Memorial Day

Today the United States honors the men and women who have given their lives in the fight to preserve our freedom and those in need. We honor the brave soldiers who have pledged to give their lives protecting their families, and ours.

I don't do politics, so I won't go into anything here, but I will say that I do not support war, but I support our troops.

I am very blessed to have several military men in my family, both living and deceased. My grandfather on my mothers side served, and my step grandfather on my mothers side (my real grandfather died when she was twelve, my step-grandfather died when I was three) served, my father's father served, my father served in the Vietnam war in the Navy, my father-in-law was in the Army in that same war, as well as my Uncle on my mothers side. I also have several second cousins (my mother's cousins) who served. Most of these men have pictures that are displayed in our local American Legion, and I couldn't be prouder of them. My brother has plans of joining the Marines, as a sniper, (his dream, sooo not mine!) when he turns 18 in two years, and when he does, I know I will be just as proud as him, even though it terrifies me to death to think that he may be joining the fight overseas.

I am privileged to know several other people in our small town community who have chosen to join up with Uncle Sam, and a lot of them have been shipped over seas. I am fearful for them, but I know that they will give anything, even their lives, to protect us here at home, sitting comfortably at our computers or television sets. Although I have done little to remark upon, and definitely nothing as noble as they have, I tip my hat to all current military people, and veterans. Thank you!!

Cartoon!!

Photo's!

Today was a busy day.

I will start with last night. We had a delicious dinner, the first steak of the year cooked on the BBQ, homemade mashed potatoes and this spinach-like plant plucked from the woods around a friend's home. Absolutely delicious. After that, we watched the movie Annie, and then Despicable Me. The power went out at 11:45pm, a scheduled one, so we had everything turned off by then. The only problem is, because I'm still in the process of painting Felicity's bedroom, I don't want her sleeping in there. Which means she's sleeping with Chris and I. Last night wasn't all that bad, except we were all up well past midnight. We had a little camp-out in the living room, moving the couches together making a larger sleeping space. It was a lot of fun, and with the flickering light of the candles we lit, it was a cool night.

This morning, we had a lazy start to the day, with Mommy cheating and making Eggo's instead of real waffles or pancakes, but it was good anyway. Just when I had gathered enough energy up to continue painting, both Felicity and I got whisked away to the beach. It was a lot of fun, and I got some amazing photo's out of it, some of which I will share right now. This first shot, is of Felicity's bunny. She's had it literally since before she was born, after I received it as a gift for the baby when I was about six months pregnant. She takes it everywhere, and it is her security blanket, for lack of a better term. I usually try and take a picture of bunny when we go on an outing, just because I think it will be nice for us to have these pictures later on.

Now, before I show you the others, I have to say that most of the pictures I will be sharing are right out of the camera. Meaning, I have done ZERO editing on them. I love to take pictures, but I lack the patience and the time to sit down at my photoshop and mess with them. Plus, I'm a perfectionist, and things are rarely what I deem to be sharing quality, whereas if I just plug them into here straight from the camera, I'm less bothered by the imperfections. Even professional photographers take some crummy pictures, which is good for the rest of us, hah!

This is at one of the beaches we went to, and Felicity has had this thing with rocks lately. She just likes to collect rocks, and here she was trying to copy our friend Coral as she skipped rocks. If you look close, you can see the rock in the air before it hits the water, which I thought was pretty cool. My camera is always pretty shifty, so you never know what kind of pictures it's going to give you. I've had awesome photos, and I've had some very poor ones that could have been cool. It's amazing what a fresh change of batteries can do for electronics!

This is a different throwing rock, but I am so pleased that my camera was able to catch the kerplunk of the rock hitting the water. As a side note, I can't believe how red Felicity's hair looks in these pictures. As I look at her right now, her hair looks blonde. It's so amazing.

Another shot that I myself can't believe my wishy-washy camera captured. I think my favorite part, besides the cool "tunnel" of water as it breaks, is the lone seagull on the log just... chillin'.

