In addition to being thankful for family, friends, and all the blessings in our life, this year we added a phenomenal Thanksgiving dinner. It was beyond amazing.

FIL smoked the turkey
J made his yummy Thanksgiving mashed potatoes that we can only have once a year because they are so sinful.
MIL did something to the sweet potatoes that involved pineapple and, I think, butter.
Then she fried up some of the best green beans I've ever had.
I made stuffing, it was Stove Top, but I mixed the Turkey and the Cornbread, yeah. It was good.
Then, thanks to the internet, we had two extra special things: Garlic Butter Crusty Bubble Bread thanks to Foodie With Family and Pumpkin Leche Flan thanks to The Pioneer Woman. These were both phenomenal.

I hope all of your Thanksgivings were just as wonderful.

( Pictures from my Thanksgiving morning walk. )

Tweaks and enhancements

1. In order to improve site security, we've temporarily suspended the ability to change passwords for old email addresses that haven't been used for over six months. For further information and support, please visit our customer care page.
2. We've launched a new mobile site with an enhanced UI at m.livejournal.com. View spotlights, post to your journal, read and post to friends pages, and more, no matter where you roam! Please let us know what you think, since this will eventually replace our existing mobile interface. You can update your mobile preferences on your account page.
3. We've upgraded from Beacon to Facebook Connect to improve dual posting. If you've already signed up for Facebook Beacon, you're good to go. If you wish to update your Facebook Connect setting, visit Account Privacy settings and scroll down to the option labeled: "Send information about my updates to Facebook." You can choose Always or Ask each time. Remember to save (on the bottom left corner of the page). To learn more, check out FAQ 249. While we're on the subject, if you happen to be visiting that side of town, please join our Facebook fan page for a touch of home away from home.
4. You'll now receive the Writer's Block Question of the Day in the body of email notifications. To sign up for Writer's Block notifications, visit writersblock and choose the Watch Community option. Next, update your Writer's Block notification settings by checking the box to the right of "Someone posts a new entry to writersblock."
5. Paid and permanent users can now view, add, and edit Notes of commenters. Notes will appear beside the username of comment posters (instead of stars) on S1-themed comment pages.

Send some lovin' thanks to your friends with our holiday vgifts!

Photos of the week

We're so delighted with the immense talent of our growing, global lj_photophile community that we've decided to introduce a poll. Each week, we'll choose a half-dozen photos (based on user comments and staff feedback) and ask you to select a photo of the week. The winning photo will be announced in the next newsletter. If possible, please limit photo size to 350x350 to ensure that images display properly on friends pages. We want to thank you again (and again!) for sharing your passion.

Check out this week's photo poll and more fantastic user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks for joining us. To our American friends, have a fantastic Thanksgiving. To all of our international neighbors, we'll eat a little extra for you!

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe holiday. As well as a lovely long weekend.

I'm thankful I have such fun and interesting computer friends. :)

TURKEY guys! Turkey. Have fun!

Ms. Sarahlou over at http://www.skeinsandbeans.com/ challenged us to post a thumb turkey, so I am.

Anyone else wanna play along?

Bad news: My computer died. Funeral is on Friday.

Good news: Thanksgiving is coming. Oh! and the engine was running again last night.

Things that make me happy: Watching all the crazy lights in the neighborhood begin to make their appearance. Not that anyone would be displaying them (well, except for the one house that's had their tree up for a month already) yet, but they're getting ready for Friday.

65redroses
Eva is a vibrant young woman with Cystic Fibrosis who survived a double lung transplant. Read about her difficult recovery and personal triumphs over pain, isolation, and fear. Back in school, Eva now works part-time in a children's center and enjoys running and cross-country skiing. A documentary on her story, entitled 65 Red Roses, won three awards at the Vancouver International Film Festival.

meet_other_moms
A warm and welcoming "Add me" community for moms of all ages and backgrounds from around the world. If you're a mom, just post a little about yourself and start connecting with other mothers based on similar hobbies, musical interests, book/TV/movie preferences, or taste in humor! A great way for busy moms to socialize online.

kitchenfaq
Want to share a fabulous home recipe for coconut bread? Suddenly run out of confectioner's sugar with company on the way and need to find out a quick in-house substitute? Searching for tips on what to charge for a custom-designed wedding cake? Whether you're a professional chef, an aspiring culinary wizard, or a happy home-baker, you'll get delicious guidance from fellow and sister foodies.

naturesbeauty
Always on the lookout for compelling images, we were delighted to discover this flourishing community of artists who share a love of nature. Honoring the subject with photographs, paintings, sketches, prose, poetry, and
other creative works, you'll be simultaneously riveted to your monitor and inspired to run helter skelter towards the nearest wooded dale.

