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 |  My American Notebooks |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** When Nathaniel Hawthorne was writing, he kept a series of journals, The American Notebooks. They were part daily journal, part diary, but mostly a place for him to jot down and try out bits of writing he hadn't a full venue for yet. He kept character sketches, odd bits of conversation, and observances he wanted to remember for future writings in his notebooks. This, then, is my place for odd bits I want to remember. When you read this, keep in mind, you are rummaging through my mental storehouse. Check out:
And don't forget to vote for your favorite blogger each month. 
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Sort of.  There are a lot of bigger retailers coming to town right now. But, like I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs (or in a comment in someone else's...I forget now) unemployment in my town right now is down to nothing. A lot of these jobs are going begging. Right now they are hard pressed to staff the Walmart, the Target, the Home Depot, and the grocery stores in town. Now we've got a new Lowe's, and a local hardware outfit opened a few months ago, all of them within about a four city blocks of one another. It's crazy! There are a bunch of other places opening, too. Anyway, I got a temp job starting the 13th working from 8:45 to 6 everyday loading merchandise into one of the stores. (They promised there is no heavy lifting - it's more like sorting and straightening.) Forty or forty-five of us will do that and then they will hire the 20 or 25 regular employees from that pool. So, it just depends on if they like me or not. It's like a two week interview. And hey....if nothing else, I'll have had a great workout for a couple of weeks for some decent money and I can move on down the road to find something else. I personally don't think they will find 40 people, but, maybe they will.  The way they jumped on me with both feet led me to believe that we weren't exactly beating down their door, though.So, I do orientation on the 10th. I have until then to do several things. Today I did the biggest thing on my list. I submitted my first story ever to a magazine. I'm prepared for it to get shot down, but I'm mostly excited that I actually put myself out there and sent it in. That was a huge hurdle for me. I feel very professional now. Now I'm going to focus on getting my next story ready for submittal and figure out where I'm going to submit it. Voxxylady  gave a great tip today over in the Submit It! Forum. She gave the link for www.duotrope.com It's a writer's market website. Good stuff there. I was very impressed with it! I'll be checking it out for my future stuff.Also we've quasi-chosen the book for the book club. Anyone wanting to read along but not participate is welcome. I was excited when I found it at the library, it's All My Friends are Going to be Strangers by Larry McMurtry. I've read several of his other books as he is a friend of the family, but I've never read this one. It's the story of a man who decides he's going to be a writer for a living. He's fresh out of college and he's struggling with his chosen craft. I thought it an altogether appropriate book for the club. Sorry for all the commercials lately, but hey, I gotta plug my groups! |
| Since I've been home, I've gone nuts and done up all of our laundry. And even more scandalous....I've (well....Monilad has) folded it. But the craziest thing of all, I've PUT IT ALL AWAY. I know. It staggers the imagination. I think of dirty homes in degrees. There is spotless. You see this in magazine ads. Usually no one lives in these houses. You can also find these houses on television. Then there is lived in. This is usually where my house resides. Underneath, it's clean. No filth, just a bit of clutter. Stuff that needs to be put into it's proper place. Usually about an hour or two can get this house up to "holy cow, company is coming!" standards. Maybe it needs a bit of light vacuuming. Next there is "people actually live like this?" This is when the clutter gets out of control and there MIGHT be a bit of filth mixed in with it. This is usually the state of my teenage daughter's room. Generally I associate a funky smell with this state.  The cause is usually a forgotten half-eaten bowl of cereal left on a bookshelf somewhere in all the mess. An entire house that gets to this state usually needs professional help and/or dedicated friends and relatives to help dig it out.Then there is what my sister and I call "squalor." I've only seen it a few times, and it takes a strong stomach to deal with it. It's not for the faint of heart. Usually there are pet messes left to mold on the carpeting. Well....you get the idea. Most of the time, it's not worth trying to clean up. You are better off with a gallon of unleaded and a lit match.  Yikes! Just start from scratch. ~shudder~Anyhoo, back to my laundry...We've been verging on "people actually live like this?" I haven't actually put my clean laundry away since I got back from Maine.  We've been making do out of baskets. My poor husband, who is one of the most considerate people in the universe, gets dressed in the dark. He leaves the house at unGodly hours in the morning, sometimes as early as 4:30. So, instead of turning on a light and waking me, he opens his cellphone and uses the light from the phone to find his clothes. Pretty easy when they are all put away neatly in the proper drawers. Not so easy when he is having to sort through four baskets of three foot high laundry at the end of the bed quietly at the butt-crack of dawn.  I know...I'm a horrible housewife!Well, he kept complaining about not having any underwear or socks, so we got him both for Christmas. Silly us. I FINALLY got everything clean and put away. And when I say everything, I literally mean every stitch of clothing in our home that is NOT on our bodies at this instant is clean....and put away. Hubby has what you might call an embarassment of riches in the socks and underwear department. Turns out he had plenty of both - the poor man just couldn't find them. I could barely shut his bureau drawers today once I got everything in them. But....let's see him complain to me NOW about no socks and underwear!! PS- I have reopened
Anyone wanting to check that out or with questions regarding it please feel free to drop me a line! |
| It's been hard for me to accept Chewie's death. Little things remind me of her and I break down and cry. But slowly I'm healing. Today I took a huge step. Before I left for Maine I had bought bird seed for the bird feeder meaning to fill it, not baiting the birds for Chewie to stalk, but more to just have the birds around for the winter. I love the little birds that come to the feeder. The tiny little sparrows and chickadees are my favorite. Today, I filled the feeder. I know it will be a while before they come to feed, but that's ok. Putting it out was the big step. I also have one for finches that hangs in a tree, but Hubby will have to bring home some wire for me before I can hang it. I don't think Sofie and Bear will bother the birds like Chewie did, so I can keep up the feeder without worry. I had a very productive day. It was weird being home with no guilt and not being sick. I didn't really look for a job today, instead spending the day doing long put off things like the bird feeder. I cleaned ( I know, but it was MY house I was cleaning!). And I caught up the laundry. I also wrote. That felt wonderful. I entered the contest The StoryMistress  has open.
