ok, time for a dream analysis please....

.....a couple of weeks ago i had a dream that someone gave me a set of twins.  newborn twins.  a boy and a girl.  i don't know who it was that gave them to me but all i could remember thinking was......do i really want more babies???  i felt guilty for keeping them bc i have a friend at work that's been trying to get pregnant for a while now without any luck.  i thought....i should give her the babies or atleast one of them.  anyways, i end up keeping them.  in my dream i take them to this surprise birthday party for a friend.  the party is outside @ this beautiful park.  after a couple of hours at the party, i can't find the babies.  i'm thinking to myself....how could i have lost the babies???  it's not like they could've crawled away from me or anything...they're newborns for pete's sake.  so much in dreams doesn't make sense.  i end up frantically searching for them and finally find them.  guess where.  ughhhh....face down in a pond!!!  they're blue and their little gowns are floating around them.  i'm thinking...oh i should've given them to christy!!!  i grab them out of the water and then i enter the "twilight  zone".....you know that place where you still have one foot in your dream and one foot in reality.  i was conscious enough to tell myself this is only a dream.  don't panic!  i refused to let those babies be dead.  so i forced myself to go back to an earlier part of the dream when they were still alive.  this time i was gonna keep my eye on them.  and then i woke up.....


.......fast forward to yesterday.  i had a dream that i went to see a friend in new jersey.  i had my kids, his kids and then two other little ones that i didn't know.  the little girl was blonde & maybe one or one & a half....old enough to toddle around.  the little boy was dark headed and maybe about three or four years old.  i was alone with them and for some crazy reason i fell asleep.  when i woke up the two little ones were gone.  i asked the other kids if they had seen where they went but they hadn't.  so, once again, the frantic search begins.  i run out of the house and they're having a party across the street with a bunch of little kids.  my two little missing ones are not at the party.  i turn around and there's a pond in the distance and you guessed it, i see the little girl's body floating on top of the water....face down.  i think GOD NO...not again and i start running.  as i'm running i enter the "twilight zone" again.  i start saying to myself over and over.....you don't have to do this...she doesn't have to be dead.....go back to the part of the dream when she was still alive....i grab her out of the water and then wake up.

this is a disturbing little dream pattern for me.  why on earth would i be dreaming about babies drowning???  i've had alot of what i like to call "panicky" dreams in the past.  these are always dreams that i get stuck in for hours.   looking for an emergency phone #,  looking for money to get back over the walt whitman bridge,  looking for a way to reattach my sons feet to his body,  crazy stupid dreams that i can't seem to get out of.  i had a dream once that i lost ryan in a crowd at a flee market and i search for hours & hours & hours for him and finally found him face down in a pond.  that was absolutely horrible.  these dreams i'm not getting stuck in though.  it's like when i get to the bad part i slip into some kind of awareness that it's only a dream & that i can change it.  i still don't like the subject matter though and think i could really do without all the babies dying.  not sure what it all means but i think i deal with that enough in reality.....

ughhhhhhh...........

........so the rush is on.  can you feel it????  did i say "ughhhhh" already???

Freckle Juice.......

......growing up, i was slam pack full of freckles and i hated every last one of them.  my brother and sister suffered the same fate.  we were a family full of freckles.  so when i was little and dreamed about what my future children would look like i always had a clear cut picture in my mind.  they would have brown hair, fair skin and of course be full of freckles.  i never thought to take into consideration what the father of my children might contribute to their looks.  so along comes christian.....he's got the dark hair but he's also got dark skin and absolutely NO freckles.  he didn't look like what i thought my kids would look like.   round two.....here comes samantha.  blonde hair, dark skin and a couple (and i mean just a couple) of freckles.  once again, not what i pictured.  my sisters kids are what i pictured my kids to look like.   of course her husband is also fair skin & freckled faced too so i guess that's makes a difference.  finally along comes ryan.  my sweet little ryan.  he is mine.  brown hair, fair skin and chock full of beautiful little freckles.  it's amazing how time changes our perspective on things.  i absolutely adore his freckles.  to me it looks just like God took out his freckle shaker and sprinkled perfect little freckles all across his cheeks.  how beautiful.........

this is the last one........

