because she is a dog

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keeping up with current events

While watching CNN this morning, they had a segment about a 'bedrest' study that NASA's doing to examine the effects of weightlessness, which I thought was pretty interesting. But even more interesting was the Pillow Astronaut Blog, written by one of the study participants. I'm not so sure I could do it, but the materialistic weasel in me could put the $17K in reimbursement to good use. Nah, I think I'll stick to being a mom. It's considerably less pay, but pretty damn rewarding.

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Have you heard about the bill that was just signed into law that is giving up to $450 billion (yes, BILLION, with a B) to help out homeowners that can't pay their mortgage? Now, not to be a bitch here, but WTF? I'm sorry, but when I ended up losing my home because there were major medical bills (no credit cards, thank you very much) and no money coming in, did someone offer to bail me out? Uh, no.

Now I totally think that if people were taken advantage of by unscrupulous mortgage brokers, then by all means, help them out. But if they can't pay the bills because they didn't read the fine print or are too busy buying a new Mercedes, then shouldn't they be on their own? And what about all the people who've already been foreclosed on? Do they not get bailed out just because they weren't able to hang on until now? And what about the people who lost jobs and can no longer pay for their homes? Should they be helped, too? And just whose ass will we pull the $450 billion with a B out of? 'Cause I gotta be honest with ya, I just don't have that kind of cash, laying around or otherwise. Our government is creating a very dangerous precedent.

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One last tidbit... What the hell was John McCain thinking with his newest anti-Obama ad? Britney Spears and Paris Hilton? You know those two couldn't figure out how to vote if someone did it for them. That ad just makes McCain look like a bonehead.

faded flowers

faded flowers

yummy, yummy in my tummy

I love to eat. It's one of my favorite things to do, ranking right up there with sleeping and breathing. And as much as I like to munch, it takes a fair amount of yumminess to impress me, so I don't run around pontificating about food or restaurants on a regular basis, or really ever. Until now.

Last night Kenin and I took my mom out to dinner at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, Hacienda Colorado. I had some yummy enchiladas, but still wanted a little something sweet afterward, so I ordered some chocolate cake, because chocolate is one of my very best friends in the whole wide world. And I know it's a mutual feeling, because it hangs around for a long time, usually on my belly. Anyway, this HUGE piece of chocolate cake arrived with one of it's best friends, vanilla ice cream. And because chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream brought along a friend called brandy butter sauce, we proceeded to have an experience better than sex. This sauce was so sweet and creamy and incredibly delicious, I just wanted to bathe in it, it was that good.

And because I'm now trembling with excitement just at the mere thought of this heavenly treat, I'll leave you with this... go to Hacienda Colorado and have the chocolate cake. What about an entree, you ask? Who needs an entree? Just eat cake. And you know what? If the French had been serving chocolate cake with a brandy butter sauce, there'd have been no revolution whatsoever. Everybody would've been more than happy to take Marie Antoinette's suggestion.

what to do? what to do?

I am completely and utterly alone for the next 20 hours. Okay, not completely alone because I'm still stuck with the cat and the dog, but you know what I mean. Kenin and Hunter are still in Texas, and this morning, I took Ashlyn to the airport so she could visit her dad in Georgia. Just so you understand, I'm so into this ALONE TIME thing that I didn't even answer the door when the Trugreen lawn guy showed up. And guilt? There was none.

I'm really at a loss for what I want to do though, simply because I always seem to have so much to do. I thought about heading to the mountains to take some pictures, but it's 95 degrees out, so that idea got shelved. I have some crafty stuff I could do, but I think I'll do that next week while Kenin's at work and it's just me at home. I think there are a couple of pay-per-view movies out that I want to watch so I'll probably do that - if I can convince Bella to share the bed with me.

daisies and a dog

daisies at dusk

A couple of weeks ago we were fortunate enough to find the perfect canine addition to our household. Bella, meet the internet. Internet, meet Bella. Our new sweetie pie, who is about 15 months old, came to us from the Dumb Friends League. I can't believe how lucky we were to find her. She's a purebred chocolate lab and - get this - is totally trained! She goes potty outside, she fetches, she shakes, sits, and the only 'bad' thing about her is that she's what I like to call very enthusiastic. She loves to go for walks, but isn't quite well behaved enough to make it enjoyable for the person walking her. Once we teach her to slow down I know she'll be great. She's still got a lot of puppy in her, but that's okay... I'm keeping her anyway.

mixed feelings

Patrick left home today to move to Texas to live with his biological mother. And to be honest, I'm pretty upset about it. It's hard to see your child leave home when he's been such a huge part of your life for the last 8 years; hell, it's just hard to see them leave home, period. I've fought for Patrick as though he's my own; we've spent thousands of dollars on lawyers, countless hours trying to get him services, and shed more tears over him and laughed more than you can imagine. Kenin and I honestly believe he's best off in a group home (he blossomed in one in Montana), but when faced with the possibility of yet another court appearance, we had to give in as we can't afford to fight his mother again. I hate it, and I feel like total shit over it, but maybe this is God's way of telling us we've earned a break.

