Feelin' Much Better

I just want to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for the kind comments, emails and phone calls over the past few days. You have no idea how much it meant to me.

I figured out one of the reasons why I was so chaotic and twirly on Thursday....apparently it was PMS....as I found out this morning quite by surprise. Let's just say that perimenopause is NOT being good to me. Between the night sweats and wildly fluctuating cycle, no wonder I was a mess last week.

Anyways, I want to say a special Thank You to my cousin Bobbie, who sent me a really great email with insights, info and suggestions that gave me some stuff to mull over. I'll be emailing you back soon Bobbie!!

It's a wonderfully quiet Sunday and as I type this, the snow is falling. It won't last and won't stick, but it's so pretty and peaceful to watch. I finished making cards yesterday and today Brian's promised to help me put up some decorations.

Well I am going to join Brian upstairs and enjoy the snow.

Thanks again everyone. I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Dark Days

"Don't push me
'Cause I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to loose my head
It's like a jungle sometimes
It makes me wonder
How I keep from going under."

Grandmaster Flash, "The Message"

I don't suffer from seasonal affective disorder, despite our dark winters. My bad mood, stress and anxiety can be traced back for many years, and they have been building and building, and I think they are going to breach the levee at any minute. If I had to put my finger on the one turning point or event that started me off, it's definitely 9/11/01.

• In April, 2002, Brian was laid off from his job, although fortunately started a new job in October, 2002, but that was very stressful for both of us; his unemployment check was pitiful. My dear friend Stokely died suddenly right before Crissmiss, 2002.
• My cousin Dickie also died suddenly in Feb. 2003, my Uncle Frank in April, 2003 and my beloved father from lung cancer in June, 2003.
• In 2004, Brian underwent chemo for HCV. The side effects were horrendous. He was unable to function and barely able to work.
• In 2005, we bought a piece of property that I wish we had never, ever bought because it was cursed. Maybe I'll do a post about "The Curse of the Neilton Land" sometime. It had to have been cursed b/c we went through some bad shit.
• Anyway, 2006 Brian was miserable at his job so he started working at Weyco, but then spent more than a month working out of the Oregon office, only coming home late Friday and leaving on Sun. night or Mon. morning. We sold the Neilton property that summer.
• In September, 2006, my boss Robyn left the firm to become a Court Commissioner. Steve and Debby were barely able to function, so I carried the firm and tried to keep the mood light w/ lots of jokes and stuff. Let's not forget the many storms last winter and our 5 day power outage a year ago next week.
• In Jan., 2007, Deb's father started his long decline and I was at the office, often working on Sunday mornings and carrying the burden alone for most of the time, till last week when she came back. My left foot is in so much pain and nothing is helping, not even the shot the dr. gave me. My orthotics are finally in and I go get them next week. The pain keeps me awake. I can't take the dogs for a walk, I can't go to the gym, I can barely get thru grocery shopping and even then I'm using the shopping cart like a walker, hopping on my right foot as much as possible. I cut my shopping plans short b/c I can't walk. I haven't even been antiquing b/c I can't walk that much. I'm 43 fucking years old and I hobble around the house with a cane.

I could not care less about the holidays. I don't want to decorate. I don't want to bake. I made some cards last weekend but I don't feel like finishing. I still haven't sent out my mom's gift. Normally, everything is done by, or on, Thanksgiving weekend, including the decorating. Not this year. I usually watch all the Crissmiss shows and movies. No interest this year. It's just a big fat pain in the ass, the whole fucking holiday season. The Season of Brotherly Shove.

I went back on my antidepressants this fall. I was not doing at all well off them. But this time, they are not working. So I'm junking out on sugar, and stress-eating. NOTHING is making me feel better. Not shopping, not crafts, not donating to charity, not even the bitchin Crissmiss bonus my boss just handed me. Nothing.

Last night I fell and I just burst into hysterical wailing and sobbing. I let it all out for about 15 minutes: I just screamed obscenities and cried my eyes out; I managed to scare both the dogs with my keening. I thought that was the release I needed but it wasn't.

