Those things have nothing in common, except that I’ve blogged about them before. People come to my blog every day searching for them, so I thought I’d put them together in one place to make it easy. Interspersed with some other things I want you to know about, it can be my Thursday Thirteen # 48.

1. First, let me tell you folks who aren’t bloggers that we know a lot about you from our statistics programs. I know from mine: where you are located, when you came to visit, how long you stayed, if you followed any links, and what you were seeking when you came here. Don’t worry, I don’t know your name (unless you are that man stalking me from a computer at a university in Lubbock, Texas. I know who you are.)
2. Let me make THIS perfectly clear: I do not rent out the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile! I showed a picture of the weinermobile one time and now I have people writing me about it. A 9th grader wanted to rent it to use as a limousine for her friends to go to a party; several people have written to ask me where they can see it; and one man wanted to arrange a tour of it for his son, because (I guess) he wanted his kid to see a big weenie. I can’t help y’all!
3. My friend Connie, who is not a blogger, knows about my addiction to bacon. I think a lot of people might, because I’ve written about it more than once. In fact, this Thursday Thirteen post about bacon is the one that has been viewed the most often, because somebody “Stumbled” it.

   
   
   Connie knows that my cholesterol is high, and I’m steering away from bacon. She sent me these bacon flavored toothpicks as a gift. Connie, honey, thank you …but an addict cannot take “a little taste” of her addiction! I’m tortured just looking at them!
   
   
   
   

4. Connie is still putting together afghans for Share A Square. That’s another thing people come here to find. We got so many afghan squares, that we are making “extras” for the kids who didn’t get to go to Camp Sanguinity.
   

   These will be delivered to Cook Children’s Medical Center later this month. I actually have four more (28), but I couldn’t stack them that high. I’ve got enough squares for about eight more afghans here at the house, and about eight more are being worked.

5. Though we aren’t doing the afghans this year, because I don’t have room in my house to do it again, we have another project in the works called “Good Medicine.” I’ve been working on these medicine bags to give to the kids.

6. I could use some help with this project! If you can help me advertise it, or can get involved, I’d be grateful — and so would 140 kids who are touched by cancer! I can do it alone, but I know that there are folks out there who want to help. I hope you are one of them.
7. I found another charity I want to support! It’s called Nothing But Nets. For just $10, you can save lives! Malaria kills more than one million kids a year. A donation to this cause will buy a net, distribute it to a family and educate them on it’s use. You can also buy a pretty cool t-shirt and with that, a net gets sent.



8. I’ve talked about bottle trees on the blog before, and I said I wanted one. People ask me regularly if I have made it yet. I have bottles, I have a felled tree, but I haven’t gotten around to it. I showed a picture of a bottletree that I admired, and it happened to belong to Cindee, who is quite a gardener. You should visit her — she’s a sweetheart.
9. OK, and I showed a picture of Clint Walker half nekkid. To all of you who have written: No, he doesn’t look like that anymore. No, I can’t fix you up with him.
10. People come to another Thursday Thirteen of mine where I give a lesson in Texas language. They want to know the definition of “ring-tailed tooter.” If you look it up in the dictionary, you will find a picture of Sarah Palin — or even, perhaps, Joe Biden (I sass political candidates with equality — well, no I don’t — but I’ll sass Democrats, too). They are both “ring-tailed tooters” in my book. Not in a good way!
11. I’m already sick of the political “campaigns!” I’m fed up with the mud-slinging. In fact, I think there should be a law that a political candidate cannot even mention the other candidates (even by veiled reference). Let them talk about themselves, their own records, and their own intentions so we can make an informed choice. It’s worse than High School out there.
12. I’m thinking about writing in a candidate instead of voting for the choices available. I’m going to vote for T. Boone Pickens! You don’t know him? He is a legendary oilman, but he has a plan to break America’s dependence on foreign oil. I figure that if we fix our energy problems, the rest might fall in line. He’s my man.
13. In fact, I’ve written him a letter! He wants to begin by harnessing the power of the wind. He says that a 2005 Stanford University study found that there is enough wind power worldwide to satisfy global demand 7 times over — even if only 20% of wind power could be captured. I’ve suggested that if he would put all the political candidates together in one room, he could get enough wind to power…
    no I didn’t!

Y’all go and visit some other folks participating in the Thursday Thirteen meme this week. I’ll meet you here on the porch another day.

