{My 3 Days as Juror for a Criminal Case}

• Wow, I'm finally FREE again... after 3 days in Superior Court as one of 12 Jurors for a Criminal Case. I'd been summoned several times before, once by the District Court in Augusta, Georgia which is a two hour drive away from where we live. That was on April 25, 2005 and luckily I got out of it. We had booked our 3 free nights at the Cypress Gardens Hyatt hotel in Orlando, Florida and we did not like to miss that! Previously to that, I'd been summoned a few times here in Laurens County but never had to actually serve; neither has Pieter. 
• Monday it turned out that I was on, together with 11 others and 1 alternate. Very lengthy procedure and kind of hard to sit through without any window; neither in our juror room, nor the court room. But today we got to the deliberation of this criminal case and I performed as foreperson. We came to a unanimous decision for the verdict of  the person being tried; being guilty on one of two counts. Glad it is over with! 
• Knowing the language is one thing but it is very hard to listen to all evidence, witnesses, audio and video in a language other than your mother tongue. Especially on subjects that are not your daily routine. But I did it and gained some experience for maybe future jury duty. 

USPS Image Jury Duty

• Certainly I will be catching up on blog reading but for now I'm really tired...

The pay for such Jury Duty is by law US $ 25.00 per day; that's IT.

{TIP: HOW to Shorten Your FB Fan Page URL}

• Many bloggers also do have a FB (Facebook) Fan Page. Ever noticed that long string of numbers in your URL? Mine looked like this before: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mariettes-Back-to-Basics-LLC/344099510841
• Let me show you how I did change it to: facebook.com/MariettesBacktoBasics
• Yes, if you click on it or copy and paste this into your browser it takes you straight to my FB Page.
• That would be very helpful in mentioning into an email or wherever you want to publish this. Looks neat and will be easy to remember and does not look spammy.
• At first I noticed this short FB Fan Page URL in Avril's Royal Ribbon FB Fan Page: facebook.com/RoyalRibbons. We communicated via our LinkedIn accounts. 
• So I had to figure it out and like to share it here with you.
• Log in to your regular FB account NOT your FB Fan Page!
• In the browser put: facebook.com/username ←click it if you already are logged in.

Click on drop down box next to Pages...

Select the name of your Page or else type in your Page's name

Be careful as your username may be changed only once!

Click Confirm

From my previous posting I had the info below:

• A 'Enter Desired Username' will popup on the right - see where MariettesBacktoBasicsLLC is typed inside.
• Now very careful type inside THAT box the name YOU want to show directly behind facebook.com
• DOUBLE check as it cannot be changed! Make sure you capitalize words as they will appear exactly like that in your new URL.

Good luck! Let me know if you managed to change your Fan Page.

Related link:

{YOUR Facebook Like Plugin for Blogger} | other post by me

{Beaver Location}

• Just feel like showing you where we found this beaver. 
• NOT on our property and as Fabby's Living wrote: 'I just love how the beaver just posed for your camera...so adorable!!' Sorry Fabby, but that beaver did no longer pose, it was dead. 
• Guess that TexWisGirl and The Smart Cat were right about this beaver having been a flood casualty. 
• It sure was not killed by car as Madelief suggested. As I already stated right at the top; it was dead but no wounds, nothing. 
• Johanna from Silber-und-Rosen-Shop did mention that I'd never mentioned this beaver in our wood garden. At least we have NEVER EVER seen any beaver damage but it lived just around the corner from our street, near the big pond. Our creek runs through that pond, underneath the road. 
• There is another creek a bit further and at its banks more or less we found this beaver on the side of the road. Probably got washed out of his house! We did have some 18" or 45.7 cm of rain in a couple of days!!!
• So please look at this Aerial photo that I took from bing.com

Bing.com aerial view

• The blue dot is wrongly placed by Bing and by Google. 
• But in red, at the top of this aerial view, I have marked and pointed at our home.
• Below the red words 'Our Home>', you find the BIG pond and a bit further where another creek runs, through a wooded area with a lot of trees, that's where we found this beaver! Where the arrow (chevron) points. 

Hope this does clarify that it was NOT on our property. Thanks for your time and yes, nature is amazing, especially for both of us coming from such a densily populated country like The Kingdom of The Netherlands! We treasure this property and hope we can manage to stay here for a long time to come.