Hello Better than Ever

2011-11-13T04:52:00.001-05:00

This is my last post on this blog. I have decided to begin a new blog to go with the new phase of life that I have entered. Those that are interested are welcome to continue this journey with me at: theevolutionofamy.blogspot.com

Symphony of Science - We are All Connected

2011-11-06T16:40:00.001-05:00

This is my favorite from the Symphony of Science series. It's absolutely beautiful. Check out the others in the series too, the rest are just as lovely. What a fantastic way to combine art and science.

Finally feeling better

2011-11-06T16:17:00.000-05:00

I had all these great plans to do things last week. Monday I woke up with great energy and I planned to change my sheets and do some yoga, do some studying and just generally enjoy the day. I started to feel a tickle in my throat and was starting to get a little stuffy when I had to go out to run some errands, but I thought it was allergies. By the time I got home all I wanted to do was crawl into bed. And I did. At 6:30pm I was out, and spent the night sleeping and waking, shivering and sweating. My temp spiked at 103, and by morning everything hurt from my head to my toes. I hate the flu!

So most of the week was spent lying in bed, eating soup and drinking tea and getting absolutely nothing done. By Friday I was feeling like myself again, but it was hard to tell which day had been which through the week. I was just so...foggy. That's what I get for not getting a flu shot, I suppose. But when Chase gets here in December, we'll both go get one together.

I have 34 more days until he and I are together again, and this time for good. I can't wait. Each morning when he calls we tick off another day.

But, since I was feeling so much better today, I finally got my sheets changed and cleaned out my room to make room for my honey. All of my extra stuff is stored away and more than half the dresser has been cleaned out (since I hang up most of my clothes, there's no lack for dresser space). I just hope he's not adverse to the rather floral decor of this room :-\ but I'm sure that he really won't care, as long as we are together. And hopefully within the next year I'll be making enough that we'll be able to get a little place of our own that we can decorate together.

Odd

2011-10-24T19:14:00.000-04:00

Feeling kind of odd today. I'm not sure if it has to do with my pmdd or not. I feel like all the emotional disturbance that comes with this disorder skipped me during my last cycle. Maybe because I was so excited about going down to Baton Rouge, and being with Chase calms and evens me out for some reason. But even though I should be on an even keel right now, the past few days I feel like it's all been crashing down, making up for giving me a reprieve. I don't know. Maybe I'm just tired. I haven't been sleeping well. Maybe I'm just really, really missing Chase.

Either way, I'll make it through this.

3am Reflections

2011-10-24T05:33:00.000-04:00

Saturday marked my six month anniversary with the most wonderful man I've ever met. No, it is not the man I mentioned in my last post. I dated off an on after I joined Match.com, but I never really felt anything was going anywhere. That was until March, when I met the love of my life.

So much has changed since Chase came into my life, and though not all of it has to do him, I am so thankful to have had his love and support through everything. Living so far apart has been difficult (he's in Louisiana), but we've made due with as many visits as we have been able, Skype, texting, the phone, and online chatting.

In May, I enrolled in school to become a massage therapist, something I've been thinking about for about three years now. And in September, I moved to Colorado. My school is out here, so I decided to come out here for the hands-on training portion, and to be closer to my family.

Last weekend, I spent the most wonderful 2 1/2 days with my honey, and I can't wait until I can see him again. We had planned for him to come out for two weeks in February, but after some discussion, it looks like he may be moving out here in December! I have never been so excited!

The most difficult part of living in CO, is being away from my Little Inventor. He is still in PA with his dad and soon-to-be stepmom, and is doing so wonderful. I miss him everyday, but I know that he is right where he needs to be. His grades are great, he's happy, healthy and thriving and I know that he is in the best of hands with Lone Wolf and Red. I am so thankful to have them in my life, and so glad that Little Inventor has a strong mother figure there to take care of him while I cannot. I will be forever grateful to Red for loving him just as much as I do.

So, that's the deal for the time being. Now that my life is a little more settled, I will try to post a little more often, but we shall see.

Okay, here goes nothing

2011-02-08T20:41:00.000-05:00

I decided it is time for me to go ahead and expound upon what I didn't want to fully mention in my update post a few weeks ago.

I know this is going to come as a major surprise to a lot people...but Lone Wolf and I called it quits last February.
I'll just let that sink in for a minute.

Okay, now that I've said that, I'm sure some are asking, why? Well, it's complicated. But the short and sweet version is...we're just much better as friends than as a couple. We are still living in the same house, and have decided to continue to do so. We are co-parenting and co-habitating. And quite honestly, neither of us have ever been happier. We've never really been much for arguing, but it happens even more rarely now. And Little Inventor seems happier as well...a product of seeing us happier and less stressed, I am sure.

Lone Wolf met someone. She is the most wonderful woman! They are absolutely perfect for each other. They are just the other half of each other. And she is so great with Little Inventor! So, as odd as it may sound, she is living with us. I know, it's an unusual situation, but it has simply worked out beautifully. She and I are extremely good friends, and Little Inventor just adores her. She is another piece of our family.

And I know that she was meant to be part of our family, even on a metaphysical level. She has always been a part of our family, throughout time. For Lone Wolf it was like finding the other half of his soul, for me, it was like finding a sister.

So what about me? I'm dating again. For a time, there was a man in my life that I felt a connection to that I've never had before. But as much as we both wanted to be together, circumstances have kept us apart, and I've had to move on, even though I am still grieving for the loss of him in my life. In December, I put up an ad on Match.com, however, and I was actually rather surprised at how many responses I got.

I have been very careful of who I have responded to however, and am currently forming a relationship with one man in particular. We are taking things very slowly, and just seeing where they lead. So far, so good.

I loved Lone Wolf, and still do, but it was never entirely a romantic love, more of a filial emotion that we still share. And though my relationship with J was brief, it was extremely intense. With this new man in my life, I feel that things are progressing at a more natural pace, slowly and building the more time we spend together. As it should be.

It's 2am..do you know where your pillow is?

2011-01-13T02:07:00.000-05:00

Apparently I don't. Okay, I know where it is, I just don't seem to have the capability of using it much these days. I'm so freaking tired. But I can't sleep. I close my eyes and then I'm not tired anymore. Until around 6am, when I've got two hours before I have to get Little Inventor up for school. Mercifully, he had a snow day today. So I actually got four hours of sleep instead of two. Alright, I think I'm going to give sleep another try. Third times a charm right?

No Resolutions

2011-01-11T19:43:00.000-05:00

This year, my only "resolution" was to make no more New Year's resolutions. So far, I've stuck to it. Easiest one I've ever made. No one ever sticks to a New Year's resolution. What is the point? Make a promise to yourself that you know you are going to break in two weeks anyway?

If I want to set a goal for myself, I'm not going to do it just because it's the beginning of a new year, but because it is what I want to do. So from now on, no more resolutions for January first. I can feel like a failure for not meeting my goals any time of the year, thanks very much. Better at the end of a year, than at the very beginning of one.

A New Year. A New Me.

2011-01-09T15:29:00.000-05:00

Since the last time I signed on here to make a post, nearly an entire year has passed. And what a year it has been. So much has changed in our lives, that it is difficult to know where to begin. Little Inventor has been placed in public school for third grade, and is thriving! The school he is attending has a wonderful learning support staff, and with the extra help he's been receiving in reading and speech, we have seen serious improvements. Holding him back that extra year for second grade really did wonders for his development.

We are still living in E-town, though we are seriously considering a move in the next six months closer in to the city. I've been doing a ton of sewing, and have discovered a love for costuming. I'm also trying to re-enter the job market, which is, as many of you know, an uphill battle. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed for something at least part time in the near future.

The biggest changes in our lives, however, are much more personal between myself and Lone Wolf. For the time being, until a few family members have been informed, I am not at liberty to divulge, but stay tuned! It's a new year, with a new design, and a new me, and I'm looking forward to blogging this new path on my adventure of life.

Hello 2010

2010-01-26T23:43:00.000-05:00

Ahh a new year. So much to do, so little time to do it.
I'll have to come back when my mind is a little less addled to give a proper update. But I have been writing again. I'm trying for at least 2000 words a day. Today I got in 2603. Go me :D
Chapters three and four of Lydia are posted, for any who care to read it.

What a week it's been!

2009-12-20T11:15:00.000-05:00

Tuesday evening after the viewing, I ended up picking up Grandma and Aunt Bane instead of Monday afternoon. Then we all went to the funeral together on Wednesday morning. It was a very nice funeral. The entire family was there, and it was nice to see some of those relatives that we don't get to see very much. Lone Wolf was reacquainted with a cousin he hadn't seen in nearly 20 years that he had been close to growing up. And I got to hold Bane and George's great-great grandson through most of the service. He is so adorable! Just starting to crawl. He's the son of Lone Wolf's second cousin J. I can remember when J was in elementary school! Her mom threw the baby shower for us when I was pregnant with Little Inventor. And there she is with a baby of her own. Kind of makes me feel old lol.
Then there was my birthday on Thursday. I got to open my presents just before breakfast. Lone Wolf gave me Twilight on DVD :D and Little Inventor got me a new coffee pot. I AM IN LOVE with a small appliance. We went out to dinner at a nice little diner in Mount Joy, then headed over to Hershey to see the Sweet Lights. Absolutely beautiful! We also pointed out and oohed and ahhed over all the decorated houses along the way. And we got a bag of German kettle corn when we got to the Sweet Lights. Made it even sweeter. Yum!
Friday we began preparing for the snow storm that was supposed to move in that night. I took Grandma and Aunt Bane down to Bane's place and then we hit the store after dinner. OMG that place was a zoo! If someone mentions the word snow, the entire population descends on the store for bread and milk. We got a few things (bread, but not milk lol) since I wouldn't be able to shop on Saturday and then headed home to wait it out. We got up yesterday to a blanket of white and more still falling. My inlaws came to pick up Little Inventor and planned to keep him over night, so it was just me and the Lone Wolf. He made me hot chocolate and we made Hershey kiss cookies in the early afternoon.
We had a major baking bug yesterday. We ended up making soft pretzels last night and they were amazing! We also tried our hand at making kettle corn, but that didn't turn out quite so great lol. But we only made a small batch to try it out so it wasn't much of a waste and we weren't disappointed, just amused.
It's been a wonderful, quiet weekend and the best early Christmas gift we could have gotten. I'm energized and ready for all the wonderful chaos this week will be bringing.
Happy Solstice to everyone tomorrow and a Merry Christmas if I don't get back to my blog before then.

Wrenches

2009-12-13T16:40:00.000-05:00

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. -John Lennon

This is a hard time of year for Lone Wolf's family. Five years ago tomorrow, his uncle John died. It was a sudden and awful death that was devastating for Grandma, Lone Wolf and I, who were there, and a major blow to my mother-in-law and the rest of the family. Uncle John was extremely close to Uncle George, aka "Stubborn". After their father died, Uncle George stepped in as a father figure for John and my mother-in-law. Aunt Bane practically raised Lone Wolf, and while he wasn't very close to George, he has always been there for Bane.
Last Friday night, uncle George went into the hospital. He had a gall bladder infection. They did one surgery to remove some of the fluid that was filling his abdomen, but couldn't get everything. A second surgery became out of the question when he came down with pneumonia and the doctor's decided that his heart was too weak to withstand another surgery. They were doing everything they could to get him strong enough for another surgery, but he wanted to go home. It was finally decided on Thursday that he would go into a nursing home, since aunt Bane could not care for him at home and their kids all work full time and could not give him the 24 hour care he would need. They planned to move him to the home on Friday.
However, on Friday morning at about 5am, his heart gave out and he passed away peacefully in his sleep.
Grandma has gone to stay with aunt Bane until tomorrow, and then I'll be bringing them both here to stay until after the funeral on Wednesday.

My blog may be a little quiet over the next few days until the funeral, my birthday, Yule, and Christmas have passed.

And in case you've noticed, I somehow lost my blog lists, so I'm going to be rebuilding them.

Christmas Tag!

2009-12-11T08:56:00.001-05:00

I found this over on the Pagan Mom Blog!

~Copy and paste the questions to your blog

~Then Tag 5 or more of your favorite blogs and leave them a comment telling them they have been tagged.
~When you post your blog, please spread some Holiday Cheer, and leave a link back to Heather’s Blog as well as the one to the blog of the person who tagged you.
The Questions:

1.) Have you started your christmas shopping? Started and finished!

2.) Tell me one of your special traditions. Chocolate chip cookie baking. I always make them on Christmas eve to put out for Santa.

3.) Are you a “Black Friday” shopper? Not a chance!

4.) When do you put up your tree? I usually put it up the day after Thanksgiving or sometime that weekend.

5.) Do you travel for Christmas or just stay home? We usually go over to my inlaw's or they come here. It's only about 10 miles so I can't really consider that traveling lol.

6.) What is your funniest Christmas memory? The year Lone Wolf and Panda went out back and used an ice chipper to make "sleigh tracks" in the snow and stood out there shaking jingle bells just after Little Inventor went to bed. He still talks about the year he heard Santa.

7.) What is my most favorite christmas show of all time? Toss up between A Christmas Story and The Muppet's Christmas Carol.

8.) Do you do your own baking? Yep :D

9.) Fake or real tree? We used to do real until we moved into an apartment, now we've got a fake pre-lit and I'm in love.

10. What day (as a mom) does the actual panic set in to get it all done? Since I start early and space everything out, I usually don't panic.

11.) Are you still wrapping presents on Christmas eve? Hahahaha, No. I finished wrapping my presents yesterday! Most years I'm done way before Christmas eve.

12.) What is your favorite family fun time at Christmas? NORAD tracking :D

13.) What is my favorite christmas craft? Making wreaths! I've made three so far and I have one left to do. Love them.

14.) Christmas music? Yes or No? If so, whats your favorite song? Absolutely. Baby It's Cold Outside, Feliz Navidad, and Good King Wenceslas are my favorites.

15.) When do you hope to finish all your christmas shopping? Hope? I'm done :D

Instead of tagging, if you read it…..do it!

