micki

Allergies: mold and dust

2009-02-27T06:27:00.000-08:00

Did I ever tell ya'll about Steven's zone ten allergy test? He's allergic to mold, dust and cat dander. It never occurred to me to dust my damn car. I never drive it, hubby drives it to work. His cough got nasty and we saw a doc yesterday. He coughed the whole way there. Those nice bone deep chest coughs. UGH, it was a 55 minute trip. Ear infection because he was more vulnerable to upper respiratory infections. Hubby has never really believed my allergies, and I let him talk me into maybe steven doesn't have them. That, of course will never happen again. At the store picking up meds for the infection, I realized steven didn't cough at the doc's office. AT ALL. And proceeded to cough all the way to the store. Picked up the swiffer dry floor cloths. Dust and dirt sticks to them and doesn't kick as much into the air. He didn't cough near as much on the way home. Boy did I feel stupid, didn't think to dust the car. Get home and he coughs all to hell in his room, but not down stairs. It occurred to me around 7pm that maybe, as they've slept on the floor and wet the bed, I need to pull up the carpet in their room. This morning shows small spots of mold on the 2x12s of the floor. Today I'll be pulling it all up and out. We don't have proper tools, so I'll be using a flat crowbar to get all the damn staples and the tack strips off the floor. It's a good thing I know how to do all that properly. And I have my steel toed boots. Stepping on tacks accidentally won't get through the soles. I'll be doing 'remodeling' after my coffee kicks in this morning. Apparently, I'll be disinfecting the boots for the air vents, too. I'm gonna need more bleach. UGH! If anyone can think of other strange places, let me know.
I wonder if this should have occurred to me before, if it really was stupid not to think of it. Opinions?
Construction is fun! I'll be sealing the 2x12s before any flooring gets put down. I wonder if a deck sealant would be sufficient.

See ya'll later

School

2009-01-24T08:37:00.000-08:00

Now that Steven is in school and spring is coming up, I'm due to go back to work. I didn't last summer, as I would have been paying more in gas and a babysitter than I could have earned. Restaraunt and grocery work is minimum wage or not much more. I will be going back to work soon, regardless. There isn't anything really open right now, unless I want to sell insurance and be a manager. And...I suck at selling things. Realistically, I'll probably find a place to cook in. As I would rather not be around people. The customer is always right has to be the most irritating thing about the front end. I'd rather bus tables. Which I may do, but here they usually hire high school kids for that. As they are a dime a dozen, here employers won't like that I haven't worked since summer of 2000. Soooo...I'm looking into school. Online courses (read degrees) are the way to go for me, as I detest a classroom environment. I went through a website that let you choose a course from an online university and now the schools are calling me. As with everything on the internet, I thought I'd get the information on them in my inbox. Apparently this is not so. Only one so far has given me a price per credit hour. It's the shortest for an associates in web design, and would cost $66,960 not including books/technology. those average apparently $80.

One thing that concerned me was a University that told me one of the reasons to go to their school was.....
All the tests were open book. Umm, yeah. When I was in school, we called that cheating. He couldn't answer either, my question of how the professors would know they actually learned what was being taught. He said their school wasn't what I was looking for, and he was right. So, I asked the next school about it and they grade and give an associates degree on a projects basis. I'll buy that one. The one today said theirs were 'open book' but they are timed, so that if you don't know the information inherently, you'll fail. The lady did address my concern for that and did explain. I have to wonder though, why would a school give an open book test, mind you the one I had asked first had an actual building people go into to learn at also. He did say it was common in their university. Are they actually learning there? If most of the students have to have their tests open book, are the teachers even teaching? Maybe it's just me.

I would rather work doing something I like. I like computers and graphics. If I can afford it, this will be the way to go for me. If I can't, I'll probably cook somewhere and try to save money. Ha, that's a joke. We can't save money for the life of us. If it's there, we spend it on something we want or need. We do keep $200 in our checking account most times though. That's the reason we will never have a credit card. It's just too tempting. I never had a problem getting a job before, but now that I haven't been working, it'll be so much harder. I hope I can get something I'll like. I'd wash dishes if it paid enough. I just don't want to be working to pay a babysitter. As work is mostly summer here, that narrows the field as I will have to find someone to trust my kids with. I think I'd like to learn though, My CSS isn't very good, and I don't understand the Javascript and such. I could use a teacher to answer my questions. I've only learned very basic Photoshop skills. I use Ulead for my graphics. I would like to learn to do more. Getting paid for it would be a plus too. However, with the money we make, unless we were to do the student loan thing, which I don't wish to do, I don't think school is in my immediate future. I will hope, but not expect.

Maybe you guys can buy my dragon designs I have over at Cafe Press, and support my education. {wink, wink}. Too bad I can't sell my necklaces there. I don't have much on there, but I'll probably draw a new dragon soon. I want to make a purple one I think. A pretty jewel tone, like the emerald one.

Apparently it's been so long with html, I had to readjust the anchor tag twice. He he. I think I'll change the colors on this page again and maybe play with a new header. I haven't really played with Ulead in a long time. I think I will.
See ya'll later.
Micki

WeekDAY Randomness

2008-12-02T16:16:00.000-08:00

So...I was looking at my sidebar and noticed my archives showed very sporadic posting in the last two years. As my family has been posting news and pics in myspace, I haven't really had much posting here. I'm not sure why.
Steven started Kindergarten this year. Apparently, he is very much my son. I don't like his teacher...at all. Of course I am polite, as she is his teacher, but you know... She didn't believe me that he'd have a bit of trouble letting her tell him what to do and when to do it. This is just his personality, not that that excuses the behavior. I think we have it settled now, but it took her a few tries to realize I needed specific examples as to his behavior before I would A) believe he was doing anything wrong (she was very vague and it didn't sound like anything at all) and B) Speak to him about it. Steven is easy to get around if you know how to relate it to him. He now understands that giggling at his teacher 'hurts her feelings'. Now, the teacher said disrespectful, but as I don't think I've ever said it, it isn't likely he'd even understand the word. Just 2 weeks ago he decided he didn't have to do his 'work' and was playing instead. Until the threat of centers being taken away. Got a phone call for that one. I told her not to threaten and just take it. 'Threatening' to him means you don't mean it. Most kids the actual taking away isn't necessary, just the threat. He also has my need to know 'why'. If he doesn't understand the why of it, he doesn't care about it. I found his trigger though. Taking away his favorite thing, and the next, etc. until good behavior gives it back. After the third thing, he decided to behave. He's decided mostly to write with his right hand, but uses both for everything else. He had a blister from the jungle gym on his left, and so is now using his pencil, not crayons, with his right. I'm not sure his teacher realizes he is learning from her as he does not 'perform on command'. His report card said he didn't know half his alphabet. As he's known it since he was 3, I know this isn't true. We'll figure it out. We also found out that he is allergic to penicillin, cats, dust and mold. I thought he may have gotten chicken pox even after his shots, but it was an allergic reaction to the amoxycillin for his strep throat he brought home. He's not allowed to play with the cat anymore, he was only sad for a while though. He'll be 6 on the 15th.
Mikel is in 2nd grade and has a special education plan for his reading. It seems to be working, but he isn't where I know he's supposed to be. Last year he was supposed to end in I level. He ended in D. As was explained to me, it goes in levels A through whatever, A being the lowest. I cannot help there at all. He gets frustrated, then we get frustrated, then there's crying. I don't try to help anymore, as I can tell I do not help and maybe hinder that. They tested him last year and he tested special education level for basic reading. So we are working on it. I hate the math he brings home. They use algebra words for 2nd grade math. UGH! So, the instructions confuse me. Apparently this is right up his and his father's alley for their unique form of straightforward logic. I can help him with his spelling though. It never really occurred to me that reading and spelling were two very different things. Now I know. He and Steven both had strep throat again a while back. They have a shot for that now, and I didn't want to hassle with the medicine again. They got shots. Steven cried and was upset until after it was done. He's never cried for a shot before, it could be because of Mikel's behavior though. Mikel was screaming like they were killing him. All the while screaming, we had to pry him off the chair his father was sitting in and hold him down as he was wiggling a lot. I cried. A lot. I hate it when Mikel gets shots. I know it didn't actually hurt him, as after he calmed down he admitted it didn't really hurt. The secretary ladies were concerned and asked if I was okay. You'd think that'd never happened before.
I have lots of random thoughts, they just won't come out without sounding hypocritical and I hate that. There is one thing I've seen lately that scares me and creeps me out. Have you seen any of the shopping networks? They are sooo proud of their new 'presidential' (and I term that loosely) coins. Now, normally and ACTUAL president has to do something to EARN his face on the coin. We all know why Washington is on there, how about Lincoln? Yet we have a man that is not yet president that people are proud to deface their money with. Yes, it is defacing. Our money is supposed to be the way it is minted. Period, end of story. I ask, just what did he do to earn his face OVER all these presidents that did something to earn their place on their coin? I have said this before and I'll say it again... Just like being a woman does not qualify you for president, neither does the color of your skin. As near as I can tell, that's the only reason anyone has given for this. He had no control over who his parents were, why does it merit a coin at all? Not in office yet. Nevermind my actual opinion on whether or not he should ever be in office, the point is...right now, he is not. Therefore he has done nothing as a president to earn it. I have never seen what is so great about this guy to call him and treat him like a messiah. That scares me. All or almost all the things I have heard promised is IMPOSSIBLE to accomplish as president. The president does not MAKE laws. He signs them or vetos them and they go back to congress. Yet many people seem to think he can. Is there a magic wand somewhere? If there is, I want one too dammit! Doesn't it frighten anyone, the promise to make an all voluntary militia? Personally, I thought our military was voluntary. No one will convince me differently. They all make that choice. Sure some do because there isn't a better one, but it is still a choice. Why is it ok for him to be so demeaning toward our military? The president is commander in chief. Sure he hasn't said lately, that I know of, that they are bad people, but to bypass them overseas to talk to a bunch of foreign people in a foreign land and call it...See I have diplomatic-ish ties. The thing that scares me most is he will be in charge of the federal budget. If you cannot manage $5million, $50million(whichever), why did we vote him in a place where for four years he will be in charge over a few TRILLION? Like I said before, the color of your skin does not a president make. Sure, I believe a black man can do as good enough job as a white man, as a red man, as a whatever man can. There real question is, can this one? This man scares me mainly because no one seems to like to hold him accountable for his past, or present....Will they for our future? That is scary. Especially as we all should know by now that the UN is not the answer to anything, let alone, EVERYTHING! Another thing, as a senator there was a chance to make laws and he didn't do it then, why would anyone believe he'll do it in january where he no longer has that power?!
Strange days. Gas is less than $2 per gallon. Guess bush really wasn't the sole reason gas prices were up or down. Who would've thunk it?
Food for thought ppl!

Dragons, drawing, and UGH!

2008-11-21T12:42:00.000-08:00

Sooo, a while back I decided to look up drawing tutorials. I like dragons, I wanted to draw one of my own. I also found that you can put your drawings on stuff and people might buy it. How intriguing. So I did that with my first dragon. He was fire. See:

I think he's pretty. I used chalk pastels to color him in. It was fun finger painting with them, but they smudged more than I would like. Now I'm trying another one. It's not coming along as I'd like, but I'll have it later today. I got a box of 100+ crayons, so I might do him in pretty greens. I was thinking Emerald-ish. Once I get enough practice with the head and neck I might do the entire body, but I've found the filling in of muscles on legs and arms don't like to cooperate. Anything circle-ish seems to be beyond me. UGH! I tried to do a unicorn and it looked like a pig. LMAO! I wanna draw faeries with my dragons, but I don't do faces well.
Wish me luck!
Micki

Update: He's pretty, but my crayons disappointed me this time. I miss my metallic crayolas. That small set actually had emerald as a jewel color. Believe it or not the gray-black color was called outer space. LMAO. If my scanner was better, you'd see that it's a very dark blue. I think next time I'll do my usual outline with crayon, color with color pencils. I wanted to try out my new crayons. As is obvious, my curves don't always curve. (if anyone cares, the scribble to the side is supposed to be there, I always sign my finished drawings)

Photoshop is great. I made it transparent first to eliminate the smudges from just coloring with crayons. Amazingly enough, I managed to almost get the emerald jewel tone with color adjustment and brightness/contrast. I did it twice because you can only do the green to +100. I think I like him!

Oh My God! I was clicking my little sidebar blog links, to visit my friends. (That's why I keep them there.) When I clicked on my sister's, sweetpea, it was a site with links to CHILD PORN. Apparently she shut hers down and now someone is using the address. I am soooooo offended. I had a link to a site like that!? I apologize to anyone who ended up there by accident. I don't know whether to be sick or pissed off.
She has a site on myspace, so I haven't visited her little blog I made graphics for in a long time. I hate myspace, but my family has sites on it. It's where I've been getting all the baby news and pics from. Ah, well. I'm still gonna tell her though. I wonder what she'll say.

Sean

2008-05-28T20:35:00.000-07:00

Sean Walker was born on April 30, 2008. He was 7lb. 15oz. and 20in. long. He was born early, believe it or not. Oldest sister's husband is a very large man. Head hits ceiling fans and all that. Sorry it took so long to post him. I swear I only got the pics last week. Then I forgot.

Have to meet with Mikel's school tomorrow about his trouble with reading. Hopefully we can find a way to work with him. He did have to re-learn to read when he started first grade. I'm fairly sure at this point that he is somewhat dyslexic. We'll see. The school system here is very good.

See ya!

Babies and Birthdays

2008-04-27T22:49:00.000-07:00

Since it's after midnight; it is my birthday today. Just realized if my oldest sister chooses to be induced today, she will have her second son born on my 31st birthday.
So Weird!
I didn't even realize that when I talked to her last week.

Apparently Jadyn is out of the NICU and littlest sister is home now.

He was born Apr 12; 4lbs some odd oz. Still a little fuzzy on details as apparently her husband was still a bit dazed when he called with info. He was early and they did the steroid shot for his lungs. Personally, I think he just got our small genes out of the mix.

I'll be expecting a phone call later today about the new one. She seemed pretty eager to get her labor induced, even at 38 weeks. Of course her first son wasn't exactly small. Their father is a large man. Ducks for ceiling fans and all that. I think it was Tuesday when she said she was dilated to 2 and having minor contractions. Just her cervix wasn't in the right place yet. I don't really understand it. Wouldn't surprise me if this one was born 8+lbs. even 2 weeks short of 40.

Babies are fun!

Bitch, Abandonment, Etc.

2008-04-25T18:26:00.000-07:00

Apparently my Grandfather on my mother's side died on Sunday night. Little sister, sweetpea, calls me Monday morning. A bit hysterical, I might add. Took a few minutes to even understand the words. Another 20 or so minutes to calm her down. Apparently she was told by my mother that we weren't allowed to go to the funeral. In fact, I STILL do not know how he died. Found out the Funeral home they used after searching the city I know they live in and luckily the only one in the area that updated their Obits was the right one. Unfortunately I found out to late to do any good. Left my name and number and asked the secretary lady to give it to my Grandmother or one of my Uncles. I still haven't heard from anyone. As they all changed their numbers that I did have or are still unlisted, I can't contact anyone. My only brother (different father) did manage to tell me that the funeral was Wednesday, (already knew) and apparently he was forbidden to tell us anything. He he, she's such a stupid bitch. I hate her. My grandfather would be very upset to know we weren't allowed and weren't there. My theory is one of two things. Either the bitch lied (again; nothing unusual there) and told her family that we didn't want to be there or some such nonsense, or the bitch lied and just told little sister something she shouldn't have. I am not surprised she would do either as we were abandoned by her long ago; when I was about 10 or 11. For whatever reason, my sisters still held hope she would never do such a thing, even though that's been her habit. {shakes head} Abandoned, yet again. Haven't heard from littlest yet, as she is with her new son in NICU in CO. She's never been the most stable person and little sister did tell her she wasn't allowed. I wish she hadn't done that, it wasn't necessary as she'd never have been able to go anyway. Oldest was pretty pissed. I did explain to both that other than our mother, her family would never do such a thing. BUT, as I have heard from no one, I think I may have lied to them. As I have never really failed before, when I am supposed to fix things, I am extremely pissed. That stupid bitch is the only person to have gotten away with harming my family. I beat the shit out of several others for doing lesser things. Last time I saw her she had younger children and I didn't want to traumatize them. That and she considered atleast one of them her child because of who his father was. Of course, she's still lucky I couldn't get family services to her apartment fast enough or she would have lost those 2. I mean, starving your children; bottom level covered in dry dog shit; daughter not allowed a bath to be clean; filthy clothes; son had infection on his toe; not allowed to use a hairbrush because it was in the downstairs bathroom. Stupid bitch is lucky to be alive. Even if they were the only children she actually pretended to care about, they are still my family. As you can see, I failed there but there wasn't much I could do. I do believe the full story is told in the archive somewhere.

What to do?

UGH!

2007-04-28T05:27:00.000-07:00

I'm 30 today.

Does that make me old?

Ahhh, the most important questions in life. ;)

Headaches

2007-01-22T09:33:00.000-08:00

Just as I thought I finally had everything together and settled for the Reunion in June-July, I already have a couple of complaints. After giving almost 3years to everyone involved to help plan, make suggestions, etc! 3 fucking years!

I have been collecting pictures and still don't have all of the family yet. I suggested on our website that if I ever get the collection I asked for, I would put the pics on a slideshow onto a dvd and sell it for $5. Of course, I was told that was unreasonable, even if it takes hours to get the damn things scanned, took me from 1pm to 10pm yesterday to scan in and edit 53 pictures, my time is not nearly that valuable especially as the cds themselves cost pennies. The time and headache alone are worth more than that. Especially as it is like pulling teeth to get the original photos themselves, as evidenced by the fact I still haven't gotten what I asked for. Not only that, when you buy the damn cds in bulk you get a few duds. I'm only gonna charge money for the in hopes of using it to reserve a better place next time, especially as some are hoping to do it out of town, without directly asking for money. I mean, come on, I asked for money last time, sort of and barely got $300.

Of course that wasn't the main complaint, no the main one was that I was gonna ask for $20 to $30 per person for the food we will be bbq'ing. As in, the meat only. I haven't calculated the actual cost yet, but that's for all 5 meals. Come on, at $20 per, that's $5 at each meal, the cost of one at a fast food restaurant. I was gonna overlook the fact that it would cost me, personally, more than that, but I think I'm gonna be pissy over that. It was suggested that She could organize a meal for work, for 50 co-workers by buying in bulk 'the right way'. I think that she forgets that she lives in the city, where things like that are available not to mention cheaper, and when you do things for work, companies allow you to buy in bulk. So I, oh so politely, suggested if she could do better then to help me do so. And, I do mean it. None of us work in restaraunts anymore, so I don't think I'll be able to buy bulk that way this time. We'll see if she's offended by the suggestion that she help me save money, or thinks I was being a smartass. I am now, but wasn't in the reply e-mail. I mean come on, if it's possible, I'm all for it. I'm just offended that she seems pissed that I would ask for more money than was necessary. When you go on vacation and spend, say a family of 4, $80 on 5 full meals, you know you got off cheap. Just pisses me off. She could have just suggested what I could do to reduce the price instead of just assuming I was taking everyone to the cleaners. I could have suggested my first thought, which was even if you weren't camping you bring your own damn food to bbq with. I was only trying to make it easier. Jeesh!

There...ranting is done. I'm not being unreasonable, am I?

New Baby!

2007-01-18T11:02:00.000-08:00

Dustyn Maxwell was born to littlest sister and hubby on Jan 5. I was told the numbers, but couldn't get them written down fast enough. I love the internet! If it weren't for that, we wouldn't have pics for a very long time! Seeing as how they're in NE.

Freaked Out

2006-08-22T05:05:00.000-07:00

I just put my firstborn on the bus for his first day at Kindergarten. I was fine. Got downstairs and now I'm freaking out just a little. The weird nerve tingly thing. But...I'm not actually crying, that's good right?

I'll tell ya all about his first day, if it doesn't make me cry that he didn't miss me. I know he won't. UGH!

Camping

2006-07-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

Somebody was bitching that I wasn't posting (not naming names!). I have a really good excuse this time. I swear!

Last Friday, we went camping. Supposed to be the whole weekend. Some guy, has a nice cabin with a huge yard down near Fiery Fork. Now, I know only a few will know where that is. So, sue me ok! Well, yard isn't the right word, field is. There were cows when we went down the lake road, hadn't seen them in forever. Didn't know anyone in our area had some. Here's the interesting thing, not the camping, but the freakin' field. They was brush hogging it when we got there. Stupid me, I forgot some things. I took my 24 hour sinus pill around 3pm, long enough for it to kick in before we left. Funny thing that, started wearing off after it got dark, say 9 or so. I could feel my sinuses starting to kick. Been having trouble sleeping too, so I was bitchy and exhausted by the time I went to bed. We won't talk about hubby getting shitfaced and scaring the hell out of me dunking himself in the water by himself with no one to keep an eye on him, making sure he didn't drown. Morning comes and I could feel the tingling up my spine and behind my eyes. Poor thing was still buzzing when I woke his ass up, but I didn't care. I knew what was coming. I had 2 hours or less before my sinuses whacked me, HARD. I thought I was just gonna be sneezing my ass off, unable to see that kind of thing. So, he makes me wait, I beg, that sort of thing. I needed to go home and be indoors and now. Walked over to the grill where breakfast was to be cooked. Well, staggered like a drunk would be more appropriate, felt like anyway. Here I was, no where near the 24 hours being up for more sinus medication. Damn shit worked for 8 hours or less. After a while I was sitting on the steps, oh so careful like. I knew I was balanced real careful-like, but it sure as hell didn't feel that way. I was seeing everything tilted at a 45° angle. I knew I was fucked. Eventually hubby got his breakfast and I could take no more. I says, take me home now! See the thing is the field we were at and the one next to it were both 'mowed' that previous day. Oops, forgot to take that shit into account. He says, well start making your way to the truck. I says, I don't think I can. He walks off to get my stuff. I stand up, wobble, try to take a step, promptly fall over, just managing to catch myself with a hand. Time stops, everyone stares. How embarassing. That's why I was begging to be taken home before my balance was lost. I tried again, stumble more, give up, sit down, cry. I haven't ever been that bad since I was 11 or 12. I couldn't walk, couldn't really stand. See, I was asked a couple questions earlier and answered about my sinuses and got skeptical looks. No one seems to believe how bad my sinuses kick me until they witness it. I hate that. I got the shocked, what the hell is wrong with you looks. Simple answer, I got no balance, I lost it. Even hubby didn't believe it'd happen, of course he's never seen me that bad, cuz I usually retreat indoors when I feel that shit coming on. However, next time I tell him something like that, I think he just might believe me.

I took some of my daytime stuff that works still, cuz I don't take it often enough to be immune to it yet. I was groggy anyway, so I thought nothing of it. However, yesterday reminded me. See, after last saturday, I decided not to go outside even to check the mail. Hell that weekend episode still had my balance buzzing last wednesday. Problems with our car, I go outside. Boy was that stupid. No more than 10 minutes out of doors and BAM! So, I take my daytime shit. See I forgot one of the most important thing of taking any sinus medication. Daytime shit knocks me out. An hour later that medicine kicks in and I'm in bed passed out. Slept for 2 hours, and I had a good nights sleep the night before. I had to drink coffee to counteract the sleepy shit still running in my system. That didn't work well, and about 6 hours later that speeder shit they put in the daytime stuff wore off. I need to get some night time sinus stuff to take during the day. That night stuff, for me, is great for speedy gonzalez type of shit. Makes me hyper and shake a bit. I don't think I'll have too much trouble sleeping at night if I remember to take my daytime sinus medication. Knock me right out. Atleast I think I've found a cure for my insomnia lately, I think. Now I have to search for a new medication, just so I can go outside again. The daytime stuff may still work, but it does me no good if I'm sleeping. Maybe I'll try nyquil again, last time I tried it, I felt like I was on speed or something. I've never taken speed, but I've seen how it works for other people. I just don't like being that zippy. I'm the only person I know with problems like that.

We took pictures when we were camping, when I feel like it, I'll pull them off the camera. If I like them, I might post some.
Later! Oh and happy b-day to trash, I forgot. That's why the present was early. Appearances and all! :)

Good E-mail Joke

2006-06-30T07:34:00.000-07:00

A biker was riding along a California beach when suddenly the sky clouded above his head and, in a booming voice, the Lord said, "Because you have tried your best to be faithful to me in all ways, I will grant you one wish."

The biker pulled over and said, "Build a bridge to Hawaii so I can ride over anytime I want."

The Lord said, "Your request is materialistic. Think of the enormous challenges for that kind of undertaking. The supports required to reach the bottom of the Pacific! The concrete and steel it would take! It will nearly exhaust several natural resources. I can do it, but it is hard for me to justify your desire for worldly things. Take a little more time and think of something that would honor and glorify me."

The biker thought about it for a long time. Finally he said, "Lord, I wish that I could understand my wife. I want to know how she feels inside, what she's thinking when she gives me the silent treatment, why she cries, what she means when she says nothings wrong, and how I can make a woman truly happy."

The Lord replied, "You want two lanes or four on that bridge?

HAHAHA!!!!

Junk/Chain E-mails...Treasure Found

2006-05-27T13:15:00.000-07:00

I hate chain letters, don't you? This was sent to me by big sister. She doesn't normally send crap, and this little trinket was no exception. I thought it was cute. There was more prediction and whatnot, but that didn't interest me.

A girl asked a guy if he thought she was pretty,
He said...no.
She asked him if he would want to be with her forever...and he said no.
She then asked him if she were to leave would he cry, and once again he replied with a no.
She had heard enough. As she walked away, tears streaming down her face the boy grabbed her arm and said...
You're not pretty you're beautiful.
I don't want to be with you forever, I NEED to be with you forever.
And I wouldn't cry if you walked away...I'd die...

SO NOW I WILL SAY:
I like you because of who you are to me...A true friend.
And if I don't get this back I'll take the hint.

Well the last line was corny, but what the hell. Apparently it was for friendship week, whenever that was. I hadn't checked my e-mail in the last week or so.

See ya'll later, have a nice Memorial Day weekend. I'm cooking turkey, it'll be done in about another 2 hours.

Hmmm.......

2006-05-01T11:01:00.000-07:00

Still not much happening here. Found a new book series, it's great. There was a wedding, Steven was a ringbearer. I'll get pics eventually. I also decorated the cake for it. *cringes* That is something I'm not good at, but there wasn't any choice. Oh well, they didn't mind. Then there was Peyton's birthday. Since my father attends those parties, I don't go, but I have some pics of it anyway. Didn't do anything for my birthday, but that's the way I prefer it. This age is where most women claim they don't age past. 29, not much different than before. Next 2 months are free of holidays, except the 'official' ones on everyone's calendars. Took Mikel for his kindergarten screening. Apparently he doesn't 'perform' on command. :) Gotta register him soon. UGH!
Pictures:

I couldn't do much with the pics, as they weren't the originals. They are visible though. Mouse over the pics and you'll see who they are, I labeled them with the title command instead of trying to get the text to go properly with the pics, much easier that way. It was Peyton's first birthday. I'll probably post when I get the wedding pics. I'm still reading comments when they are there, just drop a line. See ya'll later.

images

2006-03-24T12:21:00.000-08:00

The small one is gravatar size, 42px by 60px, banner is 150px by 80px.
Tell me what you think :)

Playing

2006-03-21T11:20:00.000-08:00

Hmm...it seems se7en was right after all. Not that I doubted, but it took quite some time for me to go from this:

to this:

I wanted just the can, so I printed out the first pic, then traced it and got this:

I forget whether I used the Open office draw to put colored lines in, I think I did. Note that the size of this pic is 25% of what I actually worked with. I found that the draw program does not work like Corel draw as I thought it might, never having played with it before. Oh well. I still managed to get the lines in the scanned pencil tracing that didn't show.

I used Photoshop to trace/fill the colors in to get this:

This is also resized to 25%. I essentially traced it with the colors and filled in. Took a lot of expirimenting, but it worked. However photoshop wouldn't do exactly what I wanted so I messed with Ulead and managed to do some stuff. Then photoshopping again to do the pretty little effect on the can. (the first picture). Then I merged the 2 layers and am now expirimenting on what to actually write on the button, as I'm not really satisfied with the font nor the writing itself on the original button I made. You'll find the original over at Trash's on the sidebar.
I don't think I'll be making the can move this time, I'm gonna do something with the lettering. Which only my Ulead can do for me. Can't get the animator with photoshop to do what I want with the text. We'll see.

