Things that make me smile

My daughter and our rat, Hades.


Brodie peeking out from the house.


Some how my daughter got Hades to lay here with her toy duck. This is probably the cutest thing I've ever seen.

Slowly getting back to normal

Life changes so quickly and we never see some things coming. I didn't see my mother's death coming, at least not this soon and not this fast with no warning signs at all. I knew things were going to take some time and they are, I'm slowly getting out of my depressed hole that I've been in for too long. My little brother has been there for me every single day since this has happened and I love him to pieces for that. I think we are keeping each other sane by talking each day.

My little brother is coming into town next weekend and I get to see him. he's taking my daughter for a couple of weeks when his son will be with him. The two of them are just a couple of years apart in age and I think it will be good for them to have some time together after losing their grandma. My husband lost his mother just a few months ago so my daughter lost both of her grandmother's in a very short time and I know it's affected her.

I've been going through old pictures a lot lately and buying a few more photo albums to put the hundreds of new pictures I got from my mom's place. My hubby laughs because it seems I am the keeper of the photos for my family. I have over 20 large photo albums and now have about 300 more pictures to label and put in albums. I'm quickly running out of storage space for them. lol

Looking through all the pictures has been helping and I've been making scrapbooks for a few years now. I have three scrapbooks that I made in the past three years and am putting together some old pictures to make another one. Anything that will keep me busy and my mind off of things is good right now. All i can do is get through each day and hope the next one is better than the last.

I'm back

I'm back online but not completely back to doing the things that I used to do. I just can't seem to get into them yet. My family and I buried my mother on June 30th and it's been a real living hell since then. I feel like I am walking around in a world that isn't real and my world has just fallen apart. There's nothing that can lift the darkness from my life and nothing is going to change that except maybe time.

I did not expect my mother to die this soon. My brothers and I had just been asking her to move in with my older brother less than a month ago. We wanted to to be safe where we didn't have to worry about her falling down and no one being there with her to call for help...and now she's gone. It all seems like a nightmare right now and i can't seem to pull myself out of this deep dark depressed hell I am in.

I've struggled with depression for years but I don't think I have ever felt like this....no one should ever feel like this. I'm sure in time things will get better and the pain won't be as sharpe as it is right now, but it seems like nothing in the world will ever be right again.

Sad News: My mom passed away

I'm sad to say that my mom passed away on the 23rd of this month. So for the time being I won't be around much. There's so much to do right now but my family is with me.

My mom came over to my house on the 22nd for my daughter's birthday and she seemed fine. 8pm on the 24th my mom's PCA (Personal Care Attendant) called me and told me she hadn't seen my mom that day and asked if she might have gone for the weekend with one of my brother's or was picked up for a doctors appointment. I said no to both and told her I was going to call the police to have them break into her apartment and do a welfare check.

The police got there and called maintenance to let them in and called me back and informed me that they found my mother had passed away in her sleep in her own bed. The cororner told me that it looked like she got ready for bed, turned the tv on in her room and laid down and passed away that night.

It came as a shock to all of us because I had just seen her 2 days before and while she had numerous health problems, she was doing fine.

My brothers and I went and made the arrangements at the funeral home yesterday and her funeral is going to be on the 30th.

I'll be back in a week or two.


Mary

Happy Birthday to My Daughter

Tomorrow June 22nd is my daughter's 20th birthday. Where has the time gone?

This is a recent picture of my daughter and my brother at his wedding reception. I love this picture. I cannot believe she is already 20 years old, oh how the time fly's.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there.

Sad News about L.A. Banks

I sometimes struggle with a post here on my blog, but there are days that something just hits me square in the face and I know I have to pass the information on. Like the other day I was reading the posts on my favorite blogs and read a post on on Obfuscation of Reality about how L.A. Banks is battling an illness and loads of people are helping with her medical bills by way of auctions.

If you would like to see one of these auctions you can click here.


Sometimes you see something just needs to be shared with others and this is one of those times. I have read a lot of her books and this is really sad. It's sad when it happens to anyone but when it's someone you feel you know through her books, it hit harder.

The Red Star World Wear Scam

I recently saw a gift card in my Outside magazine, for $500 worth of free merchandise from Redstarworldwear.com

I looked over their site and soon realized that this merchandise which is mostly sunglasses and watches was not going to be free with this gift card. There is a 'service' [shipping and handling fee] of 9% per item. That's right 9% per item! So if I bought $500 worth of sunglasses from the site I would be paying about $50 just for shipping and handling. Don't waste your money on sunglasses that you could buy for $10 on the street or someplace else and get ripped off by shipping and handling fee's that cost you more than the glasses are actually worth.

If someone wants to offer you a free product, the shipping and handling will be free to. Or at the very least the 'gift card' they are supposedly giving you will also pay for the shipping and handling....which this one does NOT!