I just love this picture. Obviously, it's two baby foxes. We saw them as we came down the hill towards South Beach, and one of their siblings was in the middle of the road eating something off of the pavement. We saw four kits total, but there may have been more in the bushes. On our way back from the beach, we saw either the mama or the papa fox ushering the babies away and into the tall grass away from the road. What cuties!

Another Update - WIP

I am finally over my sickness! Well, most of the way anyway. I still have a wicked cough, but other than that, I'm feelin' great! So I thought I would start posting here again. I really missed it, but with so little energy it was hard enough getting out of bed to change the DVD.

Anyway, so my project this weekend that I am focusing on, is painting my daughters bedroom. It was nice before, a pale creme brulee yellow with pastel orange and pink ragged on, but it didn't look like a little girls room. So, being the creative entity I am, I designed a new room for her. I'll of course upload photos when I'm done, but I have my brother in law making a chest for her toys, her Daddy is making a shelf to put her little TV on, and I am busy priming her room and building a new frame for her bed. It's going to be awesome. Butterfly themed, like an open meadow sort of thing. I was actually lucky enough to score one of the tree props from the Charlie Brown show that we struck on Sunday, so that will go in there as well. I am making new curtains for all of her windows, and I'm planning on sanding and re-staining the door and window trim in either a pale wood like pine or white. I also bought little sample jars of bright colors for the butterflies I'm painting on, and I even got a yellow to dry brush around her ceiling light so it's like a sun.

We already have glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling, so she get's both the day and night effect. I'm very excited, and since I absolutely love to paint, that just makes it even more fun! It's going to be amazing, and I know she's going to absolutely love it.

That is my work in progress for now, and I will update you next week when it's all done! Complete with pictures, I promise!

Update

I am breaking my blogging schedule to let you in on why I have been absent for the last few days in my blogging. I have the flu. Pretty badly too, and it sucks. Today is the first day I have been able to make it out of my bed for more than the time it takes to hobble to the bathroom. Sickness sucks, and I do very much apologize for this, but I am going to postpone our give-away until the fog in my brain dissipates.

There are some other wonderful blogs that I follow that I most definitely encourage you to check out and follow as well. The first one I want to introduce you to is a blog done by fellow writer and long-time friend, Jenni Merritt. I'm sure I've mentioned her blog around here before, but while I'm not a huge fan of the dark, almost grungy, scheme, it's easy to read and it's set up nicely.

Next is one that I love reading/following. He does a lot of humorous posts, but also some that tackle heavy and deep issues. Dan Pierce, of Single Dad Laughing.

Both are awesome reads and I deeply regret not being able to give my full attention to my blog, but that will come later when I am healthy again! Read, and write, on!

Saturday Cartoon!

Ah, Saturday is here again! Time for another round of cartoons, and since I am stage crew on the Charlie Brown show here at the theater, I thought it would be appropriate to post some peanuts comics!

Pictures! And something else!

A while back, I promised you all that I would have a give away when I hit 100 blogging posts. Well, this post is number 91, so I thought that I would release the prize item so you all have a chance to win it. All you have to do is put your name and email down below in the comments, and on post 100, I will draw a name out of my hat to see who get's the prize! I will also take a photo of the name to prove I'm not doing favorites. If you don't follow the blog, but you are my fan on facebook, you can also win through that by writing on my wall with your name and email and telling me that it's to enter into the contest. Yay for prizes!

Now, drum roll please!! *drum roll* The first ever DM give away is.... a hat! Now, that may not sound very cool, but this hat is your own writing hat that I have designed myself. I love hats, even though I don't wear them very often, I have several that I use while writing, editing, and what have you. It's a physical reminder to me that I'm here to write and nothing else, and it helps to keep me grounded in my story (and my chair).



Now on to the real subject matter of this post, pictures!