Weekend Randomness

2006-03-19T16:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we traveled to Branson, where we attended the Lynrd Skynrd concert. It was great. Some music just isn't very good unless it's played at the proper volume. See, normally my hearing is very acute and I cannot be in noisy places without coming out with an earache. For example: the Chiefs games. Something about music really loud doesn't bother me. My left ear did hurt half the night though, as the guy in the seat next to me had an ear piercing whistle he used next to my ear before the opening band even started playing. Needless to say, I switched seats with hubby as we had aisle seats. They played a song called 'red white and blue', which I don't think I've heard before. They said they recently played for the troops in Iraq. I remember hearing that the USO is having trouble getting any performers to play for the troops. Kinda shows who has moral character. I'll be finding and posting the lyrics for that at a later date. I got a nice t-shirt and a different one for Sweetpea, who watched my kids for me. I got her the 'girly' one as she would look nice in it. When killing time yesterday, we went to the Branson Mall, which is very small, and there was an 'indian' shop, you know what I mean. They had there, 4 very nice paintings on their wall. If I thought I could find it, I'd direct it to you online but I don't remember the artist's name. It was awesome. If I had that kind of money to spare... I also got some nice charms for necklaces. I'll have to snip them off the earrings, but you gotta do what ya gotta do.
When we got home, my new bra had come in the mail yesterday. Too bad we left early yesterday. It's really comfy and I've never had a bra that supported the weight but didn't pull the back up or dig into my shoulders. Any woman with C or larger knows what I mean. It's an IPEX wireless you can get at Victoria's Secret. If you have a catalog, you can get $10 off each one, that makes the cost on par with a decent walmart or target one. I tell ya, no digging into the ribs or shoulders is priceless!
Kids are running around, happy as you please, with their glow-sticks we got at the concert yesterday. Colds and all. Of course not much phases them, even when Steven had the flu on his first birthday, he was laughing and giggling between the throwing up episodes.

That's all for now. See ya'll later.

Lynrd Skynrd

2006-03-18T08:19:00.000-08:00

Today we will be attending the show in Branson, it's gonna be fun! Kids are going to Aunt Sweetpea's. Steven just said she's his favorite (insert real name here). We will be staying in a hotel room, no kids after the concert. Hmm...possibilities! I'll tell you about it, maybe. The show. I mixed 4 cds of my music the other day, well 5 but one is country. With the car having a 4cd changer, it'll be a fun trip. 2 of them are pure bon jovi, another one is ½ bon jovi and the rest is various metal/hard rock. Makes me wish I had the Metallica Black cd. I only have the tape, and I do believe I lost it again. I think that makes 3 or 4 of them.

See ya'll later.

Shots

2006-03-13T10:50:00.000-08:00

Took the boys to the doctor today. Mikel is 47.9 lbs and 46 inches (almost 4 feet). I was wondering if he was 50lb yet, it's hard to pick him up anymore. Skinny as a rail too. Kindergarten in the fall, so he had to have 3 shots for that, plus I went ahead and did the Hep A. It's not a requirement yet, but when I asked the nurse said it may be soon enough. Steven had his shot first and just looked at the nurse curiously the whole time, no noise and a smile. Mikel screamed for all 4. Steven is 32lb and 37.5 inches. For some reason Steven was scared of the blood pressure cuff. That's the first time anything has fazed that boy. He's 3 for anyone who doesn't know.

Bill is 38 today. We chose some ice cream at the store for him. I have to make a cake; no frosting. I also have to shampoo the hell out of the boys' carpet again. *shakes head* Eventually we'll figure out what punishment will work for them. One day...

See ya'll later.

Weekend Randomness

2006-03-10T20:14:00.000-08:00

I know, it's early yet, but I didn't really wanna leave the 'I'm depressed' post up. I really wasn't anyway. Prepare for lots of weird twists and turns as my fingers try to keep up with my brain ;)

Little Miss Anonymous, girl you gotta put a name in. I almost didn't know who you was. Good thing I know only one person who refers to Darryl. Just don't tell him cabbage is in there, once it's cooked you can't taste it anyway. I have 2 graphics programs and a very good photo editor. You will have to visit to have access as 2 are paid ones I can't transfer to ya. I think I did put the photo one on your hard drive though. I also have a scanner so we can resize and whatnot. Remind me to give you that website, there are many graduating years ppl there. What year are you anyways? Should probably tell Mouse too.

Speaking of reunions, I haven't done very much on the family one. Damn ppl won't tell me what they want. They're gonna get stuck with whatever the hell I tell them to do. AND LIKE IT!
Apparently thinking about class reunions, Hubby's 20th is this year. Class of 1986. We should be getting an invite for that he says. I can only assume it'll be during summer, I should probably look into that. There's talk of doing our 10th that was supposed to be last year this year. Class of 1995. Apparently the 'powers that be' who have control over that don't know where half the ppl are. *shakes head* I can open my phone book and find half of them. Or run into them in the store. You know, most ppl don't really leave home or they come back. I wonder why that is. Any ideas?

Some of the ppl from that website I was talking about came by, but didn't stay long with my 'memory lane' post. Can't say as I blame them, it wasn't fun. My life is pretty much an open book to anyone who asks, so I don't mind if ppl who may know me or see me in the future read my 'diary' so to speak. Hell my sisters do.

I did get to wondering though, what is a mother? I never really had one. Stumbling through motherhood on my own and that isn't easy. I was also thinking I don't really know what it means to be a girl. No examples there either. We were all girls, but we weren't really raised that way. Just some weird thoughts there.

Got a new bra today. Victoria's Secret has a new bra with no wires. We'll see when it's delivered. If it's a good one, I'll recommend it. I must say I look forward to one that won't dig into my ribs. It's a woman thing boys, don't worry.

Did I tell ya'll hubby got a new Dakota. New as in new to us. It's a quad cab. All that means to me is that the kids' car seats fit in the back.

Lynrd Skynrd is gonna be in Branson next weekend. What sucks about that is if we would be able to go it would have to be Saturday and we can't get tickets online. If I'm lucky someone will answer the 1800 number tomorrow and we can get tickets. I've never been to a concert before, they'd be a good band to see. We have a concert type hall thingie here, but no one owns it. Atleast at this time. Some friends of hubby's may be buying it. If they do, I am soooo gonna ask them for decent bands. And no I don't mean the shit they play on the radio, that stuff they pretend is music.

Numb3ers was great tonight. I have a little poll, who do you like better: Charlie or his brother? My vote's for Charlie, but sometimes I look at the brother and like him too. Charlie beat out the psychic tonight, it was a good showdown.

That's it for now, I'll tell you about the cartoons some time after Full Metal Alchemist and that other weird one are over if I watch them. I think I will be. Oh and Naruto is shaping up to be a nice cartoon too, check it out.

Bzzzzzzzz

2006-03-09T23:09:00.000-08:00

Well, I lay in bed for about an hour and my brain didn't want to shut off. I went by classmates today for some weird reason, they sent me some junk mail from when I had registered long ago there, didn't even remember a password or anything. Found a connection where ppl actually go there to speak. (Waves to ppl coming by from that place. Oh, how I love my statcounter!) Long story. So I got to thinking bout what was supposed to be our 10 year reunion last year. I had wondered, but it seems that it never happened and some may attempt to try for this year. Half our graduating class lives here still. Who do I really know from back then? Not many, I knew who most everyone was, but you know how that is. So, in hopes of shutting my brain off we are taking a trip down Memory Lane.

Ever since I can remember we never had any kind of 'outside' communication devices. The radio only played tapes and I have a memory of being very little and watching my father throw the tv out the front door. From where we were living, I can conclude that most likely I wasn't even in school yet. Hence ya'll get some kind of idea why I so love my cartoons now. Can you imagine how hard it was to do current even type things in school? The librarian wouldn't let me cut the newspapers, oh well. I guess I forgot to mention we never had a tv since then either. I think it was summer before 3rd grade my mom left my father, then we lived in a motel I think, then lived in a not so nice place to be, then my mother gave us up because, and I quote directly, "God told me to". Let's see, that summer we went to NE for the annual family reunion and came back to the step-bitch living with us. Technically we were told she and her kids was watching our house for us. She never left. So, on one hand we have a biological mother who we only exist for if we are actually right in front of her, and stepbitch who is in love with only herself and somewhat her oldest daughter and her son. Note here, that she actually has 3 children. Poor Mouse, I don't know which of us had it worse, my mother ignored us but hers did it right in front of her. You can kinda see why in my story a while back, I never tolerated anyone giving her shit. Stepbitch was technically a housewife, and I do use the broadest sense of the term: she didn't have a job nor did she work. I can't remember how old I was, but it may have been 4th or 5th grade. Let's see, no tv, no radio, no way to get anywhere and 7 kids 2 adults, and I use adults in somewhat broader terms than most. My days in this household....get up at I think 5:30 am (nightowl can't sleep til after 11 or so). Get dressed, feed and water the animals. Animals you say? Morning was the rabbits, chickens(not my chore), the dog, the pigs and we had quail once too, oh and a goat. Just so you know, the pigs were at the top of the hill, there were 2 5gal buckets of water to be carried up there every day before school. And yes, this was my chore except for the chickens. Mouse had to help too. By 6:30 we usually managed to have it done. Then there was, if you were lucky, time to actually fix and eat breakfast. If you didn't have my father's breakfast done perfectly hot and on the table at 7am sharp, there were consequences that weren't pretty. In the middle of it all was trying to atleast somewhat clean the kitchen, there was hell to pay for that too. 7am run down to the bus stop. Damn bus driver was an asshole. That man learned to wait for our stop until 7:15am, I taught his ass that. Maybe he noticed I wasn't gonna take more of his shit. Then was the hellish bus ride. I never did understand why most guys went out of there way to make us feel like shit. But, they did learn, the hard way. Jess was the only one stupid enought to wait until he had quite a few bruises. If I ever see Luke again, I may just kick his ass for the fun of it. Then there was school. Oh, did I tell you what my wardrobe was like? Mostly it was stuff for working in, chores. So before every school year I got maybe 2 or 3 new shirts and if I was really lucky I got 2 pair of jeans. I was not allowed to wear any of my 'school' clothes just once before washing them, but we'll get to that part in a bit. I did get new shoes too, my feet were growing. Before school was spent avoiding mean ppl, so what that really meant to me was running with the so called 'bad' crowd. Didn't fight, didn't have to. No, didn't do drugs, smoke or drink, I wasn't like that just ran with 'em. Classes were boring. Too many teachers spent too much time teaching while I needed to use the time for homework, we'll get to why later. Then the hellish bus ride home. When we get home we have to feed and water the animals again and start dinner which gets us short on time, cuz we get home at 4pm and there's hell to pay if dinner isn't on the table by 5pm. No more than 30 minutes allowed at the dinner table. While we are doing dinner and feeding the animals there is expected to be 2 loads of laundry washed and hung to dry on the closeline. Did I mention it's after 4pm now? Then, if no one (me) is grounded there's dishes, cleaning the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, vacuuming. Oh yeah, and making their bed too, cleaning THEIR room. Pretty much me and mouse doing that, and that's only if we haven't done something to piss stepbitch or Missy off. That's where most of our grounding came from. We really didn't have time to get in trouble. Oh, yeah after that we had time to do homework. After a year of that is when I decided that if it didn't get done in the classroom I wasn't doing it. Not to mention the REQUIREMENT of having a job at 14. Atleast a couple nights during the week and the whole weekend. It wasn't optional. Yes, chores were to be completed before work or you didn't go, where you would be fired and punished for not having the job. No, they didn't take our money damn good thing too. You starting to notice yet that stepbitch really didn't work? Yes, this went on til I left home, which I did before my senior year in HS. Lets see, what was expected from me in school was I was not allowed to bring home a grade lower than a C(M). I was damn lucky I'm smart. If I couldn't ace any test put in front of me, I'd have been screwed, I did no homework again no time.
Well, what did you do if you were grounded you ask? Well, I dug under the house with a hammer in the winter. I dug a pond up the hill during the summer. Cut the grass with a pair of scissors. I'd say weed the garden, but that was a requirement for weekends, if you were grounded you did it by yourself. I still won't clean my bathroom. I had that job for months on end, everytime I had it spotless, one of the kids would mess it up more often than not on purpose. Oh and food while grounded was scrumptious. I don't think I ever told ya'll this. Every meal while at home when grounded was green. That frozen in the box shit. Broccoli, brussel sprouts and okra. Little trick: after heating the okra rinse it off while they aren't looking it won't be slimy anymore. You had 20 minutes to eat it and get your happy ass back outside to work(read: dig), if you ate within the alloted time you could have what was on the table within your 20 minutes. To this day I eat a plate full of food in 10 minutes or less. That and I'll eat anything but cranberry jelly. That stepbitch was so disappointed I would eat anything she finally noticed I wouldn't eat that shit at holidays. Damn near puked and I do get dry heaves just smelling it. Can you imagine a can of that for a meal?
Of course there were other chores that came most days but weren't constant. 5 gallon bucket fulls of crappy mostly. I don't allow that shit in my house, hubby goes fishing he don't bring it home. Scale and fillet, usually 2 buckets. Atleast 3 times a week. Kill, skin, clean and cook rabbits atleast once a week. Skin, clean and cook squirrels all squirell season long. Skin, clean, butcher and cook the 2 or 3 deer a year. I can dress, skin and butcher a deer quicker than most men. Gotta do it fast enough and with very little error if you don't want a foot up your ass, steel-toed no less.
Summer chores were construction work with my father all day, plus the every day chores, plus your own job. Gardening, including tilling, manuring and other things included for a garden. Lawn care also. Can you say lawnmower has no engine and never did. I tell you it was very rare for my father to pay any money for a lawnmower that actually had an engine in it. Most of the time it was a weed wacker, no it didn't haven an engine either, think schythe but the blade at a different angle and a very old fashioned rolly blade looking thing that was a lawn mower in the old days. Of course there was the one time with the scissors.
Let's get to the part where you're told you are 'stupid, worthless and can't do anything worth a shit' over and over damn near anytime you get anywhere near your so-called parents. These are the people who are supposed do the unconditional love thing. Is it any wonder I am a very shy and withdrawn person. I don't trust people. I say it with my oldest a lot, it's a miracle we turned out sane. Notice I make no mention of my biological mother here. She wasn't there. EVER. We had a phone, an address, everything like that. She lived in town. We never moved, same place always. Can anyone say unwanted?
Then you have jr high and high school. Kids are mean. Not all were. I didn't associate with anyone who even looked like they might be thinking of saying what my parents did. However there are quite a few ppl I wouldn't mind seeing again.

After all that, I think I may tell you the story of my first 'love' and the losing of the virginity thing. I have some questions for ya'll bout that. Later!

Turquoise

2006-03-09T18:25:00.000-08:00

As you can see, I have gotten rather fond of turqouise. That stems from my beading really, I have lots of them. That and little dragonflys. For the curious, the actual text color is #00ffff. I also chose one of the tiny background buttons made for websites for a little 'box' for my banners. Don't forget to watch the dragon change on the BGW banner. It's new, had to go by the site to figure out what to put on that would fit. I am sooooo bad! Don't forget to watch the header, it's got a surprise! (snicker) I really have to figure out something nice and maybe unique-ish for it. I am rather fond of the animating though. I may redo the trash for prez button soon. It wasn't the best, but I've had more practice now. I think I may have done that on a different program anyway.

If anyone comes by, I may post in a few days.

Cabbage burgers: Roughly 1lb. hamburger (80/20) browned. Throw in a package of already shredded cabbage, you get that in the fresh veggie aisle. Put in bread dough squares. Assuming you already made the dough and let it rise, or bought it out of the freezer aisle of a store and let it rise. 1 batch should do it, also just 1 'loaf' out of the frozen bag. I like to put chz in there too, but it usually leaks slightly. 350°F for however long it takes to bake. Check the bottom, like tap it and if hollow and browned, you are usually done. Careful about the folding part though, you could end up with lots of extra dough on the bottom. Do NOT forget to butter them when done, and again before eating (slice in middle and butter). I use brummel & brown, it's my favorite.
Bring me the stuff and I will fix it, however I don't make bread dough (wink, wink)

Ho-hum

2006-03-01T12:55:00.000-08:00

...and life goes on. Virtually no one's been by here anyway. I can't believe I didn't write anything for the whole month of February. Not much goes on here anyway. I got my Bon Jovi cd's back. I got some new books, they're very good. I'm doing lots better at keeping my house semi-clean.
Spring is in the air here. Had to open the house yesterday, got to 77°. Paid for it this morning, it wasn't pretty. Still gets cold at night, wonder how long that'll last. Today it seems that summer's gonna be early and last a long time. I really dislike summer. Pollen from hell, humid, and hot. Guess it's a good thing we don't live farther south.
Soon as I talk hubby into letting me get my favorite graphics program, I'll be doing a facelift. Got all kinds of nifty graphics to put in the header. We'll see.

Later...

'Magic Man'

2006-01-23T10:12:00.000-08:00

Just remembered this one, thought I'd 'relive' it a little. If you know the song, you can 'hear' the music that goes with it!
Artist: Heart Song: Magic Man

Cold, late night so long ago
when I was not so strong you know
A pretty man came to me
I never seen eyes so blue
You know, I could not run away it seemed
we'd seen each other in a dream
Seemed like he knew me....he looked right through me....yeah

"Come on home, girl" he said with a smile
"you don't have to love me yet, let's get high awhile
But try to understand...try to understand
Try, try, try to understand.....I'm a magic man"

Winter nights we sang in tune
Played inside the months of moon
"Never think of never..let this spell last forever"
Well, summer lover passed to fall
tried to realize it all
Mama says she's worried..growing up in a hurry

"Come on home, girl" Mama cried on the phone
"Too soon to lose my baby yet, my girl should be at home"
But try to understand....try to understand
Try, try, try to understand..he's a magic man, Mama...ah...he's a magic man

"Come on home, girl" he said with a smile
"I cast my spell of love on you, a woman from a child"
But try to understand...try to understand..
Oh...oh....try, try, try to understand....
He's a magic man....oh....he's got the magic hands

(solos) OoooOooo's over top

"Come on home, girl" he said with a smile
"You don't have to love me yet, let's get high awhile"
But try to understand....try to understand
Try, try, try to understand...he's a magic man.....yeah...oh......

Did I tell you just how much I like this song? I can 'hear' the music just reading the lyrics. Oh yeah, just realized it's been a little over a year since I started this puppy. Yeah me! Well, not really, UGH! Mikel turns 5 tomorrow!

What type of dragon are you?

2006-01-20T08:54:00.000-08:00

What type of dragon are you?(beautiful pics- for girls and guys)
brought to you by Quizilla

You are a fire dragon!! You are a strong and powerful creature. You usually try to be better than everyone else, just to prove that you are better.
Colors: Mellow orange, bright red, light blue
Postitve traits: Power, strength, endurance
Negative traits: Pridefullness, impatience, at times uncaring

Shamelessly stolen from El Sid.

'Its My Life'

2006-01-18T15:22:00.000-08:00

Artist: Bon Jovi Album: Crush Song: Its My Life

This ain't a song for the broken-hearted
No silent prayer for the faith-departed
I ain't gonna be just a face in the crowd
You're gonna hear my voice
When I shout it out loud

Chorus:
It's my life
It's now or never
I ain't gonna live forever
I just want to live while I'm alive
(It's my life)
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said
I did it my way
I just wanna live while I'm alive
It's my life

This is for the ones who stood their ground
For Tommy and Gina who never backed down
Tomorrow's getting harder make no mistake
Luck ain't even lucky
Got to make your own breaks

Chorus:
It's my life
And it's now or never
I ain't gonna live forever
I just want to live while I'm alive
(It's my life)
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said
I did it my way
I just want to live while I'm alive
'Cause it's my life

Better stand tall when they're calling you out
Don't bend, don't break, hell, don't back down

Chorus:
It's my life
And it's now or never
'Cause I ain't gonna live forever
I just want to live while I'm alive
(It's my life)
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said
I did it my way
I just want to live while I'm alive

Chorus:
It's my life
And it's now or never
'Cause I ain't gonna live forever
I just want to live while I'm alive
(It's my life)
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said
I did it my way
I just want to live while I'm alive
'Cause it's my life

One of my more favoritest ones. Excuse my very bad grammar, it was on purpose!

'One'

2006-01-04T10:29:00.000-08:00

Today's song brought to you by Lyrics 007. As there isn't much going on here right now, I thought I'd post one of the songs from my list of 'songs to post'.
Artist: Three Dog Night; written by Harry Nilsson; Title: 'One' {There is actually 2 versions of the lyrics}
One Lyrics

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
Two can be as bad as one
It's the loneliest number since the number one

No is the saddest experience you'll ever know
Yes, it's the saddest experience you'll ever know

'Cause one is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
One is the loneliest number, whoa-oh, worse than two

It's just no good anymore since you went away
Now I spend my time just making rhymes of yesterday

One is the loneliest number
One is the loneliest number
One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do

One is the loneliest
One is the loneliest
One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do

It's just no good anymore since you went away

(number)
One is the loneliest (number)
One is the loneliest (number)
One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do

(number)
One is the loneliest (number)
One is the loneliest (number)
One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do

(number)
One...! (one is the loneliest number that you'll ever do)
(number)
One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
(number)
One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do

One (is the Lonliest Number) Lyrics

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
Two can be as bad as one
It's the loneliest number since the number one

"No" is the saddest experience you'll ever know
Yes, it's the saddest experience you'll ever know
'Cause one is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
One is the loneliest number, whoa, worse than two

It's just no good anymore since you went away
Now I spend my time just making rhymes of yesterday
One is the loneliest number
One is the loneliest number
One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
One is the loneliest, one is the loneliest
One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do

It's just no good anymore since you went away

Number
One is the loneliest
Number
One is the loneliest
Number
One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
(Repeat in various forms)

Very nice song. Used to be played a bit on one of our local radio stations. That is, until they decided the modern crap that comes out now is better. UGH!

Happy New Year

2005-12-30T06:20:00.000-08:00

New Year's Eve is tomorrow. Since hubby will probably take over the computer, I'll do this post now. We will stay home, thus avoiding the very dangerous drunk drivers in our area. The first wave is usually about the time the bars close around 2 am, then the second wave after the parties start winding down between 2 and 6 am. Remember not to drink and drive, as you could not only hurt yourself, but possibly kill a family!
I think people should change the way they have their new years parties. When I was younger, my friend had an annual party and it was an 'all-nighter'. Meaning, that everyone crashed there and no one left until they slept it off or had a designated driver. We had a lot of fun, as they had a relative with a good band who would play most of the night and early morning hours. Okay, enough lectures, I guess.

I moved Steven's word of the day to just below this post and added a clue. Most visitors haven't been by, so if someone guesses before the others with the clues, don't feel bad, you didn't get them at first. Steven managed to get dehydrated, it took a bit to figure out why his pullups were a weird color. As he was perfectly healthy, read: not sick, it didn't occur to me to watch that. The boys always have milk or water in their cups, but Steven doesn't drink until he really wants to. He's more stubborn than me, and that's saying a lot. I tried all day yesterday to get him to drink water, complete with bribes of chocolate and that only worked with his milk in the early am. Hopefully with the gatorade hubby brought home, I can get him to drink more than 1 cup of liquid all day. He's still sleeping, so we'll see if his pullup is orange again this morning. He was peeing clear by the time he got up from his nap, so he'll be all right. Mikel always drinks when he's thirsty, so he's fine. He announced yesterday that he was gonna pee black. Probably from all the attention Steven got. Oh, well.

The boys are starting to 'beat up' each other. Fighting over toys and whatnot. I know it's natural, but I don't have to like it. Now they are hurting each other in addition to hurting themselves running into the walls. One of their favorite things to do is to run flat out, straight into the wall. I don't know why that's fun or why they keep doing it when they cry after they hurt themselves. Atleast Steven isn't biting himself after the second time. He had that bite mark for a week. Twice. Weird kid. The boys seem polar opposites sometimes. Steven starts almost every fight and bosses Mikel. You'd think it'd be different as Mikel is almost 2 years older. Atleast Mikel seems to be excited about school next year.

Speaking of school, the Lakers were undefeated and won State this year. It seems that every year in which we go undefeated, we win State also. I do believe they make the state game most years, but the winning of it seems to hinge on the 0 losses. We go against some bigger city schools, it would seem that they have a better chance to win as they have a bigger pool of talent to pull from, but we seem to grow good football players here. I wonder if they've had any girls want to play. In my Junior year of HS, a girl was on our 'arch rival' team. It was apparently a big deal. Boys seem to get weird ideas about those things. If you wanted to know, she was a good player and wasn't intimidated. The HS football head coach had been teaching for years when I was in HS, and that was 10 years ago. I wonder if he'll be retiring soon. I wonder who'll get his spot, probably Pappy. Unless he's getting too old too. I noticed a few of the kids' names in the flyer we got the other day. Mr. Wackerman's son was named to the all of the all-whatever teams, I had him for some weird shop type class. His wife was the school nurse for a different building. He was a very nice guy, and very strict about messing around in class. Guess you'd have to be when working with soldering irons, and other various 'tools of the trade'. I saw Mr Porter and his daughter at wal-mart. If his wife had been with them, I'd have said something. They started teaching at our school when I started Jr High. He was Civics and she was some kind of math. Since I didn't test into 7th grade Pre-Algebra, I'm not sure which math she taught. She was fun though, even with the usual teacher go-rounds. All my teachers and I had go rounds. It's inevitable when you don't do homework. It's funny how my teachers tolerated the go rounds. Maybe they realized I was bored half the time and had no time for homework. Etc, etc as the story goes. One teacher I usually see but haven't lately is Mr. Bruns. I think my homework/test situation amused him. The second year I had him, he moved up to the HS with us, he didn't even ask.

I think I'm done rambling on now. Have a safe and Happy New Year. Scroll down and guess the word!

'pichare'

2005-12-30T06:18:00.000-08:00

Huh?, What? We haven't done this in a while and there were actually 2 words Steven used yesterday that were very funny. This one Mikel and I cannot agree on what it means. As Steven speaks better now, it's usually extremely easy to know what he says.

Steven's word of the day is: pichare. This is the closest spelling I can get to what it sounded like. Good luck with that. I'll give clues later, after some guesses.

Since the guesses were waaaaay off, I'll give a clue: It's 2 words and does not actually start with a p. Remember Steven just turned 3 and has only been talking for a year. :)

Merry Christmas!

The 'Haul'

2005-12-27T09:31:00.000-08:00

Kids got a small bit of a haul for xmas. With the $ from the great grandparents, the kids chose their toys from wal-mart. Mikel chose a little construction tool set. It has a nice little board area thing, that you can screw gears to and then spin one and it spins them all. Also the drill that came with it actually works. Was very amusing to watch Steven use it to put the screws in, then reach with his hand to unscrew them. After several tries of showing him the reverse, on the drill, he still used his hand to take them back out. They fought over the drill the whole day on the 24th. Steven chose a 'piano'. It has buttons on the side that make drum sounds, while a selection of 'music' is played. Also, a rolling 'music sheet'. In the store, Steven was adamant about this toy. It was going home with him. It was abandoned in favor of the drill, to be played with throughout the day. I also picked up an alphabet block set, which they stack and knock over every day. Mikel makes different stacking shapes with it. It has 2 full sets of the alphabet, numbers, and some punctuation. They also got a few more toys, but they aren't anything compared to the drill. So, I won't be mentioning them.
We stayed home all xmas, as hubby said he was too tired to go anywhere. They've had a lot of jobs lately, and the are mostly crummy, I guess. Crawl spaces are not fun when you don't use knee pads. Poor thing.
Not much happening in our neck of the woods, will find something more interesting to post eventually. :)

'Merry Christmas, My Friend'

2005-12-23T13:12:00.000-08:00

Blackfive has a nice post on this poem. There is also a mp3 link to listen to it with the backdrop of 'Silent Night'.
The original poem is located in the International War Veterans' Poetry Archives.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, MY FRIEND

'Twas the night before Christmas, he lived all alone,
In a one-bedroom house made of plaster and stone.
I had come down the chimney, with presents to give
and to see just who in this home did live.

As I looked all about, a strange sight I did see,
no tinsel, no presents, not even a tree.
No stocking by the fire, just boots filled with sand.
On the wall hung pictures of a far distant land.

With medals and badges, awards of all kind,
a sobering thought soon came to my mind.
For this house was different, unlike any I'd seen.
This was the home of a U.S. Marine.

I'd heard stories about them, I had to see more,
so I walked down the hall and pushed open the door.
And there he lay sleeping, silent, alone,
Curled up on the floor in his one-bedroom home.

He seemed so gentle, his face so serene,
Not how I pictured a U.S. Marine.
Was this the hero, of whom I'd just read?
Curled up in his poncho, a floor for his bed?

His head was clean-shaven, his weathered face tan.
I soon understood, this was more than a man.
For I realized the families that I saw that night,
owed their lives to these men, who were willing to fight.

