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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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| I've talked before about not being able to get my hamster off his wheel at night. He just won't go to sleep. The minute my head touches the pillow, I feel like popping up and rushing around the house to make lists and take care of "one-last thing" on an endless list I carry around in my head. Last night I was a bit desperate to sleep and I had just got out of the shower. I have one of the automatic shower cleaners that you push the button and it cleans the stall every time you step out of the shower. (Marvelous time saver! I highly recommended them for busy folks!!) I was lying in bed thinking about the thousands of things I really should jump up and jot down when I began to wish I had one of those shower cleaners for my mind. A quick push of button and a few whirs later and like magic, a sparkling fresh blank slate every night so that I could go to sleep. And then I realized that I could have that!! I have a world class imagination - have to if you are going to be a writer - so I just needed to put it to use on myself. So, I started taking deep even breaths. And I imagined my mind as a large chamber filled with the mess of the day. Then a small trap door opened on the top and a little high pressure sprayer popped down and began gently spraying away all of the cares and the sounds and the emotional residue of the day. Have you ever seen Disney's Mary Poppins? There is a scene in it where they pop into sidewalk chalk drawings and then later the rain comes to wash the chalk drawings away. That is how my day looked as it slid down the walls of my mind, soft muted colors going grainy and blending together before sliding down and out the drain in the bottom of the chamber. I could hear it gurgle softly. Soon the sprayer retracted and the walls were sparkling clean. I felt so calm. I decided that what I needed was more calm. So I dried the chamber walls carefully and brought back only those things that were soothing to me. First I painted everything a nice butter yellow and then I added some nice plants, a small waterfall in the corner with koi in the pond at the bottom and a few light colored throw rugs on a honey colored pine floor. I also added a fresh lavender scent to the air. I replaced one of the walls with an enormous stained glass window - no picture, just beautiful abstract shapes. Then I brought in a comfy leather wrapped kneeler and rested there in a soft white robe. As I relaxed, the window slid open and there was God. In this calm place I had created in my mind, I was able to pray and seek comfort and guidance. It was almost transcendant. I slept better last night than I have in months. I think I'll wash and redecorate my brain every night. |
Unless you live under a rock, you know that today marks the 5th Anniversary of the cowardly terrorist attacks here in the US. I'm not going to blog about that. Others have said what I have to say about it much more eloquently than I ever could. Here are a few links to my favorite entries on the subject: "Invalid Entry"  , "Invalid Entry" , and "Invalid Entry" .Instead I'm going to do what the American Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world, the Border Patrol, our Nation's Police force, the men and women who are Firefighters across the US and countless thousands of others enable me to do day in and day out of my life. I'm going to turn the burden of protecting me over to them and continue to pray for their safety. I'm not a hero, but I can pray for the heroes out there putting it on the line for me every day. And as a tribute to them, I'm going to do what they enable me to do. I'm going to go on about my little life. Thankful they are there for me. Today I got up without fear for my life. Tonight I will spend time with my family eating a healthy and plentiful meal my husband and I earned. Right now I'm online with my friends. Freedoms, all of those things. And I for one am grateful for the men and women who make all of those things possible. The American way of life may not be the perfect one, but until you show me a better one, I'll keep this one and get down on my knees in Thanksgiving every day of my life grateful for it. Today I disagreed with several people here onsite. I had the privilege and freedom to do that. Thank you, The StoryMaster  , for promoting a completely open, completely American forum where we can all say what we feel without fear of reprisal or retribution.Tonight when I lay my head on my pillow, I'll know that I went through my day with just a few minor inconveniences, thanks to the people who put their lives on the line for me, knowing that I lived life just as usual. |
