos of it. Here's one of snow in Oxford from the Oxford Daily Photo blog I look at.

I think it would be great to live somewhere where snow was an enough of an oddity that it warranted comment. I guess we'd seldom have a white Christmas, though, and I'd miss that.