Penguins - So Happy ... Together

Good morning,

I really slept in this morning. Wow!

I really had fun with this creation. The penguin is now a tube I've made which represents a tiny stuffed penguin I have in a decorative basket that sits in my bathroom. It is full of minature stuffed animals I've collected over the years.

I am always, always, always looking ... for something new to draw. And, of course, I like cartoon-type drawings the best.

One morning, I grabbed up this little penguin and brought him into my "tiny home office" and posed him on my desk. And then I started creating him in psp in vectors.

I'm sure you recognize all the kaleis yourself by now. It is hard for me to do a creation with no kaleis. I'm addicted to these tiny treasures. Some of them are just down right beautiful.

I appear to be "back to normal" from my injury of a little over a week ago (the fall), and it feels so good. I don't get sick often or get injuries often, so when I do, I just feel horrible. The only thing I still feel is slight pain in the right side of neck, but it's so minimal now. Thank God.

I just read a story in Reader's Digest (July 2007) this morning called LICENSE TO KILL. If you haven't read it, you should. Thousands of truckers are on the road illegally. And your safety is at stake. This is the abbreviated message under the headline.

It caught my eye, since I am always wary of semi trucks on the freeway around me.

My dad and two co-workers died instantly in a car accident back in 1991. They were on a 2-lane highway, about 5 minutes from my dad's house, and headed to a business meeting in a rental car. It was raining out, and an approaching smaller truck lost it's load onto the road.

The driver of the car my dad was in tried to dodge the items falling into their lane. He ran off the road on the right-hand side, leaving a trail of their journey, and managed to get the rental back on the road but then slid and turned into the lane of the approaching traffic with a semi truck barrelling down the road and into their back in.

My dad was in the back seat of that car. I am sure with all the confusion that happened in the seconds leading up to the actual collision, he had to know that they were in deep "doo-doo".

I visited the scene several days later. You could see the trail where they went off, the grooves cut into the blacktopped road where the car was smashed and drug, and the debris left on the opposite side of the road from the car's outside and inside. I had received my dad's hard briefcase after the accident, and it, too, was crushed.

Therefore, I always stay a respectful distance from semi's on the road. While our country could not do without the jobs they perform, they can prove to be a fatal danger on the roads.

With so many illegal immigrants now in our country looking for work, some are finding trucking to be the answer. And there are places where they can get a bogus commerical driver's license (CDL).

If you haven't read the article, I suggest you do. While you can't go around being afraid of everything, you can be aware of the possibilities of danger around you.

Every time I read some of the articles in Reader's Digest about some of the things happening in our country, my mind races to my daughter and granddaughter. My daughter drives a lot (like every day of every week), and my first thought is always, "Does she know this?"

I hope you all know this.

Make it a good -- and safe -- Sunday. Be mindful if you're off to church this morning and on the road.

I will be back -- tomorrow.