Have y’all ever seen the piles of “Lost Ancestors” down at the antique store? Sure you have. There is always a pile of pictures. Photographs of people who never seem to smile. You would think we are descended from a bunch of unhappy people, but I think they just held stern expressions because that’s easier than holding a smile while you are waiting for the photograph to take. I’m told they had to “freeze” for several seconds back then.

Sifting through those photographs is as painful as going to the animal shelter to adopt pet. It’s so heartwrenching! Do you know how you go down there expecting to adopt one pet and come home with three because you loved them all? I’m that way about our Lost Ancestors.

I’m haunted by their faces staring at me. Who were they? What kind of lives did they lead? What were their names? No one will ever know, because at the time those pictures were taken, no one thought to write a name on the photograph. Those pictures probably sat in a drawer for a couple of generations, until no one was alive who recognized them, and then they got tossed away.

Let that be a lesson to you! Go through your pictures and put names on them while you remember. Otherwise, a couple of generations from now your nameless face might be staring up from a pile in an antique store!

You might not get as lucky as this woman. I saw her face and loved her. I don’t know who this woman is. She isn’t a member of my family; at least she wasn’t until I “adopted” her. I liked her attitude. Though she wears that somber expression, I perceive a little bit of playfulness in her stance. I’ve given her pride of place in my boudoir.

You need to adopt your own ancestor! The next time you are browsing at the antique mini-mall, go through those stacks of pictures and see if one of them calls to you. You can adopt that ancestor and bring them home. It’s the least you can do.

I adopted her but, she doesn’t have a name! That’s just not right. She deserves at least a name.

I need your help. What would you name her?

I briefly considered becoming a vegetarian this weekend. That resolve lasted almost fifteen minutes. I was thinking about it because the doctor says I need to lower my cholesterol. I figure that it’s time to worry if she looks at the test results and says something like, “How are you alive?”

The sad thing is that I don’t really eat that badly. I don’t really consume a lot of junk food, and I eat fresh vegetables daily. Oh yeah, I TALK about bacon all the time, but I don’t eat it often. Didn’t your Momma ever tell you that if people talk about something all the time it means they aren’t getting any?

She was probably talking about something else.

Anyway, the thought flitted through my head that I could eschew meat and lower my cholesterol, but I was watching the travel channel on television at the time. First, there was a show about the best places to get hot dogs in the United States. I was ready to hop on a plane and head to Chicago to Superdawg.

That show was followed by one about where to get the best hamburgers in the United States. Did you know that if you eat a big hamburger with cheese, a big order of fries and a large shake it has 28 grams of saturated fat? That’s the same as gobbling 1/8 of a pound of straight butter (which wouldn’t bother me much at all, either). I don’t know what that level shoots up to when you eat a bacon cheeseburger. I know these things, but I was still salivating during the show.

Then came the pièce de résistance: a program about the best places to find fried food! Oh. My. Thunder! Just watching it made my cholesterol level shoot up 30 points! When they showed the chicken fried BACON I thought I was going to have a stroke.

In tears at the thought of giving up such marvelous foods, I remembered that my friend Marcia says that her cholesterol is high — and she is a vegetarian. AHA! I decided that it’s a crapshoot anyway, so I’ll just look for something easier.

A few hours on-line, and I think I have a plan to lower my cholesterol without much pain! I’ve found some foods that claim to lower cholesterol. There have even been tests done that prove it (but I forgot to get all the links, so you’ll just have to believe me):

• Cheerios can lower your cholesterol by 4%.
• Oatmeal can lower your cholesterol by 5%
• Walnuts can lower your cholesterol by 12%
• Pinto beans can lower your cholesterol by 8%
• Peanut oil and peanut butter can lower your cholesterol by 11%
• Benecol, which is a spread much like butter, can lower your cholesterol by 10%
• Corazonas chips can lower your cholesterol by 15%
• Taking flax seed oil pills can lower your cholesterol by 6%
• Taking fish oil and red rice yeast pills can lower your cholesterol by a whopping 42.4%

Heck, if I can make myself ingest all that crap, I’ll be in the negative numbers with my cholesterol! Why, I’d probably have to eat some bacon to get my cholesterol up to a healthy level!

Oh, darn.

Does anyone know any good recipes that include peanut butter, oatmeal, and pinto beans? I’d rather get it over in one sitting.

[Editor's note: Before you decide to lecture me, please note that this is written tongue-in-cheek. If you have high cholesterol, please do not take my advice. Even I won't take my advice! In fact, if you were even considering it, you might also consider getting your head examined.]