Photo of the Week

Living proof that Tara has us trained to retrieve things for her. Frank is probably getting a ball she rolled under there. And don't think for a moment that you are being waited on patiently, she is usually Yipping at you, because you aren't quick enough.

Snippets From Old Journals

Below are some actual things I have written in my real time (not online) journals over the years. I just came across it. Some of it is profound....Some of it is pretty goofy. I think you get to see some aspects of my personality in these that most people don't normally see, like how goofy or how wise I can be! Some of these are nearly 20 years old!!! Holy Moly man!

2/11/98 Procrastination-it’s a terrible thing!

2/11/98 My tummy just made an odd noise, I guess that means its bedtime.

2/13/98 I’m trapped inside myself and I’m screaming to get out.

10/2/2000 Still quite a few very vocal crickets outside. I swear, not only are Long island humans loud and vocal, but so are the crickets. Go figure.

10/31/2000 Being a late bloomer is not a good thing! Unless perhaps you are a flower…

11/7/2000 I’m so tired I feel like I’ve been dragged along a badly paved highway.

11/12/2000 Franks singing Johnny Mathis Christmas songs with an Irish accent.

2/9/2001 Me again (well, who else would it be?). Wouldn’t it be funny if all of a sudden someone else started writing stuff in here? How weird would that be?

11/23/2000 Then Austin Powers was on channel 5 so I watched that. It’s funny to see what they cut out and what they don’t. Like they won’t say penis but they can say testicles and ass. Go figure. Who decides this stuff anyway? And how much do they get paid? (they probably get paid pretty nicely!)

11/28/92 I sit quietly and ponder (Ponder-osa! Imagine that! The word ponder is in ponderosa)

12/8/92 I still think there’s something very mystical and magical about it (snow).

6/10/93 Why must they show cake on tv? Don’t they know I want to lose weight?

7/12/93 I am bored out of my bananas.

2/28/95 Notice everything. Never take anything for granted. Nothing is forever.

2/28/95 Everything is magical-everything has its own spirit, its own energy.

2/28/95 Everything and everyone deserve your respect. Life itself deserves respect.

2/28/95 No matter how old you get, you are always learning and will always make mistakes.

2/28/95 When you feel upset, angry or hurt, find a healthy way to deal with it. Write about it, draw, paint, sing…Find what makes you feel better and let it go.

1/9/94 Everything is all ice outside! Yesterday and today the sun came out and the world sparkled!

4/30/94 Yesterday would have been Mom’s 58th birthday. It’s so sad to me. I miss her so much. I really do still need a Mom around. Who doesn’t?

4/30/94 Even when it rains, everything seems to be practically glowing green, and its so beautiful.

4/19/92 Go Figure! 2+2=4. There I went and figured. Now he’s snickering at his book. Go figure again. Oh alright 4+4=8. There I did it again. I’m so devilishly clever.

4/14/2001 Other times I know the answers but sometimes, like now, they seem long forgotten. I don’t know where they fade away to.

4/14/2001 Lemme ask you a question. If it’s 60 degrees out, why am I cold? There’s a nice little puzzle for you.

4/14/2001 I like the Flintstones! Wilma is painting her walls purple. Barney’s trimming the bushes with a bird. Isn’t this just entertaining?

4/14/2001 Are you asleep yet? Well if you are-wake up! And turn the page to continue reading the melodramatic utterly boring psychotically delusional, possibly aesthetically pleasing details of my mundane, pathologically perplexing, humorless, torturingly average life.

4/15/2001 You know sometimes I have no clue what I am doing. I think/hope that I am doing the right thing and yet, I really have no clue. I think someone needs to clue me in. I wonder how you find someone to do that for you?

4/15/2001 It’s driving me insane trying to write in this absurd little book! (I don’t think I’ve ever ever written the word absurd in any of my journals-ever. Until now. ) Imagine that! Well, you don’t have to imagine that-you are seeing it with your own two eyes! Or are you? Ponder that!

4/22/91 If I seem to be talking oddly today it is because I am writing under one of my alternative identities. Today (tonight) I am the Princess of Purple. I am wearing a Purple shirt, Purple tights, Purple socks and yes! I’ve gone to the extreme! I’ve even Painted my nails a most delightfully, deadly shade of the ever Popular on April 22nd – Purple! P.S. [The Preceding Purple Paranoia has been Presented by a Perfectly Paranormal Personality] P.P.S. Please excuse the Punctuation. P.U.!

