Today it is raining and dreary. I feel like it's rainy and dreary inside my brain. Today I find myself a little more disappointed in humanity. I'm on my way to the school as the only volunteer out of 400 students parents. I often wonder what goes through people's minds when they're complaing about school activities being stopped. Field trips costing more.  Railing against holiday fundraising efforts.  Do they rrally think that last field trip was expensive at seven dollars out of their pockets?  I sure hope not.  Admission to a zoo or museum is more than that, even for children's rates.  How much did diesel fuel cost the last time you looked.  Bet its cheap to take three buses from podunk into the city for a little enrichment.  Disappointed that the kids get no year book or carnival this year?  Who can you blame?  Ah yes, the five whole members of the p.t.o., who spend every extra minute trying to make your kids' school career a little more great.  The five people who work tirelessly to make a dollar out of fifteen cents, who don't have the money or time but find it somehow.  The people who spend more than they have on said fundraiser, so that your kids don't have to pay full price, and their pare ts are blissfully ignorant of what that price would actually be if they had to pay.  Pay attention to what's important. Do the right thing firat.  I'm sick of hearing I'm sorry later.  Its a cop out.

nothing

You stopped coming to the window.  I stopped waiting. She said with what looked like the last of her emotion. After all those years sitting on the precipice, it was like time went forward only on the surface.   The little girl looked grown, old and worn, but that's the rub.  She was still just a scared little girl.

Adventures of Panda

aug 23 - aug 25 2011

Life is fleeting. For some, people waltz in and out of our lives, often not even noticed. For me, everyone who drifts through my existence leaves an imprint. Sometimes short vignettes buried deep in my subconscious. There are many that span years as fixtures of some sort. In whatever way though, they are there. They are present, and they are pieces of me. If nothing else, I am quite proud to be an amalgamation of everyone I've ever met. But I'm drifting off topic.
The thing about people, and their role in our lives, is often based on their entry and exit, (if it applies). Some pass through quickly and unnoticed. Some stick around for a while. Many come and go amicably. And then there is death. That fucking whore comes for everyone. Death is by far the worst of the departures. it is final, and it is always resolute in its tidings. There are two types. Sudden, and drawn out. Some say one is worse than the other. Those people, I have no doubt, have only suffered one kind. When someone passes over a long period of time, it is said that you have time to say your goodbyes, prepare yourself, etc.. You will never be prepared. It's finality will astound you each and every time. A sudden death does leave you feeling as if there were some last words you should/could/would have said. But it affords you the courtesy of not watching a loved on suffer, or the almost waiting for the heartache feeling. Either way, it is never fun. The better memory you are cursed with, is all the more memories you can recall. Happy memories of giggles and mischief, only to remember that you will make no more. And the more you dwell on that, the more will flood over you. Times long forgotten, twenty years passed. Meeting as children, living through each other's firsts of all sorts, shows and friends and good times, teenage heart aches and daydreaming of the future. Transitioning into adults. But all too often, it means long periods of silence. Reconnects. Re-disconnects. Re-re-connects. Re-re-disconnects. They last too long. Sometimes you don't get a chance to speak ever again. Last loving words of an electronic mail, all you're left with.
Death is worse than hatred. There is always a chance at moving on, and growing as a human, even forgiveness, from hatred. Death leaves us with no recourse. What you had is just that. Forever locked in the past tense. And all you are really left with is a choice. How will you conduct yourself moving forward? My choice is to tend my own friendship garden fervently. If I don't water it, how can it grow? I want to touch the lives of others the way that they have mine. I want my friends to know that I love them. I want people who I have wronged to know that I am sorry. Sometimes my youth or my heart got in the way of doing what was right. And for the people who have wronged me along the way, if you think about that, don't. I don't. Those things are in the past, and will erode my future if I let them.
Existence in this plane is short, and almost always contains a few twists. Two days ago a dear childhood friend passed on. She was young, she was beautiful, and like me, she loved with everything she had. CrowsLanding girls are special, and the world lost a bit of it's sparkle for me today. Like a ship in the night, she slipped right on to the next chapter. While I myself have two kidneys still clunking along one year, 4 months, and 11 days past my expiration date. I'm not saying that I am waiting or anxious to expire. Simply that it is something that no man can predict. And that I should try and live each day like my last, because it very well could be. Just in case it is, I love you.

page 1

The Cheap mood ring glinted in the sun. It reminded her of how she had left the "real one" on the back of her car. At that gas station in Modesto, all those years ago. She thought about where she was then, and where she was headed. She could almost feel the heat from that August day. Called in sick to work, going to a friends show a little farther north. She had felt a kind of bad about it. Ah, but she was young, and youth won out over responsibility as it is sometimes wont to do.
It was a sunny day. Not just any sunny day. Bright and exuberant each and every ray of sun. The kind of day that makes you feel like anything is possible. It was the kind of day where you just wake up tasting the surf. Not a good day to be wasted in some cubicle.
There she was filling up and singing along "spill the wine...", a little too loud, and a little too lively for a gas station on the middle of a Tuesday. She took no notice of it, and she was better for it. Off she sped into the California sun without a care in the world. Enjoying what would be one of her last salad days.

Good Times

Today's Lesson in Fail

If you check the calendar twice and still manage to fuck up, next time check three times. I spent most of yesterday preparing for co-oping at the preschool today. Got up early, had lovely banana muffins ready to go. Got there bright and only to find out my co- op is not this Monday and Friday, but Friday and next Monday. Damn it.