Bottom line...It's not free. Save your money and go to the drug store and buy a pair of sun glasses you can try on beforehand and make sure you like them. Don't get scammed by sites that are going to over charge you on the shipping and handling fee's for things that wouldn't never cost as much as they are charging.

My week In Pictures...

I've been busy doing all sorts of things, among them has been taking pictures or finding pictures in my many, many photo albums and scanning them to post on Fb so I could share them with my family that has no idea I still had them. Hey, I'm not called the picture keeper for nothing!

I've got all the pictures from my mom and dad that they had when they were little and I have all the families pictures that have been taken at all the family functions ect. I have about 20 very large photo albums and 4 large scrapbooks that I myself made.

I really love taking pictures and having the old pictures of my family and I. I even have pictures of really old cars and pictures of my grandpa when he was a kid. Not too long ago I went through the old pictures that my dad gave me years ago and had him tell me who some of the people were in the photos. I found I had a picture of my dad's grandparents. How cool is that?

So this is what I have been doing this week...



This is a picture I took of my String Doll that my daughter gave me. I wrote an article about string Dolls and should have it published in 2 weeks after the editor approves it.


Here's a picture of my rats that my daughter took. One of my rats, Hades is laying on his back and the other rats are snuggling with him.


This is a picture of my brother Billy and I. I was 16 at the time so it must have been in 1986..can you believe that? Oh how time flys. My brother didn't even know I still had this picture until I uploaded it to FB.


Here's a picture of the boys cage right after I had cleaned it. They messed it up right afterwards. They love to snuggle into those baby blankets.


and this is a picture of my childhood best friends kittens, back in 1984. That cats face is just priceless...He was yawning and made that face...LOL

Now I like Powdered incense...lol

I asked a friend of mine what in the world I was doing wrong with the charcoal briquettes and the powdered incense. It turns out that I was not lighting the charcoal briquette long enough for it to catch fire and get red hot, which would keep the fire inside it going and burn the powdered incense on it.

I finally get it now and have had it working just fine. Sometimes I just need to have some patience..lol

I do not like powdered incense

I recently bought some more powdered incense, the same kind that I had with my Wicca box and because it smelled good I wanted more and some charcoal incense burners. So I bought the charcoal briquettes and the incense and quickly found out that the little charcoal briquettes don't burn worth a shit. I put sand in the bottom of the brass burner I have, then lit the charcoal briquette and let it get hot, then put about 1/2 a teaspoon of incense on it and it smoked for about a minute and then stopped, I knocked the ash off the top and put more incense on and it didn't burn because the charcoal wasn't still hot. Maybe I need better briquettes.

I always seem to be writing something these days

I just finished writing another article for Associated Content from Yahoo! and now have another article published on my profile. I would probably write more but I run out of ideas really fast most days.


I really don't know how some of my author friends do it. I know authors of books that write several books a year! That would be a lot of work and quite frankly, I get tired of writing when I know I have to do it because it's work. That seems to take most of the fun out of it for me.

But thankfully I can write on my own time and get the articles I want to write out there for people to read, and it surprises me each month when I see just how many thousands of people click on my articles to read them.

But when I'm not writing articles I'm writing emails, notes, IM's, FB updates, blog updates, grocery lists, entering blog contests, reviews, and let's not forget all the wonderful paperwork for things like school, the government when it's needed, checks needing to be filled out, and the never ending list of books I want to get and put in my wish list.

The amount of writing and note taking I do seems to be never ending, good thing I have lots of paper and post it notes. lol

Fright Night Remake

I loved the original Fright Night movie and was irritated when I heard they were re-making this classic movie. The original is my all time favorite movie and I don't care what anyone says, Chris Sarandon is the ultimate vampire and no one will be able to replace him.

Now that being said, after watching this trailer I have changed my mind *yeah, I'm allowed to do that* and from the looks of the trailer it seems this isn't going to be a word for word remake of the original, which I am really glad about. I'm kinda looking forward to seeing this movie, because truthfully it looks pretty good and if I'm not comparing it to the original but watching it as a stand alone movie...I'll probably like it. Check out the trailer:

I'm a Winner!

I've been reading all sorts of books, even ebooks that I have won. Since I don't have an ereader like a Kindle or Nook, so I read all the ebooks I get on my computer. But I really don't mind, I'm going to be on my computer anyway, may as well read a book I've won and enter a few more contests.


I've been on a roll lately winning on some of the blog contests that I entered. Recently I have won:

2 books from Hanging with Bells http://hangingwithbells.blogspot.com/

1 Book from Sizzling Hot Books http://www.sizzlinghotbooks.net/

6 Books from When Midnight Comes http://cassandracurtis.blogspot.com/

I also won a mystery prize from Shiloh Walker's Forum http://pub34.bravenet.com/forum/static/show.php?usernum=2886669836&frmid=0

And I won a mystery prize from Heidi Betts Yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HeidiBettsHappyBookers/


I'm so excited ya'll, I can't wait to get all these books in the mail and start reading. It's been a very good week for me.