Empath

2009-12-07T21:52:00.000-05:00

I don't talk much on this blog about my spirituality, but it is a very large part of my life. I am what you might call a natural or cottage witch. But I'm also an empath. For those that don't know that term, basically I pick up on people's emotions very easily. Their personal energy makes a very big impact on my own feelings, which is, I have discovered, why I found it difficult for a long time to really figure out who I was. I have always let other people's emotions infiltrate my own and it has made me very easy to sway, especially on an emotional level.
It was really only last year that I realized that and started making an effort to ask myself, every time I started to feel differently on various subjects, trivial and important, if it was really me that was changing my mind, or was it just the emotions of the other person affecting my own emotions.
I've learned that I need to talk things through. I talk them through in my head, then I talk them through with Lone Wolf and then if I'm still not sure where I stand, I write it out and do more research (on important stuff at least lol) and take my time in figuring out just what I think and what I feel.
This has caused no end of trouble in my life I can tell you. It really started to manifest when I was a teenager and right around the same time, I began dealing with a situation in my home life that I am not going to get into, and wish that no one else would ever have to go through, with my step-father. And being a teenager, I was dealing with the gamut of emotions that go through a regular teen and all of the teens around me. I became a trouble magnet.
So what does this have to do with anything today? Well, two situations brought this whole train to the forefront of my thoughts. Yesterday morning, I signed on to Facebook to find a friend request from my (now ex) step-father. And, Stubborn (aka aunt Bane's husband) is back in the hospital and under going surgery.
Let me tell you, I freaked about the request. I was shaking and ready to cry because I was so mad and upset. The worst part was that I had to drive Grandma to church before I could talk it through with Lone Wolf, so I was running it through my thoughts the whole way there and back. The way I saw it, I had three options. Give him a chance to make his explanations and excuses and then ignore him, deny him but send him a message telling him exactly where he could stick his friend request along with a few other choice words, or ignore it.
When I was able to talk it through with Lone Wolf, he showed me that I was still, after almost 15 years, allowing him to control my emotions. The thing I love about Lone Wolf is that he doesn't try to sway my thoughts or emotions, he talks through these things with me, allowing me to come to my own conclusions, while still giving his own perspective. I realized that he was right (as always). After a decade and a half, just to see his name on a website forced such a strong reaction out of me, it could have been like he was standing right in front of me. But why? He is not a part of my life and I can choose to never let him be. And so I chose to not allow him to appeal to the softness of my heart by letting him rehash all the crap he put me and my whole family through, and I also chose not to waste the stress and energy it would take to pour out my wrath.
I can't begin to tell you how liberating it was to click that ignore button.
The other situation with Stubborn, was what reminded me that I really need to work on shielding myself from the emotions of others in stressful situations. Every time someone gets really sick, or ends up in the hospital, I start to get feelings of impending death. I felt that way both times he was in to get his legs removed. I started feeling that way now. Might he die? Yes, it is a possibility, because he is not doing well. BUT I realized that my feelings on this were not intuition or premonition. I am picking up on the fears of those around me. Once I was able to block those feelings flowing from other people, I was able to look at the situation much more objectively.
Okay, so why am I blogging about all this? I don't really know. It feels good to get it all out, and maybe, it might help some other empath out there struggling with the constant onslaught of everyday emotions.

Most awesome day ever!

2009-12-06T21:56:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the Best. Day. Ever.
Lone Wolf and I had been planning the day all week and by the time Friday came we were both so anxious for Saturday. We both got a haircut on Friday, and I decided to go with something entirely new and I love it! So that was a great start to our weekend. Saturday morning we got up extra early, had a hot bowl of blueberry oatmeal then hurried everyone out the door and into the car. We dropped Little Inventor over at his grandparent's and took Grandma over to her sister's and by 9:40AM we were on our way to Lancaster. And an entire day completely by ourselves to do whatever the hell we wanted to do!
And get this...when we dropped off Grandma, it was just starting to flurry our first snow! So gorgeous :D
So anyhow, we drove through E-town and Mount Joy then got on the highway and headed through Lancaster over to Bird In Hand (yes, that's a real town lol). Our first stop was at the farmer's market, where we picked up two Christmas presents and a container of pontefract cakes. That place was craziness so we picked up a cup of hot spiced cider and headed out again. Next we went over to our favorite store in the area. Kauffman's Fruit Farm and Market. We picked up two jugs of their apple cider (best cider in the world) and some of their apple butter, some maple apple sausage links (okay my mouth is watering all over again lol) and some various holiday candies. Then we went lunch and split an order of chicken pot pie (if you haven't had PA Dutch pot pie, you haven't lived) which came with fresh rolls from the Bird In Hand Bakery (more on that in a minute lol). We checked out their gift shop then went over to the Mount Hope Winery and picked up a few bottles of their Holiday Wine (a tradition in our house, it's great hot and mulled). Ahh, on to Immergut's Pretzels in Intercourse (again, yes, a real town lol) for hot buttery pretzels. Am I making anyone hungry yet?
Then it was back to Kauffman's for a few things from the deli and another cup of hot cider.
And then, Bird In Hand bakery. Oh my freaking gods! Lone Wolf got a hot apple dumpling from them and I got a pecan sticky bun. Cinnabun has met it's match. We also took home a shoofly pie and a little container of rocky road fudge.
Now this may sound like we were just going from one eating place to another, but this was really over about 6 hours with a lot of walking, wandering and driving in between lol
We headed into Lancaster then and found the visitor's center, then Demuth's Tobacco Shop (oldest tobacco shop in the country) where Lone Wolf picked up some new pipe tobacco. The guy there was so nice! He was actually closing up early and we got there about a half hour before closing and he let us come in and browse around. By this time the snow was really coming down and the sun was gone. It was so beautiful! And my feet were soaked lol
After we finished up there, we headed back to E-town to do some actual Christmas shopping, stopping off at the K-mart, then headed back to Harrisburg to hit the Target for a few other things. We left there at about 8:30 then headed for the store back in Middletown. We picked up a few movies, popped in the dollar store, grabbed our groceries and then stopped in New China for some take out. By the time we left the store it was 9:30 and we'd been going and going for 12 hours. We got home, put away the groceries, popped in our movie and sat down for a VERY late dinner, then sat up for an hour before I finally zonked out.

Now, the snow was gorgeous and the lights on the way home were so pretty. The food was amazing and the shopping was fun. The traffic wasn't bad because of the weather and all of the cashiers we talked to were wonderfully sweet. The conversation was stimulating and I don't think I've laughed so much in a very long time. But you want to know what made yesterday the most awesome day ever?

Spending every moment of it with my very best friend.

Are we just getting old?

2009-12-01T21:59:00.001-05:00

Well, there are sixteen more days until my birthday. I'm going to be 31 this year. There have been so many changes in my life in the past year and most of them have been good. But there is one thing that has changed for both Lone Wolf and I that I am really not happy about at all.

Apparently, sometime in the last few months, Lone Wolf has become lactose intolerant. And apparently in that same span of time, I've become egg intolerant. I will spare you all the details of the symptoms that have led us to this conclusion. All I can say is. THIS SUCKS!

Lone Wolf and I baked gingerbread men yesterday. First cookies of the holidays and all. Now, we know that he's lactose intolerant and have cut out as much milk from his diet as possible. But then there's the quandry: use a small amount of real butter in the recipe, or use the same amount of processed, partially hydrogenated margarine? (As if we even keep that crap in our kitchen LOL)

He thought maybe since it's just a little amount it wouldn't bother him. Right? Wrong.
And then last night was when I finally put the spotlight on what has been going on with my tummy troubles. I only feel that way when we have eggs for dinner. I can have eggs in small amounts cooked into other things (like baked goods, etc) but scrambled, fried, boiled...sigh. And I really love eggs.

So we've decided that we're not going to make cookies this December. I'll get some Tollhouse cookies to bake for the big man in red on Christmas eve, but otherwise, I think I'll leave the cookie making to my mother-in-law and just avoid them. Which is probably better for my waistline anyway.

So tomorrow evening when we have blueberry waffles for dinner, Lone Wolf will be getting a side of scrambled eggs, and I'll be having a nice blueberry yogurt. If I can't have eggs, I can at least have dairy (and vice versa). Apparently, this can happen at any time of life, but I just think it's so weird that it's happened to both of us at the same time.

Ahh well, we can still have hot cranberry, rum and apple cider on the holidays. But I guess eggnog is out of the question for both of us!

Get up early on Black Friday? I don't think so.

2009-11-27T09:13:00.000-05:00

I don't care how much money I might save by shopping on Black Friday. My sanity is worth more. So I got to sleep in this morning. Well, a little. Lone Wolf got me up to keep time for him during his workout, but that basically consists of me sitting here at my computer and setting the timer between his sets and during stretches. Not like it's hard work or anything. And I get to fool around on Facebook while I'm doing it. Win, win. I know, I should have been doing the treadmill instead of sitting here on my butt, but last night I told Lone Wolf the treadmill can forget it until Monday morning. That was when we were about 5 minutes away from ending our second walk of the day, which turned out to last about an hour and a half. We have this great circuit that we can take from our house that takes about 45 minutes to complete, so I guess it's about 3 miles, given the hills and such. Well, we were maybe a quarter of a mile from the last turn back onto our road when we found out that the guns we'd been hearing going off were a couple of beered up rednecks out target shooting in the near dark in a field that paralleled the road home. I thought, no big deal, we're almost there. But Lone Wolf was being cautious and insisted that we turn around and go back the way we'd come. When we continued to hear gunshots after the light had faded I decided that I was really glad he has a good head on his shoulders. Idiots. So we ended up with about a 5 1/2 mile walk after taking a good 1 1/2 mile walk in the afternoon after an early dinner at his mom's. I normally do about 2 miles on the treadmill so I'm not doing it. I've got blisters lol.
So what is a girl to do that refuses to shop on Black Friday? Well, decorate of course. I think I'll try to get the furniture rearranged and the tree up today. And maybe get in some writing. On to chapter three ;D

Writing, Smoking and Tootsie Rolls

2009-11-22T22:17:00.000-05:00

Well I had one slip this week, but it's all good. I've realized that I mostly smoke when I'm in the car with Little Inventor and Grandma. Okay, with Grandma. So this morning when I took her to church, I went armed. With a bag of tootsie rolls ROFL
Funny thing is, I'm not even really that fond of tootsie rolls! But they've been great for cravings. One tootsie pop got me through the whole ride there and home (about 40 minutes).

And my writing is coming along great. I started writing this afternoon and managed to finish my first chapter. And it's actually really good. Lone Wolf is actually interested in the story, which tells me a lot. So now I'm going to go get a few more pages in before I hit the sack.

Tomorrow it's back to the treadmill and school work. But I'm going to make an effort to write a little bit every day, and at least an hour each evening. I have the time ( I spend enough on Facebook games everyday lol) and I have the ideas. Now to just get them all out.

I think to make it easier, I'm just going to go ahead and make my writing blog public. So I'm going to add a link here and on my sidebar if anyone wants to read my creative rambling ;D And please, please, if you read, comment to tell me if you like it or don't. I need criticism as much as encouragement. I'd like to make it private, but it's just such a pain to add readers.

So here it is: Snippets

NaNoWriMo

2009-11-21T22:01:00.002-05:00

Ahh NaNoWriMo completely kicked my butt. I made it to 14,124 words before I realized that my story was absolutely out of control!

Okay, I have to ask any other writers out there. Have you ever had a story that just didn't seem to want to cooperate with you? I had an outline and a great idea, but no matter what I wrote, it just didn't want to go in that direction. My main character was supposed to be scary, violent, loving being a vampire, caring nothing for humans and it was supposed to be all about someone trying to get revenge on him for wiping out their vampire clan (it's what he does) but it ended up being about him hunting down another vampire clan. Don't get me wrong, it was pretty good, but it just was not what I wanted to write. It was like the character was taking on a life of his own and just wasn't who I thought he should be. Ugh.

So I have scrapped it 14,000+ words in.

But all is not lost! To be quite honest, I think I can write romance better than anything. Don't laugh. Lone Wolf makes fun of it enough lol. But while he and I were discussing my desire to scrap my story, he did point out a few things to me that I really needed to take to heart. If I want to write a romantic vampire story, I can. It doesn't matter if there are hundreds of other romantic vampire stories out there. I am writing this for me. Not for the world. And if I submit it someday and someone likes it, that's great, but that's not what it's about. Another thing, I can't write men. At least not from their perspective. I'm not a man. I know, great writers can write the opposite sex, but I'm just not there. And I'm not so great at the third person, omnipotent perspective. I do much better writing first person from a woman's perspective.

So I started a new story. I started writing last night and I'm already almost 2000 words in after about an hour of work altogether. I'm writing in the first person perspective about a woman who becomes a vampire. I want to post my writing and get feedback, but I'm actually a little scared. Ha, I'll share my life on here, but I'm scared to share my writing! Pretty silly huh? More than anything, I'm afraid that if it's any good, someone might steal my ideas or something.
So, how to handle it? I think maybe I'll privatize my Snippets blog and post my writing there. Then if anyone is interested in reading, just shout out in my comments and I'll add you to the readers allowed. :D

It's official. I'm a masochist.

2009-11-17T20:05:00.003-05:00

Yeah. So I decided to quit smoking. I've done it before and I quit for like 8 years. But then I found these sweet little cigarillos called Havana Honeys. Loved them! And they were super cheap. Much cheaper than cigarettes. So I started smoking them. And then eventually I couldn't find them at my closest store, so I started getting different kinds. Never cigarettes, but I went from having maybe one every few days to having one everyday, to having 3 a day, to about 5 a day. And that's been for about a year and half I guess. So when I got really sick, I couldn't smoke. And then the cough just kept hanging on. And I knew I was starting back up my exercise this week. So I finished off the pack that I had, and that was it. I'm done.

Want to know why I'm a masochist? I decided to quit the week Aunt Flo came to visit. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I was doing really well until this afternoon when I almost lost it during Little Inventor's spelling. It was the last page he had to do today and almost the last question and I was getting so frustrated. But we made it through. About an hour ago I got a really strong craving, but it was weird, because it was both an urge to smoke and a craving for chocolate. LOL

So now I'm rifling through this wonderful bag of tootsie rolls from Halloween. I've got little ones, and big ones and tootsie pops galore. I almost cried when I realized I didn't have any chocolate tootsie pops though. Those are my favs. Oh well.

Tootsie rolls and diet Dr. Pepper are my friends right now. Another week and a half the nicotine will be out of my system. I can do this.

Don't mind me

2009-11-11T19:08:00.003-05:00

Just figured it was time to change up the blog again. I hate taking down my Halloween decorations :(
So if it looks weird...well I'm working on it. :P

Here's a nice little wordless Wednesday photo to contemplate in the meantime:

Starting to feel better

2009-11-07T22:10:00.002-05:00

Ugh, as if having the flu myself wasn't bad enough, Thursday morning we woke up to Little Inventor having a temp of 102.5 and coughing. Dang it! So I called the doctor and managed to get an appointment for him. Took him in, and the doctor confirmed it was flu. Which one? He couldn't be sure, and he's not testing for H1N1 unless necessary because by the time the results come back, the patient is usually recovered. So it was officially an upper respiratory infection, but he did concur that it was most likely swine flu, as that is what is going around. Seasonal flu isn't really hitting right now. Isn't it lovely?
But Little Inventor couldn't be kept in bed today, and he was fever free, so I let him go out with his grandparents, as long as he did run around outside. I'm feeling much better, just a really yucky cough hanging on. And I'm getting caught up on my Nanowrimo project. I did more than 2000 words today, and brought my total up in the 7000's. I'm hoping to do double that tomorrow, since I'll have more time on my hands in the afternoon.
Lone Wolf is starting to feel a little run down, so it looks like he may be picking up the bug. At least it will have made the rounds by then, and I'll be able to wash sheets and disinfect really well. Oh well, at least Little Inventor has a few days off school because of this illness, gives me a much needed break ;)

Go away flu!

