MzSerena’s Garden

Someone asked me once whether I would want to go back and be a kid again and I said no.  They thought it was odd that I wouldn’t want to go back to having little to no responsibility.  I don’t mind being responsible.  I pay my bills and it feels good, really. Looking for vehicle insurance quotes doesn’t bother me, it makes me realize that there are a lot of things that I took for granted as a kid. There’s nothing wrong with being a responsible adult. It’s something I take pride in.

One thing about my communing with the sun. I got close enough to a burn that I have severely itchy and annoying eczema on my shoulders and back.

I am itching almost non-stop. My ears even itch! Oh god it’s horrible. Does this mean I’ll stop communing with the sun? Hell no. I will do it again, once things go back to normal. Right now, I can still smell smoke.

Have you ever been inside a building that’s hotter than it is outside? I have. How would you feel if it was your home? It would suck, right? That’s what I think too. Here’s the thing, a mobile home is a metal building. It retains heat like whoa.

During the hot streak last week, it was often hotter inside than out. I did stay inside, though, cuz the idea of heatstroke doesn’t appeal to me. From what I hear, this week isn’t much better. Thank Gods I have things I have to do that involve being in air conditioned buildings.

Flyin’ down the Highway, not a cop in sight, every thing’s a blur, even the exit signs.

I’m in a strange head space. I keep getting sidetracked, distracted and busy with other things when I should be catching up on stuff.

Vacation has begun. Tomorrow is going to be grocery shopping. Tomorrow night is a concert up town.
Monday is Dr. Appt and a meeting
Tuesday is .. empty!
Wednesday is Mom’s appt and a car show
Thursday is a tech visit for my sat. box.
Friday is payday, music and blueberries
Saturday is .. open, unless I go help a friend.

Busy week, I can’t wait.

It’s bloody hot. I don’t know how much of this crap I can take. It’s been over 90 this week. Tomorrow is supposed to hit 100. Ugh. I don’t sleep when it’s like this, so I’m going to have to invest in some anti wrinkle eye cream if the heat doesn’t break soon.

Tomorrow, we have a funeral to attend. It’s going to be insanely hot. I don’t think we’re going to the cemetery, especially if it’s this hot. I’d like to, but I don’t know if Mom can handle it. As it is, she’s going to have a hard time at the funeral.

I just hope she can get through this without losing it too badly. *sigh*

I need to write up a report. I have nothing to report at this time. I put everything on hold last week. It’s been a month, I’m not sure what to do at this point. I’m excited about the future, I just want to fire 2010.

I spent the weekend communing with the sunshine. No, I did not lay out in the sun. I gave that up in my early 20′s. I did sit on the porch this evening and last night to enjoy the sun. I didn’t burn, but I did get to that tight, itchy, omgmustscratch stage right before burning. No amount of lotion soothes the itching.

Tonight, I’ve been trying to plan my anniversary. It’s not easy. There are plenty of things I want to do, but I don’t know what I’ll have the money to do. I know what I want for a gift. Sort of. I want a digital frame. I love the one a friend has. It’d be a great thing to have for presentations.

I want to have a picnic with friends, somewhere with swimming. The only places I know of that we can do that is at a state park, which costs between $6 and $8 to get in. It sucks. I dunno what to do at this point. Guess I’ll have to figure it out soon.

Now that things are normal again, I can start thinking about my anniversary again. Life has been in a bit of an uproar, but things are finally back to normal. Before Mom got sick, Rob and I were trying to figure out what we were doing for our anniversary. I’m not quite sure what we’re doing, since we depleted our savings quite a bit. It’s not like I want certified diamonds, but I’d like to be able to do something fun. Perhaps we’ll have a party. I’m just really not sure what I want to do yet.

Yesterday, I spent the day offline. Not complaining. Our phone and ‘net was down. I can live without the ‘net. The phone? Pissed me off, honestly. Mom just came home, so what was I to do if something happened? Good thing our new cell phones work at the house. Ironically, the problem with the phone, was the phone we’ve had for a billion years finally took a crap.