It felt so good to make concrete goals and to really cheer myself on with them. Sort of a written pep talk. A "win one for the Gipper" speech. I highly encourage you all to enter your own goals. The prizes are great, but the best prize of all is hanging on my wall right now.....the letter to myself, laying out my goals for the year and encouraging me to succeed in the New Year. Good luck! 1288 words today |
Hubby and I solved our smoking difficulties. Thank you for all of your wonderful advice and compassion, guys.  It looks like I will be starting the new year fresh. Completely fresh. On Thursday night, Hubby and I had a long talk and I called and quit my job. It was weird. I've held probably sixteen or so jobs over the years. I've been fired from two, had one go belly up (restaurant closed) and the rest I've quit or walked out of when I was in a huge manic huff/rage. I've never quit a job coldly and rationally. It was weird. The longest I've ever held a job was three years, and I held a series of three other jobs while I held it. That's not to say that the reasons I left the jobs weren't valid and good reasons. It's just that I also was running on that manic. I'm not one to stay with a job for a long time, I guess. I've been trying to talk to my boss for days. I talked to her before I left for vacation. I explained that I'm too old to be out cleaning houses. It's too hard on me physically. At 35, I'm not able to keep up with the 23 year olds. It kills my back and joints to be down on my hands and knees scrubbing floors. (That's how most of the hard wood and tile floors are cleaned. No mops. It gets cleaner.) I'm just too old and heavy to be crawling around on the floor. Plus the chemicals are too harsh for my lungs. I have asthma. I can't be around several of the sprayed chemicals without having severe reactions. I was using my inhaler a couple of times a day. I was hired as an office assistant and promoted to office manager. If I had wanted to be a maid, I would have hired on as a maid. They make more money. Because even when I was cleaning, I was making my regular hourly pay. Not the higher maid pay.  I asked several times about it and was assured that it was just one day and I was just helping her over a hump. And YET....the next day...sure as shit, I was scheduled to clean. Five days in a row no end in sight. And I'm not talking a little bit of money either. On a $200 house, a maid makes about $30, a lead maid $35-40. I was making about $18 or less. And no, I'm not kidding. And I was doing the lead maid work.Also, the real deal breaker - for my husband at least - was when we were sent up into the foothills on Thursday morning. There had been a snowstorm and it had snowed about 12 to 15 inches. The wind was blowing and the drifts up in this swank subdivision were running about 3 1/2 to 4 feet. We drove along the road which ran along the ridge and then we got to her driveway. It was a steep grade down to her house which was clinging to the side of the the hill and had a great view of the valley. Great. So I threw it in four wheel drive and eased down the drive staying between the orange plow markers. (It wasn't plowed, but at least I knew where the drive was! ) We finished the house and got ready to leave. I pulled gently back and spun. I pulled forward and then back again, rocking my way out of a two foot drift. Then I eased us into a neat six-point turn to head back up this driveway from hell. It took us fifteen minutes and me putting it in four low, first gear. (And a LOT of prayer.) to get out of this driveway. We spun and slipped the whole way. My knuckes were bone white and I know I had at LEAST 4 inches of seat cushion grabbed up in my ass before we got out of there. Behind us was a straight shot off the mountain. Yikes!!!Once we finally got down, we pulled over and called the office to say that we were running behind because of the drive and to report the scariness of the driveway. I was told by my boss that I should have expected it. And that since I have the good four wheel drive that she had another house for my team to go to that the other cleaning team couldn't get to IN A JEEP so she wanted me to go in my Expedition. ?!?!? OK....... By the way, we're fine, lady and you are welcome. We went up to the other house and I looked at the road that went to it. It was even more scary than the first one. I called her and said No. She tried to cajole me into doing it. I said No. She said, well, what would she tell the customer? I told her, well, why not tell them that they've moved to Montana and this isn't California. It's December and they moved to the mountains. They should expect that sometimes in large snowstorms their house is inaccessible. She wouldn't do it, so I had to call the customer and tell them that. Are you freaking kidding me?! It's not like their house was on fire, or we were delivering coal or medicine. Good Gawd. They were just going to have to clean their own toilets. My husband was pissed that she was insisting that we go somewhere dangerous. Y'all know that for the most part, I run amok and Hubby let's me go and do whatever I want. But he played the Head of Household card in this instance. He put his foot down and told me he didn't want me working for anyone like that. There were alot of other extenuating factors that speak to her character as well, but this was enough of one. So, I called her on Thursday night and quit. So, Tuesday, I'll be out job searching. I'm not really worried about it, because the unemployment around here is nothing. There are good jobs just going begging. And with what I was making, I may just need to get a part time job. That would be nice. Then I could spend more time writing. |
