Showcase of a Shattered Mind (2004)
brighten j'lynn's day with an
current rantings or rantings of days past...
thursday - 30december2004 - 10:58
well, i decided to stay home today. we all knew that i would. why waste a vacation day? randal went into work and i've told my trainee that if he needs anything or has any questions, i am available. but for the most part, i'm off. slept in until 0930, and now doing a mountain of laundry so that we can head to the mountains for our new years weekend tonight. last night, randal and i started reading the five love languages, how to express heartfelt commitment to your mate. this book was an engagement gift from my sister. i'll be honest, i was a little skeptical about reading it - having never read self-help books before since they seem a bit cheesy - but i'm so glad that we (not just me) are reading this book. the writing is not really all that great, some paragraphs are so redundant i want to scream, but i think the concepts are really solid. last night we read the first three chapters, which are basically introductory. we then had a great two hour conversation about what we had read. the concept is that two people who love each other are not necessarily able to feel that love from one another because they may not understand each other's love language. the author (a 20-year marriage councelor) posits that there are 5 basic love languages: quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. one of these is our primary love language, usually the language that we were raised with in childhood. since two people who love one another are likely to have a different primary love language, they may not be effectively communicating their love to one another. if jack feels love through encouraging words and sally makes him a nice meal to chear him up, she wonders why he's still down. she doesn't realize that she's not communicating her love through his language. alright, so i'm not very good at summarizing, but i really do think it's going to be a valuable book. the concept just really makes a lot of sense to me. fortunately, my marriage is founded on great communication, but it can only help to understand the way that my husband truly feels love and for him to understand the way that i truly feel love. tonight, or whenever we continue our reading, we start getting into the first love language.
wednesday - 29december2004 - 14:34
i am so pleased with the birthday cake that i made for mt for today. not only is it quite yummy, but it's my prettiest effort yet. i even took a couple of pics of it so perhaps whenever i get around to posting all of my other holiday pics, i'll show it off too. motivation has been hard to come by this week. what with being sandwiched between two holidays and being all stuffy and congested and icky feeling. on the bright side, it seems that i've been sleeping better with my new memory foam pillow that my wonderful hubby gave me for christmas. perhaps it is just what i needed. although, i got a good wake up this morning when i turned over the staples box to get the last pack of paper out in order to fill the empty printer trees and there, in the bottom of the box, looking right up at me, b00b!es!!! 
yes, quite the shock to find p0rn0gr@ph!c materials in your office supplies. yes, i did email staples to make them aware of my morning surprise. we'll see what they have to say. i've been trying to decide whether to come into work tomorrow or not. we've got one more floating holiday left that we lose at the end of the year, but my boy is insistent on coming in and working tomorrow so i'm not sure about whether i'll join him or not. seems like i'd enjoy sleeping in some instead. we'll see. at least we had mmmmmmmbirthdaycake today.
tuesday - 28december2004 - 10:57
despite my lengthy rant yesterday, i'm still being badgered to rant again today. silly reader thinking i have something interesting to say or something. alas, i do not. still trying to decide what to do for new years eve. still trying to decide whether to take thursday off. still trying to decide why i'm awake. still trying to get my nose to cooperate with breathing.
monday - 27december2004 - 11:01
wow, has it really been that long since i ranted for you? i must have been busy last week. stupid work interfering with my anti-social social outlet. actually, i spent all day thursday working on family tree stuff so that we could print out gma holloway's tree for her to look at. she takes a lot of pride in her family and often comments on how many there are and trying to count them and such. i thought it would be nice for her to see a visual representation in order to fully appreciate the size and grandeur of her family. there were 114 (inclusive of current spouses or ex-spouses with whom children were born) names on her tree from her and gpa holloway down. and it's also out of date since there have been at least three or more great-great-grandchildren born since i last worked on the tree. we told them to write in any new names/dob's and we'll redo it in a month or so. anyhow, i think she understood what it was and was very proud of it. she said she had never seen her family mapped out like that and seemed amazed at how big it was. it was well worth all the time i spent on it. thursday night, we went shopping for each other. it just seemed a shame to not have anything under the tree for each other on our first christmas as a family. friday morning i got up and wrapped a few last gifts real quick before we left to head to wedowee. we ended up getting on the road around 1130 and had to make a couple of stops along the way so it was almost 1400ct before we got to gma moore's. we spent a little time with her helping with some last minute cleaning for the big christmas eve party. we then stopped by randal's parents' house to mount the family tree on some poster board in order to make it prettier and easier to read. after we visited with gma holloway a while, it was time to go over to gma moore's for the party. there were already several there and i got compliments on my cookies that i had brought. it was a nice time. i felt more like i belonged this year than i have the past 5. and it was the first gathering since gpa moore passed away that no one seemed to get upset about his absense. i'm sure he was thought of and remembered but not like it has been. after the grand festivities ended there, we headed back to randal's parents and did gift exchange there. i'm happy to report that it's the first christmas out of the 6 i've been around that there were no tantrums. it was very pleasant. i was surprised anna grace didn't cry since her mom and uncle randal decided to be big meanies and give her a wrapped stack of hickories as her first gift. she didn't get upset, just said she didn't want them. she was a great sport about it for a 3.5 year old. thank you to randal's mom for his pajamas and my duck slipper socks and very warm and fuzzy mallard throw blanket. clearly, his family conspires against him with the ducks. and i love that about them. thank you to teresa for the beautiful rubber duckie fleece blanket you made. i think we left wedowee about 2230 to head home. we got home around 0100 and were in bed by 0130. it was a long day. christmas morning, we slept in until close to noon. it was nice to sleep in since i did't really sleep very well throughout the night. we got up and had some breakfast and watched a movie before we decided to sit in front of the tree and exchange our gifts. i got him a toothbrush (what can i say, it's a family tradition stocking stuffer), some candy (goes well with the toothbrush), a black belt that he's been needing, a laser level, and a laser tape measure type thingy that looked really cool. he got me chenille gloves (to replace the ones he stole from me at some point), a warm fleece headband, a duckie bank, a duckie shower squeegie (you cannot complain about my ducks if you contribute to their propogation!), a couple of very pretty bread baskets, a memory foam pillow, and a memory foam travel pillow. i'm so pleased with the pillows. the last two mornings i have had no stiffness in my neck whatsoever. other thanks yous: to mom for the ornament and wilderness frame; to dad and rhena for the george forman grill, multi-tool, duck puzzle, popcorn tin, and glass frame; to jonna and family for the his and hers ice cream sets, hawaiian sarong, and hawaiian chocolate covered macademia nuts; to lil rach for the hand-made ornament. sunday was spent holding down the couch. i felt all head-coldy so i didn't much feel like getting up and doing anything. my throat still hurts. i suppose that's about it for our christmas catch up. now to come up with some new years plans.
tuesday - 21december2004 - 15:21
so incredibly tired... visit from dad and rhena was nice. they arrived around 3 yesterday afternoon. we left work and met them at the house. we visited and talked for a bit and then my dad and i went to the movie store to rent some movies and to publix to get a few things. when we got back, we decided to go simple and order pizza for dinner. we watched tv, talked, and enjoyed company. after eating, we exchanged gifts and put in a movie (haunted mansion - two disney workers who hadn't seen it!). i think my dad might have seen the opening credits. the whole movie was battling with him to be quiet enough to hear over, but that was fine. i think that rhena enjoyed it. she said it was similar to the story that the cast members are told about the ride. i'm not sure why the riders don't get to know the story behind it (as someone who has ridden that ride countless times, i can safely say that nowhere in the ride does it give the story of the tragic romance which cursed the mansion into its haunted state). in any case, i love that ride. it's still my favorite disney ride. i live for nights when the park is empty enough to go on it 27 times in a row with virtually no waiting. when the movie was over, my dad woke up and we visited more briefly until the two of them went to bed. being the generous and kind hostess that i am, i kept thennheat tud up to 71° for them and i thought i was going to die (i never turn the heat higher than 65° and at night it always gets pushed down to 55°). i was suffocating and sweating and miserable and couldn't sleep one bit. about 0430 i made randal, who was kind enough to suffer with me, get up and close the vent in our room. after that, i was able to fall into a sticky sleep until the alarm went off at 0600. i snoozed it until 0724. on the bright side, we learned a valuable lesson - invest in electric blankets. next time we have winter houseguests, they will receive an electric blanket in lieu of central heating. i think that's more than fair. anyhow, at 0730 i started working on the couch while rhena watched tv and my dad got showered and my boy went in to work. they stuck around and had coffee until about 0930 and then they gave me a ride to work on their way out of town. they were supposed to be heading for biloxi, ms but they called just after we got back from lunch to let me know that they were about 20 minutes from the fl line. they're heading straight back home because rhena's not feeling well. i enjoyed their visit but i feel badly that they drove all the way up here just to stay 18 hours and drive all the way back home. i wish they would have at least stuck around for another day or two to visit some more. oh well. i guess that's love. i know i wouldn't drive all the way to orlando monday morning just to drive back home tuesday morning.
monday - 20december2004 - 14:14
i amuse me. this was the gift that we gave to my sister and brother-in-law last week:
GIFT CERTIFICATE
Redeemable for one (1) free night of babysitting from Holloway House-sitting and Hooligan Handlers, Inc.*
*Restrictions and limitations do apply. Offer valid only on days when Holloways are receiving free lodging at the Dawson Inn. Sitting services doe not include standing, walking, carrying, chasing, or mobility of any kind. Felines who interfere with sitting services are subject to ejection from sitting surfaces. Service does not include diapers, dishes, windows, cooking, feeding, laundry, wet beds, or watching the children. Quality of babysitting services is not guaranteed or waranteed. Children may be kept up past their bedtime in order to watch a backward movie in the window from the balcony. This offer is non-transferrable, non-refundable, and non-negotiable. This offer has no cash value and cannot be exchanged. This offer is not valid in conjunction with any other offers.
the fine print was, of course, very fine print. i was pleased that they seemed to be as amused with it as i was. it's the little things, you know. the week was pretty good. the weekend was mostly not. this morning, no. but my dad is on his way so it'll be nice to have house guests. we enjoy house guests. the question cook or eat out? tough call you know. what with having virtually nothing in the house. and i need to go shopping to get all of my cookie ingredients too. and get started making them. this week is getting shorter and shorter.
thursday - 16december2004 - 08:53
i must have some family up the nj/pa area keeping up with my website. i see a lot of web search hits from those areas from persons looking for my former name. i'm proud that someone up there thinks of me and perhaps one of these days they may me and say hi. this week has been a fairly good visit. we got to spend lots of quality time with my dad, cousin, and mom last weekend and with my sis this week. last night we went out with my brother and they are talking about coming up memorial day again to go rafting. i am just so pleased that i introduced my brother to something that he now enjoys so thoroughly. so they are planning to bring another group up of different friends who have never had the joy of rafting. we're looking forward to it. i think my hubby was trying to talk them into coming up sooner to go snow skiing but i don't think they were near as interested in that. so it goes. we've also distributed many of our christmas gifts. last night we dropped off my mom's and gave t/julie theirs and bought my sis'. tonight i'll get the kids and jonna/jim's wrapped so that we can give them theirs before we leave town. my dad will get his next week when he comes up to visit us. that leaves only randal's family. they usually all go in on one or two big gifts so i guess we won't have to worry about anything there. and i took care of my kids and his all at the same time. not sure if we're going to exchange with each other or not. we haven't really talked about it. we have no tree or decorations up at home yet and just haven't been much in the christmas mood but it is our first christmas as a family. i've even looked for ornaments that say "first married christmas" or something to that effect but i can't find any. all they seem to have is "first christmas together" which just isn't true for us. this will be our 6th christmas together, but our first as husband/wife. clearly, there's a very special distinction there. well, i suppose it's time to get back to work. i've been super-productive this week. i've just about got my inbox cleared out again. i'm a huge fan of having an empty inbox.
wednesday - 15december2004 - 09:42
so sleepy...