2009-11-04T20:27:00.002-05:00

Let me just start by saying that aside from almost getting lost, having a lot of rain, locking my keys in the car, and falling down the stairs in three inch heels, Dracula's Ball was awesome. LOL I'll just say it was one hell of a night.

So you all know that I had a cold about a week ago right? Well, Monday I was doing a good bit of coughing. Not much more than I'd been doing since I'd had the cold, but it seemed to be more frequent. I went and took a bath and then there came the chills and "prickly" feeling on the skin. All I wanted to do yesterday was sleep. And sleep I did. Except for when I was coughing. I'm feeling better today, but only a little. Still coughing. I know that it's flu because aside from the coughing and chills, yesterday turned up with body aches, everywhere. Fever on and off, my eyes hurt. Today I've got a stuffy nose and I've been on the brink of losing my voice a few times. YUCK! I really hate being sick. Of course, my doctor can't get me in this week, but he called me in some zithro in case it's something bacterial, cough medicine with codine and ibuprofen for fever and body aches. If I'm not feeling better by next Monday I'm supposed to call for an appointment, and if I start to feel worse, I'm supposed to call right away.

It was pretty funny though, because my doctor pretty much yelled at me while I was on the phone with him lol. He called the house first, but I had to go to the store (to get some cold medicine among other things) and Lone Wolf told him I was out, so he called my cell and the first thing he said to me was "Why aren't you at home in bed young lady?" I tried not to cough as I laughed and told him where I was and that I was going right back home to get in bed.

That was the other thing he prescribed. Rest in bed. For a few days at least. So here I am, laying in bed, because Lone Wolf won't let me sit at the desk to use the laptop lol. But the good news is, that I got more than 2000 words done today for Nanowrimo. I didn't get any done on the 1st or yesterday because of Little Inventor's party, and then being so sick I couldn't even look at my laptop, let alone figure out how to work the thing (yeah it was that bad lol). But I'm doing good. If I continue at this pace I'll have well over 50000 by the end of the month. Maybe I'll let you all read it at the end...if you can make it through my everyday blathering, you might be able to handle a few chapters of my vampire story?

Well I'm off to get a snack and take some more medicine. I'll be back tomorrow I hope!

He's such a baby bat

2009-10-28T18:48:00.002-04:00

Lone Wolf and I were dying our hair tonight. Do you really have to ask what color? So anyway, while Lone Wolf and Little Inventor were standing outside playing with an airplane, I was watching them and thinking it was so funny that there's this little almost blond kid in black jeans and a skull shirt standing next to his black-haired dad wearing his docs, black jeans and a black shirt. Lone Wolf has naturally black hair, but his beard has a tendency to grow in red. Go figure. So we were going to dye his beard and my hair and I thought, wouldn't that be funny if Little Inventor wanted to do his too? So I ran it by Lone Wolf and then asked Little Inventor if he would like to have black hair too.

He spent all evening pacing by our door, waiting for me to call him in for his turn! So cute :D
Because he has such fine hair, I only left the dye on for 15 minutes instead of 25 and it didn't come out quite black, probably because his hair was so light in the first place. But it is now a really dark rich brown color that looks absolutely awesome on him! He likes it, I like it, Lone Wolf likes it. I wonder what his grandparents will say when they see it tomorrow LOL

Hehe. My time is up, time to go wash my dye out.

Making life easier

2009-10-26T19:52:00.002-04:00

I decided this morning after reading over that big list of everything I had to do this week that I needed to pare some things down. So, since this is an important holiday weekend for us and we are not as into Christmas or Thanksgiving (we more or less celebrate for family's sake) I emailed Little Inventor's teacher and we are taking a few days off. We doubled our lesson load today and will do the same tomorrow, then we're taking the rest of the week off. Woohoo! I might just make this a tradition. Samhain Vacation. Of course, that means we will be making up days, if not lessons, during the winter break, but like I said, no biggy. Little Inventor's teacher said she had no doubt we would not fall behind, he's one of her best students. Aww. That doesn't mean he won't be learning however. Guess who will be helping with measurements in the kitchen and doing art projects to keep him busy while Mom is doing Mom-stuff?

What is Trick or Treat Night You Ask?

2009-10-26T19:41:00.002-04:00

Okay, so you didn't ask. But I'm going to explain anyway! Hahahahahaha....

When I first moved to PA, I had NO clue what everyone was talking about when they said Trick or Treat Night. I just thought it was some way they all referred to Halloween. Nope. Apparently some time back, the boroughs in this area (I'm not sure if it's all over PA or just south central where we are) that Halloween was too dangerous for little kids to be wandering all over creation all night, not just because of the child predators that unfortunately prowl that night, but also because of the high incidence of drunk drivers coming from Halloween parties. So, for time out of mind in this area, the kids have been going Trick or Treating on the Thursday before Halloween. Once in a blue moon, Halloween happens to fall on a Thursday and then the kids are allowed to go on actual Halloween. I think it's only happened once since I've lived here. Also, there is a curfew enforced and an age limit! Trick or Treat starts at 6pm and ends at 8pm and you are discouraged from Trick or Treating if you are over 12.

Weird, I know. But all in all, it's a rather a blessing in disguise for our family. We get to take Little Inventor out in his costume on a Thursday, then on Halloween itself, we get to do whatever we want to celebrate in our own way! This year, Little Inventor is having a sleepover with his Grandma and Lone Wolf and I are going to Philly for Dracula's Ball. Most years, we've had pizza, candy and Halloween movie fests. Well, there you are, a little bit of Pennsylvanian weirdness to add to your Halloween season.

Weight Management Monday and Other stuff

2009-10-26T08:25:00.003-04:00

Well, I figured that I wouldn't have great results this week since I took 2 days off from exercising last week because of the cold (which is already gone!). So, I was a little surprised when I stepped on the scale to see another pound lost! Woohoo :D I was back on the treadmill today and feeling great.

This is going to be a majorly busy, busy week for our family, though I will still be trying to blog each day, or at least every other. Wednesday Lone Wolf has to go for a hair trim, then off to the store, and back home to make dinner, and dye hair. Thursday is Trick or Treat Night. (For those that aren't familiar with this Pennsylvaniaism, I'll explain in a post later today lol) so we've got to work in school, working on Little Inventor's ice cream cake, running to pick up a friend, then out to Trick or Treat and home in time for bed. Friday, I have to take Grandma to a doctor's appointment, then I have a ton of shopping to do for Little Inventor's birthday, then the store since I can't go on Saturday and home to finish Little Inventor's birthday cake.

Ahhh Halloween....Saturday I get to run Grandma to Aunt Bane's and Little Inventor to his Grandma and Pappy's, then home again to get Lone Wolf and I ready to go to Philly for Dracula's Ball. We'll pick up our friend Panda and then it's on to the Ball for a night of fun and frivolity.

We'll probably get home around 5am Sunday, get a few hours of sleep, pick up Grandma from church at noon, then head down to the inlaw's around 1pm for Little Inventor's birthday party. We're going to take him and his cousins over to Camp Hill to the Colosseum for bowling and arcade games after a home pizza party, then I'm going to go home and fall over and not get up until Tuesday.....or maybe Wednesday...Thursday at the latest.

Yep, It's a cold...

2009-10-22T19:32:00.002-04:00

Want to know how I know? 'Cause I have it.
At least Little Inventor is feeling better, which is encouraging, because it apparently doesn't last long. I don't feel too bad, just really stuffy and tired. I took a good two hour nap this afternoon. Then Lone Wolf made me a cup of hot tea when I woke up. Such a sweet man. I'm doing my best to not pass this to him because we have Dracula's Ball coming up next week on Halloween. We're pushing fresh fruits and veggies, hot tea and rest for now.

I got a call from Little Inventor's teacher this morning (on time for once!) and we got back his DIBELS results. He did much, much better than he did last year! He was one word shy of making the "low risk" cutoff so he's technically in the "some risk" category for word reading and he was well within the "established" range with the nonsense words he had to sound out and say. We also worked it out that he'll be attending the other Focus teacher's live lessons for math since we can't make the ones his teacher has on Wednesdays.

So aside from being sick, not such a bad day. :)

NaNoWriMo is Coming!

2009-10-21T08:00:00.002-04:00

November is National Novel Writing Month and it is looming close. I think I will participate this year and see if I can possibly get one of my myriad of unformed stories into some order and onto my laptop. Anyone want to join in? Check out NaNoWriMo.org and sign up!

Symphony of Science

2009-10-20T18:33:00.002-04:00

I saw this over on Pharyngula this morning and I had to snag it and share it with my readers. This is just beautiful and strangely moving. I've listened to it three times lol. Of course, the two times after the first were me showing it first to Little Inventor during school and then Lone Wolf while he was making dinner. Love it!

GAH!

2009-10-20T11:00:00.002-04:00

Last Tuesday, I went on a little rant about things that annoy me. One of them stemmed from the issue I am writing about today. Little Inventor's teacher through Connections Academy. Now, don't get me wrong, she is a nice woman, and she seems to engage the kids pretty well, but this woman is NEVER on time. It's driving me insane!
The first live lesson we had with her, she made sure to mention a few times that she expects everyone to be on time. She doesn't like the kids logging in to the room late because it disrupts the lesson and the kids may miss something. Okay, then why is she never freaking there on time???
AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!
It's not just the live lessons, though that is bad enough. Really, I could use the extra fifteen minutes we have to sit here and wait for her to get started to work on something more useful, like Little Inventor's typing, but we never know just how late she is going to be, so we just have to wait. But then, she never calls on time for our bi-weekly scheduled call. GRRRRR.

Last week we got a package in the mail from her with some neat goodies and Lone Wolf asked me if I like her now because she sent fun stuff and I said, you know, it's not that I don't like her, because she's very nice, I just can't stand that's she is never, ever on time. MAJOR pet peeve. Ugh, okay, I think I got it all out of my system and now that she's decided to grace the live lesson with her presence I'll have to get back to the school work.

Weight Management Monday

2009-10-19T20:18:00.001-04:00

Well today was a good weigh in! 2 more lbs down. Go Me :D

English Breakfast...for dinner!

2009-10-17T20:04:00.002-04:00

Lone Wolf and I have been experiencing some meal time boredom as of late. So as I was on my way to the store today, we decided to try something a little different. We made a delicious, and healthy variant of an English breakfast. We made fried eggs (no butter lol) sunny side up, some crispy, organic bacon, a slice of toast (whole grain of course ;D ) and some sauteed mushrooms. And to top it all off, a nice hot cup of Twining's English Breakfast tea. Oh so yummy, especially on such a cold, wet day. Tomorrow we're going to continue our culinary journey through the UK with some Irish porridge, made from McCann's steel-cut oats, with a smidge of sugar and milk, along with a cup of Twining's Irish Breakfast tea. I am SO looking forward to this. I have to drive grandma to church tomorrow morning so I know that Lone Wolf will have just about everything ready when I get home, as usual. I love that he cooks...and cleans! This makes things so much easier on me, especially when I have to get Little Inventor moving on his school work right after breakfast.

Speaking of Little Inventor, it is apparently a cold. We hope. My mil has the same thing. In fact, he probably caught it from her. I didn't know this until this morning, but she was actually off work since Thursday because of it. Her doctor put her on antibiotics and a cough medicine. They are "pretty sure" that it's just a cold. But there is always that concern because she's a custodian at a local high school, one that has several kids out with H1N1. UGH! So I switched Little Inventor to a cold medicine today, which he seems to be doing better on, and I'm keeping an eye out for a fever or any other flu symptoms. So far it's just a very runny and stuffy nose and a little fatigue, but that's how my mil started too, then comes a fever and cough.

Lone Wolf and I simply cannot get sick right now. So, we're being more careful than usual about hand washing, and eating the right foods to keep our immune systems in peak condition. It's helpful that neither of us have really been sick for over a year. Little Inventor isn't too upset that he's getting strawberries with every meal either lol. I told him he only had to have them with breakfast and maybe lunch, but he insists that he gets them at dinner too. I'm not going to argue. ;)

Cold Day, Hot Tea, and Allergies?

2009-10-16T13:23:00.002-04:00

It is so cold here today! It hasn't even made it into the 40's yet and it might not. And so rainy. I asked Lone Wolf this morning if he thought we might see snow before Thanksgiving. It might happen. This is a little too cool for October if you ask me. Our normal temps this time of year are in the low-mid 60's. Oh well, at least we got some extra school work banged out today. I was so cold after lunch that Lone Wolf made me a hot cup of herbal tea. How I love that man!
Warmed me right up inside and out.

Little Inventor is battling something. I'm not sure if it's seasonal allergies or some kind of cold bug. Poor kid has sniffled his way through school today. He feels like he's running a low grade fever, so I'm not sure if it's just allergies. I gave him a children's Clariten this morning but it doesn't seem to have made any difference at all. But...no sore throat, no cough, no itchy eyes. So I'm not really sure. I'll have to keep an eye on this and see if it gets better or worse after more allergy meds, I know sometimes it can take a while for them to kick in.

Lone Wolf baked the last of our sugar pumpkins this afternoon, so we've got a little extra pumpkin puree. Little Inventor has requested pumpkin cookies, and we found a nice healthy recipe for pumpkin bread. I'll let you all know how it turns out after we've made it and if it's good, I'll post the recipe. We're also thinking of trying our hand at pumpkin butter. Yum!

Wordless Wednesday

2009-10-14T20:33:00.001-04:00

No happily ever after?

2009-10-14T08:04:00.004-04:00

As I was driving my dear mother-in-law home yesterday I had Little Inventor bring along his reading book so he could do his reading lesson in the car. He did great reading the story. But apparently he's just not into "happy endings" anymore. Do all boys go through this?
As soon as we finished, he said very explicitly, "Every story we have to read for school, everything always turns out okay. Why do they always have to have happy endings? I think it's stupid." He wants to read a story where not everything turns out okay? His grandma told him that a bad ending would probably make him sad and he vehemently disagreed. Of course, we moved on to the questions for the story. This was a story about a guy who fell through the ice on a lake and his two dogs saved his life. So I asked him, "What do you think was the most exciting part of the story?" He thought for a minute and then responded, "When the guy almost died. But it would have been cooler if he did."

Oh dear. Of course, this did not come as much of a surprise to me, since I see how much of an influence Lone Wolf has on Little Inventor. (You know: the horror movies, fascination with the paranormal, etc.) Not to mention the fact that he's starting to wear black and skull stuff. I think he's turning into a baby-bat lol. But it sure had my mil's jaw on the floor. I don't really know why she's surprised. She is after all, the one who raised Lone Wolf. She had to have seen this coming. Ahh well, I don't know if I can find any kids' books without happy endings...

