Sauntering Soul

My weekend recap. In the form of a poem.

2009-12-22T13:31:00.001-05:00

It was 5:30 on Friday
And though my desk was untidy
I left my full-time job
And joined the mobs

To go teach a class
But I looked like an ass
Because my normal 30 minute commute
Was very uncute

There were so many cars
I thought of stopping at a bar
I arrived an hour late
And customers had to wait

Class ended at 10
But my goodness....then
Some people stayed 'til after eleven
Which I was not lovin'

Got home after midnight
I was quite a tired sight
I took a shower
So that I could scour

The paint off of me
And make my hair dirt free
Finally ate dinner at one o'clock
That really does not rock

Went to sleep at two
Which, honestly, kind of blew
Had to arise at six
Which took a few tricks

I was tired, yo
But I had to go
Across the state
And pick up my cousin an hour away at 8

And I had to be nicely dressed
To go lay my grandmother to rest
I was oh so weary
But not at all teary

She was always kind of mean
I hope I don't have those genes
She spent her time telling me I was fat
Let me tell you what I think of that

She was fat as well
So why did she dwell
On the size of my girth
When she looked like she was close to giving birth

I had not seen her in six years
Which should make it kind of clear
I was not close to her
Several family members concurred

She was 95-years-old
And the truth be told
She only garnered
A total of 11 mourners

The sight of her casket made me blink
For it was cotton candy pink
(Oh yes it was)
I'm sorry, but that just appeared
To be very weird

The minister arrived late
So we all had to sit and wait
He finally arrived at 11:30
And he was kind of wordy

He read a Bible verse
While I eyed the hearse
Then he said a prayer
No one seemed in despair

But then the real oddness began
As he started his sermon
He may have been under the influence of booze
Because he compared death to going on a cruise

He said it's like watching a loved one leave
As they head out to sea
On an exciting trip
On a gigantic ship

As the boat floats away
We all stand on shore and wave
And the deceased starts looking small
But we should continue to recall

They have not changed size
The law of physics applies
He repeated with insistance
That we've simply changed distance
(Well, duh dude)

When he finally stopped talking
We got up and started walking
But first I walked up front
And let me be quite blunt

I felt a tiny bit of delight
When I saw my grandmother's dress was too tight
It was bunched up below her chest
Because as you might have guessed

SHE WAS FAT TOO!

We all went out to eat
And then I had to leave
My drive home took 3 hours more
And I laid right down and snored

If I next blog from a tropical island somewhere explaining that I decided to run away from home, do not be surprised.

2009-12-16T11:59:00.002-05:00

Oh. My. Goodness.

Could life please slow down for about 5 minutes so I can just take a good, long, deep breath?

So, when I last left off I had been sick. I still can't say I feel like I'm running on all 8 cylinders, but I am definitely much better. This has been the cold from hell that I can't seem to completely kick to the curb. I'm going to do a recap of what's been going on since my body forced me to stop for a couple of days a couple of weeks ago:

1. I've been working at the studio quite a bit. I'm teaching a sold out class this Friday night and it's a fairly difficult painting. When we do particularly difficult paintings, we pre-sketch parts of them so that we can get through the entire thing in the 3 hours the class lasts. I decided to go last night to pre-sketch my canvases. I left work later than I intended to because I was searching for a file for my boss (never found it - but it was something that was done years before I began working for him so it's not my fault or incompetent filing skills). Traffic was a nightmare last night. It normally takes me 30 minutes to get to the new studio. Last night it took me an hour and five minutes. When I arrived at the studio, I discovered we had no graphite tracing paper. So I had to go back out in traffic and buy a supply for the studio. At that point, I was already well over an hour behind schedule.

I had sketched 20 canvases when my cell phone rang. It was my Dad calling to tell me my grandmother had passed away last evening. You don't have to tell me you're sorry to hear it, because quite frankly, I didn't care for her too much (it's a story that goes back 36 years and has continued for my entire life so it's way too long to go into here). In fact, she's the grandmother I refer to in my sidebar. I have not seen her in almost 6 years even though she's only 30 or 40 minutes away. However, I realize it's kind of expected of me to be at her funeral. I'm most upset that I had to cancel my way overdue hair appointment this Saturday to attend her funeral in Augusta which is about 2.5 hours away from Atlanta. In other news, I'll be going to hell someday. And now I've rescheduled my hair appointment and will spend Christmas Eve morning getting my hair cut and colored because that's the only free time I have in the next couple of weeks. And it's another reason why I love my hair guy so much - he's working on Christmas Eve for all of us last minute jerks. So anyway, I expected to be home by about 8:30 or 9:00 last night. Instead, I got home at 10:45.

2. I had not heard a peep from Hot Brazilian in two weeks. So I sent him an email last week and explained to him that I was, you know, kind of angry at him. It wasn't a super nasty email, but it wasn't a super sweet one either. This morning I was away from my desk for a bit and when I got back he had left me a message on my cell phone. Turns out something is wrong with him but due to his terminology, I'm not sure exactly what yet. He said he just got out of a clinic because he "had a collapse at the airport" a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if that means he collapsed or if a body part collapsed or what. Either way, it cannot be anything good. And I tried to call him back but couldn't reach him so now I'm sitting here worried as crap. I now feel like a schmuck for the email I sent him.

3. I've purchased exactly 3 Christmas presents. I was planning to do a ton of shopping this Saturday after my hair appointment. Instead, I'm going to a funeral + family lunch after the funeral + 5 hour round trip drive and somehow try to get back to Atlanta by 6:00 to work at the studio that night. Christmas is going to be an epic fail on my part this year.

4. I did manage to sqeeze in a pedicure last Saturday afternoon after purchasing the 3 presents I've managed to get and before going to the studio to teach a class that night. Sadly, the only interesting thing that happened on this nail salon visit was that there was a woman in the salon who looked like she was headed straight to her job as the madame of a brothel after getting her nails done. She had about 8 inches of makeup caked on her face, bleach blonde hair, about 6 inch heels on, an ankle length fur coat, a bright red dress (with lips to match), black fishnet hose, super long nails, etc. I wanted to talk to her to have a good story for y'all but never got the chance.

5. I spent my entire Christmas bonus plus some extra on a new laptop. My laptop was approximately 6 years old and I could hear it groaning every time I moved my mouse and asked it to do anything. I bought my new one at Best Buy and had a super hot salesperson helping me. It was hard not to drool all over my new purchase but I managed. Now I can harvest my crops on Farmville when I get on Facebook and it takes me about 1/4 of the time.

6. I am currently feeling irritated with every single human being I have to deal with at every second of every day. Had you seen me in traffic yesterday or secretly been taping me in my car, you would probably never want to be friends with me. I said some really horrible things in my car to other drivers yesterday. Excuse me, I SCREAMED them not said them.

7. One of my co-workers gave me a Christmas gift this morning. Thankfully, a decent portion of it was mini chocolate bars and Hershey's kisses. I've already had 3 pieces and it's only noon.

Is it January 2nd yet?

A day that started off down the crapper

2009-12-04T16:17:00.001-05:00

Hello fellow blog friends! It is I, Sauntering Soul, fresh out of bed after two long days of lounging around and killing approximately 17 trees because of the massive amounts of tissue and toilet paper I just went through blowing my nose.