| I don't make a big deal about it, but I don't make a secret of the fact that both my daughter and I are bipolar. Life around our house is sometimes very interesting. We are both well medicated, but there is no surgery, no magic wand, no quick one-time fix for our disorder. It's like my alcholism. It's a day by day thing. Some days are better than others. Some days are like yesterday. While we might make allowances and adjustments in our lives to deal with the eventualities of our disorders, we never, ever, make excuses. Life will not care that we have this problem, so no mollycoddling. We have a suck it up and deal with it mentality when it comes to dealing with our bipolar. We have a rule of working through the problem and never surrendering to the circumstances. It's just how we do it. No laying down in the ditch crying that life is too hard. No taking the easy way out. You push through the problem. You rule the bipolar, you don't let it rule you. Friday night, monilad went to a slumber party. I asked her before I picked her up (I just waited in the driveway and picked her up and ran her there as soon as I got home from work - we were running late.) if she had done her chores. She assured me that she had. Not so much. There were a score of chores left undone.  Mom was not happy. But, I was nice and let her stay at the party. I didn't go off half cocked and pick her up and bring her home. Nice mom.Saturday morning, Hubby went and picked her up. He asked her about her undone chores. He was not happy with her. She got grounded. He told her to bring him her iPod as soon as they got home. That she was grounded from her iPod. This brought a tearful revelation that the iPod was broken and in some other kid's possession. He was trying to fix it for her. They came home and told me about it. I got HOT. The rule on the iPod is that it isn't to leave this house unless I say it's ok. And now some 13 year old kid is ruining the dang warranty on it.  I shouted alot. This kid lives around the corner from us, so she was told to go retrieve it immeditately. This was at 11:30.We didn't hear anything else until 3:30 when a strange woman calls me to say that monilad was at her house and had been for most of the day. Her son is a friend of my daughter's and monilad went over there crying and announcing that she was running away from home. The lady gave her time to calm down and fed her some lunch. Then got monilad to give her our phone number so she could tell us where she was. Good thing, too. Hubby had been out driving the neighborhood looking for her. I had been calling all of her friends. Hubby went and got her and we had a giant discussion while she announced she wanted to go be an orphan.  She had appearently missed her medication the night before and there had been no breakfast for the girls. She had also not had much sleep. Bipolars HAVE to have their meds, a regular amount of sleep and regular meals or their emotions get all wonky. (And monilad KNOWS this!!) I hadn't had much sleep because Sofie was up crying most of the night missing monilad. So, my temper was off the wall, too.Small situation, blown completely out of proportion by crazy emotions. I don't think I can take 4 1/2 more years of this.  Hubby got everybody calmed down and talking rationally. Everybody got sleep last night, and we are all great today. But, the storms around here are very draining. Oh, yeah. The iPod kid was no where to be found yesterday. We are still missing a very expensive piece of equipment. |
| So, when we last left our intrepid heroine.... (Why do men get to sound cool and we get to sound like a bad street drug? ~shrug~ That's another blog topic. Moving on....) I had a doctor's appointment.  He hooked me up the good drugs. (Gah, drugs again!!) I got a steriod for my asthma, an antibiotic for the nifty yellow phlemy stuff I'm coughing up, and I got an inhaler. I also did a nebulizer treatment while I was in his office. For those of you not familiar with it, they hook you up to this breathing tube thing that atomizes medication so that you can breathe it directly into your yucky inflammed lungs. It's a neat little machine and when I do it, I always feel a bit like a dragon and a bit like the hooka smoking catapillar in Alice in Wonderland. (Ackk, what's with the drug references in this blog!?) Whooo RRRR UUUUUUU? The nebulizer is great in that I can breathe after I do it. But It's NOT great in that it makes me shaky and weird afterward. So, there I was driving on the highways and biways of Montana highly medicated and sporting questionable eyewear.  Yikes! Not a stellar day in my driving career. I promise I only went to Walmart to get the rest of my drugs and then straight home ( a mere 6 or 7 miles. )I was wiped out last night, so no writing last night, but I am writing tonight. On the upside, I was able to sleep last night. Yea! And I was able to go to work today, always a plus. Well, I've got writing to make up. Catch y'all on the flip side. *hugs* for the well wishes. |
And your nose and your lungs and every where else! Gaaahhh. I can't stand it anymore. I feel like I've smoked a pack of unfiltered Camel's, then snorted what was in the ashtray and then licked the ashtray clean.  I slept in the living room in the recliner last night next to the air purifier. I can't breathe when I lay down, this smoke is killing my asthma. There are warnings in the paper every day that old people and babies and people with health problems should stay indoors. I stayed home from work and got an appointment with my Dr. so that I can see if I can get something to help me breathe at night. (Oxygen mask!? ) I go in in an hour, hopefully they can help me, 'cause I can't spend another night like last night. Ugh!! On a more positive note, I'm flying through the last of my novel. "Invalid Item" I'm under 9000 words left. Woo Hoo!! |