Soon around the Nation, the children would play,
And grown-ups would celebrate on a bright Christmas day.
They all enjoyed freedom, each month and all year,
because of Marines like this one lying here.

I couldn't help wonder how many lay alone,
on a cold Christmas Eve, in a land far from home.
Just the very thought brought a tear to my eye.
I dropped to my knees and I started to cry.

He must have awoken, for I heard a rough voice,
"Santa, don't cry, this life is my choice
I fight for freedom, I don't ask for more.
My life is my God, my country, my Corps."

With that he rolled over, drifted off into sleep,
I couldn't control it, I continued to weep.

I watched him for hours, so silent and still.
I noticed he shivered from the cold night's chill.
So I took off my jacket, the one made of red,
and covered this Marine from his toes to his head.
Then I put on his T-shirt of scarlet and gold,
with an eagle, globe and anchor emblazoned so bold.
And although it barely fit me, I began to swell with pride,
and for one shining moment, I was Marine Corps deep inside.

I didn't want to leave him so quiet in the night,
this guardian of honor so willing to fight.
But half asleep he rolled over, and in a voice clean and pure,
said "Carry on, Santa, it's Christmas Day, all secure."
One look at my watch and I knew he was right,
Merry Christmas my friend, Semper Fi and goodnight.
©Copyright circa 1991 by James M. Schmidt

(As printed in the December 1991 issue of the USMC magazine, Leatherneck)

I don't think I'll come up with a better Christmas post than this, so I'll leave it up until after Christmas. Scroll to the previous post to guess Steven's word of the day. Merry Christmas, Happy Hunnakah to everyone (and any other holiday I've left out). See ya'll after Christmas.

Happy Birthday

2005-12-20T05:59:00.000-08:00

....to Sweetpea. (insert corny song here) My little sister is 24 today. (Any story in which she is referred to she is little sister.)

And for a present is this lovely little graphic I found at The Wizard of Draws, all images are © Jeff Bucchino, "The Wizard of Draws". (<-- requirement to use his graphics) He's also listed on my sidebar. He's got some very nice graphics, you should check it out!

Have a nice day!

Weekend Randomness

2005-12-18T21:04:00.000-08:00

Since the weekend will be officially over in 1 hour, thought I'd get this one in. First things first: Cartoons were good. Woke up late and missed my early morning ones. Avatar came on around noon though. Then there were 2 Yugi Oh GX's on, but they were 'new' re-runs. Actually the new ones are on at 4pm every weekday. I guess if you only watch on Saturday, then it's new. Teen Titans had a cute little episode on how they all met and formed their team. Naruto's getting better. I usually end up missing it, as I don't watch many of the cartoons on before 10pm. On adult swim, my favorite, they had new episodes of Full Metal, and Ghost in the Shell. I lost track of that wierd one, so not sure if it was new or not. I got distracted and actually missed s-CRY-ed twice. Oh well, the important thing is that Full Metal is getting better as they go and soon they may even make a Philosipher's Stone.

Was incredibly disappointed in the animation Photoshop program. I'm sure I'll try again. I did expiriment with every damn setting, just was crappy. I use a really good photo editing program to make any adjustments that may be needed in pics before I try to animate in another program. It's also where I resize them. I never had that problem with any other animation program, that's why I don't like that one much.

After Steven's 3rd birthday, Mikel asks me every SINGLE day if it's his birthday. Then he makes me promise to tell him when his birthday is. I guess he's too young for any real concept of time. He has to wait a whole month after Christmas. We have these big sets of interconnecting stick things they will be spreading all over the house on Christmas Eve. Some people wait til Christmas day to open all presents, we don't. Family presents on the Eve, Santa on the Day. He's still not real sure who Santa is, but if he gets presents, well that's OK with him. I have been showing him Santa movies, but well, he's still 4. School isn't until next fall.

Been seeing if I can 'break' my computer. Been having no problems with it. Diablo runs fine for hours. It's our favorite. Played online the other night, just to see, and had virtually no dragging. Beyond what you would expect with DSL. Which was virtually non-existent. Haven't tried the scanner yet.

Damn near went crazy yesterday. I was bored. I need new books. Should have gone to the library. I've gone beyond the point where I can re-read all my books. I've done that too many times in the last 2 months. All I have to do is see the title and I remember the whole damn thing! UGH!

I've need to start getting even more creative in my cooking. I've been getting bored with my food. Only so many variations when you put salt, pepper, garlic powder in everything. I'm a throw shit together kind of cook, but I think I need to be doing soups. It's getting cold and hubby has been showing signs of wanting soup in his lunch. I need some chicken broth, I think. I finally learned how to do dumplings. I really could be better at it, but it still tastes good. I'd really like a taco soup. Gotta have some cheap, cheap corn torts for that. Otherwise you don't get nice crispy strips. I've thought about making Christmas cookies, but every time I do the kids manage to squirrel them away or eat them all. They are starting to tell on each other though, and it does help a little. LMAO!

Ah, well. Have a nice monday!

GRR!!!!!

2005-12-17T10:40:00.000-08:00

Photoshop sucks for animations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fucker wants to 'optimize'. Yeah, ruins the whole fucking picture with any option. Yes, I was using the damn animating program. It sucks! The only way to save as an animated gif file is to 'optimize'. This translates to FUCKING up the colors, FUCKING up the pics themselves. Optimize my ass! Perfectly good pics and FUCK! Doing 'dither' gives me dots from hell, and 'not dither' gives me weird ass funky colored BLURS! The only way to let it look decent is to tell it GRAYSCALE. Yeah, I did try all the options. Even messed with them. I was trying to make a little rotating pic for the sidebar. To rotate all the pics I got from the Inuyasha site. You know from the sidebar. I just wanted to have it rotate.
You know, when I animated with my U-lead I didn't have these kind of problems. Any pic on the header with dots or blurs is because that was the condition of the original. I'm sure Photoshop is fine and dandy for people who wanna pay lotsa money for it, but I'm keeping my free photo program that came with my scanner, it's better. I'll re-download Ulead and do my trial period. After that, I'll wait till after the holidays and order it.

As you can see, the image is small enough that not all errors in the translation are noticeable. However seeing the original and watching it makes you see how really fucked up the 'optimized' version is. This is without the dithering, the dots, On 128 colors. Trust me when I say the 64 and 32 colors is much, much worse. The dithering makes half the pics hard to tell what it looks like. This is bad, very bad when making animations. Especially as the original graphics look soooo much better than that. I'll put up a couple new ones on the sidebar and you can compare. One at a time, you'd have to check back. I decided to put the originals here. Can't see the sidebar well to compare and all that. As you can see now, the jpgs are very nice and full of detail and color. The 'optimized' version just sucks!

FIXED!

2005-12-14T17:26:00.000-08:00

My computer is fixed. 'Allegedley'. LMAO! After the new motherboard came in, nephew couldn't get the computer to even fire up. Told him to take it to get it diagnosed. Apparently hubby knows everyone who's anyone in any kind of business here. They took it to a 'friend' to get it diagnosed. Nice guy charged 25 instead of 55 to look at it. Apparently when nephew put in new motherboard, he broke the processor. It was cracked. Had to get a whole different motherboard too. Apparently nephew's idea of powerful enough really wasn't. I have an even faster proccessor now and 512 MB ram. Which is much more than I had. Now that everything is said to be fixed, the damn thing should work. Have a few more things to re-install. Ran into a little bug though. Through all my having to reload xp, apparently you can use the activation code too many times. Got 15 days. UGH! Gonna need to figure that out. If microsoft refuses to allow me to activiate my copy, after I explain my PC problems, I dunno. I'll take suggestions.

Steven's birthday is tomorrow, he'll be 3. Yesterday, I tried to get him to choose a flavor of cake mix. He said, "I want pitza'. I made him point at a box. He'll get his pizza. They went with their daddy today to spend Steven's $10 from my grandparents, as poker was canceled for tonight. Hopefully they won't bring home toy cars. *update* This is what he brought home:
My camera still has PMS, it's a robot noisy thing.
After I mess about a bit, I'll be testing to see if this pc can use my scanner properly. I also can do the business stuff for Karen. Should be fun. Will need to solve the activation problem first.

I'll be around to see ya'll soon. Apparently El Sid, the EVIL one, is back. Her's is a Christmas tree too. Your's is apparently 'charlie'. ;)
For this holiday season, remember our soldiers away from home.

Weekend Randomness

2005-12-05T09:10:00.000-08:00

The chiefs game yesterday was awesome! It was really fucking cold too. I swear it must have been in the single digits or 0°F. Before the game started I heard some ppl say the bank clock they passed said 12° or 14°, can't remember which. Definitely colder than I expected. My feet were frozen, and my legs was cold. Should have worn that extra pair of socks and the sweats. Oh, well. Took 45 minutes just to get out of the damn parking lot. Not all that unusual, really. Especially since no one left the stadium until the last second or 2 of the game. By then, we knew we won. Some bad calls, some missed fouls. All in all, much fun. Took 7hwy all the way to Pleasant Hill to visit Karen. We got to see her husband's new shop. He does custom cabinets, etc. Volunteered to make up some business cards and a website for them. This offer wasn't a reluctant one, as I really like them and it'll be fun for me. Also building a site for business, rather than putting up graphics and framing a blog for my sisters, will be a challenge. They don't have a site, domain or anything at this point, but still...it'll be a text file anyway. Can still see it in a browser. When we left the game we took I-70 to 65 to 5 because we had to get the kids. Otherwise we'd have done the 65 to 7 route. I hate driving 7hwy at night. Twistiest, turniest road you ever did see. That and the assholes like to brake for every fucking curve. It's a state hwy, so a lot of ppl seem to use it no matter what time of year it is. Of course after getting the kids we did take 7hwy, but we live down it. However we don't go far down it anyway, just to EE. Yeah, figure that one out, no one knows where Greenview is on the map anyway, technically it's not a town, nor is it on any map whatsoever. Just a little sign just down the road. Not only that, in our town there are to 5hwy and 7hwy junctions, miles from each other.

On the way home, we found a nice old country station where we heard this song:
Artist: Lee Greenwood Lyrics Song: God Bless The USA

If tomorrow all the things were gone I'd worked for all my life,
And I had to start again with just my children and my wife.
I'd thank my lucky stars to be livin' here today,
'cause the flag still stands for freedom and they can't take that away.

And I'm PROUD to be an American where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.
And I'd gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land God bless the USA.

From the lakes of Minnesota, to the hills of Tennessee,
across the plains of Texas, from sea to shining sea,
From Detroit down to Houston and New York to LA
Well, there's pride in every American heart,
and it's time we stand and say that

I'm PROUD to be an American where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.
And I'd gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land (love this land)God bless the USA.

And I'm PROUD to be an American where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.
And I'd gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land (love this land)God bless the USA.

I haven't heard this song in forever. I am not a religious person, but this song probably should be played quite a bit. It seems there are many who have forgotten. Forgotten what freedom is and how we got it in the first place. How we keep it. Forgotten that no one person is or can be responsible for the state of our country today. Forgotten about all of the checks and balances in our government. Never forget!

Kids had fun at aunt sweetpeas. Steven talked about it the whole way home and didn't fall asleep. Apparently hubby didn't put the kids' shoes on them before he took them to the car. He thought I would just 'know' he didn't. Especially considering I always put their shoes on them before I take them outside. A good WTF?! moment. He didn't consider that, I guess. We'll be spending xmas in KC, unless they don't wish us too. Not likely to happen. Probably the weekend though. Chiefs home game on the 24th. We'll be home that day to watch it. After that it's a toss-up as to where we'll be.

Today Steven actually did #2 on the potty. The second time, ever, he's done that. Maybe he's interested, but my bets are that he won't be doing that for atleast another week. He just isn't interested. He'll be 3 on the 15th. I believe we are just gonna do pizza that night and give him some presents. Pretty much it. I think after the holidays, we'll be teaching Mikel to tie his own shoes. He probably needs to before he enters Kindergarten next fall. It's not a requirement or anything, I just think he should know that kind of thing. He knows his ABC's and can count to ten. Also follows directions. Thank you Dora the Explorer. 3 is the magic number for Dora. She's on twice every morning. He also knows all the basic colors and several shapes. Only thing left is back to the eye doc before next fall to make sure he doesn't need glasses yet. Stigmatism in his eye the optometrist said. However not being in school yet, he didn't see glasses as a necessity. Something about the shape of one of his eyes or something and not that big a deal. Not sure he'll need them next year, but wanna check just in case. I've also discovered that before the end of this school year, I'll be needing to register Mikel for Kindegarten and he will have some sort of basic test for something or other before he enters. And some kind of Orientation of sorts anyway. I'm guessing the screening is to ascertain whether kids need special classes or not. Orientation probably so kids can find their classroom before school starts, no confusion that sort of thing.

Didn't really watch cartoons this weekend. Missed my favorite night ones and was too tired to watch them the second time around. Ghost in the Shell has new episodes now. I'm sure I'll see them next weekend. I did want to see Full Metal, but I think they are in re-run mode right now. Maybe they'll re-show them on Thursday night, but lately they've been re-showing the crappy cartoons from sunday nights. UGH!

Happy Holidays! (encompasses both Merry Christmas, Happy Hunnakah(sp?) and Happy New Year) Oh, and remember, no matter how hard you try, it's still a CHRISTMAS TREE! See ya'll later.

'Oh X-mas Tree'...

2005-12-03T19:48:00.000-08:00

'Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree' Yeah, yeah. I decorated my tree. I took a picture too. CRAPPY. Just so ya'll know. My camera seems to be taking crap pics. Hmm. It may just be fingerprints on the lens cover thingy. I'll check that out again. In the meantime.... Ya'll will just have to settle for this:

My hair is now VERY short. It's also a bit red. This picture doesn't really do it justice, but I did say my camera is pissy. That and when you take pics of yourself, well it just doesn't do so well. My hairstylist talked me out of the color I thought would work for what I wanted, and talked me into a color called FLAME. Yeah, it's really called flame. So cool. Anyway, with that color it worked to what I wanted anyway. Can I just say... I am in love with my hairdresser/stylist! Yeah, he's a man, and no I don't wanna do that. Perverts!

As you can see, my kids aren't home. My mind works a little bit different. Chiefs game tomorrow. Front row seats. Behind one of the goalposts. I know, you are jealous. I will be priviledged to watch them 'warm up' (read as ogle their asses as they bend over) before the game starts. Yes, that is the number 1 best part of any football game. No exceptions. EVER!

As you can see, I took new pics of my mickey tattoo. Trust me that it looks better than that. I had to do some contortionist-like things. I'm gonna have to get somebody to photograph it for me. After I figure out why my camera is taking crap pics. Anywho...

Weather at the game is predicting to be lower than freezing. My kind of weather! I will be wearing a long sleeved t-shirt under a sweater under a sweatshirt, also a pair of longjohns under a pair of jeans and maybe sweats too. I don't believe I'll need them. I'm pondering only 2 pair of socks though. That and my steel-toed boots. Yes, I really do have steel-toed boots. Trust me, those are the only kind of boots to wear. Who wants to smash their toes? I have small, one-size-fits-all gloves and a pair to go over them. Also got a headband type thingy that will cover my ears and block some of the deafening, ear-ache causing, roar of the crowd and a scarf, should I need it. Guess what hubby will be wearing. I bet you can't. I'll tell you. OVERHAULS! Yep, I said overhauls. Actually they are over-alls, I just call 'em that. He's putting a pair of too-big chiefs pants over them (got them on clearance last year just one size too big, and I KNOW they ain't gonna fit over the overhauls) and his newest chiefs sweatshirt I got for him for xmas this year (which also won't fit over his overhauls). LMFAO! I know how to layer and tried my damndest to teach, but he's gonna learn the hard way tomorrow! Just you wait, he'll never hear the end of it. (Of course, it's more likely I'll pack a bag with my extra clothes and stick some for him in it.) I'm always right.
Did I tell you? He came home telling me how he was gonna fix the big holes in the drywall the boys made in their room. Yeah, it was funny. Pissed me off a little too. Why? Because I TOLD him exactly the same damn thing for the last 6 months atleast once a month. Every time he talked about fixin' the wall, I told him how it was done. Women know nothing about construction. Yeah, hey stupid man, did you forget? I was one of the forced labor ppl on my father's construction jobs. Oh yeah, you didn't forget that. You think you'll let me teach you how to swing that damn hammer like a man, not like a girl? No? How bout letting me teach you how to hit a 4" nail twice and it's buried in the fucking board? Tap sets it, SLAM drives it in. Two hits, all it takes. Use your whole arm, not just your damn wrist. I swear it, it's so damn funny to watch. He swings that damn hammer like a girl. He was gonna buy a hammer today with one of those fancy dancy contoured grip things. Yeah, I says...NO. NO! Took a while for that one to register. He doesn't hold the hammer at the bottom where the grip is. Nope, that would be swinging that fucker like a man. He holds it in the MIDDLE. Poor guy is gonna kill his elbow doing that shit. Then I'll be making fun of him....AGAIN! And by swinging it like a man, I don't mean like a man per se (cuz you know I'm better at it and so is every damn one of my sisters) I mean grip it by the bottom for maximum swing and use your whole arm. Oh yeah, and MEAN it when you swing it. I'm such a bad girl. *evil laugh* We compromised with a wood handled hammer that was too heavy. Tried to tell him. Gonna wear hisself out with that puppy. Heavier does NOT mean 'all the better to hit harder with'. No it means it takes more to lift the damn thing. Aw hell, I have so much more expirience with it and he just don't listen. He's not a caveman type about that kind of thing either, which is why I don't understand why he won't listen to me 'bout these things. Funnier, stopped by his brother's for his overhauls, and his brother agreed...with ME! Well, 'bout the hammer anyway. Live and learn baby, live and learn. (Wish he really would learn. You'd think the same mistake made over and over, over the years would tell ya something. I swear! *shakes head* MEN!)

Ya'll have a nice weekend now.

Pics

2005-12-02T10:19:00.000-08:00

Someone, or a few someones, keeps looking for my mickey tattoo pic. I've had 5 or 6 searches lead to my pages in the last week. I had it for a pic on my sidebar, I'll be putting in this post and back on the sidebar. Frankly, I'm tired of ya'll searching for it and not finding it. I don't have a clue why you want it, but oh, well.

Anywho, it's in my photobucket. Looking for it, I found this picture:

Steven is about 4 months there and just add approx. 2years for Mikel. Steven still makes that 'baby chimp' face. It's so cute. He'll be three on the 15th. Here's the tattoo pic, aka my birthday present ;) And also, the graphic itself used for the inking.

Mickey does look a little different now, as my skin is no longer irritated. He's a bit skinnier. Lost the 'chubbiness' you can see on his face. I guess I'll have to take a new pic, now that it's all healed over. I put up a larger version of the graphic to see more details, I guess. Maybe just because I have two sizes :)

Don't forget to read the 'hair story' from late last night, 'down below'. LMAO!

Snip...SNIP

2005-12-01T19:41:00.000-08:00

Sniiiip. You hear that? That's the sound of my hair being cut off...AGAIN. An hour ago, my hair was straight (always is), all the same length, just past my shoulders. It's very thick. It was giving me some monster headaches again. Having to put it up to get it out of my face is the problem. Soo...talked hubby into cutting it. He cut it too short, but no biggie. Once I make it to the hair cutter, he'll cut it shorter than that. Gene (Apparently his name is Vern. I am really bad with names!) is the only one I've ever found that was willing to cut my hair as short as I want it. You'd be amazed at how hard it is for me to find someone to chop it all off. They don't seem to understand. 'But it's so pretty' UGH. Give me a fucking break. It's my hair! It's thick, hard to wash, hard to get the soap out of once it's all finally in there and it's heavier than they'll ever know. Grows really fast too. So hopefully on Saturday I can get my hair cut properly and colored too. Gonna go with strengthening the red in it again. *udpate* My appointment is at noon tomorrow. Cut and color. Lady said she figures I'll be done by 2pm. Seems long time, but oh well. Forgot to ask the price though. *shrugs*

This is the color I used last time. Having hubby color for me can be a little iffy. So, I'm gonna take the part of the box I saved to show him the color I do want. It's not like my hair isn't red. Just not as noticeable without bright light or sun shining on it. If my sinuses would allow me outside in summer, my hair would be quite red during that time of year. As a kid, I hated it, now I don't mind it so much. I do have the skin color for it, not only that when I do put the red in my hair, most ppl don't even notice. (My silver stripes at age 28 are starting to bug me a little bit.)

I may think about showing before and after pics, if I decide I'm willing to have my face on here. ;) Ya'll have a nice weekend. We're going to the Chiefs game on Sunday in the COLD! NICE! (I like cold, I'll be wearing a long sleeve T-shirt with a Sweatshirt over and be nice and cozy. I don't need a coat until it gets to about 32°F or less.)

Anticipation

2005-11-30T09:38:00.000-08:00

This Sunday is the Chiefs game we will be attending. Front row, slightly left and behind one of the goal posts. Nice spot, really. The players bend and stretch before the game. That's always been my favorite part of attending a game since I was in high school. *sigh* They are playing the Broncos at 3:15pm central time. I restrung one of the football necklaces and need to do the other one before then. I haven't decided exactly how I want to do it. If my damn computer were working properly I'd use the scanner, but it would kick the boot file off again. Kids are gonna stay with their aunt. Depending, they may stay Saturday night. That would actually be better, as the quickest way is down 7hwy rather than across town where my sister is and have to take I-44(I think). 2 hours to Karen's house and probably take 2 hours to get to the game and parked. Damn traffic sucks! So many ppl attend the game, not to mention there's some car race track near there. People in the parking lot that do the tailgating thing and watch the game on their tv's. I think that's amusing, a warm house would be nicer. Must be a die-hard fan thing or something. Atleast we get to visit Karen for a bit before the game, which reminds me, we must call her. And gotta call sweetpea to remind her she's taking my kids. LMAO!

Her birthday is in about 2 weeks. 5 days after Steven turns 3. I have no idea what to do for his birthday, mine were never much the thing so I have no real desire to make any birthday 'the thing'. My house is too small to throw a party with his aunts, uncles and cousins attending. Even if only half come. 3 uncles, 2 aunts and plenty of cousins makes lots of ppl. Not to mention I hate crowds, no matter how well I know them. Makes me wanna hide. Have to ponder that one. Aunt sweetpea will be 20 something, I never can remember, only that she was born in 1991 I think. Hell, I still have the 'present' I made for Dalyna. I am sooo bad. I forget to send things. Have to re-string anyway. I've found the damn crimp beads end up slicing the wire and/or string eventually and they come apart. Which reminds me, I suppose I could give up a set of my turquoise/dragonfly things. The only colors I have are red, white, blue and turquoise. I only work with things I like, so I don't have many choices. I'm thinking I need some baby blue seed beads and matching bigger glass beads. Maybe a pink also. Hmm. Oh, yes, forgot sweetpea is gonna have a proper party for her birthday, and if I find a babysitter, I can go get drunk. Been quite some time for that. Atleast before Steven was concieved, if not before Mikel.

Where was I? Oh, yes the bead colors. Actually I have a rich red that matches the Chiefs color, the blue is more a dark but not navy that matches the Royals color (don't ask) and plain white. I think I'll get some that aren't opaque, meaning not shiny or pearlescent(sp?). The seed beads are smaller than I could wish, they are too small for some of the bigger beads I have. Instead of 4mm, I think I will check out 6mm or 8mm. I can't really tell the size though, there are only pics on the web and that isn't all that accurate. I have a baaad sense of size anyway so I'd have to string some to decide what size I want. I have a lovely flag set made up. Hubby asked me to make one when we were in Wal-Mart and saw the nice wooden flag beads. I had red, white and blue beads anyway, so that was simple. I also strung myself a new turquoise dragonfly necklace. I found some marked down sterling silver charms a few months back. Very pretty silver dragonfly, apparently I'm fascinated by them, I'll show it to you when I manage to get this damn computer fixed. It ended up smaller than I intended. I had decided that 20" was a proper size. This one ended up being 16 ½". It fits like a choker, so I know eventually I'll give it away. Can't stand things on my neck like that. It wouldn't be symmetrical or a 'proper' looking pattern if I added more beads, so Oh well. I did however, decide 18" is a better size, it fits to above the neckline of shirts, so no hassles of them being under a shirt and trying to put it over a collared one. All's well that ends well. A skinny person, I should think could wear it. Hmm. Problem is, I make them to please myself, and you never know if someone actually wants one of them and aren't just being polite. They are made to be worn, not accepted then put up to never be used. My insecurities are showing again, I think.

Well, with luck my nephew will order and get the new motherboard soon and all will be well again. We decided that the one I do have is most likely 'bad' as his is giving him fits too. It'll be fun to mess with my pics again. I miss that. My need to create is getting too stifled, I can't do it at this point. My programs even being on the hard drive seem to make it break all the sooner. Even if they aren't running. Not to mention it doesn't really take any space on my hard drive. Last time I put them all on, defrag said I still had 98% free space. That is without the games. No point in loading them when you lose your characters. UGH! I miss Diablo, it's a fun game.

See ya'll later.

Perceptions.

2005-11-25T15:11:00.000-08:00

Preconcieved notions. Filtered glasses. What have you. Went and did the 'thing' with hubby's brothers (and families) yesterday. Wasn't near as bad as I thought. Actually it was fun. Everyone was nice. Even the 'preachy' ones didn't get all 'preachy' this time. I think maybe I colored my own judgement a little too far.

So, my activities: I taught my sister-in-law, many years older than me, how to thicken drippings from the turkey and turn it into gravy. That amused the hell out of me. Add a little cornstarch! Unfortunately, I used a glass bowl for the cold water, it was a little slick, didn't have a proper hold, and dropped the bowl into the gravy pan. *BIG SPLASH* Oops. No big deal though. Seasoned it a bit and we had a nice, richly flavored gravy. Also, she used her roaster thingy for the turkey. The lady in-laws were a little dismayed that the turkey was done, yet the skin was pale. More amusement for me, as the youngest of the ladies is over 10 years older than me. I shocked them with the suggestion to put it under the broiler, on Lo, and they were amazed that in 5 minutes the damn thing browned. I never knew the ladies didn't know the tricks and cheats of home cooking. LMFAO!

Chatted with the ladies for a bit, but no one had any suggestions that I hadn't already tried to convince Steven to want to use the potty for number 2. Oh well. The guys decided to play Texas hold 'em after dinner. I didn't want to play. The thing is, I always win, take their money and whatnot. I have noticed they don't really appreciate it. Can't say I blame them though, Why play if you can't win? No, not bragging, it just happens. One of the nephews says, 'You wanna know a secret? My mom won't play poker if you do, since you always win.' I says, 'That's not really a secret, I already know that.' *giggles* So the guys needed another player, only played with chips not money, and no one else wanted to play. They told me I had to. So I showed them my 'stay in with some crappy hands' thing I do. Then when I got a good hand, I took them for all I could. Got hubby for $6000 before he folded, then I showed them all my pair of deuces. Got down to me and brother-in-law, not the ones that brag about their 'awesome' playing, and got bored. I think he was too. He took my money with a pair of 5's, I had a pair of 3's. I was done. It was pretty priceless when the poker players were shocked to find out I went all in on a pair of 3's. Sooo sweet. Love to fuck with their heads, it's great.

Came home to find Mikel had 103° fever. He was done with that by noon today. Steven has been 102° since 4am and still going strong. Oh well. No idea why they have/had fevers, no other symptoms. Steven usually takes about twice the amount of time Mikel does so, he should be done sometime tomorrow. The motrin actually isn't working for him, tylenol is little better. Cold washcloths have been controlling it better. Just pisses him off. Sick babies are fun!

Ya'll have a nice weekend. See ya'll later.

Holidays

2005-11-22T08:57:00.000-08:00

Even though ya'll haven't been by to visit, and probably won't before thanksgiving, I thought I'd let ya'll know I dug out my favorite turkey recipe and posted it on the recipe site. Ya'll should try it, it's very good. The gravy it makes goes really well with homemade mashed potatoes.
Recipe site
Have a nice holiday, hopefully I'll only be forced to 'visit' family once. I don't think that's possible as his brother from AZ is coming, but oh well. Atleast he's very nice and non-judgemental. Other than that, I'll probably have a weekend with judgemental hypocrites. *sigh*

See ya'll later.

'Nothing Else Matters'

2005-11-20T19:28:00.000-08:00

Since my computer has seen fit to stay working, I have decided on a song for ya'll. I do so like Metallica, well their 'black' cd anyway. Almost every song on that one speaks to me. Tell me what ya'll think.