......promise.  no more graveyard pictures after this.  atleast for this week.  lol.  good thing it's friday.  i've always had a secret fascination with graveyards.  when i was little me, my sister, my brother and my one & only infamous cousin joey would sneak into the graveyard in clayton (that's in new jersey).  we would never vandalize anything or hurt anything but we would occasionally walk off with things that were left at the graves.  why???  idk.  we were kids.....unsupervised kids.  lol.  but i still love to explore graveyards.  it's not like i have some kind of fixation with dead people or anything.  i just like the history aspect of it.  it's like a 3D history book.  you can read about somebody that was born in the 1800's but it's not the same as standing in front of and touching the gravestone that was actually made for that person.  it's like touching the past.  call me wierd.  i know it doesn't fit the traditional definition of beauty but to me it is an eerie kind of beauty.......... 

Veteran's Day......

..........since today was veteran's day, i took the kids to their papaw's grave so they could put out a flag for him.  my father-in-law was a beautiful man.  i know you're not supposed to describe a man using the word beautiful but i honestly can't think of anything that fits him better.  he was beautiful and i miss him more than he'll ever know.  he was a man of God and it showed in every thing he did.   lloyd was a veteran of the United States Army.  he served God, his country and his family.  in a world where so many people don't like their inlaws, i consider myself blessed.  i couldn't be more proud to call Charles Lloyd Smith my father-in-law......

A HOME INVASION.....

........my house was invaded yesterday by ladybugs.  they were everywhere.  guess it was the warm weather.  i've always loved ladybugs.  my most favorite ladybug story is about the time samantha ate one when she was a baby.  she was sitting by the window when she saw one crawling along the track inside the window.  i didn't think she could get it bc honestly i didn't think she had the dexterity (big word lol) yet to manipulate her little fingers between the track and actually grab the ladybug.  so i stepped out of the room for a minute leaving her and her new little friend by themselves.  when i came back she was chomping away.  i ran over and opened her mouth but it was too late.  ladybug parts were everywhere.  lol.  oh well.  i'm sure they're a good source of protein or something.  so yesterday i tried to get a picture of this cute little creature.  i actually stole this idea i think from megan.  was that you megan who took the picture of the ladybug & the ring??? well, anyway i thought it was a neat idea so i tried to replicate it....gosh another big word....replicate.  why i chose my wedding rings i'll never know.  to be honest i haven't worn them in along time.  i just grabbed them.  turns out my ladybug was not real cooperative.  she just sat there.  i wanted her to crawl on top of the rings.  atleast move a little.   something.  anything.  so i finally gave up.  she won.  she proved to be more stubborn than me.  when i down loaded the pictures to my computer, i laughed so hard when i saw her face.  look at it.  look closely.  have you ever seen such a sour puss???  lol.  it looks almost like i painted it on there myself.  like it's not real but trust me it's real.  i'm sure it's some kind of defense thing to protect her out in the wild.  you know....like scare off the bad guys with her mean face.  what struck me funniest was the irony of the whole picture.  i'm not gonna try to explain it.  i'm probably the only person in the whole world that would actually get it so i'll just spare you.  it made me laugh though and we all know there's beauty in laughter......

i wanted to share this picture too.  i just loved it.  look at the mean little eyes on this ladybug too!!!  i guess i've never really taken the time to look closely at a ladybugs face before.  i'm shocked.  anyway, this is ryan holding the ladybug he caught.  obviously she's scare bc she won't put out her legs but i loved the lighting in this picture and i loved that you could see all the detials in his hand.  just too cute. 

mighty is the oak.......

.........when i first bought my house it was nothing but a hayfield.  no trees.  just grass and a lot of those huge thorny weeds.  it took forever to get rid of the weeds and even longer for the trees that i planted to start growing.  my big joke was that by the time the trees were big enough to offer some shade, i'd be too old to enjoy it.  meaning older people get chilly faster bc their skin is so thin....or maybe it's their blood that's so thin. idk. and don't say a word megan!  anywayssss, i had great hopes for my trees.  i have two maples in the front and two in the back.  i absolutely love...love...love those maples trees that turn orange on the outside and yellow on the inside.  that's what i wanted.  well, apparently i bought the wrong kind.  they've grown big & strong but they are stubborn and resist changing colors each fall.  when they finally decide to change they turn red which is ok i guess but not what i wanted.   is it possible to be disappointed in a tree???  yeah, but i won't say it too loud.  wouldn't want to hurt their feelings.  i am bound and determine to find a tree like i want and i know just where i'm going to plant it when i find it.  until then my favorite tree in my yard is my oak tree.  i like it's shape....sorta triangular.  it tries reallllly hard to change pretty colors.   the one thing that i struggle with is it's branches.  they're are wild.  they go in every different direction.   and the branches' branches'  have branches.  understand??? lol.  i trimmed off some of the lower branches last year or the year before.   what a job.  but look what i found when i was taking pictures this morning.....a smiley face.  my oak tree was smiling at me.  and see you thought i was crazy when i said my trees had feelings.  silly you. but seriously, oak trees are know for their strength and that's why i chose it for my subject today.  there is infinite beauty in strength........ 





who turned the lights out........