| Today something interesting happened and I want y'all's opinion on it. I had to go out in the field again today instead of working in the office, and I was out near Hubby's work. I thought I'd drop in and surprise him with a quick visit. Just a quick kiss and a "Hi, how's your day going, honey?" Nothing big, I often do it when I'm in the area. (two or three times a month) He was outside when I got there and was directing some work in their yard, so he didn't see me come up. I thought I'd sneak up behind him and surprise him with a hug and a kiss from behind. Instead, I was the one to get the surprise. As I reached him and was leaning up to kiss him, he brought his hand up to his mouth and takes a drag off of a cigarette!! Now, Hubby was a Copenhagen dipper when we met, so that little yucky habit was part of his dowry. I understood from the get-go that that was part of the bargain. Before I met Hubby I was a TWO PACK A DAY smoker. I had to quit - cold turkey. I never took it back up for a lot of reasons. But fourteen years later....I still have days when I'd kill for a smoke. Hubby and I are both alcoholics. We both quit drinking (also cold turkey) before we met. Back to the story....Hubby was VERY embarrassed that I had caught him smoking WITH A DIP IN.  Can't get enough nicotine one way or the other, gotta do BOTH?!?! I was angry for several reasons. 1) When I confronted him about it, his reply was, "This is the only one I've had all week." This pissed me off because it implies that this is a habit he has and it's not a one time thing. 2) He also told me, "Sorry, my job is stressful." Then either change jobs or get a Valium prescription. Don't freaking take up smoking! 3) I resist going back to smoking and damn it, he's doing it BEHIND MY BACK. 4) I equate it to having a mistress or drinking on the sly. If you are embarrassed to do it in our living room, then don't f***ing DO it.  So my question to y'all is: Am I overreacting? He and I talked about why it pissed me off and he was very repentant and told me he wouldn't ever smoke again. I don't want him to not do it just because it pisses me off. Honestly, it's probably NOT the smoking that has me so jacked it's the fact that he would hide it. I HATE being lied to and I COUNT lies of omission. |
| Some of you know that I get migraines. When I went to the neurologist a few months back for them, she gave me lots of advice and a new diet to cope with them. Since I've been following the new diet, I've gone from a migraine a week to one every month or six weeks. Which is phenomenal. As I've progressed, I've tinkered with the dietary part of it and made some interesting discoveries along the way. We "discovered" the health food store in our town and I've been doing quite a bit of shopping for "my" food there. I've also been buying alot of my daughter's snack foods there. I figure if the chemicals and such are bad for me, then they are bad for her, too. I don't know how many of you have occasion to shop in health food stores, but usually the prices on organic and "healthy" food options are skyhigh. And I'm not kidding. I would say that they are two to three times the cost of the bad for you food. Some things I can find at Walmart and that helps on the prices a little, but for the most part, they are all VERY expensive. I justify the expense because I was missing a day of work every week from migraines. I figure a day of pay and keeping my job makes up for the cost of the groceries. Well, my husband knew I was going to the health food store for part of our groceries, but he'd never gone with me. He shops with me sometimes. We usually do our shopping on Saturday morning every week, but we did it last night because we wanted to just hole up in our house all weekend long and not leave for any reason. We like to do that sometimes on long weekends. (What can I say, we are hardcore home bodies! )I kept warning my husband, "Now, honey, stuff is a little more expensive here, but it's better for us and I don't have headaches as much now. Please keep remembering that as we shop." I swear, by the time we reached checkout, I thought the man's eyebrows were going to take up permanent residence in his hairline. He kept saying, "Don't buy that for me. I'll eat the regular stuff with all the chemicals and preservatives. I won't age as fast that way!" Two things I got for myself that I was very excited about but Hubby ok'd them were organic cheese curls (I can't eat Cheetoes anymore, they have MSG in them.) and organic tangerine soda made with sparkling water and real juice. (Regular orange soda is full of high fructose corn syrup and preservatives and other chemicals.) OMG, they were SO dang GOOD! I can't describe the joy of that soda and those cheese curls after months without. But they were so friggen expensive, I felt positively decadent. I'm so spoiled. Hubby felt bad about me being "deprived". One good thing, though is that I'm losing weight since I can't eat all the bad stuff. Yea! It's hard not to lose weight when you are just about living on salads. When we checked out I told him to go stand over at the door, I didn't want him to look at the total. He doesn't need blood pressure spikes like that. And then after that we had to go to Walmart and pick up our meds, too. Holy cow it was an expensive night! |
So I got to thinking pretty hard about Sarah's entry "Invalid Entry"  the other day. I mean REALLY thinking hard. And I talked quite a bit about it with Hubby. I'm like Tor, I think about being a published writer all the dang time. I dream about it at night. I think about what my life would be like, how my day would be structured, what my ideal writing schedule would be like, everything. I'm sick and tired of dreaming. I want it. I want it BAD. So for Christmas, I got myself a few things I've been thinking about for a while:  A spindle. (You know those long sharp things that you poke pieces of paper on. Like diners have by the register sometimes. Just look it up in a dictionary if you need to. ) This is to hang on the wall for my rejection slips. Stephen King used a spike.A big folder for receipts. Starting January 1, I am a WRITER. That other place I go to during the day is just for a paycheck. It's a temporary gig. I'm REALLY a writer and as such I need to track my expenses. It's a business. Until I treat it like a business, it's just a hobby and I can be a slacker. With a business, I should track my expenses and hang onto my receipts. Because on my taxes next year, I want to list WRITER under occupation.And the big thing I got myself.....