I fear that I am dangerously close to a serious mental and emotional breakdown. Every time Steve comes in my office with another task, I want to scream, "LEAVE ME ALONE!" and then start crying. There is so much anger boiling under the surface and all I want to do is punch and kick and scream and cry and swear. It's so bad that I'm starting to scare myself because of the sick musings I have in my head. Like wanting to take a hit out on some people I know. Like wishing I had a gun in my car so that I could kill everyone who gets in my way on the road. Just blow them away. Make them get on their knees and beg for mercy as I hold the barrel against their forehead, then pull the trigger. Or run them off the road or into the other lane of traffic, or purposely slam my brakes on to make the fucking asshole semi who won't get the fuck out of my lane jack-knife. I get so apoplectic that I get this dizzy feeling in my head, I literally see red or my vision blurs, and I go absolutely apeshit screaming and flipping people off and exaggerating the words "FUCK YOU", "ASSHOLE" and "CUNT" when they look in their rearview mirrors and see my raging. You may see me on the news one of these days because I am that angry behind the wheel.

I get apoplectic in stores now too and I've nearly gotten into arguments with the stupid fucking morons in line in front of me because they are so fucking slow and stupid and "can I pay half with cash and half on my debit card?" or they don't have their money/check/card READY when the checker gives them the total, or it's some old bat who is all, "But the price of the milk is supposed to be $3.50 not $3.60, I want my dime back!" The person has just spent $100 or more for groceries and stuff and she's whining about goddamn .10? I start muttering out loud, "Oh for the love of god! Stupid fucking bitch. Way to be ready you stupid asshole. Oh that's right, I forgot you are the only person on planet earth and the only person in line." People taking up room in store aisles and being so oblivious that you stand there going, "Excuse me. Excuse me. EXCUSE ME!" then they give you a dirty look b/c you got terse. They're lucky I didn't say, "get the fuck out of my way asshole!" Oh and let's not forget the fuckers who are going in or out of store right in front of you, but they let the door slam in your face instead of holding it. Or I'll hold it for someone and they won't even say "thank you". Or I'll let someone with 2 items go ahead of me in the grocery store and that goes unacknowledged or they end up paying with 3 credit cards AND cash.

Counseling? Been there, done that. I went to counseling in California. Didn't do jack shit. All I did was air my many, many grievances and anger about my very fucked up self esteem as well as childhood "baggage" that I cannot seem to shake, and they never gave me any skills to cope or move on. I just gave them my money, bitched about stuff, and went home feeling the same way I did b/f I went in.

I have so many things for which to be thankful, and I am a very fortunate person. I know that. I have a wonderful hubby, 2 adorable dogs, a great house and job. Both our vehicles are paid. We have food, clothes, warmth.....But I cannot deal with day to day life anymore. It's killing me. My stomach hurts, my head hurts. Everything fucking hurts, 24/7. I put on such a happy face and joke around a lot and make people laugh, and inside I'm slowly dying. But isn't that always the way with funny people. Many of them are crying on the inside. That's me. I have no friends here in Washington. Not a one. All of you, my dearest friends, are scattered to the wind. I miss having a girlfriend to hang out with. I miss that so much.

When I was a senior in high school, my accounting teacher would often just space out in the middle of teaching. He'd just stop talking and stare out the windows behind us. The class would start shuffling uncomfortably, and we'd all steal glances behind us to see what he was looking at. Then he'd snap out of it and pick up where he left off. His name was Mr. Ash, but behind his back we started calling him "Mr. Hash". He had a complete breakdown right after that. I find myself staring off into space an awful lot.....more than usual.

I don't mean to scare or freak anyone out; I would not off myself. But I just feel like I'm painted into a corner and I am stuck but good. Anyways, think good thoughts for me because I'm in a pretty dark place right now.

Hammered

Well we're all crawling out from the first serious Pineapple Express storm of the winter. I wish that a cold front had collided with this massive moisture because we would've had a ton of snow. As it is, several communities around the Puget Sound did have a lot of snow on Sunday, and not just in the Cascades, but it changed to pouring rain overnight Sunday to Monday.

Sunday afternoon the wind kicked up and the rain started shortly thereafter and then it just howled for hours. I went to bed really early so I slept through it, but Brian had to give poor little Pepper a doggie tranq so she could get thru the night. Meanwhile, I'm praying for the power to go out. Driving in to work Monday was challenging for reasons besides the raging storm, which I'll get to in a minute.