Pumpkin, pumpkin everywhere

2009-10-12T17:09:00.002-04:00

Okay, I know I say this a lot, but I really love fall! Since it was a holiday today and Little Inventor and I didn't have to do any schoolwork, Lone Wolf and I decided to try our hands at making pumpkin puree. We had two little sugar pumpkins to work with and after scooping out the seeds, we tossed them in the oven and 90 minutes later...viola! They turned out perfectly :D And of course, we saved all the seeds, and toasted them too. Lone Wolf tossed them with cinnamon, ginger and allspice before toasting and YUM are they good little pepitas! So now we are busily searching pumpkin recipes to figure out what we want to try baking first.

Weight Management Monday

2009-10-12T10:20:00.002-04:00

Ah Monday. The sight of the scale sitting on the bathroom floor just waiting for me to step on and find out which way my day is going to go. Last week was a good week. I got in my exercise everyday and I did really well with my diet. No chocolate drizzled croissants or iced coffees. No ice cream. But I have been getting my chocolate fix with a serving of cocoa coated almonds each evening. So I was a wee bit disappointed this morning when I stepped on the scale and saw that it hadn't budged. Still at 228. Of course, the scale didn't move for Lone Wolf either, so I didn't feel too bad, since he works out much harder than I do. But I also reminded myself that the number on the scale is not the only important number to consider and so we broke out the tape measure for our weekly measurements. And I'm really glad that we did. I lost a half inch from my bust and 3/4 from my waist. And another 1/4 from my thigh. So that means I did lose in fat this week. But I also gained in lean muscle. A plus on both sides!
This week I'm going to try to work a little harder and keep an eye on my portion sizes and see if the scale needle will move next Monday. I've done it before, I know that I can do it again and keep going this time.

Total Cereal, the rant

2009-10-06T21:21:00.002-04:00

I used to eat Total every morning. But a few months ago, I asked Lone Wolf what he wanted for breakfast, and gave him a choice between Total and oatmeal and he threw a fit. He tossed out the boxes of cereal and said he wasn't eating that crap anymore LOL. It was really only after we stopped eating it that we started noticing some odd things about their commercials.
Have you noticed that they no longer compare their cereal to things like Special K or Corn Flakes? They have started comparing their cereal to Kashi cereals. Just for kicks, I thought I would compare their ingredients here for your viewing enjoyment.

Total (regular):
Whole grain wheat, sugar, calcium carbonate, corn syrup, salt lactose, distilled monoglycerides, vitamin C (sodium ascorbate), zinc and iron (mineral nutrients), vitamin E (tocopheryl acetate), niacinamide, calcium pantothenate, annatto extract color, vitamin B6 (pyridoxine hydrochloride), vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamin B1 (thiamin mononitrate), folic acid, vitamin A (Palmitate), vitamin B12, and vitamin D. Freshness is preserved by BHT, a synthetic antioxidant (preservative).

Kashi GoLean:
Kashi Seven Whole Grains & Sesame: Cereal (Whole, Oats, Long Grain Brown Rice, Rye, Hard Red Winter Wheat, Triticale, Buckwheat, Barley, Sesame Seeds)Textured Soy Protein Concentrate, Evaporated Cane Juice, Brown Rice Syrup, Chicory Root Fiber, Whole Grain Oats, Kashi Seven Whole Grains & Sesame Flour (Whole Oats, Long Grain Brown Rice, Rye, Hard Rye Winter Wheat, Triticale, Buckwheat, Barley, Sesame Seeds)Expeller, Pressed Canola Oil, Honey, Salt, Cinnamon, Mixed Tocopherols (Natural Vitamin E) for Freshness.

The words in italics are ingredients that your average Joe would have to look up. The simple fact that I can actually pronounce the ingredients in the Kashi cereals is encouraging. I can't say the same for Total.

Then there is this: 100% daily value of a variety of vitamins and nutrients. That sounds all well and good right? But what happens if you eat a double serving, like the majority of Americans do on a daily basis? (One serving is 3/4 of a cup, most people eat 1 1/2 cups or more.) That's 200%. And then if you eat some fruits and vegetables throughout the day, or some enriched bread, some milk...or pretty much anything else of nutritional value, you are now upward of 200% of your daily value of several vitamins and minerals that you should not take excessively. Namely: Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Folic Acid, Iron, and Zinc. Here is an interesting article regarding this very matter of over supplementing. Let's not even tack on the amounts in the daily vitamin most people take in pill form everyday.

So is having 100% dv of all these vitamins and minerals really necessary? Or even good for us? I guess maybe if you only have one serving size bowl of Total a day and that's all you eat. Sorry, I'd rather have hot oatmeal, with sliced strawberries or blue berries, some whole grain toast and a glass of milk for breakfast, with a well rounded range of foods throughout the rest of my day.

So why the attack on Kashi? Because people are getting sick of all the fake food that the big companies are trying to cram into our shopping carts and down our throats. So they are turning toward more natural foods. Like Kashi. Personally, I love my oatmeal in the morning, but I can't keep from buying a box of Kashi Cinnamon Harvest every now and again.

I'd much rather have a balanced diet, with my vitamins balanced throughout my meals.

Okay, rant over because my eyes are crossing and I'm itching for The Office while enjoying my fresh clean sheets (hehe I did laundry today!).

10 on Tuesday

2009-10-06T21:10:00.002-04:00

I was annoyed today. So, I decided that I would write a list of ten things that annoy the crap out of me!

1. People who insist on punctuality and then show up late themselves. Oh the rant I could go on...
2. Hypocrisy
3. Freaking Chinese stink bugs!
4. People who can't seem to get it through their thick heads (after 10 years) that they don't live alone and they do need to...check to see if someone is on the phone before they start dialing, knock on the bathroom door before opening it...
5. Christmas decorations in October. Can you just let us have our month of Halloween please???
6. Hypocrisy (I know, I already mentioned this one, but I think it deserves two spots)
7. Chinese stink bugs (ditto to above)
8. Squeaky hinges. I love my WD-40
9. Total Cereal commercials! I have a rant coming on for this one, check back for that lol.
10. And last but not least, telemarketers.

Weight Management Monday

2009-10-05T08:35:00.003-04:00

It's been a very long time since I've done one of these. Too long I think. Yep, I just took a minute to look back and it's actually been a full year tomorrow. There is a problem with not maintaining a log of where I am and how hard I'm working. I honestly thought it was maybe a few months, I had no idea that I'd been doing this for a year.

Well, since I was happily just under 200lbs and in a loose 18, I have put back on 30lbs of the 85 I'd lost. Surprisingly, my 18's still fit, but just barely. When I realized that they were not being very comfortable anymore, I decided to step on the scale and I was NOT happy with myself.

What caused this? Well, I wasn't staying accountable to myself with this silly little blog for one. For two, I was falling back into old eating habits (McD's, ice cream every night, etc). For third, I more or less stopped exercising. So last week, Lone Wolf (who of course has been exercising his butt off and eating right all along) and I kicked out some of the junk food that had been creeping back into the house (mostly on my account since he just doesn't eat them) and he's keeping on me on the ball about exercising. I'm doing the treadmill on Monday and Friday mornings and my ball workout on Tues-Thurs.

We had to get our old treadmill because the one we had, the tread was shredding, so last week I did the stairs ten times in the morning with 5lb weights and ten times in the evening without weights instead of the treadmill.

I want a loss of two pounds each week, which would be about 10lbs a month, or the full 30lbs I gained by the end of December. So did I see results? You bet I did! From 230 to 228 this week, I'm a happy, pudgy little clam. LOL

And since Lone Wolf's mom and step-dad brought our old treadmill over for us last night, I can enjoy the benefits of a good 30 minute walk. I did a mile and a half this morning, and now I'm ready for a bowl of hot oatmeal with some fresh fruit.

Little Inventor's Pumpkins

2009-10-04T21:38:00.003-04:00

I just love this picture! Grandma and Pappy took it a few days ago at their house.
These are the pumpkins that Little Inventor has been nurturing since he planted them in May.
He had two others, one that got eaten by worms, which he had a great time smashing with a sledgehammer, and the other was a smaller one that he and Pappy blew up lol. He's got two more that are still on the vine. One is just starting to grow, and the other is bigger, but is still green. We'll see if they are ready to come off the vine by Halloween.

He's really looking forward to carving these. He said Lone Wolf and I can carve one, but he wants to try carving the other one all by himself this year. That's going to be a treat. I don't know yet how I feel about him handling a knife...

Welcome my pretties....evil cackle

2009-10-03T00:01:00.001-04:00

Welcome to my little corner of the web! Just brush away the cobwebs and enjoy this dusty old tome I call a blog. I am Amy, aka witchymom78. I am married to my wonderful soul-mate Lone Wolf and we have one son, Little Inventor, who is about to turn 9 on the day after Halloween!

Halloween, or Samhain has long been one of my favorite holidays. Lone Wolf and I celebrated our first ritual together on Samhain and of course, our second Samhain together, we spent expecting the arrival of our little guy. Since we live in an apartment out in the country, we don't get to go as all out as we'd like in decorating, but we do our best. Little Inventor's room is currently strewn with spider webs, spider, and bats while our kitchen is livened up with a grapevine wreath I made last year and a few other spooky odds and ends.

This year, Lone Wolf and I are celebrating by attending Dracula's Ball in Philadelphia with a good friend of ours and I can't wait! I know it will be a rocking good time. Anyhoo, enough about yours truly. Without further ado, here is an excellent selection from The Crone's Book of Magical Words by Valerie Worth:

For All-Hallow's Eve

When the white dog is out
And trots all about
Under the clouds
That are over the Moon,
And the hag with her broom
Rides high on the wind,
And the cat on the fence
Spits even at friends,
Then it is right
To conjure a light
Against every spirit
That shadows the night.
Thus say:

Let the pumpkin's
Candle glare
Into darkness
Everywhere;
Burn all evil
From the air!

When it is dark
And the black trees roar,
Set Jack-o'-Lantern
To watch by the door.

Please excuse the mess

2009-10-01T14:44:00.002-04:00

Mrs. B's 31 Days of Halloween are upon us and I'm revamping the layout for the haunted blog tour! I promise it will be pretty...or at least creepy lol

This stinks...literally

2009-09-28T13:54:00.002-04:00

We are in the midst of an invasion. The autumn invasion of the Chinese stink bug or the brown marmorated stink bug. True to their name, they stink! Especially if you suck them up in a vacuum, which is about the only way to get rid of the nasty things. Yuck! They make a nuisance of themselves during the winter when they manage to infiltrate any hole in your house bigger than the size of a pin and take up residence until they make their mass exodus in the spring. Being out in the country, we have more than our fair share of course and for the past two weeks, we've been seeing more and more of them turning up inside. The only pesticide that seems to work on them is stuff for flying insects, but even that is really only effective for a short time. Like I said, the only way to really get them out is by vacuuming them up, or picking them up in a tissue and flushing them. But of course, they emit a nasty smell when they feel threatened, so when you suck them up, your vacuum bag begins to stink. And the next time you turn it on...let's just say my Febreeze is getting a work-out. Why, oh why did someone have to import these things over here with some Chinese shipment of junk???

On a lighter note, our landlord's sugar pumpkins are ripe and I can't wait to try making some fresh pumpkin bread with the two we have right now. And Little Inventor's giant pumpkins are off the vine and ready for carving next month. Lone Wolf and I are getting out the rest of our Halloween decorations sometime this week! I love how festive we get at this time of year. It's really better than Yule! A new blog theme is on the way for the beginning of the month, so keep a look out :D

Are you still here too?

2009-09-22T12:44:00.002-04:00

Apparently, sometime between yesterday and midnight tomorrow morning the rapture is supposed to be complete. According to this at least. Well damn. Does that mean my grandma is going to be gone tomorrow morning?

Yep, and Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ. But we all knew that was coming didn't we?
Sometimes, the absolute stupidity just astounds me.

Autumn Love

2009-09-20T21:46:00.002-04:00

I wrote this a few years ago for Lone Wolf and thought I would share it here :)

Autumn Love
I remember the way his smile lit
The night into a thousand twinkling stars
Jewels in the velvet black
As he touched my hand
I remember the rustling whisper
Of his words in the crisp autumn breeze
Like the colorful, fragrant leaves that
Danced in the wind and tangled about our feet
The taste of his kiss was Indian Summer
Lingering warmth and radiant in the cool
Evening falling around us
Enfolding us in it's majesty
Inviting us to lose ourselves
In each other

Somedays

2009-09-19T12:23:00.002-04:00

How Do I Love Thee September

2009-09-18T11:24:00.003-04:00

Let me count the ways...

I love the month of September. The turning from summer into autumn is one of my favorite times of the year.We've been lucky this year to have a very mild summer. We didn't even need to put in our air conditioners! Ceiling fans and window fans did the trick, so we were blessed with fresh country air every day. But just because we rarely went above the 80's doesn't mean I wasn't looking forward to these wonderful days in the high 60's and low 70's. September and October are the most perfect months of the year in my opinion. Some of the leaves are beginning to yellow and it won't be long now before we have a symphony of color around our little abode.

Little Inventor's pumpkins are ripening. He has two huge pumpkins that he is very proud of and can't wait to carve next month. Lone Wolf had a birthday this month and though he wasn't happy about it, he's coming to terms with leaving his early twenties. I have to laugh at him sometimes, because I know that 30 is not such a horrible number to approach. We also celebrate 10 years together on Tuesday, the autumnal equinox. Sometimes I can't believe that we've been together for so long, because it still seems like we are learning new things about each other every day. Growing together and becoming who we are has been quite a journey and I look forward to each coming year with him.

Little Inventor is going to be 9 this November and I can hardly fathom where the time has gone. But what is the waning of the year for, but to look back and see the growth and changes and anticipate the coming of new growth and change.

Yes, I'm in a rather reflective mood today, and glad to be coming up on a weekend where I have little to do but relax and enjoy my family. But until then, it's back to the grindstone of school work and never ending laundry. Some things remain constant all year long.

Best decision ever

2009-09-17T19:39:00.002-04:00

When we decided to keep Little Inventor back a year, it was honestly the best decision ever. Seriously. I can't even begin to describe the difference one summer has made in his ability and confidence! We started school on Sept 1st and we've just been rolling right along ever since. Granted, he finds math a little bit boring at this point (he's working on really easy addition) but once we get past this unit we're moving on to things that he could really use some reinforcement in. But the reading! Last year it was like pulling teeth to get him to read a paragraph or two, but now he's reading pages. Yes, that's right, pages. With an S. I am just so proud of him. Can you tell? Maybe a little?