Here is a brief recap of what my poor cat has heard for the past 48 hours:

Honk
Honk
Honk
Honk
Cough
Sneeze
Honk
Honk
Sneeze
"Woe is me."
Honk
Honk
Honk
"Seriously. Woe is me."
Honk
Sneeze
Honk
Honk
"Who the hell did I catch this from because I want to kill them dead right now."
Honk
Honk
"Oh wait, I can't lift my head off this pillow. How the heck am I going to find the energy to go out and kill anyone?"
Honk
Honk
Honk

At approximately 3:30 this morning while I was still wide awake what with all of the honking, sneezing, coughing, and wiping the never-ending tears from my oh so watery eyes, I realized my head only felt like it was cracking open and I was not experiencing the sensation that it was going to go right ahead and explode off of my body anymore, so I made the decision I would come to work today.

At 5:00 a.m. I felt the need to pee. So I peed. Because that's what I do when the need comes to me. Then I went to flush because I am not one of those "if it's yellow, let it mellow" kind of people since that right there is every single kind of disgusting to me. So imagine you've been feeling like crap for over 48 hours, have been in bed for two days, you have not turned on the bathroom light because you don't like to start the day off with so much, uhm, brightness at 5:00 a.m., and suddenly you are startled so bad that you suddenly need to pee all over again because the metal handle of your toilet has jumped right off the tank and landed loudly with a huge clang on your ceramic tile floor. So you lean over and fumble around in the darkness, locate the toilet handle and set it on the bathroom counter. Your toilet is not yet flushed.

*******Quick interruption of my story********

I am typing this post at work. I just had to stop to run across the hall to look out the window because it sounded like a helicopter was approximately 6 inches outside my boss' office. Do you know how ticked off I would be if I came into work today even though I'm still sick and then a helicopter attacked our building and I got killed? Very ticked off.

*******Back to talking about my rude awakening today***********

So let's stop with all this imagining if this story was happening to you because it wasn't. It was totally happening to me though. When we left off, I was left with an unflushed toilet and the toilet handle sitting on the bathroom counter, having just rudely scared the crap out of me. Not literally.

I went into my spare bedroom/storage room/art studio/junk room/room full of all the crap I don't know where else to put, and I had to turn on the bright overhead light to find my tool box. Yes, I'm a girl with a big, red, metal Sears toolbox and it is full of tools. Most of them I have no clue what to do with, but I have them and I use them for things I think they might be useful for (like flushing my toilet when in a pinch) rather than the purpose they are actually made for. As I was looking through my tool box for a "toilet flusher" tool, I heard Bailey in the kitchen. Hacking up a hairball. Oh yes. Because she is the Queen of Perfect Timing.

So there I sat with something to contemplate: shall I start trying different tools to flush my toilet first, or shall I go wipe up cat vomit first. That's exactly how I love to start the day off at 5:00 a.m. Especially when I feel like death already.

I opted for the toilet flushing first. I pulled out some pliers and, now with every single light on in my entire house (which isn't saying much since I only have two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom the size of a very tiny walk-in closet), went back to the toilet. I saw a little thing stuck way down in the hole where the handle had been not 10 minutes earlier and after a few minutes of messing with it, cursing at it (because that's what I always heard my dad do whenever he was using tools from his big, red, metal Sears toolbox when I was growing up), etc., I managed to pull it out enough and give it a twist. Lo and behold, my toilet flushed. And then it kept running for what seemed like the next hour. I kept using my pliers to wiggle the little thing I had pulled out of the hole and finally, after many, many, many wiggling attempts, my toilet stopped running.

When I walked in the kitchen, Bailey had thrown up all over my rug. My entire house is hardwoods and ceramic tile which is easily cleaned up. She picked the 2x3 foot rug to throw up all over. Of course. So I started the day flushing my toilet with pliers and washing a rug full of cat vomit. All while blowing my nose until it feels like it's going to fall off my face. And suddenly work sounded like the best thing that was going to happen to me all day. And so far, it has been, except that I still feel like crap, every single co-worker has told me I look like complete hell and should have stayed in bed, and a helicopter possibly almost crashed into my office building and tried to kill me.

If anyone needs me this weekend, I will be buried under the covers until Monday morning. Except for the short period of time (oh please, let it be a short period of time) when the handyman comes to fix my toilet handle.

Okay all you super shoppers. I need your help.

2009-11-30T12:17:00.000-05:00

Oh the drama.

There was plenty of family drama over the long weekend and I was going to write about it. That is, in fact, exactly what I was thinking I would write about today when I was thinking about my blog over the weekend. Because on Saturday afternoon I was still in the middle of it and I was, quite frankly, sick and tired of it.

But then yesterday happened and I changed my mind. I'd rather talk about something happier and forget about the completely annoying family drama I dealt with this weekend.

A few weeks ago, I called and scheduled an hour massage session with my regular massage therapist for yesterday afternoon because I could pretty well guarantee I was going to need it after a holiday weekend around my family. I'm thankful for a lot of things in my life, but this particular brilliant moment of planning ahead might be one of the things I was most thankful for this weekend.

One of my co-workers/friends was experiencing some stress related health issues a while back and I had referred her to the spa I go to. She fell in love with the place as much as I love it. We had been trying for a couple of months to schedule a massage at the same time and then to go for coffee afterwards. We were finally able to coordinate our schedules for this weekend and she and I both had massages and then went to have coffee and catch up with one another. I seriously figured I'd be home by 5:30 or so at the latest. I got home at 10:00 instead. Turns out we can really talk.

My friend is in her 50's and has been through quite a bit in life. I have too. I think we're both at a crossroads of sorts in our lives. Mine has a lot to do with Hot Brazilian and what the future holds for us. There is so much up in the air right now and it's all super exciting. At the same time, it's making me realize just how unsatisfied I am with a lot of areas of my life. In particular with my job. My job is fine and I'm extremely grateful to have a job, but I'm just not passionate about it and I feel like I'm wasting my life most days. I have a few ideas floating around in my head of what I might want to do in the future, but I have much work to do to prepare myself for it.

My massage therapist and I chat a lot while she's giving me my massages. Apparently my friend and her therapist do as well. As we sat down at Starbucks, she seemed a little hesitant to bring up something that they were talking about. She said she was afraid I would think she was weird or something but that she and her therapist had talked about putting positive vibes out into the universe so that positive things would come into your life. I looked at her and said, "my therapist and I were talking about the Law of Attraction and about The Secret while she was giving me my massage today." Her mouth fell open and she reached over and grabbed my leg and said that was the exact thing she had been discussing.

After we finished our coffee, we decided to walk across the parking lot of the shopping center we were in to go eat dinner together. We continued talking non-stop for about five and a half hours. We talked about racial issues at our firm and in the South (she's black/I'm white), we talked about not letting negative people have power over us, we talked about cutting negative people out of our lives, we talked about our dreams, our goals, trying to get to know ourselves better, taking better care of ourselves, learning what we need to do to make ourselves happier, etc. And we made a pact that in two weeks we will check in with each other and report back on what we've done to move us closer to our goals.

So, on that note, does anyone know the cheapest source for me to buy Rosetta Stone Portuguese language CD's?