7/10/91 I just sprayed an ant with furniture polish!

7/10/91 Pretty sad when there’s nothing to watch except the weather channel.

1/3/91 I just came back from the bathroom. It was an exciting adventure. No, really, it was!

11/17/91 Frank’s eavesdropping on the landlord through the vent on the far side of the bedroom. I thought he hated nosy people! He must be on pretty bad terms with himself then!

11/24/91 We gots 4 fishies today! We luv them! They’s cute!

12/29/91 Hi. We’re both sick. Me especially. I think Franks just mostly tired. That makes us sick and tired. Ha ha ha.

10/7/92 He just made a rude comment about Mr. Brady.

3/14/94 If days were jewels, today would be a diamond!

10/8/96 Nice cozy indoor weather if you ask me. You probably didn’t ask but I am telling you all the same because this is my journal and I’ll write what I want.

10/24/96 Will violence ever stop? How many lives does it have to touch before it stops?

11/18/96 Imagine! Me, in a wedding dress! Will wonders never cease?

12/4/2000 Just skip over those parts if they make you feel uncomfortable! (I know if I was in your shoes I’d be squirming in my seat reading some of the stuff I’ve written!)

5/28/2000 You don’t want to know what he’s looking up. It aint pretty!

6/1/2000 I can’t understand most of the behavior of the whole human race anyway.

6/1/2000 We know so little about animals and surely they know so much more than we do on a soul level. They can see and sense things that we are not in tune to.

6/16/2000 I don’t want to be me anymore. There must be someone better lurking under the surface someplace!

6/16/2000 Life is odd, isn’t it?

6/16/2000 The soul understands far more than the human physical body can comprehend and it’s so difficult –such a struggle to connect the two. The soul stretches upward to all that is good and right, while the body searches around frantically. Dazed and confused, desperate for a direction or an answer. Trying so hard to see what it cannot. Trying to comprehend the un-comprehendable. Trying to see in the dark. Searching for a path in a dense fog. Struggling, trying to do what’s right. Becoming exhausted in the end.

6/26/2000 Now we’re talking about fleas. Delightful conversation.

12/28/93 But just think! This moment in my life will never ever happen ever again!

3/19/99 Let’s take bets. 50 bucks says I don’t finish this book until 2010 and I have 5 kids!

7/12/2000 I feel like I am standing at the bottom of a very steep cliff that I need to climb to the top of to get what I want-and I’m not just standing at the bottom-I’m in quicksand, and it’s pulling me under-but I’m reaching up and looking to the top of that cliff but I’m being dragged under-deeper and deeper…And if I don’t start climbing-no grabbing a hold of that cliff soon I’ll just be dragged under so far I will cease to exist.

7/12/2000 I feel so small, alone and helpless.

8/20/2000 He sure takes a long time to brush. Maybe he’s doing each tooth individually.

9/19/2000 When I have a fairly strong emotion plus time to think I suppose I try to figure our the why’s of it all. Why do I feel this way? Why can’t I just feel happy? Why do I ask so many questions?

9/21/2000 Earlier tonight I felt mysteriously content but now back to feeling crappy!

9/21/2000 Frank said tonight that we are not nearly as corrupt as the rest of the world. I don’t know about that. We can be pretty corrupt sometimes!

9/27/2000 Only a couple of crickets out there now thankfully-the last couple of nights were so cold it sent the majority of the little squeakers packing!

5/17/2001 Just sneezed again-gotta go blow my nose (no wonder it’s called a honker!)

5/17/2001 I’ve been sneezing all day and I tell ya-it’s getting’ old! (This is nothing to sneeze at!)

5/17/2001 This getting older stuff is no fun a’tall!

5/17/2001 I mean, I keep getting older but I’m still waiting to get wiser. Maybe the whole wiser thing just means that you begin to realize just how un-wise you really are!