Today is all about catching up on stuff. Blogs, Emails, Work. I think I owe a column this week again. I don’t remember. *shrug*

I havent been to church since I don’t remember when
Things were goin’ great ‘til they fell apart again
So I listened to the preacher as he told me what to do
He said you can’t go hatin’ others who have done wrong to you
Sometimes we get angry, but we must not condemn
Let the good Lord do His job and you just pray for them

I pray your brakes go out runnin’ down a hill
I pray a flowerpot falls from a window sill and knocks you in the head like I’d like to
I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls
I pray you’re flyin’ high when your engine stalls
I pray all your dreams never come true
Just know wherever you are honey, I pray for you

I’m really glad I found my way to church
‘Cause I’m already feelin’ better and I thank God for the words
Yeah I’m goin’ take the high road
And do what the preacher told me to do
You keep messin’ up and I’ll keep prayin’ for you

I pray your tire blows out at 110
I pray you pass out drunk with your best friend and wake up with his and her tattoos

I pray your brakes go out runnin’ down a hill
I pray a flowerpot falls from a window sill and knocks you in the head like I’d like to
I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls
I pray you’re flyin’ high when your engine stalls
I pray all your dreams never come true
Just know wherever you are, near or far, in your house or in your car,
wherever you are honey, I pray for you.
I pray for you

I survived April Fools day without getting pranked. I managed to pull off one small prank on my Mom. She asked me to check her bank balance online, so I told her that she was overdrawn by $200. I only let her curse for about a minute before I told her the truth. I’m going to pay for that eventually.

Today was a great day, overall. We had some errands to run, but I waited a bit to head out cuz I was hoping to have coffee with a friend who just moved back to the area. He failed to respond, so I decided to quit waiting. I know him well enough to know when shit ain’t gonna happen.

So, since it was a beautiful day, we grabbed lunch from BK and headed for the nearest park to have lunch. We stopped at the gas station to pick up drinks (Why didn’t we get them at BK? Oh right, he was being a sulky baby…) and while I was getting my water, I spotted a guy who looked really damn familiar. He was looking at me too and it dawned on me that it was someone I graduated with. We chatted for a minute and I even got a hug from him. It’s hard to believe his son is graduating this year. Found out we’d be at the same baseball game this afternoon. His son plays, I just like to watch. When I was getting checked out, one of the cashiers pointed out someone in the parking lot that cracked the whole lot of us up. I really can not tell you what we saw, but it was just hilarious.

The park was a big disappointment. There were NO tables in the sun and a billion kids running rampant, so as soon as we were done eating, we left and went about our other errands. Once we got home, we chilled for a bit and I finished putting chili together for dinner then we headed off for the first high school baseball game of the season. It was a fantastic game. Came down to the last inning. Final score 6-5 in our favor. It wasn’t lacking for drama! I was waiting for one of 2 things to happen – a fight in the stands or the coach getting tossed for fighting the umps. I hope we can go to more games. I doubt it, since his work schedule is fail-worthy.

I had more, but I ran out of words. *laugh* Brain went kerplunk. I blame Charlie Daniels.

So, last night, I sat here, surfing around some of my usual haunts. Not really shopping for anything, just looking at different sites and their offerings in their daily deals when lo and behold, the power goes out. 11:30 at night, the power company comes and cuts the power to our road. What the heck?

We’re down for over an hour and a half before it finally comes back on. I was NOT happy, especially since this was after we had problems earlier with it flicking on and off like someone was playing games with a light switch. It wasn’t a good thing. It was screwing with my computer in a big way. Luckily, nothing was harmed. I would not be very happy had there been.

Not sure what was going on, but it made working impossible. So I guess that means it’s catch-up time.

I made the decision to reconnect with old friends. I decided to venture back into a world where I have friends that I can call up and say “hey, lets go bowling” or something like that. When I was younger, I had a lot of friends, I missed that quite a bit and I’ve made an effort to reconnect with some of those people whom I was the closest to.

My biggest concern, though, is that things are going to end up the same way they did 14 years ago. I self destructed, vanished, I cut all ties, honestly. It was hard for me, I was slighted by my best friends, who were hanging out without me. I was left out in the cold and I’m still not sure why. All I know is that it’s something that I felt the need to do.

If I hadn’t done this? I’m not sure what would happen, honestly. I’d probably be miserable, despite all the good in my life.