monday - 13december2004 - 08:52
it was a good weekend. we made it down to orlando in good time. went straight to my dad's where we waited for my cousin to show up and then went to mgm to see the lights. they were nice but not near as nice as they were when they were on the residential street. it was still fun. we got to ride a few rides and my cousin's step-daughter rode her first roller coaster when we did aerosmith's rockin roller coaster. after we left, we went back to my dad's to see the pics we had taken at the park and to devour the mmmmmmkrispykremes that he had waiting for us. we then followed my cousin back to her house and held down her couch for the night. been a long, long time since i've held down that couch. sunday morning, we got up and my cousin made yummy pancakes for us before we left to go have a nice long visit with my mom. it was a very pleasant visit, topped off by dinner at macaroni grill. on our way to my sister's we stopped at publix to get some essentials (mmmmicecream). when we got to my sister's we were a captive audience for stories of their trip to hawaii. sounds like they all had a great time. i think tonight we get to see the pics. this morning, work as usual.
thursday - h9december2004 - 08:51
i just really haven't had much to say this week. last night, i attempted some christmas spirit by giving myself a christmasy french-style pedicure. i painted my toe nails green and then went over the tips with red. it actually turned out better than i expected and i wish i could do my fingernails but i wouldn't be able to do the tips on my right hand. not sure if i could talk my hubby through it, it's a pretty precise thing. i don't know about putting me more in the spirit of the season, but i am pleased at the look, nonetheless. i'm pretty sure we're not going to be able to fit gktw into next week, but i might do a few names off an angel tree or something. on the bright side, my new glasses came in tuesday afternoon. i'm still getting used to them (i love my old glasses - stupid broken gig) but i have noticed less eye strain with them so that's a good thing. they're not a lot stronger than my old prescription, when i look through one then the other, i can't hardly tell the difference, but i can tell a difference in strain after wearing them for a few hours. i was thinking last night about cookies. tis the season to start baking an assortment of cookies for office gifts. i really don't feel like it but that's the plan anyhow. i'll need to get out all my recipes and start a shopping list of ingredients. the recipe my cousin posted looked intriguing but i'm not sure if i'm up for quite that much work. we'll see. of course, the other crummy thing is that they are crowding our office. our nice little group of 7 has now increased to 9 and they're wanting to cram a total of 12 in here. not only am i not looking forward to all the crowding, but that's that many more cookies i'm going to have to make. oh well, c'est la vie.
tuesday - 07december2004 - 09:34
it occurred to me this morning that we are going to have very little visiting time in orlando next week. which is a shame. and we still need to finish up our holiday shopping before we head down. and i still can't seem to get into the spirit of the season. i'd actually really like it if we could find some time to go to give kids the world and help out. there's just something about volunteering for a worthy cause that makes the season feel right.
monday - 06december2004 - 09:36
it was a fairly quiet weekend. yesterday we went over to the elachee nature center and walked a couple of their trails. it was very nice and now that we know where it is and what's there, we'll probably go more frequently. it was so nice to get out in the cool, crisp air and there was no one else around so it was quiet and peaceful. we only did a 1.5 mile trail, but they have some 4-5 mile trails that we'll go back and do another time. it was a nice afternoon. the nature center itself was closed but it looked like a nice facility. might be a nice place to take the kids, should they ever come up to visit. there were a bunch of squirrels running around trying to find their winter caches. i love watching squirrels. and one of them was the chubbiest squirrel i've ever seen in my life. he needs more cardio. he was a big boy.
16:24 - well, christmas spirit or not, i have done my good deed. i have gone out of my way to convinve bl to get a nice gift for his wife this year. as opposed to last year's talking tire guage. and some other mention-worthy gifts such as a vacuum cleaner and pots/pans. so i think i have talked him into getting a mother's ring for her this year. i stopped at a jewelry store the other night and got an estimate for him and today we spent some time looking at different styles on the web. i told him to go home and get his daughter involved and the two of them could decide on the design together. i feel much better knowing that that poor woman will be getting something nicer than a tire guage. although, who knows, this year she might have been the proud recipient of a brand new tire jack!!! silly boy.
friday - 03december2004 - 16:12
have you ever had your eyes dilated? i never had the pleasure until today. i must say that it's quite disconcerting. i felt as good as blind for a good two hours. it's been four now and i still can barely read what i'm typing now. not to mention the very stylish ray charles-esque glasses that i have to wear to keep my eyeballs from being seared out of my skull by the flurescent office lighting. if i had known that they would be dilating my eyes, i certainly would have made my appointment for the end of the day since i've been semi-useless this afternoon. the only good thing is that it did give me time to do the benefits enrollment for next year for both of us. woohooo, we're insured another year! and i'll be saving an extra $35 per paycheck!! gotta love that.
wednesday - 01december2004 - 09:51
it's been a crummy couple of days. i've had a head cold for a week and all of a sudden it turned into sick. but i have been semi-productive. i have moved our websites and email to a new host. as far as i know, everything is working right. if you happen to notice any problems, please me and let me know. unfortunately, i need to get caught up on work since i've been sick. perhaps more later.
monday - 29november2004 - 09:10
i'm so displeased with our new company's benefits. we have to enroll by the end of this week or else we don't have insurance for the next year and the insurance plan that they offer (aetna sucks!) is not accepted in our area. the nearest covered hospital is an hour away because the hospital that is 10 minutes away does not take aetna. the only doctors that accept it in this area are pediatricians and family doctors. i'm so frustrated trying to figure this crap out and it seems like no matter what, we're screwed. and we've got a new hire that i'm training this week so my insurance research time is significantly reduced. i'm quite perturbed. all else is fine. had a good thanksgiving. spent saturday helping some friends with a house project and then went to wedowee for the night. sunday we had thanksgiving dinner in wedowee. would have been more fun if i could kick this stupid head cold.
friday - 26november2004 - 08:50
might i just say how WRONG it is to be at work today?! it was a good thanksgiving. mostly i am thankful for my life. i am really blessed, i know that and i am thankful. i am thankful for having the most wonderful husband. i am thankful for having a family that loves and supports me. i am thankful for our troops home and abroad who fight for my freedom. i am thankful to know and love a soldier so that i can fully understand and appreciate the bravery they possess.
thursday - 25november2004 - 11:14
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! i am thankful to be having such a nice, fun visit from my mom. she got here tuesday night and we spent the day yesterday shopping. now we're watching the macy's thanksgiving parade.
tuesday - 23november2004 - 09:19
i had this great plan to sleep last night. why my body did not feel the need to follow through on it, i may never know. i feel like i've really been sleep deprived lately. and my throat is not only not feeling better, but the soreness seems to be spreading. i was hoping that i could get a good night sleep and that would help me to fight off whatever my throat is trying to pull on me. oh well, it was a nice thought. in a couple hours, my mom hits the road to head our way. i figure she'll be here around 9 or so tonight. just enough time to get home and clean the house. it looks like a hurricane's been through it. rediculous. although i was very proud that i went home last night and did two loads of laundry. and i cleaned the guest bath. it was a start at least. still haven't figured out what i'll do for turkey day. it'll be a last minute menu.
monday - 22november2004 - 10:03
sometimes a week just isn't worth ranting about.
friday - 12november2004 - 10:23
i have had a request from my faithful reader to remove the music from this page. gotta listen to your reader if you want to keep them, so music has been expunged. let it not be said that i don't respond to my feedback. on the bright side, i apparently didn't need to sleep last night. and, apparently, while i wasn't sleeping i got beat up by someone because i ache so badly today. my arm, specifically the elbow area, is just killing me. and my back isn't much happier. and, of course, my neck/head never are happy. has something to do with breathing, i guess. then i tried to get away with wearing clothes today that i knew i couldn't get away with wearing so it's like i just set myself up for a depressing self-image day. i attempted to salvage it by finally deciding on my new skirt which isn't really me but makes me look all lady-like and adding eyeshadow to my face. can't really say it's helped all that much, but at least i tried. then i got to work and was forced to record my voice to the phone system again. i hate the sound of my voice on electronic recordings. i choose to believe i don't really sound like the machines make me sound. but at least my recordings should be getting replaced sometime in the next few weeks with corporate branding. the good news is that i've gotten more positive feedback on a group get-together in orlando than i was expecting. so now i've actually gotta plan out the when/where. should be fun.
16:24 - fry, baby, fry!
thursday - 11november2004 - 09:15
HAPPY VETERAN'S DAY! God Bless America and All Who Defend Her!!! Have you thanked a soldier today?
i'm so happy to report that last night was the first fire night of the season. if that doesn't say winter's right around the corner, i don't know what does. it also helped that bl stocked up the break room with some hot cocoa. ah, i love this season. the fire was very pretty. my boy builds good fires. our fireplace doesn't throw out much heat (even with it burning, it was only 62° in the house) but it warms you up just to see a fire burning. and the smell of wood burning is so nice. it was very nice to sit on the toasty hearth snuggled up with my hubby. i also confirmed last night that disney is next saturday. which means my boy gets to play with a bobcat on saturday before we go. he's very excited. boys are so cute. we'll leave sunday morning to head down and stop on our way into town to have dinner with an old friend. i'm very excited. it should be a good visit. i'm thinking of trying to get together a group at a sports bar or something monday night (football and friends?). that would really allow me to see more people that i don't usually get a chance to see. hopefully there will be some interest.
wednesday - 10november2004 - 15:34
i'm very pleased to say that i've got my email straightened out. i am now ready to switch to a new host once i figure out whom shall be my new host. but the really good news is that wednesday is almost over. which means, of course, that the week is more than half over. which means i'll be in orlando soon and i'll get to see people i miss again! always exciting. we already have some plans for sunday evening, i assume on our way into town (hard to tell without being able to get a hold of my sis for confirmation about disney). hmmm, i guess that's all i really had to say.
tuesday - 09november2004 - 10:42
well, on the bright side, i actually slept semi-well last night. so i'm feeling much better this morning than i have been. still trying to get a headache though. such is breathing. not much else going on. our company officially sold yesterday. in celebration of being part of a new company, i moved my desk yesterday afternoon. i'm pleased to say that i am no longer at the desk that has the afternoon sun glaring down on it creating a horrible glare on my monitor. not to mention that i'm closer to bl now so i can bug him more efficiently. i'm all about maximizing efficiency afterall. i think we have a new hire starting in a couple of weeks which stinks because that means i'll have to share my space (i'm the only one in the common area of this side of the office, my boy is the only one in the common area on the other side, so we all really have our own space but mine's about to get invaded). what a long parenthetical statement. i think it's funny that my cousin was playing with MyWorld66 because i was playing with it yesterday as well. and since she posted her maps, i figured i'd do the same. if it weren't for those stupid wildfires, my canadian map would be more impressive. and my world map is pretty pathetic but i plan to ameliorate that after i finish my states. it says that my 2 countries = 0% of the world. how sad. i put in all of my boy's that i could recall and his 9 countries = 4% of the world. he's so much cooler than me. one day...