However, as our luck would have it, Pierce County didn't take a direct hit at all. For the most part, our rivers are higher, but not road level. I'm tellin' ya, now that we have the super delux generator, we'll never lose our power again. I suppose we should be thankful for that....but I really would like to be home and experience the generator on and actually powering our house.


Other parts of Western Washington were not so lucky. "The Pineapple Express" is what we call any warm storm front that comes up from Hawai'i. The temperatures were only in the 50's, but the rain comes sideways in sheets and the wind just blows so hard. The rivers rise quickly and storm drains can't possibly accomodate that much water for that long before everything starts to overflow and flood. Mudslides have slid down across the railroad tracks so all the trains have stopped between Vancouver, BC and Portland, OR. The towns of Woodinville (east of Seattle) and Aberdeen (WA coast) are completely cut off because of floods or trees across all of the highways; they've had wind gusts over 100 mph on the coast. A 20-miles stretch of Interstate 5 is closed down in the Centralia area, with 8' - 9' (yes, feet, not inches) of water over the road and the Chehalis River hasn't yet crested. The WSDOT has no idea when it will reopen. They are suggesting people take a 300 mile detour to get from Seattle to Portland.

Here are some pictures from KING5.com: This was taken in Olympia, south of where I live. Woodinville (east/northeast of Seattle)

Seattle.

Seabeck, on the Kitsap Peninsula, near the Hood Canal. Note the snow drifts and plow piles from the massive snow they got late Sunday, which melted extremely rapidly and contributed to the flooding.

Belfair.

Woodinville. I was listening to KIRO radio on the way home, at 4:20, and they were having drivers call in and some people had been sitting in traffic since about 1:30 and had only gone 10 miles. No one could get into Woodinville and traffic was gridlocked in all directions. The chopper traffic guys were saying that every single street and highway was bumper to bumper and no one was moving.

So anyways, I head out into the storm at 6:30 a.m. on Monday, and as I am driving down Highway 410, I can hear a weird noise coming from the back of the car. I thought I'd left a window partially down or one of the doors wasn't closed all the way. But it was also pouring and windy and there are a lot of gigantic logging trucks and industrial dump trucks on the road w/ me at that time of the morning, so I figured it was a truck. I had an uneventful drive to work on River Road; conditions made it impossible for anyone to drive over about 40 mph. However, as I approached the curve and on-ramp to Interstate 5, my car did a strange little shimmy. I had a bad feeling. But now I'm on a friggin 5 lane highway with semi's barreling down on me. I know I had to cross over a few lanes to get around a bunch of trucks that were starting to dangerously slow down on the upgrade, but finally I got back over, got off on Highway 16 and made it to work. I was afraid to get out and look. But I knew. My rear passenger side tire was flat. Completely and utterly flat. Then I got that icky post "oh-my-god-I-could've-been-killed" feeling thinking about my trek on I-5 in the pitch dark and pouring down rain.

What a way to start a Monday, eh? Fuck. Fortunately we have AAA. Every year when I get that $80 bill for the membership, I say, "do we really need it?" Then I renew it "just in case". Could I BE more relieved? I could try, but I would not be successful. It was only 7:15 and they got the truck to the office by 8:15 to change the tire. OK, now you are gonna say, "Are you really that much of a delicate doily that you can't change your own damn tire?" And to that I answer, Yes. Yes I am. I don't know how to change a tire. Brian taught me once but I've forgotten. I don't want to do it. That is why there are mechanics and tow truck drivers and damn it, I paid $80 to AAA and I am gonna use it. Besides, even if I could change the tire, I was not about to do it in that storm.

Anywho, at lunchtime I took the car to Les Schwab.

They are one of the last "old fashioned" type businesses. When you pull up, someone comes running to your car. Running. Not walking fast, they run. Customer Service is their number 1 priority. They back up their tires with the most amazing guarantee. I was there less than a half hour and my tire was fixed and patched and I was back on my way to the office. Didn't have to pay a dime because I purchased the tires from their company.