Sorry it's not a list of five, Scarlett. LOL It was just the three things I got myself. |
| It's all emmyloo's fault. I was sailing through this holiday season in my usual clueless manner. (We have a tree but have yet to decorate it. ) When suddenly I read Ami's blog entry about baking. Then they hit. The holiday guilts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. FINE. So I got a bunch of supplies and we started baking today. ~SIGH~ I got stuff for all kinds of cookies. Tonight we (OK...fine, the truth, my DAUGHTER) made Toffee Oatmeal Almond Cookies. They are pretty tasty. Yum!I wasn't just sitting around, however....for some reason, I have been feeling pretty homebody-ish ever since I read Ami's entry. It was the equivilent of Martha Stewart crack for me, I guess, because for some reason I decided that what I REALLY needed to do was learn to bake bread. Yeah. THANKS, AMI!!!!So, right now, I'm sitting here waiting for my bread to bake. I mixed it and kneaded it by hand. (Holy cow, those directions should come with some kind of warning!! This is hard, physical labor!! ) I waited for an hour for it to rise, I punched it down. I separated it and waited for it to rise again. Now I'm baking it. I feel like the Little Red Hen. I just hope I don't eat the whole dang loaf....'cause I'm trying to diet. I'd better go set out the butter, though. I do need to bulk up for the tree decorating tomorrow. We are making and decorating sugar cookies tomorrow, too. That'll take a lot out of me. Yeah....I might eat a whole loaf! LOL Update: I'm a bloody genius. And I'm probably GONNA eat a whole loaf. This bread ROCKS. Yea, me!! Thanks, Ami!! |
| I've told before about my encounter one day with a peacock one day while driving to work. I was driving down a major four lane street when suddenly traffic slowed both directions. I was on the inside lane and the other car was ahead of me and couldn't see what the other cars and the outside car was slowing for, but I slowed, too. (As you do...maybe they know something you don't. ~shrug~) Then all the other lanes came to a complete stop, and I still couldn't figure out why, but I did, too. Suddenly a peacock came strutting across the road, dragging his tail behind him. He had come from an empty field and was heading to a car dealership across the road. I never found out anything else about that peacock. He was just an odd interlude in my day. I've always wondered about him. Life is like that. Full of chickens and peacocks. Odd things out of place and things you never really know the full story about. While writing, though, I worry about how many chickens it's ok to have in a story. And how many peacocks. Chickens help you find your place in a story, maybe give a little background. But do peacocks help lend a sense of reality or just clutter the joint up? I'm editing and I'm wondering what mix of chickens/peacocks to leave in. What do y'all do? |
| In my first entry I talked about how cute my nephew Trot is. Today I'll post pics and tell stories. I'm not kidding - this kid has a serious case of cute. He's fifteen months and a real ripsnorter. The funniest thing about him is that it's so easy to make him laugh. Most of the time the kid goes around cracking himself up. (Only kids are great that way. They'll entertain themselves.) One of the things my sister and BIL have taught him is to give "zerberts." (For those of you who weren't regular Cosby show watchers, a "zerbert" is when you blow a rasperry against someone's skin - usually their belly or their cheek.) Trot has four top teeth and four bottom teeth now and when he gives you a zerbert on your cheek, he opens his little mouth just as wide as he can and then he latches onto your face like a suckerfish. He gently test bites you two or three times and THEN he softly blows his raspberry. The whole time he is doing this, he's licking you. So when he's finished you have a slobbery cheek and tiny teethmarks. He'll hold your head still so he can really have a good go at you, too.Have y'all ever noticed how little kids give kisses? I think it's universal. They all want to open their mouth like little baby birds and have at you. That's a kiss for them. Trot gives big sloppy, open mouth kisses still. He'll trick you by making kissy noises first but when you come in for a peck - bang, he opens that mouth and lets you have the full monty. Another thing that totally cracked Mom and I up is how much this kid sharts. (A shart, BTW, is a fart with some action. ) I mean, YIKES. Maybe it's been too many years since I've had to do all those diaper changes. (And, yeah, you gotta do'em or they get a rash...) My father always made up crazy little songs and sang them to us when we were kids. He did it with the grandkids, too. Silly little nonsense songs that might change each time he sang them. Some were classics and keepers, though, that have lasted through the years. All of us kids have carried on the tradition and we sing the same silly little songs made up on the fly to our kids. (Our oldest brother is probably the best at it. LOL He has some great ones.) My sister is doing her part, however with such classics as "Buckle it In!" I'll print the lyrics here, I really wish I could show a video of her singing it to Trot, though, because it's so dang funny. Trot LOVES this song, especially the end. Buckle it in, Buckle it in, That's what we do, We buckle it in! Yahooties!! She sings this to him every time she has to put him in a car seat, high chair, whatever requires tying this kid down. With the last line, you throw your hands in the air and shout it out. (Even in restaurants. ) And you say it just like it's spelled....ya-hoot-ies. He's really cooperative about getting in a high chair if he knows you are gonna sing the song to him. I've posted the Maine pics below. Just click previous from the link to hit all the new ones. It's just family photos and Trot, I didn't take any local color shots since I missed the big fall show. Invalid Photo #1006551 |