5/18/2001 What’s PM – is that pre-midnight? And AM is after midnight? Then why does it change at noon? (I guess because it changes again at midnight) But then shouldn’t PM be Before Midnight-to go better with AM (after midnight?) But then it would be AM and BM. BM sounds like bowel movement, that’s no good either. Maybe I’ll just start using military time! That’ll solve that.

6/22/2001 I thought that art, should not be perfect because it’s imperfection is what makes it unique and that’s what makes it art. If you are being creative, you are allowing your soul to play, to express itself, and that alone is pure and perfect so that the art you create shouldn’t be perfect-it should just “be”. It’s a unique expression of your soul-if all art were perfect it wouldn’t be art-it would be perfect-logical. Art and creativity don’t come from the brain as logic does, but from the heart and soul, from the essence of who we are.

7/5/2001 My head is hurting me a bit at the moment. I must be thinking too much.

7/9/2001 I forgot I had started writing this. Sometimes I really wonder where my brain is! Really, sometimes I truly scare myself. I know there’s a brain in there-I just think sometimes someone switches the off switch. Not a happy thing!

7/18/2001 I wish we became wiser at a younger age so that we could understand more. I understand now, but now is too late.

7/22/2001 When we went in-when we drove up to the gates the guy told us to “park at the first castle”-now there’s a phrase you don’t hear every day!

7/23/2001 Monday again! Will Mondays never go away!

7/27/2001 She was the kind of Grandmother who would take you to the store just to get you whatever you wanted. Now that I look back on it, she didn’t have a lot to start off with, so that makes it mean even more.

8/19/2001 I thought it was time for a change of pens. So here’s a change of pens (shall we make a big ceremony of it-like the changing of the guards?)

8/27/2001 Now I’m watching Scooby Doo. I’m just a big kid. What’s Scooby Doo mean anyway?

8/28/2001 Now he put on Lets Make a Deal. Oh the tortures of cable. Sigh. I can’t guess these prices.

8/28/2001 Ah yes- sometimes life can be a slow torture. It’s been quite a torture lately. Yup. Torture, torture, torture.

9/8/2001 Ha! What fools we are! Foolish mortals!

9/8/2001 We had to take my car to get fixed this morning (so it can’t have any baby cars).

9/11/2001 It all felt so out of control and we were all just helpless to watch and do nothing.

9/11/2001 I cried so many times today. Cried for the people in the buildings, cried for those who lost them, cried for the horrific-ness of it all.

9/11/2001 But we cannot ever forget this day. And if we do, a changed skyline is there to forever remind us.

9/11/2001 This has been a horrible, horrible day. So many souls lost. Good people who were loved and who will now be missed.

10/25/89 And on top of that I’m hungry n theres nothing but the gross food in the snack machine and I don’t even know if those oddly foreign substances deserve to be called food! They’re aspiring one day to be disgusting, actually!

12/29/89 We women must suffer from moments of solitary ugliness in order to be prepared for those oh-so-important moments of intense cuteness!

12/31/89 They have courses in “Poultry Sciences”! Imagine that! Majoring in chickens!

5/15/90 I wonder who, if anyone, will go back and read these when I’m dead? What do you suppose they’ll think? Probably that I was an odd, insane lunatic. But that’s not Completely true!

6/10/90 But it seems so much sometimes, and gheez, I’m only human, aren’t I?

2/3/90 I am but a spirit inside a body surrounded by human flesh-my human body is merely a vessel-an imperfect vessel to carry my soul through this life.

2/5/90 What happens when “The Young and the restless” age? Do they become “The old and the restful”?

5/3/90 I’m writing really weird things, like I always do.

5/3/90 I’m afraid to write anything decent in pencil in case some snotty person who might not like me comes along and erases what I write!

5/4/90 Life is such a mess. Life should have a maid. Maybe then it wouldn’t get so messy, ya know?

6/28/90 Where has the innocence of the world and all its people gone. The planet has been corrupted. Polluted by pain, despair and hate.

7/6/90 Exactly why do we laugh anyway? It’s really an odd thing if you think about it. I mean, actually think about it, you’re just sitting there, and something funny happens, and suddenly you let out with this odd noise caused by a happy emotion.

12/14/89 Why do they say “Squeaky clean” anyway?

12/17/89 Money itself is not corrupt and evil,-it is what is done with the money.