| Around 7:30 this morning I got a telephone call. I was sound asleep and the ringing of the phone didn't penetrate the dream I was having. (I'm a pretty sound sleeper.) When I did get up, the beeping of my cell phone signalled that I had a message. It was from my brother. Not my oldest brother, but the one just older than me. He and I have a pretty rocky history. If you are a reader of Texun4ever-cabin fever  's, he's the one we both described as the asshole. He's driven to Montana to go Bowhunting for the week (two weeks?). He'll be near Hamilton (Party's stomping grounds). He thought he'd give me a call on his way through town to say "hi". What the...?!?! He's driving through town at 7 bloody 30 in the morning and he thought he'd call to say 'Hi"?!? He wasn't aware before then he'd be passing through? Like days before? How about the 1000 miles between here and Texas? He couldn't call somewhere along the way and say, "Hey, by the freakin way, I'm driving within 2 miles of your house and we haven't seen each other in 6 years so maybe we could do breakfast?" The only times I've seen him in the last ten years was at my father's hospital bed and then my father's funeral. He was a pompass ass both times. I don't know why it bothers me so much that he would make plans to drive to Montana to go Bowhunting (?!) but not bother to come visit me and my family. But for some reason it does bother me. Alot. I guess the road runs both ways and I could have just as easily gone to visit him, but why bother? That's usually the attitude I reserve for him. Why bother. I love him because he's my brother and I would have a void in my life if he were gone, but....honestly? I don't really like him very much. |
| Sorry I didn't post yesterday. I didn't finish writing until late. Then I just didn't have it in me to write more. The answer to my little blog game was given in Robert Waltz  comment from two days ago.Quantum physics itself made Einstein uncomfortable - he once famously said, "God does not play dice with the universe!" To which Niels Bohr reportedly replied, "Al, stop telling God what to do." Einstein didn't care for quantum physics, but in my handle, I have Einstein's theory of relativity as my costumicon. It was a tiny little joke on my part. Ah, well. ~sigh~ I promise, no more science here. On to new business, I was up late writing, but I'm up early this morning dog-sitting. A little girl and her father are off on a hot date fishing and Sofie has to be watched. Right now she and Bear are playing while I do this. I got up and made myself some coffee. (Decaf!) And I was excited to find some nutmeg nuts and a tiny grater that I got as a gift some time back. I grated part of one of the nuts into my coffee. Yum!! If you've never tried nutmeg in your cuppa joe, I highly recommend trying it. It's best fresh, but the other will work if you can't find whole nuts to grate. I'm still having some trouble seeing with these old glasses, but I'm persevering. At least I can see the dang computer screen when I type. I have to double check my spellings quite frequently, because my brain wants to go faster than my fingers can, but still better than being totally blind. I did much better writing yesterday. I'm two days ahead of where I'm supposed to be right now. I'm hoping to add to that today, especially with Hubby and monilad gone today and having to be up early. No one to bother me and time to fill. Well, with that in mind I'd better get busy. See you all tomorrow. |
| Yesterday's blog was a bit heavy. I was all set to apologize for it when I decided not to, instead I'm going to tell you all a little bit more about myself. You all know I have two older brothers and a younger sister. (Texun4ever-cabin fever is my little sister.) All of us have a couple of years of college but for whatever personal reason, none of us got that all important piece of parchment. Like the other three, I took a few semesters of college right out of high school. Something not many people know is that I had been accepted to the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and was all set to transfer when I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. See, I was trying to get as far the hell away from Texas as I could possibly get while still staying in the US. (I'm a redhead, so Hawaii really wasn't a big option for me. I burn too easily.  ) So, when I found out I was pregnant, I called them and thanked them and tried to figure something else out. Three semesters of college is all I have. Twenty credits from fifteen years ago. I've tried to go back twice, but I just don't have the umph to do it. I never have had the math skills and I'm a little shaky in the rest of it, too. Plus, I just hate a classroom atmosphere. But I made myself a promise the day I called U of A. I swore I would never be an uneducated person. I would just figure out a way to educate myself. And I have. I am a voracious reader. I read between 5 and 15 books a week. (Yes, even when I'm writing for Nano.) I can read a paperback in about 2 1/2 - 3 hours. I read them for research and pleasure. I also read 2 or 3 serious books a week. Sometimes I'll have to read them more than once or put them down halfway through and think for a while on them, but I always make myself finish them. One of my favorite "educational" books that I have read over and over has been Stephen Hawkings A Brief History of Time. If you've never read it, I suggest going out and buying a copy. It's not super expensive and it's a great research book to have on your shelves. It is also a fascinating book. It is extremely heavy reading, but Mr. Hawking makes science interesting and doesn't give you lots of tedious math to slog through. So, that's why I was reading a book on Quantum Physics the other day. I may be a weirdo, but by God, I'm trying to be a well educated weirdo. Based on yesterday's comments, can anyone tell me the joke I have in my handle? 2500 gps to the first person who emails it to me. Answer regardless tomorrow. -------- Here is my progress report from yesterday. "Invalid Item" I almost didn't bother posting it. ~sigh~ I broke my glasses right in the middle of writing last night. I'm legally blind without my glasses. So, pretty pitiful showing over all. I finally just got too frustrated to write. We went to Walmart for a new set today. They will be ready sometime next week. I'm wearing an old pair that's the wrong prescription, they make me queasy and dizzy, but they are better than being blind. I can't even drive when I wear them. I got no idea what I'm gonna do for work next week. |
| I've been asked a couple of times in the last few days exactly what my current handle means. I know alot of you set your handle when you got to WDC and it hasn't changed, but I'm a flexible and fickle kind of gal. My handle is like a pretty dress to me, I change it at will. I always try to keep the ChewieKittie or at the very least CK, so that people can recognize me, but I like my handle to reflect some thought or mood I might be having. I suppose it's time to explain my current thought. I was reading a book about Quantum Physics the other day. And when I was in scroll last Sunday, I was reminded of Heisenberg's Uncertainty priciple. Summed up very roughly, that's the one that states that the act of measuring something changes its outcome. I remarked to Robert Waltz that scroll reminds me of that since anything done is scroll is influenced by the fact that anything you say in there is directly impacted by the number of observers (real or imagined) you might have.I have often held the position that conversing in scroll is a bit like standing on a street corner and shouting at someone on the opposite side of the street. Everyone in the neighborhood is privy to the conversation. You are constantly aware that every word you "utter" is being analyzed and cataloged against a list of acceptable words and phrases to be used in such a public forum. Our blogs are the same way. We blog differently once we get an audience. David McClain has written on the subject more eloquently than I could on a couple of occasions. It's not quite as bad as scroll in a blog, more like having a loud conversation in your own backyard, but Heisenberg's Uncertainty priciple holds here. The act of measuring changes the outcome. As we were talking Robert Waltz teased me that I must be Schroedinger's Cat. Schroedinger was a famous physicist who made up a COMPLETELY HYPOTHETICAL situation. (Nobody get wadded panties, this has never actually been done, it's just a way to describe quantum theory.) Here is Wikipeida's explaination...they said it better than I ever could: A cat is placed in a sealed box. Attached to the box is an apparatus containing a radioactive atomic nucleus and a canister of poison gas. This apparatus is separated from the cat in such a way that the cat can in no way interfere with it. The experiment is set up so that there is exactly a 50% chance of the nucleus decaying in one hour. If the nucleus decays, it will emit a particle that triggers the apparatus, which opens the canister and kills the cat. If the nucleus does not decay, then the cat remains alive. See, under that box, Schroedinger hypothesized, the cat exists in two Universes. You CAN'T know the fate of the cat UNTIL YOU OPEN THE BOX, thereby effectively measuring it. Until then, it is both dead AND alive. I believe it is said to exist in a state of quantum flux. (I think that is the definition.) That's what I am. I'm in a state of quantum flux. I am both a writer and not a writer. Until I open the box and come out and be observed/published, then I am just sitting under that box waiting to be gassed. |