..........it's 6:54 pm and it feels like it should be midnight already.  i despise day-light savings time.  i love fall but hate the fact that they have to ruin it by making it dark so early.  ughhhhhhh.  i guess there's no sense in whining.  it won't do any good.  i've decided to go back to my "beauty" pictures.  i miss my camera and as usual need something else to focus on.  i think the first day of winter is december 21st or 22nd.  that's also the shortest day of the year....a turning point.  i think i'll try to take a picture each day till then......

this is a mum that my church got me while i was in the hospital.  love the colors.  just B*e*A*u*T*i*F*u*L.......

ok, soooooooo.............

.......we won't be doing that again anytime soon.  atleast not in this lifetime.  if anybody ever offers to shove wires up your groin and into your heart with the intentions of burning your precious cardiac muscle while you are awake, all i can say is....RUN!  fast! and don't look back.  lol! apparently (according to the crna) "most" people don't ever feel anything during the procedure.  there are a "few" that will feel a little discomfort.  and then there are the "rare few" that will actually feel pain.  geeeee...guess what category i fell into.  OMG...it was horrible. i will NEVER voluntarily do that again.  i'd have a panic attack before they ever had the chance to start.  let me explain how it went.  apparently i have or had a "stubborn" arrhythmia. it's been with me for so long i guess it just didn't want to give up w/o a fight.   i was in the or for almost 3 hours.  first i want to say that everybody at high point regional hospital was wonderful!  the dr....he was ok.  he did manage to say hello to me before he started jammin needles in my groin....without warning.  it would've been nice to have a little heads up.  but i just smiled figuring it was lidocaine and the area would be numb soon.  opppsssss....don't forget the other side.  jam...jam..jam....for the sake of space i'll stop @ 3.  was more like 10 or 15 but who's counting~*smile*~ they had talked about goin thru my neck so i was just thrilled that they decided to stay @ my groin.  so then he makes the incision and starts ramming the wires up to my heart.  at first i thought well this won't be too bad.  i could feel them just a little.  then i could feel them more.  i don't think it took them much to get my heart "irritated" because all i could feel was this enormous pressure....sorta like the proverbial elephant sitting on your chest.  thought this must be what it was like to have a heart attack.  i just laid there and cried.  never said a word until the nurse anesthetist asked if i was ok.  with crocodile tears running down my face, all i could say was...it hurts.  one time it actually felt like they were jammin the wires up my neck on the right side.  oh and the best part was the "diaphragmatic spasms" which felt like somebody was literally inside me kicking the right side of my chest with a combat boot.  you could actually see my chest wall moving under my gown.  i did speak up between kicks when i had enough breath and asked if that was normal.  then to add insult to injury when they finally felt like they had all the wires where they wanted them they gave me some med that they titrated until my heart rate was over 180.  that was  pleasant but still not as bad as the spasms.  so after that they "burned" whatever area it was that they felt was causing the arrhythmia but i guess my little svt wasn't given up that easy.  they had to come back and manipulate the wires more.  which of course brought more tears.  when they finally thought they were in the "right" place they gave me some versed.  precious sweet versed.  but i never did fall asleep.  everytime i would start to doze they would move the wires or zap me or something and i would feel this excruitiating pain again.  finally after almost 3 hours they were done.  thank you jesus.  they were jokin with me....said now i could go birth some babies.  now that i think about it they probably meant i could go back to work but i thought they meant I could go have a baby.  i told them....HECK (might've used another word) i'd rather go birth a baby than do this again....matter of fact i don't think i'll ever be doin either again!!!!!  atleast after you have a baby you have something to show for all your suffering.  so now i guess i just wait & see.  i was a little nervous the first couple days bc i was feeling little skipped beats.  i thought....ohhhhh, if i've gone thru all this for nothing!!! but so far i haven't had anything today.  it's funny bc i've learned to bend a certain way with my svt.  i could get it started by bending over so i've learned to bend at the knees instead.  i still find my self being careful how i bend so that i don't get it started.  so anywayssss...i guess i just wait and pray.  will it have all been worth it if it works???  yeah, now that i'm on the other end of it.  could anyone ever talk me into doing it again??? ummmmm....NO!  not in a million years........

before i go i want to give a big KUDOS to our girls at RH.  apparently our customers must be a little too picky.  one of our lowest scoring areas on our survey is always response time to call lights.  well let me tell ya....we have to have hprh beat by a mile on response time.  that was my one and only complaint.  i think i hit the call light three times while i was there and the fastest time they answered was around 5 mins....the longest was over 10 mins.  and that was literally just to answer.  atleast we answer right away.  we may not get to the room in 10 seconds flat but we atleast answer on the second or third ring.  so i just want to tell you girls that you rock!  you ARE doing a wonderful job no matter what anybody tries to say!!!!