1/6/90 The reason outside things affect us so much is because we are drowned in them-we are submerged in our surroundings. And this is not by choice. I know I would much rather float above peacefully and calmly, like a boat on a smooth, sun reflecting ocean, with a soft breeze to keep the air light and cool, and the sun touching gently, warmly on my skin. But alas life is not like that. We must swim, struggle and at times nearly suffocate in order to stay afloat, alive and sane.

1/17/90 I feel as if I’m trapped in the wrong dimension away from the soul my soul was closest to…

1/20/90 I believe that if you really believe in something, then it can actually happen. If you believe in a dream strong enough and long enough and you don’t give up on it-then your dream will become a reality. Even if it takes a lifetime to fulfill.

1/29/90 Why is it that some people only wish to hurt others? By their cruelty, uncaringness, deceit, treachery and hate? I do not understand this. Yet, deep inside, all people wish to be loved.

1/29/90 Smile and you smile alone, cry and you blow your nose-people stay away.

1/29/90 Life is a dream we all must act out. I would prefer to make mine a comedy if I could. I do try, but alas it is very difficult…

1/29/90 Imagine-all human beings are made up of billions and billions of tiny little cells put together in such a way that they create a living, breathing human being.

9/13/01 There, on the screen was a huge pile of stone and metal and dust-that used to be the two tallest buildings in Manhattan. And on top of them dressed in black were the firefighters and police officers trying to rescue people. My first thought was that they looked like ants on an anthill. Just swarming about. And then I thought “Oh God-how will they ever find anyone?!” and I cried looking at it all.

9/13/01 I am heartbroken-for everyone-especially for the families who lost-children who’s parents are gone, people who lost a spouse, a sibling, a friend. Parents who lost children…It’s just too much for a heart to bear. My soul just wants to scream in anguish and pain.

9/26/01 Isn’t it odd, how, even amidst horrific events, life just keeps plugging forward and there’s no willing it to stop? It kind of just forces you to keep moving through the days and weeks, whether you want to or not.

9/26/01 I don’t think I ever, in my life, laid eyes on the city without saying “Look theres the twin towers!” Now-next time I see the city-what will I say? “Look- how sad…”It’s gone from a happy exciting beautiful sight-to a sad reminder of a day when thousands of souls left the planet.

11/24/01 Every person reads a poem and sees it differently.

11/28/01 Something good has to happen at some point, doesn’t it?

12/9/01 Frank says I shouldn’t trip over the heater. Thanks. Like I’ll remember that if I get up in the middle of the night. Again. He just told me “Now don’t walk into this, you understand?” Practical advice. Nice.

12/12/01 Shoot wait I calculated wrong again. I’m such a bonehead.

12/14/01 Frank says isn’t it funny how we all have our little belongings? I guess it is kind of cool if you think about it. How we go through life on earth and just collect stuff-and odd little stuff like notes and such. And we keep them for some odd reason. Wonder what the logic of it all is?

12/26/01 And how I love my rug. Yes, I love a rug.

12/30/01 How has life changed? Well to me it re-emphasized how suddenly life can change, end…how quickly you can lose someone you love-they are here then suddenly gone-taken from you.

12/30/01 You can never get the images out of your head. The first plane seemed like a freak accident but when the second plane hit you suddenly realized there was no accident, and that something was terribly terribly wrong.

12/30/01 People said goodbye to each other that Tuesday morning like every other Tuesday morning never knowing that it would be the last Tuesday.

1/7/2002 This pen writes lovely and smooth. I do believe I am enamored with it!

3/2/2002 Then we went to Petco and I let Sumner lead me around all over-he went to look at the rats and five of them came over to the glass to look back at him! Makes you wonder what animals are thinking!

3/11/2002 They have two towers of light where the towers stood and they’re just beautiful. I imagine that if, on that tragic day, you could have seen all those souls leaving this world, it might have looked similar to those lights that are there now, shining up to the heavens.

3/31/2002 You can’t kill a Leo. Well- I guess eventually.

4/13/2002 I wish everyone could just live peacefully and be done with it. Is it really so difficult? I guess that’s humans for you. Honestly, humans are NOT the most intelligent species. (I’ll give dolphins that title, in my opinion) Humans are merely the most complex species (being complex does not make you smart!).