monday - 08november2004 - 08:40
quite a weekend. saturday afternoon, we went to alabama for a quick overnight visit. when we got there, our first task was to go out into the field and load up the trailer with some firewood that was cut out there. which is to say that i drove out there and played with the goats while my boy loaded up the wood. this worked out well till i decided to get back in the car and couldn't reach the goats through the open window very well so i decided to open the door a little bit to pet them more. as soon as i opened it, in jumped molly. i remember when she was a small little goatlet that i could carry around and hold in my lap. turns out she's not so small anymore. it took all i had to hold her back from jumping into the backseat. i hollered for randal and he fought with her until he was able to pick her up and carry her out. she knocked over our water, but luckily didn't break anything. and luckily didn't feel the need to relieve herself right then. we finished gathering wood and drove back out of the pasture and i went inside to take our stuff in. by the time i came back outside, i was informed that randal's mom was in the hospital and we needed to go. i got changed into my church clothes (all i brought was my church clothes and the sweats i was wearing which were covered in grass and goat hair). turned out that brenda tripped and kissed the sidewalk hard. apparently, she had a slight loss of consciousness which, coupled with her brain surgery a few years ago, created quite a bit of concern. luckily, after about 45 minutes of x-rays and cat scans, there were no breaks or serious injuries. she had a huge knot on her head, a fat lip, and a large contusion on her arm that was apparently a hard enough hit to cause the skin to bust open like a big gash. i gave her grief like a good daughter-in-law as we took her back home. when we got home, we all sat around talking and the whole family was there (us, sis, bro). the more we sat there, the more swollen her eye got. poor woman. sunday morning, she had a good black eye. we got up and went to visit with gma holloway and then we went to the antique car show in lineville. i've gotta say how nice it was to get out and stroll around with my hubby looking at cars on such a beautiful day. it was so pleasant. we saw one car that was for sale that was gorgeous so we took down the name and number. after we had made our way back around, we stopped back by it and the owner was there and told us the price and let us get inside and such. it was a very nice '33 plymouth with double suicide doors (all four doors opened from the front, not just the back doors), beautiful wooden dash coated with acryllic, a wonderful wooden trunk on the back held down with leather straps. it was not all original, it had a/c and power windows/locks, which is fine. i'm more interested in original body with modern comforts inside. afterall, if i had an antique car, it would be for driving. we took down the guy's email address but he was really asking too much for a car that was not original. it was fun though to look. we left the car show and went back to the house to pack up our stuff and say goodbye to his mom/dad and then we went over to gma moore's. i heard more words come out of her mouth than i have heard in five years combined. the poor woman just seems so lonely. it was so sad. randal said he'd never heard so much about her childhood in his life. we spent about 2.5 hours there because everytime we tried to go, she kept talking. i felt awful leaving. it must be horrible to be that lonely. the sad thing is, when her husbad was alive, there was always family there to visit with him and it seems (to me, at least) that since he died, nobody really goes to see her. poor woman. i just can't even imagine it. and i don't want to.
friday - 05november2004 - 08:56
i'm pleased to say that it's fall again. hopefully it will last this time. it's actually supposed to get down to 37 overnight. i love the cold. i love getting to put an extra blanket on the bed (because i WILL NOT turn on the heat). i love wearing a sweater to work (and battling bl all day long to keep him away from the thermostat). and in another couple of months, my coat. i love breathing that crisp, clean, cold. soon we'll be able to start burning fires in the fireplace again. and drink hot cocoa. and maybe, just maybe, we'll be fortunate enough to get another snow day like we did last winter where work had to wait for sledding and snowman-building fun to be over. how could anyone not love fall/winter?
thursday - 04november2004 - 15:42
it's been a sleepy day. this morning was very rainy, and although the sun is out now, it just doesn't seem to be powerful enough to burn off the sleep. so it goes. on the bright side, i have more laundry to look forward to when i get home this evening. woohooo. we are also going over to a friend's house to look at some furniture that they are wanting to sell before they move. specifically, an entertainment center. ooh, oohh. i think i forgot to mention yesterday that we're have thanksgiving company! my momma is coming to visit!! i'm very excited. i was thinking about honey baked ham but i'm not sure because even their smallest one is just so big and there will only be three of us. we'll see, i guess. i'll also have to attempt to make my cousin's potatos (hate them though my hubby may). mom will make him some sweet potato casserole anyhow so he'll be fine. it's going to be fun. i think my cousin might stop over a night or two as well on her way to/from tn. i'm always excited when we have house guests. my brother visited twice this year. perhaps my dad will come visit for christmas. and my sissy next spring. i love having guest rooms for people to come and visit us.
wednesday - 03november2004 - 09:08
well good for florida getting it right this time. looks like ohio's going to be the one wearing some egg this time around. i mean, really, why the heck is identification not required in some states? that's just stupid. not requiring id opens such an enormous can of worms. silly states. also, our county here was the only county in the state to have a bilingual ballot. now don't get me wrong, i have nothing against bilingual persons, but this isn't about BIlingual persons. i am firmly of the opinion that if you cannot speak, or more importantly read, english, you should not get to vote for our president. how can you be an informed voter if you can't understand the language of our country? /diatribe. most of us at the office are waiting to see what happens before we breathe our sighs of relief (they are lawyers, afterall, they don't know how to lose), however one was confident enough to bring in some celebratory mmmmmmmmmmmmkrispy kremes. what a yummy breakfast. i'm intersted in seeing whether this thing will settle today or whether they are going to try to drag it out for weeks.
tuesday - 02november2004 - 14:31
HAPPY ELECTION DAY!!! (tell me again why this isn't a federal holiday?) well, i did it. i performed my civic duty and cast my vote. from the time i parked to the time i pulled back out of my parking space: 4 minutes. there are definite advantages to living in small(ish)-town america. i was expecting to leave at 1400 and be back around 1500 for my afternoon brownie, but now i have to wait (i don't let myself have my afternoon treat until after 1500 because it's only able to pick-me-up for about 2 hours). so it's done. i have the stupid looking peach "i'm a georgia voter" sticker (whatever happened to a nice simple flag "i voted" sticker?). now we just wait and see what happens. i hope that you all have done your part as well!
monday - 01november2004 - 10:31
did everyone have a happy halloween? you know, it's just not what it was when i was little. and it kind of depresses me now. not only is all the magic of youth gone from the day, but i find myself to be old. we don't have friends to either throw or be invited to a fun halloween party (other than my cousin whose party was regretibly far away), we don't have kids (not complaining) to take trick-or-treating, and we're apparently not a desirable house to trick-or-treat at. we had close to 20 kids last night, but not a single one of them was from our neighborhood. i don't know, it was just sad. i'm just old. sigh, i guess it's time to get excited about less fun holidays like thanksgiving. other than the sadness of being old, it was a pretty uneventful weekend. a couch-anchoring, movie-watching weekend indeed. alright, that is all. don't forget to vote tomorrow.
friday - 29october2004 - 09:17
wooohooo!!! it's friday! very amateur eclipse pics posted. we're supposed to go camping tonight with some friends but their son was apparently sick last night and spent the night in the hospital so now it's up in the air. which is fine, i just hope he's alright. never good when you're sick enough to be hospitalized. clearly, they didn't get the memo that the "three" have been fulfilled for now. poor kid. not much else going on. since it looks like we're going to be home for halloween, i'm thinking of forcing my boy to harm another pumpkin and get some candy to pass out. we live in a tiny neighborhood but there are tons of kids. is everyone ready to vote on tuesday? i think i've about decided that i'm going to vote for my first time. not because i'm political at all, but more because kerry scares me. and since i only know one kerry supporter, i feel it's my duty to cancel out her vote. because i just don't think that he should be in charge of our men and women who are overseas fighting for us and facing danger everyday. yes, that is the extent of my politics: concern over the safety of the people who are fighting and risking their lives to ensure our freedom. on a completely unrelated note, i've been curious about my faithful reader in or around cherry hill, nj. is that you lil cuz? just been wondering. and that is all.
thursday - 28october2004 - 14:51
yay! it's almost friday. so close. you'll forgive me for waiting so late in the day to rant when you see that i finally got labor day camping/rafting pics posted. i am so close to being caught up. i have some miscellaneous pics to post and the pics from last night's eclipse. soon, i promise.
wednesday - 27october2004 - 08:55
yay! i can finally see my website again! how exciting. for some unknown and mysterious reason, i was unable to see or ftp my site the whole time i was in orlando. it was very upsetting. it's never happened there before, and i'm hoping that it does not happen again in two weeks when we are back there. i only discovered it after trying to rant thursday morning and being unable to ftp in order to post the rant. but none of that matters now. it looks like, for now, all is right with the world again. yay! so we had a very nice visit. we got in not too late wednesday night. thursday after work we visited with my mom. friday after work we had dinner and visited with my dad. saturday we harmed pumpkins with my cousin. saturday night we hung out with my brother. sunday we relaxed with my sister. monday night we had a quick dinner with my mom and visited my brother. we got home before midnight last night. it was a good visit. i got to see all my family. i'm hoping next time that we'll be able to arrange some sort of group gig to get together with friends. when you have family spread all over town, it's so hard to find the time for individual friend visits. i wish we could, but it's just hard. all else is well. perhaps more later. perhaps...
thursday - 21october2004 - 10:57
we're here!!! it was a decent drive. we had an office field trip to rc's hometown for the grand tour yesterday. we toured a peanut buying point (and obtained a bunch of fresh, green peanuts), toured all of jimmy carter's homes/birthplaces/etc, talked with rc's mom a bit, picked cotton, and toured a pretty nifty telephone museum. when we departed from there and headed on down, we were already about a third of the way so it seemed like a much shorter drive than usual. we got in about 2130 last night. this morning i did 100 consecutive jumpropes without tripping/dying!!! i was very excited about this. i wish i could have kept going to see how many i could do, but i was close to death. point is, that's a record for me (seeing as how i usually have to restart every 10 or so from tripping) and i'm very pleased with it. working today, not sure yet of tonight's plans. unfortunately, i had to decline on our saturday dinner invitation. i'm hoping to meet up with them another day. wherefore does the sound of the pool make me so sleepy?
tuesday - 19october2004 - 08:50
looks like we'll be heading down tomorrow. i'm really excited about getting to visit my family and friends. it's been a while. and we've already gotten an invitation for saturday night. i'm still trying to talk my hubby into it. and the good thing is that since my sister has that nifty $20 elliptical, i can bring my jumprope with me and continue working out every day. that's my plan and i'm sticking with it. my cousin found out yesterday that her broken elbow that wasn't broken is probably broken afterall. silly doctors just can't get anything right. hopefully it will heal quickly for her. my brother in law, meanwhile, has been back to work for over a week now. i hope that he doesn't push too hard and aggrivate his back. silly boys. well, that seems to be enough saying nothing for this morning.
monday - 18october2004 - 14:21
looks like my rant frequency has been down a bit. luckily, my faithful reader is aware that i haven't been wasting that time on something fruitless like work, but that i've been making site ameliorations for myself and others. but don't worry, you haven't missed much. it's been pretty uneventful around here. saturday randal planted five trees and made a rock waterfall out back while i exercised and cleaned the house inside. saturday night we lost 138 minutes of our lives which can never be reclaimed watching master and commander. i don't know what russell crow was thinking when he decided to do this movie but i do believe it was the most abysmal piece of trash that i have ever sat through. it was horribly awful. don't ever subject yourself to that. /psa sunday we both slept in, which is very unusual. it was nice. when we got up, we grilled up some lunch and then went out to walk around stores. largely uneventful. i think it's been decided that we're going down to orlando tomorrow. or wednesday. haven't gotten the final word yet. sorry, cousin, i hope you'll forgive me. it just would have been too hard. we'd only have one weekend back home before going down again. more libations for you.
thursday - 14october2004 - 11:48
i know i didn't rant yesterday. but i did make site improvements. perhaps you noticed that i posted my charley page? i also spent the greater part of yesterday making myself a new favorites icon (it should display next to my site in your list of favorites and in the address bar). i also made an icon for randal's site, rachel's site, and rachel's other site. yes, i am pleased to look at my favorites list and see it filled with icons that are different from the stupid blue e. it's the little things, you see. tonight we are going to a big bank event so i got to wear my power suit today. i haven't worn it since our former life. i love this suit. it makes me feel good. in spite of the sleepless week -- now that's a good suit.
tuesday - 12october2004 - 09:38
well, at least i got more sleep last night. feeling some better today. and i'm wearing my feel-good casual suit. and silver eyeshadow. and have a lunchdate at mmmmpanera. so perhaps it'll be a better day than yesterday. i forgot to mention yesterday that i had gotten an email from an old (elementary and middle school) friend this weekend. i haven't really seen or talked to him since last summer, but apparently he's been doing very well for himself. he worked on the mccollum campaign in florida and when that was over, he got a position on the hill in dc. he's now working in the office of the speaker of the house. i'm not very political, but that seems pretty cool and i'm very proud of him. he's blogging his dc misadventures if you are interested in another source of work-avoidance.
monday - 11october2004 - 11:19
i hate mondays. it seems like there's just no sleep to be found on sundays. at 0230, i finally decided to get up and go out to the couch so as to not bother my hubby anymore with my kicking and tossing and turning. at 0300 i realized that the couch wasn't bringing sleep either so i turned on the tv and watched an episode of csi miami. tv went off at 0400. at 0430 i got up and scrounged up another pillow since the one i had was clearly not doing the trick. i finally felt like i was starting to drift off at 0515 when i heard the bedroom door open and my hubby came out to drag me back into bed. at 0615, i was actually fighting to stay awake since the alarm would be going off in a half hour anyhow. of course, when you know you no longer want to fall asleep because it's just going to hurt when the alarm goes off, that's when you crash. the alarm yelled at me every 9 minutes until 0759 when my hubby got out of the shower and insisted that it was time to get up. stupid friggin mondays. stupid friggin lack of sleep and headache from tossing and turning. but, on the bright side, a hearty congratulations to my cousin for being the third (they come in threes) hospital visitor in our family. first was my dad with his heart, then my brother-in-law with his back-break, now my cousin has broken her elbow. good job cousin! perhaps leave the skateboarding to the youngsters?