'Nothing Else Matters' Metallica

So close, no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
and nothing else matters

Never opened myself this way
Life is ours, we live it our way
All these words I don't just say
and nothing else matters

Trust I seek and I find in you
Every day for us something new
Open mind for a different view
and nothing else matters

never cared for what they do
never cared for what they know
but I know

So close, no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
and nothing else matters

never cared for what they do
never cared for what they know
but I know

Never opened myself this way
Life is ours, we live it our way
All these words I don't just say

Trust I seek and I find in you
Every day for us, something new
Open mind for a different view
and nothing else matters

never cared for what they say
never cared for games they play
never cared for what they do
never cared for what they know
and I know

So close, no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
No, nothing else matters

As always, the lyrics are from Lyrics 007. Click on the special button I made for them on the sidebar. This time it's animated!
Happy holidays, see ya'll later!

Pissy

2005-11-19T17:45:00.000-08:00

This stupid computer keeps fucking up! Boot file keeps getting kicked off. I'm sure it's the processor or something like that. No specific program running crashes or causes the same thing over and over. Just the same damn result. My favorite saying for these times: Well, fuck me running. Atleast I have my books. They're great. I'll be on and off until I get this damn thing fixed. New Quote! Look up.

I noticed my visitors are starting to search for my pics. Odd. My tattoo seems to be a favorite. It is very nice and I am rather attached to it.

I did have a nice visit with my sister and nephews. We had fun. The Chiefs lost. Oh well. I fixed her computer a bit. She had spyware from hell. There was around 100 or so with some in the system32 files. Oops. Peyton is adorable. Soooo soft. Nothing in the world like a baby's skin. He has two teeth and drools...A LOT! Born six weeks early and is already a few sizes larger than his age. Nothing unusual there, our boys seem to be big, though we ourselves aren't. Mikel is a couple inches taller than Ethan. Very funny! They are about a month apart in age. Ethan used to be the bigger one. I missed him. I'm gonna steal him for a movie weekend sooner or later. I did promise him. Such a sweetheart, and the boys did miss him.

If I don't see ya'll next week, have a nice Thanksgiving. I think it's next week. I'm cooking a turkey sometime this week. See ya'll later!

Amusement

2005-11-12T07:41:00.000-08:00

Generally I amuse myself by checking out my statcounter. The searches that find their way here are rather humorous. Today, one was 'winx+club+porn'. LMFAO! I watch the winx club cartoon, but don't have any porn here. That's the search used most. What's worth mentioning about it though, is that the porn searcher stayed at my site for 18+ hours. Now, the question is: Were they searching for porn on this site for that long, or were they reading? Cuz they were only on the front page, no search in the archives. It doesn't take that long to read the 3 whole posts on the front page. That's my amusement for the day. Oh, how I love my statcounters. Future reference: if ya'll feel a real need to find the cartoon porn you're looking for, you need to refine your search. There are a few places you can do that kind of search and it won't kick out anything other than what you're looking for. I'll help you out if you need it. ;)

More to come later. It is the weekend, therefore we're gonna have some randomness in a bit. Only cartoon I watched this morning is Winx Club. It was pretty good. The good cartoons aren't on until later, after 6pm on Cartoon Network. Full Metal should be awesome tonight, and I'm looking forward to Inuyasha. We're going to the library too. Lots of excitement for me today. Going to little sisters tomorrow. We're gonna bbq. Making the 'men' bbq in the cold. Watching the Chiefs game too. It's really nice to be going somewhere to visit and be able to be myself. You know, accepted for who you are, no one minding all your little idiosyncracies. (Sorry 'bout the big words, been reading a lot again.) Haven't seen my new nephew Peyton since he was born. Should be fun!

See ya'll in a bit. Have a good Veterans Day weekend. Thankx to all our soldiers past and present. To my favorite soldier (was) Oldest sister, I miss you. Hope you call again soon.

Veterans Day

2005-11-10T22:00:00.000-08:00

I went through quite a few songs to find one to 'represent' the holiday. Today we are supposed honor those who fought in wars past and present. Maybe we should honor the future ones too. After all, the ones in the future will be our children.

'Bang a Drum' Bon Jovi
I went to see the preacher
To teach me how to pray
He looked at me and smiled
Then the preacher turned away
He said if you want to tell him something
You ain’t gotta fold your hands
Say it with your heart
Your soul and believe it
And I’d say amen

Bang a drum for the sinners
Bang a drum for the sins
Bang a drum for the losers
And those who win
Bang a drum bang it loudly
Or as soft as you need
Bang a drum for yourself son
And a drum for me

I called upon my brother just the
Other day, he said: john I’m gonna
Die if I don’t start to live again
I work each day and night like clockwork
Just trying to make ends meet
I could kick this bad world’s ass
If I could just get on my feet

I’d bang a drum for the dying
Bang a drum for the truth
Bang a drum for the innocence
Lost in our youth
Bang a drum bang it loudly
Or as soft as you need
Bang a drum for you brother
And a drum for me

I don’t know where all the rivers run
I don’t know how far, I don’t know how come
But I’m gonna die believin’
Each step that I take
Ain’t worth the ground that
I walk on
If we don’t walk it our
Own way

No I don’t claim to be a wiseman
A poet or a saint
I’m just another man who’s searching
For a better way
But my heart beats loud as thunder
For the things that I believe
Sometimes I wanna run for cover
Sometimes I want to scream

Bang a drum for tomorrow
Bang a drum for the past
Bang a drum for the heroes
That won’t come back
Bang a drum for the promise
Bang a drum for the lies
Bang a drum for the lovers
And the tears they’ve cried
Bang a drum bang it loudly
Or as soft as you need
But as long as my heart keeps on bangin’
I got a reason to believe

Anyway, for me, this seems appropriate all around. See ya'll later! (My computer is still breaking on me, so we'll see)

Transition

2005-11-09T06:30:00.000-08:00

I'm in the process of changing colors. We're gonna look funny until I edit my graphics. Bear with me. Thanx.

*update 1* Well, I'm not sure about my BGW button. I think it looks weird. I'd like to change the color of the dragon bar graphic. I'm not sure I can. I did try. Maybe when I reload photoshop, I'll be able to. Hmm. I'm unsure about the header too. I think it's too fast. As soon as I find out where I got the other graphics, I'll put the site onto each part of the header too. I'm almost done for the moment. I'd like some better dragons for the bars. The larger graphics don't translate all that well when you resize them to teeny-tiny. We'll see. Opinions please!

*update 2* I've decided I don't like the dragon bars. It looks funny with the 'blue' background under it and I don't like the white. UGH! Damn computer kicked off the boot file ...something something setup/config so had to reload xp and lost everything I did here. The templates anyway, I still have photobucket. I think I like the header though. Hmm.

Close My Eyes Forever

2005-11-08T20:58:00.000-08:00

While listening to my YIM launchcast, this song came on. Did I ever tell ya how much I love Lita Ford. This ballad done with Ozzy is awesome. The flow of the music just goes with the lyrics. As always, any song I'll post here is one that I relate to/speaks to me.

CLOSE MY EYES FOREVER
(Lita Ford/Ozzy Osbourne)
Baby
I get so scared inside, and I don't really understand
Is it love that's on my mind, or is it fantasy
Heaven
Is in the palm of my hand, and it's waiting here for you
What am I supposed to do with a childhood tragedy
(Chorus)
If I close my eyes forever
Will it all remain unchanged
If I close my eyes forever
Will it all remain the same...
Sometimes
It's hard to hold on
So hard to hold on to my dreams
It isn't always what is seems
When you're face to face with me
You're like a dagger
And stick me in the heart
And taste the blood from my blade
And when we sleep, would you shelter me
In your warm and darkened grave
(Chorus Repeat)
Will you ever take me
No, I just can't take the pain
But would you ever trust me
No, I'll never feel the same...Ohh...
I know I've been so hard to you
I know I've told you lies
If I could have just one more wish
I'd wipe the cobwebs from my eyes
(Chorus Repeat)
Close your eyes
Close your eyes
You gotta close you eyes for me

As always, I got the lyrics from Lyrics 007.
I'm not sure at the moment how it speaks to me, but if I look over the lyrics a bit, I'll figure it out later. Maybe I'll say, maybe I won't. See ya'll later!

Weekend Randomness

2005-11-05T22:27:00.000-08:00

At this point, I'm fairly sure that my wacky computer problems are over. So, we are back to random shit that doesn't really matter. It's much more fun!{new quote! look up!}

Did I ever tell ya'll how much I love Saturdays? The cartoons are awesome! Winx Club is the only a.m. show I've been watching lately. Dragon booster and witch are still re-runs...UGH. Cartoon network has new cartoons lately. Did I ever tell ya'll how much I like anime? As long as there's some sort of magic, I'm game. Full metal is getting better and better. There's a new one called Naruto...it's a ninja cartoon. Odd story line, yet still amusing. s-CRY-ed is just odd. It just ended. There's a new one I just saw today. Called IGPX. Think nascar+robots. A little demolition derby, some skates, well it's interesting anyway. I'm gonna reserve judgement, no magic.

Books are awesome. Julie Garwood is my new favorite author. Her books are quite funny, yet have great sex. I found a few new authors this last round at the library. Books are due back next saturday. I get to borrow more!

I'm frustrated with my bead stuff at the moment. It seems the wire isn't as sturdy as it thought it was. I'm unsure exactly what's going on with it. I think maybe the crimp beads manage to weaken it. Problem to be solved then pondered. It's only my anklets that got broken. That could be because I never took them off. Hmm.

I had the urge to draw today. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything I wanted to draw. I have decided to do some dragons next. All my dragon pics are on a disc waiting to be reloaded. We'll see. They should be fun to color. Especially since I now have gel crayons. They're very smooth. Reminds me of oil paints. I have some canvas paper I'd like to draw on, but I need to figure out what to use for color on it. I don't think crayon would look nice on it. Even though they are my favorites.

I'm looking forward to messing around with graphics again. We'll see. I have yet to have the chance to actually mess with that photoshop program. I got to open it once. Had no idea what was going on. Trial and Error here we come. I'm hoping to figure out if it does animations or not. I think I'm gonna draw the dragons I'll use to re-outfit my page. Could be fun. You never know. It's either that or ya'll will get stuck seeing carebears. I do sooo love them. My newest one is a latchhook kit thingy of luck bear. He's my favorite. Don't panic, I won't torture ya'll with that. I think I need to stretch the header. It looks kind of weird at 200px. Like I smashed it or something. Think I'll go for 400px.

I have to clean my house. Not looking forward to it. I've been out of sorts for the last month. Not sure if it's because I didn't have my computer for distraction or if it's something else. I've been withdrawing a bit more than usual. I need to figure that out. Haven't been able to yet.

The kids missed halloween. It rained. Mikel has a cute little dragon costume and Steven has Tigger. They got to wear them, just didn't go anywhere. Once I've got everything up and running I'll be taking pictures.

Not looking forward to Thanksgiving. Ever felt like an outsider at a family holiday? Yes, that's me. They disapprove of me since I 'let' my kids get into things at my house. They are well behaved elsewhere. For some unknown reason they are under the impression that one person can watch 2 kids 24 hours a day, nonstop, without them getting into any kind of mischief. Pleeeeeeeze! The kicker....hubby agrees with them, then admits to me that even HE can't keep them out of stuff when he watches them by himself. He's a mite to agree-able sometimes. Ah well, I'm not perfect either. I also have to start organizing reunion stuff too. That's gonna be iffy. I'll do my best though.

Haven't talked to grandma since her last letter. Still not ready to either. My father is apparently divorcing the bitch. Not my problem. I don't care. Makes no difference to me. Doesn't change my feelings one bit. Forgiveness just isn't in me. Can't do it. Can't go back there. I don't like that dark place. No one will force me or guilt me into going there. I do mean NO ONE! Reference to all that shit is in the archives...somewhere.

Well, on that happy note, we'll end. Have a nice 'rest of the weekend'. Talk to ya'll later!

Wishful Thinking

2005-11-04T10:58:00.000-08:00

Well, here's hoping everything is fixed! Still can't get YIM yet. Gotta see about fixing my pics up too. However, I'm gonna wait a bit to hook up the scanner and printer just in case. I've been foiled so many times it ain't funny!

I have to tell ya, I missed my computer. Oh soooo much. Going online at the library isn't the same. Couldn't visit everyone. Very few have the same blog address as the title of their page. I lost my entertainments, my links to the outside world. Frankly, I was bored. If I can get this all worked out, I'm looking forward to messing around with my page again. I may even get rid of the maroon. Of course that means I have to change all of my buttons and banners! I may be going with dragons next. I got those ones a gorgeous blue color. I think, if I fade them enough, I can make them a tiled background. That may be fun. Either that or I'm gonna have to learn how to do the table crap. I don't wanna do that. I'll be redoing my pics below, I think. They're too big. Maybe I'll make them a post and a link. Hmm.

I'll be visiting ya'll soon. If you don't see me, well it means the computer is broke again. See ya'll later!

AAAHHH!!!

2005-10-08T07:56:00.000-07:00

My computer is BROKEN! We are unsure what's wrong. Nephew took the hard drive to test with his own computer...and there's nothing wrong with it. He said it might be a bad processor. He's gonna look at it this week. He says if it's not the processor, it's the motherboard. The thing that really sucks about it is the parts were all bought brand new!

So...here I sit...at the LIBRARY. I wanted to check my e-mail. Thought I'd let ya'll know what the deal is. I can't even get my computer to turn on anymore. It blue screens. UGH.

See ya'll later!

Happenings and Observations

2005-09-19T11:19:00.000-07:00

Well, a lot has happened in the 2 weeks I was without a computer. In the larger scheme of things, my problems are nothing compared to many others. However, they are still my problems, therefore I will talk about them and other things.

I did get a new hard drive with faster stuff, bigger memory. However, still having problems. You'd think that my XP install disk would actually work. Many, many retries of install before it did so. My nephew installed it originally and I couldn't get many of my files to load, as I seemed to be missing some .dll files. So...wipe the hard drive, re-install. UGH. It took me 2 days to install without, seemingly, any errors. I think my disk is screwed. I'm gonna need a new program. For now, I'll deal with it. It's bitchy, very bitchy. Some programs don't work or shut off on their own. Namely the games shut off, for the most part. They aren't 'essential' so they don't concern me much. My major computer problems are the hard drive crashing, as the drivers for my new stuff like the hard drive itself and the essential pieces that make a computer actually run randomly stop working. My theory is that xp is pissy because the drivers aren't digitally signed. I couldn't get directx 9.0 to install for my Nero program, came with the burner, because it wasn't digitally signed. It simply refused it. However I installed the same damn thing from the driver disk that made xp so pissy as the drivers weren't 'signed'. WTF?! The only programs so far, that seem to be working are firefox, thunderbird and solitaire. I haven't messed with my photo programs, as I'm trying to get my damn open office downloaded. Downloads in .zip files. I've downloaded it atleast 10 times in the past couple of days. No luck. 'error reading .zip file', 'error extracting .zip file', etc. I think xp didn't load the unzip program thingy properly. I'm getting either the errors or it does unzip, but the setup.exe isn't working. UGH! I need it for my reunion projects. I can't get Yahoo instant messenger to install itself properly. After 2 days of trying, it actually installed itself twice. I then had to remove the damn thing manually. It was missing a file that it required to actually open the program. Can't find xxx file. Messenger will only allow me to download their new 'voice' messenger. UGH. I wanted to try to get the old one, see if it's my computer having problems installing or the program. No such luck. I actually need that one, keep in contact with my family. For now it's gonna have to be e-mail. I had to try and try and try again to get my anti-virus installed. I think it must be xp that didn't load properly. I've never had such trouble getting basic programs and drivers installed. Oh, and forget trying to update the damn thing. Windows update is pissy too. It refuses to validate my copy of windows. Fucker validated last hard drive I had. Same damn disk! I just wanted to be able to update certain programs. I let the auto-update do it's thing and ended up in a reboot circle. Load windows...blue screen...rebooted itself, for quite some time. No safe mode no nothing. Blue screen, reboot. Until I get some help, I'm stuck with what I have. I don't want to have to buy another copy of xp. I'm sure it'll be quite expensive. UGH. Damn my conscience for actually paying for programs. Well, most of them anyway. Truthfully, I only have either ones I bought, are open source, or given to me by someone no longer using the program. Just like with music, I believe if you get it you should pay for it, doing things illegally isn't worth the trouble if you get caught.

Enough about my problems, they are minor, on to the next subject. Observations. My hard drive crashed the day after the hurricane hit. I was getting my news from several sources, but mainly the irish trojan and one of the local NO stations live broadcast. The weather channel was only broadcasting what they knew were facts. Every other network on my tv was reporting WHATEVER THE FUCK THEY FELT LIKE. This is pathetic, they were reporting rumors, that were debunked by anyone who felt like doing a little 'homework' on the internet. Like local news sources and official websites. They showed 'safe on their asses' politicians whining about meaningless shit, while the people who lost their homes were trying to recover, find places to stay, etc. And then my hard drive crashed. No ability to find news what-so-ever. Every once in a while, I'd flip to a tv news site and just get more pissed off. A congresswoman sat there on, I think cnn, and whined about how the president didn't give her state money. Whatever, get off your fucking ass, and go to your job and make legislation to fix it. Even the president has to follow the LAW. You don't like it, make new ones, that's your job, that's what your citizens pay your happy little whining ass to do. GO DO IT! Play the blame game later. It pisses me off seeing these people blame the federal government. They whine about too much federal involvement then scream when they don't do enough. Get over yourself and fix your damn problems. You have a brain, use it. If you can't use it, go find a new job, your people need someone better. And yes, I say this from the safety of my little house, in my little town, far away from the disaster. You know, another hurricane hit last week, I think it was. In florida. So not newsworthy, I guess. It got coverage on the weather channel. It wasn't New Orleans, it wasn't newsworthy. I understand why New Orleans is such a big deal. Truly, I do, but there are other places affected too. Hopefully the politicians will pull their heads out of their asses (generalization) and fix the problems. Prevent it from happening again. Wait, oops, you can't prevent a HURRICANE. You can only prepare, hopefully. That's what I wish to see 'them' talking about. How to fix the 'preparedness and recovery whatever' of the aftermaths of hurricanes. What can we do to prevent excess damage, what can we do to ensure that response time is as fast as possible. I've seen some allusions that it wasn't. I wonder. Was it, was it not? Who gets to say that it was, or wasn't? Who is right? I have to say the crap that I've seen on the net after my 2 weeks was discouraging. It wasn't at the blogs I read though. Well there were some moronic, ignorant comments, but in general I just wanna say UGH!

However, I'm making my judgements a bit hastily. I realize that. I will revise my opinion if needed. I will wait for studies and reports to come out. I will wait for facts that can be verified. Can you do that before you play the blame game? Personally, right now, I don't care who's to blame. There are more immediate problems, like the people in, I think, 3 states that lost homes, valuables, family members. Those are the problems that need addressing, everything else can come after that. And no, I didn't donate to any causes. I don't have much money, and winter is coming. In a tourist area, there isn't much money in winter and I have to make sure we'll be able to pay bills through winter and into March and April. If you want to donate fine, if you don't that's okay too. I think people need to remember that. Donating is a choice. Respect other peoples' choices.

If you wanna lecture me fine, do it in a respectable manner. If you want to change my opinion, word your debate/argument respectfully and I will listen. Back up your claims with sources. And under no circumstances quote religious crap to me. I respect your choice to have religion, don't use it to try to guilt me. I am a master at rejecting that shit. I have had guilt laid on me from people much better than 'you' at it. Go elsewhere for it, here it will serve no purpose. (Here I have haloscan where I can delete comments and ban commenters.)

Frivolous(sp?) posting to come at a later date. Pics of the stuff from the Hillbilly Fair to come later when I'm halfway sure that I can get pics up.

Grr

2005-09-17T08:15:00.000-07:00

Well...I did get most of my programs loaded. However, still having quite the problem.
Damn things aren't installing properly. Seems I'm missing some .dll and .cab files. I can't get adobe reader installed, as I believe I'm missing cab files for that one. I have to have that for my reunion stuff. Some of the .dll files are necessary for my antivirus, spybot, spyware blaster. Not to mention my more fun programs.

Now that I visited a little, more importantly made sure se7en was ok, and I caught up there, I'm gonna try to re-install until I get what I want. Oh and the Photoshop6 disk works and if you're gonna be needing it back, I'll burn me a copy and send the original back.

Between the re-installing of xp and the Hillbilly Fair today, I'll be out until tomorrow probably. Ya'll have fun and stay safe!

FUCK!

2005-09-15T20:11:00.000-07:00

Finally, 2 weeks after my damn hard drive crashed, I got my new one. Only problem is it doesn't want to boot properly. Missing the boot.ini file or some such. After a few restarts it does.

Now, I can't get my default profile from before onto this firefox on this hard drive. I just downloaded it. Damn, my page looked fucked up in IE. Atleast half of my lists of sites on the sidebar is for me, in case I lose all my files.

I'll be in and out. Damn messenger keeps popping up spyware shit. That's fucked up. It's starting to piss me off. Since I can't access my bookmarks, passwords, etc. I have to go refind everything.

My favorite quote at times such as these...'Well, fuck me runnin'

You get the idea. Hope everyone's doing fine, gotta take care of this spyware shit that popped up after IE decided to have MSN as the damn homepage before I managed to stop it. IE SUCKS!!!

Windows Messenger is very FUCKED up!

Offline

2005-08-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

I'm going offline for a while. My new cd-rw drive came in. I don't know how long it'll take me to install.

For those looking for info on the hurricane damage go visit the irish trojan's blog. There's a link in the previous post and on the sidebar.

http://www.wwltv.com/perl/common/video/wmPlayer.pl?title=beloint_khou&props=livenoad
Is the address for the live feed from WWLtv. It's a local station broadcasting from LSU. They are getting in new video feeds, and are announcing breaking news as they get it for New Orleans. They are also reading letters and e-mails from people who are evacuated to those who are in NO still. Also any that come in from NO to those who are worried about them. They read them when they can. They also encourage ppl to write letters and e-mails to the news website and will read them on-air between the news broadcasts they get in.

The entire coast will need as much help as everyone can give them. Best updating of all situations are at the irish trojan blog or at the links he has on his sidebar.

Our thoughts are with you all.

Hurricane Katrina

2005-08-29T10:12:00.000-07:00

I noticed that quite a few people came by from my commenting on The Irish Trojan's blog. I apologize if ya'll got the idea that I was actually blogging about it. I found Brendan's site to be the most informative and quickly updated site about it. My main concern about it, selfish though it may be, is that one of my blog friends lives in New Orleans. So I've been getting information there. Since I noticed that he was updating so quickly and multi-tasking I tried to do my part to help. I was watching the 'The Weather Channel' and could help in that way.

Se7en, I hope you were able to get the hell outta dodge, since you didn't leave until Sunday morning. The outlook is better than it was for NO, but they are saying that the storm surges have yet to come in. I don't really understand what that means, but I think there is may still be some danger of more flooding.

Anyone wanting more information, go to the Irish Trojan. He has many links and posts about what's going on. If you'll take the time to go back through the last few days of posts, you'll notice that the warning should have gone out Saturday morning at the latest. Instead many tourists got trapped, as they weren't going to leave until a 'mandatory' evacuation was called. From what I have been able to tell, with the evacuation so late, many people were trapped on the interstate highways during the hurricane.

As soon as people start setting up places to donate for helping with the damage and whatnot, I'll let ya'll know.
*update* there's a post with a link for donations to the red cross.

Confessions

2005-08-27T12:52:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure the title is the right one, but maybe it is. I did tell ya'll I'd write this story. Bear with me. It's hard to write, think or talk about. If you see some misplaced humor, it's just me dealing with it. Lightening my mood to enable me to tell my story. In order to tell it, we must have a little history also. Telling it bareboned would not do it justice. It will be my thoughts, impressions of that time. This is my story. No one knows the full story, I don't talk about it. It does need to be told. I think it's time. Bear with me while I muddle through. It may get graphic, and I'd say that a man may not be able to 'stomach' the story. I suggest they read it anyway, but you know, whatever.
This is the story of a teenage girl. One who was lost, and had been for a long time. Almost no self-esteem due to her upbringing. Being told you are stupid and worthless your entire life does this to a girl. It will also demonstrate why it is VERY important to teach your children about sex. There is a right and a wrong way. You will see, just bear with me. While I'm writing, I'm also listing to my launchast radio, if you see bits of music thrown in, well that's why. I'd never survive without my music to speak for me at times.