An update? From me? Holy crap the world hasn’t ended after all.

I hate to say it, but I’ve spent more time on Facebook than I care to admit. There’s a reason for that though. I’ve been reconnecting with my best friend from high school and saw her yesterday for the first time in 14 years. I got to spend time with her, her twin, her twin’s husband. It was nice and I really want to spend more time with her.

I’ve been a bit of a busy bee lately and I like it that way, but it means that I don’t really have a whole lot of post left in me a lot of the time. I need to try to post more. I should probably do some writing prompts or something, anything to get myself writing again.

I’m sorry for being a bad poster, I’m going to try to be better.

Sleep is for the weak, they say. I disagree. Sleep is for those who haven’t found out how to sleep properly. That would be me. I never went to bed until after 3 this morning, then laid in bed for nearly an hour before finally falling asleep. I had asked my doctor over a year ago if she would recommend some OTC sleeping pills or even prescribe something. Her choice was to prescribe an anti-histamine for my allergies in hopes that it would help me sleep. Failure.

I’m tired of not sleeping normal hours. I was doing good for a while there, going to bed at 11 or 12, getting up at 8 or 9. I want that back, but I don’t know how to get back there. Plus, I can almost guarantee that if I did get back there, Rob’s work shift would get switched up again so that I have to be up at 2:30am.

Meh.

It’s January 25th. So what? It’s 2 days away from my birthday. By the time this posts, it’ll be the 26th. One day away. I told my husband that he really didn’t need to get me anything. We don’t have the money right now. I can get what I want when the taxes come in.

Saturday we went to see my sister, delivered her birthday gifts for her. Mom got her brand new cookware. She has never had new cookware and we decided to get it for her.

After I got home, I backed everything up and started the day long process of reformatting. It took me ALL day Sunday. 2 reformats. 100 Updates. It finally got finished this morning. It’s been behaving perfectly.

I don’t have a whole lot else.

This has been a weird week. It’s been mostly dead for me. Nothing work related. I don’t mind the week being slow, since next week is my birthday, then the first week of February starts 2 weeks of busy.

I should look into an auto insurance quote so that we can consider getting a new car. I can’t do anything until income taxes roll around.

We’ve got so much going on. I need to figure out whether I’m taking on the project I want to take on. I was hoping to be able to get ahold of the person(s) in charge, before-hand and see what the time commitment would be. If it’s a regular meeting thing or just ‘hey we need to do this on this date’ kind of thing.

I’d hope for both, frankly. The former is more conducive to being able to say “okay, I need you on day XYZ.” We’ll see, I guess. I have a couple weeks yet to decide.

Tomorrow is pay day, Saturday is my sister’s birthday. Mine is Wednesday. Whee? Meh.

Sometimes I feel like life is all work and no play lately. I seem to have a lot of downtime, but I don’t have as much as I thought. I have busy weeks, then super quiet weeks. I thought this month would be an easy month, but it hasn’t been. I have a lot of irons in the fire.

I don’t remember what I was going to say, since I started this yesterday afternoon. I still have a Saturday Side Dish to get posted too.

I survived the OMGSWINEFLU crisis of the area. I survived that head cold that I started feeling.

But…

Rob gets a cold….

I don’t let him near me….

and I GET SICK. Fucker.

Please just be my allergies… PLEASE.. I feel like warmed over ass again and I have stuff to do this week.

Tomorrow is the end of 2009. What am I going to be doing? Celebrating with a glass of white grape juice mixed with mountain dew. Strange? Yes, but it’s really good. It’s like sparkling grape with a kick.

This has been a good year in a lot of ways. I’m happy with where I am. It’s also been a year where I’ve done random things, like read about rv insurance for the hell of it. Why? Because a friend of mine and her partner are now an RVers (Check out their adventures!)

My way of ending ’09 was attending the retirement reception for a woman whom I absolutely adore. I was hesitant because I was there as a writer and photographer, and had just last week had a front page article printed about the same woman. I was very very surprised at all the compliments that I received. I am so proud of my accomplishments and can’t wait for the next year to continue on accomplishing more.

Anyway, I think that’s it for tonight. Got some stuff to finish for my book blog (Book Hoarding) before the year truly ends tomorrow night. See you all next year!