This one, of course, is my darling daughter. She's just over a year old in this, and I love how intently she is watching her belly!

This is a rose, obviously. Roses are probably my favorite flower ever,  period. I have six of them in my garden right now! This one is from my "Mister Lincoln" patch, and it's just too pretty not to share.

This is the cake that I made for the musical I was in two years ago, entitled, "My Fair Lady." Can you tell this was Ascot inspired?

Wednesday

Alright, so I have very little progress to report for my books, but the play that I am currently doing, "You're a good man, Charlie Brown" opens tomorrow night! I'm very excited, because this will be the first full show that I'll be doing lights on, even though it's just background lights (I mean, doing lights from backstage, not up in the booth). I'm super excited, and it's looking awesome so far.

I apologize that this is a very short, but sweet, post for today, but I'm running around like a headless chicken trying to finish four exact copies of GOBO's before tonight, and I'm stressing out because the aluminum is not co-operating with me. Ugh! I'm sure that they'll be just fine, and that they'll look awesome up on the screen, but still. I'm a perfectionist, and it's hard to ignore a little mistake that really won't make a difference in the long run.

But I have the second week of Karaoke to look forward to tonight! Yay! More on that later!! Keep Writing!!

To Comic, or not to Comic, that is the Question!

I must admit, that I am a major gamer. I love video games, and have no problem sitting on the couch for hours and hours completely pwning noobs. Being a girl, I'm usually met with one of two different reactions: the "you're a girl so you can't possibly be good at video games" or the "holy hell you play video games?! And you're a girl?! *droooool*". While both are moderately annoying, I must admit that I understand the reaction. Now that more and more girls are getting into gaming, it's not such a rare thing, but to find a girl that's good at them... that, in my opinion, is a whole 'nother ball game.

I know several girls that enjoy gaming, and they are good at what I call the girl games. You know, the ones that don't require massive amounts of skill. I will further admit that sometimes I play, and sometimes even enjoy those games too, just as something for my mind to zone out at. But more often than not, I enjoy a good shooter. Halo, Fallout...etc. All good.

What I've noticed, is that one of my favorite things is becoming less and less known, and that makes me sad. They used to be very popular, and one of the most sought after entertainment out there, right up with trading card games. What am I talking about? Comics. I don't mean Peanuts or Garfield. They're oldies, but those are ones that have withstood time and people still know what you're talking about when you make a Monday joke or shout "good grief". What happened to good ol' comics like Archie? I miss Archie... Now, in their places some nice new comics have popped up. They're funny, but just don't have the same... zing to them. I dunno, maybe I'm just nostalgic.

My favorite comic is an online one called Ctrl+Alt+Del. I love it. Love love love. It's mainly about two guys who sit around and play video games. Ethan and Lucas. Now, as you read and read, hilarity ensues. Ethan is incredibly funny but also the kind of stereotypical moron gamer with no brain cells, yet has awesome ideas and builds a robot out of his x-box. Yep, pretty funny stuff there. If you haven't heard of it, I highly suggest you check it out. www.cad-comic.com. That's it. They even sell plushies now!

So, my dear fans, are you a gamer or comic reader?

What comics/games do you recommend??

Happy Mother's Day!

The sun is shining, even through the clouds! Today is a day where we celebrate and give thanks for the women who bore us into the world, through nine months of pregnancy  hell  er, bliss, and raised us into the beautiful people we are today. Despite all of the terrible two fits, the downright ugly teens, they still love us, and I for one am very very grateful for that.

Here is a little poem for all of you mom's out there, and if you have young children, imagine them older and (hopefully!) wiser! Have a beautifully wonderful mothers day.

Before I was myself you made me, me
With love and patience, discipline and tears,
Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,

Allowing me to sail upon my sea,
Though well within the headlands of your fears.
Before I was myself you made me, me


With dreams enough of what I was to be
And hopes that would be sculpted by the years,
Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,


Relinquishing your powers gradually
To let me shape myself among my peers.
Before I was myself you made me, me,


And being good and wise, you gracefully
As dancers when the last sweet cadence nears
Bit by bit stepped back to set me free.


