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My mindless and mindful thoughts, rants, opinions, and more. |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Sometimes, I just feel the need to escape and vent my frustrations. Here I can express whatever I want without fear of my husband or my children seeing it. I guess this will be a hideaway journal so to say, but it will also be a place for my random randomness. My random randomness is when I see something that inspires me to comment on it or simply state an opinion about something going on in the world around us. Punctuation and grammar may leave a lot to be desired here, from time to time, because when I get in those moods a lot of times my fingers get way ahead of my brain. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **
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| I guess my next major pursuits in the collecting of Brittany's photo will be her upcoming sweet-sixteen. I have a grand party in mind for her. Tiffany theme, lots of balloons and lights, and a live DJ. She will be getting my car given to her, but it's a nice car - I just don't believe newly licensed kids need new cars to beat and bang up. Not to mention, she has learned to drive in my car and will already be comfortable with it. That is a once in a lifetime moment to catch on film; however, I do plan to do a photo slide at the party of all the years leading up to that special day. After that there will be our trip to Costa Rica, proms, graduation, and off to college. I eagerly await all the special moments, but I don't want my baby to grow up. I probably have more photos in one year of Brittany than most parents do in several years or even all of childhood.As for do I feel at a disadvantage and missing out on the fun as the photographer, absolutely not. With all the technology out today you don't have to miss the moments to capture them, and trust me at fifteen Brittany is the queen of selfies and way too often I end up in them with her. I have to say one more thing. When the day comes that Brit says "hey mom, do you remember?" All I will have to do is pull out the photo boxes. I hope this is a tradition she does with her children someday, if not she will have my collection of herself to share with them. On a different note, I just want to say - there have been days I have struggled to get a blog posted, but I am so proud of myself for completing this challenge. It may not be one of the best blogs, but I had fun tinkering with it, and I know the more time I spend on it the better it will get. Congratulations to all my other 30-day blog challengers who stuck with it and was successful! You all had excellent blogs! I plan to continue mine! |
| I am a picture collector, that is a fact. I have everything from my great-grandparents in front of their first car, my grandfather in his Army portrait, wedding photos, to every phase of my daughter's life. Spending time on my daughter's photos is one of my favorite things to do. I have scrap-booked, placed in photo albums, and made collages. I have something special I like to pull out with family, friends, and especially any boy who may come over. It is a wooden box collection. Each box has my favorite pictures on the outside, and when you open it there are inserts you can pull out and flip through. There are about ten of these in each box. These are neatly divided into phases of her life, not years - phases. Of course the first one is of her birth, the hospital, first time being held by loved ones, and coming home. There is her crawling phase, her walking phase, her beauty pageant phase, first friends, first holidays, and the list goes on and on. It is so neat to watch her duplicate some of the phases much older and more mature. I can't really say I have a favorite set of pictures to show off to embarrass her - which actually none of them seem to embarrass her. It makes me feel really good that quite often she will ask me to get the boxes out so she can show them to friends. There are a few photos I hold nearer and dearer to my heart, but they are just those "mommy moments." 1. The day Brittany came home from the hospital - 3 days old - I laid her on my bed that was a pretty cloud scene. She had on a baby doll style dress and I spread out in a circle around her. She looked like she was floating in the clouds. 2. Brit was a month and a half old her first Christmas so I decided I wanted some really cute pictures. I bought a large Christmas stocking, wrapped gifts and put them under the tree, and finally I dressed Brit up and put her in the stocking under the tree. It is so adorable and I have the memory of doing it. It was at home, not some fancy make believe photo-studio. 3. When Brit was 4 her dad started telling her she had that "mommy look" and "mommy stance." Personally, I thought he was full of it until I caught it in one of my own photos. Brit was standing by the picture windows in her Christmas dress. I said something to her to get her to turn around for the camera and she had her hand on her hip and a look on her face that just screamed "PLEASE!" 4. There are the photos of my walking her through the mall with her eyes covered for her first ice skating experience at 5 years old. That led to my next favorite... I was trying to take a picture of her skating and she skated over to me, rosy red cheeks, and hand reached out for me to help her stop. That was the start of years of ice skating lessons. Skip over a lot of things, and we will be at one of my recent favorites.... 5. I have the cutest picture of my not so little Brittany anymore driving on the real roads for the first time. She has this expression on her face like she is doing the best thing in the world. Something many of us take for granted (driving) brought her the greatest joy. We spent quite a bit letting her drive on the roads on her fifteenth birthday, because it was so priceless. I enjoy snapping pictures of all the awesome things she and I do. Elementary school graduation, Middle school graduation, church activities... Man, I snap pictures of everything - There are few things in her life I truly wanted pictures of and didn't get. Writing all of this makes me wish I could share the photos in my blog, but not being premium that would be a lot of work. So now think about this.... If a picture is worth a thousand words, A thousand pictures must be worth one word. See the title of my blog for that word! |
