LHOOQ

So I lose touch okay!? Time goes by too fast! I'm testing this out
to see what transpires. Work is okay- I'm trying to find my role, or
niche.

Home is okay- husband is stressed... ( what a surprise!?)

So thank god for two small getaways in the next month- and my
insurance which will finally kick in on sept 1!

We'll make sure everything is in working order and hopefully the thing
I want the most will happen!

Apparently it has been a loooong time since I had posted last. I do
not have the patience to list all of the things that have occurred in
the time I have been away. It is difficult writing these things on an
iPhone. I promise however that I will not wait so long before my next
blog.

I made my husband move out of what was supposed to be his office. It's our second bedroom but it was really just a huge filing cabinet. I had started to get very upset that he did not take advantage of this space more often. He could go in there, shut the door and I would not bother him there. I did not have a place like that-now I do!!

Halleluja! My desk is organized, I can put up my ideas, and have a place for my stacks of magazines for ideas and what not... I have yarn on the floor, and now I also have full reception for my computer and our printer is now networked again. It's like a brand new house!!!

I would take pictures of this transformation, however upon returning from his day excursion to rock climb in sedona, my husband had broken our digital camera. The crystal on the lcd screen is cracked.

I guess we're going to have to go and get a new camera... awwww shucks. I'll start the research soon, it's gotta be a canon. I have a very good SLR camera from them as well.

The sun is beating down hard here in Phoenix, i must be off, it's getting hot in here, as the venting in this room is not the greatest, tootles!

at work and I am eating pretty good mexican food right now. I have been gettting back into the mood of creating things... that must be the spring in my step. I have created a painting, and I'll be making some storage boxes soon... if i can find the tyvek and some good sturdy chip board.

i have also been thinking about opening a boutique. Clothing, funky home embellishments, clever accessories...
It's just feeling right. and I keep meeting people with the right backgrounds to help. lots of good contacts are coming about.
Maybe i'll call it emBellish. or some other snazzy name. i like embellish.

I went to las vegas last weekend. Got my pic taken with Paris. it was awesome. I never thought that I would get up the guff to go and do such a thing. but there i was, tapping her on the shoulder and very nicely, she agreed, but just for me to hurry so that the restaurant couldn't see. gosh, i'd love to be a fly on her dinner table.

Will and i had so much fun with our friends Mike and Liz, and we're excited to go back sometime soon. It didn't take that much money... we could have had a cheaper trip- you know by cutting out all of the really expensive places to eat... and we can practically drink for free when you are sitting at the table with someone who is gambling hundreds of dollars at a time.
for now, that is good... just a small update on what's going on. peace

my dogs lick my face without smelly breath.

eat shrimp cocktail, crab cakes, cream puffs, mojitos, creme brulee.


smell a clean towel right out of the dryer.

hear a baby laugh.

feel the sun on my face.

lay in the grass with my dog.

So here it is. A long lost blog that needed to be created. Its morning and everyone is still sleeping. I am in Hanford, CA, in the middle of "the greatest agricultural valley in the world." It's foggy, the full grown trees and plants are recieving their morning dose of sunshine. Birds and Ducks are moving around and spring has started here. Trees are starting to blossom, and this is the beginning of our food being grown for us.

Grandma and Grandpa Downings house is comfortable, and a vacation in itself. We laze around, snacking, reading and discussing. It is the greatest company I have ever known. For octogenerians, they are on the cutting edge of what is what. They aren't old. They are WISE. I am constantly surprised at our conversations. Politics (they are the leftiest grandparents), health (grandma takes bacterium to help her system), food (grandpa was a farmer forever) and travel (they are going on an alaskan cruise soon) are all topics we have covered in just the first evening.

We also discuss our family, and basically come to conclusions on what so-and-so should be doing, but they aren't here to hear us gripe about their bad decisions etc. So noting this, nothing matters anywho, or anyhow. I do not want to leave sleepy hanford. There is the most delicious dairy here that makes amazing milkshakes. Grandma has rekindled her cooking habits, and i got to eat a homemade meal of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. AMAZING. I want my children to be able to feel what I feel here at this loving home which is entirely out of the ordinary. I better hurry up and have one. Before I am more sad that it cannot happen that way, because I waited too long.

On my hands. I recently resigned from my job and since I have gotten a lot done around the house. Laundry, Dishes, had time for some art, created a facebook account, washed the dogs, updated myspace, applied for fingerprint clearance card, went grocery shopping....

I guess I make a fine little housewife! Although, this couldn't be a better time or a worse time for me to not have a job. I'll have time to spend with the family at Thanksgiving and Christmas, but no money to spend on the family! The lot of you, and you know who you are... you're getting some sort of crocheted item... guess what it'll be? a beanie, scarf? you'll have to wait and see- how exciting!

On another note, just got my camera back and there's a few pictures worth noting....
The hubby and I at the creek with Sean and Tariina! Mmmmm... grape!


While we were there, Sean was able to get pretty close to a turtle that showed up a rock down from where we were... Enjoy!