Anyhow, school is going great and now we've pretty much got a schedule down. Which gives Lone Wolf and I a good bit of time to read in the evening. Ahh relaxation! We hit the library Tuesday evening and came home with 6 books, mostly classics. We held over Dracula from our last trip and we're reading through that one together. I am very impressed with the writing style of Bram Stoker. I've been coming to realize that classics, even though they are well-known stories, are generally not very well written. Odd. Maybe sometimes it's the translations, but they can just be downright DRY. I'm struggling through Arabian Nights (Sir Richard Burton's famous translation no less) and though the stories themselves are a little entertaining, the language is so freaking boring. Honestly, it's like trying to read the KJB LOL. Lone Wolf said that Faust was just as dry and that he had a difficult time reading any of the stories in Grimms' Tales for Young and Old (The Complete Stories) translated by Ralph Manheim.

So this lot of books seems to have been a bust aside from The Silmarillion, and Around the World in Eighty Days, which I am patiently waiting for Lone Wolf to finish so I can have my turn. He couldn't put it down long enough for us to read it together lol.

Well, that's about all I've got tonight. I'm going to go settle in and get ready to watch Wolverine. Woohoo!

Finally back!

2009-07-07T12:29:00.003-04:00

Wow, more than a month since I've had a chance to write. I took a break while my mom and nephew came to visit at the end of May and beginning of June, and then Lone Wolf and I decided to download the Sims 3 game. HA! So, Lone Wolf accidentally downloaded one of the games we already had on the EA downloader (a Sims 2 expansion) and then after 4 hours of downloading that, we spent another 10 hours downloading the first half of the Sims 3. Then the download stalled. So Lone Wolf restarted his laptop and had to start all over again. We started downloading on Friday and we were finally able to play the game on Sunday. Ridiculous. Oh but it gets better!

So since the Sims 3 is like 6 gig, and we downloaded it twice, plus the Sims 2 expansion, we ended up going over our bandwidth allowance for Wild Blue (our sucky satellite ISP for bumfuck nowhere, PA). So we spent the last month with an internet speed of 28.8. Yeah, you remember those modems? The ones that are half the speed of regular 56k dial-up?

So let's just say that this past month has SUCKED when it came to using the internet...when we could connect at all. But Sunday we finally got our speed back :D

And by the way, the Sims 3 rocks my socks off LOL

And guess what I got? That's right...my license :D Whooo! I've been a major happy camper over that. I absolutely aced the test the second time I took it. So awesome ;)

Dracula's Ball Discoveries

2009-05-26T09:47:00.003-04:00

What can I say about Saturday night? It was one of the best nights of my life? It was more fun than I've had in years? I didn't want to leave? Ha, all of them would be understatements! Let me back up just a little bit to Friday first.

I went to take my test and I was fully confident that I would pass. Until I got behind the wheel and we were going through the lights and signals and so on. I had assumed that the high beams were turned on by the knob that turns on the headlights. My mil never told me that it was on the turn signal thing. That instead of pressing it up or down, you press it back or forward to turn on the high beams. So I did get points knocked off for not knowing that, and since I hadn't even pulled out of the parking lot yet, it was a little nerve wracking. But I moved on to parallel parking with no problems. Then we went on the driving test. And I did very well. Until we came to a red light where I had to make a right turn. Apparently I didn't come to a complete stop (2 full seconds) and so it constituted running a red light which was an automatic fail. GAH! The evaluator even told me that if it hadn't been for that, I would have passed. Oh well. I had a good cry while I told Lone Wolf I failed, then I went and got an iced coffee from McD's and had a pint of ice cream that night LOL

But Saturday. That is a night that will forever live in my memory. We spent Saturday preparing, washing, ironing, gelling, dressing, and taking a few pictures and we were ready to hit the road by 6:30. We had a two hour drive to Philly and a few stops to make along the way, so we got to Dracula's Ball at almost exactly 9, when they opened the doors. We enjoyed making conversation with the two people in front of us, and then we headed inside. Now, it was not that the place was amazing (which it was anyway) or that the people there were nice and dressed a lot like we were (which they were) but there was just an atmosphere there that I can't quite describe. We had a drink and wandered about, people watching and getting to know the area (at least I was, because I was following Lone Wolf, who has been to this event twice before and this was my first time.) We split up a few times during the night, enjoying ourselves thoroughly. The bands were awesome and I had an epiphany at around eleven o'clock, after a glass of wine and a nice little buzz. Lone Wolf was prowling the bar while his friend (let's call him Panda) and I stood around in a little dancing niche with flashing colored lights and thrumming bass from the mostly techno selection. The beat was too much for me. And I started to dance. I haven't danced, in public...ever. It was...liberating. That's the only word I can think of. And so I danced, but I felt a little strange dancing by myself with Panda standing there by himself so I asked him to dance with me and we had a ball! The rest of the night, I could not stand still. It was like the music in the place was taking over. We were upstairs and down, and a few times I made Panda go back downstairs with me to dance (Lone Wolf does not dance lol) and then a few times I went and danced by myself and just really let loose.

I felt so alive! I had one more vodka and cranberry before the bar closed for the night and had a fun time trying to walk up the stairs without falling over. Don't get me wrong, I did not get drunk that night. I had a total of 3 drinks spaced over about 5 hours, so even though I was feeling good, I was not wasted by a long shot. I'm just not used to walking around after I've had a drink or two lol

We left at about 2 am and headed back home, stopping along the way for coffee and a muffin (or a v8 and jerky for Lone Wolf) and a chocolate milk for Panda. We dropped Panda off and then made it home ourselves. We walked in the door at exactly 4:59 am and we were both in bed by 5:15. Of course, Lone Wolf was back up at 7:45 and then got me up at 9. I was so exhausted, but in far too good a mood to complain. Plus we were making blueberry pancakes, and after such an awesome night, I wasn't going to pass that up.

So I discovered some things about myself. I LOVE to dance. I enjoy staying out all night. I like being around other adults, where I am not a mom, I'm just a woman having a great time, like they are. I enjoy feeling sexy. And boy did I feel sexy on Saturday night. I found out I don't mind showing a little bit of leg or arm or cleavage.

I can't wait for the next Dracula's Ball, because I am definitely going back. Lone Wolf and I are already putting together what we're going to wear. And I know by then I'll have my license. I'm retaking the test on June 19th.

Okay, enough rambling for today.

The Big Day

2009-05-21T21:39:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow is the big day. D-day. I'm not really nervous. Not about my driving anyway. I am confident in my ability to drive and pass the test on my skill. I'm just a little nervous about the evaluator. But I know that he or she will probably be just as nervous getting into a car with me. They don't know whether I can drive or not. So I just need to put them and myself at ease as soon as I get behind the wheel. I'll be back tomorrow to update on whether or not I've passed, though I'm not sharing my license picture!

Little Inventor is unofficially finished with second grade...for this year. He's completed all of his courses, but he still has to log attendance until June 4th. I don't know if I put it in my blog already or not, but we've decided to stay with Connections Academy for at least another year. Little Inventor made good progress this year, but we've decided to keep him in second grade for another year too. After talking to his teacher and a lot of discussion we think that an extra year will be good for him, since he would have to begin state testing in third grade. It's not that he didn't get good grades. He really did, and we saw a lot of improvement, but Lone Wolf and I started noticing a trend. At the end of kindergarten he was about where he should have been at the beginning of that year. Same thing with first grade. Same thing with this year. We're at the end of the year, and though he's done very well, he's about where he should've been in his reading and writing when he started second grade. We finally figured out that maybe..just maybe..it's not a learning disability. Maybe...just maybe...we put him in school a year too early. We put him in school when he was supposed to start, but maybe he just wasn't quite ready. So we're going to give him an extra primary year and see how it goes. And we decided to stay with Connections because we found out that he will not be repeating the same material that he did this year. The curriculum is changing next year! Yeah! No more Calvert curriculum :D

So we'll see how it all works out. Okay, I'm off to tuck in the little guy and hit the hay. Keep your fingers crossed for me tomorrow!

Sunday Driver

2009-05-17T17:39:00.003-04:00

Hello again world. I went out today to master the last two ingredients to my driver's license stew. The three-point turn and *gasp of horror* the dreaded "parallel parking". Ha! The three point turn was ridiculously easy. The parking...not so much. But I did do it! In less than 3 tries ;)
Then we drove out to the PennDOT building to get in a little more practice and I did their parking spot in two tries. So maybe on Friday I'll only need one? Who knows, stranger things have happened. I did have a small mishap with a bad corner. It was on a busy street and I had to turn right into oncoming traffic. I waited until I had a good shot at getting out and my mil was telling me to go, go before that car came too close...so I turned a little too sharply and quickly and ended up going over the curb. But I corrected well and no harm no foul. I know for a fact that my mil has done the same exact thing...numerous times LOL so no one was more upset than I was and I was able to take a deep breath, relax my shoulders and shake it off before we got to the next stop light. Good to go. And no, it didn't happen on a street that my evaluator will be taking me down. Thank goodness. ;)

In other news, I got the last piece of my outfit for Saturday night. Black fishnets *eyebrow wiggle* LOL I love them.

And I got a call from my doctor this morning. I know, weird, he calls people on Sundays.

TMI alert, so if you aren't keen on women's stuff, then go check your email.

Anyhoo, my pap back in October had come back with abnormal cells, so he wanted to do another in six months, which was about a week and a half ago. And the results came in. No change. Which is good and bad I guess. I was hoping the abnormality would have resolved itself, but he said that it isn't any worse, and there is still no sign of cancerous cells, which is the good news. So...yay me, I get to go to Hershey. And not for the chocolate.

He's sending me to a specialist in Hershey to either have freezing, or scraping therapy done, and I have to have another pap in October. Yeah! 3 paps in one year, isn't it every woman's dream? And in case you haven't noticed, that was sarcasm. ;)

So that was my Sunday, sandwiched between lowfat blueberry pancakes this morning for breakfast and low fat pancakes with strawberries for dinner. Mmmm pancakes. Yum!

And the countdown begins

2009-05-15T10:23:00.003-04:00

Seven days and counting. I've given you all fair warning, so if you happen to come across me out on the road with my shiny new license don't say I didn't.

Yes, I am taking the test next Friday. And I have the utmost confidence that I am going to pass. Tomorrow, I'm going out to work on my parallel parking and 3-point turns. Otherwise, I am a stickler for following traffic laws, know how everything works, I've studied and driven, driven and studied, so I think I'm finally ready to go full fledged driver on the world.

And just give me a little more incentive, Lone Wolf is taking me to Dracula's Ball next Saturday. And I get to drive :D
This will be my first time going, so I'm pretty excited. He even bought me a whole new outfit and damn is it sexy!

And then the following Wednesday, my mom and nephew are flying in from Denver. I'm so excited to be able to chauffeur her around so she can actually see the scenery for once!

Another step toward independence.

Ridiculous and Pompous Humanity

2009-05-14T09:10:00.003-04:00

I had an interesting dream last night and it set me to pondering the ridiculous and pompous nature of mankind in the early hours of this morning. I was ruminating over the delusions of humanity while I was enjoying my breakfast.

In my dream, I was being stalked by a tiger. A very large and intelligent tiger. The only thing that was keeping me from being devoured by this massive animal was my Lone Wolf. He kept it at bay alternately by pressing it back at spear point and no joke, by feeding it pomegranates from his hand. He wouldn't kill it, he just kept feeding it and pressing it back until it was exhausted and would fall asleep.

So, yes, it was an odd dream, but the thoughts it conjured were a little too deep for an early Thursday morning for me to keep to myself.

I began to think about "man-eating" tigers in India. And then I began to think of all the other "man-eaters". Lions, tigers, crocodiles, anacondas, etc. We call them "man-eating" like it is some kind of aberration. It is even implied and sometimes out right stated that humans are not the natural food source for these predators. Because we have come so far from nature that the animal man no longer thinks of himself as an animal. Man is "above" the animals.

Long ago, who is to say that man did not make a delightful meal for many of these predators simply because man is slower, smaller, and defenseless against the tooth and claw? Just as some people have fondness for certain foods over others, perhaps other animals may form preferences in their appetites. I know people who don't like steak. I'm not particularly fond of pork myself, but I love chicken, and beef is an occasional indulgence. Maybe the "man-eating" tiger simply has found that humans taste better. Am I saying that we should allow the animal to continue eating people? Well, let's think about that.

Is it better to hunt it down, perhaps killing other animals that are not so fond of our flavor in our quest to exterminate the one that is? Or is it better to allow it to pursue it's prey, whether it runs on two legs or four? An interesting dilemma and one I don't currently have an answer for.

Look out pedestrians...

2009-04-02T09:23:00.002-04:00

'Cause here I come! That's right, it's official. I have my learner's permit. *mmwwwahahahaha*
Hopefully I'll get to go out and practice this weekend. I'd like to be able to get my license maybe next month. I just need to practice...a lot.

I've discovered something new about myself that I thought I'd get down in writing. A couple of things actually. One, I've decided that I simply don't believe in any deities. I've figured out that my interest in the ancient beliefs of various cultures is simply that, an interest. I love to learn about all of the different gods, angels, demons and spirits but I can't profess a belief in any of them. That said, I'm not denying that I'm a witch. I'm simply a non-theistic, or atheist witch.

This actually did not surprise me as much as the other thing I've discovered in the past few days. I've always liked the album Hellbilly Deluxe, but I've never really listened to Rob Zombie beyond that. Lone Wolf has been playing Educated Horses and The Sinister Urge during his workouts for the past few days and I'm actually really impressed by them. I actually really like Rob Zombie, which is really bizarre to me, since I'm not normally into heavy metal or anything. I had to stop and ask myself, "do I like this because Lone Wolf likes it, or do I really like it? Is this something I would listen to by myself?" And I've discovered that I actually do like it. I was shocked!

I've also really been enjoying my Faun album. I can't wait to get a few more. :D

Pasta Rustico, Honey Wheat Bread and a mental breakdown?

2009-04-01T18:36:00.004-04:00

Well, Monday was a very interesting day for our household. Lone Wolf and I decided to make pasta rustico for dinner, along with a free form loaf of honey wheat bread. Pasta rustico is our own little concoction which has become our favorite pasta dish. And yes I've got pictures ;D

However, I had a small breakdown Monday morning. I don't know what happened. I have no clue what was wrong with me. I felt kind of odd on Sunday, and then on Monday, I felt like I was just completely in knots emotionally. Little Inventor and I did a science project out in the laundry room so we wouldn't make a mess out of the kitchen (we were studying the development of caves) and I freaked out at him because he took about five minutes getting his crayons. He had spilled them out of the box onto his floor on the way out and had to pick them up. And the state of his crayons...broken, the box falling apart, you know, the way the crayons of any creative eight year old SHOULD be. But I sure made it clear that I wasn't happy he was using his crayons for anything for school work. So we finished up and I realized he didn't have his glasses on. I knew that I had picked them up, and I was pretty sure I had given them to him, but I was freaking out at myself, thinking I had lost his glasses. We finally found them and I went out to the kitchen and stood next to the counter with just this overwhelming wave of sadness. I asked Lone Wolf to take over the science lesson while I went into Little Inventor's room, sat down and started bawling my eyes out. FOR NO REASON! Lone Wolf wanted to know what was wrong and I told him that I just couldn't stop crying and I had no idea why. I tried to think of anything that was upsetting me. Auntie M dying, no I was okay with it at this point. Dad being in the hospital, no I wasn't freaking out about that. I just could not figure out what was wrong with me. So I had a good cry, and after about an hour I started to feel better. I'd really like to blame it on PMDD, but I just had my monthly visitor and it's way to early for my hormones to be that out of whack. So...yeah, I'm a crazy lady.
I did apologize to Little Inventor about the crayon thing and told him that he can use them whenever he wants and let him know that: no, Mommy wasn't upset about anything he did, I was just having a hard morning. Poor kid. I don't know how my guys put up with me!