| I am sitting here trying to think of a DIY disaster I have had, and I truly can't think of one. Everything I have sat out to do that I would consider a DIY has been successful; however, I have had some quite comical occurrences that were scary at the time. We have a gas stove in our house, but when we first got it I had never cooked with gas before. I had dinner going on the stove and all of a sudden I hear flames behind me. I turned around and the entire stove top was on fire. I panicked and my husband quickly got the fire out. I had nonchalantly placed the dish rag and oven mitts on the stove... Not thinking about the fact there was an open flame there. The edge of the dish towel caught on fire and quickly caught the other stuff on fire too. You would think one would learn their lesson right? Not me, I have done this countless times over the years! I feel sorry for the dish towels that are adopted at the store and brought home to live here. They may die an untimely death, in a kitchen fire, in the kitchen of Ang. |
| So, I have heard The Second Amendment gives us as US citizens the right to bear arms. It is becoming more and more clear this right is being taken away from us. Our Founding Fathers granted us the right to bear arms. It is a RIGHT and not a privilege. One thing that annoys me greatly is people wanting gun bans, when that is not the problem. People kill... guns don't jump up and kill a person or commit a crime without a person behind them. The problem is lack of parenting, education, instilling morals and values, lack of gun education, lack of counseling, lack of mental health treatment, and much more. It is my opinion, banning guns is only going to intensive the problem. Once gun bans are successfully implemented, we will start experiencing more black market unregistered gun crimes. We will have smugglers, creating a much larger issue than that in existence today. Not to mention, if a person is intent on comitting a violent crime there are all sorts of other weapons out on the market. Let me guess, when murder rates by knives go up, our next ban will be from owning a knife. Oh, wait... It is illegal to carry a knife in many places. Will they go as far with knives as they are with guns? Ban knives from our homes? This is a topic I could go on and on about, but I will leave it at this. I was given the RIGHT to bear arms; I would greatly appreciate it not being taken away from me. < I LIKE TO GO TO THE RANGE TOO MUCH  > |
| I watched the most amazing video today of a gentleman singing "Let it Go" in the voices of 21 different Disney characters. If I were able to have my favorite song sung by any Disney character, it would have to be Tigger. I actually would love to have the entire Winnie The Pooh gang sing "Gold" for me. I can just hear Eeoyore now, in his mopey dopey mode trying to sing an inspirational song to teens. Well, the father-in-law is here tonight so I have to cut it short. I look forward to the weekend so I can get caught up. |
| Questionnaire 1 Genre writers, do you like writing a Sci-fi, History, Mythology story? Combined or separate - doesn't matter. I like writing history papers. What I like to do is to take the facts of historical events and turn them into either children's learning stories using cartoon characters or writing modern day stories that teach about the historical even I have picked. I do not write science fiction very often, but when I do I like to write about my idea of even furthered technology such as humans who are really robots. Mythology I stay away from completely. I, personally, find too much of it conflicts with my spiritual stance and I am not willing to cross the line with my beliefs. When writing (if you do) Mystery, Fantasy and Horror stories, what inspires you the most to write those? My inspiration for writing a mystery is trying to see if I can still write things my fifteen year old daughter will enjoy. All of her life I have written for her, and I enjoy continuing to challenge myself to write things she will stay interested in. I don't nor do I recall ever writing a fantasy or horror story. I am more of a factual minded person and I find myself losing creativity in those areas. There's a big difference between Romance and Erotica. Which do you prefer and why, or do you combine them? I used to write erotica and truly enjoyed it at the time. Again, my personal spiritual stance comes into play here. I still enjoy writing a good romance with detailed intimacy without crossing the line back into erotica writing. When I did write erotica, quite often I would combine romance with it... Erotica can be romance, sweet and innocent or it can be hot and bothered. It often depended on my mood and what kind of night or weekend I was trying to create for my husband