| Besides shopping, some of the other things we did while in Maine were silly and common place. We ate....alot. For three women on diets, we sucked down everything in sight. It was pathetic, really. One of my vices is fresh ground coffee. I'm so hooked on it that I mailed myself some of my special whole coffee beans to Maine and then the day we got there went and bought my sister a coffee grinder. I can only have 8 oz of caffeine a day, so I shipped several of my flavored decaf coffees that I purchase through an gourmet online club. (Yeah...my name is Teresa, I'm a coffee snob. )It was sad really. My sister only drank ~shudder~ instant coffee before the trip. Once we had my coffee a few nights, she was hooked. I left the grinder and we went and found her some beans that she thought she and her hubby would like as a breakfast coffee. (She told me that since we left she found some of the decaf flavored coffees now, so she's really excited. Another convert. )Every night after dinner, we girls would get in our PJ's and make one of the flavored coffees (our fav was the Kahlua, vanilla and caramel) and then have a small dessert while we worked on one of the two puzzles we put together while we were there. In my family, we've always been big on exercising our brains. When we are together we always play games and do puzzles. We especially love the Charles Wysocki puzzles. We like the simple scenes of Americana depicted in them. While I was in Maine, I tried several new culinary treats. One was something called Whoopie Pies. They are a New England delicacy. They are a bit like two small cakes with gobs of frosting between them. (Southerners.....think Moon Pie without the coating and it's not marshmallow in the middle it's more like the cream from a Little Debbie Oatmeal Pie.) There are different flavored cakes, but I gathered that the frosting is always a vanilla cream. I tried a Pumpkin one. The cakes were soft and sticky and the cream was gooey and overly sweet. I'm not sad about it, but it doesn't top my new favorites list. Another day, when we were out shopping, we got hungry, but it wasn't time to eat yet. So, we got pita chips and hummus. I'd never had hummus before. It was ok. Again, I'm not mad about it. I'd eat it again. It was salty and the texture was odd...kinda squishy and gritty. The other thing I tried that seemed to be a local delicacy was something called Poor Man's Lobster. It was lobster, but completely skinned out and chunked into a platter of drawn butter. It was like all the hard work had been done for you. I love lobster, so this was kind of a no brainer. They had claw meat and everything. Yum. It was good. It had been seasoned, though, and they had gotten it a bit salty...unless it was the butter. But VERY tasty. And I think it wasn't nearly as expensive or time consuming as getting a whole lobster. While we were there, we also went to a Red Robin in Augusta. When we got the bill, Mom and I cracked up....apparently it is located on Stephen King Dr. I love local pride.More tomorrow. |
| We had such a wonderful trip. My nephew is a DOLL - I'll post pics this weekend. This was my first trip to New England and I wish I could have done it during the height of Autumn, but it was still very pretty. I kept a journal while I was gone so that I would remember all of the things I wanted to blog about. Periodically, we would be doing something and Amelia and I would look at each other and just crack up and she would say, "You've GOT to blog about this!" So for the next couple of days, I'm going to dip into my journal and share Maine things with you all. My sister lives in a little town along the banks of the Kennebec River. (That's the Kennebec River in Maine and Kennebunk and Kennebunkport, MA. --- It confused me and Mom, too.) The Kennebec is a wide, slow moving river. Amelia says that in the winter it freezes completely across and they set up little ice fishing shanty towns on it. When you drive along it, you can see the concrete ramps that they slide the shanties down on. They are small colorful wooden buildings on sleds. You can see them all clustered together near the ramps. In the evenings, near sunset, the river is like glass and the lights that start coming on along it reflect into the wispy fog that rises and hangs just above the surface, never coming high enough to escape the banks. All along the river there are tiny little towns with funny little names like Wiccasset, Vassalboro, and Hallowell. Mom and I drove to Hallowell and "did" downtown. It was so interesting. They've refurbished it and there are lots of antique and artsy little shops all along the walk. We didn't buy anything, alot of it was pretty spendy, and some was just plain weird, but we had fun walking around. Two places we went into were just freaky, though. Both were "antique" stores. One there was a sign on the door saying that the guy was gone, but we saw someone inside, so we popped in. He told us he was open and to feel free to browse. So we did. Yikes. He had lots of nude statues and posters. And not tasteful, artsy nudes either. I know the difference. These were the kind that make you feel icky to see. Mom was appalled. We beat a hasty retreat and had a good laugh out on the sidewalk. Nothing like visiting a porn shop with your mom. The next joint was a lamp store. We walked in and the first thing we noticed is that it smelled like they had a dead caribou stuck in a corner somewhere. This place was stuffed, jampacked with lamps. Mostly "antique" lamps, Victorian chandeliers, standing lamps, you name it. It was like the Addams Family attic. There were only tiny little paths to walk in there. And for a place filled with lamps, it was the most poorly lit shop I've ever been in. Once we got past the fenceline of lamps, we found an ugly green Victorian sofa. There was so much dust on it and everything else it was incredible. I could have vacuumed and dusted for a week and still not gotten it all. Once we got as far as the sofa, we decided to leave and when we turned around we saw to our horror that there was a little door off of one of the paths, incredibly enough there was a WHOLE nother room of this crap, stacked just as densely and lit just as poorly. It was so cramped and poorly lit in there, the owners were carrying things out onto the sidewalk to price it and then carrying it back in. It was hysterical! The only thing missing, as far as I could see, was a giant stuffed vulture. (Unless that was where the smell was coming from! ) We only went in as far as we did from a kind of train-wreck hypnotism. We couldn't look away.Shopping is what we did mostly. Alot of window shopping, but real shopping, too. On our last day (the day we flew out - hereafter referred to as "the day from hell" ), we drove down to Freeport and spent most of the day. The whole downtown has been redone so that it is now full of outlet shops. It's the base for LL Bean. They have a couple of cool stores. (Their different divisions are in separate buildings.) I got some Christmas gifts, and they helpfully shipped them for me. They were too big for my luggage. (And since Hubby reads this blog, that's all I'm going to say about them.  ) We also went to a place called "the Mangy Moose" and bought Maine T-shirts. We are cliched, what can I say? They were nice T-Shirts at least. Ok, that's all for today's installment. More tomorrow. |