Pepper P. Puppington - So Much More Than Just a Pretty Face

My sweet little Bean is much smarter than one would think. She's not as smart as Sagan, but she's still a very bright, observant little doggie.

The other morning, I had just gotten up, was in the livingroom & kitchen, and Brian was still laying in bed. Sagan was in his crate, where he sleeps and Pepper was wandering around. I take off her collar at night because she sleeps with me so I can't hear her walking around without it. Last I knew, she was snoozing on the floor. I never knew she'd gotten up, gone downstairs, come back up and was now in Brian's room, till I heard the sound of a squeak toy. I heard Brian say, "Whatcha got there Beebs?" Turns out my sweet little angel had gone downstairs, retrieved Sagan's favorite toy (you all remember Duck right?).....

....came back upstairs, parked herself directly in front of Sagan and started squeaking Duck. Because he was still crated, he couldn't get out and she knew it. We did get quite a yuk out of it, so I let Sagan out and I gave him Duck back. Sagan, the sweet little guy that he is, hadn't made a single whine or bark while she was teasing him. He loves his sister.

Buying Back My Childhood One Wacky Pack at a Time.

(note: I have tried a bunch of times to separate these paragraphs but Blogger is not cooperating, so sorry for the run on paragraphs.)

When I was in the 3rd grade, I discovered Wacky Packs. I became addicted to them. I collected them throughout 3rd and 4th grades and had amassed a great stack of them. My parents would put them in my stocking at Crissmiss. Sometimes I'd get a package of cards if I got good grades on my report cards. Sometimes my dad would pick me up a package on the way home from work "just because". To this day, there are products that I still refer to by their Wacky Pack names, like "Ditch Boy Paint", "ValvEater" and my all time personal fave, "Kentucky Fried Fingers - They're Chicken Lickin' Good".

During 3rd grade, I became friends with a girl who had actually bullied me quite a bit. But when my parents gave me permission to "push back", which I did the next time Pam jacked me up against the wall by my shirt collar, she and I ended up becoming really close friends for a few years. Her family was less fortunate than mine, Pam and her siblings were painfully thin, and her father was one scary dude. And not just because he had one eye (an empty, drooping socket too, without even a glass eye). When Pam would come to my house, she would eat and eat and eat. My dad, when he would get animated while telling a story, had a tendency to raise his voice and talk with his hands, and my mom told me that she noticed that Pam cowered a bit, as if she thought she was going to get hit. I was only 9 and didn't notice. Looking back, I wonder if her father physically and sexually abused Pam, her brother and sister. Pam ended up dropping out of school sometime during Junior High; either that or she went to the vocational school, because I don't remember her being around past the 7th grade, and we went to an extremely small school at the time.

Anyway, I don't really remember the incident, but for some reason, something had happened and I felt really bad for Pam, so to cheer her up, I gave her my entire stack of Wacky Packs. My parents absolutely hit the roof. After buying me Packs for 2 years, I just gave them away. My mom told me....actually demanded.....that I ask Pam to give them back. I was not comfortable with that at all. When I went over to her house, I told her that my mom wanted her to give me back the stickers, but Pam said that she'd already stuck them on stuff and I told her that was OK.

Over the years I have kicked myself over and over for getting rid of my collection. A few years ago, before eBay really exploded, I tried to find the cards on line and they were selling for up to $10 PER STICKER. I gave up. Then a couple of months ago, I started trolling eBay and I have to tell ya, people do not know what they have when they sell their stuff online. I have now managed to collect nearly 100 stickers from my era, for really, really cheap bids. In fact, on Thanksgiving Day, I scored 63 of them for only $45.00. Most of my fave stickers have been in the ones I've recently bought, except for "Kentucky Fried Fingers".

I still call Land-O-Lakes butter "Land O Quakes".

Does anyone remember Gold Rush gum? It came in a cloth bag and the gum was little yellow "gold" nuggets.