I'm giving people the stink eye this week without even trying

2009-11-25T10:41:00.003-05:00

Wow.....things have been busy. I can't believe I haven't posted on here in almost two weeks. But first, in case I forget after I get started updating things around here, I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine? It will be full of much family drama. My mom is already upset with me in fact. We are having Thanksgiving at my mom's house on Friday instead of Thursday because my older brother is a police officer and has to work tomorrow and my aunt is also working (she works in the medical field). My dad invited me to his fiancee's house for dinner tomorrow and my mom is mad at me for telling him I would go. Well, her exact response was about 30 seconds of complete silence followed up by, "that's what you decided you would do, huh? Well, I'll be alone on Thanksgiving Day but I'm sure I'll be okay". As a little back story, she has been telling me for a couple of weeks that she was kind of grateful she would be alone on Thanksgiving because she had tons of stuff to do to get ready and she never seems to have a day alone and how much she was looking forward to a day of solitude. That was until she knew I was going to spend the day with my dad, of course. Whatever. Facebook friends: a reminder that my mom is on my facebook so you can't discuss this on there or my life will really go down the crapper this week. My niece is spending this weekend with me. Hopefully she'll be nicer than she was the last time she stayed with me when I was ready to string her up by her toenails. Kidding! Sort of.

So, here is an update of the last couple of weeks. Those of you who are on my Facebook have already heard all of this so if you want to move along, feel free.

Last Saturday, my dear sweet aunt passed away. She was my biological mom's sister and had put up a very hard and very long (13 year) fight against cancer but she finally lost. Even on the days she felt her worst, I never heard her complain for a minute about the way her life had turned out. She told me when she was first diagnosed that she was determined to face cancer as my biological mom did so many years ago: with a sense of humor and no complaining. I'm sure my mom was looking down on her throughout the entire span of her illness with much pride. Since this was my biological mom's sister, she is not related by blood to either my mom or my dad. They both attended the visitation and funeral. And there was drama. I was pretty upset that we couldn't even get through the celebration of my aunt's life and mourning her passing without it becoming about them, but so it was. I don't really feel like writing out all of the details, but there were tears and ugly words involved. One bright spot of the funeral (if there can be such a thing) was at the graveside part of the service. My only remaining aunt on that side of the family called me over to where she was standing once the ceremony concluded to introduce me to someone. It was my biological mom's high school basketball coach. It was so nice to meet someone who knew my mom when she was young, happy, and innocent: before marriage, three kids and the cancer that ended her life at the age of 28. He raved on and on about how awesome my mom was, how sweet and talented she was, etc. It was really an honor to get to meet him. On a sad note, I know this will be the last Christmas we get to spend time at my Mam-ma and Poppie's house. Mam-ma passed away about a year and a half ago and we all agreed to wait until my aunt's passing before we sold the house and split the proceeds according to her Will (my aunt had been living there for many years during her illness and we wanted her to be able to stay there as long as she was with us). The house will now be put up for sale but we will wait until after the holidays. My aunt told me that last Christmas the aunt who just passed away seemed to know that would be her last Christmas with us. She made her sister promise her that she would put up a tree this year and decorate it with Mam-ma's ornaments one last time. OMG, I have tears in my eyes thinking about this right now.

We opened our second paint studio last weekend. Other than a few technical difficulties with our sound system going on and off and the microphone not working, things went really well. We sold out our first two classes, almost sold out our third class (only 7 seats open), and were one seat short of selling out last night. The original studio is also selling out or close to it most nights. Things are booming in art land!

On Friday night, during the Grand Opening of the new studio, I started feeling like I had water in my right ear. I couldn't figure out why it started suddenly that evening. The next morning, it still felt like I had water in my ear. As I was in the shower washing my face, it felt like someone had punched me in the left eye. Everything around my eye felt bruised. Very odd since no one has ever punched me in the face in my entire life. When I looked in the mirror, my lower eyelid was red and swollen. On Sunday, it was even worse. And every single step I took all day long resulted in my right ear rustling like I had a plastic bag wadded up inside it. Very annoying. On Monday, my eye was a little bit less sore, but still very swollen and red so I called my doctor. She referred me to an eye doctor and I made an appointment for yesterday morning. Dr. Google had convinced me I had a clogged tear duct and everything I read said I would most likely need surgery to fix it. And that it could be caused by bacteria entering the tear duct (minor) or it could be caused by a tumor (UH OH!). I went to the eye doctor bright and early yesterday morning and after many drops in my eyes and a thorough examination, the doctor said I have an eyelid infection and prescribed me some antibiotic drops to take 4 times per day for the next 5 days. Very expensive drops. The pharmacy gave me the generic brand and had I not had insurance, a bottle that contains approximately one teaspoon of drops would have cost me almost $80. Thankfully, with my insurance I only paid 5 bucks. The doctor also told me my eyes are extremely dry and look "rashy". So he handed me three different sample bottles of rewetting drops as I walked out the door and told me to try them and that he was shocked my eyes don't bother me all the time because they are so dry. So yes, I have dry, rashy, infected, swollen, red eyes right now. I'm so hot!

Other than that, things have been busy but pretty mundane and boring. Bailey has peed on my bed a couple of times, half of my office is out this week so I've been covering for people and working my hiney off (of course all three of my bosses have been in most of the week too so I'm still doing my normal work load as well) and, therefore, I've worked almost an hour late the past two days. Today, I thought more people would be out and it would be quieter so I dressed like I'm going on a picnic instead of to work at a law firm. I have on cargo pants and a t-shirt with sandals. Obviously that means my boss called me in first thing this morning, went over a bunch of documents in his office, told me he was leaving and asked me to meet with his two clients coming in at 11:00 to get them to sign a ton of stuff. I hope they don't mind a casually dressed legal assistant! Speaking of which, I need to go put a notebook of crap together before they get here in 20 minutes, so that's it for now. I'll try to update more regularly next week. I'm fairly certain I'll have plenty of family drama from Thanksgiving to tell y'all about......

Won't somebody be friends with me?

2009-11-13T14:15:00.003-05:00

I'm totally stealing this from Fianna. She just posted something like this on her blog.

As most of you have probably noticed, I don't get by here very often to update my blog. I am doing really good if I put up a post once per week. I think it's because I'm entirely too word-y and don't have the time to write a long blog post more often than that. However, I update my Facebook status about 5 times per day because I'm limited to a certain number of characters per post and it just doesn't take that long.

So, if you are a regular reader and commenter and would like to be my Facebook friend (if you aren't already), please send an email to creativemoxie AT gmail DOT com and let me know your Facebook name and I will friend you. Then you can read exciting stuff like how I ate some paint at the studio last night because I thought it was hot sauce for my chicken, the fact that I spent today's lunch hour naming a box of Mexican jumping beans with a group of grown-up women, one of my bosses passing gas really loudly this week, and how I cleaned my left boob with Lysol last week in the office. You'll also get to see pictures of Hot Brazilian. And if you would be my FarmVille or Farm Town neighbor on FB that would be the AWESOME. It seems I'm addicted to growing soybeans and pumpkins lately. And I'm currently raising a very cute pig and a huge wild turkey. My rabbit is coming along, but he sure is slow about it.

There is only one rule: you cannot mention this blog on my Facebook page because no one I know in real life knows about my blog. Also, my Mom is one of my Facebook friends so you can't mention anything about my Dad or she will fo' sho' get upset with me. If you happen to mention my blog or anything about my family by mistake, please don't take it personally when I immediately delete whatever you've written.

Is that wedding bells I hear? Why yes. Yes it is.

2009-11-06T12:47:00.002-05:00

Well, I went to dinner at my Dad's house last night. My brother and I had it correct: he and his girlfriend are getting married. They are planning a church wedding in February. Yes, he is almost 70 and she is in her 70's. This is the third marriage for each one of them. She's been widowed twice before, my dad has been widowed once and divorced once. And they are having a church wedding ceremony rather than running off to Vegas or the local courthouse. Oh boy.