Deep breath. I think first I should explain what my sex education was. Stepbitch sat down and said: When you're 16 we'll put you on birth control. That's the extent of my parental sex talk. My friends, the girl ones, simply bragged about having it, not really anything else. Health class taught me that if you get pregnant, you miss your period. Let's all remember that very important point. Pregnant=missed period. (not true) That's it, that's all I knew about sex until I was 15.
We won't talk about losing my virginity, it's not very relevant here. The only relevance it has is that I lost it because he wanted to have sex. It was painful, took 3 times to break through and well, it always hurt anyway. (It wasn't until I met my husband at age 21 that I learned a woman needed to be 'wet' before penetration for it not to hurt. That's when I learned sex was fun.)
Now to set the relevant background. At 15 I was working at the Flats, the girls know where that is. There I met Angelo. He was 20 something. The point being, he was nice to me. I was attracted and pursued him, let's remember that. Let's also remember here I never had sex with a condom until my hubby. Because: It doesn't feel good (he said, both he's). The pertinent question here is why I had sex with him. It had never been a nice expirience before. I admit, I was curious. I didn't have much self-esteem either. I don't really know why I did. Mostly because he wanted to. He had soft lips, I liked his kisses, that's what it was for me. Didn't necessarily want the sex itself. I never did like it, yet I still did it. Why? Basically, he wanted to. I'm very lucky I didn't catch any diseases from him. He had sex with a lot of women. I wasn't possessive of him, as I didn't really look at him as 'mine'. I just didn't care. If I'd have known then...You know the saying, I would have had more self respect. I broke it off in the January before I turned 16. If you're curious, it was only for a few months that winter. I know when the last time I had had sex with him was, because of the circumstances in which I broke it off. I don't want to talk about those. Anyway, it was the end of January, no later.
Anyway, on with the show. A little 'woman' talk is necessary here. My period has always been short. It has never been predictable, and my cycle is short. I can have 2 in one month, the first of the month and the last, it's about a 3 to 3 and half week cycle. Months are 4 weeks. It's important to note I never missed one. NOT ONE. I never had cramps, no PMS, no early warning. Once in a while I would have very mild cramps 2 days before. I would bleed for 3 days. The first day was a normal flow, and the next 2 were a trickle, I didn't actually need a pad. It was that light. The only reason I tell you this is it pertains to the story.
After school let out that year, I was 16 by then, in June we went to my cousin's graduation. Her parents are missionaries in Hong Kong. They would come back to the states for each child's senior year. In June, we were in Indiana. Our family was there, our grandparents and my aunt and uncle's family. I was 'on the rag' by the time we arrived. I was cramping very badly. I was bleeding a lot. I was changing my pad roughly every hour. Went to the store and got some medicine for that, may have been midol or something. It did not lessen any pain. On the day of Sara's graduation, which was to take place that night, here is what I remember:
At some point I had gone to the restroom, did my thing and changed my pad yet again. I was in a lot of pain. I went to the kitchen where grandma was cooking something. I remember saying something like grandma can I ask you something. Next thing I know I had thrown up all over the table. Everyone freaked out. Grandma looked very worried. My father said I was ghost white and had passed out. He and my uncle took me to the ER.
The ER: Of course you register and whatnot, all that I have no memory of. My father was in the room with me. Of course being a young girl one of the questions they ask is if you are pregnant. Remember, this is June, the last sex I had was January. So, count from Feb to middle of June and you get 5 months. So, my answer was no. The doc kept asking and looking at me funny. I had to pee in a cup. They sent my father out of the room and asked again, I said no it's not possible. I also said the last time I had sex was January. They did not believe me, can't really blame them as a lot of girls I'm sure are scared and lie. It did not occur to me to lie about that. Then, I got sent to get an MRI done. I remember outside of that room waiting on the hospital bed, by that time I couldn't stand so they chose to wheel the bed around, I was talking to I think the radiologist who does the MRI. They said cat-scan, I don't know if that's different. He was asking about the pain and what not. The next thing I know, I woke up and asked him what he gave me to knock me out. I was feeling no pain. It didn't hurt anymore. He didn't give me anything at all. The scans were inconclusive, so the sent me to get an ultrasound. Getting an ultrasound that quickly is not fun. There is a tube and saline involved there. They have to get liquid into your bladder. They did the ultrasound but would not tell me what they found. Back to the ER room I was in, same doc as saw me first. Remember, they did do a piss test. This is where it starts getting a little freaky. This doctor asked me if I had had an abortion. I said no, I'm not even pregnant. Apparently the miscarriage looked so bad, that they thought that's what happened. We'll note here, that I'm not even sure if there's anyone in the area I live in, even now, that does that. And let's set aside that it is something I know I would never do. So, here I am, in an ER room with a pissed off doctor accusing me of having an abortion. Here I am thinking it's not possible to be pregnant as I have been taught that when you are pregnant, you miss your period. End of story. Out comes that damn whatcha-ma-callit, speculum I think. There is nothing a woman hates more than those things and the stirrups. I was alone in that room with a pissed of doctor and a nurse who looked at me like I was some misguided child. ALONE. They didn't even bother to hide what they were doing. So that I couldn't see. I guess maybe they thought I deserved it, I don't know. Here I am, alone, absorbing that I had been pregnant and lost a baby. My whole life all I've ever really wanted to be was a mother. Remember that month count? Add in the 2 weeks on either side of your cycle that you are 'fertile'. That makes atleast 5 months. They were putting it in a jar, A JAR! It looked like a baby. This is very hard, it's seared into my brain. Alone in a hospital room, looking at what would have been my child.
When they were done, my father came back into the room. He was pissed. I got yelled at for lying to the doctor. The whole way back to my uncle's house. I got that 'look'. The girls know what that look is. Ice blue eyes. GLARE. ALONE. LOST. This is so hard to write. We got back and no one had much to say. The littler ones knew nothing. My cousins didn't know what to say. My grandmother looked at me and said I could talk to her when I was ready. My father continued to yell and glare with those ice blue eyes that always portray his RAGE. Stepbitch told me it was god's will. FUCK THAT SHIT. That night, I was left alone while everyone else went to the graduation. ALONE. Tell me, what kind of parents leave their child alone to deal with shit like that? I really want to know the answer to that one. My grandmother would have stayed, but I told her to go, she needed to be at the graduation. I wasn't allowed to go, the docs said I had to rest. I know that if not for the doctor's orders I would have been forced to go.
I will try to describe my thoughts. In a space of a couple hours, I found out I was pregnant, but not anymore. I lost a baby I never knew I had. I was ALONE. The people in my life who were supposed to be there for me were pissed off and disgusted. Guilt, so much guilt. I never missed a period, my waist didn't get bigger, my breasts weren't more sensitive, nothing to tell me I was pregnant. Now that I have 2 children, I know what it's like to be pregnant and I felt none of those things back then. I thought it was all my fault. I must have done something wrong, something to deserve it. My self-esteem was the lowest it had ever been. ALL...MY...FAULT. To top of my guilt for this, the whole way home and continuing months later, I was still getting the disgust and the 'look'.
I would never have survived if not for my job. The people I worked for and with. My bosses felt guilty because they didn't know about my 'relationship' and were supportive of me. The guys I worked with were supportive of me. Angelo went back to Denver as soon as he found out. I had to call my bosses and take an extended week vacation, so he got advance warning. I don't blame him, he probably would have paid for it with his life. No, I'm not joking. I was threatened into filing a statutory rape charge. I don't think they extradited him from Denver. Andy, who was head cook after Angelo left, had a brother I had worked with and been friends with before he moved back to Denver called me. Alma had told him the story. He called me at work, of course, and offered to go beat the shit out of him. It was unnecessary really. I still wouldn't have gotten past it, if not for the woman police officer I went to file the charges with. She shooed my stepbitch out of the room to talk to me. They wanted details, which I was embarassed to give. I told her about my guilt. I had bad allergies and was constantly taking benadryl to be able to function, I carried heavy bus tubs, filled with dishes, on my waist to support the weight. She explained that it couldn't possibly have been the benadryl as they recommend that 'drug' for pregnant women with allergies, it's safe to take. I did tell her about the doc telling me I had had an abortion, and she believed ME. She was the first person to do so. She explained that yes, it is possible to keep having your period when pregnant, it is possible to have no symptoms at all. It was not my fault. A woman miscarries if there is something wrong with the fetus. If it would not survive outside of the womb. That probably saved my life. I was very depressed and in a very dark place. The first person to tell me it was not MY fault. In reality, my family should have done that. The girls themselves, didn't really know so they don't count. My grandmother is the only one who didn't judge me for having sex before marriage. That didn't really count for a long time as she was in NE and we were in MO. Going back to school that year really helped too. My friend Billie helped alot. She had an aunt that never missed a period and out popped a cousin, no symptoms for the whole pregnancy, even an enlarged belly. Anything that got me out of my home environment helped me. I didn't get past it for a very long time. I haven't really even now. I will never forget. It still makes me cry. It is something that unless it happens to you, you don't know. You really cannot relate to it. It's different even than losing a child that has been born. You haven't even met the child.
The most painful question I was ever asked came from Oldest sister. She respected my inability to talk about it, but she did need to ask this question. I understood her need. And I did give the answer. She asked me what it felt like to have a miscarriage. You can guess why she asked that question. It is a pain like you have never known. You bleed a lot. A whole hell of a lot. Nothing can take the edge off of that pain. We've never talked about it since, but I have always assumed from her expression after I answered that it wasn't something she had had. (Just to note, she was married at the time.)
This episode in my life does still hold power over me. Mostly I just cry about it every once in a while. It no longer has the ability to take me to my very dark place. I suppose that's a good thing.
Now, you all know why it is so important to teach your kids properly. That's all I ask of you. I did not write this to have anyone say, I feel bad for you, or whatever. I don't need it, and I don't want it. I give you all the opportunity to learn from my mistakes. I don't like to point out my mistakes, I mean who does? This is a life lesson for others to learn from. Don't make my mistakes. Don't make my parents' mistakes. It's all fine and good to tell your kids not to have sex, but they really do need to know why. The don't need the usual answers, they need to know good, solid reasons. Remember, your children do listen to you. Be careful what you say to your children, you really can scar them for life. I know, I've been there.
There's really not much left to say. It'll be a while before I write again, I think. Confessions like this take a lot out of you. I'll be having a good cry later when my kids sleep. As always, I re-read my posts. My wish for ya'll is to have written well enough so that you 'see' how it felt. I hope I have written it well enough. This is something that I would never wish on anyone. This is the one thing in my life I have always been alone in. There is nothing like it. I hope it was conveyed well. I have a large vocabulary, but don't always come up with the right words. I think I may send this one to grandma too. Anyway, maybe later I might revise it after re-reading it. If I do, it will be to add more descriptive words, as my brain does not deal well with this. Ya'll have a good weekend!

Memory Lane

2005-08-26T11:54:00.000-07:00

Today, I was throwing shit out. I have a lot of things I want to keep and have no room for. It was quite painful. All my recipe magazines are now in the trash. UGH. Trashcan is full! Anyway, that's not the point. I found some pictures. I'm gonna share them. :) Having a lazy day, so not much editing effort is going to go into the photos.

This is sweetpea and her son, apparently grandma had her date wrong on her camera. You can see it says '95. We didn't have kids in '95, I graduated that year. LMAO! The boys were born in '01. You can see she's skinny, the only one of us that can be that way without extreme effort. I chose it cuz of her grin. She smiles that way all the time.

Our grandpa with Mikel and Ethan. They are 3 weeks apart in age. Was ethan stripping?! LMAO. In the top corner is a painting of the bluffs grandpa did.

Well, I had more pictures, but the scanner is being pissy. I can't un-install and re-install the driver to fix the problem. My cd-drive won't read the disk! We'll be getting the new one sometime TUESDAY. So much for 3 day shipping. UPS delivers on saturday. The order should have been shipped out Thursday before noon. I ordered it early-ish wed. night, so it should have been a first thing next day. They didn't get the package to the ups shipping whatever until late late thurs. Maybe I should ask them to refund me to the 5 day shipping cost. Ah, well. You take what you get and get what you pay for.

Party Time!

2005-08-24T18:00:00.000-07:00

Well, for me anyway. Dalyna, if I didn't love mine, I would probably steal your hubby just for his brains! LMAO! Thanx to matt, I have ordered a new drive. I chose 3 day shipping. Ya'll are on notice, if I can't figure out how to install it, I'll be asking everybody how. :P Then I'll be able to get into that damned burned cd.

Now all I need is more RAM and a faster processor and I'll be all set up. I told him he volunteered hisself right into that one! Good thing I'm not pushy. LMAO!

Have fun ya'll, we'll be onto bigger and better graphics soon!

What I've been 'up' to lately

2005-08-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

I haven't really been up to all that much. Oldest sister IM'd me last night after I was in bed. LMAO, 11pm is early bedtime for me. Hubby was watching a Bond movie and I heard chimes. I asked him if it was in the movie, he says yes. I was confused a bit. 3 chimes. Damn, that's my IM. It's on all the time for precisely that reason. The only time I let it make sounds is if someone actually clickies and says something. Brandon had his eye surgery yesterday. He's fine, his eye is bloody and nose was trickling a bit. She says there are no visible incisions. His post-op is sometime today. She said he was using his eye all day. He's never been able to use it. Write these words down girls...'strabismus extropia(or estropia)' as it's hereditary. Your pediatrician needs to know that. From what I read before she had the right words, the kids have the greatest chance to have it before age 2 or 3 I think. Need to look it up at webMD again. Our mother and Uncle Steve had it and so does Chris and now Brandon. My eyes do that too, it's just not noticeable. Brandon's eye didn't move because 'the inner eye muscle was too short and wouldn't allow it to move'. She also had an interview this morning, cross your fingers there have been many. I gave her dalyna's new e-mail that you have been sending mail from and jesse jay's e-mail. Apparently mouse had her baby at some point already, it's a girl. 3 of them now. I don't have her e-mail address since I had to wipe my hard drive. I also told her about her present. Still haven't mailed it. I scanned it. It's a set. I don't have it in the post itself as it's too big and won't show properly, just clicky the link. There's a rainbow line because the scanner has PMS. I told her I'd e-mail a picture. Now if I can just get around to mailing it! Her favorite color is blue, if you didn't know that already. The regular and not any real shade of it.

I've also been working on 2 blogs. Sweetpea's has the most done to it. Dragon pics are easily found. I can't do the proper work on the banners and a header until I get access to the proper programs. I will get that new cd drive soon. I'm tired of not having a good program. Dalyna's hasn't changed much from what I've done with it. I'm having trouble finding good dolphin pics that are free for use on the web and small enough to be on a button. A lot of the time, translating from a good larger picture does not translate well at all to a 60px-40px size. I think I have some links I'm supposed to add to those sites. Ah, well I do need to teach them how, I just don't want sweetpea messing around in the CSS template again until I teach her. That one was a mess. She was doing her posts in the TEMPLATE! I guess she didn't see 'Create New Post'. LMAO, got that fixed up now. I'd like to get some nice smallish fairies too. Gonna take a bit of searching, which I no longer have the patience for. I'm also thinking about reworking my lines, banners, and buttons. I did them all myself. No one's allowed to take those, they won't work for any site but mine anyway. I did some cheating-ish shortcuts for them. They blend on my page, but won't on anyone elses. I think the thing I'm most proud of is my bars. They are all set to be an exact measurement. If ya'll are curious, and have firefox, right click on one and use view image (it might be picture) and you'll see what I mean. They aren't very impressive on a white background, but they are on mine :) I made my animated header and e-mail button. I have the e-mail on a slower animation, so you'll have to actually watch it. There's a little cheating on the animations too. I made them 'tween' between the first and last frame too, otherwise the animation stops abruptly and starts again. The way I did it, it's not at all noticeable. I did figure out that one on my own.
All this is, of course, Se7en's fault. To see where I got my 'inspiration' from go vistit Blogs Gone Wild. There how's that for the search thingy?! He's creating faster than I can keep up. Maybe we'll get to peek at some of the new ones before they're done. I think I asked him quite a few questions before I was done with my page. A Veracious, who's been visiting lately, had his blog done by Se7en. His is a lighthouse with 2 background images. I had to stare at his source code for a bit to figure it out. There's a z= code that levels the images. If you need them too. Just like if you were making a picture in a program that had, say, a few different layers of text on it. You 'order' the stuff or send to back, send to front. That's what the z thingy does. So the banner, with the top of the lighthouse, is still a background image, but it's layered on top of the other image, which is the tower of the lighthouse. Very ingenious I'd have never thought of that. I didn't know you could have more than 1 background image. Oh yeah, and the RA's site was done by him too. Back when he was figuring things out. Her's is lighthouse stuff too. She comes by fairly often, so I mention her too. In fact many of the blogs I have on my RSS were designed by se7en, that's how I found them. When he finishes a batch of them, he posts them so we can all go see.

Ending on an important note...
go visit over at Blackfive's for news about our soldiers and what is really going on in Iraq. There you'll find a lot of information. Soldiers, their family's, etc send him news and whatnot for those of us here. You'll find many milblogs there. Some are soldiers, some are their families, and there's atleast one journalist who's embedded with what they call the 'deuce 4'. He writes what he sees, you won't find anything like it on your tv. For those who can afford to, there are many links to help our soldiers. They can always use care packages and whatever else you can give them. I've seen a few post some appreciated letters from school children. Now, as always, play nicely. If you don't like what you see, there is that pretty little x button in the top right corner of your browser. If you can't say something nice, don't say it at all!

See ya'll later.

Lost and FOUND!

2005-08-23T08:22:00.000-07:00

{sing-song}I found it! I found it!{/} I can't believe I found this damn thing again. This thing has a loooong history of being lost and found again. In my family, us girls were introduced to this a while ago. We loved this...it was fun to make. Our friends at first thought it was gross. It had worms. {hint} MMMMM Yummy! Worms! Yes, I have really tasted real worms. They are just wiggly. 'Tastes like chicken'. The girls know what I mean, I think.
Anyway, on the the history of this lost and found thing. Long, long ago...{a bit of exaggeration here} in a life far, far away {relieved that's over} Let me have my little bit of fun damn it! Anyway, we had this thing. Back when I was working at the 'flats', the girls may know what this is, I gave this thing to Carol. Then I lost it. Years later I was working somewhere else and Carol came to work there. Carol taught me all there was to know about bussing tables and waiting on them. I asked her if she still had this thing. Yes, she gave it back, sort of. So I had it again. It was awesome. So, I lost it before I put it in the place it belonged. Every year I seem to find it, put it where I need it and lose it again. In looking for the manual for something, I found it again. Now, I'm gonna put it on the internet where it'll never be lost again.
However, before I show you what it is, you have to guess. I'm fairly sure the girls will get it right, if they come by before everyone else. I know they are gonna want this thing. LMAO. Lost and found
Remember guess first then look. Have fun ya'll!

Watching and Waiting

2005-08-20T18:07:00.000-07:00

Huh? We've never had one like this before. Well, I'll tell you what I mean. In actuality, I'm watching tv and typing, so you'll have to excuse the typos. LMAO! I don't really need to see the keyboard anyway. I'm not a hunt and peck kinda girl. Bill's at the Chiefs' pre-game game tonight. It's on Fox right now, if you wanna see. It's front row a little to the right of one side of one of the goal posts. It's really the left, but if we see him, he'll be on our right on the tv. So, here I am watching a game with teams I don't care for. UGH! Well, that's only partially true. I like to give him shit about the Cheifs being a really bad team. My good cartoons aren't on until later anyway. Not that I expect the game to be over by 11. It's a 4 hour trip home for them too. Silly men, I told him to see about staying overnite at his cousin's so as not to be driving at 2 am. No sign of the guys in the stands yet. Not that I necessarily expect it. He's wearing a red shirt with a tiny embroidered cheifs logo in the center top, and a White chiefs hat, if anyone cares. Of course that probably describes about half the fans there. LOL!
There won't be any good cartoons on until Inuyasha tonight. They've been changing the time on me. It could be 10:30 or 11:30 or so. Samurai Champloo has been re-runs. No big deal. I still watch if I have nothing better to do. There was a new, I haven't seen anyway, W.I.T.C.H. on this morning, I really liked it. They won! From the ending, I'd say there's gonna be a season 2. Adult Swim has been showing a couple of interesting Saturday night cartoon previews. I can't wait for Wolf's Rain and Witchhunter Robin to come back on. They were awesome. I saw a new Shaman King this morning, it was awesome too. I miss it half the time it's on, so I don't really know what's going on in the show. I still like it.
LMAO! 'Unsportsmanlike Conduct, Taunting' MORON! Baby mistakes will not make the team. Oh well, that's what happens in pre-season games anyway. No idea which team it was for though. The other night, another team was playing and the announcers were saying there's discussions about having only 2 pre-season games. That would really suck, we have to wait a very long time for football to come back. That would be another 2 weeks! NOOOOOO Say it ain't soooo! ;) I need my football games damnit! Anyway, I heard Troy Aikman (sp?) say something like: you know I've always been a proponent for 2 games not for. Okay, this is where I have a problem, if you are under-educated please do not prove it to me. There is life after football, and kids need to know that. Advocate is the proper word. I've often wondered how some of these pro players managed to get through 4 years of college. I mean, come on, at the very least they should know words. Maybe I'll look up proponent to make sure, but I'm fairly sure it means 'a part of' rather than 'a person for/in favor of'. I've always been very good at spelling and knowing what most words mean. I read a lot and get the gist of words without a dictionary so I could be wrong but I doubt it. And...I'm not college educated. This is a problem. I mean, very few pro-players manage to get announcing and/or coaching jobs after being voluntarily/forcibly retired. As much money as they pay a lot of those guys, you'd think they'd make sure they know how to survive after pro-football. Careers are often short, and a college education is supposed to prepare you for life. I wonder whose shame is the worst for that. The pro-side, the colleges, or the players themselves. hmm. I mean they take them right out of college. Someone should be ashamed. A college education is supposed to mean something. You have to have basic english, science and math in order to take advanced classes in college. You have to pass a test to bypass those. That's just sad. After they entertain us, how many do we hear of? Very few. That's sad.
See ya'll later.

Hello Mother

2005-08-17T17:01:00.000-07:00

I see you. You see the little counters on my sidebar? I know you are there. I have rules. 1. I don't give a damn if you read what I write, but under no circumstances will you EVER let jessie or chris read my site. 2. I don't give a damn if you don't like what I write, I write truth not your un-reality. No rude comments, or lies allowed. You will be BANNED from haloscan. This means you will never be allowed to comment ever again. 3. Do not e-mail me. You are not allowed.
Abide by these rules and we will get along just fine.

Art...

2005-08-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

I know, I know I've titled one like this already. It's my 'journal' and I can do whatever I want! Including entertaining myself when writing, as you can sometimes see scattered throughout my 'entries'. So as I was going through round and about today, Blade posts that he vacationed in CO and would like to live there. In my head...I'm laughing my ass off. They get snow from hell there. The pic he provided was nice, but I've seen better. My family lives in NE, we've been to Scott's Bluff more times than I can count. There is nothing like taking the trip to visit everyone. We go through NE, which has the bluffs. They are gorgeous. Through Wyoming, been to the Dakotas too. Much better scenery I say. Not to mention, no mountains=less snow. {laughing} So I got to thinking....
And now I was thinking that I have pictures of the bluffs. Well, kind of. I actually don't. My grandfather used to paint when he could still see. I don't have pictures of those paintings. I thought surely I had taking a photograph of one of the 2 fire paintings. Let me tell you, you can't really describe them, you have to see to expirience. I am assigning Dalyna to get a GOOD photo of Grandma's fire painting. I want that one. She won't let me have it, it's her favorite. She did tell me that after she dies, we get to get one of her dishes from her china cabinet. I did tell her those things don't mean anything to me, I'd rather have her. Life goes on. AGH! I don't want to go there, I'll have nightmares about that, again! And trust me, they are nightmares. I did ask if I could have it after she goes, bad girl!, but someone already asked, don't know what she'll do about that. One thing I do know, no one will fight over her things. We aren't like that. I'm still due another painting of grandpa's but the only one I want is the fire one. I'm sure sweet pea could get me a photo of our father's fire painting (grandpa did paint it), but I'm not sure I could ask that of her. All of us girls want that one. We are sooo bad. Well not really. When I get the photo/s I will show ya'll what I mean. I think it was grandpa's mom who wrote a beautiful poem. I don't remember what it says. Dad has it mounted on wood and laquered so it won't fade or anything. Grandma might have it. She probably does actually. Have to ask for a copy. Sooo...art does run in my family.
Getting to the point, I just looked through my old photos and found 2 of the paintings my cousin, of some what removed, painted. At the AGE of 10. I kid you not. I'm gonna scan his paintings (the photos I have, they aren't great photos) and his picture. You'll see. I'm going to try to get a decent photo of the painting I have that my grandfather did. His initials spell RAG. That's ok, I'm just explaining why you'll see it at the corner.
Ok, grandpa's first! Me being too short to reach the painting where it is, the picture isn't the full painting.

Obviously at age 16, I wasn't a great photographer. You'll get the general idea though. The painting itself looks much better, the use of color in it was awesome!

There was another painting, but looking at the photo, it isn't very good. Thus, I'll show you the pic I have of Chris. We were at a family reunion in Wyoming. One of the forts from the Civil War, I think. We were on a hayride goofing around. I think sweet pea will remember the place. You can see Ed in the background, he was wearing the flowers too. They jumped off the wagon to pick them. I have a few pics of him, but this is my favorite one. He was much younger than me, but he was such fun.

Boy, she don't look happy does she. It's cuz she was sitting by Ed. She hates him from waaaay back. Ed and I survived a lot together and I know why he was the way he was, so I don't hold the grudge she does, and I don't blame her one bit. I chose this one because the others were out of focus. I have no pics of Dalyna from this one. I'm not sure why. Either step-bitch didn't let her go anywhere or she was hanging out elsewhere. Would you like to know why I remember this reunion so well? No, not because of the people there, we had many of those. It's because those damn people wouldn't leave my hair alone! Damn women kept coming up just to touch my hair. I am not kidding! To this day, it takes me a lot just to let someone cut my hair, and that only because I want it cut. For some reason people like to fondle my hair. UGH! So, that's that. You didn't think I would put your pic up there, didja? LMAO! Skinny little thing, she was. Girl could eat anything and not gain weight. Grr! It's ok, she hasn't been by in a while. I think I'll poke at her or something, tell her to swing by. That's what YIM is for, yes? I don't think oldest was at this one. She was out of the house by then.
Anyway...Girls I want those pictures. Have fun ya'll! (Took me an hour to put this post together. UGH!)
{psst, I just changed the quote of the day, check it out, it's hilarious!}

I have an itch...

2005-08-15T10:09:00.000-07:00

...that I feel the urge to scratch. Drag your mind out of the gutter! Ha! I kill myself. This is the second post of the day, I urge ya'll to read the other one. Has a funny story about my kids in it. My Bon Jovi is on and I feel the urge... To what you ask? I'm not sure. I started to re-read one of my books, and then put music on and I find myself wanting to post again. Hmm, maybe I really do have some kind of creative 'juices'. I also have the urge to create. This has been partially fulfilled by messing with my sister's site, go check out what I did with it. I will be making a header. Also some banners for the titles on the sidebar. Ya'll know what I'm talking about. Probably some bars too. Having a little bit of trouble finding free dolphin pics that give permission for use on personal websites. I did, however, find what I thought to be the perfect background tile. I messed with it's color a bit, to make it that baby blue color she likes. You'll see what I mean. It's shade was originally a sea green-blue color. I tell ya, messing with the hue was a pain in the ass, but worth it. I also plan on making a gravatar too. I might find a cat instead of a dolphin for that one. It needs to be unique. I spent half a day yesterday to fix up her site. Most of it was searching for dolphin graphics. There's a graphics link on her sidebar ya'll should visit. Most of my visitors like the fantasy/sci fi stuff and that's what you'll mostly find there. It has the best dragons/skulls/fairies I've seen yet. Well, with the exception of what se7en comes up with. Which reminds me...
Se7en...do you have any graphics with dolphins I can use? I still can't get my damn drive to read the cd. I'm thinking about buying an Iomega cd-rw external drive I saw at wal-mart. Since I don't wanna mess with the tower, it should work better for me. You know anything about those? I really want that damn program. Did you check the disc to make sure it burned ok? I keep meaning to ask.
The 'newest' site that se7en did is in his most recent post. Lady Myles came by to visit. I commented over there after se7en announced he finished her site. I had to comment, it's awesome. The best I've seen yet. Didn't read much, but when I saw her post about a fantasy of Jack, Blade, and Big Sexy, I just had to mark her for my RSS feed. Hey, I may be married but I can still look! LMAO! Did I tell ya'll that Jack wrote a great short story the other day? Go check it out if you haven't yet. He's on my sidebar as Texas Music. It's a big secret, sparkling glitter rainbow ponies, you know. Zelda made up that name...LMAO! You ought to visit Blade Runner too. He's listed just below Jack. He's a good writer. Sporadic, but good anyway. He told on Jack...A good vomiting story. {I've never been very girly you know.} Between their police work and regular life, they don't get much time to write. *sigh* It's really too bad. They should talk Big Sexy into writing too. That'd be really great, telling on each other. Remember the 'snorting sweet n low incident? LMAO!
'Bed of Roses' is on now. Such a nice song. *sigh* Did ya'll get to read the quiz thingy I put up? It was fun! There I go running off at the mouth again, where was I?
Oh, I noticed that Trash came by today. I was excited, surely there was a new post! Sure enough. Go read it! Oh that's where I was, I mentioned Lady Myles. She commented and it took me a bit to figure out who it was. Ah, well...I'll be back there. Judy came by too. She's incognito now, moved her site and whatnot. Not sure why. I like her, she's nothing like me, she's 'girly'. LMAO! I tell ya, I've been fascinated lately by the weirdest things. Should I confess all my dark secrets? I think not! Ya'll should go visit Blackfive too. It's a milblog, but I find more news about our soldiers from there than anywhere else. He's got great causes too, no matter where you stand on the political spectrum. Now I know most of my visitors are of the polite sort, but if you're gonna be an asshole, don't go visit. Seriously! I'm not the political sort and don't wish to debate on everything. Besides, as I've said before, we DO NOT actually vote in our president, the ELECTORAL COLLEGE does, so people should really shut up about that shit. I mean really, it's basic civics. If you don't like it, vote your congressmen/senators out of office, they are the ones who let him into office, not YOU! Enough about that, I won't lecture anymore.
Brighton's having trouble with her dad. I can sooooo relate. It's not my place really, but she should tell him to go to hell and ignore his ass. I must confess, and my sisters (who do visit) know my stance on this, so no one is gonna be offended, which I would never want to do! I haven't been this happy and at peace with myself in YEARS! I told his ass what I thought and not to EVER come near me again. If I was egotistical or conceited, I could say I brought his marriage to an end, but I didn't, nor do I care. They really were good for each other. However, what they both did was inexcusable. I did all I could to protect my sisters and I can't do it anymore. I cannot go through that hell again. I did write about that very dark place, that terrifies me. One of these days, I'll post the letter I wrote to my husband after one of those episodes. It ain't pretty, let me tell ya. Did I tell you, I wasn't there with my sister when she had her baby? I really wanted to go, but I couldn't. I just couldn't. I tried to explain, I just don't have the words. I think she understood though. She said she did. She'll probably say something when she comes by. There was never anything I could do, though I tried very hard, to protect littlest (Dalyna) from the asshole. At least she isn't within reach. You know, I hope you don't answer his phone calls! You don't need his shit! How I miss grandma though. I hated putting her in the middle! I wonder if she's waiting on me to call. I don't think I can. I'm just not ready. I don't know if I'll ever be. I miss them so much. Damn it! Now I wanna cry. So thankful for my music, it says so many things for me. It calms me. I need it just as much as I need my books. I've realized now, that's what reading is for me. I need it. I think hubby realizes it too now, after the last 'spat' we had. He 'gets' me. I'm not so restless now. I've been calm for the last week. It took me a week and a half of reading my library books to calm me. I guess I worry too much. Put much more responsibility on myself than I need to. Oh well, too late to change now.
See ya'll later. I think I'm done now!