and me. I wrote my stories to express my fantasies or just to turn him on by the fact I would write him the stories. Do certain memories inspire your writing? How, why, in which way? Absolutely. I write a lot of stories about memories with loved ones who have passed away, childhood memories, memories of my children growing up, memories, memories, memories. I am actually considering starting a collection of memories to be able to leave to my children. I think writing life's moments for the ones we leave behind leaves them with a priceless heirloom. What is the one thing you love the most about WdC? Developing and improving my writing skills by reading and reviewing other authors and by the reviews I receive directly. When you write, do you like to put yourself in your character's shoes? Yes. Sometimes I will write my stories using names of people in my life so I feel "I am the story" and when the story is finished I go back and change the names. I like to write based on what REALITY is to me. Short stories: How short/long should they actually be? Less than 2500 words. |
Any NASCAR fans in the HOUSE?!? Charlotte, North Carolina is the home of the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Here you will find a High Octane Theater, which is a 278 seat theater with a 64 foot wide projection screen. There is Glory Road, a banked ramp simulating 40 different NASCAR race tracks and 18 historic cars. And without saying there is the Hall of Honor, the prestigious area where NASCAR Hall of Fame Inductees are enshrined, celebrated, and honored over the years. There is Pit Stop Cafe, Gear Shop, Heritage Speedway, and much more for all of you wonderful NASCAR fanatics out there. There is even a Hard Card - just like the race track, a Hard Card is an all -access pass to behind-the-scenes excitement and industry experience. So, if your motor gets to running during NASCAR season and starts to stutter out when it ends - head on down to Charlotte and enjoy the excitement of cars, tracks, drivers, big-screen, and so much more ALL YEAR ROUND! What are you waiting for? We welcome you with open arms! We are the city where NASCAR is always alive and going strong! |
| Today has been an emotionally challenging day for me. I am going to try to take a moment to focus on the positive, in an effort to adjust my state of mind. Brittany gave me a handful of papers on Sunday that she forgot to give to me earlier in the week. I thumbed through all of them and realized it was all of her honor roll certificates and coupon awards for the entire year. The school had fallen behind and just now got them out. So, for her freshman year Brittany has A/B honor roll in Honor's classes, over 150 volunteer hours, and many extra- curricular activities. Her favorite is running track. She is super excited that warm weather is here again, because we go to a lot of church outreaches where she gets to meet and socialize with other teens who are less fortunate than she is. She loves making these new friends, and encouraging them to become all they dream to be. She is also glad it's getting warm so she can start doing fund raising events for our trip to Costa Rica next summer.Quite honestly, I wish we were on the plane flying there right now. That would be the perfect escape and break that I need. I can just imagine me reclined back in the cozy first class seat, sipping my glass of White Zinfandel, and allowing my mind to drift.... The beach is so beautiful this time of year. Brittany and I are on the horses we rented for the day, and we are enjoying the scenery as we laugh and talk. She is so beautiful on top of the masculine black mustang she picked. Her long red hair blows in the wind behind her as she picks up a slow gallop. Her face lights up as she turns to me beckoning me to race her. My beautiful little girl is becoming quite the young lady. We race for a few minutes and playfully jump off the horses and start walking together. I tell her how proud I am of her, and ask her to tell me about her dreams. What is it that she wants the most out of her life. We share wonderful mother-daughter bonding time talking about college, career, marriage, kids, and a lifetime of hopes and dreams.I pray quietly in my head that everything she hopes for comes to be. Finally, we decide to take the horses back and grab some dinner. I ask her what she wants, and of all things she tells me "McDonald's." I laugh, my little laugh and say, "Eh no, we didn't come all the way to Costa Rica to eat McDonalds!" We continue to talk and giggle all the way to return the horses. We find a cozy restaurant with outdoor dining with a jungle type theme. The staff is so friendly. We enjoy our dinner and ask if it's okay for us to just stay and listen to the band while sipping our drinks. The restaurant was slow, so no-one objected. Caught up in the fun and relaxation Brittany decides we need to dance. I try to object, because no-one else is dancing; but she is adamant. "YOLO!" She knows this gets me every time, because yes indeed, YOLO - You Only Live Once. Live it, love it, laugh with it. We build so many precious memories and YOLO plays a big factor in that. Suddenly, I feel water running down my scalp and I jump to feel it and check to see where it was coming from. Then, I realize Brittany is right in my face giggling her innocent giggle. "Wake up, sleepy head. We are here, we are about to land." |