I can't help it

I am a serial doter. I worry about everyone I know, all the time. I really can't help myself. I need to know they are okay. I need to know they are happy. Sometimes I think I can be bothersome, but in the end they know they are loved. That's what counts.

well

Sometimes we find ourselves in one of the recessions between life's little hills. Today is one of those time for me. in these times I find myself questioning even more who I am and what I really believe in. again soul searching I am. I hope this time I find the way.

One good thing about small town Kalama is the blackberries. This is in our friend's back yard. They grow all over the place in Washington, but this is the only place that they don't get sprayed. He waited all year to have blackberries. We have already exhausted the supply in our own front yard. *smiles*

Some Random PIcs

No, he is not spoiled, just well taken care of.



This is how he likes his drums, notice how he puts the little toy kit next to the real one and adds a spare tom on the chair, :)


Painting like "Bob Woss", as he would say.

Cupcakes!

Artin' and Whatnot

V for Vendetta

promises

I'd love to promise a new blog more often, but life is eating me up. If only I could plug the computer into my brain when I am laying down to another night of insomnia. That is always when I think up the best blogs, but am too tire to fire up the computer... I need a laptop... or to figure out mobile blogger with my phone.

I know I know

It's been like three weeks. Aside from helping my neighbor get ready for out of state family, coaching a couple of people through needing an drink, picking up the pieces of a friend's broken heart; I have also been having my own yuletide nightmare, and trying to fit more crap in my house, and homeschooling a three year old, and trying to get ready for my own family's appearance. There has been a little lapse in the posting. I promise to be more astute. As for now, I am off again, because I think I actually did real damage to my left arm/hand/shoulder with the baking of a million cookies, caramel corn, and fudge for all the neighbors. Merry, happy a couple few days after Christmas.

Adventure in homeschooling

There is no set time for class. There isn't even a set time for wake up. (Although mommy could definitely use it being later,*smiles*) A good chunk of every day in our house is devoted to learning in our house, though. A lot of times, what I have planned for the next day gets thrown to the wayside for something better, but that is one of the best parts. An early winter storm making today about weather. A freak tantrum turning it into a lesson in sharing sometimes. Sure, sometimes spelling gets pushed to a little later, but how many three year old kids do you know that tickle you and tell you a meerkat is getting you. It took us a little while to figure out a system that works for both of us for math, but he's progressing by leaps and bounds. It never stops making me laugh when people point out things he's "just not old enough to comprehend". Really? Who raised you? I could read at two years old because my mother believed she could teach me and in my potential. I believe in my son's potential, and I do not believe there is anything too far beyond his grasp. So when someone tells him he's too little to know something, it's usually them that get the admonishing. Don't hinder him, I'm sure he'll do plenty of that on his own as a teenager.
Sure, a lot of people don't understand how I can be so busy because I'm "just a stay at home mom". But being unemployed seems to be a blessing. I get to stay home and help mold someone's mind. It's awesome.

coming soon!

I have several sets of pictures that I've been meaning to get loaded onto the computer. I am going to be getting that done today. (Fingers Crossed!) So tomorrow or the next day there will be some new stuff. As per usual it has been super busy around here, I still have one, no two more?, weeks before Thanksgiving with Mike's parents. To cheer myself up, I started decorating for Christmas yesterday. There will be pictures hopefully, of my yet again blue/white tree. Someday I will be able to afford to do a whole new color, rather than add something to what I already have that matches! *smile*

Moving Forward

I have been beyond busy for at least three weeks straight. Disorganized, and a little mad scientist looking, I emerged though. Realizing that reform is in order, I am planning a complete overhaul of my time usage. Not wanting to have this post mirror the post on my other blog, let me just say, a change is coming! If I actually get it right this time, I will be going back to blogging with some regularity. I am shooting for at least every other day. I mean there really is no reason for me not to except, that I would much rather write with a pen and a paper, than type. I love writing, just for the sake of writing. I could really use a pen pal, come to think of it. At any rate, there seems to be a hiccup in the craziness lately, so I am going to take advantage of it. The next few posts will be about the visitors we've had over the last couple of weeks, and some of the other things that are going on in my life. And hopefully I will get the latest pictures out of my camera and into the computer!

Revisiting the fourth grade

When I was eight or nine I had a bit of a problem talking to my classmates. In fact one person thought I didn't speak English for more than a month. I used to do this thing where I drew faces on the bottom of my toes. It was my way I guess of replying to the other kids when they made fum of me, even though I said nothing. I could just tip one of my feet up slightly in their direction, and there hidden under my sock was a very angry faced toe person. It's silly, and why I choose to talk about it 20 years later is probably in itself odd, but oh well. Last night I was sitting and watching the worst movie ever, well at least last night it was, and I decided to draw a happy face on the bottom of one of my toes. Then I drew an equally crude sad face on the other. The night was long and emotionally draining. And starting today at 4:30 a.m. wasn't really what I had planned. So today when I walked in to the kitchen, bleary eyed and wanting to cry, I didn't even look at my floor. But after I got back from my daily walk to the store, tears streaming in the rain, I was looking down. Wouldn't you know it, my little happy faced drawing was stamped all over my kitchen floor. It made me smile despite myself. Right there in the middle of swearing off friendship forever, cursing the wretched rain, and graying my hair with money woes, was something to smile at. Something trivial and childish, but it brightened my day, even if just a little.