Decemberrrrrrrr is here

Woke up to just the lightest of dustings this morning; just enough to make everything look like it's covered in a bit of sugar but not enough to be a problem on the roads. The forecast calls for more snow later today, but I'll believe it when I see it. Tomorrow and Monday are supposed to be very windy and rainy. Welcome to Winter in the Pacific Northwest. I'm trying so hard to get into the holiday spirit but so far I'm not having any luck. In fact, an informal poll I've been taking amongst people I talk to (bank tellers, store clerks, etc), shows that no one seems to care this year. A couple of days ago I was on the phone with a Pierce County Court Judge's Judicial Assistant, and she asked if I was ready for the holidays and I said, "No. You?" and she said, "I am SO not in the mood this year." Yesterday in the bank, I could barely hear myself think due to the blasting loud carols and I finally said, through clenched teeth to the teller, "Isn't this music driving you insane?" Her head snapped up, she got this gleem in her eyes, and she said, loud enough for EVERYONE to hear - customers and employees alike - "I'm not going to lie, it's making me crazy!! I don't see why we have to have it on 24/7 like this, and I have a whole month left to listen to it!!" I glanced around at the other employees and they were all smirking & nodding. Brian told me that the holiday music is equally loud at the Washington Mutual Bank in Federal Way as well. I'm so not in the mood that I don't even feel like dragging out the decorations. Maybe I'll feel differently in a week or so, but right now I'm not at all enthused about it.


So what can I do to get myself in the holiday spirit? I'm not sure. I think we are going to try to give to more charities this season. Maybe the feeling of giving to others in need will make me feel better. Weyerhaeuser is having a clothing drive so I'll round up some stuff for that. I'm sure the local food banks could use donations too.


I found a small grassroots charity out here called Forgotten Children's Fund, which was started in Seattle in 1976. http://www.forgottenchildrensfund.org/ A Seattle restaurant accidentally received this letter, and the charity was born. Can you imagine being a parent, facing your children on Crissmiss Day and telling them that "Santa must've gotten lost" ??? The thing that really made me want to cry, is that this little boy, Craig, has to be a couple of years younger than me, as I was only 12 in 1976. I remember that Crissmiss of abundance and happiness in my own home, where I got a tape recorder among other snazzy gifts& clothes, then going down to my Aunt's house and eating till we were ready to explode, and it breaks my heart to think of other kids who were my age or younger going completely without anything that day. Since then, the charity has spread to a few other counties, including Pierce. Brian and I bought a couple of bikes a few years ago but we've never ridden them, so I contacted FCF and they will happily take the bikes off our hands to make needy children smile on Crissmiss morning.


Brian's fave charity is http://www.heifer.org/. Heifer started in the 1940's and their philosophy on charity work was, and still is, lightyears ahead of its time, especially for the 40's. Donation money goes to buy animals for people in poverty stricken villages all over the world. For example, $60 buys 3 rabbits for a family. The manure is used for crops, the fur can be spun into fibre and lets face it, rabbits can also be eaten. They also multiply exponentially. The family is then required to give away the offspring of their Heifer animal to other families in their village. A gift of chicks is only $20, Honeybees $30. Many times they will provide a large animal (water buffalo) which is already pregnant so that the family can give away the baby to another family. That way, the families can get on the road to self sufficiency. I think it will also make us feel more in the holiday spirit to help people in the world as well as at home.


The bottom line is that we are living with a really terrible situation right now. People are having to choose between food and heating oil. The poor find themselves having to scale down even more than usual thanks to the high cost of gas and oil. Not to mention the "staple" items that cost a ton of money now like cereal, bread, milk, eggs, butter and cheese. Thanks to Bush, and to quote a line from the movie "Flashback", we now have 2 classes: The Truly Needy and the Truly Greedy.


Brian and I are very thankful for our jobs, our warm home and our good fortune to be able to afford food and gas. We piss money away on junk every day. If we see something, we gotta have it now, and we buy it. We don't have a lot of time to donate to volunteer work, but we can open our wallets and share.


If you can afford to write an extra $20 check to a charity of your choosing, or buy a few extra cans/boxes of nonperishable foods with your own groceries to drop off at a food bank, I urge you to do so. Every little bit helps, and giving does feel better than receiving. And let's face it, with the medical insurance and prescription problem in this country, we're all one catastrophic illness or accident away from needing to go to the food banks ourselves.

Is it me?