Yesterday was a really bad day for Patrick. On Tuesday, he'd managed to get into the fridge and eat 3 half frozen raw chicken breasts before he got caught, so he spent part of the night Tuesday and all day Wednesday paying for it on the potty. Actually, as unhappy as he might have been about the consequences of his actions, it sucked just as much, if not more, for Kenin and me because in the middle of trying to keep Patrick (and the carpet and the furniture and the walls and his clothing) clean, we'd both worked all day and then came home and and began doing laundry and trying to cook dinner and pack and make sure everyone had baths because Kenin, Patrick, and Hunter had to leave for Texas today. Not an easy feat, let me tell you.

And then, in the middle of this horrific day, it occured to us that maybe this was God's way of making Patrick's leaving easier. Maybe if we had a fresh experience of just a few of the things that make life with Patrick so tough challenging, then it might make it easier to see him go. Well, it turned out that it was still hard to see him go, so maybe that wasn't we were being told after all. Kenin and I did talk, though, about some of the things that we won't have to do anymore, like:

~bathe him (me) or shower with him (Kenin)
~brush his teeth
~clean poop off Patrick and the bathroom walls/floor
~lock the fridge/pantry after every use
~repair/replace furniture that's been destroyed
~replace wallpaper that got ripped off
~clean spaghetti sauce off the ceiling
~hide the toilet paper so the whole roll doesn't end up in the potty
~be constantly aware of Patrick being too quiet/too loud and wondering what he's getting into
~alter every pair of pants to fit a 24 inch inseam
~not take vacations/have to refuse invitations because there isn't a sitter
~replace clothing that gets ripped/torn up on purpose
~climb on top of the plant shelf to retrieve what's been thrown up there
~wonder if Patrick's going to throw a fit in public

All I have to say is that you have to take the good with the bad and I sincerely hope that things work out well for Patrick now that he'll be back with Donna because there's no revolving door on my home.

another day in paradise

I've spent the last 4 days suffering from a nasty summer cold and am now desperately hoping to feel like total crap, because that would be an immense improvement, way up the scale from wanting to die.

Since I've been under the weather, I didn't make it to my pedicure appointment, which was a bit of a disappointment. Hopefully I'll be able to fit it in later this week. One thing you can be sure of is that I won't be getting a fish pedicure. Apparently there's a spa in Virginia where they have hundreds of tiny carp that eat the dead skin off your feet, and it's said to be the best pedicure ever. But no thanks, just the thought of fish doing that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Yuck.

mmm... Mormons exposed

According to Fox News, a non-practicing Mormon, Chad Hardy, decided to become a member of the if you can't beat 'em, join 'em club earlier this year. After searching out 12 beef cakey young Mormon men, he convinced them to remove their shirts - oh, no! the horror! - and pose for a calendar along the lines of those wonderful firefighter calendars that are so popular (And rightfully so, I say! Have you seen them? Yum, yum, yum.).

It appears the whole take your shirt off, do not collect $200, go straight to hell kind of thing didn't sit so well with the church elders because poor Chad was excommunicated on Sunday. Some of the models were called to discipline meetings, but none were punished, which I don't think is fair. I mean, come on, Chad didn't even take his shirt off, and he got excommunicated! The guys who actually appeared in the calendar should at least have to suffer some humiliation. And I'd be more than happy to help them out with that - they can go shirtless while feeding me grapes or cleaning my house.

a day at the lake

kayak

shoes

dam ducks

lone duck

picture perfect

fly fishing

old glory

the lake in Evergreen

and locked, too

the newest addition

Welcome to the family, Mac.

and I thought I was redneck...

This article is pretty much self explanatory. And you know what? It makes me feel a whole lot better about myself.

baby steps

Pretty in peach

Hard at work

Stuck in the middle

Angelo

Still in a bit of a shutterbug mood. Not sure exactly why except that I know I'm inspired by my aunt, Sally Stubbs, who's taking the southeast Texas art world by storm.

Obviously my pictures aren't much as far as art goes and the subject matter is limited at best, and I totally admit they're the photographic equivilant of crawling vs. walking or running. But I'm working on it...

a new arrival

This morning I became an aunt again.

My brother, Jim, and his wife, Mary, are the proud parents of Mac Thomas, who entered into the world at 21" long and weighed in at 7 pounds, 14 ounces.

Congrats, love, hugs and kisses to Jim, Mary, and big brother, Will.

but he really does love me!

I'm sure that last week you heard about the guy who was arrested for possession of puffer fish neurotoxin, right? Well, this morning CNN reported that he claimed he bought the toxin so that he could poison himself, but prosecutors are alledging that he really planned to poison his wife. There's this little thing about a $5 million life insurance policy that he took out on her without her knowledge, but hey, that's okay with her, he'd never hurt her because he loves her, blah, blah, blah. If she's dumb enough to believe that line of crap, she deserves him, jail term and all.