LATER ALLIGATORS........

.......well tomorrow's the big day.  i'd be lying if i said i wasn't a little nervous.  the whole concept of being awake for the entire procedure is what bothers me most i think.  i've tried to convince myself that i'd probably be ok if i didn't have it done.  i've tolerated it for 15 years now.  what's another 15 years right??? then i was blowing drying my hair the other day. i was bent over with my head upside down and set off a run of svt that made me have to sit down.  decided then that.....yup, i'm ready to be done with all this nonsense.  anywayssss....say a prayer for me.  pray that all goes well, that i behave myself (you know how nurses are, lol) and that i don't say anything i shouldn't while under the influence of versed.  and i'll pray that they're actually gonna give me some versed.  lol.   i'll see ya when i get home.....

P.R.E.T.T.Y........

.....wanted to share this video that megan showed me this weekend.  she said she thought it went with my last blog and i agree.  it has a HUGE message.   thanks megan......

mirror, mirror on the wall.......

..........who's the fairest of them all???  betcha thought i was gonna say me huh.  not hardly.  i think we expect mirrors to be a reflection of the truth.  you should be able to stand in front of a mirror and see reality.  the problem is that the reality reflected back is often distorted.  not only by the actual craftmanship of the mirror but by the person standing in front of it.  we all know mirrors come in all shapes and sizes and different degrees of quality.  absolutely LOVE those mirrors that make you look long and skinny.  lol.  but is it reality??? nope.  it's distorted.  and we've all seen those people out in public who we just know without a doubt that they couldn't have looked in the mirror before they left the house.  when in reality they did...and heck yeah they thought they looked good.  it's all about perception.  how WE see ourselves.  what do i see when i look in the mirror??? depends on the day.  some days i think i look ok.  most of the time it's the hypercritical self-conscious little girl that stares back at me....even at the age of 40.  honestly, when does she grow up and move out???  but so many times when i stand in front of the mirror the same words that have echoed in my ears for ages come rushing back....you're fat, you're ugly, you're not good enough,  not important enough.  now i get to add wrinkles and gray hair to the list of things staring back at me in the mirror.  lol.  but is that reality??? is it the truth???  maybe the gray hair and wrinkles part but not the other stuff.  the mirror lies. it lied to snow white's stepmom and it lies to us.  i'm more than the sum of my parts.  i'm more than love handles and thighs that are too big.  i'm more than crows feet and a pointy nose. and i'm definately more than gray hair & wrinkles.  the mirror doesn't "see" what's inside me. it never tells the whole story.  i think instead of lookin into the mirror for validation of self-worth a more accurate reflection of who we are is in our children.   and that includes the good, the bad & the ugly.  bc if we want to take credit for the good, we also have to acknowledge and take credit for the not-so-good.  before i go any further i want to say that i know there are people out there with children who have problems like autism and such.  who deal with behavioral issues day in and day out despite being the best parents they can be.  and i also realize that all children have different types of personalities.  but i do believe no matter what, they reflect the best and worst in us.  there are things my kids have done that have made me cringe and i thought gee i know where they got that from....me.  i see how my husband can be short-tempered and impatient with them sometimes and how they react to him in the same way.  and he wonders why.  they react totally different with me bc i interact with them differently.  we teach our kids the basics.  how to be kind or how not to be kind.  do you stomp the little bug on the side walk or do you help him back to the grass???  do you hold the door for somebody or let it slam in their face???  they pick up on everything we do and don't do.  they are a reflection of us.  and the proof is in the pudding.  when i doubt myself....when the voices in my head scream maybe you really are that bad....when i look in the mirror and think ughhhhhhhhh...i need to look instead to my children.  they are living proof of all that's good in me.  they are the mirror that reflects "who" i am.   when samantha looks at me and tells me i'm beautiful....that's what i am if only in her eyes.  when people see what a good person christian is, they're seeing a part of me.  and when the ladies gush over ryan bc he's held the door for them, i smile on the inside bc i know i taught him that.  do i take credit for all that's good in them???  no, most of it's comes by the grace of God.  but they spend the majority of their time with me & i feel like i have the biggest impact on how they turn out.  so therefore i also take credit for some of their short-comings....not that there's many.  lol.  but our children are like mirrors that we walk past day in and day out.  we get so busy and so used to them being there that we forget to truly "look" at them.   we forget that if we slow down & look, we can catch a glimpse of our own reflections and that the truth is ours to see if we really want it.  that is something we may never find in a distorted piece of glass hanging from a wall...... 