Hope everyone had a lovely holiday. Mine was good. We opened gifts this morning and everyone was quite pleased. We didn’t do a lot, a couple gifts each. Half we didn’t bother wrapping, but we managed to have at least one each under the tree this morning the other didn’t know about. I got a beautiful watch and two beautiful pendants.

I got Twilight Scene-It along with the 2 Twilight movie board games for Rob, so we spent much of the day playing games. I’d love to have another couple or two to play games with. It’d be so much more fun to have game nights with other people. Oh well, we have fun playing games, so it’s all good.

I’ve been reading/listening Under The Dome by Stephen King. I don’t care for Stephen King’s typical brand of horror, but this book is absolutely insane. It’s not a horror novel, it’s a work of dystopic fiction, though. I have grown quite fond of Dystopic Fiction and am REALLY enjoying this novel. It’s over 1000 pages, and I’m about halfway through it. It’s a hefty read, but well worth it.

From Goodreads:
On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when — or if — it will go away.

Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens — town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing — even murder — to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out.

I’ve been sleeping normal hours lately. Sadly, tonight is destroying that. I have been going to bed anywhere around 11 to midnight and getting up around 8. It’s been nice. Tonight, though, I needed to stay up to block the door and stuff. I should be able to sleep soon. Yay. I can’t wait.

I’m going to meet up with my new pillows and rescue my old ones from the land of sleep and see if I can keep them safe for a few hours. Hope everyone had a great day, no matter what you celebrate.

I wrote a while ago about being independently wealthy and what I’d like to do. I’ve been thinking about it on and off for some reason. I don’t know why, but I keep coming back to the same Plano dentist and contemplating doing something with my teeth. I’m still too broke, but I suppose I can dream, right?

I’m not sure why I keep coming back to it, other than feeling weird when I talk to people. But then again, there are other reasons I feel that way too. I hate pictures, I hate seeing myself through other people’s eyes. I hate who I am, and it’s not even because of my weight, it’s just because I see things that I really don’t like that I can’t ever change.

Do you know how impossible it is to find feather pillows? Seriously? I want new pillows, but I’m not shelling out $15+ dollars just for feather pillows, even though I’m picky and don’t like the polyfil pillows. Hubby found me a couple on amazon that are good price. Unfortunately, I overspent on Christmas today and have to wait.

I’m not sure what’s going on with me lately, but I’m tired all the time. Though, I keep waking up far earlier than I normally do, so I guess it balances out. It’s been bloody cold lately. I’m not happy about it being so cold, especially since our furnace seems to run non-stop when it’s like this, even though we keep it set fairly low. I’m afraid if it stays this way, I’m going to have to get emergency assistance to get more heating oil. It’s kind of sad, really, since it seems like this happens every single year. It seems like the price just keeps going up, and the amount of money we have to pay for it doesn’t go up.

Blah. I feel like all I do is whine lately. Sorry.

Today was a lovely day. Went to a pot luck dinner, enjoyed some really good food and good music, tried new things, got to know some new people. I typically don’t like parties, or people, and I definitely hate being the ‘young’ one in a group. I was, yet again, the youngest in the room and it was really awkward. I did enjoy myself overall, when the crowd started thinning out some.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I could easily become a vegetarian and not be lacking for anything. Sure, I’d miss my dead animals, but I could do it. It’d definitely be easier than trying to find the right acne treatments or something else random like that.

Tomorrow we’re going to go finish the Christmas shopping. Got to pick out a few small things, mostly. But for now, it’s time to sleep.

What am I thankful for this year…

My blood related family. Mom, Robert, My sister Janice, even my brothers, Tom and Dave.
My good friends. Old friends that I’ve reconnected with, new friends that I’ve connected with even more. Friends, without them, this world would completely suck
The BroaderView Weekly. I can’t even put into words how grateful I am for the opportunities that I’ve gotten in the last several months. I look forward to what the next several months bring.
My health. For as good or bad as it is, I have my health.
All the opportunities that I’ve been given in all my time on the Internet. I know that sounds odd, but a lot of things that I’ve been able to do wouldn’t have been possible because of all the wonderful people that I’ve met online.

There’s a lot more, but my brain decided to shut itself off.