For love inspires learning naturally:
The mind assents to what the heart reveres.
And so it was through love you made me, me
By slowly stepping back to set me free.

Saturday Cartoon!

I am a Lion. While that doesn't click with a lot of people, it means that I am a part of a fantastic group of awesome people that take time out of their own busy lives to actively help make the community a better place. Growing up on the island, I always heard about them, saw them selling beer and burgers at the county fair, but other than that, I didn't know them. Then I started catering their Tuesday meetings. I was blown away. These are guys and gals in their 50's (and upwards, and one special guy is 98!!) still doing things for the island. Raising money for one thing or another, Red Cross, Food Bank, Blood Bank, military and other such things. They're also the ones that dress up like Santa Clauses and ring bells outside of the grocery store. After a month or two of catering their lunch, I joined. Now I have my own bright yellow vest and even a few pins on it already. And today, I'm going over to Marketplace to take a shift on our Free Health Screening RV. Which leads me up to my cartoon of the day. I stumbled upon this site where there were lots and lots of funny cartoons, but this one stuck out for me, especially with what I'm doing with the Lions. Enjoy!

Photography

Don't you just love pictures? I do. Love love love. One of my favorite pastimes, especially during the summer, is going out into nature (and living on the island, near forests and stuff, is really easy!) and just snapping pictures of everything. I took several courses in photoshop in college, and was always surprised by how much you can do to photo's to give them that extra element.

Some of my favorite photo's are of course of my darling daughter. Just the raw happiness in her smile, I love to see it over and over. She's a very serious kid, just like her mama, so those pure smiles are very precious to me, even more so when captured on film. Or, in this day and age, the memory card.

It was brought to my attention that I've been copying blogging days, and because I want this to be something unique to me, and not be compared to another blog, I have switched around my daily topics. Still taking off Tuesday's and Thursday's though (which is really weird to wake up and not have a blog to post that day!). So the new Friday topic, since between my new Assistant Stage Managing jobs at the theater (on top of my sound, lighting, and set crew stuff) and just life in general, I don't have time to sit down and read. I fall into bed and I'm out like a light, no matter how hard I try and stay up to read. Last night Chris had to pull the kindle out from under my head because I'd fallen asleep on it trying to finish a book for Review Friday. I still have a couple chapters left. Oy vey!

So I thought you would enjoy seeing pictures. Stuff I have taken myself, I promise, unless otherwise noted. I have tons of pictures in various folders scattered all over my computer, ones that I wouldn't mind sharing with you all. Oh, and if you think up a snappy title for these sessions, please please tell me! I have a hard time coming up with titles for things.

I'm not sure what this flower is, but they are growing alllll over on Mt. Young, and they're so cute! This one is actually being held by my darling friend Gemma. The flowers themselves open towards the ground, so you don't see the yellow dots on the inside unless you pick it. They look like little fairy skirts to me, ha!

 This is one picture that I love. It's Felicity last summer, when she was about a year and a half old. My mom had brought watermelon and tried handing her a small piece with no rind. That big ol' piece is what Felicity grabbed off the table and just started munching along. Good thing it was seedless!

 Another great picture of Felicity. It was actually taken a few days after the above picture, at our house, with my cell phone camera. I am amazed I got this shot, because she had been busy running around the whole house sugared up on strawberries and apples. I had been wearing that hat, and she took it off, then placed it on her own head, which is weird because she normally hates wearing anything on her head. And of course, her velveteen rabbit named "Bunny" is in hand. She has had that little stuffie since she was in the womb. Really. It was a present to me for her from a dear friend, and from the moment she was born that bunny has been with her. It's her version of Linus's blanket. {Hehe. Charlie Brown reference!}

This is my moms dog, Emi. {Em-me} She was actually my dog, but she attached herself to my mom, (and most definitely vice versa) and when I moved away, it was too cruel to even think about taking Emi away from mom. She's about three years old now, and is a 'doodlebug'. 3/4 Boston Terrier, 1/8 Pug, and 1/8 Poodle. One of her favorite things is playing fetch, and if you can see, her legs are soaking wet because she chased the ball into the pond... She's one odd pooch!