Blog Share!!!!

2009-11-05T00:05:00.004-05:00

Thanks to -R-, it's time for another Blogshare......an opportunity to get something off your chest when you don't want anyone to know it's a post you wrote. I have an anonymous post floating around in the blog world today but will not tell you which one is mine. I am hosting a post for someone else who wants to confess something. After the post, I've included the list of participants for this Blogshare. Check some of them out - you just might read some super amazing stuff.

The following post was written by an anonymous blogger. It is not mine:

-----------------------------------

My husband and I have a massive amount of debt. It could be worse and it has been worse. We’ve been working really hard for the past couple of years to dig our way out of the debt we owe. It will still be 3-4 years before we are debt-free, but it is comforting to know there is an end in sight.

There are several reasons why our debt piled up, but for the most part it was because I was in charge of our finances, did not make good spending choices, and kept my husband in the dark about the amount of debt I was racking up on credit cards. Finally, I realized there was no way out of it without help; I fessed up to my husband; we talked to our family about the situation; we met with a debt counselor; and we started making moves to work toward becoming debt-free.

We could have taken the easy way out and filed bankruptcy (keeping my retirement and profit-sharing), but ethically and morally believed we were responsible for paying back what we had borrowed. So, we cashed out all of our stocks, my retirement fund and my profit-sharing and paid off as much as we could (after taking a huge tax hit). Then, we started using the Dave Ramsey practice of the “snowball effect.” This means we pay off the smallest debt first and once that is paid off we roll that money into the minimum we’ve been paying on the next smallest debt and the amount being applied toward the balance begins to grow as you begin to pay off the larger debts.

Also, we made a strict budget and have forced ourselves to live within our means. This has been challenging for a number of reasons, but it has been approximately three years since we’ve used a credit card! There are a few things that frustrate us, however.

1. We make enough money that if we didn’t have the debt to pay off we’d have a very comfortable lifestyle. However, my husband is good at reminding me that we got to do a lot of wonderful things – trips, etc. – when we were younger and we just have to pay for it now. I appreciate his understanding and encouragement when I get low about my past choices.

2. We moved a few years ago and have not been able to sell our house in the city where we used to live. So, on top of paying rent for our current residence we are stuck with a mortgage payment. It was on the market for over a year. Then, we took it off the market and rented it out – which was a total disaster. Now, we’ve done some additional work on the house and it is back on the market. I’m praying so hard for a quick sale (or a very directed lightening strike). Not having that mortgage to pay will make our lives so much easier and will allow us to put even more money toward paying off our debt.

3. We keep having all these little “unexpected” expenses pop up. I know we all have to deal with these, but it just seems we have more than average at the moment – new appliances, car repairs, medical bills, deductibles. Again, once these are paid off in the next few months it will make things much easier and give us even more money to apply to the big debt.

Fortunately, we have very supportive families who are helping us both emotionally and financially (for some of the unexpected costs that we can’t cover right now). It changes the dynamics in the relationships a little bit, but they are all very encouraging of what we are doing and how diligent we are being about staying focused on the goal of living debt-free.

It’s frustrating and sometimes belittling. There are times I wish we’d taken the easy way out and declared bankruptcy or let our house go into foreclosure. But, at the same time I am proud of the way we are now living and how we have stayed true to ourselves and our beliefs. Three to four years may seem like a long time, but in the scheme of everything in life it is a drop in the bucket. We will make it and once we are there I can’t imagine the pride we will feel in accomplishing what at one time seemed impossible.

-------------------------------------------------

Feel free to leave this blogger comments here if you want to. She has been told by -R- that I am hosting her post so she'll know to come here to see what people have to say. I have no clue who wrote this post.

Here is a list of other participants if you'd like to check them out:

Not the Daddy: http://notthedaddy.blogspot.com
O is for Olson: http://oisforolson.wordpress.com
Red Red Whine: http://redredwhine.com
Rediscovering Me: http://leavingthecocoon.blogspot.com
Reflections in the Snow-covered Hills: http://snowcoveredhills.com
The Reluctant Grownup: http://gilliangaladriel.spaces.live.com/
Sauntering Soul:http://saunteringsoul.blogspot.com
Serendipity Now: http://serendipitynow.wordpress.com
Snarke: http://snarke.net
So, This Is a Treadmill: http://sothisisatreadmill.blogspot.com
Thinking Some More: http://3carnations.blogspot.com
Time for Change: http://ngradstudent.blogspot.com
Together They Come: http://togethertheycome.wordpress.com
Wondering and Pondering: http://wonderingandpondering.wordpress.com
And You Know What Else: http://andyouknow.wordpress.com
Andrea Unplugged: http://andreaunplugged.wordpress.com
Arctic-ulate: http://arctic-ulate.blogspot.com
Bright Yellow World: http://brightyellowworld.com
Bwildered: http://bbwilder.blogspot.com
Catheroominations: http://catheroo.com
Did I Say That Outloud?: http://tracyoutloud.blogspot.com
Dispatches from the Failed Mommy Club: http://failedmommy.com
Full of Snark: http://fullofsnark.com
Heidikins: http://heidikins.com
Hot Chicks Dig Smart Men: http://hotchicksdigsmartmen.com
Just Below 63: http://littlepieceoftexas2.blogspot.com
The Little Goat: http://thelittlegoat.com

It's that time again!

2009-11-04T10:01:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow is the big day! It's time for another Blogshare hosted by -R-. For those of you who don't have a clue what I'm talking about, Blogshare is a way for those who participate to write a post that they want to get off their chest but don't want to post on their own blog for whatever reason. They want it to remain anonymous. Therefore, tomorrow I will be hosting a blog post written by another blogger. I will have a post on someone else's blog but I will never disclose which one is mine - the person hosting my post won't even know it's mine. In the past, Blogshare has resulted in some amazing posts: some are sad, some are incredibly deep, some are hysterical, and still others are downright bizarre. Please come back tomorrow and see what people need to disclose in an anonymous way. And a huge thanks to -R- for doing this......I don't know how she has the time for this every 6 months or so!

Very quick post - I know you are all shocked that a quick post is possible for me

2009-11-02T17:39:00.002-05:00

My older brother, sister-in-law, niece and I have been contacted by my father. He said he's trying to put together a dinner at his house this week and we have to come either Wednesday or Thursday evening and that he cannot be flexible with the date. I asked him if we're celebrating something and he said yes, but that he would not tell me anything else because he wants it to be a surprise. I called my brother today and we both think the same thing: that he's getting married to the woman he's been dating for the past 6 or 7 months. I am speculating that they are running off this weekend to elope and that's why we MUST have dinner on Wednesday or Thursday. My hope is that my brother and I are wrong and my dad won the lottery and he's sharing his winnings with us. (But that ain't it y'all. He probably wouldn't even tell us if he won the lottery.) I have to teach a class at the studio on Wednesday night so we are having dinner on Thursday. Leave a comment with some other ideas of why my dad has an urgent need for us to come to dinner at his house for a big announcement. Remember: my dad is a bit crazy, so the crazier the thoughts the better! However, his girlfriend is in her 70's so we know she's not pregnant!