Weekend Randomness

2005-08-15T07:34:00.000-07:00

  It's been a while since I did this, but ya'll know how this works. I did warn you, remember that. My brain does not work in straight lines and it goes faster than my mouth does. So, inevitably there will be times that there are missing words and/or sentences because I thought I already said it.
  Cartoons were decent this weekend. For some reason, ABC family thinks Power Rangers from hell is the thing to do, they've been running them all morning on Saturdays for the past month or so. FUCKERS! I want my damn cartoons back! I miss beyblade! Shaman King was confusing, again. I still like it though. I didn't get to see my Saturday Night cartoons, hubby turned the tv off on me. I was reading while waiting for my cartoons. I was looking up every once in a while and the damn tv was magically shut off. Damn near all the cartoons are in re-run mode. That's pretty disappointing.
  Had to let go of my library books. That was a very sad moment. I enjoyed them so much. I did get a shipment of 4 from Harlequin though. They were very good. I get the historical ones. My Zooba book should be here soon, it's Tanequil. I wanna go to the library again!
  Hubby worked ALL weekend. UGH! 3 people in the kitchen in an 'on the water' restaraunt on a Saturday night. If that ain't suicidal, I don't know what is. Some other place just a few miles down, water miles not land ones, lost their 'chef' on Saturday. I said, 'You mean one with the pretty piece of paper?'. Then I started giggling. That was really stupid of the owners. They had to shut the place down and were sending the customers over to Paradise, where hubby was working. It's stupid to hire a chef, more... it's idiotic to hire one and let him run the kitchen however he wants and you don't have a clue what he's doing. Not only do you run the risk of him killing your profits or making really bad food that the summer people won't eat, if he quits on you, you have to shut the place down. LMAO! Summer people come here to play on the water and want 'water food'. Mostly something they can take on the boats. If they wanted fancy food, they would have stayed in the damn city!
  Watched the Chiefs game on friday. I thought they were gonna do okay, but then they screwed themselves. They played the Vikings in Minnesota. The field looked like crap. You'd think they'd spend the money to make it look nice, people pay enough for the tickets! The last, I think, 2 minutes of the game was hilarious! A defensive Viking player got called for 'roughing the passer' twice......IN A ROW! Suffice it to say, I'm very sure he won't make the team this year. Half the distance to the goal from the spot and well, they gave away that touchdown. LMAO. Hubby was so tired he was asleep and missed the only touchdown the Chiefs made. Poor guy, he was so disappointed with the way they were playing. I didn't have the heart to wake him, he looked so tired. He's going to Saturday's game with his brother. He also got the Dec. 2 tickets from him. We are going to watch them play the Broncos. We're gonna need a babysitter. Volunteers?! Atleast I probably won't get sunburned this time. It should be pretty mild. I'll wear one of my Mickey sweatshirts. It's hard for me to get cold. The seats are front row, behind and a little left of one of the goal posts. It'll be great. Last year we got to see the players warm up. Ain't nothing like watching them stretch! ;) That's always been my favorite part of football games from way back in highschool!
  Kids are brats as always. That's ok, they're my brats. Lemme tell you a funny story, pay real close attention now! Friday night, kids are messing around and supposed to be in bed sleeping. They always climb up onto their windowsill and jump down onto the floor. Steven always hurts himself and screeches a bit. This time it was a different sound. As always, Mikel knocks on the door, 'mommy, steven hurt hisself'. The sound of his screeching was different than usual. Any mother knows what I mean by that. I go upstairs, calm him down and ask him what happened. Cry some more. Calm down. Steven says: 'Mikel bit me'. Now, if ya'll will remember, Steven has been blaming everything on Mikel for quite some time, and Mikel rarely actually hurts Steven. So I look at Mikel, 'Mikel, did you bite Steven?' 'No mommy, Steven bit his own self'. Mommy: (is laughing her ass off at this point) 'Steven did you bite yourself?' Steven: {really pathetic voice, quietish} 'YaaAAAAH!' Mommy: (laughs harder) That was so damn funny. I took him out to look at it in the light. That boy bit himself really fucking hard. I'm laughing just remembering. The indentations are still there. It was already bruising too. I asked why, and he said he didn't know. Boy must have been curious or something. I told him not to do it again and he says: 'Okaaaaay' in that really pathetic voice. I still can't believe my 2 year old bit himself that hard just for kicks, but he did. LMFAO!
  Well that damn story sidetracked me and I don't remember what else I was gonna say. Oh, well. Trashman finally has a new post up. About damn time!

Part of a lifetime

2005-08-12T10:11:00.000-07:00

This is from a post RA did a while back. Had to go searching through your archives to find it! I was gonna post it back then, but something else distracted me, not sure what. Anyway...on with the show:

10 years ago...

Let's see...I graduated that May. I was working 'full' time at Gerbes, and trying to keep my mother from stealing my hard earned money and taking my car out for joy rides. She had no money, and it was all I could do to pay the over $400/month car payments, gas and insurance on my car. All my extra money from that went to feed the children in the house (hers), since she was too lazy to bother with it. 18 years old and supporting 2 kids, my mother while being exhausted working every day I could. I really should have known better.

5 years ago...

Let's see...Since it's August now, I was pregnant with Mikel. By that time I knew it and wasn't working. The boss at the Cantina didn't want me working when I was pregnant, I guess. I was helping prep food and let me tell ya, the smell of the beans cooking made me throw up a few times.

1 year ago...

Let's see...Last year, I was still getting along with my father. Trying to keep the peace between my sisters and him. Well, trying to get him to stop his crap with them anyway. I was still under the impression that I could influence that. Didn't do much good though. *sigh*

Yesterday...

I was resting my hands as they hurt like a bitch. Read 2 books. Surfed my favorite blogs via my little Sage and RSS feeds. Also tried a few blog templates for Dalyna's new blog. I didn't like them. I did put haloscan on it though. Can't give out the site unless she gives permission you know, it's not polite. That and she's littlest sister and maybe she doesn't want ya'll to know. :P

Today...

Re-read a book, checked e-mail and am trying to figure out how to fix Dalyna's site. I hate tables! There is so much CSS coding on her template it ain't funny. The tables have to go! Anyone has good dolphin pics, leave the site in haloscan for me. I'll take it from there. And you girl...set up the photobucket NOW! Things'll run smoother that way.

Tomorrow...

Same damn thing. My life's pretty boring.

5 snacks I enjoy...

Can you say chocolate? Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate and well, ok if you insist, chocolate with peanut butter!

5 songs I know all the words to...

Duh! Name your Bon Jovi song, and I can sing it! Not that I can carry a tune in a bucket but well... I think I'll just list my 5 favorites. 'I'll be there for you', 'Bang a Drum', 'Blaze of Glory', 'Blood Money', 'Keep the faith'. I can go on and on.

5 things I would do with $100,000,000...

Well then, that's a lot of money. I'd probably sink it into the 'engine'. Don't ask, I'm not telling. He gets that thing right and we'll be having much more than a million dollars. Wise investment I'd say.

5 locations I would love to run away to...

Well...none really. I'm more of a homebody.

5 bad habits I have...

Should I really tell on myself? I procrastinate, a lot. I tell others what to do, all the time. I am NEVER wrong, no matter how wrong I am. That's enough I think.

5 things I like doing...

Reading, reading, you get the idea. I also like to create things. I like my art. I like to create stuff for my site, and for my siblings I'll create stuff for theirs too. Everyone else has to ask se7en. Not everything is free! {hee hee, another plug for BGW, didn't think I would, didja?!}

5 things I would never wear...

Ha ha ha! Dresses, high heels, perfume, you get the idea yet?! I am not ladylike and will strike damn near anyone who would suggest it! *grin*

5 t.v. shows I like...

Since it says tv shows...(ya'll know what's comin' dontcha?!) Inuyasha, Samurai Champloo, The Avatar, Shaman King, The Closer. I told ya, didn't I? The last one is an actual show, not a cartoon. Monday nights, TNT, 8pm Central time, if ya wanna check it out!

5 movies I like...

Well, I don't really do movies. Any disney movie, I like it! Brother Bear is the most recent one I've seen. It made me cry, SHUT UP! It was great! I watched Constantine most recently too. Not only did it have Keanu Reeves, who makes me melt every time, it had a great storyline too!

5 famous people I'd like to meet...

No one! I don't do well with strangers, and there's really no one I'd wanna meet anyway. Don't wanna be disillusioned, you know!

5 biggest joys of the moment...

My kids, my books, my Bon Jovi music, my internet, and well, that's it for now.

5 favorite toys...

I don't really do toys. I have some stuffed animals I like to look at though.

5 people to tag...

Now that would be cruel and unusual punishment. That's not legal, ya know! If ya want it, take it. I did it in a <ul> to make it easier to read.

Ya'll have fun now. See ya later!

Aliiiiiiiive!

2005-08-08T06:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm still alive. As I told ya'll, we went to the library a while back. I've been busy enjoying my 10 borrowed books. Unfortunately, I have to give them back by Saturday. I'm going to miss them. I don't think I've ever had that many books at once that I've enjoyed reading over and over. Usually it's only 2 or 3 out of the bunch. Let's see. There's Bertrice Small's Skye O'Malley series. They are absolutely captivating. There were 4 of those. Then there was 'The Bride' by Julie Garwood. It was hilarious. It was written prior to 'The Wedding' that I so enjoyed last library visit. I got it this time too. I've never seen that much humor in a trashy romance before. Laughing my ass off over something nearly every chapter. I found 2 new authors. They were quite good. There was 'Breath of Magic' by Teresa Madieros and 'Enchanted' by Elizabeth Lowell. As ya'll know, I love anything to do with magic. 'Enchanted' absolutely fascinated me. You should read it. If I thought the library would let me, I'd try to buy it from them. Oh, and dear god the sex scenes. I thought you'd like to know...they were awesome! After all, isn't that why we read the trashy romances? I'm gonna make a list of the authors for reference to take to the library with me next time. Hopefully sometime this week. I'll be making a list of the titles too, just so I can keep a look out to buy them. I've read each book atleast 10 times or more and still am not bored with them.

Anyway, in other news... Well there really isn't any. That's all I've been doing is reading. I was going nuts! It must have been just what I needed. I'll be coming by to visit ya'll soon. Hopefully there aren't too many posts that I haven't read. I have to get back to my books! I think I'll look for my dirt cake recipe for the recipe blog. I don't think I have the one for puppy chow, but if dalyna or sweetpea has it, I'd like that too. Mmmm...peanut butter and chocolate! Never a better combination. See ya later!

WIDE AWAKE!

2005-07-27T23:09:00.000-07:00

New quote, look up!
Earlier today I had my sinuses ATTACK me. When my sinuses attack, I sneeze while having my nose run(nasty, I know) and my eyes itch for atleast 30 minutes. Why did they attack me, you ask? Because I went outside to check the mail. Yes, just for maybe 2 minutes. Vicious little fuckers! So, I took the stupid 24 hour stuff I'm developing an immunity to. The attack left me so exhausted I laid down and fell asleep. Hubby shut the bedroom door, so sweet of him, but I heard the kids around 8pm having dinner. I know, it was late but they snacked and he forgot the time. Playing with trains and all. I knew I should have just went back to sleep, but here I am, wide awake at 1am. DAMN IT ALL! The 24hr stuff only works for about 8 hours now. I've been careful not to take it unless I have a serious attack. The 30 minute thing, so it'd take longer for me to be immune to it. I can't take more within the 24hr period, as it's quite strong. Don't wanna hurt myself. I wonder what'll happen when I need to move on to another medicine. I guess that law has passed now. Gonna need a prescription to buy over the counter sinus medicine. That ain't gonna happen. Have to pay $60 to see a doctor to write me a note saying I can buy a sinus medication for $5 to $20 that may or may not work. Nope! I'll go out and buy some peppermint schnapps first. One shot clears my nose right up for about an hour. Fucking meth addicts/dealers/makers. I don't have that kind of money, I'm not going to a doc for that one. I can't get them to believe me that benadryl doesn't work. Like I said before, I hope I never develop any kind of food allergy, I'd be sooo screwed. They gave me that when I was itching after my epidural with steven. I told them it wouldn't work, they said I was wrong and I scratched the hell out of my face for the next 24 hours anyway. It itched! Know-it-all medical people!

In other news....
Se7en's doctor tried to kill him. (I know, but seriously he could have!)Turns out it'll be okay. I'm not sure I totally agree with that, but hey, it's not me it's happening too.
Jack's back and wrote an awesome essay!
Jay's gone, in case ya'll didn't know, but Jasmine still updates with the twins. They may be few and far between, but hey, she has newborn twins. Can't say I blame her. Today, she needs some sleep!
Tina had an awesome birthday. Don't mind the giant space, just scroll to the right. (Haven't gotten her to take it totally out yet. Don't miss Pissy McSqirrel on the left!) Not only that she had a trip to her favorite place: Wal-mart. Atleast check that story out, it was fun!
Lots of stuff going on, as always, over at black five.
Our future president Trashman is up to something new, I'm sure. Hope ya'll didn't miss trashday. He was asking for used panties. Someone asked if a pair from 'Aunt Flo' would be okay. Still giggling over that one!
Se7en's other site, it's a dog's life, has a new post too. Don't miss dancing with gators...and other stupid shit drunk people do. He also has put up a blog for techie questions for the BGW site. Still don't see the 'how to put music' (mp3's etc.) in a post!
The RA is up to no good, I'm sure. That halo slips often! You get the HP #6 yet?
Well, that's all I can think of, for now. The linky stuff anyway. I have so many blogs on my Sage now. Of course Firefox is awesome. It comes automatically, no fuss no muss, no extenstions, no upgrades needed with a pretty little orange button on the bottom that lets you add RSS feeds to your bookmarks. If a page has an rss feed, firefox knows it. It's awesome. I use the sage extension, as it lets me check the feeds and read them with a little box on the side. Kinda like the search box that I don't use. Now I have damn near every blog I read regularly on my little sage. That way I only have to visit if there really is something new on the page. Thus, I sometimes forget to go to the site itself and actually leave comments. LMAO! I swear, I've been reading every new post, sometimes I just forget. That and haloscan had PMS last week!

In yet other news...I've actually got a decent response from my family reunion site. Shock of all shocks! They have actually left comments in the guestbook! Only 3 have actually visited, but hey, they revisited too. Not only that, they are ones I wouldn't normally communicate with anyway. They live 'far' away and I don't really know them. Trying to get the pictures I asked for is like pulling teeth! Only one has a legitimate excuse for being slow at it and with a full time job and college classes has still sent me some pics. FUCKERS! I'll get it out of them yet. If I have to force hubby to visit each and every one. Good news though, I did master my scanner and it's accompanying photo program. It's the best one I've seen yet. The filters are awesome and they let me resize in pixels whenever I want. I've never had one that did all that in the same program. I did put some new pics up on the pictures page. I also added a poll for them to vote on the date. LMAO! 3 people voting. Well, what the hell. I'm trying damnit!

Kid's stayed with their aunt 'sweetpea' (don't ask, I don't know) Saturday. They had fun. We went nowhere, my choice. Spent all night and next morning talking myself out of calling just to make sure they were ok. She wouldn't mistreat or harm my kids, I'm just paraniod. Apparantly they had lots of fun. 'We had PIZZA!' They giggled while going to sleep. 'We saw the new baby Peyton!' My sister is blonde. She is soooo blonde. Trust me, she acknowledges this. It's so funny! She came over to get the kids and dropped them off. We have space for my car and his truck. Only place to park is next to the truck. It isn't exactly a flat space. The 'road' is blacktop, but sits higher than the ground on that side. There's a reason my little road name has Circle in it. The damn thing CIRCLES around. She's in a little, low car. Instead of just goin' on down the road, she proceeds to turn the little, low car around on our itty, bitty narrow road. It takes more than 1 try, trust me. It's just so damn funny. Girl, just go down the road, take a right and you're back out! PRICELESS!
Oldest sister called me at night. Wierd. Well, considering anyway. We won't go into what was said, we'll just say I'm a little worried. Anyone repeats that and I will knock them upside the head. Don't test me, you know I mean it. She wants to tell you, she will, DON'T bring it up.
Littlest sister, Dalyna has come back to us here and is happy in her new home. For the next 6? months anyway. Whatever, I'm always confused on that. Happy for ya'll, hope matt gets to do, ultimately, what he wants to do. Making enough money should always be secondary to having a job you actually like to do. Don't forget. Very important. Lecture over, sorry. I swear I'll get better at that. *smack self in forehead* Must...stop...telling...other's...what...to...do...
See ya'll later

A little fun for the weekend

2005-07-23T10:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, we're gonna have a little fun at ya'll's expense.
First we'll have Steven's word of the day: 'noee' (imagine the o has those 2 little dots over it, I don't feel like looking up the html alternative for it.) I'll give clues after ya'll have guessed.

Second, I've had some interesting visitors. To demonstrate my 'so-called' superiority... Well, we're just gonna have a little fun. I hate being wrong and can rarely be convinced otherwise. I'm not gonna do ip numbers, but we'll mess around a bit.
1.TRASHMAN...I know you've been coming by nearly every day! Comment dammit! If you would like me to prove it: .austin.res.rr.com (I promised not to do the ip numbers)
2.Dalyna...Have you settled into your new home yet? Do you have internet access at home yet? Did you get our oldest sister's address? I need it! Her birthday is in 3 days. Her present's gonna be late. I apparently deleted the e-mail she sent with her phone number.
3.Sweetpea...Or whatever you call yourself now. You have yet to comment and haven't been back in a while. I'll talk to you when I take the kids over to your house tonight.
4.se7en...I only check my e-mail once a day. I'm more likely to answer a question if it's presented here. Or just tell me to check my e-mail. I can do more searching on the hepC thing if you like. However, noticing some things from the original search...I'll need more info. I think just the type of hep C it is. Apparently there are types 1-6 and I saw some referencing that intimated there are atleast type a and b to each number. Couldn't find anything really on getting after a transplant except that it reoccurs anyway. I am a fiend for information and that's how I deal with things. Don't know ya, but I'll do whatever I can to find any information to help deal with your problem. The more information you have, the more informed your questions will be. The better to choose the right options and treatment. You thought of clinical trials? There's not much info out right now, as there hasn't been any/many studies done on those with hep C after the transplant with it recurring and the treatment afterwards. The general consensus is not good and I don't accept that and neither will we let you accept it either.

Well that's all for now, except that Shaman King was pretty cool this morning. Woke up too late for the others. American Dragon and Avatar will be on soon, can't miss those. See ya'll later.

Weekend Randomness

2005-07-20T16:04:00.000-07:00

Ok, it's not really the weekend. But I've been on a little hiatus doing my holding pattern thing. Got the HP book over the weekend, read it, reread the 3 preceding it and reread that one again. In waiting for my bead stuff order, reread quite a few of my 'already reread many, many times' books. I was also waiting for my new Zooba book. It's here today. I'm debating on waiting to read it until I have all 3 of the series. It's the first of the High Druid of Shannara books in the Shannara Series. I think there are only 2 more. Tanequil is next and then another one. Today's book is High Druid of Shannara: Jarka Ruus by Terry Brooks. Ya'll should know by know he's a great author. I would still like to get ahold of the other series The Magic Kingdom of Landover. So, my book reading continues.
Got my bead stuff after a week of waiting. The site I ordered from does UPS or fedex or usps. USPS is notoriously unreliable for correct timing deliveries. UPS usually has 3 day ground as the general method. Not so for this site. It's S&H was for 2-11 days at ONE rate. I didn't like that. They also offered a variety of fed-ex, but I've never dealt with them before. Nor have I ever seen a Fed Ex truck (or whatever they use) around my area. As they don't give a comparison anywhere, no real idea which is cheaper. I can't believe UPS took so long. UGH! Not their fault really, there was no option for 3 day, 2 day, next day so I got what I asked for. Now I have a series of sets to make. I was waiting for a certain type of clasp for the bracelet of the set I'm going to (when I remember) send to my sister, her birthday is the 26th. No littlest...it's not for you. She called me over the weekend though. Her son is so big! Not fat big, just tall big. When I saw him over Christmas he was as big as my 2yr old, Steven. Steven turned 2 on Dec 15, and Brandon turned 1 this past Feb. His daddy is rather tall, so I guess that's where he gets it. He has what docs call 'lazy eye'. Apparently it's genetic, most likely, with the possibility that it's not. I looked it up on webmd and there are 2 different medical terms that are commonly called this. At first they thought it wasn't hereditary, as my sister didn't know that my mom and uncle had it. As does my half brother. Brandon has had this since he was born, apparantly his pediatrician didn't believe my sister. Impossible. I swear, some people are morons! Just because you've never seen it that young does not mean it's not possible, just rare. She's gonna take pics of him so the doc will believe her this time. Good thing first time mommies take lots of pictures! They have to do an MRI to see what exactly is causing it. Could be something with the nerves (forgot what she said) or eye muscles (my opinion, not hers). Then he'll have surgery to correct it. Apparantly they would like to do it this young, as his brain is still developing at a rapid rate, thus ensuring his neurons(?) make the right connections now, versus later when the brain slows down that part a bit. By the age of 2, most of the connections have been made and are, for the most part, permanent. This will ensure good vision. The thing with it is, that it's genetic AND it can come back. AND it can choose to not show up until the age of 3. Mikel doesn't and Steven, we'll see. I think I know which one of those terms it may be. One of the ways to correct it, if it's not noticeable other than to an optometrist is to use prisms in corrective lenses. I have prisms in mine as my outer eye muscles are a little too long causing the inner eye muscles to work harder to turn my eyes to the straight position. Thus the cause of most of my headaches is gone. I need to go back, my lenses are scratched all to hell.
On to the cartoons. Saturday was Power Rangers from HELL! 3 hours of them. I missed my favorite abcfamily ones. Dragon booster, witch, digimon. It did enable me to see Shaman King, which increasingly fascinates me. I missed the new American Dragon, not sure if they just did reruns on Disney channel. I watched Avatar, but I think Nickelodeon was rerunning those too. They show 3 or 4 on both Saturday and Sunday in no particular order, so I have to be paying attention to which episode it says it is for that. The storyline gets jumbled, but the episodes are still good themselves. Teen Titans finished up their Raven story. I almost missed it. It was pretty cool. Reading the new HP book caused me to ignore most of the rest. I still stopped reading for the new Inuyasha. That's ok, they'll be on tomorrow night. Samurai Champloo has really awesome fight scenes and a nonsensical storyline, but I like it. I still can't figure out Paranioa Agent, but I'll watch it too. I tell ya, if you know where to look, you can find all kinds of great cartoons. I ran across someone's blog saying they missed seeing their favorite Sat. morning cartoons. They are re-airing and re-making several old cartoons. The ninja turtles are on fox kids. I think the website is 4kids.tv.com. ABCfamily shows Power Rangers from hell. If you like that sort of crappy ass 'cartoon'. Cartoon network also shows a variety of old cartoons. They have tom and jerry almost every morning. New and old scooby doo. New pokemon series/episodes are going to be on by the end of the month. I think it'll be on miguzi. They make weird names for sets of cartoons on certain times of each day. It might be toonami though, that set hasn't been on for a while, but that's about the right time of day for it. I want to see what they'll do for the next dragonball series. The first ones were crappy, now they are better drawn with still crazy dialogue. Maybe I'm into most of the cartoons I like because of the art. Yes, there is a lot of art in cartoons. Somebody has to draw it! Even if they use a computer to do it, they still have to tell it what to do.
Kids are going to sleep over at aunt little sister's saturday. They haven't seen little Peyton yet. That ought to be interesting. I'll probably send them over with the Leap Frog videos. I wish they had one introducing numbers, they only do math right now. I don't think 4yr.s are going to understand math until they atleast understand how numbers work. LMAO! Wow, a Saturday night alone, no kids. The possibilities!
Now we will welcome back littlest sister, with the admonishment to make an ACTUAL comment other than MEOW please. :) Blogs Gone Wild has new stuff on it, ready made templates that are awesome, go look! I said so, that's why. ;) Well, I think that's it. Or in the words of the RA, I've lost my mind. (that one was pretty easy too.) Have fun ya'll, and no you can't borrow my HP book, my books never leave my house!
P.S. If this didn't make sense to you, you need to remember, I warned you it was gonna be random! My brain doesn't think in any kind of order, so I can't really write in any sort of order. (That and the 3 or 4 separate trains of thought going on at any given time. It isn't always easy to keep track of what I've already said or haven't said.)

HP Book!

2005-07-16T13:27:00.000-07:00

Hubby brought me home the new HP book. I guess after work he made the extra 45 minute drive to town (45min for summer) and got one. He said there were only 5 left on the table. I'm surprised there were any. I'll be opening it in a few minutes.
{happy book dance!} I'm off to read the book 3 or 4 times. See ya'll after my next zooba shipment (due in a couple days). Well, maybe not that long. Curiosity does, after all, kill the cat. Atleast for me!

Frustration

2005-07-14T13:06:00.000-07:00

I went from calm to frustrated in about 2 seconds a few hours ago. As evidenced by the comments from the previous post, my curiosity about things abounds. As we all know, se7en always has new crap. (Sorry, not really crap per se, just how I refer to things when frustrated.) Stuff, graphics, whatever. So when biohazard bullets show up on his site instead of normal ones, I want to KNOW how to do it. I read the tutorial crap. I tried for different bullet images before. NEVER got it to work. Aha! Lightbulb! View page source is AWESOME! Well, for the most part. Blogger adds crap to your page that you don't realize they add. It throws off the code. I mean REALLY throws it off. There is absolutely no way in hell a blogger blog will validate in HTML let alone in xhtml, xml or css. Yes, that's what I said. I can't validate my damn CSS because the damn page won't validate in HTML. I guess it's a rule or something. Sorry, can't validate your css, you must validate your html first. Well FUCK! Not only does blogger add shit that will never validate, but when you get codes for counters and add-ons, they DO NOT validate either! I could take all that stuff off, but I like it dammit! Wouldn't matter anyway. That stupid little searchbar that shows on some and not on others isn't valid either. The code to have it not show is <noembed><body></noembed> That really screws up the page code. 50 errors from that thing. Not only is that stupid search code in there anyway, so you get the errors for that, the noembed apparently isn't even a valid tag. I know my page shows fine in IE and Firefox, so it doesn't matter that much, really. I'll talk myself into that one day, I swear! I really want to validate my CSS to check for errors in the coding and be able to see what I can do with it. I don't understand the tutorials and references that define all the elements.
Let me tell ya how frustrating that is. All my life, I have NEVER had any problems whatsoever learning from a book/tutorial and being able to apply the information from that. I won't be taking classes on it either. I learned early on that I get easily bored in a class environment. I don't act out, I just fall asleep. That would definitely be a waste of my money. All I really need is a book and someone to explain something to me every once in a while. I learn faster than normal people. Certain things I will never learn. I have my own logic. I still can't understand how an engine works. It makes NO sense to me. It's not logical. The firing order throws me off, pisses me off, I don't understand it. We won't get into logic here. Most things I learn by a book with the basics, apply it, expiriment with it. Trial and error. There is no other way for me. I do not/have not/will not ever learn by someone just telling me how to do it, it's this way, no other way. I don't comprehend like that. Telling me how you do it is one thing, but I have to then learn how it works. Why it works. And then, does it work in any other way. How many possibilities are there. For some reason simple explanations don't work for me, I don't understand them. Let me tell you CSS is the first thing I've ever come across that I absolutely do not understand. At all. Oh, I know some coding, but I don't understand how it works. I need to know how it works. Why it works. Until I get that, I will not be able to learn it. I have to constantly refer to the tutorials and other's view page sources. It pisses me off I have to do that. It's cheating. I know it's not really cheating, but to me, it is. Html itself is no problem, nor xhtml. I have my little cheat sheet, but I know it. I know what works, how it works, why it works and where it doesn't work.
I have the right coding now to do a bullet thing for my <ul>. I'll probably make little ying-yangs. I like them! It just pisses me off that I can't understand why the coding has to be that way and I couldn't do it the way I tried it from what I gleaned from the tutorial and reference pages. I still can't figure out how to put a song (mp3 or whatever) into a post. I do, but I don't. I copied the code from someone else's post and couldn't get it to work here. Copied it! Some of the problem is where I uploaded a few files to. Yahoo sucks! Ever since I uploaded 3 files to it, I couldn't even access the files, even logged in! AND I made them public access anyway! FUCKERS! I did learn what the z-whatever element was. I think it's newish, I didn't see it last time I messed around with the CSS tutorial. I found it today. Don't understand much about it still. In their example, 1 was the highest object and -1 was the lowest. Well is 3 higher than 1? Or, do you start with 1 as the highest and go -#'s whenever you want some lower. Freaking ordering shit. I barely grasped the concept in CorelDraw. I hate not understanding things.