13:52 - just out of curiousity, i asked a friend of mine, casey, who is currently stationed in baghdad how he felt about the war. see, having friends and loved ones over there fighting, i've felt very strongly about supporting them 100%. i was telling another friend of mine that i feel like kerry demoralizes the troops, which upsets me. so anyhow, i asked this friend how he feels and this was his reply:
I've always loved my country and supported my military. Now is no different. Iraq posed a serious threat to the security of the US. No matter if he had WMD or not, he lead the world to believe he did. And if he didn't have them yet, I'm sure he was working on it. Was there an Iraq-al Queda link? Who knows. But I do remeber, on 9-11, they shower "the world's response" to the attacks. And Iraq, they were cheering and celebrating. In my book, that deserves an ass-whoopin'. I don't like being here, I don't think anyone does...But I hate to see people who supported the war at first, and now are here, and are against it. When I supported the war, from day one, I knew I may have to come here,
I'm not going to change my mind now. If I wasn't here, some other young man would be.
so i was just really proud of his response and wanted to share it. i'm very proud to have people i care about protecting and defending us.
thursday - 07october2004 - 10:39
my hubby and i just got back from the dentist. it's been way too long since i've been. two or three years. i was very pleased to hear that my teeth are in perfect condition. zero staining, zero decay. even the gum loss (because of the incompetent technician at my orthodontist's office in orlando) isn't a problem yet. i'm very proud of the fact that i have such good teeth. i've had one cavity in my life (also the result of the crummy orthodontist) and it was a little tiny pinprick cavity that i had a composite filling put in and you can't tell it was ever there. the dentist today said he almost missed it at all just because it was so tiny. and the technician who was cleaning my teeth thought that they were bleached because they are so white. i'm very proud of my teeth. it makes me very proud when the dentist says that he can tell i take excellent care of them. i'm a weirdo. anyhow, i was so impressed with this dental office. it was so nice and pretty and clean and sterile. all the dental offices i got dragged to growing up were the cheapest, hole-in-the-wall, non-english-speaking dentists in orlando. i've never been to a nice, clean one. it was so nice. on a somewhat unrelated note, does a ghecko's tail grow back like a lizard's tail?
tuesday - 05october2004 - 10:02
so i was thinking last night, while i couldn't sleep, when is it "too little too late" in parenting? i used to think that was a pretty easy question, but perhaps i've grown enough to realize that there are contextual circumstances to be considered. for example, i had issues with my father growing up, but now that i'm grown, i feel like he's actually a father to me. now that i'm grown, he's a very different person. and i'm glad that i gave him the time to show that to me so that i wouldn't shut him out of my life. i value my relationship with him now. but what about while you're still in your formative years? if you had a parent who was not the most stable influence in your younger years, do they deserve to be written out of your parenting altogether? perhaps they've grown and are really making an honest effort to do right by you now. is that too little too late? even if that's what you need more than anything in the world? as a person who cares about that child, wouldn't you want to encourage that parenting relationship? i guess "too little too late" is all in the eye of the beholder. i'm glad that i didn't hold fast to that stance in my parental relationship, but can i really fault someone who would? but then, i'm an adult. i'm just not sure that a child is capable of making those same decisions. i know that it does harm to a child to have a turbulent parental relationship in their early years. but if the parent grows and becomes a suitable parent, it seems that it does more harm to the child to not mend that relationship while they are still young. oh well, this all sounded much more coherent in my mind last night when i couldn't sleep.
monday - 04october2004 - 09:48
for those who haven't already seen it, i have finally posted my alaska travel log. and it only took me 2.5 months. i also went back to my wedding journal to post the last entry i had in my real wedding journal and to post the song that randal sang for our first dance. next in the queue, hurricane charley pics and pics from labor day camping with my brother and his friends. since they are just pics, those should be out in the next week or so. stay tuned. i feel much better about getting the ak pics out there though. i'm so rediculously proud of them. yesterday, my father started quitting again. perhaps i can be more actively supportive this time. last night, i don't think i got a full minute of sleep. i tossed and turned and couldn't get comfortable and this morning i just feel like crap for it. and i'm so achy. stupid body. my boy is having a boy's night out either wednesday or thursday to go see the braves. i decided that i just wasn't interested enough to go and he needs to get out with some boys anyhow. i wish he had more boy friends. i feel bad that i'm almost his only friend. it should be a fun time for him.
11:22 - just watched the spaceshipone make history by winning the $10mil x prize and breaking the world record for a non-space-program flight (358,000 feet in the 60s by an f15(?)) with an altitude of 368,000 feet. how neat it must be to be one of the two first civilian astronauts in us history. congratulations to them.
thursday - 30september2004 - 09:08
i haven't actually heard from jonna yet, but both my mom and dad called last night to say that jim was indeed coming home last night. so a big WELCOME HOME to you, jim. he's got a back brace and a walker and six weeks of limited mobility. all in all, it seems to have turned out much better than it could have. when i talk to jonna, i'll find out if she wants us to go ahead and come down to help out for a week. in other news, i am getting oh-so-close to getting alaska posted. which means that labor day camping/rafting with t and his friends won't be far behind. and then other miscellaneous stuff. i have been trying to get back into exercising again this week. i haven't been able to get myself back in the gym yet, but perhaps doing stuff at home will help with the motivation. we'll see. well, that's all i really have for now. for those who are interested in wasting more work time, jenny has begun blogging. that is all. good day.
wednesday - 29september2004 - 08:36
the good news is that, while jim did shatter his L1 vertebrae, he will not need surgery. that was a relief. he will be in a back brace on bed rest for the next 6 weeks but, last i heard, he will get to go home today. he is in a lot of pain, but is looking forward to a 6-week break from putting the kids to bed (upstairs). please pray for a quick and stable recovery for him with no future complications. the bad news is that my dad has been lying to me. i'm much more disappointed by that than by the fact that he's smoking again. i asked him just a few days ago. not sure how long he's been smoking again, but i would rather he had been honest with me. afterall, i'm certain it wouldn't have taken me 5 seconds to figure it out when we go down and visit him in a couple weeks. does he think that i have no nose? i love him and i knew that quitting would be extremely hard, but if you can't be honest with the people who care about you and only want to help you, well what's the point?
tuesday - 28september2004 - 16:02
with the having to work so much today! sheesh. you know, i've always wondered whether i was a person worthy of remembrance. i'm not sure why, but that's been one theme to my stream of consciousness for as long as i can recall. i am one of those people who remembers often. i think of people i knew before i was ever even in school. i think of people that i met briefly in passing. i remember and think of people. and so i've often pondered whether any of these people from the past ever have some brief remembrance of me. sunday night, watching the weather channel in order to gauge the danger jeanne was imparting on my loved ones, i looked up to see a man who looked and spoke very much like a person i knew six or seven years ago. the similitude was striking enough to cause me to grab my address book and look up the last phone number i had for this person and give him a call. i was pleasantly surprised by not having to explain who i was and he was in the presence of someone else whom i had briefly met way back when who remembered me off the bat as well. it was nice to be remembered. there have been a few other occasions that made me feel remembered. one was when an elementary school friend called me out of the blue after high school graduation. another was when i was 15 and working at a restaurant and a girl whom i attended pre-school with recognized me and remembered my name and everything. and then, there was the time my oldest friend, who hadn't talked to me in five years, showed up at my place of employment in the middle of the night with a rose. and when my first love, with whom i had a nasty breakup 8 years prior, called me to let me know that he was getting ready to deploy to iraq. i was so happy that he thought to call me and let me know that. i assured him that i would think of and pray for him each and every day he was gone. well, that was a lot of nonsensical nattering, but the point is, it is so nice to be remembered and to remember others. it really raises the self-worth to know that you are a memory for someone.
16:46 - please pray for my brother-in-law. my dad just called to let me know that he fell through a roof today onto concrete and is in the er getting an mri to see if he has broken his back. he is conscious and he is able to wiggle his toes so he is thankfully not paralyzed. we will know more after the mri.
monday - 27september2004 - 08:59
first off, i'm happy to report that my family has come out relatively unscathed after jeanne's weekend visit. my sister is the only one who lost power, hopefully they will get it back quickly. she also has a good bit of water damage from water leaking through her front windows and they are giving up on their oak tree (third storm to topple it, third strike it's out). my dad's driveway has 15 inches of water (it was 21 inches last year when it got frighteningly close to entering their home) but no real home damage (also no power, but it doesn't really count since he is staying at a motel which does). my brother has a bit more roof damage and a bit more water. my mom has a bit more roof damage. my cousin has a good bit more roof/water damage. all in all, it wasn't too devastating for my loved ones. i'm happy for that. on another note, congratulations to my brother on his brand new f150 truck!! it's his first new vehicle and his first vehicle to have a/c (in florida!!!) and radio (not to mention the 6-disc cd changer). he is very excited about it and i am very happy for him. as for us, i had a very headachy weekreend. randal did a ton of yardwork. i barely slept. this morning i have a good migraine and if it doesn't subside by lunch, i'll be going home. yesterday, we went to olive garden for lunch. mmmmmitalian. it kills me that my husband does not care for italian. that's what i was raised on. it's the best food out there. and i rarely get to eat it anymore. silly boy.
thursday - 23september2004 - 09:07
why is it that evil people get to live perfectly happy lives and never have to pay for the evil that they do unto others? how can someone have no conscience to do such evil unto another and then act civil toward them at a chance meeting? stealing isn't enough; they need to continue to do everything in their power to destroy another's life. evil people don't deserve oxygen.
wednesday - 22september2004 - 09:04
woohoooo! the week is half over! i've been having to do a lot of work this week. not much time for ranting. i've been working on cropping alaska pics at home at night. perhaps one of these days i'll get caught up on this site. clearly, i should get paid for this instead of work that pulls me away from my site. well, i suppose i need to get back to my drudgery. i changed up the music a bit. enjoy...
tuesday - 21september2004 - 15:47
yay! my cousin might be coming up here in a couple of weeks! how exciting. and good timing since i finally got around to washing the bedding last night from when my brudder and his friends were up here. right now, it's looking like we will be back in orlando november 16/17. of course, it would be the week before thanksgiving. couldn't just go ahead and schedule it for the week of turkey day so that i could maybe spend the holiday with family. most likely, we'll try to find a week to get down there before then since that's so far off and it's been a while since i've gotten down to visit. oh, i've forgotten my manners: a big welcome to mulberry. i'm always so happy to have new readers visiting my site.
monday - 20september2004 - 12:07
HAPPY FIRST DAY AT YOUR NEW JOB, DUANE!!!