Or are the rest of you as sick of the Crissmiss commercials that are running nonstop on TV? It's November 27 and I'm already reaching for the remote control to mute each and every commercial break. Has it always been this bad and annoying in the past?

Throughout the years, my favourite Crissmiss carols have changed. When I was a real little kid, I loved "Sleighride" and "Winter Wonderland" the best. Then I went through a "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and "Do You Hear What I Hear?" phase in the mid-70's. But it was the Andre Cold Duck commercial that started running in 1975 or 1976 that caught my attention, because they used "Carol of the Bells", which has been my fave carol since then.

Unfortunately, this season, the Powers That Be have done a nice job of taking my fave carol and beating it into the ground. Over Thanksgiving weekend, I logged six, count 'em SIX commercials using "Carol of the Bells". Brian was in hysterics every time a commercial would start and I'd reach for my pen and paper, poised to jot down yet another tired rehashing of "Carol". The offenders are, as follows:

Walmart
Verizon Wireless
DirecTV/Qwest Broadband
The movie "Fred Claus"

The winner of the "Most Obnoxious Use of Carol of the Bells", however, goes to Hyundai, with their unbelievably annoying ad campaign using "Duh", which started to get old the first time with their use of "2001: A Space Odyssey" earlier this summer. I'm embarassed to be driving a Hyundai, lemme tell ya. And we're a 2-Hyundai family too!

The winner of the "Best Use of Carol of the Bells" goes to Garmin GPS because at least the new lyrics are really funny & clever, and the choir sounds great.

I've also noticed that a lot of ads are overusing music from "The Nutcracker" as well.

Needless to say, if I hear another carol of any kind, I'm gonna start taking hostages. I used to break out my holiday music tapes and listen to them in my car going to and from work. Unfortunately this season, the tapes will continue to gather dust in the back room.

Brian read a sad statistic the other day that says that most Americans are going into the holiday season this year in really bad moods. We're suffering from war fatigue, the constant bickering and scandals involving politicians, not to mention the massive foreclosures & bankruptcies and the price of gas. Could this be why the commercials are driving me mad?

All I can say is, if Kia runs their year-end sales event ad this January, I will slit my throat. Seriously. I'm sure the rest of you forgot the hell that was January, 2007, watching a bunch of fat, middle aged car salespeople lumber their way through "So Long, Farewell" from "The Sound of Music". It was an obnoxious song when the Von Trapp kids sang it, and it's ten times more annoying as a commercial jingle.

And it's not just the holiday ads with the singing that piss me off, I get apoplectic at the "guilt trip jewelry" ads as well. "Give her the gift she really wants! DIAMONDS!" or the one with the bitch who snaps at her husband, "He went to JARED!" And the bumbling husband cringes from his holiday mistake. I keep shouting at the TV, "Screw you bitch! You're lucky you got anything at all ya selfish pig!" And since when do couples give each other CARS as presents? How does that even work?

Hmmm.....maybe I should just quit watching TV? Nah. It's more fun to send emails to the companies bitching about their stupid ads.

A Relaxing Weekend

I absolutely LOVE Thanksgiving weekend! It's replaced Crissmiss as my fave holiday. We've relaxed, slept late, and I have to say, neither of us has over-indulged too badly, food-wise. The weather was cold and clear all week. I've done a lot of crafts and Brian and I have had a lot of laughs, although he took the bag of pretzel sticks away from me after my 100th attempt at pretzel-fangs, which I'm sorry, is always a crowd pleaser. But then he made me laugh so hard yesterday that I sprayed crystal lite and pretzel chunks out of my nose and all over my clothes. Causing him to choke on his beer.

Because many of our neighbors either took down trees or had them fall in the storms, we discovered that we almost have a killer view of Mt. Rainier from our deck. If we could just locate these 2 offending, scraggly fir trees and cut them down, it would be an unobstructed view and raise our property value by a staggering sum. I'm kind of hoping Ma Nature takes care of these 2 trees in the next storm, although I certainly don't want the trees to damage anyone's home.