New relationships are exciting and talked up to be the best thing in the world, and there is magic to a new love, however, worn-in love is so very much better, and I'm reminded of that every time J and I go sailing.

There is something so amazing about being a strong team with another person. We have a routine and responsibilities, which were never necessarily laid out, but allow us to get on the boat and take off quickly without having to worry that something was missed. Last Saturday, I was particularly struck by the decision making that went on between us, half of which was unspoken.

I say this like marriage and sailing are all sunsets and rainbows. Of course, sailing brings out the arguing, which will later be followed by the apologizing and the making-up. Oh, the making-up. Naturally, there is also the bickering. I never realized when I was young and single, how much fun bickering is. How, sometimes it's all about working out something completely different and sometimes it's pure grumpiness. Sometimes though, it's all about having fun, inside jokes, and memories.

All my memories of sailing with J are good ones. Even when all was not perfect.

I remember a few weeks after we first put the boat on the water, back when we were still getting her figured out and we didn't have a whole lot of practical boat experience, we were persuaded to go out in our first race. All was well until the very last leg. Sailing downwind to the new finish line, the wind came up hard and strong, as it's wont to do on mountain reservoirs, and we had a rooster tail coming off the back of the boat. All was well, until we had to turn into the wind to take the sails down. The mainsheet was stuck (a favorite past time of our mainsheet) and I spun around to see massive amounts of lake water where the starboard rail was supposed to be. "Welcome to the world of sailing," said the wind. "This is called rounding-up."*

J still talks about the other sailors asking him if I was ever going to sail again, and his being a bit confused by this. Not that it didn't freak me out, but we handled it, together.

I remember the time, again when the boat was still new to us, and another couple was sailing with their spinnaker and J convinced me we could follow suit. Only ours is set up for a four man crew, but what the hey! All was well until (surprise!) the mountain wind came up hard and strong, from the very worst possible direction. I've never taken a sail down so fast in my entire life. It took all the adrenaline I could muster to wrestle with that big ol' spinnaker, but I got it down. Then I sat on the cabin ledge until I stopped shaking. Afterward, we laughed about it while J rubbed the rest of the adrenaline out of me and said, "well, at least now we know we can."

Then there was that time we were out sailing on Carter, there was no wind, and it dawned on me I wasn't quite sure how to reef the main, and that might be a handy thing to know. So I go about reefing just for fun. I get to the point where I'm tying the very last line around the main, and the boom tries to pull away from me. I honestly thought J was just messing with me, trying to make me see what it would be like in big wind. So I look up to shoot him that oh-you're-so-funny look, only to notice that suddenly there were giant waves on our tiny little lake. Yup, those mountain winds suddenly came up hard and strong. Zero to Fifty faster that you can say reef the main. In a bit of luck, I wanted to learn a new skill so we were ready for it. That was the night another boat capsized and later, with 100 mile an hour winds, the docks broke free and wandered off into the middle of the lake.

It was these exciting times,** and learning to race, and just having relaxing sunset sails, that made us stronger sailors and, at the same time, have taught us about the best in each other. That we can push each other, that we can argue and still love, that there is nothing better than being on the water with the one you love as the sun sinks beyond the horizon. There is nothing better, imho, than sailing with the love of my life.

Also, there is something irresistible to me about the smell of sun-warmed skin, sunscreen, and gel coat, on a handsome sailor. Coupled with a wry grin, inside jokes, and a good round of bickering, it's enough to make me fall in love again, and cherish the years that have made this a well-worn, comfortable, and wonderful Old Married Couple love.

***


Thank you toTillerman for the inspiration for this post.

*When the tiller gets overpowered and the boat suddenly decides to head straight into the wind, as fast as possible. With a lot of wind, as fast as possible is usually heeled way over.

**You know, I really miss those mountain winds.

***This picture was has not been green-lighted by the subject. If I disappear, you know who to suspect. The other picture was declined and this one chosen to go in it's place. Somehow, this doesn't surprise me.

Postcard winners!

We wish to extend our heartfelt gratitude for sending so much joy our way. Frank is still blushing with excitement over the love notes, proposals, propositions, and occasional intimate photos sent from his admirers around the world (China, Norway, Japan, and Poland just this week)! At his request, we blindfolded Justin, one of Frank's BFFs, spun him around in five dozen counterclockwise circles, and asked him to point to ten random postcards/envelopes pasted to the wall. After a brief trip to the bathroom, he chose the following lucky winners, to whom we will give a six-month paid account token (for paid, basic, and plus users) or, for our permanent account holders, a $15 voucher for the LiveJournal gift shop.