i watched a movie last night that visualized some of my worst fears (ever since i turned into a big skeardat)S. for those who have horrible terrors about having a false sense of security where you feel the safest, don't watch panic room. i'm shocked that i didn't have nightmares, although i did panic just a bit this morning when i tried to gig the alarm and my fob wouldn't work. irrational thoughts just went flying - because it couldn't be as simple as the battery needing replacing. of course, there was also the doorbell right as the movie went off with the thuggish-looking next door neighbor boy standing there holding a piece of mail that was delivered to their house by mistake, which contained a key to our house. {siderant} how ticked am i that the insurance company foolishly mailed our house key back to us instead of fedexing it or something? because it is SO intelligent to put someone's house key in the mail (which is known to have errors) where the address is right there on the envelope to tell the would-be, bad-person, receiver-by-mistake exactly where the key goes. idiots! {/siderant} luckily, thuggish-looking neighbor boy was not a bad person who would realize that the key in the envelope (yes, you could clearly see the imprint of the key embossed onto the envelope) could easily gain him access to a house full of pawn-able goods. /this rant brought to you by a friggin skeardycat.
friday - 17september2004 - 11:40
my apologies for the lack of rant this morning. but there is a good reason, and it's not just that i have nothing to say. see, i FINALLY finished writing up my travel log from alaska (don't look, it's not posted yet) so now i'm working on getting the pics organized and cropped and such so that i can build those pages. i'm hoping that i'll have it all posted by monday. hopefully, you'll excuse my tardiness.
thursday - 16september2004 - 09:31
it's a nice, dark, rainy day. clearly, it is a lazy, holding down the couch day. not a day to be sitting at work. the alabama office is closed today and tomorrow and they're not getting any more rain than we are. i just hope that we don't get so much rain that we can't pee again. it's a crummy work day when you can't even pee all day. especially when it's tuesday. well, i think i've made it perfectly clear that i have nothing tosay. perhaps i'll work a little.
wednesday - 15september2004 - 09:51
different day, same question. rc is back today. he seems to be in good spirits. i guess when you have time to prepare, and you know that it's better for them, the mourning process goes a little quicker. we are all going to lunch today to celebrate him being back. it's been a while. and what did he say he was dying to eat? pizza! i jumped all over that. i've been wanting pizza so badly lately. but i have a healthnut hubby and don't get to eat pizza unless it's a social thing. i laughed when he said that was what he was needing to have. nothing much else going on. i snuggled my hubby a lot last night. i've been very much wanting to cry for the last few days and just haven't been able to. i hate that. the funeral would have been a great excuse if it were someone closer who i could cry about without looking like a moron. oh well, guess i'll just keep feeling crummy. so it goes. at least i'm getting pizza. bring on the self-loathing...
tuesday - 14september2004 - 08:56
why am i awake?!
monday - 13september2004 - 09:08
well, the good news is that it is getting increasingly unlikely that ivan is going to terrorize orlando. little do they know, they have my cousin to thank for that. she single-handedly saved orlando from the wrath of ivan by spending a large sum of money to have her brother overnight two tarps to her in order to prepare for ivan. she sends her "you're welcome" to all of you. ;-Þ friday night, we stopped by beth and jeremy's to pick up all of our stuff that was still over there (clothes and towels and guns, didn't have room for our plants this trip). after visiting with them for a little while, we headed over to wedowee. it was a late night. saturday morning, randal got up to go out and spend time with his dad while i slept in as long as i possibly could. when i got up, we went over to visit with gma holloway a while. we watched our alaska video with her so that we could narrate a little and explain to her what was going on. it was a nice visit and she seemed to be doing really well. randal's mom stopped by and picked us up to go fishing at gma moore's (anna grace has been begging to go fishing there so brenda went to anniston first thing in the morning to pick her up for the event). nobody caught any fish but anna grace did catch a rather large stick (she was very displeased with this catch and didn't want to pose for a picture with it). we then played a couple games of dominos with gma moore before heading back to the house. all the way back to the house anna grace vociferated her sadness over not catching a fish and how she couldn't eat a fish if she didn't catch a fish. it was quite a sad scene. later on in the afternoon, we all headed down to the branch with the grill for a cookout. we had some burgers and chips and roasted marshmallows around the campfire. i think a good time was had by all. when we got back up to the house, we decided to go play more dominos with gma moore. sunday morning, i slept in a little and woke up to find that randal was still out playing with the goats with his dad and it was past the time that he should have been in the shower. brenda had made eggs and pancakes for breakfast so we ate and then i got onto randal to get his shower and get ready to go. we left wedowee around 1100 and made it to lizella around 1330. the funeral started at 1500 so we stopped at cracker barrel for lunch. we got to the church just a few minutes before 1500. there were a lot of people there. they were only letting family into the sanctuary; friends were being sent into the fellowship hall which was joined to the sanctuary by a door. and when we got in there, it was standing room only so we, along with rb and bl, stood in the kitchen. i was a little surprised by what a poor setup it was. i didn't mind being in the fellowship hall, i know that it was more important for family to be in the sanctuary, but i do think they needed to have a sound system of some sort set up so that we could hear in the fellowship hall (like the one they had set up by the graveside later on). it was a very long service. which wasn't so bad except that us friends in the fellowship hall never heard a word of it so it was a little over an hour of sitting in heavy silence. it was a long time. beth's kids were great, they made some noise which she didn't like too much but considering what a long time that was to sit in silence, they were terrific. i just think it's a shame because i think we all would have like to hear a little about the man's life. finally we heard some music and could see through the doorway the pallbearers going up and carrying the casket back down the aisle. we all adjourned outside for the graveside ceremony (which we could hear thanks to the speakers they had set around). we then got our little work group together and stood in the receiving line to offer our condolences to rc and his family. it was sad. his mom talked about how she had just retired after 30 years back in may and they were going to live out all their dreams when this happened. that broke my heart. rc seemed to be doing reasonably well. he introduced us to his grandfather. it was just sad. randal and i talked on the way home about what we wanted when we passed and how important it is for us to do the things we want to do now instead of leaving them as tenuous dreams for a future that may never come. we got home last night and hugged a lot. we brought the lawnmower to work with us this morning so that randal can go over to rc's house during lunch and mow his lawn before he comes home. it's the least we can do to help him right now.
friday - 10september2004 - 14:30
well, i suppose that i've just been ranting too frequently lately. i'm getting in demand. my frequent reader has yelled at me for my lack of friday morning rant. so, nothing much to say but here it is. i talked with julie a little while ago. she said they are already back home. they couldn't raft on wednesday because the river was up 10 feet from frances (which i had figured) but they did go thursday. she said it was fun but not like the ocoee. but then, they didn't get to do the big rapids because of the water still being too high. and what they did do, the water was too high for surfing and such. after rafting, they decided to just head back home (van didn't have to be back till saturday). she said they had a good time but that after we left it just wasn't as fun. well DUH! i mean, everyone knows that we are the life of the party. lol. out of all the ivan evacuation invitations that i sent out to my orlando family and friends, i've had one person express interest. still hoping though that it won't be necessary. hopefully ivan will just turn and disappear into the gulf. we have a funeral down in the macon area sunday afternoon. it will be sad. turns out that he was only 56. so young. rc said his gparents are falling aart over it. i guess it doesn't matter how old you get; you're never supposed to bury your child. randal is trying to decide whether we are going to go to wedowee this weekend and stop at the funeral on the way home. that would leave us no weekend but it's been a few weeks since we've gotten over there. still waiting to here from lawyer before we can decide when we'll be getting down to orlando again. my dad just informed me that they are putting their house up for sale. i'm glad. waterfront property is nice but not water-surrounded property. i hope he is able to sell it pretty easily (once the water goes down, that is). i also hope that my cousin has thought to do some more house-hunting in the last couple of weeks. this is the best time to shop for a house in florida since you can see which areas are too low-lying. alright, i'm done ranting about nothing.
14:58 - have i ever mentioned how much i hate kids? or at least obnoxious kids who were obviously products of very rude and nervy parents. i'm not quite sure how it happened. i think it started out from her playing with the chiro's daughter sometime when she was here. and then at some point, during his smoke breaks outside, rb must have been friendly to this kid. from there, she started coming into the office to ask me (because my desk is out in the main room, not in a nice secluded office) whether sam was here. this happened a few times and i told her that she would have to go back to sam's dad's office to find that out. that was pretty annoying, but still semi-tolerable. well yesterday she comes in here with some other little girl and they just walk right in here like they own the place and ask me if we have any suckers. WTF?! no, why would we have any suckers, we're not a bank. so i politely told her no. then her friend starts asking who's that (pointing into td's office), i dunno, well who's that (pointing into bl's office), i dunno, well who is she (pointing at me), um i can't remember but we're friends (wtf?!). and then she asks me if they can have some water. i'm very much losing my patience since i'm trying to work but i tell her that's fine, the fountain is in the hallway. no we need cups. WTF?! DOES THIS LOOK LIKE A FREAKING REFRESHMENT STAND?! she must have inferred from my look that i was going to deny her request and she said but we were given cups last night (clearly, rb must have been being friendly again last night). so i reluctantly went into the kitchen and got a couple of small cups for them. they got their water and finally went away. i was ticked and made a sign that says "adults at work... (little girl pulling wagon with teddy bear in circle with cross through it) no kids allowed!!!" and put it on the bulletin board and we all had a good laugh over it. well, they just came back in here with ANOTHER child and said they needed some cups. i told them that i was sorry but those cups are our office supplies because this is a place of business and the business pays for them. they looked upset. i thought they were going to leave but then they came back and said they wanted to show me something outside. no, i'm working right now. they finally left. friggin obnoxious damned kids! where the heck are their parents?! it's a good thing i work here because if they were coming in here all the time with just the guys, how much do you want to bet that one of their obviously unfit parents would be screaming molestation. stupid friggin kids! i think next time they come in i'm going to have to be a witch and tell them that they have no business coming in here anymore. that's just friggin rridiculous. /rant.
thursday - 09september2004 - 09:50
the company we work for got sold this morning so there's been all kinds of buzzing going on here. which is a nice diversion from work. we were bought by the group that most of this office used to work with so it's somewhat of a homecoming for them. none of us are too concerned about things (unless they try to make us all start working in the atlanta office, in which case they'll be losing 7 employees - of course, they could go the other way and try to make us all move to the orlando office, which we might consider {assuming there will still be an orlando by the end of 'cane season}) but it's fun to talk about. and it's a good thing we've had some excitement this morning because i think i'd be asleep by now otherwise. it's going to be a long day. i thought i slept pretty well last night but i woke up this morning just exhausted. we've been trying to convince bob to run out and grab us some celebratory sweets (mmmmkrispykreme) but he's not going for it. nothing much else going on up this way.
