I went to the cemetaries last weekend while I was back in my hometown in Maine and snapped some pictures. I don't know who this person is, but I thought his tombstone was very cool and original. If I had to have a tombstone, I'd have something like this. Just a regular rock, nothing fancy or man-made.

here's Jro eating some broccoli. 

Just another cute picture of Avery....not sure what his Momma is doing behind him though. ;) 

Summary of the President's Speech

"Hi, I'm the President of the United States of America. I'm the boss and what I say, goes, ..........We're not leaving Iraq until I say so....any questions?.....I didn't think so."

Notice how I complain about the weather? Well, stop reading this if you're sick of me complaining because here I go again.....

The three H's really suck. BIG.TIME. Hazy Hot Humid. I swear if I hear the weather 'person' say those words one more time I'm going to lose it. This weather makes me irritable and SICK!!

Who likes this weather? Is there anyone? If so, you're a lunatic.

Ibelle was crankiford, and Avery takes notes. 

Loving cousins. 

I SO want to be a baby again....he certainly knows how to nap! 

This is Avery, practicing his kickboxing jabs...just like me!!! 

Warning, could be TMI

Skinnydipping RULES!! I'm at the resort*, and decided to skinny dip. RULES RULES RULES.
I'd advise everyone to do it at least once in your life before you die.








*my parents home....more to come about that

Blue haired ladies

I understand why little old ladies have blue hair. I think that if I get to the point where I need some blue in my hair, I'm going to make it really blue. None of this vague stuff, I want a nice deep true blue.

Can Nature wait?

Everyone who knows me knows that I love nature, I love the animals, the birds, the plants, flowers, etc... but please, Please! Mr. Cardinal, although I truly love your beautiful red feathers and your wonderful song in the DAYTIME, PLEASE don't start your song at 4:30 in the morning outside my bedroom window. Thanks in advance.

Thank goodness the hubster had earplugs for me.

I went for a long walk in the woods today with Jethro. The woods are very wet from all the rain we've had. There's something magical about the forest, and I really feel at peace when I'm out there.  

Bunchberry 

lichen 

Moss 

I wish I could attach a file of the wonderful smells of the woods. From musty to spicy, it really does something for my soul.  

Water in the woods. 

The herbmarker that penni made for me :) 

It seems like I am always the one to 'stay positive'. When people close to me (and not so close to me) are down, depressed, negative, and generally angry with the world, I try to be the one with the positive thoughts, suggestions, etc. I may as well beat my head against the wall. I guess I just need to back off, let them know that I'm here for them, and keep my mouth shut. Too much emotional involvement on my part can suck me dry.

On Grilling

Would it be wrong to say that I am the better griller in the family? I'm actually very anal about the grill. I think I do a much better job. I insist on letting it heat up, and yes, I insist that it's OK to grill raw chicken. (He'd like to pre-cook it in the oven.) For the past three nights I've been grilling chicken wings. And he even admits that they are SUPERB! I am familiar with the laws of grilling. Yes, I am the champion.

Oooh, speaking of religion...
When I was a teenager my aunts and their friends went overboard (IMHO) with religion. We were all devout Catholics and started attending 'prayer meetings'. I initially went to these meetings an hour away from home on Wednesday nights. They were fun, there was lots of singing and worship, and a great sense of community. UNTIL (insert dreaded music here), the aunts got carried away and started their own little prayer group in our town, at our church. (Actually the meetings were held in the building next to the church.) Father Bob came to the first few meetings and all was well...then the dynamics changed and the aunts started talking in tongues more and more, as well as being 'slayed'. The lights would go out and they would start talking in tongues. Mikka likka hi mikka hiney ho. (that was stolen from Pee Wee Herman) But you get the idea...a made-up foreign language. They would get louder and louder and start crying and all this craziness went on around me. They would fall (collapse) as they were being slayed by the holy spirit. This was a bit much for me and I found myself either wanting to giggle or run like hell to get out of there. I stopped going to these meetings, but the aunts carried on.

They would preach to everyone within reach. Like, "gang preach". They alienated themselves from the rest of the family by doing this. In my opinion they had gone over the deep end. They were crazy, fanatical. I had lost my aunts that were at one time like mothers to me.

One day, when my parents were away for a couple days, they came to my house. My cousin and her boyfriend were staying with me. The aunts came to bind satan from us. They beat the ceilings with brooms, they chanted, they were lunatics. We ordered them to leave and they eventually did. This was the straw that broke the camel's back. My parents were beyond bullshit with their behaviour, and it seems like family ties were severed at that point.

Things were never the same after my aunts found religion. There were no more family reunions, no more visits to the pond, no more Christmas' at the farm. I lost touch with my cousins, uncles, aunts. To this day I still wonder about some of them. It's all very sad, and yet, so ironic that religion could do this to everyday good people.