5/10/2002 Just me, nobody exciting. They should put that on my tombstone when I die.

5/17/2002 You know, orphans like me-they always seem to have some kind of wonderful amazing story. What’s my story? And what’s so wonderful and amazing about it?

5/17/2002 How come there are no female game show hosts? These are the sort of things I wonder about.

Pictures from this Afternoon

Click the pictures to see them bigger.




Blogger is giving me errors trying to upload there but only a few more regular size... :)

Here she comes! here comes trouble! (what a puppyface!!!!!!)

Old Gold laying in the sun

Young trouble laying in the sun!

daddyyyyyyyyy Pick me up!
Yes, she always gets what she wants! Well, most of the time anyway!

You've Heard of Dora the Explorer?

Meet Tara the Explorer! ( we have no happy news still, I don't think this deal is going well so I've busied myself with some pictures and a silent movie of Miss Tee...enjoy.)


It's a big scary yard out there....


*Someone* needs to chase away the squirrels!!!!


This next pic is really cute, I think I need to make prints. :) Who wants one???? :)


What! You want to go in already???? "Hey Mom you gonna open the door or what?"



But not before I captured a video, no sound since it is from my still camera. I'm not fancy enough to have a digital video camera and the webcam doesn't reach! :) But here is Miss Tee in action! What a cutie!!!

Just, Pondering

Looking at the two feathers I found eons ago, and have pinned up on the wall by my desk here... if I could just pin them on me and up and fly away, oh how I would.

We still have no news but the plan is, since it has been the 7-10 days for the buyer to secure his commitment (we accepted the offer on 2/7, how ridiculously long has this been????), if we don't hear anything today (and I keep checking our messages at home, only to hear our snooty answering machine say "NO new messages!" with emphasis on the NO. If you could hear our answering machine, there REALLY is emphasis on the no. Like it's telling you "what? Are you kidding??? Who would call YOU???" Which is about right because about the ONLY person who ever calls me is Denise, bless her. I never hear from anyone else, or any of my many siblings. I am the first to admit how BAD I am about getting on the phone, cause I do get VERY nervous, but I AM very good about sending cards and little hello's and such...but I don't get much of anything back. Not that that is the reason for doing it. Guess I am just PMSing and feeling that profound loneliness I sometimes feel. Sometimes at night I just lay on the bed and wish SOMEONE would be thinking of me and call...) (but I digress!!!!)...if we don't hear anything today, then Frank will call tonight when he gets home and hopefully we will know where we stand. Truly all this stress and wondering is making me ill. I just want to sleep all the time, both of us do. We are just depressed at this point I guess.

That was more than I meant to say.

Work stinks, of course. I was thinking about it last night. Sometimes at a job, you have to do work you don't like, and other times at a job, you have to work with or for people you don't like. I have both at this job. There is no, "well, I hate the work, but the people are great" or "well, I'm not crazy about the people I work with, but I love the work that I do". Nope, none of that. There is no balancing out the yucky here.

I'm wearing my LiMBO (Little Memphis Blues Orchestra) tshirt for good luck today. It's the one Taylor's best friend Dean gave me back in August. I thought just *maybe* it would hold some positive energy for me!!!

Yup, just jumping from random thought to random thought. Maybe I should put my grand central tag up on here, I think that calls the other person back and connects them to me for free, so I guess people can call me for free. I'll have to try that out. Maybe the problem is people are tight on cash. See how I think of you guys? lol I know you are thinking now, yeah but then you might have weirdos calling, but GC lets me screen the calls, so only the people I actually *want* to talk to get through.

Oh that accident yesterday was right at the spot where I try to pull out and you have to floor it to get out on that street (residential street as I said) I realized it when I went past later and you could see where it was. I go slightly different routes on the way here than on the way back, and I do that pull out on the way home so I realized it then. Bad driving situation around here, really. Very bad. Can I move now?

I am writing this in little intervals, you should know. In between work.

If you are getting this via email, as many of my regular readers do, you should bear in mind I am always updating the blog itself, so there are always different things to see and read on the blog, besides of course, just the blog entries, and also the scheduled posts, like photo of the week, that I don't get in email like the ones I post regular. There was an automated photo of the week post yesterday.