this is a note i got home from ryan's teachers last week.  i have always been my own worst critic....as i'm guessing most of us are.  for alot of reasons that go wayyyy back i have never had the best self-esteem either.  so between that and some other things goin on in my life i struggle with doubting myself.  when i saw this note it made my day.  i couldn't be more proud of the wonderful little person he has turned out to be.  it's also a reminder of everything right that i'm doing in my life and it couldn't have come at a better time.

TOTO, I DON'T THINK WE'RE IN KANSAS ANYMORE.....

.......no, definately not kansas.  more like winston-salem.  went with samantha on her field trip to old salem today.  it's been probably more than 10 years since i've been there so i was actually excited about going.  i'm not really a field-trip kinda person.  i always go but i don't necessarily enjoy it.  shhhhhhh...don't tell my kids.  i go for them.  i just hate the whole concept of following fifty cars behind a smoking school bus going 45 miles an hour just to go some where for an hour then turn right back around.  but anywaysss i love old salem and like i said was looking forward to goin.  well it took an hour and half to get there.  when we finally got there we stood outside the bus for another 45 mins while the teachers decided how they were gonna split the groups.  when the groups were finally divided it was time to go to the bathroom.....all 80 kids at one time. everything was just really unorganized.  nobody knew where they were going or what exactly they were doing.  we got to see 2 houses and then it was time to rush back to the start so we could see a 15 min puppet show.  after that it was time for our "scheduled" tour of one of the churches.  part of our group got there before we did so they started without us.  lol.  do i sound like i'm whining???  if i don't then i'm not doin my job yet.  so anyway now it's lunch time.  we were supposed to eat at 12:30 but the other class still had all the picnic tables.  we had to find somewhere else to eat. most of the kids had to sit on the ground.  me, samantha & her friend beat the little rugrats to the bench....hehehehee.   finally lunch is over and the teacher tells us we can go off on our own in our groups. yayyyy. we just had to meet back at the main building by 2:30.  so i have samantha and this other little girl.  we spent forever in the gift shop deciding what to buy.  i had to buy samantha's little friend something bc she didn't have any money.  that was my good dead for the day.  we went to the old tavern and the vogle house which was nice bc it was just us three and an older couple.  we went into the little merchant shop.  as we were goin in i hear this blaring noise over some intercom outside.  i didn't pay any attention to it like the rocket scientist that i am.  while we were in the shop i took out my phone to check the time.  i knew we were gettin close to 2:30.  i had a "newsflash" alert from fox 8 on there saying there was a tornado warning out for forsyth county.  for a split second, i thought to myself....gee, are we in forsyth county???  duhhhhh.  i started out the door and a lady stops me.  she told me indeed there was a tornado warning out.  that's what the siren was for.   i said....well, ok but i need to have the kids back to their school bus by 2:30.  she just shrugged her shoulders and said ok.   so i get no more than 2 houses down and this little old woman right out of the 18th century comes barreling out the door and tells me i need to get in the house.  i said....but i need to get the kids back....she wasn't hearing nothing about it.  she said we needed to get in the house NOW.  one of the other parents who was inside must've heard us bc he stepped out and told me that they had spotted a tornado and that part of the class was already inside the house.  i got the girls and went in. that's when mass hysteria set in.  kids were crying.  when samantha saw them crying she started crying.  they made us get in the basement of this very very old house.  it was actually pretty cool.  i felt safer there than any place i've ever been during a tornado warning.  here we are in a house well over 200 years old...obviously it's weathered a few storms in it's time.  samantha wasn't so convinced but i just loved on her and after about 20 mins they let us out.   when we got back outside the rain had died down to just a drizzle.  that lasted all of about 4 mins then the bottom fell out again.  by the time we made it back to the main building we were all soaked.  then they wouldn't let us leave again!  held hostage in old salem....sounds like some lifetime movie-of-the-week.  lol.  idk if there was another tornado warning or what happened but they made us get in this large room, closed all the doors and wouldn't even let us go to the bathroom.  finallyyyyy after another 30 or 40 mins we were told "the warning".....whatever warning that was had been lifted and we were allowed to leave.  thank you Jesus.  i think next time i'm just staying home.  of course then i would've been torn out of frame knowing samantha was there and i wasn't with her.  so never mind.  it worked out just fine.  i'll just have to bring my ruby slippers next time and maybe an umbrella.......