| I'm home. I'm heartsick. I'm tired. No....make that exhausted. I spent Tuesday night sleeping on a cot in O'Hare Airport in Chicago after a 21 hour day. There were weather delays. Huge ones. I got two interrupted hours of sleep. They woke us at 4 to reclaim the concourse. It was like a bad episode of I Love Lucy. We got to Chicago too late to eat, everything was closed. It was just a giant cluster-smuck. (Thank you, Stephen King. I recommend Lisey's Story, I read it while I was on vacation.) My luggage didn't arrive home until this morning about 9 am. I got here at 12:30 yesterday. ~sigh~ I kept a journal while I was gone and I'll be making entries using stuff from that, but not today. Today, I'm tired. I'm heartsick. And I'm sick-sick. Yeah, that's right, I caught some kind of bug on the trip home. I am sniffling and coughing. And my head is pounding. I also have completely lost my voice. So, for now, I'm going to bed. To rest. And to cry. Thank you all for your love and support. PS--I really did have a lovely time in Maine. I promise to write nice things tomorrow. |
| I had hoped to surprise everyone with a quick blog about how much fun I was having, but that isn't to be. I am able to access the internet in 30 minute bites at Amelia's library. I was planning to come here and tell you all what fun we are and what quirky people these Mainers are. We are and they are. Instead, Hubby called me late last night after we were all in bed and broke the news to me that my baby, Chewie had been run over by a car.  I cried most of the night and I'm a wreck today. I'm trying not to let this disrupt my trip and overshadow my visit with my mom and my sister, but I'm quite frankly devistated. I'm sitting here in a public library trying not to sob as I type this. I feel like I've been punched in the stomach....repeatedly. Poor Hubby didn't want to call me, but he was almost as distraught as I am. He was sobbing on the phone while he was trying to tell me. He said Monilad was broken up, too. I almost wish I could change my tickets and go back and be with them, but I can't they are the non-changeable, non-refundable kind. I want my husband's arms around me telling me this is going to be ok. Even if in my heart I know it isn't. Some of you may be laughing or feeling uncomfortable about this. But, Chewie was literally my baby. I had my daughter in 93 and we kept trying for more kids. I wanted several more. Unfortunately, I developed severe endometriosis and was finally forced to have a complete hysterectomy at the age of 29. No more children for us. Bear, Chewie and Sofie are children for me, just like Monilad. We love them and treat them as members of the family. Monilad refers to them as her sisters. I don't care how crackpot that makes us sound. I know that pets don't have as long a life span as humans, and we would have faced this eventually, but like this? Run down in the street? I'll try to come back one other day while I'm here. We'll see. Until then, keep safe, love you all. XOXOXOXO Just Teresa |
| So, since I'm going away, I thought I'd be ultra organized like zwisis and make myself a list, checking the things I needed to do before I leave off as I go. Who the hell was I kidding? Forever, you never told me that these dang things SPAWN new lines as you cross them off! I swear, every time I finish a task and cross it off, three more imperative things jump on the list. I'm making NO headway. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm losing ground. But, I think that I've just reached the end point and I'll have to phone my husband from Maine and tell him, "Honey, don't forget XYZ." LOL No help for it now, I leave at 4 tomorrow. I'm so excited. Although, I've never flown alone before and I'm not much of a flier. I've done hypnotherapy before for it several years ago. (Yeah, that's how much of a non-flier I am. I had to do therapy for it. ) But, Hubby keeps telling me I'll be fine.Topic change... We got a notice from my daughter's school today about the upcoming band/choir concert. woohoo. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy watching her perform, I just don't enjoy seeing/hearing all of those other little darlings perform. I really think that middle school band concerts are test runs for hell. ~shudder~ Last year there was a REALLY wretched oboe player. Eeeesh. Like fingernails on a blackboard. She couldn't find the right note with a seeing eye dog and a cane. Yikes, just yikes. Thankfully she's gone on to the high school band. It was like sitting through an hour long root canal with no anethesia. And several percussionists who kept playing a fraction of a section after or before the beat. It was maddening. I kept wanting to go up there and clap in their ear just to get them on track. It reminded me of Mr. Holland's Opus.My daughter swears they are better this year. Well, THANK GOD. They couldn't very well be worse. The note this year thankfully set out a dress code. Dark pants or skirts and dark shirts for the girls and dark pants and white shirts for the boys. Period. She and I laughed at that. We decided it was the girl who showed up in the pink sequined cocktail dress last year that brought about THAT change. What idiot sends their daughter to a middle school BAND CONCERT in a knee length, spagetti strapped, hot pink, silver sequined cocktail dress?! Good GAWD. ~sigh~ When she sat down, the band director ran over to her and made her get up really quick because she was flashing her hooha to the whole first five rows of the auditorium because her dress was so short! He had to turn her chair around to the side so that she was playing the flute while facing the saxaphones, with her back to the audience. All her mother had to say was how upset she was that she couldn't get any pictures of her face. Some people shouldn't be allowed to have children. Seriously. Well, I've stuffed myself on all your blogs, they will just have to last me. Sorry I haven't been around much. Y'all stick me in a closet or a dungeon over at the interactive. I promise not to be much trouble there. Or put me up to any dirty work you have. I don't mind being the villian. What will it matter to me? I won't be around to know! LOL and (((Hugs)))) to you all. Here's a  til I get back. I promise to take lots of happy, smiley people pictures.Bye for now!! |