Blaze of Glory

2005-07-13T11:19:00.000-07:00

I fell in love with this song the first time I heard it. It's from the soundtrack of the movie Young Guns II. The song itself is not in the movie, atleast not as far as I could tell. Trust me, I would have noticed, the voice of Bon Jovi is distinct, I would have known their musical style anywhere. I watched the movie after I got the tape, I liked the music so I thought I'd check out the movie. The opposite of most people, I'd guess. Normally, if you like the music in the movie, then you go out to buy the soundtrack later. As ya'll should know by know I am a Bon Jovi fanatic! I buy any tape with their name on it. Good thing it's never let me down. Well, except for when Jon went off to be solo for a bit. That was real bad. Him and Richie together are magic, apart...well, not so good. Anyway...
Artist/s: Bon Jovi Album: Blaze of Glory Song: Blaze of Glory

I wake up in the morning
And I raise my weary head
I've got an old coat for a pillow
And the earth was last night's bed
I don't know where I'm going
Only God knows where I've been
I'm a devil on the run
A six gun lover
A candle in the wind
When you're brought into this world
They say you're born in sin
Well at least they gave me something
I didn't have to steal or have to win
Well they tell me that I'm wanted
Yeah, I'm a wanted man
I'm a colt in your stable
I'm what Cain was to Abel
Mister catch me if you can
I'm going out in a blaze of glory
Take me now but know the truth
I'm going out in a blaze of glory
Lord I never drew first
But I drew first blood
I'm no one's son
Call me young gun
You ask about my conscience
And I offer you my soul
You ask if I'll grow to be a wise man
Well I ask if I'll grow old
You ask me if I've known love
And what it's like to sing songs in the rain
Well, I've seen love come
And I've seen it shot down
I've seen it die in vain
Shot down in a blaze of glory
Take me now but know the truth
'Cause I'm going down in a blaze of glory
Lord I never drew first
But I drew first blood
I'm the devil's son
Call me young gun
Solo
Each night I go to bed
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
No I ain't looking for forgiveness
But before I'm six foot deep
Lord, I got to ask a favor
And hope you'll understand
'Cause I've lived life to the fullest
Let this boy die like a man
Staring down a bullet
Let me make my final stand
Shot down in a blaze of glory
Take me now but know the truth
I'm going out in a blaze of glory
Lord I never drew first
But I drew first blood
And I'm no one's son
Call me young gun
I'm a young gun

In the interest of saving some kind of space, I eliminated the space between the verses and chorus. This song is very good in words alone. However, there's something special with the music in it too. This is just about the only kind of poetry that I do like. Songs are poetry. If you get a chance listen to the whole album. It's great. I think I'll give you 'Bang a Drum' next time I think of it. Today is music day, sit back...relax...and enjoy! You know I am!

Satire

2005-07-09T11:52:00.000-07:00

Upon 'running' around my sites today, I realized I hadn't visited Maddox in a long time. As he posts new opinions about once every 2 months or so, I don't visit often. He has a new rant about blogs. I gotta admit, he has a point. Read it and you'll see. You really have to appreciate satire to find him funny. If you are easily offended by other people, you really shouldn't visit. However he's a good read and you should read him anyway.

Off you go! Have a good laugh. Keep your sense of humor intact. Remember, just like any other site that may offend you there are several options. The pretty little red x on the top right of your browser, the pretty little blue/green arrow that points backwards, the niftly little button on the left side of your mouse. I enjoy reading his opinions. They're fun!

Art

2005-07-08T07:21:00.000-07:00

I have officially decided that the banners, buttons, <hr /> bars I made for this site is art. Don't ask why, I don't know. I was just playing with animation programs.
As ya'll know by now the only thing I didn't make is the flag and the firefox/thunderbird buttons. Well, and the pictures.
I think I'm gonna take the firefox, thunderbird and flag images and pop them off the page like I did when making the hatemail, blogs gone wild and the lyrics 007 buttons/banners. They just don't match. I just love the micki header I made. I come back and just watch the animation. I'm so proud of that. The little mickey dot I have moving around on it, I got from a site that had free mickey graphics on it. Links are at the bottom of the sidebar. I took that image into one of my graphics program and resized it. Then into paint to change the colors to the maroon and gold I have for my background and text color. If you have firefox, you can right click and choose view image to see what I actually did to make it blend into my page. All of the buttons are made that way. If I ever decide to choose a different background color or text, I'll have to change everything. Wouldn't blend anymore. The symbols that I have on the bars and header are just text. I swear it. I printed out, a while back, a cheat sheet with all the symbols on it. Wingdings 1 and 2, webdings 1 and 2. If you are going to do any kind of graphics, that's a thing you should do. Makes searching for little pics for things easier. Even the animated mailbox on my e-mail button is text. There are no 'real' graphics on anything other than the little conductor mickey on my header. Everything else is text.
I gotta tell ya, creating banners, bars and buttons is great fun. There are a few free programs, some trial ones too that are great for this. I'm still learning animation, but the 'tween' thing is awesome! Makes animating so much easier. Remember the trashman button I made? He put it on his site. That is soooo awesome. It's animation is a little jerky in the first few frames, but not really that noticeable. Being a perfectionist, I had to weigh doing it all over again or leaving it be. It would have taken forever to redo, so I decided to be happy with it. I really like making new buttons and animations. I'd do it for anyone that asked, but I really think, should anyone want one, you really should go with blogs gone wild. His art inspired me to learn how to do it. The prices are very low and his artwork is awesome! It's amazing with all the sites he's done for people, each site matches the owners' personality. I've never seen 3 column blogs look better than after he messes around with them. I absolutely hate having to scroll over to see a sidebar or post.
Amazingly enough, after my trial and error with my template, even smaller screens see my blog perfectly fine. I have my maincolumn and sidebar on float:right and float:left. It seems to me that is what makes it easy for smaller screens to see it.
Reminder to those who stumble here: these graphics, I made especially for my site. They will not work for yours. You would have to set up your blogs CSS to be the exact coding of mine. My graphics are a certain px size. They are also a certain #web color number code. If you are going to try to steal them, not only is that rude, they probably won't work. They are exact sizing.
For those who like to expiriment with their templates: Please, PLEASE have your maincolumn load before your sidebar. Counters and other add-ons sometimes do not load properly. After all the code in them tells your sidebar to get the info from another site. Sometimes, they are down or not working properly. If your sidebar does not load properly your main column WILL NOT LOAD. So...in your CSS, make sure that all of your main column { } information is above anything having to do with sidebar information. In the html coding, make sure of the same thing. In actuality, I really do not know what makes the sidebar load first, but of a few of the sites' page source viewing tells me this may be what the problem is. Initially, people come to your site to view the posts in them, not the sidebar.
Remember, except for the CSS coding, I learned everything I know from se7en. He does the blogs gone wild thing. Take a look at at the site, I swear you'll love it! He also taught me how to mess with the haloscan template. Even with a free account you can mess with it. My haloscan, if ya'll wanna take a look matches my site. The only thing I could not change is the size of the table and the haloscan advertising. Even the submit and preview button has the text in maroon. Remember if you come across something you like, view the code. Code is free, no one can own it. That's not to say that the graphics ever are. Make sure that any graphic you see is NOT ©. It's not nice to steal others' graphics or bandwidth. Ask for permission unless there is EXPLICIT permission to use the graphic. Explicit means it says: 'anyone can use this graphic for their site, save the image to your computer and upload it to your own site. Also note whether or not the site says you must link back to the page you got the graphic from. This is what keeps free graphics free and available for our personal websites.
Lecture over. Have fun ya'll.

Sadness

2005-07-07T11:23:00.000-07:00

Although I'm not sure of the times and whatnot there was a terrorist attack in London today, AM I think their time.
Read more about it at Black Five and on this site.
Normally I don't mention political happenings. There are no words that can express my sympathies for the British people who lost their loved ones.
Already there are those blaming the war in Iraq and I saw some mention of it being Bush's fault. Umm ok, that made no sense. I don't really follow political happenings as it's quite hard to find news other than what you find on the MSM. On the Today show, I switched because Charmed was at commercial, I noticed they were reporting about it. At 8:30 am central time there was already an asshole blaming the war in Iraq. Oh my. This was before anyone took blame for it. Katie was interviewing him. I could swear she was encouraging him to blame Bush and the war for it. FACTS PEOPLE! It's simply too early for the investigations to be concluded. At the second link I posted there are a lot of links. An al-queada(sp?) affiliate has claimed responsibility. PLEASE NOTE: "As retaliation for the massacres which the British commit in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mujahideen have successfully done it this time in London." That is part of the little note claiming responsibility. The only links I've visited are those at blackfive. Some are not so nice, some are good resources. He posted a balance of links. Already there is blame being placed. Let them bury their dead before there is finger-pointing. We should support them as they supported us.
I can just imagine what the conspiracy theorists are gonna say now. AGH! From what I've read, they won't take this lying down. Either show them support without snide political comments or shut the fuck up! You wouldn't want someone saying those kinds of things after the loss of a loved one, would you? Personally I'm disgusted by those already trying to gain political advantage of the situation.

AAAHHH!!!

2005-07-04T16:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, I need computer 'geek' knowledge. I can't burn a picture cd!!!!!!!!!!!!! No idea what the fuck is wrong. Yes, I did read the manual. Printed it out too. I have ahead Nero software, came with the drive. It tells me to burn one with photos as a 'video' cd. Pfft!!!!!!!!!!!! I know it's not gonna be a 'music' cd. What do you have left? Yeah, a 'data' cd. No matter whether you use the express or regular those are the only options. Music, data, video, supervideo and mixed (data + music). VIDEO DOES NOT WORK. DATA DOES NOT WORK! Hell, now I'm having trouble getting the damn drive to detect a blank cd is even there. Right now the blank cd that I put in last...well the cd-drive is still trying to read it, read also the green light is on not flashing for the last 20 or so minutes. I cleaned the damn drive...used disk cleanup and defrag on the hard drive, and rebooted. FUCK! {insert more bad words} Not even the auto-write thingy that comes with Windows XP can write to a cd.

Maybe I'll just have the nephew get me a dvd burner. He can find the best prices and install them. Smart kid. If it weren't for the holiday, I'd a already called him. {more bad words}

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hidden Treasure

2005-07-02T22:42:00.000-07:00

Today, after work, hubby picked up a box of pictures from his brother. You know, for the reunion stuff. Ahhh to explain it. The box made me want to cry. It was a half crushed shoe box. The majority of the pictures in it were curved and not flat. Half aren't in the best of conditions. So glad I have a 1200dpi scanner. I made those puppies better than they were and in even bigger size. In this box of pictures was hidden treasure. Pictures of his mom. He doesn't have many of those, he only had one after his dad died and his stepmom was having the kids pick out the pictures they wanted. Being the baby of the family there usually isn't much left. Especially with 6 children all older than you. His parents were divorced when he was 9. Before then he was pretty much raised by his 4 older brothers. To give a picture of the age difference, his four older brothers are a year apart in age. The oldest turned 50 this year. Hubby is 37. This is why his oldest brother says he never wants children. He already raised the last 3. Especially hubby. Anyway, hubby's mom died 'on the table' after going in for a histerectomy when he was 18. He lived with his dad after the divorce. So he doesn't have all that much of her. He visited for a week each summer. Not sure really whose choice that was. Mostly his, I think, he had cousins in the area he visited too. So we open up this box. Pictures in sad shape. There were several pictures of his mom when she was younger. His grandmother too, she is also dead, I never met her either. There were pictures of his dad, younger, too. We lost him last May. There were group pictures of the kids. He is in none of them. There's even one with the other 2 besides the 4. I don't really know why he was crying, going through them. Could be cuz he finally had pics of his mom, I could copy and print. Could be because he wasn't in them. Who knows. His brother said it wasn't the right box, he couldn't find that one. Hopefully he'll look for it. It'd be very sad if we can't find pics of him.
There was something else in there. Hubby is slightly dyslexic. I knew before he told me. When someone switches numbers around like nobody's business when reading right in front of you, there's something to it. So...looking at old report cards. Not all the brothers' were in there, but the ones that were, showed signs of the same problems he had/has. Reading orally, comprehensively, spelling. Incomplete homework in 4th grade. One of them had less than a 50% rate of completing work. The signs were there, just unnoticed. Dyslexia was only recently recognized. It was new when I was in high school. Well, atleast in my area. So, seeing those, he starts talking about needing to work with Mikel, so that we can make sure he doesn't have it. Talked him out of that one. It's really too young to tell. Kids don't start falling behind until around 2nd grade, but they learn to cope. Until about 5th or 6th grade and their coping skills just can't keep up with more work, new words, etc. I tell ya, there were F's and I- and M- throughout those cards. There were no better grades than that. At first, it shocked me. If I had brought home a report card that had any one of those grades on it, I'd a been beat and never left the damn house. Of course, I could do better than that, so it was expected of me to do so. The patterns in those report cards shocked me. Those are the basic concepts of everything they teach you later on.
Anyway, lost my train of thought so...off to try to sleep. More scanning tomorrow! That and trying to flatten and preserve those pictures. Picked up some photo album pages so they wouldn't sit in a starting to mold box and detiorate more than they already are. Such a shame they were treated that way. Pictures seem to be our most precious memories. Especially of those who are no longer with us. Pictures do not ever belong in shoe boxes!

Mon yer

2005-07-01T07:15:00.000-07:00

We haven't played this game in a while. Steven is 2 and doesn't talk very well. Steven's word of the day is 'mon (pause) yer'. As before, I'll give ya'll clues after some guesses.

Also, I posted some pics of the kids when they were younger, it's in the previous post. I got a jerk posting in my haloscan. Something about my being a bad mom cuz I have a blog. And a bad role model! It's ok, if he comes back...I got his number! (it's badly misspelled so, that's what I think he said)

Host Name: 65-182-234-57.ccmtc.com
IP Address: 65.182.234.57
Country: United States
Region: Oregon
City: Oregon City
ISP: Canby Telephone
Returning Visits: 0
Visit Length: 0 seconds

See!
I also bitched about my reunion stuff going on. se7en and RA have checked it out. I gave the address to it, but made you work for it. It's copy/paste rather than click the link. Had to have my fun!

Good luck with Steven's word!

All together now....

2005-06-30T18:36:00.000-07:00

....everyone say AAAAWWWWWWWWWW! I was going through my photo albums for my other site and I found these. I'm only gonna put the one over there, but these were just too cute. Steven was always making weird faces. Mikel smiled all the time, well when he wasn't screaming anyway. I was going to put the 'potty' picture up, but I don't want perverts to think it's porn. Mikel was learning the potty training thing. One day I was checking on him and he was sitting on his little potty, underwear down and a magazine on his lap reading it. It was priceless. I never showed him that and his daddy doesn't do that. Don't know where he got the idea.

I think that was the day we brought Steven home. He'd be about 3 days old.

This was probably later on. I didn't move out of that chair for over a week. Had a c-section and moving hurt!

I think Steven is somwhere between 8 and 12 months here.

I think they are 18 months and 3 years.

Scroll down to the very bottom of the page to see my most recent picture of the boys. Mikel is 4 and Steven is 2.

Bitch

2005-06-29T17:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm a woman and I said bitch. It's what I'm gonna do. Don't say you wasn't warned.
AAAHHH!!! Gonna have to start tearing my hair out soon. I wasn't posting yet last year, but I put together a family reunion for my husband's family. Only time they see each other ('cept those who live here...like within 10 minutes of each other) is funerals. Weddings...not so much. Mostly, he used to do restaraunt work. That means that the only vacation time he was ever allowed (unpaid of course) was during the middle of winter. By vacation, I mean laid off until spring. It's ok, the money in the summer made up for it. So, he never sees his family. He's got 4 brothers all within 20 minutes...and his sister too. The only one he actually talks to/sees is the one he works for. You get the idea. Anyway, they always express how much they'd like to get together for other than a funeral. DING! Can you see the light bulb yet? No idea what I was doing. I wanted hubby to be able to see his family, so I told them it was a family reunion. See...that way they would come. Oh...STUPID ME! All for it, virtually no help. (most of them really were busy) So...in 2 months I had invitations made, printed, mailed. Reservations, information for the resorts, hotels and activities around here. I spent 3 days just calling to see if anyone would have openings. It took 3 DAYS! Down here you need to make reservations 6 months+ in advance, or take the chance that you'll have nowhere to sleep. We have major tourism. Even the cheap, cheap hotels fill rather quickly, though they do NOT take reservations. I had to call people I didn't know. I had to write people I didn't know. AND worst of all....I had to actually MEET people I didn't know. Talk about trying really hard not to throw up for the 2 days everyone was together. (Call it extreme shyness.) So basically we, Karen and some others, cooked lunch, dinner, and someone brought donuts and called it brunch on sunday. Lemme tell ya, if I'd a known it was gonna be just donuts, I'd a cooked. I don't care if they are $50 donuts. A donut does not a brunch make! Breakfast + Lunch = BRUNCH! We were at a place with a pool. Live by the lake, so there was the intent to fish. Some of the guys went golfing, we have a crapload of those here. Then we had an 'auction'. I wanted to not go broke! So I told everyone to bring an item, anything they wanted, and we'd auction it off to pay for this one/raise money for next one. As we have never had any money, my contribution was the pain in the ass shit and using my programs to design invites and stuff. I also printed them out. It was really nice. Got some old photos and used those as a border for the invitation. Maybe I'll find one and put it up so you can see.

After all that, what do I do??!! VOLUNTEERED to do it again in 3 years. I am very determined to have a hell of a lot more involvement this time. Hubby's brother complained that we didn't have it catered. Finally, I says Look I can't AFFORD catering. Next time you can pay for it. They bitched about damn near everything. ASSHOLE. Unfortunately I still had to contact him today for family pics. So, so glad those people do NOT have this website address! I mean come on! You got to see family you hadn't seen in over 10 YEARS! What the fuck more could you want. I put the damn thing together with help from 1 person, who had a full time job, in 2 months with absolutely no idea of what to do. And no one wanted to suggest what to do.

Yeah, I'm starting on it now. I have 2 years. I'm gonna ride their asses, they just don't know it yet. SEE, see how far I'll go cuz I love my husband and want him happy?! Trust me, that's pretty much the only reason. Most of those people are still strangers. I am extremely shy and am naseous around large groups of people. I know a few of them, and I'm sure I'll hide out around them, kinda like I did last time. I set up a website for it. I wrote the fucking HTML. Yeah, that wasn't easy. I did cheat though, I used the CSS for my blog as a template and tweaked it. Changed damn near everything. Maybe I'll let ya'll see it. BEG ME! BWAAHAAHAAHAAA! (or however that goes, I gotta have my fun in here) I made an animated header. I made an animated bar for the sidebar. I found links to things like hotels and stuff in my area. I, the uncreative never know what to say, actually wrote words on the damn thing. I fixed pictures too. I'm done with it now. I had it running in one day. Today I validated the html and tweaked it. It's still not valid, but the only thing that isn't correct is the counter I have and the Guestbook I got. I couldn't find anywhere on the internet, imagine that, on how to write a guestbook. They got free ones, but no 'how-to's'. DAMN IT ALL!

Ok, bitching's over. Go mind your own damn business! (that was too easy, ya'll are suckers!)

HA HA HA! http://searcy.digitalzones.com

Humor

2005-06-27T19:40:00.000-07:00

There are so many to choose from, I wasn't going to post any. However, this one was priceless. What am I talking about? Every Monday night, well nearly, Jay Leno does 'Headlines' on his show. For those who don't know, people mail in funny things from ads or newspapers and he shows the ones he likes and has time for. I could not pass this one up.

Usually by thursday, the headlines he did on Monday night are up on his website. You can also visit the link for the fruitcake lady. You really have to watch the videos to appreciate this little old lady. It won't let me play the video. If you have windows media player 9, not upgraded to 10, you can view them. Click on the pic and it'll take you to the headline page at the Tonight Show site. Check them all out! Guaranteed laughs.

Recap

2005-06-26T20:51:00.000-07:00

I'm going to sum up my last posts for ya'll.
*Note:I have a new banner now. Made it myself! I have a new featured graphic and put up a new pic at the top of the sidebar. The three top buttons are newer. I'll be changing my heading bars and <br /> bars. Check back over the next few days. I'll be making my self a little face lift.
As you can see, I like my bars/banners/buttons to blend seamlessly into my page. You can't see the borders, as I use the same background color on them as I have on my blog. Hell, I might change the firefox and thunderbird buttons too. I like it when the text and graphics pop, with the shadow under them. Amazingly enough, my animated files are very small. Photobucket only allows up to 250kb per file.
Links to all the animated graphics I made (they will open in a separate window/tab):
First trash for president button. Fairly crappy but it was my first try at animation and on a not so great program.
Animated Trash for president button. I'm happy with this one. You can see it by scrolling to the post below.
First animated header. When I made this it was too big, so I just resized the whole file. You can see the result. Some of the edges of the effects got cut off and it looks out of proportion. I redid the animation on this a lot. As you can see, it's not the one I'm using.
I don't need to give a link for the last one, because it's right up there at the top of the page. I could have made it wider, but I didn't want to. Despite the sheer amount of pics and graphics on here, I do try to keep the page and files fairly small. All of my graphics are less than 250kb. As far as I know, it loads quickly. Well, at least it doesn't drag waiting for the graphics before the text appears. I noticed on some of the other sites, no offense to the one who made the headers, the text loads first then the huge header loads and you get thrown back up. Because after the pic loads, it shoves the text down...A LOT! I usually don't mind it, just bugs me sometimes. That's why mine is small. Even with an itty bitty monitor, I'm sure the header would still fit in the page. I hate having to scroll right or left just to see a graphic or writing on a page.

I did it!

2005-06-26T14:08:00.000-07:00

Even though I didn't really understand se7en's answer for me, I knew I needed a different program to animate what I wanted. I went to download.com and searched for animation programs. The one that seemed best, with reviews and all was Ulead GIF Animator 5. I get to try it free for 15 days. Program itself seems awesome to me. I've only made the one button/banner. Apparently you can export as a flash file also. It doesn't have a proper drop shadow or any bevel at all, but I can do that in my other program and import it into this one. I can import any pic I want to. And to buy it will only be $50. I've seen what major programs cost and this seems pretty cheap compared to them. The first little bit of the animation, I think, is a little choppy. Not real sure. I'll let ya'll have a look and get your opinion. Truth from ya'll please!
Again, the background of the button is black, so it won't look great on my maroon page. If I change my template to a black background, most of my buttons and banners will look crappy. If ya'll really need it to be black for an opinion, I'll change it for a couple days. You'll have to remember the rest of the page'll look funny.

Here's the url for the image:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y128/mickicas/trashanimated.gif
If one of you has a black background and want to put it on your site to see it.

Buttons---Animated

2005-06-25T23:14:00.000-07:00

Well, only one button. I have the free photo plus program. I tried to get the little trashcan on there. For some reason I can't figure out how to put a pic into it. Those who know trashman understand what I mean by the trashcan. I also couldn't get the text in the place I wanted it. I was going to try staggering the separate words like I did on my buttons in the sidebar. For some reason it wouldn't let me. I'll have to get se7en to come by and help me figure that out. Maybe I need a not so free program to do what I want. If I can't even get that to do it, how am I ever gonna get my mickey header made? AAHHH! I was gonna make the flashing button for trash's site. His birthday is soon and he is demanding cards and gifts. LMAO!
The background of the button is black, as his site's background is black. It'll look a little funny here with my maroon background. After I get a little help figuring it out, I'll just provide the file and or html code for my photobucket if he wants to use it.
Without further ado, the animated button. (Remember it's my very first try)
*NOTE:Got my help and a new program. Made a new button, so I took this crappier one off the site.
HELP ME PLEASE!
Oh, for my newbies...(sisters)...on the sidebar click under Blog links, click on Doing Time. You should visit anyway. He's quite amusing. Today he's offering magic earrings for sale. They are Jack's spent bullets made into earrings.

Beads, Games and Cartoons

2005-06-25T09:14:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the quality of the last pics. Next time I'll scan. I made another necklace, got some more beads and will be making a necklace to match my final anklet. I finally got the pattern, color and size I wanted.

I found the little dragonfly charms at Wal-Mart. I always think turqouise when I see them, so I loved the swirl beads I found. Had to get more before I could make the necklace to match. I did make one, but I didn't like it after it got put together.

I really like those black and white striped seed beads, but they don't look very good with the turqoise. I ran out of the smaller round turqouise beads that were on the anklet, so I had to use the black ones. I'll be taking this apart to make the new one. It's been a good lesson in how to make necklaces that 'match'.

I made these 2 little bracelets/anklets for the boys today. Hubby got me some more beads yesterday. I wanted lots of turqouise colors. One set was half red stuff. I don't like red, per se, so I asked the boys if they liked them. I pieced each one together, asked if they liked the way it was, then strung it. At first they were wearing as bracelets, now they want them to be anklets. It's a very good thing that their ankles are the same size as their wrists. Steven's is 5" and Mikel's is 6". They are very proud of them today. LMAO!
On the the games part. Really only one game. Digimon World 4. It's still fairly new, so I only found one walkthrough for it. It wasn't even complete. There are 4 stages and only 2 of them were in it. That's ok, you have to retest things to make sure they are accurate. I may just make one of my own. I beat it last night. The last boss fight wasn't just one boss, it was 3. Each one was a bitch to kill. I probably will make my own. I'll use Open Office for it I think. The best thing about that open source program, is you can make a document and export it as a pdf. On the things I have done, they look better once exported and opened as a pdf. You can get it at the Open Office website. It's free and better than Word, works and junk. Much easier to work than the microsoft office suite that I have. Yeah, I think I will do it. I needed a lot more info than I got, so I'll just mess with it myself.
On to the cartoons. I haven't talked about them lately. Full Metal Alchemist is now re-running Mon-Wed on cartoon network, as is Ghost in the Shell. Don't forget, it's adult swim so they are on around 11:30 central time. Saturday holds new adult swim cartoons. It's great, they no longer show the crap cartoons before the good ones. Inuyasha is on at 10, Samurai Champloo is 10:30, Paranoid Agent (I think that's the name), and reruns of Trigun. You get the idea on times. Samurai Champloo is awesome. If you like kung-fu type movies this is a great cartoon for you. Suffice it to say that they can do in cartoons that you cannot achieve in movies. Some of the dialogue is dorky, but the artwork is awesome. Paranoid agent I haven't figured out yet. The intro shows the entire cast, each alone, laughing. Not the sound of laughter, you can just see it. I think the thing is that someone gets under too much pressure, starts to have a mental breakdown and they get attacked by a kid with a gold hockey stick. Yeah, weird. This morning abcfamily was showing a W.I.T.C.H. marathon. I like this cartoon, it has magic. Not much else on though. I can't wait until 10pm. Gotta have my Inuyasha. I'm always disappointed if I miss an episode. The rest I don't mind. Demons, good and bad, a priestess, and lots of magic. Reincarnated priestess who travels back 500 years or so through a well and doesn't really know how to be a priestess. You can imagine how amusing this can be.
Well, off for now. Games to get to, things to make.

What I've been up to

2005-06-20T08:08:00.000-07:00

...the last few days or so.

The pics aren't that great, but you get the idea. I found some nifty little beads and things to make me some anklets. It's much more than I ever did with my beaded necklaces. My new digimon game we got yesterday. It's frustrating me already. I'll be getting the walkthrough/cheat stuff later on today.

This is what the boys' daddy got for father's day. I know, it's a little dorky but he likes it. They are the boys' real hand and foot prints. It wasn't easy to get paint on their little hands and feet. Then get it on the shirt without them smearing it around. You can't see it in the pics, but you can see all the creases and lines in their hands and feet.
My oldest sister called me from VA, this weekend. They are doing great. (They are the ones who came home recently from Germany and they have both been discharged from the military.) She may be getting a job in a store security as a manager. She's had plenty of training, she was an investigator as an MP. He's trying to find a job as a police officer. I'm not sure but I think he just wants to be the little guy on the totem pole. Don't get the wrong idea about that, there's no shame in wanting to be the cop on the street. I hope he gets the job he wants.
Littler sister called me yesterday. They are pondering moving far away. I don't blame her. I understand that one. Her husband is a welder, he learned from his dad, he's good at it. He's pondering taking classes and then going to do underwater welding. Which we know from some of se7en's posts can be a bit dangerous. She wants to come over on her lunch hour. I don't know why she thought she needed to ask. She also offered to watch the boys after she gets off work, if I wanted to get a job a couple days a week. I'll think on that a while. I like the idea. I would rather have a job I enjoyed rather than one just to get out of my house. I wouldn't mind learning some computer programming. Just enough to be able to build my own computer. I just don't want to take classes. Teachers have always taken too long to teach something. I learn at a different rate than most people. I might do that. With online classes now, maybe they'd let you learn at your own pace.
Talked to my hubby the other day. It seems he didn't realize that when I told him he wasn't allowed to talk to my father about certain things that it was because the man would tell me how bad of a wife I was. Hmm. Keeps telling me to just put it behind me. It isn't that easy and he doesn't really have any idea. I told him again he needs to not push me. That's when I lash out. There are times when I know I have to do it, I just can't. So generally I do a few dishes, clean 1 area and that's it. So my house is generally in a semi-clean state. I have been in hiding a bit. I'm unsure whether I really needed that or not. Hubby was gonna take the boys to my fathers yesterday. He called over there and the bitch he married said my father beat the shit out of her the day before and he didn't live there anymore. I'll tell you my thoughts on this. I do feel a certain sense of satisfaction and she deserved it. I don't condone or wish anything like that on anyone, but her, I just feel a sort of glee, I guess. Does that make me a bad person? Not really. Taking into account both of them lie and exaggerate, I'm sure no one will ever know what really happened there. Also if he really did do that, she'd be in the hospital for a week. There's a difference between smacked or pushed and beating the shit out of someone. Actually, for both sides, I don't really care. I think it's funny, maybe a little poetic justice. Of course there is a possibility that he just wasn't there and she made it up hoping I would run over there or something. She is capable of that, she's done similar shit before. Oh well.