15:43 - please pray for rc and his family. his father just passed away a few moments ago. fortunately, he was awake and aware for about 10 minutes yesterday so they were all able to say their good-byes. i just can't even imagine how hard this must be on rc, nor do i want to. two months ago, the man didn't even know that he had cancer. luckily, he didn't suffer a long agonizing battle. i think most of the office will be taking a trip down for the funeral. i just can't help but think of how much i love my family and how important they all are to me. i'm so glad that i now have a relationship with each of my family members and i hope that those relationships not only strengthen over time, but perhaps even spread a little.
wednesday - 08september2004 - 09:03
happy birthday cousin, jl! i think that the noaa has gotten a little lazy about the ivan tracking map. looks about like since ivan is currently following the same path as charley, they are just being lazy and showing charley's path as the projected path for ivan. clearly, lightening can't strike twice, right? in any case, i've got my fingers crossed for florida. our lawn is getting a nice drink of water. the only distressing part is that we can't use the bathrooms at work because all of the water is apparently too much on the septic tank and the toilets were threatening to flood yesterday. that's very distressing to me. luckily, it did not seem that we were having that same problem at home last night. and fortunately, it does not seem as distressing as the sewage problems that parts of florida are having (tampa's sewage-flooded streets, my cousin's workplace where the sewage has backed up into the tub in the bathroom, my friend duane's apartment which is apparently flooded with sewage) - i just can't *ICK* enough. my brother is supposed to be rafting the chatooga today. i hope that the flooding doesn't affect that. today seems to be a milder day so maybe the water was able to level out a bit over night. i wish i were rafting with them. stupid work. clearly, my cousin and cousin-in-law need to hurry their butts up and come up for a fun-filled rafting trip. well, i guess i'll work now.
tuesday - 07september2004 - 09:41
well, i'm glad to report that all of my orlando family is fine. minimal house damage (mostly just complications to the existing charley damage). here's hoping that ivan decides to leave them alone. my brother and a group of his friends came up this weekend. they are up for the whole week, but since we have to work we were only able to spend the weekend with them. they left orlando thursday around 1730. they didn't get to our house (approximately a 7 hour drive) until 0615 friday morning. more than 12 hours because of all of the evacuees getting in their way. i couldn't believe that. it was insane. when they did arrive, i showed them all to beds so that they could get some rest after such a long night. (i was so pleased to have all of my beds in use!) when they arrived, my boy, who had fallen asleep around midnight and got a pretty good night's sleep, decided to go into work for a while. since i had been awake until 0400 waiting on guests, i decided to go back to bed for a while. when i got up, i watched hurricane news with bobby for a while and logged in to work so that i could see what i could get done. when others started waking up, i informed my boy and he suggested that he stop at sam's to get some hamburger and chicken so thwe could grill out for lunch. we had a very nice lunch out on the back patio. we finally left the house to head toward tennessee, but we had to make about fifty million stops along the way and the van that they were travelling in was a bit slow on the windy mountain roads of north georgia. we stopped at the olympic part of the ocoee so that the group could see what they were going to be getting into saturday and were pleasantly surprised to see the water turned off (the ocoee is a tva-controlled river). it was our first time seeing the river off too so it was really neat to be able to walk across the river and see all the rocks that made the huge whitewater features that make it such a wild ride. we stayed there for only a short bit because the sun was getting low and we had to get to adventures unlimited so that we could all set up camp before dark. it was a fun night and my boy got to bond with the other boys over a few hands of poker. saturday morning, we all got up and had some pbj and hashed browns for breakfast. everyone was pumped and ready to go. we had requested dave as our guide, but he was already taken so we got stephen instead. i wasn't disappointed; he was a great guide. it was a terrific ride. we (randal and i) had never done the full day, so the upper course was new to us too. to be honest, it wasn't as good a ride as the middle river but it was still a fun ride. most of the big class iv rapids were crammed into about 1 minute at the olympic center. we all had fun though. and we all got soaked in the freezing water. just before the dam that leads to the middle river, we pulled out of the water for lunch in a little secluded picnic spot. they had a spread of sandwich fixings, chips, veggies, and a chocolate cheesecake and a mocha cheesecake. it was really a very yummy lunch. i was afraid they would just serve us some pre-made sandwiches. when we got back in the water, our paddling seemed more synchronized, so perhaps refueling was all that was needed. when we got under the dam to the middle river, it was just a blast. t, desmond, and bobby all "rode the bull". t was the first to fall out of the boat, but he was smart enough to grab for the chicken line on his way out so he never got separated from the boat and was back in very quickly. bobby and desmond also fell out (and i think t fell out again) but no one went down river and all were back in fairly quickly. then, our guide decided to make sure that we were all sufficiently wet - "alright, we're going to do a trick on this next rapid. paddle as hard as you can and when i say so, everyone scoot left." so we've now experienced having the whole raft flip over and throw us out. it was fun. i think everyone had a great time (at least i hope they did, i'd hate for them to drive all the way up here and say "eh, that was alright."). when we got back to camp, us girls instantly hit the showers, while the boys perused the gift shop buying up stickers and otter boxes. bobby and roxanne both purchased the rafting photos. i am hoping that one of them is kind enough to scan/email them to me. that evening, desmond, who apparently was trained in culinary arts, cooked ribs over our little camp fire. let me just tell you, those were the best ribs that i have ever had in my life. omg! they were just awesome! i told him that i was taking him home with me. clearly, i am currently hoping that they get rained out of the rest of their week so that they can come crash at our house and we can force him to cook for us. it was incredible. i love my hubby, but i sure do envy people who own good cooks (my cousin, roxanne, and even t since i'm sure he gets to eat his cooking often with all the camping they do together). later that night, we followed the sound of the live band coming from the other side of the campground to a small hole-in-the-wall bar where my brother and my husband spent time bonding over a pool table. it was fun to watch. sunday morning, we got up and everyone started taking down their camp sites and packing up to head back down to north georgia. we ended up at unicoi state park, where they had camping reservations for the next two nights (good thing with all the holiday travelers - the place was packed). we hung around with them for a while and then we decided to head back home so that we could rest up and wait to find out whether we were still going to orlando. we told them how much we enjoyed them inviting us along with them and that they were all welcome back at our house anytime (especially desmond ;-Þ ) all in all, it was a great weekend. i'm so happy to be getting to know my brother again. and he seemed so happy all weekend. we had so much fun. pictures soon (no, really, i swear). yesterday we found out that there was no need to go to orlando, which was a little disappointing since i was looking forward to visiting with my family, but it gave us the chance to rest up. we considered trying to meet up with t again for rafting the chatooga tomorrow but since they had two more friends join them yesterday, we would be in separate boats anyhow so it just wouldn't be as fun. i'll just have to work on convincing my cousin to come up so that we can raft it with them. i am hoping though that the orlando gig can be rescheduled for the very near future. i hate the thought of this thing dragging out much longer. it's just not right.
thursday - 02september2004 - 09:14
you'll all be pleased to know that the cricket was not heard this morning. whether he's gone or was just sleeping in for a bit is yet to be seen. last night i attempted to make my prettiest cake yet for a coworker's birthday. i had a great concept and all the right tools but it turns out that the frosting that you buy in a can in the store is just too thin. i guess i'll have to start making my own icing. the top of it turned out somewhat like what i was wanting, but the sides are horrible. it would have been nice if the icing were thick enough to hold the shape that they should have had with the different tips. oh well, live and learn. it should still taste good at least. randal finished scrubbing the stupid friggin tile while i baked. and then he got our camping screens and put them back together so that i could iron the adhesive back into place for us to use them this weekend. it worked fairly well, other than me setting the friggin iron down on my leg. luckily, i didn't set it all the way down so i don't have the nifty little iron shape with all the holes burned into my flesh, but it sure doesn't feel good either. i'm such an idiot. but at least we'll have screens this weekend that we won't be able to use anyhow since it will be raining so much. my brother should be here sometime before midnight. most of the group doesn't have to work today since frances is threatening them. and the two that do work are only working half days so they should be able to get on the road much earlier than they did last time. of course, their drive time will still depend heavily on how many evacuees are northbound. they seemed very happy to be getting the heck out of the bullseye. i hope the rest of my family takes care to get someplace safe as well. i worry about them. i was okay last time when i was there experiencing it with them and helping them with the aftermath, but from up here i just feel useless. i'm still hoping that she'll slow down enough to take a northern turn. not that i have anything against south carolina, but my family isn't there and they aren't still recovering from charley. perhaps fark will be right and frances will surrender. ;-Þ
wednesday - 01september2004 - 09:13
you know, i thought that living with a rooster in my backyard/cemetary was bad. equally bad is living with a cricket or family of crickets inside the bedroom wall right by my head. i've been silently cursing that stupid friggin cricket for the last week, but apparently this morning randal was awake enough to be annoyed by him too. around 0530, he got up, turned on some lights (ahhhh! pillow-over-head), and searched for the little b@$t@rd. failing to see him, he opened the window and assured himself that, no, it was not outside. he then put his ear to the wall and concluded that the friggin cricket(s) is in our wall! he pounded on the wall to try to scare it into quietude. he failed. stupid friggin b@$t@rd cricket(s). /rant. are you all good and hunkered down for frances? i sure am hoping that somehow she swerves and misses you (and us, the way it's looking now). it's sure not going to make our travel down that way very easy. and if it screws up this gig on tuesday, i'm just going to be so furious. on the bright side, we are finally getting some much needed rain up here today. it's one of those rainy laying around on the couch with a good book kind of days. sigh, stupid having to work.
tuesday - 31august2004 - 09:08
about 80 square feet of stupid friggin tile left to scrub. it's not perfect, but it's so much better than it was. while my hubby was diligently scrubbing, i worked on dishes, laundry, and dinner. wasn't too bad a night. still need to get the guest rooms cleaned out (boxes all over from moving back in) and get the guest bathroom cleaned up all nice and pretty. haven't heard anything from my brudder but i'm guessing he's still planning on being here late late thursday night. that gives us three evenings to get the house in order. we're supposed to be going down to orlando monday, but i suppose that all depends on whether frances is kind to them or not. while i hate the thought of missing this one, i certainly don't care to go down after all the excitement and be stuck with the hot, dark, messy aftermath. we'll just have to watch and see. and, of course, see if it affects randal's gig on tuesday. i'm so ready for that gig to be over. i don't understand how people can be so evil.
monday - 30august2004 - 09:26
that weekend just wasn't near long enough. i spent most of the weekend not feeling very well. but somehow, it still managed to be a fairly productive weekend (mostly on randal's part). he got out saturday and did a bunch of bush-hogging with the weed wacker. he even managed to kill a rat with it. and might i just say how pleased i was to know that there are apparently rats living around the trees in our backyard. ick. when he was through with his yardwork, he came in to shower and while he was showering i set up a nice little picnic out back for his birthday. i think he was very surprised and i hope very pleased. it was such a cute little picnic setup (thanks to beth for that awesome picnic pack). i stacked his gifts out there and after desert, he opened them. it wasn't much, but i think he enjoyed it. we pretty much held down the couch the rest of the evening. sunday, we slept in a bit and then held down the couch for a good part of the morning. we watched some of the olympics, including the marathon attack. i'm sorry, but if i were Vanderlei De Lima i would just be outraged. i'm sure he was happy to be able to hold on to a medal at all, but i really think he would have gotten the gold. i don't see how they can say that the incident did not affect the outcome. not only was he stopped, causing him to lose about 12 seconds of his lead, but his momentum was interrupted (which running distances like that is all about sustaining momentum), he was mentally shaken, and he was forced to exert energy toward trying to break free of his attacker. it was just sad and unjust and a big foul-up in security. *stepping down from soapbox* after holding down the couch sufficiently, randal started working on that stupid friggin tile again. i had bought some concentrated grout haze remover so he got to work with that. i'm very pleased to report that it seems as though there may actually be an end in sight for this stupid friggin tile. the stuff worked great. it's still not perfect, but it looks and feels like a tile floor should now and the few spots that didn't come up should come up with mopping over time. i'm so relieved to see something going right finally with this stupid friggin tile. he got about half of the area done last night. he should be able to finish it all tonight or tomorrow night. unfortunately, he's already started talking about starting the stupid friggin tiling in the guest bath. arrgh. oh well, with a good bit of work over the next few evenings, we should have the house presentable for my brother's visit this weekend.
friday - 27august2004 - 15:15
my daddy's a tv star!!!! how exciting for him. he got twice as much airtime this year as last year. a big 'thank you' to duane for catching this, recording it, and posting it so that i could watch it. :-D
thursday - 26august2004 - 13:48
LOVE MY COUSIN who is so incredibly talented that the producers of ai just couldn't handle it!!!!
wednesday - 25august2004 - 09:10
show them how it's done, cousin!!! she arrived at the convention center at 0600 this morning to take her place in line for her american idol audition. she said that even getting there at 0600, there were easily 3000 people in line ahead of her. when i called, i heard a lot of singing going on in the background so i guess she's getting to size up her competition at least. and she's now in sight of the port-o-potties. i suppose they have started the process because she said the line was already moving. this is very exciting! i just wish i were down there that i could stand in line with her. on another note, didn't make it to the gym last night since i decided to be sick to my tummy all day yesterday. all i had to eat all day yesterday was a cup of oatmeal, some cranberries, and a bowl of chicken broth/noodles last night. here's hoping today is a better day for my tummy.