| I'm alive and kicking, but I'm not busy as I said I was two entries ago. I'm fighting my depression. I'm like Tor, I don't like to come in here and whine. I'm not big on whiners. There's nothing y'all can do about my black mood. I am around. I'm reading y'all's blogs. I'm even commenting on some of them. Mostly I'm counting the days until I leave for Maine. 9 days. I love my husband. I love my daughter. I love Bear and Chewie and Sophie. I just need a vacation. My job isn't hard, so I don't really need a vacation from that. In fact, I'm writing this while at my job. We are having a big lull. Have y'all ever seen "What about Bob?" with Richard Dreyfuss and Bill Murray? We watched part of it last night. It's one of those movies you forget about until you watch it again. Murray plays a psychiatric patient of Dreyfuss' who follows Dreyfuss on vacation. In one scene, Dreyfuss gives Bill a written prescription that says he has permission to take a vacation from his problems. I think that is what I need. Permission to take a vacation from my depression, my bipolar, my allergies, all of it. Just a vacation. ~sigh~ Sorry for the downer entry. 9 days....... |
| This is sort of a cross between a public service announcement and a rant, so buckle up if you're staying for it. I work in a service industry. We come to your house. There are two things I absolutely need from you if I'm gonna arrive at the right dang house. Clear, concise, CORRECT directions AND when I get there a CLEARLY marked house number!! There are just two ways to give directions. The right way and the WRONG way. Here is the right way: From Main street turn North on Elm. Take a left on Cedar. Turn right on Poplar. Poplar forks....take the right fork. My house is the 5th house on the left after the fork. It is blue with tan trim. Note if you will the following things about those directions. 1) You don't know where I'm starting from, so you give me directions from a nice CENTRAL location with directions like turn NORTH off of Main not left or right because you DON'T know where I'm starting from. 2) You give me street names. Every time. Period. With clear left, right turns. 3) You mention the dang fork or whatever other anomoly your street might have!! 4) You tell EXACTLY which house is yours. The 5th house on the left. 5) You DESCRIBE your house in clear terms. Blue, tan trim. It is also acceptable to give exact mileage, such as: Go 4.5 miles past the fork. Here is the WRONG way to give directions: Take a left off of Main and then turn on that street where that dentist used to have his practice. You know the one. The painless one? Anyway, go four or five blocks and then take that other street with a tree name. Then you are on Poplar. You can find it from there. See...no I can't. You gave me shitty directions. How the hell do I know who that dentist is or where he USED to practice his painless dentistry?!? And how am I gonna be able to figure out where to turn on Poplar when I get to the fork? Right now, write down directions to your house from a central location in your town. If they don't look like my GOOD directions above? Rewrite them until they do. Put them by your telephone to give out to friends, family and service people. Better yet? Memorize them. The other thing I beg and beseech all of you. Right now. Stop what you are doing. Go outside. Are your house numbers LARGE and VISIBLE from the street? Or are they hidden behind some overgrown bush in teeny gold hard to see/read numbers on a post right next to your front door? They should be next to your garage or over your garage in big BLACK numbers. And not in some stupid filigreed font that you or your wife think looks pretty. Trust me. If I just described your house numbers? Your UPS and FedEx drivers and pretty much the entire service industry HATES you. Even better than on your garage? Put it on your garage AND on your mailbox in large BLACK numbers. (Unless you've got a black mailbox and then you should use your dang head and put it in white.) Home Depot, Walmart, Ace Hardware, Lowes....all of these places sell house numbers. Go, now. Fix it. This weekend. It's your blogging homework. Go in love. Rant over. Talk amongst yourselves. And the special place I mentioned in the title? It's a special place in hell for people who do this to me. |
and kicking. I'm just busy. Also, Texun4ever-cabin fever  sends you all her best. Since she got her new job she has no internet connection. She used to surf at her old job, well, the new job didn't come with one. I keep telling her she is going to have to break down and get one for home, but we will see.16 days until Granny and I go see her, but hey, who's counting? It's been four years since I've seen my sister in person, and I've never met her husband or my 17 month old nephew. I almost can't wait. |