Sweat

2005-06-14T10:08:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday I complained about housework. Today I will complain more, sort of. I vacuumed the house today. That always involves picking up damn near every toy my kids have, and moving damn near everything. I did the steps too. I never should have carpeted them. Still after 4 years the carpet gives up fuzz from hell. I'm think about telling hubby I want to rip up the carpet from the entire upstairs and put down either laminate or a 'false' wood floor. Sweeping and washing the floor would be easier. The food the kids drop from each meal alone has nastied my carpet. Even my shampooer can't get it all. Maybe I'll research and figure the price. It'd give me something to do. I remember now exactly why I hate vacuuming. No matter how cool the house is, I sweat like a pig. My hair is soaked by the time I'm done. Not to mention under my boobs. Yeah, I said it. I've always wished they were smaller and could be perky. I tell ya, I forgot about it for some reason today. There is a little trick. Put your deodorant underneath them. Works great! This is especially helpful to those who work in any kind of heat. They make women's deodorant to go on clear anyway. No one's gonna notice. I used to get a rash until one of the waitresses told me about that little trick. Remember ladies...before work or a trip in the summer use deodorant under your bra also.
Something else interesting I forgot about yesterday. On my local news...apparently there's a drug company that has come up with a vaccine to prevent some uterine cancers. Yes, I said prevent! Or maybe it was my Reader's Digest, I'm not sure. Anyway they are hopeful that it'll get approved by the FDA within the next 2 years. They aren't sure which ones it will prevent, but they are sure that it will prevent atleast the one caused by the papillovirus. That's an STD. But hey, if it can prevent even 1 kind, it has to be worth it. Maybe we're getting closer to a cure for some cancers. I'd say a vaccine to prevent even one kind should make us all more hopeful.
I'll leave ya'll with that positive note.

Worms

2005-06-13T12:16:00.000-07:00

All last week and whatnot I've been reading and playing FF9. I haven't been able to think of anything to write. Well and make it coherent anyway. I'll get to the worm thing in a minute. I have to say, I'm bored. Very bored. My usual pursuits just aren't doing it for me. How can you say that? The internet gives unlimited possibilities. Maybe burned out is a better word? I haven't even been going to all of my regular blog sites. A few of them yes, but not all. Of course this is just part of a cycle that I go through. I get bored with everything for a while and then pick it back up again. Hubby brough me home books from a garage sale. I must say, they were a pleasant surprise. They weren't trashy romances, but I did like them. However, I couldn't read them more than twice. That never happens. I reread about four times before I put them back down. I've found myself scanning quickly through the books. In less than an hour I've 'reread' a book lately. The process is no longer enjoyable. I hate it when I lose interest like that. Maybe I'm dissatisfied. Who knows. Don't get me wrong, I love my husband and my kids, I've just lost interest in my favorite hobbies. Being home all day I need my distractions. I go nuts without them. Of course I don't really want to go anywhere. I hate leaving the house. I think it's just that I like to feel that every once in a while, if I wanted to, I could. Maybe if this area wasn't so boring. I often wish we had a museum or zoo or something. No, getting a job won't fix that. I'd still be bored, but annoyed with all the things that go with a job. All I'm qualified for is restaraunt or grocery store work. Not that that's a bad thing. I really have no ambition per se. I remember when growing up, I touched on the idea of being either a mechanic or a doctor. Too much school needed for a doctor. I hate schoolwork, it's boring. I can't grasp the mechanisms of an engine, so that's out. If I had really wanted to do either of those things, I would have atleast tried. All I ever really wanted was to be a wife and mother. I wonder why that's looked at as a second class job these days. Too bad I'm a horrible housekeeper, I really do wish I could be better at it. Why clean it if it's gonna be trashed in 30 minutes or less? Logic, can't escape it.
On to the worms. Yesterday the kids got to go outside, it wasn't very hot out. The ground was wet and they wanted to dig a hole. Their daddy helped them with a shovel. They were fascinated with the earthworms. After Steven's wiggled he threw it. Then he grabbed another one. It was so cute. The kids can't go outside when it's past around 80°. Even in the shade, they break out into spots. I don't think their bodies process heat like they're supposed to. Even yesterday when they came back in they were hot enough to run a fever. Maybe they get it from me. I can't go out in 90° or hotter. I get sick. I can't do hot tubs either, nor hot showers. No doc has been able to explain that one. I don't think they believe me. It was suggested that they could be allergic to the sun. Only problem is they've been in the sun a lot. Only when it's too hot out do they actually spot after about 20 to 30 minutes. It looks like chicken pox when they do. They don't get itchy though.
I'm getting a little restless too. I want to leave this area. I've said it before. Now it seems that little sister may be leaving too. Talking about Texas, I guess. Her husbands a welder and he may go to school out there for underwater welding. I know, se7en had some horror stories, but hey whatever. Poor thing probably hasn't realized yet that if he does, he'll be gone for around 6 months at a time. Now with 2 small kids, that's going to be very hard. Maybe that'll make her take that final step to being all grown up. I don't think I'll ever get out of here. With a little luck, maybe we'll get a house with a decent yard. Hmm.

Stealing

2005-06-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

I know, I know it's wrong to steal. I couldn't help it. I'll tell ya 'bout the books hubby brought me from a garage sale some other time. From the time I read the RA's list, meme, whatever I knew I was gonna take it. It was interesting unlike many of the ones you see out there. Plus, technically she gave permission!
(x)=been there, done that. LMAO!

(x) snuck out of the house...I don't know anyone who didn't do that when they were younger.
(x) gotten lost in your city...Lived here my whole life, and I can still get lost down a lake road!
(x) seen a shooting star
( ) been to any other countries besides U.S....I would like to go to Ireland. Grandma K is rumored to be decended from a King Niall something. I'm a princess! LMAO!
(x) had a serious surgery...technically my c-sections are surgeries but that's it
(x) gone out in public in your pajamas...I love pj's I wear my jammies all the time. Good thing they're men's jammies or people would notice
( ) kissed a stranger...Count this as part of my extreme shyness
( ) hugged a stranger
(x) been in a fist fight...She hit me first.
( ) been arrested
(x) laughed and had milk/coke come out of your nose
(x) pushed all the buttons on an elevator...Still do sometimes, it's so fun!
(x) swore at your parents...You have no idea
(x) been in love
( ) been close to love...either I was or I wasn't. Technically there was my first love, an ass and then my hubby.
(x) been to a casino...That is fun, we go to KC every once in a while. The last time was the only time I didn't win any money, but he did.
( ) been skydiving
(x) skinny dipped
(x) skipped school...once, my friend needed to visit a docs office and I went. No one even called my house about it, I was such a good girl ;).
( ) seen a therapist
( ) done the splits
( ) played spin the bottle...I was an 'untouchable'. When I told my best friend, I lost my virginity she never beilieved it. The guy tried to brag too, and everyone laughed at him.
(x) gotten stitches...Knives and I never did get along
( ) drank a whole gallon of milk in one hour...Wouldn't that hurt?
( ) bitten someone
( ) been to Niagara Falls
(x) gotten the chicken pox...Had it twice!
(x) kissed a member of the opposite sex
(x) crashed into a friend's car...Don't think I'm gonna tell this one.
( ) been to Japan
( ) ridden in a taxi...I don't even like cities, there is no way in hell I'd trust anyone I don't know to drive in one.
( ) been dumped...Only had one boyfriend before my hubby, and he was stupid enough to tell me it was a 'muffler burn'. Stupid man still regrets that. So does his dad, he likes to tell me he wishes I was his daughter-in-law.
(x) shoplifted...When I was very little, I wanted some gum, I guess.
( ) been fired
( ) had a crush on someone of the same sex
( ) had feelings for someone who didn't have them back...My dating life was non-existent, trust me, it's an odd thing.
( ) been on a date...I added this one. I really have never been on a date. Maybe I'll tell that one sometime.
( ) gone on a blind date
(x) lied to a friend...Sometimes you have to tell a friend what they want to hear, and maybe tell them what they need to hear later.
( ) had a crush on a teacher...There was a couple of cute ones, but I really had no sense of that kind of thing as a teenager.
( ) celebrated Mardi-Gras in new Orleans...I think it would be fun, but I'd never really go. I'm very shy.
( ) been to Europe
(x) slept with a co-worker...Story of my life. I'll tell that sometime. I've actually only ever had sex with 3 different men. And NO, not at the same time.
(x) been married
( ) gotten divorced
(x) had children
( ) seen someone die...I don't think I'd wish that on anyone
( ) had a close friend die
( ) been to Africa
(x) driven over 400 miles in one day...Actually have no idea how far 400 miles is. But I have driven for around 24 hours once. I think that should do it. It's an 8 to 12 hour drive to my grandparents in NE and I've done that several times.
(x) been to US...Live here
( ) been to Mexico
( ) been to India
( ) been on a plane...Nor will I ever. Car trip is sooo much cheaper
( ) seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show...Seen a couple of scenes, never made me wanna see it.
( ) thrown up in a bar
( ) purposely set a part of myself on fire...did stick my hand in a fryer once, accident though.
( ) eaten sushi...I don't care what anyone says, DISGUSTING! I hate the smell of raw fish, I'm sure trying to eat it would make me puke.
( ) been skiing/snowboarding
( ) met someone in person from the internet
(x) lost a child...I'm not telling this one again.
( ) gone to college/university
( ) graduated college/university
( ) fired a gun...nor will I ever. Baseball bat works just fine for me.
( ) purposely hurt yourself
(x) taken painkillers...technically. I'm thinking this one is more for illegal uses though. No I haven't done that.
( ) been intimate with someone of the same gender

For the curious, the barebones story of the lost child is in the about me post. It's the second or third post I ever did. Try the archives. Maybe I'll tell the process another time. Today is a good day, and I'd rather not cry. This one appealed to me when I saw it, I knew I'd steal it. There are so many that you see that have the standard stupid questions and this one doesn't. See ya'll.

Searching

2005-06-03T12:54:00.000-07:00

It has occured to me that not everyone would be interested in the how of my babies' births. I knew when I wrote it, but decided to have a post above it. If ya'll wanna read it, just scroll down a bit.
As ya'll know I keep track of who comes to my site. No, not names and stuff. I can kind of tell who visits and when, but the where they come from, the ip and if they comment. It's my curiosity thing. I don't have any totally outrageous how did they get here searches. I do have a couple of categories though. One of my counters, the one that shows numbers in the sidebar keeps track of each search that ended up here and it tells me what page they were sent too. On with the show!
--> I figure most would be interested in the porn searches that ended up here. Yep, I got a few. I guess some people really don't know how to search properly for it. LMAO!
I have several that were: winx club porn. I know how they got here. I watch winx club on saturday mornings and have mentioned it. Personally I don't think it would make decent porn. Then I have the really creepy one: 13yr old babysitter gits raped. Yes it's spelled gits. I really don't think they were searching for any other reason than for their perverted porn. That's just wrong! However they got here, because the only word I haven't used on my site is gits. I'm not that much of a hillbilly. I was talking about my nephew 13 maybe babysitting. In my pro-choice vs. life posts I mentioned rape(as possibly a legitmate reason for abortion). They actually searched my site for it. GROSS!
--> I got a lot of hits after posting the lyrics for Everything I Do by Bryan Adams. Some actually wanted it free...that's illegal now. Not much interesting there.
--> I did get some stupid people searches. Someone was looking for the beyblade song. They had the title too. If you know the title either search a lyrics site or go to the damn official website. It's jetix.tv.com or something. Also try abcfamily.com. I got one for: sauza tequila allergic reaction. You don't do a web search for that, you call the damn ER! Also as all tequila is made from the agave plant, I really don't think it matters what brand it was, that would also shorten your search a bit. Try webmd.com too. Then I have the: echo weedeater refill. I have no idea how they got here for that one. We do have an echo brand weedeater though. I consider this a stupid people search as you can go buy any kind you want from wal-mart. DUH! Try ace hardware or something. You really don't need the internet for that people. Cheaper without the shipping and handling. If you are looking for something to shop for, do a shopping search in google or yahoo. I know you can, I've done it before.
--> Funny, I got a couple of hits from: ft's in the ozarks. That is highly amusing. I don't know if they use the term 'ft' anywhere else but here. I don't know why anyone would search for 'fucking tourist' but it is funny!
I've gotten quite a few hits from people searching for lyrics in general. Hits from that one word. Maybe I'll make a button that will send those people to the site I use to find lyrics. http://www.lyrics007.com .

Having Babies

2005-06-03T06:03:00.000-07:00

First I'll tell you that Stevens word is sorry. He says 'oops yahee'. The h is silent. He doesn't pronounce s at all and only sometimes pronounces r.
I was thinking today and I thought I'd tell you about my having babies. Technically I don't really consider it 'giving birth' as I didn't have either boy naturally. On with the show.
Mikel was my first baby. He was 2 weeks late. He never dropped. My water never broke. I didn't go into labor. I was induced at 8am the morning of January 24 that year. The day before, they put some crap on my cervix to get it to soften. They put me on pitocin to start contractions and broke my water. It looked like a plastic tongue depressor, that thing they used to break the water. I was hooked up to the monitors. It's hard to believe that the baby's heartbeat is supposed to be around 160 to 200 per minute. Then you get to watch the contraction paper. It took a few hours for it even to start to curve at all. I decided that I didn't want to be hopped up on any kind of pain medication until I needed it. Around noon or so the doc came and I wasn't dilated yet. Stubborn baby! Talk about embarassing. Having a baby in the hospital is safer, yet still sucks. All the nurses look at the one place you don't allow almost anyone to see. Bad enough you do that once a year with your gynecologist. I have to tell you, I was pretty bored. It took a while to even get contractions that hurt. They did start hurting. There's this chart paper they use to print out of the machine. The worst I ever got was a half curve. This baby wasn't wanting to come out, and I wasn't waiting until he wanted to, to get the pain to go away. Fuck this shit, this was gonna go on for a long time. Pain meds, and now! They gave me morphine. It did nothing for the pain and made me throw up. The nurses seemed to think it was weird it didn't work. Probably my immune system. It's not like I ever expirimented with drugs to know what would work. The doc came to see me 4 times that day. Around 7pm he said I was only dilated to 2 and had been since noon. When I first got pain meds. They made me wait for the morphine to wear off before I could get something different. An anesthesiologist came up to give me an epidural. I have to say, with that big ass belly it's hard to bend around a pillow to arch your back and hold still too. I think I told him I was in love with him! LMAO! I'm sure that wasn't the first time he ever heard that one. So on with what my doc said. They had turned the pitocin drip up as far as they could. They can only turn it up for a while then they have to turn it back down. However that works. So he says we can do this some more and take the baby tomorrow or we can do it now. From examinations and whatnot he was fairly sure that baby was not coming out the natural way. Kid still hadn't dropped. What's supposed to happen is they drop and irritate the cervix causing it to thin and you to have contractions. Not my baby! I was bored with the waiting and unwilling to go through this till the next day and have a c-section anyway. So I said, lets do it now. I was lucky, I had a doc that wasn't gonna make me go through 3 days of pitocin just to see if the baby would come. It's not good for the baby to be dry for a long time anyway. Had to wait for the anesthesiologist to come again and numb me from the waist down. Wheeled into the little surgery they have on the OB ward. They shaved me, didn't expect that. I'm sure it wasn't easy for the nurses either as my belly wasn't easily moved. I remember Bill sitting in one chair and the guy with the oxygen mask in the other. He was very nice. Didn't feel anything but pressure. I did feel the knife, just wasn't painful. Weird. I also felt them put the baby on my chest before they cut his cord. Then I felt a heavy pressure on my chest. I asked what it was. Apparently they take the uterus out too, for a reason I forgot. Probably to remove the placenta. I know they showed me the baby, I just don't remember seeing him. I was drugged after all. I could hear him screaming. Babies are not happy to be out of that warm belly. He was the most adorable baby. Afterwards one of the nurses told me he probably shouldn't have been born naturally anyway. His shoulders were too big. Doc may have had to break one to get him through. Then the doc said I could have a natural birth next time...if it was a girl. Why? Because they are smaller at birth. Oh, and Mikel was 8lb 15oz and 19 inches long.
With Steven it was less of a big deal. Remember I hadn't had anything normal happen with Mikel. Since he was a boy, we scheduled a c-section 5 days before his due date. It was a Monday. On Sunday, the day before, I woke up and felt wet. So off Mikel went to his grandparents and we went to the hospital. I only lost my plug, the water didn't break. I didn't know what it was like for the water to break on it's own so, it's an honest mistake. Anyway, they said since I lost the plug, the water would soon break and labor by monday most likely anyway. Or worse, in the middle of the night. So the doc on call said we could do the c-section that day or wait until monday or the middle of the night, whenever the water broke. Screw that shit. I said lets do this. Then we can watch the Chiefs game. Yeah, I know having a baby or football game. The game started by the time we were in the little surgery room. Had to wait for the anesthesiologist a bit. So the whole time they are doing their thing, we are talking about the game. LMAO. What's the score, who'll win. I don't think they would have talked about it with me awake, but I was asking. I was having my tubes 'tied' too. So that took longer. All they do is snip about a quarter or half inch of them out. This way the egg never reaches the uterus, no more babies! The doc asked me if I was sure atleast 10 times. I was getting pissy about it. I understand why he asked but jeez, I signed a paper months ago. Maybe it's because I was 25. (It wasn't yet April.) Anyway, I think Bill got to watch the last half of the game. I was rather disappointed, I love to watch football on sundays. Being drugged doesn't go well with watching a game. This time, I was itching all to hell from the epidural. They gave me Benadryl for it. Needless to say, it didn't work. I was scratching my face into the next day. Steven's birth wasn't all that exciting. He was 8lb 0oz and 19 inches long. He was born on December 15.
I never did like being pregnant. I didn't like the birth thing either. I only wanted the end result. Some women like those parts too, I think they are nuts! So when someone wants to talk about the birth process, I am as ignorant as anyone who hasn't had any babies at all. I didn't have any of the normal things that come with it. Water never broke, no real contractions to speak of, my one labor was induced, baby never dropped, etc. If they wanna know how to deal with the after of having a c-section, I know that part!
You know, my kids never kicked anyone when they would touch my belly. They moved and kicked me. If their daddy put his hand on my belly they would reach out and just touch his hand. With my sisters, they just ignored it. It's funny my boys didn't have anything normal before their births. I knew Mikel was left-handed before he he was even born. He only used his left hand to touch. I know this only because I know what position he was in once he was to big to really change positions. Everything he's done since has been with his left hand. Steven hasn't decided which he his. He could be both. He uses both hands equally. Even with coloring and drawing and eating.

Yahee

2005-06-01T07:04:00.000-07:00

Ok, since I been 'not on-line' aka 'distracted' nothing of interest to ya'll has happened. Yes, I lead a fairly boring life, with the exception of the crazy things my kids get up to. Like putting on daddy's long socks and on Mikel they went all the way up to the top of his legs and on steven they were past it. Or, they went outside and daddy made a fire to roast hot dogs and marshmallows. They dug a hole in the dirt. 'Mommy, I DUG A HOLE!' Like it was the greatest thing in the world. Or, yesterday daddy took them to a creek and they had water guns and splashed and tried to catch minnows, which their daddy put in the cooler that had ice in it and they were dead when he got them out. Boys had fun with their daddy. Mommy had nice quiet time inside where the nasty sinus crap can't affect her. Even with the best sinus medication this time of year my nose still runs a mile a minute. The sinus meds just keep me from having the stuffy nose, headache, and itchy eyes. Which I must say, they get so bad that some people like to ask me if I was 'smoking'.
With my inside time, instead of reading, I played final fantasy x-2 again. Last night I got all the episode completes and got the mascot dressphere. The only way to get it is to not skip the damn movies and a few extra things. That's why it took me 3 days to get where I want to be, instead of beating it in 2. Now I have to level up and do some extra goodies for 100% complete to get the perfect ending. There are 4 endings. This stupid not skip movies thing is irritating. I just want to see if any of the 100% guides in one play of the game are accurate.
*Steven's word of the day* yah-ee. Good luck with that one.

Memorial Day Weekend

2005-05-27T10:22:00.000-07:00

Before I get to the complaining part of the unofficial start of tourist season here...
I will do what memorial day implies. So many people these days only know that memorial day is a holiday on the calendar. It is so much more. It's like Veteran's Day, only so much more. It is a day 'we' official honor and remember our lost loved ones. Think of it sort of like the Mexican Day of the Dead (which I believe is the day we in America celebrate Halloween), in which ancestors are honored by placing food and flowers on their graves and remember them. So...in honor of some of our lost ones...

In memory of Bill's Mom and Dad. I know they were divorced a very long time, but as they are both gone, I don't think they'll care. He says this was taken after they were first married. For now we'll focus on his mom. They divorced when he was 9, and he and his other 2 siblings who were still at home chose to live with their father. She died when he was about 19, I think. She went in for a hysterectomy and died 'on the table'. He never forgets he broke her heart when he chose his father. We've been to visit her grave on mother's day, it's something I don't wish to repeat. He never forgets. He never forgives himself either.

This is the most recent pic we have of his father. We lost him last year, I think. It seems so long ago. He was diagnosed and died of cancer within 2 months. It was really just too late to try chemo and radiation. So many of his family were broken after this loss. The woman with him is his widow. We still check on her, and I make sure she gets mother's day stuff anyway.
I can't find my pics of our next pair. They were Bill's nephews. Andy and Josh. Andy was going to graduate that summer, and Josh was just a couple years younger. It was a car accident. It was in no way their fault. It was a combination of rain, bad roads, and a curve. Apparently there's a few uneven spots along that curve that has caused even the most careful of drivers go off the road on a sunny day. The boys went out to rent a video game, and never came home.
I thought I had a pic of my cousin Aaron, but I can't find it. He died when he was 25, I think. He was the first person I ever actually knew that died. Also was the first dead body I had ever seen. He didn't look dead, it was creepy. His sisters still miss him. Janelle's youngest son was born on Aaron's birthday, the year after he died. He was out partying with friends. Apparently he fell off the back of a barely moving pick up truck and hit his temple on something. He did not look in any way bruised or scratched, so they only thought he passed out. Poor guys didn't know until he turned blue or something I guess. He was also the last boy to have our last name. Unless one of us girls give a son our maiden name, which we haven't, it will pass out of our generation.
Then there's Donny. He died of cancer also. It took him about 6 years to die of it. At first he had colon cancer. He was in his early 20's with his first diagnosis. It was taken out and thought beaten. About 2 years later it showed up again and no matter what they did, he died. He was fairly close to my age. One of the few family friends we had. He was 24. He only got to attend college for a couple of years.
Those are my lost loved ones. Yes there were aquaintances who died, but that's different. There is also Bill's grandma. I hear she was an awesome lady worth knowing. I think we would have gotten along really well. He does miss her too, but not quite like he does his parents. Now my kids really have no grandparents with the exception of Connie, Bill's stepmom. No, my father is not one I consider responsible enough to fill that role. As my mother is in no way anywhere near us, that does not matter either. Oh well, my kids have loving uncles and aunts to more than make up for what they have lost. Maybe, if I'm lucky, they won't even notice what they will be missing. Especially as they have a couple of uncles old enough to be their grandparents. Bill was a surprise and wasn't born until the oldest was already out of high school.

And now my bitching about the unofficial start of tourist season. It'll have to wait. I don't feel like it anymore. See ya'll around. Take a little time to remember your loved ones who are no longer with us. I know I miss mine.

Pinger Faint

2005-05-26T10:11:00.000-07:00

I let the kids fingerpaint today. Amazingly, it's Mikel the 4yr old that I can't get to say it properly. Also his 'painting' isn't very pretty, but Steven's is. Well, as much as a 2 year old can do anyway. I did help him a little, but most of it is his 'art'.

One day, I'm sure they'll get better. Right now it's more fun for them to get all messy and play in the shower trying to clean off. The top one that's pretty much a solid color is Mikel's. For whatever reason that's what he did.
He told me he was gonna 'pinger faint' tomorrow. LMAO!

Ouch!

2005-05-24T21:37:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it! I have been shaving my legs since I was 13 (don't laugh, stepmom was a vindictive bitch) and have NEVER cut myself. EVER! Tonight...I laid in the bathtub for a while, then turned the shower on. I always have it on barely warm and by the time I got to shaving...it was COLD! Good thing I brought in hubby's shaving cream, much easier when you can't keep your legs under the ice water. In case you're wondering, my hair's so thick it takes forever to thoroughly soap, rinse, condition, rinse my hair. Water was cold by the time I got to the second rinse. Oh well, it's not like the shower head was working properly anyway, damn thing had a stream instead of a spray. I didn't even notice I cut myself until I got out of the shower. I'm rather clumsy with the kids toys all over the house. I get bruises and cuts all the time. Never notice when they happen, only when the color properly. So it's no surprise I didn't notice, although I did feel a sting when I rinsed my leg off. Get out and dry and I am checking to see if I missed a patch and I'm bleeding. FUCK! Didn't even hurt until I walked downstairs. It's on my shin. About an inch and a half vertically and maybe an eighth wide. I'd take a pic of it, but I'm too lazy and it's late. It looks like I peeled the top layer of skin off. It's really not that surprising why it happened when I think about it. From marching band all those years...a whole of 3½...I have shin splints. That means when walking I have to do it softly or it hurts. Also, can't walk for long periods of time or run without pain. I've also noticed that running my finger up the shin...There are a lot of dips in the bone instead of one smooth level. With shaving cream hiding the skin it's easy to not notice, I guess. It looks like 'road rash'. Like the time I skidded my bicycle down the gravel road for about 100 feet or so when I was younger. Actually I landed on my knee and fell on my left upper leg/hip -ish area and skidded on that, while never actually falling off the bike. I hate those, they always look yellow and gross until they heal. Maybe it won't scar though, I still have the one from my bike wreck.
Ah, well just thought I'd share another good reason I now have for not wanting to shave. Besides the it's a pain in the ass and to look nice has to be done ever couple of days thing. Somebody please explain to me again why we do this to ourselves??

Holier Than Thou

2005-05-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

I can't think of anything to write today, so I'll post another song. This one is by Metallica. I'm fairly sure this song is on the black CD. For me, it speaks volumes.
Artist: Metallica Song: Holier Than Thou

No more!
the craps rolls out your mouth again
haven't changed, your brain is still gelatin
little whispers circle around your head
why don't you worry about yourself instead
who are you? where ya been? where ya from?
gossip is burning on the tip of your tongue
you lie so much you believe yourself
judge not lest ye be judged yourself

holier than thou
you are
holier than thou
you are
you know not

before you judge me take a look at you
can't you find something better to do
point the finger, slow to understand
arrogance and ignorance go hand in hand
it's not who you are it's who you know
others lives are the basis of your own
burn your bridges build them back with wealth
judge not lest ye be judged yourself

holier than thou
you are
holier than thou
you are
you know not

Lyrics @ Lyrics 007
Nothing like a little heavy metal to make an angry song sound better!

'Everything I Do'

2005-05-20T08:40:00.000-07:00

In honor of the movie I got yesterday, I'm posting the lyrics for it. Find lyrics @ Lyrics 007. I got the extended version of 'Robin Hood Prince of Thieves'. It has quite a bit more than the regular one. Columbia House DVD club had a special of buy 2 or more for $9. We got this one and the Patriot. I have the Bryan Adams cd with this song on it somewhere. Right now, I'm replaying the credits in order to listen to the song LMAO!
'Everything I Do (I Do It For You)' Artist: Bryan Adams (I'm unsure who actually owns this song. There are a few different lyrics. These are the words to the song on the movie itself. If you want the song, you can buy the Bryan Adams cd it's on. There are quite a few good songs on it. Or buy the movie soundtrack.)

Look into my eyes - you will see
What you mean to me
Search your heart - search your soul
When you find me then you'll search no more
Don't tell me it's not worth tryin' for
You can't tell me it's not worth dyin' for
You know it's true
Everything I do - I do it for you

Look into your heart - you will find
There's nothin' left to hide
Take me as I am - take my life
I would give it all - I would sacrifice
Don't tell me it's not worth fightin' for
I can't help it - there's nothin' I want more
You know it's true
Everything I do - I do it for you

There's no love - like your love
And no other - could give more love
There's nowhere - unless you're there
All the time - all the way

Oh - you can't tell me it's not worth tryin' for
I can't help it - there's nothin' I want more
Yeah, I would fight for you - I'd lie for you
Walk the wire for you - Yeah I'd die for you
You know it's true
Everything I do - Ohhh, I do it for you

This is one of my favorite songs. One of those 'it speaks to me' songs. Enjoy!