Brazil - Part 6

2009-10-30T14:54:00.021-04:00

Okay, so I think this is really going to be the final post about Brazil until I'm permitted by Hot Brazilian to tell y'all more about what he's working on. However, I still have tons of photos I haven't shared with y'all - I took over 300 pictures - so it's possible I could throw one on here from time to time that I haven't shown y'all already. But basically, after this post, I'll return to my boring, nonsense posts about my life such as when a complete stranger walked up to me in the grocery story parking lot recently where I was very innocently loading groceries into my car, tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned around he looked me straight in the eye and said, "Sorry sugar. I forgot to take my medication." I responded that I was probably glad to have that sort of information about him, and then he continued walking towards the store and went inside. I quickly finished loading up my groceries and got the heck out of there before he came back out and decided to tell me God had spoken to him and I was to be his bride or something.

This last post is going to focus on a drive we took on the Friday I was in Brazil. In case you haven't read the prior posts, we were in a city in the middle of the Amazon but when you're in this particular city you don't necessarily feel like you're in a jungle with the exception that it was over 100 degrees and I sweated non-stop from the time I stepped off my plane until I landed back in Atlanta a week later. HB wanted me to see a more "jungle-y" part of the jungle, but if you read one of my prior posts, you know why we didn't go very far outside of the town we were in: he was afraid if our rental car broke down we would be in trouble since gas stations are few and far between, he wouldn't feel comfortable leaving me in the car sitting on the side of the road in the middle of the jungle, and he feared I wouldn't survive the heat and strong sun if I walked for what could potentially be hours with him until we could find somewhere to get help. He also wouldn't let me go with the Indian priest or his wife, a nurse, to meet a wild Indian tribe because if the chief decided he liked me, he might steal me away and turn me into his sex slave. Neither of these things would be a positive turn of events or make for very good vacation tales, so instead we drove about an hour out from the town we were in to another (small) town with a population of about 11,000 people.

First, a disclaimer. Many of the photos in this post were taken from the car window as we were barreling down the highway at a pretty high rate of speed. I never saw a speed limit sign (or any police) so pretty much anything goes as far as how fast you want to drive. It's like the Brazilian autobahn. We did stop a few places so those photos are a little better.

Along the way, we went through a fairly vast savanna area. I had no idea you could be smack dab in the middle of the Amazon and go through areas where there are very few trees. But it is so. The only time I saw a semi large vehicle the entire time I was in Brazil was along this highway. There were mountains in the distance along the way and one was particularly big. It was out the driver's side window and I couldn't get a good shot of it so HB told me to grab the wheel and hand him the camera and he would take it for me. And that's when the big dump truck was coming towards us. And it seems it's also the moment when I didn't think about the fact that I could have waited until we were returning back to the city we were staying in and taken the picture when the mountain was on my side of the car. Uhm, I'm not a well practiced passenger side driver and kept swerving over the center line like I had been drinking since I arose from bed that morning (I had not been for the record). Plus, this rental car was not exactly a luxury vehicle and did not have power steering. Or, need I remind anyone, air conditioning, so the windows were all down, we were doing about 90 mph and my hair was blowing out of the lovely bun on top of my head and whipping around in my eyes so that I could barely see through the hair and the fact that my eyes were watering like Niagra Falls from hair hitting me in the eyes. We had the priest with us in the backseat and he remained shockingly calm. This might be because he doesn't understand English and didn't know what I was saying when I was screaming at HB to HURRY! HURRY! HURRY! and take the stupid picture before I killed all three of us by slamming head on into the dump truck that was getting rather close by this point. He told me to calm down, that I was doing fine, and by the way, wasn't I excited that I would now be able to say I drove a car through the middle of the Amazon jungle? I screamed that I'd much more excited if we all survived it and I actually could tell people about it and he started laughing and finally took the wheel back from me after he finished stressing me out further by taking way more than one photo of the mountain but before we smashed head on into the huge dump truck in our tiny golf cart sized rental car. This is the picture of the mountain (and you can see how few trees there are in the savanna areas of the Amazon):

And this is how close we were to the dump truck when HB finally handed my camera back to me and took over the driving responsibilities again:

Would you like to see the size of the car we were in? Please have a look internet so that you can understand we would have been crushed. Crushed dead by that big dump truck. Here is our rental car the day before our drive when we got a screw stuck in one of the tires and it went flat. It was so small and lightweight that I probably could have held up the back end with my hands while the guy patched the flat tire and put it back on:

(Liz, please forgive me for this next paragraph. You may want to skip it altogether since you're vegetarian.) HB told me that the beef they eat down there is from wild cows. They have dairy farms for, you know, milk, but do not have ranches for cows that they use for the meat. They get meat from wild cows roaming around in the jungle and some people make it their career to go in the jungle and shoot cows. He said these cows are never given medications, fed anything by humans, etc. and they never get diseases and the meat is very lean. I had beef a couple of times down there and it tasted wonderful. They don't have to add anything other than salt and pepper to it when it's cooked and it's some of the best meat I've ever tasted in my life. The cows they shoot in the jungle are white. We passed a large herd of them on the way and I tried to take a photo. We were going very fast. Imagine that the white things in the middle of the trees in this next photo look like cows because that's what they are.

The mountains in distance of this next photo are actually in Venezuela. We were very close to the border of about 5 or 6 countries.

Wow, this post is getting way longer than I thought it was going to. Moving on......

The town we drove out to is a fairly poor town. HB said it appeared they were having some sort of community-wide party that evening because we saw a lot of people out cleaning. They were whacking long grass with hand-held tools (I didn't see any lawn mowers), sweeping the sides of streets, etc. He said parties are about the only reason they clean up around that particular town.

At the edge of this town is a huge rock thing. The priest says it's prehistoric. I have no idea if that's true or not. What I can tell you is that the chances of anyone seeing this on a guided tour of Brazil are slim to none. This town is no tourist hot spot. People stared at me. I don't think they see many Americans. The town put some crosses on it and they come here to pray a lot.

Here is a barber shop in this small town. See? It's pretty poor.

I saw more rivers in a week in the Amazon than I've probably seen in my whole life here in the U.S. I asked HB how many rivers there are in the jungle and he said that actually no one even knows. Here is one we crossed on our drive. Obviously, we were past the savanna area and deeper into trees by this point. I have quite a few photos of just trees that we drove through but I'm not including them in this post because I don't want to completely bore the pants off you. I just want to mildly bore you. The blue tarp covered thing is a gold mining operation:

I know I have a few librarians who read my blog, so this next photo is for all of you. It's a library in the middle of the Amazon jungle with Hot Brazilian's finger in the bottom left corner:

There are churches that look like this:

And churches that look like this:

The Paradise Hotel (this is not where we stayed):

On the way back, the priest told HB to pull off the road and show me something. So he did. Apparently, all over Brazil (not just in the Amazon area), they have little beach areas along rivers. They are free to the citizens of Brazil and people bring picnic lunches and hang out. There was no one at this beach when we stopped by to take a few photos. The water is supposed to be very clean and pure. It's really quiet, peaceful and beautiful:

And this is me standing on the edge of the river putting my hair up for the umpteenth time that day:

So, for now, that concludes my Brazil posts. I'm WAY overdue for a trip to the nail salon since I haven't been since the week before I went to Brazil. I'm dressing up as a gypsy and working at the studio tomorrow night (we're having a costume party/painting class/Halloween party). I'm planning to be a barefooted gypsy so I really need to go get my nails done tomorrow. On Halloween. This may be my most interesting nail salon visit yet. We'll see what happens.