MY SAMMY GIRL STUCK IN AN OLD BASEMENT THINKING....THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME....THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME......

 

wow what a day......

.......so what was so special about it??? nothing really.  just had my feelings hurt twice in the matter of a couple hours.  maybe i need to quit being so darn sensitive huh.  need to toughin up or something.  anything.  the first offender??? the hospital where i'm having my cardiac ablation done.  today was my "preadmission" day.  in other words...."how you gonna pay your bill" day.  now the plan is for me to spend the night.  i'll be out in less than 24 hours so technically it's still considered an outpatient procedure.  i want you to take a wild guess at how much this little outpatient procedure costs.  come on.  just a take a stab at it.  did i hear $5,000???  oh wait....did someone say $10,000???  no, no...keep goin.  $20,000???  getting closer.  no don't tell me.....$30,000???  not quite.  give up yet???  oh ok.  i'll tell ya.  THIRTY SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS!  can anybody say OMG???  or how bout WTF???  i can.......OMG & yes WTF???  i almost fell off the chair.  told the lady....ummmmm, i don't think i can do that.  even with the insurance covering 70% i just couldn't fathom what i'd owe.  when it was all said and done....when all the "out-of-pocket expenses" and "deductibles" and everything else was calculated, my part of the hospital bill will be $2450.  wow...what a deal.  they were so kind as to set me up with a payment plan.  first payment due today.  mind you none of that includes the dr's fees or the anesthesiologist fees....which are subject to my deductible.  and i'm not real sure why i'd be having an anesthesiologist fee when the plan is for me to be awake the whole time.  i know a little secret they don't think i know....nurses can do iv conscious sedation without an anesthesiologist around.  hmmmmmm.  so needless to say my feelings were extremely hurt by all this horrible talk of copays, deductibles, out-of-pocket expenses...blah, blah, blah.  but i need it done and i AM grateful that i have insurance.  so i'll just suck it up and go on.  i have a feeling the hospital has no intentions of apologizing for hurting me so deeply.  as for the second offense of my day.  a friend hurt my feelings.  i was just starting to get over the shock of the first assualt when...bam.  i'll blame it on myself tho.  i shouldn't care so much.  bc that's what happens when you do...you get your feelings hurt.  and i'm more upset by this then anything some big ole bad hospital can dish out at me.  money doesn't matter.  people do.  family & friends do.  so anyway now i feel a little sadder.  it's already been an incredibly "fantastic" week.  this was just the cherry on the top.  could've sworn i ordered my week without cherries.  oh well.  tomorrow's another day.  right???????

nanny...nanny...boo...boo.....

.......i've got three followers now!  lol...amanda & megan are here now too.  yayyyyyyy!

MY KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR.....