10:41 - yay, she's in!!! as posted on her hubby's site: Elvis has entered the building...err that should be Rachel. Well after waiting in line outside for about 4 hours, she is finally inside the convention center to wait til tomorrow to audition for American Idol. If any of you wish to visit her, think again, apparently they are not letting people enter. Call her first, as things may change. I'll post updates as I get them.
this is so exciting! :-Þ
tuesday - 24august2004 - 08:59
four days, you would think that i would have something for my husband's birthday by now. i'm a terrible wife, i guess. tomorrow my cousin starts standing in line for her american idol audition! everyone think happy thoughts in her general direction (and if you're in the area of the convention center, it wouldn't hurt to stop and offer a pee break. :-D over the weekend, we went to wedowee for a family reunion gig for gma holloway. i think she really enjoyed seeing everyone. and most everyone came. it was a nice time and i was happy to see her smiling. i'm very glad that randal's family likes me and is so accepting of me, almost makes up for the certain member of my own family who seems to want nothing to do with me. we left wedowee sunday morning and stopped at six flags for a little "us-time" and fun. we had a great time. there were virtually no lines so we got to ride every roller coaster that we wanted to at least once. we even got to ride superman, which i have decided is my favorite but randal still likes batman better. superman was pretty cool because you actually ride it on your belly with your legs and arms just hanging down. it was very disconcerting when it started because you're just staring straight at the ground way below you, but it was an awesome ride. there's one inside loop that just blows you away. batman is the second best though. and then scorcher. we went grocery shopping on the way home so we have a bit of food in the house now. yesterday, we started back at the gym. i was surprised by how easy the cardio was, i figured after all this time that the elliptical would just beat me up but it was actually pretty easy. we did cardio, legs, and abs. tonight we'll go again. here's hoping that we can do good this time and that perhaps i'll see a difference. it's just so depressing looking in a mirror.
thursday - 19august2004 - 08:59
have you ever known someone who you just never would have thought would ever be a parent? not because they are a bad or irresponsible person but just because they don't have that nurturing vibe? i just had a huge shock to hear that someone i know had a baby back in april. someone who NEVER would have struck me as the mommy-type. i mean, don't get me wrong, i think it's wonderful and i'm happy for her, but wow. i've been emailing with her for a while again and she just happened to make a comment yesterday about how she was going nuts with school being out (for charley) because bryce just wanted her to hold him constantly and he's crawling now and it's going to be a mess when he's walking. i emailed her back with a big WHO'S BRYCE?? and got hee hee, did i forget to tell you i had a baby? how funny. jenny's gonna freak out over this. i called last night to check on my brother. he said they were hit pretty hard. still no power, of course. but still planning on coming up in two weeks so that's good. julie actually already has reservations for everything and a big itinerary. she's a funny traveler. lol. anyhow, we started getting the house straightened/cleaned up last night, which is good since we've got two weeks until it neticeds to be clean for visitors.
wednesday - 18august2004 - 10:07
on the way home last night, we stopped and bought a chisel to break up some tiles with. my husband has been building quite the tool collection lately. almost makes me not feel so bad about the fact that i haven't even thought about what to get him for his birthday next week. he's so difficult to buy for. so when we got home, he got to work chiseling up those two tiles in front of the dishwasher. i started laundry and dinner (mmmmlasagna). he cut and laid two new tiles. i did three loads of laundry. it's very exciting to have some clean clothes to choose from again. although it would have been impressive to put it off another week so that we could say it had been two full months since we last did a load of laundry. i'm just so pleased that my wardrobe has grown so much that i can go 1.75 months without doing laundry. granted, it wasn't all that nice - what with the digging out clothes that i never wear and having to buy some new socks and such - but impressive nonetheless. never heard anything from my mom or jonna yesterday so i assume the power is still out for both of them. my dad went to back to the dr yesterday to get blood drawn so they could see if it has thinned out enough yet. it has not. he goes back again next week. i asked him how he was doing with the subject that we are not to discuss with him and he said it was going good. i suppose i can only assume that he is being honest with me and has not had a cigarette. i would be so proud. i need to call my brother and make sure that he and his friends are still planning on coming up in two weeks (heck, it may depend on whether they have power by then or not). also curious about whether my cousin's american idol audition is going to be affected by all of this. i hope not, i'm very much looking forward to her being my next american idol. :-D my dad just im-ed me to let me know that jonna's power came on in the middle of the night last night. i'm glad. but i called mom and still nothing there. hopefully soon. alright, time to work now.
tuesday - 17august2004 - 11:07
well, i think yesterday's rant gets the award for my longest rant to date. the update is that my dad and rachel have power but my mom, sister, and brother are still out. i talked with jonna a little last night and she said they're talking about having power back by the 21st. the kids won't go back to school till the 24th. i told her again that she was more than welcome to load them up and come visit. i know it's a long drive, but they could go play in the mountains or go to wedowee with us this weekend to play with the goats. i'm sure she'll accept one of her closer friends'/relatives' offers, and i hope she does, it's too hard on the kids to be in a powerless house. my dad went back to the doctor this morning so that they could take more blood. poor guy isn't going to have any blood left. katie (who is also with power again) emailed me this morning to let me know that on their first good night of air conditioned sleep, she was pleased to be awoken by a loud foreign caller at 0400. she asked that i post his number, and i probably should, but i have better manners than these dipwads who don't check the number before calling in the wee morning hours. stupid people. that's all the updates i have right now. oh, i almost forgot. that stupid friggin tile. turns out that someone (not me) accidentally made some incorrect measures around the dishwasher and is going to have to take two tiles back up and relay them. stupid friggin tiling just never ends!!!
monday - 16august2004 - 16:03
what a dramatic weekend!!! we drove down wednesday night after work, arriving at my sister's around 0200. we got up in the morning thursday and worked, i left around noon for the hospital where my dad was getting ready to have the TEE procedure done. i met up with rhena out in front of the hospital and we went in together. my dad was very surprised and ticked (read: ecstatic) to see that i had driven all the way down to be with him. we sat around and talked a bit before they came to take him down to pre-op. they allowed rhena and i to stay with him until they were ready to take him into the operating area, at which time we were asked to wait in the pre-op waiting area. we sat and talked about him for a while until the surgeon came out to tell rhena that everything had gone fine and that there were no blood clots (very good thing) but that the upper chamber was still beating irregularly. he said that they were going to put him on the schedule to have his heart shocked (cardioversion) back into sync. he told us that my dad would be awake and back in his room in about an hour, so rhena and i went to the cafeteria and grabbed a bite of lunch (which was wonderful since we had gotten in at 0200 and had not really had anything to eat for breakfast because jonna was out shopping to feed us). we went back up and i visited with my dad a little while longer and made sure that he was feeling alright before i headed back to jonna's to finish working for the day. by that time, the tampa/sarasota area had apparently been told to evacuate for hurricane charley and some friends of jonna's were on their way to stay with us. they got there that night with their two kids and the five kids played and the six adults talked and socialized till bedtime.
friday morning, we (my sister, my husband, and i) decided to go to the hospital early in order to avoid being on the roads when the hurricane-related storms started. we got there shortly before they wheeled him out for his cardioversion. they told us that they would shock him no more than twice. when the surgeon came out to speak with us, he informed us that they had shocked him twice with no results, medicated him, waited a few moments to let the meds do something, then shocked him twice more. it didn't work. after four shocks to the heart, it was still not beating together. the dr explained to us that they would put him on medications that would hopefully help to correct it and, if not, they would try shocking again in a couple of weeks. then he said what we were all waiting to hear: "he MUST stop smoking. he CANNOT drink." he was very seriously stressing this to us, we told him he needed to tell dad himself since he wouldn't listen to us. it was getting late and rhena still was not there but we needed to get back on the road before the weather came. we felt bad but we left before he got back to his room (later found out rhena was up there all along). when we got home, we were greeted with news about charley - he was headed straight for us. randal and i got back to work for the rest of the day, intermittently checking for charley updates. sometime during the afternoon, it was confirmed that he was making a turn for orlando and that he had become a category 4 hurricane (140mph-155mph sustained). jonna's sarasota friends were relieved to find out that it would likely not be hitting their home, but then they found out that it would be landing around ft meyers where her father lives. the first storms from outer bands hit us somewhere in the 3 o'clock hour. they were pretty impressive appetizers, albeit short and calm between. around 1930 (after the kiddies were all asleep), it started getting a bit ominous outside and we realized that we had better make up the mudslides before the power went out and the blender was no longer operational. during the 8 o'clock hour, the power surged several times, apparently scared by the howling winds and thundering rains. at 2102, they announced that charley would be hitting our area at 2107. at 2103 (after standing on the back patio and watching several flashes of bright blue followed by a large flash of red) , the power surrendered. it was very appropriate that just as the really bad part started, we were in the dark. the lightening was lighting up the sky in green and blue neon bursts. i've never seen anything like that. we watched a very large something (later discovered to be a solar panel) fly off the house across the street, fly well over the house next to it, and disappear into the distance. after watching the front window bow in and shake and drip rain down the wall from the winds blowing straight at it, we spent most of the storm out on the back patio. it was really indescribable - the roaring of the fierce winds, the light show, the permeating smell of fresh earth and trees. it was the most exciting and humbling experience i have ever had in my life. and when it was over, all that remained was an eerie quiet and stillness as we went walking around outside to investigate. i tried to no avail to check on my mom and cousin and then, around 2315, we were worn out enough to climb up to our stifling, dark room and go to bed (at which time rach called to let me know that they were fine). it was a restless, sticky night after all of that excitement.
saturday morning, we got out and walked around to survey the damage. jonna and jim were very fortunate (as was their whole neigborhood - the only new one in the area - really). there were shingles all over their yard but it did not appear that a single one of them was from their own roof. their little three year old oak was down in the front yard but was too small to reach the house and they were able to put it back up with some 2x4s for bracing. half of the gate was broken down and the side fence was leaning quite a bit, but that was about it. very lucky. we walked around their neighborhood a bit, and the out onto the main road where we found that all the power lines all along the road were snapped in half and laying in backyards. that made hopes of a speedy power-resurrection fly away. it was very intimidating walking under the power lines that were just laying across the entrance walls (3 feet of clearance perhaps?). there were also sections where the power lines had fallen back into a backyard and just took the brick wall with them. we walked up the road and around some of the neighboring subdivisions. that's when we discovered how truly fortunate they were. the neighborhood next to them, with much older trees and homes, sustained considerably more damage. trees that just ripped the sidewalk/road up with them. trees that took pieces of house/car with them. trees that were making the roads impassable to cars and barely passable on foot. roofs exposed down to the framing. it was quite humbling. we got all good and hot walking around and then went back to the house for some ice cream soup breakfast, eaten of course out on the back patio in the "air conditioning". amazingly, the newspaper was delivered and we found out what exactly we were hit with. turns out that orlando international airport (like 2 miles from my sister's house) recorded sustained winds of 90mph and gusts of 105mph. we didn't doubt it. the kids swam for a while the adults conversed and then we all headed over to jonna's inlaws' to help dig them out (highly treed property). as we drove down the heavily debried road, we surveyed the magnitude of the damage all around us. it was incredible. we spent just about all day saturday cutting trees and limbs and making piles out of the way. they had at least one limb through their roof and a few more laying on it and the pool screen. it was a mess. by the end of the day we had gotten it to where they could walk out of their driveway, but they still couldn't get a vehicle in/out it. we went back to jonna's and cooked all of the chicken they had on the grill. dinner consisted of grilled chicken, cheese and crackers, and grapes, with semi-warm milk. the kids went to bed (such a long and tiring day for them). us four adults lit some candles and got out some games. we taught jonna and jim to play dominoes. it was a good time. about halfway through the game, the smell of the cinnabon candle made jim and randal hungry so we started eating butterfingers, snickers, and reeces sticks, with caprisun juice bags to wash it all down. randal made the observance that we were doing exactly what the kids thought adults do when they go to bed - play games, eat candy, and drink their juice bags. it was a very amusing observance. after dominoes, it was uno attacko (minus the attacko due to lack of batteries). when we grew weary of that, randal and i went out to the car to get our air mattress and we set up camp in the breakfast nook, with all the windows and porch doors open. it was a lot cooler than upstairs.