| Good News! We've figured out what my yucky rash is. Bad News. I'm allergic to Bear and Sofie. Yeah...I know. I went back to the doc on Friday and he checked me out again. We talked for a while and decided it wasn't Count Chocula it was "Undetermined Erdicaria (sp?)". That means "random skin condition." Chicken coming.....I've got that dang water hole open on another window and I heard activity at the water. So I flipped over to see. And what did I get but a big ole eyefull of Baboon arse. To make it a REALLY complete picture...he had his Hoo Hoo hanging out. Now they are showing a baby riding on it's mother's back. Awwwww.... He's so cute!! 'k, back to my rash. He asked me if giving up the animals was an option. Uh....no. They are members of the family! We've had Bear for 7 years now and Chewie for 6. And although Sofie is new to the family, she is a key member of the family already. Besides, with as much as we've spent on these damn animals this year, right now not only are we NOT getting rid of them, we are trying to figure out how to claim them as actual children! I asked him how I could all of a sudden BECOME allergic to the dogs when we've had Bear for so long. (I've been allergic to Chewie since the get go. ) He said that we all have allergy thresholds. Adding Sofie to the house just crossed mine somehow. So, now in addition to the OTC allergy pill I take daily for Chewie, plus the prescription allergy/asthma pill I take, I now get to start taking ANOTHER prescription allergy pill. Yup, a pill for each pet, I guess. That's to go with the other handful of pills I take for my other health problems. Yee-freakin-haw.Oh well. And y'all don't bother to leave me comments about how nuts I am to keep the animals since I'm allergic to them. I'm not gonna tell my husband that he can't have his dog because I'M allergic to her all of a sudden. I'm also NOT gonna tell my daughter that the dog we gave to her for her birthday has to go because Mom is allergic to the little doll. And if you people think I'm giving up Chewie you've lost your damn minds. If taking 3 little white pills a day means we get to keep my other three children, then so be it. Three more little white pills it is. ~sigh~ Occasionally being the Momma means you just suck it up. |
| Every year, my child somehow develops amnesia and starts thinking she's actually Martha Stewart's child. Or Betsy Ross'. Some damn body who can sew's child anyway. In July, when Granny was here she begged my mother to help her pick out material for her Halloween costume. This year she decided she wanted to be a belly dancer. Greeeeaaaat. So, she and Granny picked out all this damn material, Granny assured me I'd be able to do it and then Granny left me holding the bag on this freaking costume. Did they get me a pattern for this big adventure? Oh, hell no. All I got was a picture in a book. In my 35 years on this earth, I have sewn one article of clothing. It was a pair of pants that a friend's mother helped me to make. She stood by me every stitch of the way. That was 20 years ago. It was a really hard task and I have spent the last 20 years NOT repeating it ON PURPOSE. I once had to make my child a costume for a play. I didn't even OWN a sewing machine. We used alot of glue sticks for my glue gun for that outfit. It was gorgeous. Well, a few years back I bought a learner sewing machine and I have been endeavoring to make simple things like quilts and such. Now my child expects me to whip up a pair of harem pants. No problem. Mom the miracle worker to the rescue. I put the project off as long as I could. As Halloween is next week, I finally started them on Tuesday night. I got out the material. Dear God. They bought 4 yards of Gold Lamme. My child is only 5' 3" tall. They had gotten me 12 feet of material to cover less than half of her. Who the hell was I making these pants for Shaquille O'Neal?!So I layed the material out and discovered my helpful little munchkin had thoughtfully cut it in half for me already. ("For each leg, Mom!") Right. So...what the hell...I went with it. I took each half held it up to her estimated from her waist and pinned at her crotch. Then I gathered it about where I thought we'd want them to end and pinned again. Then I layed it all out on the floor, turned it wrong side out and pinned them so that I had two separate tubes - one for each leg. Then - advanced seamstress that I am, I sewed each tube from starting pin to finishing pin. About then, Texun4ever-cabin fever called me. Now...Amelia took Home Ec in school (unlike myself). I took something REALLY handy like Debate.  There's a skill that's been EVER so helpful in life! NOT. By the time I finished describing what I'd done she was laughing so hard I was afraid for the state of HER pants. I was pretty tickled, too. Because I knew I was to the waist part and I needed some kind of measurement, so I had my child try on the two leg tubes. So there she was walking around my sewing room holding up the tubes around her waist, trailing the extra material behind her like bizarre wedding trains. "Um...Mom, I think this is wrong somehow." Well, now I'm actually in the damn floor laughing. I keep telling my sister that these are the jiggiest pants in the universe and she is REALLY agreeing with me. So, now I can't figure out how to sew the two tubes together to make a pair of pants. Finally I get it figured out, and we get them back on her to try them up for size. Now I get so tickled I'm actually crying. Gold Lamme stretches......a lot. So there stands my child holding these pants up and the waist would have fit my 350 pound father. I told my sister about it and she starts laughing so hard she is ready to cry. We finally calm down enough to put the elastic in. So my sister asks, "Do you have enough elastic?" Well... I wasn't sure how much I would need. So I made the same blunder Granny did. I got 2 1/2 yards of it. Shaquille may get those pants yet.I got her waist measured and Amelia talked me through putting it in, but when I started, it looked like a goat had chewed off the waist of the pants. My daughter had cut the material. Remember, I have YET to put a pair of scissors to these pants. So, I just laid them down on my cutting mat and whacked it off as evenly as I could with my rolling blade cutter. (They are used alot in quilting...it looks like a pizza cutter.) But in ONE spot....it was too low. We were gonna be flashin the goods if I'd cut it all that short. So, Amelia talked me through putting in a "patch" for that spot. Luckily, it doesn't show because it got folded in for the waist band. While I was cutting the material, I held it up and whacked it off as evenly as I could at the legs, too. I've got lots of Gold Lamme left over. All that's left for these suckers is the elastic at the ankles and then we are set. I'll be sure to post a pic from Halloween night. Her Daddy just rolled his eyes when he saw the partially finished costume. All I know is that I'm glad for unlimited cell phones at night because I'd never have been able to do it without Texun4ever-cabin fever . Those Harem Pants were kicking my ass. |
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