| monilad and I just got back from our evening walk. We don't take them every evening, but we like to walk around our neighborhood right around sunset with Bear and just get a nice breath of fresh air and a little exercise to boot. Tonight's sunset was incredible, but I felt a sense of guilt watching it. It was like a Thomas Kincaide painting. All I kept thinking about while watching it, though, was the poor people to the west of us dealing with wildfires. The smoke and haze were what was making the evening sky so spectacular. Yesterday evening on the way home it was like driving in a heavy fog because the smoke was so thick here. At five o clock I had to drive with my lights on because it was so dark and smoggy. You could feel the smoke in the back of your throat, like standing near a campfire, but without the cool marshmallows and nifty singalong. Early this morning we got a little shower and it washed the air of most of the smoke. Then it was another beautiful Montana blue sky day, except there was a little bite to the air. I don't think it got above 65. I had to wear a jacket most of the day. I got a little tingle down my spine when I heard the forecast on the way home tonight. The guy on the radio said the the high altitudes should expect snow in the early hours.  You all know what that means....AUTUMN!!!!!!! WOOT!! I'm putting a 24 hour watch on my aspen. I'll be sure to post photos when they start to turn. Woo Hoo!!! ------------- Thanks for supporting me again, guys, I really appreciate it. I guess I know what time it is now. Time to get my butt in gear and go finish my Nano. I'm 13 days from finishing. Tonight I read what I had just to get my place and then tomorrow is my start up for the 13 days. I'm finishing this sucker no matter what. God wants me to write. I want me to write. So....I'll catch y'all later, I'm headed off to write.  I'll post my progress in here like last time. |
| This one's for you, PC. Recently Problematic Content ran a blog contest where he gave away a Merit Badge to anyone crazy enough to eat cake with hot sauce on it. "Invalid Entry" I thought he'd lost his damn mind. But, I got a chocolate cake this weekend for the party and I kept thinking about that damn hot sauce. It started really bothering me. Was it really that bad? I didn't really care about the Merit Badge, I just was, you know, like the proverbially Kittie...curious.I couldn't stand it anymore and gave into scroll peer pressure when I mentioned it Sunday night. Here is the photo "evidence" of my foray into the weird side. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** A little decaf to help wash it down. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** This is about 14 "glugs" of Tabasco. Yikes! My mouth was on fire, my nose ran copiously and my esophogus felt like I'd been drinking drain cleaner. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** All done! Yum. Not so bad, all in all. |
| I'm so excited. As a belated anniversary present, hubby got me a new digital camera! So I've been playing this week. I finally figured out how to hook the darn thing up to my comp, so here are some pics. No more waiting to finish a roll, no more finding the film and then waiting for Walmart to develop them! YEA! 'k First off, I have pics of Sofie, pics of the pet door I've been promising and I have some pics of hubby's cooker. I even have a side view pic of hubby! (He agreed to be in my blog!) I'm not very good at this, so I'm stealing from Queen Scarlett. Click this one and hit previous for the next. I put good descriptions in, they tell my blog today. We had a party this weekend for my work, that's why we were cooking the brisket. I didn't take any pics of the girls, 'cause I don't want them to know I blog. I'd just as soon not tell co-workers about it. Invalid Photo #1004740 |
| My hubby plays mid stakes poker and we watch the high stakes stuff on TV all the time. I get a kick out of watching it, but as I watch it I realize I'm more of a spectator for poker, I SUCK when it comes time to play the homegames with friends. It's for a variety of reasons, too. First of all, I simply am not dexterious minded enough to figure things like pot odds and hand odds on the fly. That kind of mental math is WAY out of my league. Second, I SUCK at bluffing. No, I mean it. I SUCK. I'm just too honest a person. Or I get excited and want to bluff at every other hand. I just can't get the feel for when to really bluff at the pot. Third, the other players are basically blanks to me. I have hell trying to read them. My poker face is crap, but everyone else's completely fools me. I have no patience to look for the tiny tells on people like tapping their teeth or rechecking their cards. That's nothing to me. It tells my hubby everything. It kills him to play with me, because I am the dork at the table doing the happy dance in my seat when I get dealt a good hand. He asks how in the heck is he gonna prep for Vegas if he's playing against Polly Purehearts like me who don't know basic table manners. (like not to dance in your chair or show your cards )What I really like are Penny Slots. Here in Montana, gambling is legal all across the state and there is no sales tax. So, what you get are slots everywhere. There are slots in every restaurant in town, in every gas station, and there is a little mini-casino on every corner. But, all they have are Poker slots. Every shape, form, game of poker and keno, they have. But, nowhere do they have the standard three cherries slots. For those, you gotta go to one of the big gambling towns like Vegas or Atlantic City. (Although I have seen them in some of the gambling cities in Colorado: Central City, Cripple Creek, Blackhawk.) I love the standard slots. And I love the Penny Slots the best. You can play ALL DAY on about $20 on the penny slots and if you have the right mind frame, you can have a BALL doing it. If you've never played them, Penny Slots are like mini-video games that take your money 5-25 