not sure what wee hour of the morning it was, i wasn't quite willing to be awake enough to open my eyes, so i just heard him, randal said he woke to see him standing fiercly with a broom, in any case i think jim went nuts. apparently butter (the former homeowners' cat that likes to come back for a visit every so often) had snuck into the house again and jim was chasing butter around with a broom in one hand and a squirt bottle in the other. i think the heat is driving him mad. slightly later in the morning, i heard wee little voices whispering in the kitchen "why are they sleeping on the kitchen floor?" and other such good questions. i chose to ignore the whispers and attempt to stay asleep. eventually, though, we did go ahead and get up. i called and checked on my dad, who had high hopes that today was his day to go home. we cooked up all of the eggs and bacon on the grill and feasted like lumberjacks. we then all piled into our separate vehicles to head over to my mom's and check on her. we were hoping to find a working gas station on the way since we were on E. OMG! traffic was an absolute nightmare. nearly all of the traffic lights were out (on major roads like 436 and 50, which we all know have nightmare intersections even when the lights are functioning). turns out that virtually no one knows how an intersection works when the lights are out of service. it was insane. people were just playing chicken through the intersections. i am firmly of the belief that this was the fault of law enforcement. they should have had every radio station playing a psa every ten minutes telling people that are out driving that if they come up on an intersection with a non-functional traffic light, they need to treat it like a 4-way stop. this would have been as important, if not more, than all of the insurance psa's that were playing constantly. anyhow, we had no luck finding gas along the way but we did hear on the radio that alafaya had power and gas stations so we headed that way before going to my mom's. a drive that normally takes 20 minutes max (from jonna's to alafaya) took us 2 hours! i just cannot adequately explain how insane it was. when we finally got to the alafaya area and picked a gas station to wait in line for, jonna and i took the kids into publix to get them out of the car for a little while. we picked up some lunch and cold drinks and some non-perishables for them to eat for the next few days. when we walked back to the gas station (an hour and a half later) randal was just finishing at the pump ($15 limit on the gas) and jim was two cars behind him in line. we went ahead and headed towards my mom's taking some less traveled back roads to avoid more insanity. we got to mom's and surveyed the house. that whole side of town sustained very little damage compared to jonna's. mom's house was pretty much fine. a little roof damage in the back but nothing extreme and no leakage. our neighbors across the street really seemed to get the worse of it. they lost their huge tree in the front and nearly all of their shingles. he was tarping when we got there. when jonna and jim finally got there, we ate lunch and visited a little and then randal and i headed to the hospital in kissimmee while jonna and jim took the kids home to get them some car-reprieve. it really didn't take too long to get to kissimee because we took toll roads (tolls suspended) and interstates. when we got to the hospital, storms were rolling in so we went up and visited with my dad a while and watched the rain. we tried to update him on what little we knew since they had no tv or newspapers there. he said that the doctor might release him but he was just waiting to see him. at 1600 they ended visiting hours and we headed for his house to make some repairs for him so that he wouldn't have to deal with them when he got home. there may not have been any gas stations along the way, but krispy kreme was open! we did our part to help them with their inventory. as soon as we pulled up to the house, rhena got a call from him saying he was getting out. if they had let him know that 20 minutes earlier, we could have just brought him with us. silly doctors. we waited at the house for the rain (more importantly, the lighting) to let up while rhena went to get him. they had power so it was nice and refreshing to sit in ac and drink cold water and surf the internet. the storms were just letting up when she finally returned with him. he directed as randal repaired the roof and such. we walked the street a little bit to see the damage his neighbors sustained (they weren't near as fortunate as he was). two homes down a tree had split the house (mobile home) all the way down the center. it actually went right down the middle of the headboard - very lucky the owner had evacuated. the home was now condemned. very sad. we stuck around to visit a little and ordered some pizza for dinner. around 2100, we left to go back to jonna's and pack up our stuff, we thanked them for everything, reminded them that they were more than welcome to come along, and were on the road by 2200. we were very much concerned by the lack of gas stations and we were dubious about having enough to make it to ocala. luckily, our old gas station, next to our apartment on kirkman/metrowest, was not only operational, but also had no lines at all. we were relieved to be able to fill up before leaving town. it was a long long night. luckily, we had the air mattress in the back of the xterra so we were able to take turns sleeping pretty well but we were just too tired and had to pull over for a couple hours so we could both sleep anyhow. we pulled up to the house at 0800 this morning, showered, changed clothes, and got to work at 0845. it's been such a dead tired day. but i'm not complaining. at least i have air and lights and cold water. i feel so bad leaving all of my loved ones there.
wednesday - 11august2004 - 08:56
my dad's had a cold for the last several days and i knew from im-ing with him that he had a doctor's appointment yesterday in order to get some meds to help break up the cold. so when i received an im from his wife at 15:52 (time she sent it, i didn't see it till 16:19) yesterday afternoon saying that he was being rushed by ambulance from the doctor's to the hospital, rapid/abnormal heart rate, i got very concerned. this is the first experience i've had with a parental unit facing a potentially serious health crisis. i waited around for rhena to call me and give me an update or at least some more details and as much as i told myself that it was nothing, i was very much scared. i tried to call my sister (knowing full well that i'd only get voice mail - just as well since i didn't really have any details and couldn't give her a very good idea of what had haned/was happening) and i im-ed my cousin because a] i knew she would care to know, being fond of my father, and b] i needed to let someone know how scared i was. about two hours after the original, alarming im i called around and found the hospital he was at and convinced them to let me speak with him (still in the emergency room). he said he was fine. he was ticked at rhena that she told me, which i'm sure mans he'll be ticked at me for telling jonna and rach. oh well. he said he was at the doctor's office, attempting to get meds for the cold, when they decided to do an ekg just for the sake of doing it. apparently, the doctor came back in with another doctor and asked if he was having any chest pain or anything to which he replied that he had not. they then informed him that they had called an ambulance and they were sending him to the emergency room. this, of course, alarmed him. in any case, the long and short of it is that by doing that arbitrary ekg, they apparently caught what was to be a probable stroke early enough to avoid damage. now i didn't know this, but rachel found out from her dad (his brother) that strokes actually run on his side of the family. good thing to know. so they're keeping him 24-48 hours for observation/testing but there is "no cause for alarm". rhena said it shook her up pretty good. and i know it scared me. i'm too young to have anything happen to my parents. a co-worker has recently (the last month) been dealing with his father being diagnosed with stage 4 lung and brain cancer (seven malignant tumors on the brain alone) that is inoperable. it's been a very worrisome ordeal for him and we've all sympathized. his dad is the same age as randal's dad, a year younger than mine. i'm just so relieved that he is alright. i hope that he got scared enough to perhaps start living a healthier life (read: quit smoking, start exercising, eat healthier). we'll see.
13:31 - update: what they've found is that the lower chambers of his heart are working fine, but the upper chambers are working slow (possible blood clots). this is causing the irregular heart rate and the lower chambers speed up at times to compensate. he could've lived with it for some time and not even known it, but it would most likely have led to a stroke so it was fortunate that they happened to catch it. for now, he's fine and they caught it good and early. he has elected to undergo a scope procedure (transesophegeal echocardiogram?) tomorrow. i am considering driving down tonight just to be there.
monday - 9august2004 - 09:45
i'm very pleased to announce that we finally got a couple days of relaxation. it was so nice. i slept in both saturday and sunday. randal slept in a bit (pretty late for him) saturday and then he got up and headed outside to dig a 60 foot trench across our neighbors' yard in which to bury some drainage pipe. our neighbor has a lot of water problems with his yard, mostly because whoever built his house did not grade his yard correctly, but also because our yard is higher than his and when we have a lot of rain, ours may pour over onto his. we've done about everything we can on our part to help him, this drainage pipe should be the end of it. it took him about 5 back-breaking hours, but he got it all done. i helped him some and when we (read: he) were all finished, we got cleaned up and headed over to beth/jeremy's to babysit. we actually went over a little early since they had had a lightening strike which blew out their garage door opener and randal was going to help replace it. i did my part by helping beth go shopping at kohl's. i got a cute little white dress for $3 and then i picked up some little christmas gifts (go me getting a head start for the first time ever). when beth and jeremy left, we played with the kids downstairs for a little while and then went back upstairs to call for pizza (about the one food that both kids eat without argument). we sat and watched shrek, pausing it for dinner once it arrived and then finished watching it. by then, it was already getting dark out so we made a deal with the kids that they could stay downstairs for another movie if they put their pj's on and they had to lay down the whole movie. jacob, who gave a little fuss over putting on pj's (easily solved by taking him up to his room and telling him that he had the choice to either put on his pj's or stay in his room for the remainder of the night), fell asleep in the first five minutes of finding nemo. i fed isabella some carrots and some white mush at the start of the movie and after cleaning her up (boy can she wear carrots well), she fell asleep too. emily, on the other hand, made it through all of nemo and about a quarter of the way through secondhand lions. finally, she crawled up on the couch with me, got all good and snuggled in, and turned on a chain saw. my goodness, for such a tiny little thing, that girl can sure snore! lol. beth and jeremy got home a little more than halfway through secondhand lions so we stuck around to watch the rest of it. we got home around 0215 and crashed. we both slept in a little sunday morning and then spent the remainder of the day holding down the couch and taking intermittent naps. it was a great day! it's really just been so long. we considered scrubbing the stupid tile in the laundry room so that we could at least get to the point of having a washer/dryer again, but alas, 'twas not in the stars. perhaps tonight.
friday - 6august2004 - 10:30
i am firmly of the opinion that if you are making a phone call anytime between the hours of 21:00 and 08:00 you should double check the number and dial very carefully. it irks me to no end when i get a wrong number call at an unreasonable hour. 02:00 i am awoken to the incessant ringing of the phone that i had only decided to bring in by the bed last night because the power had apparently gone out yesterday and i needed it to set the clock. i try to ignore it but it insists on my attention. i roll over and sleepily open one eye just enough to see the offensive, red, glowing 02:00 staring at me. i reach over and start fumbling around trying to locate the phone with as little effort as possible. i barely process that it is a 415 area code (which turns out to be san fran) and, therefore, most likely not anyone i actually know. i answer to find a woman who does not speak the least bit of english jabbering at me as though it's 2 in the afternoon. i tell her once she's got the wrong number. she jabbers more vehemently. i tell her twice she's got the wrong number. she jabbers with more agitation. i tell her it's freaking 2 am and hang up. stupid friggin people not checking their numbers when they make phone calls! my hubby rolls over, says those phone calls (middle of the night) always scare him because he expects it to be some awful news and he's sounds asleep again. i hate that about him! me, i'm up for another hour or so trying to get back to sleep and seething at the stupid friggin people who are not more careful in their late-night phone calling. stupid friggin people. if i weren't such a respectful person, i would post her number and have everyone who reads this call her first thing in the morning (being three hours earlier there) just to bug the heck out of her and maybe teach her to check the friggin number. needless to say, i woke up semi-cranky anyhow. then randal gets up early to go to publix and get some white vinegar because we read that it might help get that stupid friggin grout haze up and he comes back and makes me get out of bed and i find that he used up the last of the deodorant. so i go out to the kitchen where he's trying to de-haze with vinegar and tell him that i'm sure that since he used up all of the deodorant, he must have bought some of that at publix as well. no, i didn't realize we were out. how in the heck do you not realize that there is nothing but plastic left in the deodorant gig?! good things you guys are all pretty far from