Anyway, if you've read through all of that, you deserve the pictures and description of Pasta Rustico, so here you go:
Our Ingredients:
Olive Oil cooking spray or olive oil
1 medium red onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed and peeled
1 cup sun dried tomatoes
1 medium green bell pepper, julienned
1/2 pint sliced baby bella mushrooms
1 1/2 cups pasta sauce of choice
1 1/2 cups whole wheat penne pasta
1 quart water, salted (for cooking pasta)

Start by sauteing the onions, garlic and mushrooms until the onions begin to sweat, add bell pepper, then tomatoes. Cook until tomatoes are softened and bell pepper is slightly tender. Remove from heat.
Begin boiling pasta according to directions. Transfer vegetables to dutch oven or large saucepan, and add sauce, stir briefly over low heat. 1-2 minutes before pasta is done, drain water and add penne to sauce, increasing heat to medium. Cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring gently to coat pasta. Serve and enjoy.
This recipe makes about 2 servings, but is easily expanded to more and you can add any number of other ingredients, from sweet or hot italian sausage to seasonal veggies.

Here are some pictures!

The delicious honey wheat artisan:

Sauteing the veggies:

Adding the sauce:

Ready to eat!

My No HFCS List

2009-03-26T19:55:00.004-04:00

I've decided to make a list. A list of all the processed foods that we have found to have no High Fructose Corn Syrup in them. Some of them are foods from other lists that I've found and others are foods that I have searched high and low for on my own local grocery store's shelves. Now, of course, this is not an all-inclusive list and some of these foods may have other forms of corn syrup in them. These are free specifically of HFCS. If you have any other's feel free to leave them in the comments and I'll update the list!

Breads:

Sara Lee Hearty and Delicious 100% Multigrain Bread *
Sara Lee Hearty and Delicious 100% Wheat With Honey Bread *
Sara Lee Hearty and Delicious 100% Whole Wheat Bread *
Martin's Potato Bread *
Nature's Promise 100% Whole Grain Bread (L)
Nature's Promise 12 Grain Bread (L)
Thomas Light Whole Grain English Muffins *
Pepperidge Farms whole grain honey oat
Nature's Own -Honey 7 Grain
Thomas's Low Carb English Muffins
Thomas Hearty Grain Honey Wheat English Muffins (?)
Nature's Own -Healthline SugarFree Wholewheat
Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted grain breads (in freezer section)
Francisco Sour Dough bread
Pepperidge Farm Honey Wheatberry
Milton's Wheat and Multi-grain bread

Cereals & Breakfast Foods:

Kashi Cereals *
Cheerios (all varieties) *
Total *
Total Cinnamon Crunch*
Post Grape-Nuts
Life Cereal/Cinnamon Life
Quaker Oatmeal

Condiments:

Heinz Organic Ketchup *
Nature's Promise Organic Ketchup (L)
Helleman's Light Mayonaise *
Wishbone Bountiful's Salad Dressing *
Better 'N' Peanut Butter *
Jif Creamy Peanut Butter *
Polaner All Fruit Spread *
French's Worcestershire
Farman's pickle relish
Mt. Olive Hamburger dill chips
Skippy Peanut Butter
Karo Dark (with Blue label)
Karo Brown Sugar syrup
Great Value (WalMart) Zesty Italian Dressing
Hellmann's Real Mayonnaise
Hidden Valley Ranch Old Fash. Buttermilk
Blue Plate Mayonnaise
Ken's Sweet Vidalia Onion dressing

Ice Creams:

Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream (most varieties) *
Nature's Promise Organic Ice Creams (L)
Slim a Bear 100 Calorie Bars *
Luigi Italian Ice
Breyer’s All Natural Ice Cream
Dreyers/Edys Strawberry Fruit Ice Cream Bars
Haagen Dazs Dark Chocolate Ice Cream Bars
Breyers Pure Fruit Strawberry Fruit Bars
Stoneyfield Farms

Crackers and Cookies:

Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies
WalMart Great Value Saltines
Dare Vinta Crackers
Milton’s (most, if not all)
Pepperidge Farm Goldfish
Destrooper Almond Thins Cookie
Destrooper Butter Crisp Cookies
Keebler Pecan Sandies Cookies
Keebler Simply Sandies Cookies
Lu Le Petit Beurre Cookies
Lu Scottish Recipe Shortbread
Mi-Del Snaps Ginger
Nature’s Best Chocolate Sandwich Creme Cookies
Newmans Wheat Free Fig Newton Cookies
Newmans Own Ginger Os Ginger N Creme Cookies
NewmanS Own Alphabet Cookies
Pepperidge Farms Butter Chessman Cookies
Pepperidge Farm 100% Natural Varieties

Beverages and Mixes:

Diet Dr. Pepper *
Langer's Pomegranate Juice *
Langer's Pmegranate-Grape Juice *
Nesquik *
Ovaltine *
Simply Lemonade *
Northland Cranberry Juice
China Cola
Dr.Pepper(original formula)
Calistoga Juice Squeeze
Simply Orange juice products
Boylan's soda

Dairy Products:

Yo-Plus Yogurt *
Nature's Promise Plain & Vanilla Yogurts (L)

Brown Cow vanilla yogurt

Southern Home Nonfat Plain Yogurt

Dannon Plain Yogurt

Breyer’s

Brown Cow

Dannon All Natural Vanilla Yogurt

Dannon All Natural Coffee Yogurt

Dannon Lite & Fit Vanilla Yogurt

Great Value Light Nonfat Yogurt (most varieties, if not all)

Horizon Organic Fat Free Yogurt

Nancys Reduced Fat Plain

Nancy’s Whole Milk Honey Yogurt

Stoneyfield Farm Yogurt

Stoneyfield Farm Yobaby Yogurt

Snacks:

Nature Valley Granola Bars *
Fruit Roll-ups *
FoodShouldTasteGood Chips

Frito's corn chips

Orville Redenbacher's Smart Cakes Caramel*

Pastas and Sauces:

Ronzoni Smart Taste Pastas *
Nature's Promise Whole Wheat Pastas (L)
Ragu Organic Pasta Sauce *
Nature's Promise Organic pasta sauces (all varieties) (L)

Chocolate and Candies:

Cadbury - Most Varieties
Hershey’s Symphony
Hershey’s 100 Calorie Wafer Bar
Hershey Skor Candy Bar
Hershey Special Dark Candy Bar
Dove - Most varieties

And the all important special symbol key:
* - Personally used
(L) - local store brand

Tea time is a sanity saver

2009-03-19T20:12:00.003-04:00

I really love my Lone Wolf. He makes the most fantastic cup of tea. It doesn't matter what kind of tea he is making, it is always perfect. We've made a tradition of having evening tea. We go down to the kitchen every evening between 6:30 and 7 and he begins his tea brewing process while I split the english muffins and stick them in the toaster. He pours the extra hot water into a large measuring cup and heats up the jam we put on the muffins. Then we sit down to tea and muffins. And all the stress of the day melts out of my marrow and pools somewhere under the kitchen table. Then he makes another cup of tea while I do the dishes and we head upstairs to relax. What would I do without my Lone Wolf and his amazing cup of tea?

This has been a hard week for me. I don't really show it a whole lot, or maybe I do, I can't really tell. Yesterday was tough because I just kept messing everything up. Okay, not everything, I turned on the wrong burner on the stove and then later I *huge gasp* dropped my tea mug and the handle broke off. It doesn't help that my monthly visitor is playing games with me and I'm on the last remaining shred of sanity that I have because I can't figure out if it's coming or going or just...*GAH!*

Okay, sorry, tension breaker.

So anyway, I started this whole rambling mess basically to say a good cuppa can be almost as good as my daily dose of crazy lady pills. And now I'm going to go organize my cooking site bookmarks because they are about to take over my computer...or at least my bookmark tool bar.

Just ignore me while I have a melt down, m'kay?

Artisan Bread

2009-03-17T09:53:00.002-04:00

Okay, so my sourdough starter was a flop. Last Tuesday I decided to give the artisan bread a try. Five minutes a day, how hard can it be right? Okay, can we just say that it was AMAZINGLY easy. So easy in fact, that even I managed to not screw it up!
I mixed up the batch last Tuesday and stuck it in the fridge. I wanted to see how the sourdough flavor would develop if we let it sit for a bit. Well, Lone Wolf and I decided to pull the bowl out last night after dinner and give it a try.

I floured the top, floured my hands, cut off a chunk, shaped it into a ball and plopped it on some parchment paper. Then we made two little "roll" size balls for good measure. Let them sit for 40 minutes, scored the tops, and into the oven it went, parchment paper and all, right on top of my baking stone, and water into a heated pan at the bottom. 30 minutes later, it came out of the oven gold brown, well risen and crackling just like the recipe said it would be.

Onto a cooling rack and after five minutes, we tried out the rolls. Yummy! We let the bread sit for a whole 30 minutes before we couldn't stand it anymore and cut it up. Everyone was stoked with the flavor. It was slightly tangy and had almost a "beery" aroma. Holy cow was that crust ever good! Lone Wolf dusted the extra flour off with my pastry brush while it was cooling and it was almost as pretty as it was delicious.

There is only one change I'm going to make the next time we make a loaf. It was still slightly sticky in the middle and I think it could have done with a little more baking time (and cooling time too lol) so I think the next time I'll try 45-60 minutes, depending on the size of the loaf. I'm also going to try making an oblong loaf, like a demi-batard, and see if that helps it bake through a little better. All in all, it was probably the best tasting bread I've ever made from scratch. I can't wait to try making english muffins with the dough too! Oh the ideas swimming in my head. All from one little recipe...

Good Omens and Big Bear needs a new name

2009-03-14T07:55:00.002-04:00

Let's start with the last thing first. Big Bear needs a new nickname. He's just not a big, furry, cuddle bear anymore. With all the weight that he's lost, not to mention the fact that he's shaving now (not all of his beard, gods forbid, but it's nice and sleek now ;D ) and removing hair from other places that have made him a big furry bear, he's just tall, dark, and overwhelmingly handsome. And strong. Oh man his muscles are getting so toned and..and...*fanning self*
Okay, so he's not my Big Bear anymore, but what to call him in my blog? To be honest, he's more like the pack leader of wolves these days, long, lean, strong, and ready to howl at the moon. So from now on, Big Bear shall be known as....Lone Wolf.
Yes I know, he's not "lone" but that's the impression he gives when you first see him, you know?

So anyway, on to my post from Thursday. I'm ready to talk about it now. Very early Thursday morning, Auntie M passed away in her sleep. Mom said that it was very peaceful. She'd been sleeping most of the day and when she would open her eyes, it was clear that she was unfocused and didn't recognize anyone or her surroundings, but she was comfortable and not agitated. Her breathing was very shallow and light. Mom laid down about 11 fell into a light sleep, and she said that about 12:20 was when she noticed she didn't hear Auntie M breathing anymore. My brothers both came over and hospice came in to take care of the paperwork. The coroner came to take Auntie M out and they laid a red rose on her pillow which is so unbelievably sweet.
She is going to be cremated and this spring Mom, my brothers and my uncle will be taking her ashes up into the mountains to be placed in a mountain stream where they can be eventually carried out to sea. That was what she wanted. I just wish I could have been there with my family. Sometimes, it is very hard living so far away. But there is just no reason for me to fly out there at this point. Auntie M's friends in Arizona will probably have a memorial service, but there won't be one in Colorado, because the only people she knew there were our immediate family. I am heartbroken that she is gone, but I am also relieved in a way. She suffered for so long and I know it must have been unbearable for my mom to watch the decline of her older sister.

Okay, I have to move to a lighter topic or I'm going to be depressed all day. The original purpose of this post was to discuss the book "Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch." by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. HOLY FREAKING COW! Lone Wolf and I are reading it together and it is absolutely laugh-out-loud funny! It's about Armageddon going all wrong because a Satanic nun gave the Antichrist to the wrong family in the hospital and the scrambling of an angel and a demon who have been living on earth and don't want the world to end, to stop Armageddon from happening. Lone Wolf said that it definitely has the same feel in humor as Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I don't know, because I haven't read it lol. So anyway, if you feel like picking up a very good, fast read (only 369 pages not including the interviews at the end which make it 384 awesome pages.) look for it at the library (that's where I got it).
We haven't gotten that far yet, we are currently on page 235, but I know the rest of the book will continue as humourously as the parts we've read.

Okay, so that's another life in a nutshell moment, now I've got to go get breakfast ready if we're going to get any of our errands done today.

She's gone.

2009-03-12T11:08:00.002-04:00

After her long battle with lung cancer, Auntie M passed peacefully away last night.
There's not much else I can say at the moment.

Which Tarot Card are You?

2009-03-10T19:36:00.000-04:00

You are The Moon

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Bwahahahaha

2009-03-10T09:10:00.001-04:00

It's dead. My new pet is dead ROFL
Or rather, it's alive, but it has been taken over by some demonic bacteria from the very depths of hell.
I decided to check on my little starter this morning only to be greeted by the smell of vomit wafting from beneath a thin layer of plastic wrap that is currently shielding my kitchen from the nastiness contained in my sunshine yellow bowl.
Apparently if your starter smells that way (which mine does) and has a liquid separation in the middle (which mine does) something has gone horribly awry.
Mrs. B, it looks like we're in the same boat when it comes to sourdough LOL
I found a great website that outlines the Artisan bread in 5 minutes a day, so later on I'm going to make up a batch and see how that turns out. I spent two weeks perfecting my pies, I WILL figure out bread. No more brick hard loaves that could substitute for a door stopper. At least I hope not...

It's Alive!

2009-03-09T19:53:00.000-04:00

There is something growing in my kitchen.
My new pet LOL
After 24 hours my sourdough starter is merrily bubbling. So I fed it this evening and we'll see what we get tomorrow.

I started with 3/8 cup of flour and 3/8 cup of lukewarm water yesterday, then added in a cup of each tonight.