We watched a lot of football on Thursday and we ate around 5:00. Here's a picture of our table. The blue bottle is Bridgeview Winery Blue Moon Chardonnay. I do not like wine, or beer for that matter, and I only bought the wine for the bottle. I'm nuts about cobalt and crescent moons. Brian had the Chardonnay with dinner and I stuck to Martinelli's non-alcoholic sparkling apple-cranberry cider. The white paper is the menu I create each year on the computer, to make it look like a restaurant. I forgot to add "cranberry sauce". We make our Thanksgiving as easy as possible. We get a turkey breast and cook that. But everything else is out of the box: Stove-Top stuffing, Potato Buds mashed potatoes (tastes just like the real thing and no pesky pealing!), Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce, Heinz Homestyle turkey gravy from the jar, frozen corn and green bean casserole (takes 10 minutes to make). This being our 19th Thanksgiving together, we have it down to a science in that we are seated and eating by 5:10, and by 6:00 p.m., the kitchen is completely cleaned up and all dishes washed (we don't even have a dishwasher! Oh wait, yes we do, her name is JoJo).
This stained glass piece throws some pretty reflections on the wall this time of year. I made this piece from a craft kit, which is why the diamonds don't exactly line up.

Ooooooo, purty!

Of course Sagan and Pepper were given a small taste of all the fixin's we made and they dived in appreciatively. They are such good dogs. Sagan was clearly being driven mad by all of the smells but he did his best to stay out of the way, and there was absolutely no table or counter surfing or begging when Brian and I were eating.

Yesterday, I fixed them half sandwiches of turkey & stuffing. Nothing too big of course and we limited the rest of the treats yesterday. Sagan dutifully ate his sandwich in his bowl, but Beanie grabbed hers and took it downstairs, with me running after her yelling, "NOOOOOOOOOO! NOT ON THE CARPET!" Oops......too late.

"I has turkey sammich!" nom nom nom nom

nom nom nom nom

I spent yesterday making vast quantities of beaded jewelry. Here's my craft table in full jewelry-making mode.
I apologize for the crappy ass pics again....the sun was washing out the jewelry, and today being cloudy, I tried to shoot the stuff under my Ott Light, but you just can't see how pretty and sparkly they are. I'm hoping that you will be able to click each picture to see the details.

The charm is the Chinese symbol for the Year of the Dragon.

The large beads are so incredibly pretty and eye catching and it's a shame you can't really see them in this picture. They are sort of a peachy/pale green.

Here is a collaborative effort. I bought some marbles off eBay a year or so ago, and I sent a bunch of them to Michelle for her collection, and I also enclosed some that I wanted her to wrap with wire. She is really, really good at wire wrapping, so she did a bunch and then mailed them back to me so that I could make necklaces.

These are pink Swarovsky crystal "pearls", with a natural stone pendant that I bought in Tacoma. I'm not 100% sure what the crystally stone is, although to me it almost looks like lepidolite.

I got the dichroic pendant in Portland and then created necklace with pink & topaz Swarovski crystal. This one is especially sparkly.

I found the millefiori pendant on sale at the Crystal Pineapple Gift Shop on Cape Cod a few years ago and just now got around to stringing it with blue Japanese delica seed beads and Swarovski crystal.

These are some fun millefiori-like beads that I got at Shipwreck Beads last month. I had enough to make 2 necklaces, a bracelet and pair of earrings.

I wish you could see the detail of the beads on the necklace. They are 3 different shapes and are multi-coloured in blues and purples.

Another marble collaborative with Michelle.

Julie gave me a puka shell necklace but it was a little too tight around my neck. So I restrung it, with clear Swarovsky crystals interspaced after every 12 puka shells. I also added a magnetic clasp. I thought it was a fancy twist on a great 70's retro fashion statement!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Wishing everyone near and far a Happy Turkey Day and safe journey, should you be traveling.

Canis Doofus

We've all heard of the Canis Lupus (wolf), Canis Latrans (coyote) and Canis Lupus Familiaris (dog). But today I would like to introduce you to the Canis Doofus. Judging from the photos I saw of Liz's adorable Sheltie, Ruff, all dressed up for Halloween, she has a Canis Doofus as well.



This is one of my two Canis Doofi. I have to say, this particular German shepherd is not terribly intimidating when he's running around with a squeak toy in his mouth. I'm convinced that he'd let anyone in the house as long as they gave him a belly rub and a biscuit. Well, maybe not....But he sure acts goofy around us.