.....is five foot two and drives a purple mini-van.  she's been slaying my dragons for as long as i can remember.  and you did hear me right....i said "she".  "she" is my sister.  my protector.  my defender.  when we were growing up i never had to worry about fighting anybody.  my sister fought my fights for me.  she protected me from my brother and anybody else stupid enough to mess with me.  in my eyes she's always been 10 foot tall and bullet proof.  she was never afraid of anybody or anything.  i think it's genetic (unfortunately i think i was busy doing something the day they were handing out that gene & i got missed).  but when she was about 8 yrs old she came home one day and told my grandmom that some boy in the neighborhood had been picking on her.  the boy was dumb enough to come to the playground across the street from our house later on that day.  so my granny, who mind you was barely 5 ft tall herself, went over to the playground, got the boy, told my sister to go pick out a stick and proceeded to make the boy stand there while she instructed my sister to beat him with the stick.  lol.  try that one today.  he never bothered my sister again!  anywayssssss....the reason i bring it up is that i needed my sister today and in true fashion she came to my rescue.  wheels a blazin and gravel flying.  i was laying down today bc i thought i might have to work (still might have to).  about 2 o'clock i heard somebody pull in the drive.  by the time i got up to see who it was the car had backed out and parked on the side of the road.  two men got out of the car and one started walking to the house.  i didn't know who they were so i called my sister real quick.  i know....you're thinkin what was she gonna do for me.  well, i thought if i atleast had somebody on the phone they would know that somebody else knew they were there.  she finally picked up on the fifth ring.  told her to stay on the line that some guy i didn't know was coming to my door.  i was stupid and actually opened up the door.  next time i won't.  but he asked if my husband was home.  he said....i can't remember his name but they call him "shitty".  yeah i know.  if the shoe fits right.  lol.  it rhymes with smitty.  i was stupid again and said...no he's at work. duhhhh.  the guy said they had run out of gas and wanted to know if i had any he could buy?!?!?  i said...ummm, no!  then thought, do i look like a friggin gas station.  sounded a little suspicious to me.  so he leaves and my sisters asks me what he was doing now.  i said walking back to his car.  she said...you want me to come over????? oh, i'm coming over now.  she lives about 5 mins away.  she was at my house in 4.3 seconds flat.  she said she ran out of the house, jumped over her gravel pile, flew down her driveway and thought "damn, i should've brought my gun!" the whole way over! lol.  i love her!  when i let her in she said....YEAH, WHAT ARE THEY GONNA DO NOW!!!.....all 5 ft 2 inches of her!  and believe me she meant every word of it.  and i love her for it.  these guys sat outside for about 15 mins when 3 of randolph county's finest citizens finally pulled up with their beer cans in hand and a one gallon container of gas.  took 5 men to put one gallon of gas in the car.  flippin rocket scientists.  did they ligitimately run out of gas???  idk.  or were they up to something else??? that i don't know either. but what i do know is that you can't trust anybody anymore.  except unless they're 5-2 and come to your rescue in a purple mini-van.  ahhhhhhh, my childhood dragon slayer and hero for always......... 

THE DRAGON SLAYER, HER BABY DRAGON & THE DAMSEL IN DISTRESS.....MANY MOONS AGO!

HOW TO CARVE A PUMPKIN. RYAN STYLE......



WHILE SAMANTHA'S STILL DOING HER HOMEWORK, PICK OUT THE BEST PUMPKIN

 

HAVE MAMA CUT THE LID AND THEN WATCH THE POOR LITTLE THING BLEED.  DON'T EVER SAY PUMPKINS DON'T FEEL PAIN



CAREFULLY REMOVE THE LID BUT MAKE SURE YOU GRUNT WHILE YOU'RE DOING IT.  MAKES EVERYBODY THINK YOU'RE WORKING HARDER



THEN IT'S TIME TO SCOOP.  ONCE AGAIN, A SERIOUS FACE LETS EVERYONE KNOW HOW TRULY HARD YOU'RE WORKING

EWWWWW.......PUMPKIN GUTS!

DRAW A FACE AND THEN HAVE MAMA CUT IT OUT.  PRESTO.....INSTANT LOOK~A~LIKE



SPOOKTACULAR.......









































                                               i've always loved halloween.  love everything about it.  the ghosts.  the goblins.  trick~or~treating.  carving pumpkins.  we never got to carve many pumpkins when i was little.  cost too much.  my grandmom, who grew up in the great depression, would always say.....don't worry hun, we'll get a pumpkin after halloween when they go on clearance!  lol.  and i wonder where i get my frugile ways from.  when i was old enough to buy pumpkins on my own, it was nothing for me to get 3 or 4 pumpkins and carve them all by myself.  i haven't done as many since ryan and samantha were born but i still love it.  i had the best time sitting out there yesterday with them.  it's therapy for me.  i bet the pumpkin doesn't feel the same way huh.  poor thing.  anywaysssss....love the smell of pumpkins when they're lit up.  just love...love...love...pumpkins.  i've got an extra one stashed that i'm gonna carve when the kids are off to school and i'm all by myself.  group therapy is ok.  put i prefer one~on~one therapy better.........

MORE DREAM PICTURES.......

i have a dream.....

......or should i say i "had" a dream.  not once.  not twice.  but over and over again.  it wasn't one of my panicky dreams that i seem to forever be getting stuck in.  it was a simple dream.  a dream about a chair.  yes....you heard me right.  a chair.  but this was no ordinary chair.  it belonged to my great-grandmom.....my mom's grandmom.  her and my mom were very close but she died when my mom was just little.  even still, i grew up listening to stories about her.  she was a hungarian gypsy who immigrated to the united states.  it's her i have to thank for the gypsy blood that courses thru my mom's veins.  her family traveled with the circus and were trapeze artists.  apparently she was pretty fiesty and would jump the ship back to her home land when the urge struck her.  she was arrested for boot-leggin back in the prohibition.  i guess some people might be embarrassed by that but not me.   i think it showed her strength.  she did what she had to in order to survive and support her family in hard times.  something the woman in our family have been doing for generations.  but anywaysssss...back to the chair.  some how my mom got it from my grandmom. to be honest, i'm not sure that i ever remember a time when my mom didn't have it.   it's been that long......