Brazil - Part 5 (the one where I answer some questions some of you may have)

2009-10-20T11:51:00.004-04:00

As I stated at the end of my last post, this may be the last Brazil post for a while. I'm definitely planning to talk about my trip more in the future, but need to come back to it at a later date. I previously wrote that I couldn't go into detail about what Hot Brazilian has been working on down there and why he's been gone for so long. I know a lot of people don't understand why he isn't back here yet, why I'm being so patient, etc., but he had asked me to keep it a secret so I've had to be a bit mysterious about it for the past 8 or 9 months since he started working on this project. I've had to listen to a lot of people telling me what an idiot I am for waiting around, that I'm wasting my life waiting on him, that he must be cheating on me and that's why he isn't back, that he's up to something illegal because he wouldn't tell me what he's doing (he WAS telling me what he was doing - I just couldn't tell anyone else and when I said that they didn't believe me), that I needed to move on, I needed to meet someone else, I needed to stand up for myself, I needed to give him an ultimatum and see if he came back, etc. It hasn't been easy to listen to all of that from the people who surround me. I heard it from at least one person almost daily. It's been a tough year. It wasn't something he planned on getting involved in when he left to go down there last year; he expected to be back here before the end of last year. But things changed. I've known a lot more than I've been able to tell anyone. And I know a lot more than what I can tell you at this point. My family didn't know exactly what he was doing, my friends didn't know, and I certainly wasn't talking about it on the internet. It isn't because he's ashamed of what he's doing and, in fact, I've told him it would be impossible for me to be any prouder of him than I am. But he was in the planning stages, research stages, etc. and telling anyone what he's working on could have caused huge problems for him, particularly if I had put it on the internet where someone could find out about his plans with a google search. It could have put him in grave danger. He has said to me on several occasions that if he dies while he's doing this, he hopes I'm proud of him. I've told him over and over that he needs to stop saying stuff like that to me because it makes me cry just to think about it and that yes, of course, I am extremely proud. Besides that, he's quite a private person and doesn't like for many people to know all about his business. (I understood his obsession with privacy a whole lot more after visiting Brazil - turns out almost all of them are obsessed with keeping their private lives, well, private.) While I was down there, he said I could start telling people a little about it, but I didn't want to put anything out here on the internet before he got through a certain event last week because I felt like it could put him in danger if I did. You know, google searches and all of that. I still don't feel comfortable going into many of the details on here at this point, but in a nutshell, Hot Brazilian is working in a small city in the Amazon jungle to help the poor. He's got a tough job ahead of him but feels that God is calling him to do this. He's up against some people who will be fighting what he's trying to do. And I'm very scared for him. One of his friends working with him has already come extremely close to losing his life and has been in the hospital for almost 3 months. The reaction of people down there to what he's trying to do is much more violent than it would ever be here in the U.S. I should be able to tell more by the beginning of the year because Hot Brazilian plans to put up a website to help spread the word of his cause. He's been working on it for a while and once he gets to a certain point he wants me to edit it for him and then he'll be ready to go public with everything he's doing. But I don't want to jeopardize his safety until he's ready to tell all so to speak. All of this is the reason I'm not blogging the name of the city I visited. Hopefully I'll be able to tell y'all much more in the next few months. Actually, I feel like I'm about to burst because I want to tell y'all everything right now, right now, right this minute, today for pete's sake. But I can't.

All of this is also part of the reason I want to move to Brazil. Would it scare the bejebus out of me to be there with him on a daily basis? Absolutely. There were a few instances while I was down there that I felt a bit uncomfortable. I kind of stood out like a sore thumb - me, the large "pink" American girl hanging out with a 6'5" Brazilian guy from another area of the country who looks very different and towers over the very petite Amazon Indians who live in this particular city. Let's just say we didn't exactly blend in and people gawked at us almost everywhere we went and I could hear lots of whispering going on around us. HB has been traveling to and from this city for almost a year and apparently a lot of people have wondered what exactly he's up to (it's a small town). Now he's got an American girl with him? You could tell certain people had a lot of questions. And there was one person in particular who began questioning some people HB knows while I was there and this person could potentially cause a lot of problems. See? Scary! But after seeing the people he's trying to help and the way in which they have to live, I want nothing more than to be down there helping him in any way I can. And I know, I know. There are tons of people here in the U.S. who are poor and need help that I could be doing work for. I can't really explain why I'm so drawn to Brazil and wanting to help HB. Obviously a huge part of it is because I love HB in ways I've never loved anyone else in my life. But there are other things that I can't really put into words and I'm not sure I even understand myself. It's just an overwhelming feeling I have in my heart and soul. And I'm not entirely sure I'll get to help in the way my heart wants to because HB would never allow me to be in the dangerous situations he puts himself in, but I hope I'll be able to help him somehow.

I took some photos of how the really poor live and HB pleaded with me not to show them to anyone. He loves his country and doesn't want people here in the U.S. to think everyone lives the way the poor live. I tried to explain to him that people would understand since we have very poor areas here too. But I will honor his wishes and not share them with y'all. Perhaps he'll show some of it on the website he's putting together. But I will tell you that it made me cry. I had the opportunity to look into the eyes of small children and they looked haunted and hopeless. I'll never forget their eyes as long as I live. And those are the ones HB wants to help most - the children. He realizes it might be impossible to change the parents and the older people, but he feels like if he can change just a couple of the children and make them realize there is hope and there are opportunities beyond their imaginations then they will in turn change other children and in this way he hopes to break the cycle that has a death grip on the poor souls in this town. We were driving through a poor area one afternoon and there was a mom with her two kids on the back of her bicycle taking them home from school. One of the boys was probably 5 or 6 years old. He happened to look over as we were passing them and he saw someone (me) who looked different than anyone else. His eyes lit up, he grinned from ear to ear, and he began waving at me frantically. I waved back and he began to giggle and scrunch up his adorable little face. I have no idea, but I kind of got the feeling that he may have thought I was coming to save them. Those are the kids HB wants to touch somehow. And I want to do everything I can to help him.

HB and I were at breakfast one morning and he overheard a lady at the next table talking (it was all in Portuguese so I couldn't understand it). I don't want to say who she works for and HB didn't know her and she's not working with him, but he said she had apparently gone the day before and saw how the poor people live and she was telling the person she was with that it broke her heart and she wasn't sure if she could handle going back that day and seeing it again. She said that seeing the children's faces made her want to look away because it was so sad to see their eyes. It's awful. I can't tell y'all how proud I am of HB and what he's doing. He is such a good man and I have no idea why God granted me the good fortune of a relationship with him but I thank Him every single day for it.

I was going to post some photos I took when we were driving through the jungle, but they really don't go along with the tone of this post. So perhaps I have one more Brazil post after this one before I move on and start talking about my normal boring daily life here in Atlanta.

......to be continued.......

Brazil - Part 4

2009-10-11T21:22:00.001-04:00

[NOTE: I know some of you are probably not too thrilled to still be reading posts about my trip to Brazil. But this is kind of my way of putting these memories down for myself so that I have a record of the things I did. I promise I'm going to move on to something else soon. In fact, I probably only have one more Brazil post after this one. For a while anyway. You'll see what I mean at the end.]

Finally, here is a post about the fruit trees as I've promised in my last two posts. There are fruit trees everywhere in the town we visited. Ever since I met Hot Brazilian, I thought he had some weird issues with the food in the U.S. Now that I've visited his country, I completely understand where he's coming from. While in the U.S., HB very rarely eats processed foods. He's very particular about what restaurants he will eat in. He eats only whole, in their natural state, organic foods. He prefers to make his own fruit juice from a piece of fresh fruit and my blender. You will rarely see him drink Tropicana or anything of the sort.