If it doesn't work I'm going to check out that artisan bread book recommended by Mrs. B ;D

Sunday School Days

2009-03-08T22:10:00.000-04:00

This past week has gone really well when it comes to school. We're getting toward the end of the science and social studies curriculum. I think Little Inventor only has three weeks left in each of them and I think two weeks left in technology.

He aced his spelling test last week, but this week's might be more challenging. Long a consonant e, ai, and ay words. All with the long a sound, but different ways of spelling it. We'll probably spend two weeks on this list and see how it goes.

We've been doing two lessons of math a day and he's just flying right along through the fraction and geometry, and the measurement units. He's going through about a unit a week. But the last few units will probably be slowed down a bit, since we'll be going over subtraction and addition with more than two digit numbers. Fun fun lol

Purple Shmurple

2009-03-08T20:36:00.000-04:00

Purple hair that is. Or rather burgundy. I'm in love with my new color :D I'll have to get a picture of it tomorrow when it's dry. It's really dark so I don't know how well it will show up. My hair was black before, but growing out to light brown, so it looks really neat, it's more red toward the top and gradually gets darker. It was time to try something different. I didn't want to go with black or red though, I've done them both and they just seem so blah. I wanted something bold and different :D

I put together a sourdough starter this morning. We'll see how it turns out. I'm hoping to be able to make homemade bread more often so we don't have to buy it all the time. It's getting so expensive to keep bread on hand that doesn't have HFCS or tons of preservatives in it. So here's hoping it turns out right and I'll be making sourdough within the next week or two. Anyone have any advice with this?

2009-03-05T17:45:00.000-05:00

In two days, I am going to take the exam for my learner's permit. I'm finally going to learn how to drive, and in doing so, gain some independence! I am really looking forward to being able to get out and go where I want, when I want. One more step in becoming who I want to be. Whoever that is.
Moving out of Steelton is possibly the best thing we have ever done. I am so much more at peace out here, even if we are off the beaten track. Even Little Inventor's school time has become more relaxed. We're both enjoying it more. And his reading is starting to come along. I sometimes wonder if maybe we put him in school too early. It seems like in 1st grade he was where he should have been in K, and this year he is more like where he should have been in 1st. We are waiting until the end of the school year to decide, but next year if we send him to public school, we may have him repeat 2nd grade. There are a few reasons for this. One is academic, giving him a chance to reinforce what he's learned this year and give him a chance to absorb it a little more. The second reason is social. He's never been in a classroom setting before, and we are considering that it might be easier on him to adapt to the school schedule if he is not overwhelmed with trying to keep up academically from the word go, especially with PSSA's starting in third grade.
Of course, we won't make a decision until the end of this year, when we will set up an appointment with the principal of the local school.

Oh and guess what we saw yesterday? Air Force 1! Apparently they do it's flight testing out here at HIA and while we were running errands we got to see it do about 3 touch and go landing and take-offs. It was really neat :D Little Inventor got a real kick out of it (it was almost as cool as the Mr. Scoop truck we saw on the highway according to LI) ROFL Yes, we saw a truck yesterday with the ad "Got a problem with poop? Call Mr. Scoop!" OMFG I just about died laughing. It's a "pet waste" removal company. Good grief, what will they think of next? He also got quite a kick out of seeing our mail man for the first time.
Out here, we don't have a mail truck. The mail man drives a specially modified car with a steering wheel on the right for easy delivery of mail. Little Inventor had never seen anything like it before and thought it was pretty awesome.

So, that's the scoop from E-town.

Who Am I?

2009-02-17T17:15:00.000-05:00

Big Bear and I had a fight yesterday. I am in the middle of my pmdd cycle, and I get so sensitive about the stupidest stuff. We've been on a voyage of self discovery for about a year, or rather, he has. He has made some major changes in the last few months and it's been difficult for me to understand them. It's been difficult, because he's been getting to know who he really is, and during our argument I had a breakthrough. I truly have no idea who I am.

For the past ten years everything I am and everything I've done has been entirely centered around him and our son. I've been trying to be what would make everyone happy, without even considering what makes me happy. I've been trying to push off onto him that he's unhappy with me. I even went so far as to say that he doesn't love me anymore *cringe*. I've been saying that he's unhappy with me, when the fact is, I'm unhappy with myself. I say that he doesn't love me (when I know perfectly well that he does) because I have a hard time believing anyone could love me in spite of the faults I see in myself.

I came up with a list of eleven questions about myself that I don't have answers to. Questions that I need to find answers to. I've allowed others to dictate the answers to me, or I've tried to conform the answers to what I think other people want. But I need my own answers if I'm ever going to know myself.

1. What is my style?
2. What do I like to do for fun?
3. What type of music do I like?
4. What speaks to me?
5. What do I want to do with my free time?
6. How do I want other people to see me?
7. What do I want to change about myself?
8. What do I not want to change about myself?
9. Where am I spiritually?
10. What do I believe in?
11. What do I not believe in?

Some of them seem so basic, like the music, style and what I like to do for fun, but it's honestly not that simple. So now begins my road to discovering who I really am, and not just who I think I should be.

We're all settled in

2009-02-16T17:57:00.000-05:00

Well, we're all moved in to our new place. Big Bear and I have done a lot of cleaning and painting and this place is starting to seem more like home. I'll be back later to do some more updating ;)

Little Inventor's Little Problem

2009-01-19T07:23:00.000-05:00

So you all may remember that we've been working on getting Little Inventor evaluated for possibly having dyslexia or a learning disability. Well, we've been meeting with an evaluator for the past two Sundays and yesterday I finally got some answers. It looks like he does have a learning disability. I can't remember all that the guy said, but I know I'll be getting a copy of his report sometime in the next few days and then we'll be working on setting up an IEP. I'm just glad that we've found this out now instead of continuing to feel frustrated and tense over reading, writing, and comprehension.

Since we are moving in two weeks we are considering finishing out this year with Connections and then maybe enrolling Little Inventor in the local school. I'm not sure which one he'd be going to (there are two elementary schools in the district) but I've looked up info on both and I am extremely impressed! Both of them have special services for children with learning disabilities or that need extra help in reading and writing and they both have very small class sizes (average 14-20 students a class). I'm just feeling so frustrated and beginning to understand that I really can't do this on my own. I don't feel that I am equipped to work through this with him. Reading and writing sessions leave us both so frustrated and I know that if I'm upset how much more upset is he? He feels like it is his fault that he can't remember something, or that he's stupid, but he's really not! He is an intelligent child and when something takes his interest there is no stopping him. I'm just beginning to see that maybe homeschooling him is not the end all and be all of educational success.

So once we move, I think I'm going to give the schools a call and see if I can set up a meeting with the principal and maybe a tour of the school for Little Inventor and work on getting him ready for public school over the summer. Right now I think the benefits for him really outweigh the cons.

You might have noticed...

2009-01-18T22:21:00.000-05:00

Yes I've been on hiatus. And I've changed up my template again ;D
But, of course, nothing ever goes quite as smoothly as we hope and guess what I lost...my blogrolls! So I'll be starting from scratch. If you don't see your blog, send me a note and I'll make sure it gets put back on.

And here's some great news:
We're moving!!!!

We found a great apartment out in E-town and we're moving the weekend after next. I can't wait! It's in a rural area so I'll be out of internet until we get Wild Blue set up, hopefully no more than a few days or I'll go nuts lol.

And my niece was born! I'm Auntie "A" to another baby and so far, the only girl on my side of the family. She is absolutely precious! And BIG! 8 lbs 12oz :D

I can't wait to see her in person.

Ahh well, I'll update more tomorrow, now that I'm getting back into the swing of things after a crazy holiday and after holiday stretch. ;D

Are You a Dumb American?

2008-11-30T20:13:00.000-05:00

You Are a Smart American

You know a lot about US history, and you're opinions are probably well informed.

Congratulations on bucking stereotypes. Now go show some foreigners how smart Americans can be.

Are You a Dumb American?

Saturday Paranormal

2008-11-29T06:18:00.000-05:00

Well this week proved rather more active than usual with two interesting encounters. And I've decided there is probably something putting out high EMFs in the basement. Whenever I go down there, particularly when the dryer is running, I get really creeped out and feel like something is watching me. It only happens when the dryer is on, I'm alone and it's usually night. So I don't really think there's anything down there. Just high EMF.

However...

On Sunday morning Big Bear and I were in the kitchen and Little Inventor was doing some schoolwork. It was about 11 am and Grandma was at church. But I could have sworn, absolutely sworn that she came home early, because I heard her whispering in the dining room. I looked at Big Bear and asked "Did Grandma just come in?" He looked at me funny and said no and I said "Didn't you hear that?!"
It was really quiet, low whispering. I couldn't make out what was being said, but I could hear the sound plain as day. Weird. So, okay, fast forward to Thursday afternoon.

Big Bear and I came home from the inlaw's early because Big Bear wasn't feeling well. I was on the computer while he went into the bathroom, and then I went and laid down to watch tv. He came back a few minutes later and asked if I'd been in Little Inventor's room.
He questioned me several times in fact, asking if I'd been in the hallway, near the bathroom at all and I'm like, no, I got up and laid down right after you left and I've been here since.

Apparently, he heard someone walking around in Little Inventor's room and then sit down on his bed. He thought maybe I needed to get in the bathroom and went and sat in there to wait for him to come out. He even called out to ask if I needed in the bathroom. And that's when he heard someone get off Little Inventor's bed and go down the hallway. Creepy. But not all that unusual, considering. It was an interesting week as far as our paranormal activity goes.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-11-26T16:55:00.001-05:00

Winter or Summer?

2008-11-25T20:03:00.001-05:00

You Are a Winter Person

You are calm, serious, and focused.

You're the type of person who appreciates the quiet and calm.

Winter is the perfect time for you to get cozy and work on a hobby.

Summer is a bit too hectic for you. You like the dead of winter... preferably with a roaring fire inside.

Are You a Winter Person or a Summer Person?

Ten on Tuesday

2008-11-25T07:56:00.000-05:00

Ten Things You are Thankful for This Year
1. My family of course.
2. 75 lbs lost!
3. Little Inventor's teacher
4. My mother-in-law
5. My aunt being alive for another Christmas
6. The health of my unborn niece
7. The election outcome lol
8. Getting to guide my son's education
9. Finding a library closer to us
10. Having a home, even if it's not the one we want right now.

Gotta love Ricky Gervais

2008-11-22T08:16:00.000-05:00

Note to self...

2008-11-21T20:04:00.000-05:00

Even if Little Inventor is old enough to run his own bath, he's still not tall enough to reach the shampoo if it's on top of the medicine shelf....
And note to Little Inventor...
The shower curtain is not a vine and you are not Tarzan.

ROFLMAO

Can you all picture it?

Just when you thought she couldn't hurt anyone anymore...

2008-11-21T20:03:00.000-05:00

Good Freaking Grief!

Picture Challenge

2008-11-07T06:22:00.000-05:00

I saw a picture challenge over on Outnumbered By The Brood this morning and had to see what I'd find if I tried it. Definitely cute enough to contribute LOL
So here is the challenge:
"You have to open your 6th photo folder on your computer, and then post the 6th picture in the folder and explain what it is."

My folders are a little more complicated than that, but here's what I came up with:

This is Little Inventor on a beautiful, warm spring day in May 2006. So he was 5 at the time. He has grown up so much! He was out back playing with his sand and water table and ended up completely soaked. I don't remember exactly how, but I'm sure it was either a water fight, or an uncontrollable urge on his part to dump a bucket of water over his head. What can I say? The kid's a Scorpio with an innate love of water. ;D

Thursday Politics

2008-11-06T07:52:00.001-05:00

Wednesday Wisdom

2008-11-05T17:46:00.000-05:00

When we are aware that each moment of each day, each gesture and step we take, is truly mystical and full of wonder, we will live our lives with greater thought and care. We will also have greater respect and appreciation for the lives of others.
- Daisaku Ikeda

Ten on Tuesday

2008-11-04T06:45:00.000-05:00

Ten things I love talking about:

Let's see...
1. Little Inventor
2. Big Bear
3. Knitting and crocheting
4. Recipes
5. Harry Potter
6. My dream house
7. Moving
8. Tarot and pendulum work
9. Bird watching
10. Fitness

Monday Monday

2008-11-03T12:12:00.000-05:00

The first Monday of the month always seems to be the busiest. But that's okay by me! Last week was absolutely crazy with stuff going on around here. Trick or Treat on Thursday, Sports Emporium on Friday, then the office cleaning, shopping, groceries, and birthday party for Little Inventor on Saturday. But it was all worth it when I was able to turn the clocks back on Saturday night. I am one of those weird people who actually really look forward to daylight savings time ending every year. I like the sun coming up and going down earlier. I am by nature a morning person, and getting up at 6 instead of 7 is the norm for me all winter long.

And it was sooooooooooooo nice to stay at home and do pretty much nothing at all yesterday! I really needed it after all the activity the previous week.

Big Bear and I finished the Harry Potter series on Friday! OMG I cried so hard when he used the resurrection stone. Not to mention in a few other places. But then the last few books were riddled with sections that brought a lump to my throat or made me cry. Now I finally understand what all the hype on these books was about. Big Bear is buying them for me for Yule. I'll probably start reading them all over again then. I can't wait until Little Inventor is a little older so I can read them to him. The first two I think he could probably grasp right now, but the others I think have ideas that are just too advanced for him. (I really don't want to explain snogging at this point *rofl*)

On a more somber note, I've gotten more information on my aunt. She is going to be starting clinical trials soon, for comfort measures. At this point, there is pretty much nothing that can be done. Her oncologists are saying stage 4 terminal cancer in the right lung. They say 6 months, maybe less.

So we'll just have to keep hanging in there. I don't feel comfortable doing any spells for her right now. I thought of trying something just for pain management, but I don't want to do anything without her knowledge, and as devout as she is, I know she would not be happy to learn that her niece is a practicing witch, even if I could do anything for her. So for now, I'm just continuing to send her my love and good energy. But even when life sends a storm, a little sun can come through.

Stubborn came home from the hospital last Tuesday and has been doing great. So that is good news, and Little Inventor turned 8 on Saturday! I can't believe my baby is eight! We took the booster seat out of the van Saturday afternoon. That was a bit of a bittersweet moment let me tell you. He's just growing up so quickly. Why can't they just stay babies a little longer? Oh well.

I'll be changing up my blog theme sometime today or tomorrow, so keep an eye out :D

Thursday Politics

2008-10-30T08:11:00.001-04:00

A picture speaks a thousand words:

But video is better ;D

And for the love of Craig Ferguson

2008-10-26T09:50:00.000-04:00

For the love of Jon Stewart...