The windmill in my mom's front yard. It doesn't work anymore, and used to have Snoopy in his pilots get-up painted on the tail. Mom has a little garden planted around it with these red tulips, lavender (even though she hates the smell of it) and some other flowers. I love this thing, and remember many an adventure centered around it with my brother Colin. Good times, good times.

Works in Progress

Unfortunately, I have no news from the director of the theater about my play. I was hoping that he would have read it and told me if it was crud or not, but I understand the unavailability of time, since Charlie Brown is due to open in less than a month.

Speaking of which, I'm doing the polishing touches on the sound, and after that, Steve is dragging me backstage to work with our backlighting, which I have to say, looks AWESOME even at this stage of rehearsal (Go John!) so I can't imagine how cool it's going to be for performances. May 12th through the 22nd, I believe. You can always go check out the theaters website with times and prices and such here.

As for my other book, I have one last friend I am awaiting for this FINAL editing round. After I get her info back, it's time to plug it into Word, do a final polish myself and it goes off to the agencies that are already wanting to publish it. Boy, are those other agents going to feel silly when my book hits the best-seller list! Which is what I tell myself because it makes it easier to deal with their rejection. I'm just vengeful like that :)

So, as with every Wednesday, here is a picture and a paragraph about another possible project.

If you remember last Friday's post, about my snippet of "My Angel, My Son", this is what was inspired by it. I wrote "My Angel, My Son" about three years ago, just after Chris and I got married, and it was intended to be put into the county fair we have here, but by the time it was edited and polished the way I wanted, the deadline for entires had already passed. Which sucked, because they don't actively tell you when those deadlines are. {I feel like I have to put a figurative gun to somebodies head to get a real answer.}

Anyway. This story is a drama, heavy on the drama. I debated taking this story out of the running, because with the way I write, it's going to be WAY more than 50k words, and that's how I got stuck with Elkan's book. I completed the challenge of over 50k in 30 days, but because I didn't finish the story, I left still feeling depressed and like a loser, like I hadn't really won. Which is why all of my other stories are simple, to the point dime-novels. But, of course, I can't stop myself and be content, I have to come up with an idea that I love that will stress me out during November.

"Till Death do Us Part" is about a normal, happy family with the American dream, minus the .3 child. A hard working husband, a stay at home mother of two rowdy boys, white picket fence, and a dog. Sounds perfect right? Wrong. The hard working husband is a federal agent assigned a case that reigns destruction down upon his friends and family when his cover is blown by his idiot, and much younger, partner. Fearful for the lives of his family, he fakes his own death with the help of said idiot partner and the FBI, who then relocate him. But he can't stay away. Even under direct orders to stay away from them, he can't. He moves back to the city and basically stalks his wive, watching his family mourn him.
When one of their sons is put into a mental institution, the wife is distraught. Becoming a widow is no easy thing to deal with, even with the government checks and the pension and life insurance, the money doesn't fill the void. Going once a month to the mental hospital takes all of her energy, but that's what it takes. A few weeks after the death of her husband, she begins to feel like she's being watched, and will catch glimpses of a man who looks exactly like her husband. Surely she must be so deep in grief that her mind is playing tricks... Or is she 'catching' her sons illness?
When a badly timed stalk puts dead husband face-to-face with grieving wife, things explode. Literally. Just seconds before a bomb in her car explode, which would have killed her, he saves her. Not knowing what to do, but seeing her dead husband who just saved her own life, she freaks out. But when she goes to the FBI about it, nobody believes her, and calls in specialist after specialist, even going so far as to put her remaining son in the protective custody of his grandparents.