As we drove around town, I saw coconut trees, mango trees, papaya trees, cashew trees, etc. growing wild on the side of the road, in people's yards, etc. You can stop on the side of the road and knock down a fresh coconut anytime you want one. Fresh mango from the backyard? Not a problem. We had coconut trees growing around the pool at our hotel:

Here is a mango tree growing in someone's yard we visited:
Fresh papaya? Here you go:
I guess I had never given it much thought really, but I did not know that cashew nuts grow on a tree and not in the ground like peanuts do. The cashews in Brazil are HUGE. We bought a small bag my first day there and ate them for a midnight snack. The other thing I never knew about cashews is that they look really weird when you get them off the tree. They are attached to a piece of cashew fruit. If you look really closely, you can see the cashew growing in this tree (it's kind of in the middle of the photo hanging down below a leaf):
HB pulled down the limb and grabbed the cashew off so I could see it and taste the fruit in just about the freshest way possible. In the photo below, the top part (the yellowish part) is the fruit and you can also see where HB had taken a small nibble out of it. I had fresh cashew juice several times while I was down there and really liked it. HB told me it's higher in Vitamin C than orange juice. The greenish-brown part sticking off the bottom contains the cashew nut:

The cashew tree and the papaya tree are growing in the backyard of the priest. Remember I mentioned HB and I spent a lot of time with a priest while I was there? He's a friend of HB's and they are working on a project together.

One afternoon we had to drive to the area where the priest lives. While we were there, he told HB he would like to introduce me to his wife, two sons, and sister-in-law so we went to their home (apparently the rules are different there and priests can marry). They are a poor family, but the priest wanted to give me a gift because HB said he adored me from the moment he met me. HB had to translate everything for us to have a conversation or we used a lot of hand motions to communicate when we could. In fact, the first afternoon I met the priest, he realized I must be getting bored since I was sitting in the middle of a meeting but could not understand one word anyone was saying. The priest was sitting next to me and from time to time, he would pat me on the back or on my knee and smile at me as if he were trying to say he was sorry I didn't know what they were talking about. Anyway, HB and I were sitting in front of their home and the priest went inside and came back out with a necklace and put it around my neck. It was made by an Indian living deep in the Amazon. I've googled a lot of information about the town I was in and the Amazon Indians since I've been back home because I cannot stop thinking about them. In one photo, I saw an Indian chief with a necklace almost identical to the one the priest gifted to me. It will be a special treasure to me always.

For a couple of days prior to visiting his home, the priest kept telling HB he wanted to take me deep into the jungle to meet a wild Amazon Indian tribe (he works with the wild tribes from time to time). HB seemed hesitant when I said that sounded like one of the coolest things ever! Perhaps hesitant is not the right word......he basically told me there was no way in hell he would allow me to go meet the wild Indians. He didn't explain why at the time and I was a little bit upset with him. That's because I'm a very naive American - I later learned why he didn't seem as excited as me.

The priest's family came outside to meet me. They told HB they had never seen a "pink" person before - they said they've seen very few Americans and none of them were pink. I don't think I'm particularly pink, but they seemed to think so. HB said it was a huge compliment (I'm still not quite sure I understand why). Anyway, they were all excited to have an American visit their home for the first time ever and as HB and I were getting in our car, the priest walked over and said his wife would be honored if she could cook lunch for us. HB asked me if I would be okay eating with them and I about tripped over myself with excitement: I was going to eat a home cooked meal with an Indian family in their home in the middle of the Amazon jungle. How freaking cool is that?! The two little boys got all excited when we said yes. The wife was beside herself with joy. It was very sweet. HB, the priest and I drove to the grocery store, we picked up the groceries and dropped them back off at the house for her to cook while we drove around some more and did a couple of things. We then went back to their home a little bit later to eat. HB told me later that he has been friends with the priest for almost ten years and has been to his home numerous times. However, he had never been invited inside their home until I was with him. He had never made it past sitting outside their home. He said the family thought I was really special and they truly felt honored to have me as a guest in their home. How cool, huh?

She made a chicken dish, salad, rice, beans, and two different fresh fruit juices. It tasted divine! However, I felt a little awkward while we were eating. They live in a tiny and very modest home. It's basically three rooms: a tiny kitchen, a very small room which served as their living room and dining room (it was so small their dinette set pretty much filled up the space), and one bedroom (and a bathroom). The kitchen and living/dining room are in an L-shaped area. HB, the priest, and the two kids and I sat down to eat. The wife and sister-in-law didn't sit. HB asked them to join us before we began eating. They informed him that their custom is that the women are not allowed to eat with the husband and kids. The husband and kids eat first and they get whatever is left. HB begged and pleaded with them to make an exception and to eat with us. They refused. I felt very awkward being a woman eating with her husband and kids when they would not sit and eat. But they insisted. And the two women stood behind us in the kitchen while we ate the food they had prepared. Once we finished, they sat down and ate.

After the wife began eating, the priest brought up again that he wanted to take me into the jungle to meet a wild tribe. The wife said if I wanted to do that, I needed to go with her and not the priest. She's a nurse and treats the wild Indians (to clarify, she is also a native Indian but lives in the town rather than in the woods and is civilized but because she is an Indian, the wild tribes trust her. Also to clarify, the town I was in is smack dab in the middle of the Amazon jungle but I wasn't, you know, sleeping in a hammock inside a hut in the middle of the woods even though I was in the middle of the jungle). She said if I wanted to go she would take me to the Brazilian Air Force base and I would have to fill out a bunch of documentation and get permission from the Air Force base to go meet a tribe (and so they would have a record of where I was going). They are very protective of who gets to meet the tribes. The wife would then have to go ahead of us and ask the tribe chief for his permission to bring in an American visitor. If he said okay, she would then come back and get us and take me into the woods. However, she told HB she would not be able to guarantee my safety.....if the chief decided he liked me (and apparently they usually LOVE white girls) he could very well steal me and take me as his sex slave. He may decide to release me in a few months, or a few years. Or I may disappear and never be seen again. And that right there is why I do not have any stories for you of meeting a wild Indian tribe in the woods.

During lunch, I could tell the priest was encouraging his oldest son (who is 9-years-old) to say something to me. He very carefully shouted out the only English words he knows: "I LOVE MICHAEL JACKSON!" HB and I could not stop laughing. Suddenly, a crowd of people came walking into the house. The wife had told everyone who lives around them (most of them family) that a pink American girl would be having lunch in their home and I became an instant celebrity. I met cousins, in-laws, friends, etc. Of course I could only smile and shake hands with them since none of them speak English and I speak no Portuguese. HB said they were all very honored and excited to meet an American girl. As we were walking out the door, the son yelled to me, "I LOVE YOU!" He was so sweet!

HB told me the Brazilian people are fiercely protective of their privacy so I will not be posting the photograph I took with the family in their home that day. But it will always remain one of my favorite photos and I will remember that lunch forever.