Ok, enough of my boring babble for now. Just feeling a bit lonely I suppose. Once the hormones shift again I'll go back to being OK being alone so much. Right now though, it's not my favorite thing.

Photo of the Week

Some people ask me if I have always loved animals.....



Well, yes. There's me with my first dog who my parents badly named "Stranger" (which I hated....at the time I thought "Lassie" would do.), ANYTHING is better than naming a dog a noun. eeew.

I Thought...I Should Post

Just still feeling a bit down, STILL waiting for news. We suppose there should be something definitive either today or tomorrow. Either the house sale will be going through and we move forward, or it will not, and we return to square one, with some changes. This is VERY draining, VERY stressful, VERY trying. It is normally, but the way the housing market it, well, it's just evil. I don't know how much more I can take. It's been over five weeks since we accepted the offer and we STILL aren't in contract.
The holiday was alright. I ate a couple of things I shouldn't have, and neither of them were worth it. I paid the price dearly yesterday. To say it had my body in a tailspin would be such an understatement! Now that I rarely eat any dairy, I can REALLY feel it when I do. You'd have thought someone gave me a very strong sedative. I didn't have a significant amount of dairy, but I guess the small amount was enough to do it. I even brought my own food because my mother in law made Ravioli for dinner, and so the two little treats I had were enough to send me over the edge. Eww. And what are they opening on our corner? A Carvel. Well, just torture me more. Sick sick sick. Hmph. Gosh I miss good pizza and ice cream. My two favorite foods and I can no longer eat them. Deep, heavy sigh....
So here I sit, sneaking in from work, feeling like a...glob. We need some good news, SOON. Just something to boost us up a bit. I'm so worn out at the moment. Just keeping myself going with thoughts of a cute new place, and a whole new lifestyle, and eventual trips to places like the Tennessee mountains, and New Orleans, and Crystal and Amethyst mining in Georgia....trips to Savannah, and cruises...seeing different places.....all things we want to try and do once we get out of HERE.
Everything from Orlando will be a fun road trip-you just get out and drive! If you don't know what it's like to try and drive out of Long Island, you can't possibly understand why I feel so trapped here. It is a battle and it costs an arm and a leg just to get in and out of the island and NYC. (one bridge for example has a toll of ten dollars now, though I heard depending on what time you cross the bridge it might cost more....and add a bunch of tolls like that together, coupled with stressful driving....it's impossible!!!!)
do mostly back roads coming to and from work and it's like a war zone in those back roads!!!! I saw a bad accident on one today coming in to work, a car had hit another car and the car that got hit was pinned and crunched between the other car and a tree (in someones yard), and all I could think of was HOW did they get THERE? and HOW FAST were they going on a back road????? Seriously, I have to "punch it" to pull out on some of these back roads because everyone drives so fast and aggressive. Is it like this everywhere? Maybe it is and I just don't know! It's crazy!!!!

So I dream of traveling to different places and just enjoying and relaxing and seeing different places which I have never gotten to do. EVER. Someday....

Afternoon

Clickable to enlarge

Just took these for Renee

But thought they are cute enough to post here, one can never have enough puppy pictures! Miss Tee! (and her bad haircut. lol and my messy bed....and the books I am reading) (or some of them anyway)

Up Early with Nothing to Say

Couldn't fall back asleep after Frank left, so I got up and looked online for some pictures of another condo we found that we are intrigued by. If *only* we could get this contract signed and sealed, we could move forward. We feel so stuck right now and in limbo. It's no fun.

Not really anything to say, it is a VERY dark and rainy morning. I don't have any lights on in here and it is tough to see the keyboard, having only the light of the computer. I don't mind the rain though, it makes it difficult to wake up properly, and the heat at work is broken in my area of the building (lucky me!) so I will probably freeze even more today than yesterday, as there is no sun to let in to even warm the office up a little bit. Someone is supposed to be coming to fix it, they were supposed to come yesterday but I don't think anyone ever came. I guess I will just layer to stay warm. Can't wait to get out of that place once and for all. It doesn't get any better there by the day.

Nothing much to say, as I mentioned...don't know why I even blogged, just for the sake of blogging I suppose. I keep thinking it is Friday and it's only Wednesday. I hate that.