Time For A Rant !! All week long I have watched and read about the passing away of a very controversial pastor from Kansas; I have been truly put-off by so much of what I have seen in the news in regard to this man's life and the request for his funeral to not be picketed. Please bare with me, because I try not to go off on religious rants too often but this is my hide-away and if I can't express my thoughts here, where can I safely express them? Fred Phelps founded his fire and brimstone image church in 1955, and spent the majority of his career life as a pastor picketing various events he deemed to involve sinful activity with signs that had "God Hates ______" written on them. Typically a dozen or so people would join Pastor Phelps on these picket lines, including young children. His church won a major victory in 2011, with the Supreme Court's ruling on free speech, allowing them to continue with their picketing. Pastor Phelps and his congregation were known to picket funerals of AIDS victims, deceased soldiers, music concerts, the Academy Awards, and much more. They proudly held up their signs with "God Hates Fags," "Thank God For Dead Soldiers," and countless other claims of God's feelings written on them. First of all, as a Christian, I am here to say "GOD DOES NOT HATE ANYONE!" Our God is a loving God, a forgiving God, and a merciful God. He surely does not like some of our behaviors, but He has unwavering love for every individual. John 3:16, probably the most well known scripture of the King James Bible, states "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." It does not say if Pastor Phelps thinks I should love you, if Angela thinks I should love you, or if Barack Obama thinks I should love you I will love you. The Bible says HE DOES LOVE YOU!! No one can take that away from you! The Apostle John wrote in 1 John 4:11 that God is love and in 7-8 he states emphatically that genuine Christians will also be partakers and givers of that same love. However, love cannot exist in a vacuum. If one loves, then he or she will also hate. The hate will be directed at ANY SIN that comes between a person and God. God does not hate people and all who belong to Him are called to hate what He hates, but to love with His love. The following is a list from the book of Proverbs of some things that God hates. There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers. My son, keep your father’s commandment, and forsake not your mother’s teaching. (Proverbs 6:16-20) The Bible also commands us not to place judgment. With what we judge; we will be judged. Only God has the authority to judge us. With having said that, Although I HIGHLY dislike the actions of this man and personally feel his actions were not a good example of God's word and God's love it is not our place to judge him. We are to stand firm on the truth, and that truth is God loves everyone regardless of their sin. A sin, is a sin, is a sin..... My telling a lie is no more or less of a sin than if you were to steal a candy bar. A wrong against God is a wrong regardless of which one it is. How can we get specks of dust out of our brother's eye when we have a plank in our own. It is a fact that some behaviors of proclaimed Christians turn others away from church and a relationship with God, because they do not accurately portray the love God desires for us to portray. Unfortunately, there are people who are told and convinced that God could never love them because of their lifestyle or something they have done or said. This breaks my heart, truly breaks my heart. God loves all people, God wants all people to love the way He does, and it hurts His heart when we don't exhibit a nonjudgmental love of our brothers and sisters. I know I have been guilty of saying or doing things in the past that definitely do not portray the love of God, but I have grown deeply in my spiritual walk and I know God wants us to plant seeds of love and life, He wants us to lead people to His love. Jesus paid way too high of a price for any of us here on earth to pick and choose who hears of His love. He paid the price so that all could hear of His love and be saved. I pray anyone who reads this will be encouraged to accept God's unconditional love and forgiveness. I pray we all are more mindful of the fact that we should share that love with everyone, not those we pick and choose. LIVE, laugh, WRITE!! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I have a dentist appointment Monday. Let me tell you I really, really, really hate going to the dentist. It is so bad he has to call me in two Valium to even get me in the door. I don't think Monday will be too bad though. The Valium has already been picked up so I will have the nerve to actually go, but I know he will be putting me to sleep so that comforts me as well. You see, when I went to the dentist last Friday he told me I had one in a million molars and he would pay me a million dollars for them. I thought he was kidding, but he was very serious. I told him he could have them, because as I see it he can pull all my teeth, I'll hurt for a short bit, and then I will get dentures. It is a win-win situation. I won't have to go to the dentist very much at all anymore, he gets the uncommon molars, and I will be wealthy. Hey Doc, give me that laughing gas, because I plan to laugh all the way to the bank. |
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The lack of mental health treatment in our country is one of the biggest issues. I can't stand it when there is a school shooting and people start screaming to ban guns. No, if someone is so mentally disturbed that they can shoot a bunch of innocent people, they would have caused destruction by any means. We as a society should learn to recognize and deal with mental illnesses before they come to this.