cents at a time. (Oh, you can up them to as much as $5 or $10 bucks, but anybody doing that should just go play the bigger denomination machines.) They are all masterfully crafted and most of them tell a little story while they take your money. It's the tiny little breath of anticipation before each pull of the arm that sucks me in. That little "maybe I'll win this time!" Now a BIG win on these things is maybe $2-10 bucks, so we aren't talking life changing amounts of money. But, it's the thrill of pure chance that hooks me. It's like waking up each morning. What a rush! I didn't die last night! Woot!! And then through the day, every new turn or twist of your day is filled with delight and surprise. Sometimes you pull the three lemons and lose, but sometimes you win that beautiful sunset, that special time with your child, that bonus call from your spouse just to say "I love you," that "Atta girl" back pat at work. You never know what the pot might be. A lot of pulls, life just takes your pennies, but sometimes, you get that tiny payout. And you usually get that little rush with each pull. Yeah, you can keep High Stakes Poker with your one big winner and the rest losers. I'll play Penny Slots any day. Where everyone can be a winner. |
| Today I got a nice taste of summer. I love sno cones. I can't help it. I have trouble passing the little sno cone stand up when I see it. Today was no exception. I got my favorite: Passion fruit and strawberry. It looks like a sunset. Eating a sno cone just takes me back to my childhood. I remember riding my bike across town and plopping down a sweaty dollar bill on the sticky counter in exchange for a little paper cone wrapped around an ice cold slice of heaven. Back then they didn't have all the fancy flavors like passion fruit, they just had the basics. Strawberry, cherry, lime, for the adventurous souls, blue raspberry, and my personal favorite, grape. I remember a little picnic table you could sit at and enjoy your cone. Under the trees, in the relative cool (it was only about 98 degrees there versus the 110 in the sun) you could hang out with any friends who happened to be there, too, and possibly make plans to hit the swimming pool later.Ahhhh. The ease and joy of childhood. And today, eating that sno cone under a tree at a little sticky picnic table brought it all back. I may love fall, but I do love some of summer's little rites. |
| When my Mamaw was here, she took the time to teach me how to make her famous buttermilk biscuits. Yum. That's all I have to describe them. They aren't flaky, or buttery, or any of that. They are ugly as sin, cause you don't roll em and cut em. It's one of those back home taste sensations you really can't explain to another person. You put enough oil in the pan when you cook them that the bottom almost fries instead of baking. Last night I made some for the family. It was my first solo outing. Meh. They were ok. The problem is, when my Mamaw makes them, she just opens the cupboards and starts tossing ingredients in the bowl. A little of this, a smidge of that, a tiny palm full of salt and viola, you got yummy biscuits. The only reason we have a recipe for the recipe challenged like myself to follow is because my brother made his wife stand beside Mamaw one day and measure every thing that went into the bowl as she was making them. He didn't want the recipe to die with my Mamaw. He was gonna also film her making them, but she wanted no part of that. He just knew she was gonna do something special his poor wife would never be able to duplicate without hours of intensive slow speed study. So I helped Mamaw make the biscuits and I made my own following the recipe my brother and his wife liberated from her. I think I may have to make adjustments for my altitude - about 3500 ft. Less buttermilk and oil and more flour. I live just high enough to screw up bread recipes. My family says they tasted the same even though they were a little lumpy and flat. I guess that's what matters. I know I made them with and that's really the most important ingredient.--------- That was all I was gonna blog about today, but then I got home and had a REALLY jacked up evening and thought I'd share. Have y'all ever had one of those nights (days - whatever) when you think you are at the top of your game and you just, you know...aren't? I'm usually a really great multi-tasker. I can do dang near anything and talk on the phone at the same time. I can cook, clean, feed the dog, wash dishes, you name it, I can do it and talk on the phone. NOT tonight. I was talking to another WDCer and making dinner. We were having burgers out on the grill...no big, right? I started the gas grill with no problems, got the burgers on with no problems. monilad was in the kitchen doing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen. She had fed Sofie and Bear (in the kitchen) and Hubby was in the dining room (which adjoins the kitchen) playing poker online. I was back in the house making beans and mac and cheese as side dishes. We were one big happy family, hanging out together. Our kitchen window looks out over our backyard, right over where the grill is. monilad looked up from the dishes and said, "Uh, Mom!" I look out and there are flames coming out the cooker top! I run out to the backyard still on the phone and open the lid. Wrong move. I said, "Oh shit, I gotta go, my cooker's on fire!" and dropped my phone in the nearby swing. I turned the grill off and the flames shot higher somehow. I'm not talking little flames, either. These were four foot flames coming out of my grill!!! The damn thing was ON FIRE!! I let out a little YIP and ran over and got the hose, quickly unscrewed the sprinkler and ran to turn it on. When I ran back the flames had spread and now the open lid was burning, too. Yikes!!! I sprayed everything down and this yucky black stuff slid off the sides and down out the bottom to plop onto the sidewalk. It was chunks of grease and burned food from yesteryear that had all flamed up.  