It's the kind of story my dad would love, and that may have inspired some of it, although he was just a police officer instead of an FBI guy. At least when I write this (which I will eventually) I know I will have at least one person who'd buy it! (And read it!!) So that's it for now. I must go eat breakfast, get caught up in Sims Medieval (My very very late birthday present), and then go to tea! I love Wednesday's! Happy Writing!

Le Gasp!

I love this picture for several reasons. It's funny, but better yet, it's something that I think I am going to need to do today. Spending the day unconscious sounds like an alright way to spend a day that you would just rather skip.

Felicity has been having nightterrors the last few weeks, and that in itself has been stressful. Being a mommy, you see your little baby scared to death over something that their own mind has conjured up, but there is nothing you can do to help ease their fear. Because they're not awake. I'm sure I've touched on this subject before, but night terrors are when a child's body is awake, but their mind isn't. This results in very vivid dreams for the child, and it's very scary for the parents too. I hate running into my daughters room and having her thrash around out of my arms because she doesn't know it's me, hearing that Mommy-I'm-going-to-die! scream. You know the one. And of course, no matter what time it is, after she is finally awake from these wretched things, she wants to stay up, not because she's not tired (yawning and rubbing eyes disprove that) but because she doesn't want to be alone in a dark room. Heck, she didn't want to be alone at all. So of course, one of us gets up and goes downstairs to fall asleep on the couch while watching Tangled with her. Several hours of not so good sleep is worth her not screeching though.

I'm also not looking forward to today because I have to go babysit a 50 year old woman. This is also the same woman who rode on my mother's charity for six months, and told me that I was drugging my baby when I gave Felicity tylenol to help her teething. I cannot describe how much I loathe and pity this woman, but the fact that she constantly tells people that she's going to kill herself starts to grate after awhile. She says she's going to, but after all these years, she's never attempted. Never. Not one. I'm saying saying I want her to attempt, or even succeed, but it's becoming the boy who cried wolf, especially for me. Even my mom is at the end of her rope, and she has a very very long rope of patience and charity! To me, all of this is a cry for attention, because her daughters, all three of them, refuse to speak to her because of things she's done to them. I hate having to waste my time babysitting somebody more than twice my age who I know will never actually attempt suicide.

I apologize if I've offended anyone, but I had to get that off my chest if I am going to manage to be silent and civil today. On the lighter side, I finally got my birthday present! Only two months late, but hey, it's something. And it only took 8 hours to download! >.<" Freakin' EA....

Sunny Sunday

Photo by me. Mt. Young Sunset

Well thank goodness for sunshine! I've been so wrapped up in enjoying it, that I nearly forgot to blog today!

This picture is of the sunset at the (almost) top of Young Hill {known to islanders as Mt. Young} when I went for a fantastic hike with my awesome friend Gemma. We bought enough Chinese food to feed a small army and lugged it up the mountain with my two dogs pulling us along, rarely stopping to smell the beautiful white flowers that were growing on each side of the trail. I swear, there must have been THOUSANDS of these cute little guys. So awesome.

Neither of us had been up there in years, definitely a pre-Felicity trip for me, and we had forgotten just how much of a hike it really is. By the time we reached the first picnic area, we were ready to stop. The sunset was gorgeous, and I have a few pictures that make the sun and clouds look like a PokEmon ball... It really was a lot of fun, and I can't wait until we do it again!

Today, I'm busily weeding my gardens (all seven of them) and deciding on the best approach for our walkway. Cementing the stones, or just weed tarping them and adding sand? Or even a low growing path moss... Anyway, it's yet another one of my summer projects that I can't wait to get started on.

What are some of your summer projects for this year? I'd love to know and compare notes on how to "get er done!"