My even more beloved son, in action on our trampoline.

My apple trees. I'm hoping to get enough this year to make applebutter.

ShinyCarClock, originally uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/people/fleurdelisa/.

dull, originally uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/people/fleurdelisa/.

colorwheel, originally uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/people/fleurdelisa/.

My desk that these are sitting on is actually black, but my walls are deep red. I like the way the color reflected off the wall and on to the desktop.

So, did you play? Let me know and I'll come and visit yours (when I'm sprung from work!) Also, stop by and see our hostess with the mostest- Kristine and wish her a happy June!

Information About Same-Sex Parents

The Human Rights Campaign estimates that same-sex couples are raising children in at least 96% of all counties in the U. S. At least one out of three lesbian couples and one out of five gay male couples are raising children nationwide. There are also an additional number of LGBT parents whom we cannot accurately count. (See COLAGE for a discussion.) Many leading medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American Academy of Pediatrics have said parents’ sexual orientation is irrelevant to their ability to raise children. At the same time, in many states, same-sex couples cannot legally establish a joint relationship to children they are raising together. Furthermore, all same-sex parents and their children are denied the 1,138 federal protections of marriage. In most states (with the exception of those in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont) they are also denied hundreds of state marital benefits. This can impact children’s quality of life in many ways, including: A reduced chance of having family health insurance through an employer, or, at best, higher insurance costs than for the families of married heterosexual workers. Loss of Social Security benefits when one parent dies. Additional federal income tax for a same-sex family where one parent stays at home with the children. (Information from the Human Rights Campaign: The Cost of Marriage Inequality to Children and their Same-Sex Parents, April, 2004 and Professional Opinion.)

Jeanne came across this list of previous years' best sellers, and thought it might be fun to base some of our questions on them.

1. In 1956, these were the top ten best sellers for the year. Have you read any of them?
   1. Don't Go Near the Water, William Brinkley
   2. The Last Hurrah, Edwin O'Connor
   3. Peyton Place, Grace Metalious
   4. Auntie Mame, Patrick Dennis
   5. Eloise, Kay Thompson
   6. Andersonville, MacKinlay Kantor
   7. A Certain Smile, Françoise Sagan
   8. The Tribe That Lost Its Head, Nicholas Monsarrat
   9. The Mandarins, Simone de Beauvoir
   10. Boon Island, Kenneth Roberts
   No, I must admit I haven't read any of these.
2. Which ones have you read? Did you like them? See above.
3. If you're like me and haven't read a single one, which ones have you heard of? Peyton Place, Auntie Mame and The Mandarins.
4. Will you be putting any of these books in your reading list? It's hard to say. I'll need to do a bit of research first to decide.

websitegraph, originally uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/people/fleurdelisa/.

Everyday, we look at dozens of websites. The structure of these websites is defined in HTML. Your browser's job is to render the HTML according to the specs. HTML consists of so-called tags, like the 'A' tag for links, 'IMG' tag for images and so on. Since tags are nested in other tags, they are arranged in a hierarchical manner, and that hierarchy can be represented as a graph. Here's The Generator Blog as a graph. Colors used are blue for links, red for tables, green for the DIV tag, violet for images, yellow for forms, orange for linebreaks and blockquotes, black for the HTML tag, and gray for all other tags.

If you want to see what your site would look like as a graph, go here.

Free association is described as a "psychonanalytic procedure in which a person is encouraged to give free rein to his or her thoughts and feelings, verbalizing whatever comes into the mind without monitoring its content." Over time, this technique is supposed to help bring forth repressed thoughts and feelings that the person can then work through to gain a better sense of self. That's an admirable goal, but for the purposes of this excercise, we're just hoping to have a little fun with the technique. Each week I'll post ten words to which you can respond to with the first thing that comes to mind.

1. Bounce :: Ball
2. Wasting time :: Tick-tock
3. Utility :: Bill
4. London :: Bridge
5. Pregnant :: Pause
6. Cranberry :: Bog
7. International :: Traveler
8. Disappointment :: Let-down
9. Sponsor :: And now, a word from our
10. Second :: Just a