Family Heirlooms

I recent blog post on another blog got me thinking about the things we keep from our families. Most of us have some sort of family heirloom from grandparents or parents. It also got me thinking because my mother in law recently passed away and my sister in law sent my hubby some of her things. My mother in law loved wolves so hubby was sent some of the wolf pictures and plaques she had on her walls and some of her jewelry. Our daughter was given some of her jewelry and I know she will treasure the jewelry as much as I treasure my own grandmothers that I have had for years.

I ended up being the keeper of the pictures in my family. Since I was about 12 years old everyone in the family has been giving me the pictures to keep and now I have about 30 photo albums. I also have things of my grandparents, uncles and aunts and parents that they all gave me.

Sometimes I look at things and realize that it was my grandmothers or grandfathers and it brings back a lot of good memories for me. I have a geode sitting on my shelf that my grandfather found over 90 years ago. He was a rock hound and found this rock and broke it open to find this really pretty greenish blue rock inside it. He polished it and gave it to my dad who gave it to me. I don't know what kind of stone is inside the rock, it kind looks like turquoise, but I have no idea.

My daughter is funny because she'll look at something in the apartment and tell me, I get that when you die. LOL I say, Yep, but I'm not dead yet.

Not Funny

You ever have one of those days where it seems like everything you do is just wrong? Where no matter what you do it seems like you just can't catch a break and something goes wrong? Yeah, me too. I hate it when that happens and it seems to happen to me much to often. It's really starting to mess with my mind.

Sometimes it feels like life is playing one big joke on me after another. Well Universe, I'm no longer laughing.


This stuff just isn't funny anymore. Things keep happening that I have no control over and it seems to mess everything up for weeks.

Case in point, my mailman has once again not delivered my mail when he was supposed to. I didn't get one of the bills for the month and a check I sent in for another bill never got to them. So once again I am having to complain to USPS about my mail not get delivered to the right place and once again they tell me it's not their fault. I am so sick of this. They are the mail! They are supposed to get the mail to where it's going and they are getting paid good damn money to do this.

I always pay my bills each month, always have. But now I had to call my electric company and tell them I never got the bill, that's why the payment was late. And when I tried to order a movie on Pay Per View and couldn't because they telephone company said I hadn't paid my bill I was way like, The hell you say! I sent in a check 2 weeks before it was due...but yet again they didn't get it. Which meant I had to cancel the check..$30.00, pay with a check by phone $10.00 fee and have a blemish to my spotless record...I'm pissed and there's really nothing I can do except start paying all my bills online.

I'm just waiting for the next shoe to drop...because I know it will, something else will go wrong this week...I can feel it.

Funny Food

Fun food facts:

• apple is made of 25% air, that is why they float.
• apples, onions, and potatoes all have the same taste? Try the test: Pinch your nose and take a bite out of each.
• avocado has the highest protein and oil content of all fruits, but most of this is the healthier unsaturated type.
• cabbage is 91% water.
• carrots were originally purple in colour, changing in the 17th Century to orange with newer varieties.
• celery requires more calories to eat and digest than it contains.
• cherries are a member of the rose family.
• corn always has an even number of ears.
• corn makes up about 8% of the weight in a box of corn flakes.
• eggplants are actually fruits, and classified botanically as berries.
• honey is the only edible food for humans that will never go bad.
• lemons contain more sugar than strawberries.
• orange does not rhyme with any other word.
• peanuts are legumes and not a tree nut.
• peanuts are one of the ingredients in dynamite.
• pear is a fruit that ripens from the inside out.
• strawberries are the only fruit which has its seeds on its outer skin.

My little ratty faces..

I hear the world is supposed to end today, but I'm not worried. I'm gonna go about my day and play with my rats like always. But if the Zombies start walking the streets...I'll worry...lol





Jasper just relaxing next to his brother.



Hades has a foot thrown over Jasper's face and he just laid there like that.


Hades, Jasper and Brodie sharing my yogurt.

My Week So far...

Yesterday ken went back to the orthopedist and the cast on his arm was taken off and the pins holding the bones together were pulled out. His arm is healed but it's going to take a little time for the stiffness to go away. I'm just glad it healed.

I published three more articles and you can see them over on the right hand side of this blog where it says my name and Associated Content. How To Treat Bumblefoot in Rats in one of the articles recently published. if you read my published articles, let me know what you think of them. I love comments.

It seems that all this time I've been thinking a cold I had last month was just lingering on was actually a sinus infection. I'm now taking antibiotics and hopefully they will get rid of it so I can finally stop coughing every two seconds.

Yesterday my daughter and I watched The Exorcist for the umpteenth time. But it's such a classic movie I never get tired of it. Afterwards I put on Se7en, but that movie didn't go over as well with her. She thought it was boring even though I love this movie.

That's all the updates I have for now.

Our fan for the computer tower lol

Here's some pictures of how Ken fixed our computer and made a fan for it.