........there was also a little girl in my dream.  i'll bet you'll never guess who it was!!!  lol....i was gonna try to keep you in suspense but i'll just tell ya.  yeah....it was samantha.  she had on this brown dress with pink flowers all over it.  it's my favorite dress that she has right now.  and let me tell ya...princess leia has some dresses.  but this one....it's my favorite . 

                                                

in my dream, samantha is wearing this dress and sitting in her great-great-grandmom's chair in the middle of her grandmother's pasture.  i told my mom about my dream yesterday and she said...well you should take her picture.  she understood the pasture part but didn't quite get the chair part.  she pointed to a wicker chair she has sitting on her porch and said i could use that one if i wanted to.  i said....ummmm, NO, it has to be your grandmom's chair.  so after school, i drug poor samantha over to her haha's house, made her put on her sunday go-to-meeting dress, pulled her hair out of her hair-bow and forced her to pose on a chair she had no clue about.   ahhhhh...the things we do for love.  she was such a good sport about it...as usual.  in my dream, the grass in the pasture is long.  well, the  little dream-maker in my head that likes to torture me didn't account for the fact that my mom now has cows in the pasture who have eaten the grass down to the nub.  so for that reason and for fear of being stampeeded by a herd of teenage cattle, we chose to take the pictures in my mom's front yard.  so here ya have it.  my dream come to life.  i guess sometimes you don't have to have your eyes open to see "beauty".  sometimes it finds us in a dream......                                                                            

         

     

                                                                                                             

why????

.......why do i hate to exercise so much???  whyyyyyy???  i know it's what i'm supposed to do.  i know it's what i need to do.  my scale and my clothes tell me that every day but gezzzzz...i hate it so!  i already walked this morning....a mile over @ my mom's house.  my "intentions" were to come home and exercise with one of my dvd's.  walking is great and everything but i'm not exactly sure how much it does for you physically.  me and my mom walked 3 miles 3-4 times a week the entire time the kids were in school last year and some how i managed to gain 10 pounds.  might've been the donuts.  i'm not really sure.  but anywayssss....i should be exercising right now.  instead i'm sitting on my butt bloggin.  ughhhhh! there are some physical benefits to bloggin though.   my butt may be expanding but my fingers are nice and trim!  lol.  my fingers get a better workout each day than my body does all year.....

meet my love, my life and my laughter........

this was a blog i posted to on wordpress back in june when i was trying to figure out which site i liked better.  i still haven't decided.  one day i like wordpress...one day i like blogspot.  i think what i like more about blogspot is the ability to play with different templetes and change things up.  you can be a little more creative here.  but for some crazy reason i keep being drawn back to wordpress.  so idk know what i'm doing.  lol.  as usual.....

…….guess it was probably back in january that i made a decision.  i had been having a really hard time with “things”.  to be honest this had been goin on for a couple years but i guess maybe in january i just got tired enough to do something about it.  i was havin trouble seeing the good in things.  overwhelmed with the uncontrollable.  one day i was looking around this site and found a woman who posted a picture every day and wrote a little something about it.  hers were random pictures much like my random thoughts.  but i did think what a neat idea it would be to try to take a picture of something beautiful everyday.  i love taking pictures & my theory was that if i was continually “looking” for something beautiful that i could retrain my brain to see the good instead of focusing on the not-so-good things.  i lasted about 40 days or so.  it was time consuming but it worked.  i did miss a couple days but even on those days i was “looking”.  some days were harder than others.  when i was strugglin to find something i fell back on  three things that i consider the most beautiful of all…..my children.  hence, the picture above.  they are my love, my life & my laughter.  from right to left there is samantha.  she is my love.  my middle child.  full of beauty, hugs & kisses.   then there’s christian….my life.  when God gave me christian, he gave me my life back.  he’s my strength.  my friend and my joy.  last but not least is ryan…..my laughter.   my pure pleasure.  he was a terrible baby.  lol.  but has turned out to be wonderful little person.  his heart is the biggest of all my children.  he’s a helper & a giver.  and probably one of the funniest kids i have ever met.  my plan is to pick up here where i left off on my myspace blog.  seeking out beauty so that i never fail to “see”  how fortunate i truly am…..