2008-10-26T09:41:00.000-04:00

Holy Cow

2008-10-23T08:39:00.000-04:00

I can't believe I haven't been on here in two weeks to blog! Things have been busy around here, so it's definitely time for an update. Auntie "M" is doing well. They were able to remove the lesion at the base of her skull, and the growth in her hip joint, though they had to break her hip to do it. The spot on her right lung, they are still discussing and I should know what kind of treatment they are going to pursue sometime in the coming week. Big Bear's uncle Stubborn should be getting out of the hospital shortly. Aunt "B" has been staying with us since he went in to have his other leg removed. He's doing well and has been moved to the rehab center of another hospital. They are thinking he should be home early next week.

B and K's baby is doing fine. They results from the tests came back negative for down's syndrome and it looks like the bubble on her brain has been absorbed.

I'm still waiting for someone from the Student Services department to get back to me about Little Inventor, but I've been working on some modifications with his teacher and they seem to be working out. We're taking two weeks per spelling unit instead of one, and we're working on some reading strategies too. He's also been enrolled in Headsprout as his elective, and since he's big on computer games and stuff, I'm sure that it will interest him.

We've got a couple of investors interested in the house at the moment, so hopefully we will be able to sell it fairly quick. I'm really, really hoping to be out of here by December at the latest. We've already had to start the heater which we were hoping to avoid until November, but fall is in full swing, and it's been unavoidable.

So that's life around here in a nutshell at the moment. I'll try to be around more often, I've got to get back into my daily writing habit!

Thursday Politics

2008-10-09T10:17:00.000-04:00

I thought today would be a good day for videos! So let's begin with a little rage -

Followed by a hilarious clip of the Daily Show from last night

And let's end it with this awesome song from Venga Productions (first saw this linked from Mrs. B's blog and had to pass it on!)

Ten on Tuesday

2008-10-07T07:40:00.000-04:00

Ten Things that Scare You/Freak You Out

1. Spiders
2. Roaches *blech*
3. Spiders.
4. Watching my son learning to ride a bike without training wheels
5. The Exorcist movie
6. Spiders.
7. Movies about human killers (monsters I can handle, zombies fine, but when it's just psycho humans I cannot stand it i.e. Leatherface, Psycho, American Psycho, Saw)
8. Dreams about going to Grandma's church with her and I'm in nothing but a t-shirt and underwear...don't ask...
9. Big Bear's ability with Tarot and intution. I'm good with a pendulum, but man that guy can read the cards. Some of the stuff he's predicted is freaky, even without the cards.
10. Did I mention spiders?

Monday Maintaince

2008-10-06T10:40:00.000-04:00

I did not weigh this morning. And I'm not going to.
I came to a realization over the weekend. I was unhappy with the thought of continuing to lose weight. It's not that I don't want to keep exercising, or eating right, but the prolonged effort was really starting to wear on me. And I had to remind myself why I started this in the first place. I started on this journey to become healthy. Not to fit into a size 6, or to see a certain number on the scale. I did this so I would lower my blood pressure, I would remove the risk of having diabetes in my 30's, and lower a cholesterol number that was creeping upward.

I wanted to be able to take a walk without getting winded, and to play with my son. I wanted to be able to touch my toes, let alone see them. And I have accomplished all of these things! I feel better at this moment, than I have felt in YEARS. If not ever. So at this point, even though I am only just below 200lbs, I am going to stop actively trying to lose, and begin actively trying to maintain.

So from this point on, I am going to be weighing every two weeks. I am going to continue my yoga five nights a week. I am going to continue to eat healthy fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean meats. But I'm not going to begrudge a piece of pie, or a scoop of ice cream as long as I remain mindful of the ingredients and strive for those that are natural.

I am in loose size 18 for the first time in nearly 10 years. And I am HAPPY right where I'm at. This was my goal. To be healthy, and to be happy. I may not be what society thinks is perfect, but I perfectly happy where I am. So here it is, and here I am. I am going to maintain. If my jeans start to get a little snug, I'll work a little harder, but unless that happens, I am more than content to be me, just as I am.

If only the real debate was this entertaining...

2008-10-06T08:40:00.001-04:00

Sunday Schooldays

2008-10-05T21:28:00.001-04:00

Well today was a lot of fun, until we got to Social Studies. Isn't that always the way of it though? This has been a good week, aside from the illuminating call with Little Inventor's teacher. I did want to take a moment to thank Kimber, Mrs. B and Christy for responding with your support. It really means a lot to me and I am looking into the program you suggested. I'm waiting to hear from his teacher this week and then will find out who I need to discuss all this with and figure out a course of action. Big Bear and I have already discussed that if Connections can't provide what he needs, that we'll remove him fully from public schooling, even virtual, and go completely with "traditional" homeschooling. Maybe even unschooling. I have a feeling that this is going to be a bumpy road, but I'm just so glad that this was discovered now, rather than a few years down the road.

So anyhow, we did a lot of work this morning, and had a great time, with Big Bear taking over Science for me while I was preparing the Social Studies prop. Little Inventor discovered the drawing compass and used it to draw his own compass to use in Social Studies all on his own! I was so proud of him. We've been learning about directions and we took a break from lessons to help him label the compass with different directions. He did an awesome job :D
Then it came to the actual lesson, which completely SUCKED. He did alright until we got to the last two pages, which were basically repeating the exact same stuff we'd done on the page before. Of course, the repetition was boring Little Inventor and he ceased paying attention, and well, by the time we got to the last question, I was about to tear my hair out, trying to stay calm, and he ended up in tears because he was so frustrated with not being able to answer a question he'd already answered three times on pages before. UGH I was so mad that they just keep asking the same crap over and over!

If every subject was like this, I would drop Connections, but all of the other subjects he's doing just fine with. It's just that stupid Social Studies course. I'm trying so hard not to let my frustration with the lessons creep into my teaching. It's fine when there are manipulatives, but when it's all reading and looking at flat maps, he gets distracted and bored. Tomorrow should be better, we're going to be making a paper mache globe and he gets to break open his brand new paints, which I know he's been excited about. I'm thinking that for the rest of the geography lessons, I might pull out our globe and just do the lessons on there, where he can touch the continents instead of looking at a black and white picture in a workbook.

Ahh well, here's to a better week!

A day late...Saturday Paranormal

2008-10-05T21:00:00.000-04:00

Okay, I didn't get a chance to come on yesterday to put up my weekly paranormal update, but here we are. Things were pretty quiet up until Thursday. Little Inventor and I were working on his word wall in the kitchen, Big Bear was in the attic on the treadmill and Grandma was watching tv in the living room. All of a sudden, there's a cool breeze going through the house and I see Grandma getting up, and hear her asking if someone was there. The front door had flown open. Utterly bizarre, as there was no one near it and the wind was not particularly blowing hard, not that it would blow open the front door anyway, since it was securely latched. Okay, it was weird, but we dismissed it. Later on, I was making some toast, and I went down to the basement to get the laundry, while Big Bear kept an eye on my toast. I came back up and my slice of toast was laying on the end of the counter. I thought maybe Big Bear had put it there, which I thought was strange, as he's completely anal about putting stuff on plates *rofl* and he was just standing there staring at it. I asked him about it and he said it had just flown out of the toaster. Okaaaaayyyyy....
Again, our toaster is not prone to this sort of thing, and isn't very...springy...I guess would be the word. Normally I have to actually push up on the lever to push toast all the way up. So, it was definitely unusual. We've been feeling an heavy amount of energy in the house lately too. Nothing bad or anything, just stronger. I think it's possibly because our contract is up with our realtor and we're hopefully going to be hearing from the investor who was interested in the house in the next week. We've been packing things away and cleaning a good bit. I'm not sure if our presence if just responding to our activity and energy or if it might be a little upset that we're leaving. However, we have invited our presence to join us in the move. We're used to it, and I think it's used to us. ;)

Dibels testing

2008-10-02T19:56:00.001-04:00

Little Inventor had Dibels (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) testing on the phone with his teacher this afternoon. I have been dreading this. For two years we have been working with Hooked on Phonics, struggling over the reading and writing. Things are getting easier, as I have mentioned, but I was still concerned over the testing. I was right to be.

Last year, Little Inventor did not do well with this testing. He was placed in the borderline group just before being "at risk" at the end of last year. We continued to work over the summer and even got started early on his school work this year. But the dibels went miserably today. Then his teacher suggested something I had not really given any thought to.

Dyslexia.

After we talked for a little bit, she mentioned a few of the symptoms of this learning disability and you could have picked my jaw up off the floor. She was describing Little Inventor to a TEE.
Such as:
In Preschool:
• delayed speech (Little Inventor was not really delayed, but we did do six months of speech therapy with him, due to pronunciation difficulties)
• mixing up the sounds and syllables in long words
• chronic ear infections
• severe reactions to childhood illnesses
• constant confusion of left versus right (He still has trouble with this)
• late establishing a dominant hand
• difficulty learning to tie shoes (He still cannot do this)
• trouble memorizing their address, phone
number, or the alphabet (Again, still has trouble with this. He knows the alphabet alright, but he couldn't tell you our number or address, no matter how many times we've told him.)
• can’t create words that rhyme
• a close relative with dyslexia

In Elementary School
• dysgraphia (slow, non-automatic handwriting
that is difficult to read) (This has of course, been a constant struggle)
• letter or number reversals continuing past the end of
first grade (He always confuses b with d, and is still writing numbers backward. I have to remind him several times a math lesson to write his numbers the other way, even when they are written elsewhere on the page)
• extreme difficulty learning cursive
• slow, choppy, inaccurate reading:
- guesses based on shape or context
- skips or misreads prepositions (at, to, of)
- ignores suffixes
- can’t sound out unknown words (This is of course, what tipped his teacher off today)
• terrible spelling
• often can’t remember sight words (they, were, does)
or homonyms (their, they’re, and there) (We have had all of those words on Little Inventor's word wall since the beginning of last year)
• difficulty telling time with a clock with hands (He mixes up hour and half hour, digital clocks are no problem of course)
• trouble with math
- memorizing multiplication tables
- memorizing a sequence of steps
- directionality
• Difficulty putting thoughts into words; speaks in halting phrases; leaves sentences incomplete; stutters under stress; mispronounces long words, or transposes phrases, words, and syllables when speaking. (This is something we have actually been really concerned about lately. We mentioned it to his speech therapist at the beginning of last year, before his IEP was closed, and he said it was something he would grow out of. He hasn't. There are constant pauses in his speech, which gets worse when he's excited or upset. And I'm not talking about Um's and uh's. I'm talking about halting in the middle of a word and repeating a syllable several times. "Guess what..at...at...at..at?"

There are others too, but I think it's pretty clear what we're dealing with. At this point, if it is not dyslexia that we're dealing with, I don't know what to think. So, his teacher is referring him to the Student Support Team (SST) and from there they will be evaluating him and most likely reopen his IEP.

She did send me some interesting links to look over too, and I'm giving some thought to the Barton Reading & Spelling System.

Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? Dealt with this?

More interview footage

2008-10-02T19:49:00.001-04:00

Speaks for itself I think ;)

Thursday Politics

2008-10-02T18:59:00.000-04:00

Don't you just love the phone calls this time of year?
So far it's McCain: 2 Obama: 3
Of course, one of the Obama calls doesn't really count since it was during primary season, but good grief!
McCain is persistent though. "He" even left a message on our answering machine. "He" being the recorded voice of the Crypt Keeper, including the creepy laugh...okay maybe not the laugh, but...yikes!
The second one was, I assume, the same recorded message, but thankfully Grandma answered that one and I didn't have to deal with another case of the heeby-jeebies. I now have a countdown going for the election. Except, it's not a countdown until the election itself, but a countdown until it is finally over and I can go back to screening those not nearly as annoying telemarketer calls.

Sunday School Days

2008-09-28T21:30:00.000-04:00

Well, we are almost through our first month of school and things are still going very well. Little Inventor started his Focus lessons this week and actually had a good time doing the live lessons and the games in Study Island.
Spelling is going well, and Reading is no longer a fight. I am so glad we decided to go with the block scheduling this year, it's made everything so much easier! We even got him to sit down and answer a letter from his cousin "M" this week without even a grumble about writing. I was so proud of him. He's starting to put spaces in between his words too, which was a big struggle last year.
Is it just because he's gotten a little older and hit second grade that things that were such a struggle through kindergarten and 1st are now coming easy?
I'm a proud mama bear that's for sure :D

Last week we started working through a unit on plants and water. We had to do an experiment with two plants, one we watered at the soil, the other we were only supposed to wipe the leaves with a damp sponge. This of course was to illustrate that plants absorb water through their roots and not their leaves.

Well, at the end of the experiment, Begonia A was doing fine, while Begonia B was drooping, and some of the leaves were brown and falling off. Little Inventor got so upset! He was honestly angry with the school for making him kill a plant. He said it was stupid and really hoped that we could save the poor plant.

Of course, Big Bear and I were a little upset about it to begin with, but neither of us said anything to Little Inventor. Even though he was upset, I was so proud of him, coming to the conclusion on his own that it is not right to harm or kill something just to prove a point or see what will happen.

Hello Better than Ever

Symphony of Science - We are All Connected

Finally feeling better

Odd

3am Reflections

Okay, here goes nothing

It's 2am..do you know where your pillow is?

No Resolutions

A New Year. A New Me.

Hello 2010

What a week it's been!

Wrenches

Christmas Tag!

Empath

Most awesome day ever!

Are we just getting old?

Get up early on Black Friday? I don't think so.

Writing, Smoking and Tootsie Rolls

NaNoWriMo

It's official. I'm a masochist.

Don't mind me

Starting to feel better

Go away flu!

He's such a baby bat

Making life easier

What is Trick or Treat Night You Ask?

Weight Management Monday and Other stuff

Yep, It's a cold...

NaNoWriMo is Coming!

Symphony of Science

GAH!

Weight Management Monday

English Breakfast...for dinner!

Cold Day, Hot Tea, and Allergies?

Wordless Wednesday

No happily ever after?

Pumpkin, pumpkin everywhere

Weight Management Monday

Total Cereal, the rant

10 on Tuesday

Weight Management Monday

Little Inventor's Pumpkins

Welcome my pretties....*evil cackle*

Please excuse the mess

This stinks...literally

Are you still here too?

Autumn Love

Somedays

How Do I Love Thee September

Best decision ever

Finally back!

Dracula's Ball Discoveries

The Big Day

Sunday Driver

And the countdown begins

Ridiculous and Pompous Humanity

Look out pedestrians...

Pasta Rustico, Honey Wheat Bread and a mental breakdown?

My No HFCS List

Tea time is a sanity saver

Artisan Bread

Good Omens and Big Bear needs a new name

She's gone.

Which Tarot Card are You?

You are The Moon

Bwahahahaha

It's Alive!

Sunday School Days

Purple Shmurple

Who Am I?

We're all settled in

Little Inventor's Little Problem

You might have noticed...

Are You a Dumb American?

Saturday Paranormal

Wordless Wednesday

Winter or Summer?

Ten on Tuesday

Gotta love Ricky Gervais

Note to self...

Welcome my pretties....evil cackle