Sagan sez, "I has a duck!" "I loves mah duck."

"See mah duck?"

"It not cheezburger...is duck!"

What kind of Canis Doofus do you have?

Tagged!!

I was tagged by Annie today!


Here are the rules...Post your earliest memory that is:


#1 Clear enough to include three details.

#2 Give your age.

#3 Pass it along to some other folks.

OK, please don't commit me to Western State Hospital after reading this!!!

My earliest memory is of being in my crib, "making people" out of tissue. If I can remember it, I had to have been at least 2 or 3; I have no idea how old I was when my parents decided I could sleep in a bed (although my mom's favourite joke is that I was 16).

I must have been sick because I don't know why else there would have been an unlimited supply of kleenex available to me. I can remember being awake, my orange-bulbed nightlight throwing shadows in my darkened room. I would tear off a piece of tissue, roll it into a ball, put it in my mouth, then put the damped tissue in my hand and make a fist to "mold" it. When I opened my hand, the tissue ball had turned into a little person; the only one I can clearly remember was a farmer wearing denim overalls and a hat. I made an entire community that night, and I had them lined up all around my crib. I talked to them and they talked to me. In the morning, I woke up and went to look for my people but they were all gone. My mom still tells the story of the time she came upstairs to check on me and found all these wadded up balls of tissue in my crib and she'd wondered what in the hell I'd been doing during the night. She cleaned them all out before I woke up. Now I tease her about the time she destroyed my village.

Tagging Axe, Val, Susan, Kris, Kristy & Bryde.

Since I had the photoalbum out....

....I thought I'd post a few pictures of a part of Mt. Rainier National Park that is currently inaccessable to the driving public because of massive damage from the floods & windstorms of 2006. I believe you can still drive to this entrance of the Park, but after that, the road is washed out and if you want to see the Chenuis or Ipsut waterfalls, or hike to the tip of the Carbon Glacier, you have to hike in at least 5 miles to the trailhead, then it's another couple of miles to the glacier.

Washington State is home to the lower 48's only rainforests. When Michelle and John came to visit us in 2000, we just didn't have the time to drive the nearly 200 miles out to the Olympic Peninsula to see the large Hoh and Quinault Rainforests. However, there is a small rainforest trail at the Carbon River entrance to Mt. Rainier National Park, and that's a good one to show visitors when you can't get out to the Oly Pen. Since Michelle's pictures of the forest came out much better than mine, the ones with the date stamp on them in red are hers.

After we left the rainforest trail, we drove farther down the road so that we could hike to Chenuis Falls, on the other side of the Carbon River. It was late June, and we'd had a very dry winter, so the Carbon wasn't as swollen and rushing as it is normally. Otherwise we never would have been able to cross it. And the only way to cross the river is on log bridges. These are long gone now, and the flood damage that exists in this area is of epic proportions. This was the first one we crossed. It was narrow, but it had a rail.

Here Michelle is about to execute a cartwheel, flip, double twist and dismount. lol As you can see, there was no rail on the second log bridge, but fortunately the river was not deep or running swiftly enough to carry you away. The most you'd get is bruised from the rocks and wet feet.

There's John, sizing up the last log bridge, which had a wire to hold onto. I would not have wanted to fall into this particular channel as it was deep and fast. The river is filled with silt and minerals, which is why it's so cloudy.

It's a shame we had such a foggy day. This is looking east up the river bed (taken by Michelle).

This is Chenuis Falls. I'm glad that John is in this picture so you can see the scale (also taken by Michelle).This green pool looked so delicious that I was fighting the urge to plunge in. But the water was icy cold because it was pouring off The Mountain, and it was not a very warm day.

It would be nice if they can fix the road so that we can access this part of the Park again, as it's the most remote corner of Mt. Rainier. However, it seems that all the repair funding is being channeled into repairing the buildings and trails at the visitor centers at Sunrise and Paradise, and reopening scenic Stevens Road, which has been closed for over a year now. It doesn't help that the other day we had another windstorm and a gust of 119 mph was recorded at Camp Muir, high on Mt. Rainier, so there is no doubt further damage to the Park.