Classical Liberal?

My score on my religious beliefs:

I grew up a Roman Catholic, but have not been a 'true' practicing Catholic for some time.

You scored as Classical Liberal. You are a classical liberal. You are sceptical about much of the historicity of the Bible, and the most important thing Jesus has done is to set us a good moral example that we are to follow. Doctrines like the trinity and the incarnation are speculative and not really important, and in the face of science and philosophy the surest way we can be certain about God is by our inner awareness of him. Discipleship is expressed by good moral behaviour, but inward religious feeling is most important. Classical Liberal 86% Modern Liberal 61% Emergent/Postmodern 57% Roman Catholic 54% Neo orthodox 46% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 46% Charismatic/Pentecostal 32% Reformed Evangelical 29% Fundamentalist 7% http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=43870 created with QuizFarm.com

NASCAR

Friends and family think I'm insane to be a NASCAR fan. I really don't give a *bleep* what they think! Do I pick on my sister for being such a redsox fan? Well, ok, maybe I do, but that's not the point. It's a free country and if I want to worship Michael Waltrip, that's my business. Now if he'd win a damn race he would be worthy of such worship. As for Dale Jr., you are very disappointing my man...please pull your head out of your ass and work with your team. I'm actually MORE than disapointed with you. Your good looks can only get you so far you know.
And as for Kyle Busch, give the boys his props. I don't want to like this rookie, but Mark Martin got it right, he does drive like he's been driving for years.
Tony, you're definitely the bad boy, keep up the good work.
As for the rest of you, I'll get to you...all in good time.

So yeah, I do love NASCAR and I'm not going to be ashamed of it!

Dreams

I don't know why I've been having such disturbing dreams lately. Maybe the change in the weather? They're always about murder and violence. And escaping.
Weird.

On kickboxing

I love kickboxing. The sensei works us really hard. Sometimes I find myself gasping for breath. The aggression, the discipline, the balance. Sweat just comes out of every pore, but it feels SO good! I'm psyched that I've found something that isn't boring.
As soon as hubster gets another job I'm signing up for Karate.
go me!

Still a quitter

So, here's my latest 'quit' stats:
109 days, 12 hours, 10 minutes and 7 seconds smoke free.
2081 cigarettes not smoked.
$370.97 and 15 days, 21 hours of your life saved.

I can't even imagine smoking 2081 cigarettes. Wow.
And in those 15+ days I've saved, maybe that means seeing my grandchildren's children. Who knows what can happen in those 15+ days that I saved.

Yay me!

HEAT

The heat is terrible!! The three H's. Hazy, hot, humid. How I loathe them. What I hate even more is that hubster tells me that because it's a dry heat in Arizona, it feels much cooler than the weather here in New England. **roll eyes** I hate heat period. I'm a cranky biotch in the heat.
This morning hubster tells me that I should be a swimming pool tester. Yes, he's still alive.

My dream that I remember from last night:
I was sitting in the top of a tree that was up against a building. I was looking down at a brush pile. People would come over to it and throw in their dying embers, the embers would fall to the bottom of the brush and disappear from sight. Someone came and threw in a carcass of a dead animal (road kill of some sort). A crow flew down to the pile to get the carcass out, and as he was flying up and away, his tail feathers caught on fire. He became engulfed in flames, hit the ground and the flesh burned away, and then the bones just turned to dust. Dark "ghostlike" figures came out of the ground chanting something, as if to carry the crow's spirit away. My dream ended there.

I had a dream last night about an old high school sweetheart. He died in 1989, but I do think of him from time to time. Anyway, he was sitting behind me in some type of Auditorium with one of my old high school besties. He was hanging all over her and wouldn't pay me the time of day. I started to get more adamant that he pay attention to me and it was going to turn violent, so I left. I headed to the bathroom, which was quite a mess. Then the dream ended.
The 'bathroom' is something I dream of quite often, and it's usually an unmaintained bathroom, in fact, usually beyond repair. I don't get it.
I also don't understand how an old boyfriend can just appear in a dream. I haven't thought about him in some time, so how does he get there?
I woke up feeling yucky, like I sometimes felt back in high school when I felt unloved.

So the hubster is being courted by a company in Arizona...Phoenix, Arizona. Can you say 'hot'? "Don't worry, you get use to the heat." "But it's a dry heat." Um, ok. Heat is my enemy. I melt if the temperature gets above 80!!

My board buddy Penni found my blog! She's such a sleuth!! LOL
It is actually nice to be back in contact with her, as we have done quite a bit of crying on each other's shoulders in the past.
Thanks Penni!! I shall put your blog on my blog :)