I'm not much of a grill cleaner. I usually just use the wire brush where I'm gonna put the new food each time. On the whole, though? I don't recommend this particular method of grill cleaning. The flame up and water down method, while it works, is a little hard on the nerves. So...while I'm out dousing our entree - which had shriveled the size and consistency of hockey pucks - I hear the smoke detectors in the house start going off. I run back in to shut the windows, cause I'm thinking the grill fire set them off. But, no. monilad is in the kitchen putting out a tiny little flare up where the mac and cheese water had boiled over on the stove. Poor hubby never skipped a beat. He said, "So, do we have a plan B for dinner?" I just looked at him a little wild eyed and said, "I'll get back to you." We found some leftovers and stumbled through. And like I said...Hubby never missed a beat. He just sat through it all. Winning. I think at last count he was up $100. I'm taking him to Vegas. If all that can't ruffle his feathers, he can take anything they can throw at him! He's ready for the World Poker Tour. |
| My sister Texun4ever-cabin fever got a blog! Go check her out and welcome her, please. She's so new and excited. She also has been lurking in all of your blogs for a while. |
| Well, since Nada was mentioning hair, I thought I'd finally get around to some of those pics I've been promising. Especially since partyof5dj and gypsy4evermore were so lame at their photo op. If you click the previous you can go to 5 Yellowstone pics. I'll finish putting more in soon. Remember...technodork. It takes me a long time to put these darn things up! Invalid Photo #1004378 Almost forgot...I've seen this in 4 blogs today and it just struck me as cool...so I'm perpetuating it. This originates from rose_shadow. These are her instructions: 1. Grab the nearest book. 2. Open the book to page 123. 3. Find the fifth sentence. 4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions. 5. Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest. 6. Tag three people Here's mine. "As the Art of War remarks, 'When someone excels in attacking, the enemy does not know where to mount his defense.' More concretely: The location where we will engage the enemy must not become known to them. If it is not known, then positions that they must prepare to defend will be numerous." From The Art of War by Sun-tsu---honestly, it was the closest thing I picked up. |
| We went and got Sofie today. For those of you new to my blog, my daughter monilad got a new dachshund puppy. Her name is Sofie and she is 7 weeks old. She is SOOOOO tiny. I got lots of pics of her today. As soon as I finish the film and get it developed, I'll post it here. (Sorry, I'm not very good at that kind of thing...I'll try to be good.) Hubby and I drove an hour and 1/2 to meet the breeder to pick her up as a surprise for monilad who was spending the weekend with a friend so hubby and I could have a date weekend for our anniversary. We went out to dinner and went and saw Pirates. I was not as impressed with it as the hype led me to believe I would be. Dinner was great, though. We took pics. We even had the waitress take a pic of us together so that I can post it in my blog. I almost have hubby convinced y'all aren't going to stalk us. Bear isn't sure what to think of Sofie. Sofie keeps lunging at her and licking her face. Chewie just runs immediately. She wants nothing to do with her. Bear follows Sofie around and watches her really anxiously like Bear isn't sure what's happening. Bear wants to do something with her, but at the same time, she's terrified when Sofie lunges at her. Bear jumps straight up and runs away. Sofie just toddles after her. Bear could chomp her up in two small bites! I'll try to finish the pics soon. |