So, without further ado, the winners are:

1. seraphene
2. fotog
3. boykitten
4. seshat_6
5. anti_aol
6. lisalees
7. katrinkacat
8. mistyboston
9. _woody_lein
10. another_slender

Bugs, Tweaks, and Enhancements

1. We fixed a bug from the last release that was causing screened comments to become unscreened if they were edited
2. If you happen to be gaming around the corner, check us out on Facebook and be sure to spread the word!
3. We've added new vgifts to celebrate Thanksgiving! Check out our feathered friend, below!

Give more with charitable vgifts

In honor of national adoption month, we're offering a charitable vgift (priced at $2.99) to support Love Without Boundaries, an organization that provides healthcare and adoption to orphans suffering from life-threatening diseases. LiveJournal will donate 100% of gross proceeds from the sale (we'll cover the cost of credit card transaction fees). To learn more about Love Without Boundaries, please visit lj_cares. You can purchase your Love Without Boundaries vgifts in the Virtual Gift shop. We'll keep you posted on how much we raise!

Photos of the week

We're delighted to showcase yet more incredible photos from some of our brilliant LiveJournal photographers around the world. Keep posting (and tagging). And be sure to show some love by commenting on the awesome view at lj_photophile.

Check out this week's photos and more amazing user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for joining us. See you next week!

Ok, so I've finally seen that thing that BBC did claiming it was Jane Austen's Persuasion.

It was baaaaaaad, with a side order of horrible.

I was prepared for it not to be the 1995 version, and I know that books have to be changed to make good movies, but they biffed it.

What is with the running around? First of all. Anne is grown up, she's not pining. Sure, she loves Wentworth, but she's prepared for him to not love her anymore. That's the point. They also turned Wentworth into a doofus and alerted WAY too many people to the fact that they were both spurned lovers.

The point of the book is they love each other. One has too much pride and the other leaned too much on others when they were young. Now they are older, smarter, calmer, and while there is some drama in the final coming together, they both keep it to themselves.

Beyond the running around and crying and general drama going on. They moved half the really important bits into to new places that only achieved casting Wentworth and Anne in a very bad light. I didn't even like the characters in this version. Not to mention the changes made to the story do not track at all. Whereas, in the book and the 1995 version you feel the tension of Wentworth's letter to her, in this one it makes no sense, comes out of left field, and then it's back to the running all around Bath, two seconds behind him (never mind that he 'just' left his lodgings to take the water with his sister and yet apparently spent no time there either) to get right back to where she started again. So it's about her running and not about him.

It was just awful. That's what. It made the best of Austen's characters into moronic, boring twits and made the story boring as all get out.

And that is my opinion on that.

While I think of this journal as the place to talk about all my lovely sailing adventures, truth is, since we moved to Florida, I feel like our sailing is a bit bland. I mean, blogging about it, not doing it. Because Florida has so many beautiful days with awesome wind, and gorgeous sunsets....that's sorta how it butters it's bread. We live on a cool river with adventures to be had, we just never seem to get organized enough to have them. So my entries are just that: wonderful day, great wind, gorgeous sunset, wish you were here.



This one starts out the same, but there's a twist at the end.

It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon as it tends to be in Florida in the fall (and spring and winter). Two happy sailors dragged the in-laws (it was hard twist their arms don'tcha know) down to the dock to have the first sail of the fresh new season.

So, it's been awhile, due to an especially long hot and rainy season, since we'd taken the boat out. We had enough fuel but not much excess so, just to be sure, we sent the FIL to get more. In the meantime, J started the motor to see if it could be done. Two pulls and it started right up, just like normal. So he turns it off and we finish getting the boat ready to go. I even thought to ask J if he was going to want to run the spinnaker. He thought not (I knew better, it was that kind of day) and so we were ready. Along comes FIL, motor starts right up, we pull out of the slip all professional like (because there was nobody watching), and off we go.

( Read more... )

givesushope
It's that glorious time of year when we reunite with loved ones (we neglected all year), stuff our faces to excess, and pass out in front of the TV. Perhaps a recalibration of the thanksometer is in order. A spin-off of the popular GivesMeHope.com site, this community invites you to document moments of kindness, generosity, and pure human love.

veggieslackers
Despite its mainstream appeal, Thanksgiving is not for everyone. There are those struggling with food disorders, for whom this day causes endless conflict. There are the cash-challenged, who can't afford the gluttony we've grown to expect. There are the lonely, who don't have loved ones nearby. And let's not forget the vegetarians, who decry the animal cruelty. But there's one more group we often overlook: the terminally lazy! This community of lazy vegetarians offers easy recipes for an animal-friendly feast.

fashin
Just in time for holiday shopping season, this fashionista community brings you the world of haute couture in the form of sumptuous photos, video clips, and candid commentary. There's also a sugary sprinkle of mainstream movie discussions and debates on such pressing social issues as manicure styles and celebrity colonics. If you need a break from the daily grind to indulge your girlie side, this is twinkly pink on steroids.