We were the picture perfect married couple this weekend. You know made a trip to Home Depot, and Target and we were going to hit Bed Bath and Beyond but, we didn't have time.... (ba dum ch)

So we're doing some home improvement getting ready to unload this financial burden of a home to some one else. It's been a great little starter home with a few things that we were able to customize to make it ours, but it's really never felt like ours fully. I think that we're growing out of the kitchy cute homes and looking for something a little more chic and streamed lined. The next house will be way more fun to decorate if I have more than 600 sq feet to decorate.

Then maybe we can buy real size furniture too instead of barbie furniture.... I want a 90 inch sofa damnit. not the 45 inch love seat....

Finally the weather has gotten cooler here, and we were able to turn off the a/c. Wow.... that's the kicker.... our house is so well insulated from the cold, but not so much for the heat, as in fact it is a heat conducting home, being made of stone and all. So we get raped all summer trying to keep cool, and in the winter there are only a handful of days where we have to turn on the heat!

Anywho, we're ready for a change....and it's happening slower than ever.

I have determined that it is time to get off of my View watching ass in the mornings and get to the Gym. It's sooooo hard, that Rosie O' Donnell is hilarity next to the crazy Conservative (elizabeth), sarcastic complementary funny lady (Joy), and the soon to be diagnosed with Alzheimers (Barbara). It truly is a clusterfuck of estrogen. Surplus amounts of estrogen, however Rosie has thrown some butch-os-ity into the mix. (hell yeah, new word!)

See what I mean, I am overly addicted to the TV. I serously think that a DVR or Tivo is needing to be in my very soon future. But it is either that or my small H & M trip. ARgghhh.... it's hard budgeting. But if I get off of my ass, then I'll fit into the much cuter clothes at H & M.

We'll see.... I know what will help me. Bribery, I'll get Will to throw in an extra Hundred Dollars to shop with, if I firm up.

A new pair of Asics running shoes would help I think... I'll work on this and give the results in a future blog....

I have caught the fourth mouse in my house last night.

We discovered the mouse problem about 2 months ago, and it has escalated further since then. It started with small mouse poops, and catching small mice in the humane traps. Two of them like that, and then we saw bigger poops. I'm talking hamster size poops. So of course that meant bigger mouse, which my dog Milo tracked down like a champ the other night.

Milo, being a very observant dog realized the path of the mouse early on. He probably tracks it while we aren't home all day. But two nights ago when I was just watching tv, he went into a point underneath the tv stand. I didn't see anything when I went to look under with a light. But I rolled back this other piece of furniture and lo and behold, there is the mouse. I called to Will a few times (no answer, on the pot). So I let Milo in after it....

This part looks like a Tom and Jerry cartoon but with out the cat, no frying pans for the mouse to hold up and Milo to run into.... but yes, over one chair, under another, over the ottoman under a dresser, under the desk and then into it's hole. Milo was hot on it's trail, while Bella (who is dumb like a fox somedays) followed Milo wondering what the fuss was all about.

No sign of the mouse for two days, and then last night Will was letting Milo out to go potty, and he saw the mouse go up a pillar in our extra room, over the door jamb (sp?) then over a beam and down another pillar. He was MAD. Will explained to me with explicit words how pissed he was about the cleverness of the mouse. So I set a trap on the beam said mouse was running over, and snap-a-rooney...I got me a mouse! [insert evil cackle here]

Please understand I do not enjoy killing things- bugs, yes. animals, no. I even had a problem with the cute little mice we caught early on... but this one was big and only a little cute.

I much more enjoy the Marc Jacobs Mouse shoes from Bergdorf Goodman. If anyone would like to buy me these, I would greatly appreciate it!

They also come in black ballet flats, and they run about $250, and I think that right now they are on special for $175... c'mon you know you want me to have them to deal with my pain.

They would also be a great commemorative discussion piece.

So, at my best friends wedding I brought home a new pet. It's a betta fish, I named her Esperanza Dos, in remembrance of the fish that Tariina and I once had together in an apartment in Phoenix. In fact, I think that I got that fish from my uncles wedding in Santa Barbara in 1999. It's a really pretty fish, Purpley blue, with a patch of red somewhere in there. Not that different from other bettas. I went to PetSmart, got it a cool little tank, and since I hate cleaning said tank, I got a sweet little snail to eat up all of the poo. (It's the circle of life ya'll...)

So I do a little research on ol' Esperanza, because there are tons of bubbles on the top of the water. I'm concerned that the bubbles are due to the wrong temperature water, or a reaction to the food or the snail, so I google away. And what do I find out?

well, she's a tranny... Yes, the colorful bettas are all males. And, they are used to creating the bubbles as nests for the eggs that would potentially attach to said bubbles when he is ready to mate. It said that they are normally very active fish if the water temp is right... better move his/her tank.

And the snail is good with him, but now it tells me that they should be in a much bigger container than what I have... and that putting real plants on top of the containers are very bad for bettas. They have this organ which is very similar to a human lung, and they surface the water to breathe, and thats why the fish just hangs out on the fake plant that came with the tank. It's much easier to rest and breathe at the top of the tank there. They are also aparently very, very territorial, so he is living in that plant to claim his stake.

Woah, my fish is way more advanced and cool than I thought. And, they are meat eaters, so once in a while it says to drop some bugs on top of the water, or some blood worms. You know, the good shit. So there you have it, Betta's are a cool pet and easy to take care of to boot.