| Today I was counting my blessings and I realized I have so many. As I was reading over my last entry I truly began to understand how far I really have come in life. I never thought I'd live to see twenty one. I partied hard, drank like a fish and ran around with any man who would say nice things to me. The summer after I turned twenty one, I got pregnant by a man who beat me. A man who once raped me in front of five of his laughing friends. When I told him I was pregnant he dumped me. He told me he wasn't ready to be a father. I could raise the baby alone. I guess that was the day I grew up. I met another man, one I thought was my knight in shiny armor. He turned out just to be some jerk in tin foil. He was the asshole I divorced when monilad was two. He beat me also. He did drugs and was an alcoholic. Turns out I was, too. One week before I went out with Hubby, I got sober. I just quit, cold turkey. July 20th was my eleven year anniversary for sobriety. In February, Hubby will have been sober twelve years. He won by five months. When monilad was five, we finally got all the paperwork sorted out and Hubby formally adopted her. She tells people she was lucky...she got to pick her daddy out. Being the bipolar mother of a bipolar daughter isn't always easy, but days like today really make it worthwhile. Today, she and I butted heads about her iPod. She wanted to take it to a sleepover, I said no, she's not reponsible enough yet. When I dropped her off she hugged me and said, "I'm still REALLY mad at you about my iPod, but I love you and I hope you have a fun weekend." And then she kissed me on the cheek. Those are the cool parenting moments.I also live in a really great split-level Leave it to Beaver type house. Before I was homeless, my ex and monilad and I lived in a 5'X 11' travel trailer with no running water. I feel like a Princess most days here in my own Taj Mahal. Yesterday, for my anniversary, Hubby got me a GIANT bouquet of flowers with a card he had written for it. The card read: Thank you for supporting me, caring for me, cheering me, standing beside me, and loving me. 10 years ago today I said "I do," for the rest of my life I'll say "I will." I love you. I cried when I read it. Some people go inside themselves to find their happy places. I live in mine. |
| I married the most incredible man alive. Sorry, guys, it's true. We married exactly one year to the day after our first date. I thank my lucky stars I found such a loving, patient, understanding man. There is surely a sainthood awaiting him. Any man who can live with TWO bipolars deserves a special heavenly reward. That's not to say we don't have our ups and downs, because we do, but since I've met him, I've come a long way, baby. When we went out on our first date eleven years ago, I asked him out on the recommendation of a mutual friend whom I worked with and Hubby graduated high school with. Our first date was nothing spectacular on the outside; a quick run through McDonald's drive through and then we watched Apollo 13. Afterward we went for a walk around the lake and talked in the moonlight. It was odd, even from the first we didn't have any secrets. Over dinner, we both tossed out all of the skeletons in our closets and said, "deal with it or go now." We both also said, "I'm just looking for someone to have some laughs with." He was coming out of a bad relationship and I was heading into a nasty divorce from an abusive, alcoholic drug user. Little did we know we'd fall passionately in love.On the morning before our first date, however, he discovered a secret I'd been keeping from everyone - coworkers, friends, even family. Very early that morning he was working (driving a gravel truck) and saw me packing up my blankets and things into the back seat of my car and pulling away from a local lake. He realized I was living in my car. I was homeless. My daughter was living in Texas with my parents for a while until I could get back on my feet. I had a job, but everyone thought I had somewhere to stay. I never lied to anyone, but I misled the hell out of them. There were places in town for campers and hikers to get cheap showers and do laundry and I was using them and letting everyone think I was staying with someone else. In reality, I was moving around every night sleeping in my car and waking up early to a little alarm clock so no one would find me. Hubby was the first to discover my secret. For our date, I had him pick me up at work, I was a cashier at a local Texaco station where he and I had met. I told him it was for convenience and safety that I was having him pick me up there. He realized that morning it was because I didn't want anyone to know I had nowhere else. That night when I asked him to drop me off at the store again, he politely refused. Scared the crap out of me! I thought he was a nice guy and here he was kidnapping me! He gently told me he knew my secret and he wasn't letting me live in my car anymore. I could come home with him.NOPE. No thank you. I don't think so, buddy. Well, it turned out, he still lived at home with his parents and his little sister. He assured me they had a spare room and I was welcome to stay there until I found a place of my own, he would help me. By now, I'm so touched this guy is trying to help me, I said sure. So, I went home with him. I met my future in-laws over breakfast where my hubby told them I would be staying for a while. At the time, I thought he must bring home wounded little birds all the time, from their calm acceptance of it all. NOT. Turns out I was the first girl he'd EVER let them meet, much less brought home to stay. I stayed three weeks and he did help me get a place of my own. At Christmas he gave me a promise ring and in March we got engaged. The following August, on our anniversary, we married.We've had a lot of ups and downs since then, but I always think back and compare. And...I've come a long way, baby. |
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