The next afternoon HB, the priest and I were having lunch. HB looked at me and said, "the priest is getting on my nerves." I asked him why and he said it's because the priest could not stop telling him how beautiful I am. As a reminder, I was constantly covered in a gallon of sweat, my hair was stuck up in a bun-type hairdo on the top of my head, and I never had a bit of makeup left on my face after approximately 9:00 each morning because I sweated it all off. I was not feeling very beautiful, I can tell you that. HB kept telling him to knock it off. He said as a man, it's flattering for another man to tell you that your girlfriend is attractive but only once. The second time it becomes a little annoying. The third time, it pisses him off. HB said he had been hearing it for three days straight and was ready to scream. Then the priest started saying that his brother-in-law thought I was the hottest girl he's ever seen in his life but he was too nervous to speak to me or shake my hand after lunch the day before at the priest's home because HB was sitting next to me at the lunch table. And HB was getting really irritated by the time I left to come back home and he had been hearing it for a week!

The priest told HB to let me know they would be honored to have me in their home again in the future. He also said I was very courageous for visiting the town I was in because it can be dangerous and he knows Americans cannot handle the intense heat there. Y'all, it was freaking hot!

I think the next post will be about the trip to a town about 30 minutes away from the city I visited. It's a little bit more "jungle-ish". And it might be the last installment of my Brazil trip for now. There is so much I can't reveal at this time. But hopefully soon.

I'm also hoping I might get back to Brazil sooner than I originally thought I might. You see, HB has a friend who really wants to meet an American girl. He asked HB to show him a photograph of what I look like. He also seems to think I'm beautiful and apparently he assumes that means all of my friends are lovely too (actually, I think they are :-)). He said he will pay for a plane ticket, hotel room, and food for a week for one of my friends who is willing to come down and meet him. I immediately thought of a certain friend of mine and I approached her this past week about it. She told me she's always up for an adventure (which is exactly why I thought of her) and to get me a picture of him because she's willing to give it a shot. She said she's always been interested in a relationship with someone from another culture and figures Brazilian is as good as any! The guy doesn't speak a word of English so HB will have to be their translator. And if you think I'm going to let my friend go down there and hang out with HB and his friend for a week without me, then you're crazy!

........to be continued.......

Brazil - Part 3

2009-10-06T13:25:00.000-04:00

Dear Brazil,

You sucked me in with your kind, warm-hearted people (even though none of us could understand each other), your fresh, clean, pollution-free air, your crystal blue skies, your fresh, unprocessed-at-all, natural, whole foods, your fresh fruit trees, your lush Amazon landscape, and your laid back, chillax culture. Then you threw in Hot Brazilian like a giant enticing cherry on top of it all. And do you know what, Brazil? You ruined me forever. That's right.....you made me want to leave Atlanta for good to come live with you. But guess what, Brazil? I can't do that currently for a multitude of reasons and I've been depressed for the past week. You've made me cry almost every day for the past 8 days. I cried when the tires of my plane hit the ground at Atlanta's airport and I haven't really stopped. Even when I don't appear to be crying on the outside I'm still crying on the inside. Way to go, Brazil. I hope you're happy with yourself.

Love, me.

It's true. I want to move to Brazil some day. HB and I are going to talk about it. I've started some on-line Portuguese lessons (Eu sou uma mulher. Eu sou gorda. (I am a woman. I am fat.)) and I'll eventually buy some software to learn the language. And it's true that I've been depressed since I returned to Atlanta last week. It's a combination of things really. Some of it I've written about on here (missing HB like mad, loving Brazil, etc.) but a lot of it is simply because I'm oh so tired of living in Atlanta. And I'm not sure simply moving to another American city is going to fix some other things that bother me on an on-going basis. I need a huge change to shake up a bunch of stuff inside me and "fix" a lot of things that have been bothering me for many years. HUGE CHANGE. Now, this is something that isn't going to happen in the next week or anything. It may be a year or more, but it is something I want to seriously consider. I've already informed my mom that HB and I are going to have some serious conversations about me moving there in the future so that she'll have time to recover from her hyperventilating before anything actually happens. She has mixed feelings about it, of course, but says she'll support whatever I decide to do and she says she understands why I might want to do this. She told me she doesn't want me look back when I'm her age and regret not truly living my life. That's my problem, you see. I feel like I'm just existing and not really living. I saw what HB is working on in Brazil (hopefully I'll be able to say more about that in the next couple of months) and it only served to prove to me what I've been feeling for a long, long, long time - that I feel like I am wasting my life. A lot of people who work in the legal field are completely passionate about it. I just don't happen to be one of those people and I leave the office every single day realizing I just wasted another 8 or 9 hours of my life doing something I don't love. But it's a relatively easy job, my firm is quite wonderful, my three bosses are nice, it pays my bills, and so I continue day after day after day. Sure, I have my painting and teaching on the side and I love that. But I can't make a living with it. (And I learned this past weekend that I definitely don't want to attempt to make a living painting murals on ceilings. I volunteered my time to paint a mural on the ceiling of an 18x18 foot bathroom in a group home for medically fragile children. We have at least another day or two worth of work and then I will never volunteer to do anything like that again. Geez, I had no idea what hard work it would be. I've been told the going rate for murals is $15,000 - $20,000. I totally get it now.) Okay....back to Brazil and my undying love for it.

My last post was dedicated to food, but it was getting too long to post my photos of produce and fruit trees and I promised them this time. So here you go:

This is a typical little corner produce stand. I didn't go to this one - I took a picture from the car as we were driving by it:

One day HB, the priest and I went to a farmer's market. I saw stuff I've never seen in my life at the farmer's market. And a lot of it I still cannot identify for you.

For instance, I have no idea what the name of this crazy looking fruit is. HB told me that people who have cancer eat this and it seems to help them. By the way, Americans get cancer a whole lot more than Brazilians. HB is convinced it's all of the processed foods and hormones we eat here. He was shocked when he lived here at how many people get cancer.

The green weird fruit in the lower left hand corner is called graviola. I didn't eat any of it, but I had fresh graviola juice at breakfast one morning and it was delicious! Behind it is what I assume is a potato of some sort. The green fruit to the right is papaya. There are some mysterious looking bottles in the background. I have no clue what might be in those bottles. The Amazon Indians take empty soda bottles, etc. and put all kinds of concoctions in them. The majority of them aren't labeled but customers seemed to know what they are. I also saw a lot of bags of spices that were not labeled.

Beans in HB's hand:

Onions, garlic, tomatoes and mystery spices and liquids:

Peppers. They had tons of different peppers. This is only a few:

The bumpy green fruit in the lower right corner with the long things sticking out of them? I have no clue:

More mystery bottles of liquids, oils and bags of spices:

Making beef jerky. It was really gross looking:

There were rows and rows of these big bags of different types of flour. People eat these flours raw. In fact, some restaurants serve a spoonful of raw flour as a side with certain meals. I tried a couple of them but they didn't exactly win my heart (or taste buds). They are super crunchy and get stuck in your teeth terribly. They don't have a very strong flavor, but I couldn't stand having it stuck in my teeth. The consistency and crunchiness is similar to uncooked rice, but HB says they are flour.

And we had a cold coconut water while we were there. That is half of HB on the left waiting for the guy to prepare them:

This is still too long to post all of the photos of the fruit trees. I'll show them to y'all in the next post which will also include the story of the afternoon I became a celebrity in an Amazon Indian neighborhood.

.......to be continued........

Brazil - Part 2

2009-10-01T11:37:00.000-04:00

The first thing I figured out about the city I visited is that they drive like maniacs. The only place I've seen similar drivers was when I was in Egypt. Our taxi driver from the airport went through the round-abouts (is that what they are called?) in intersections at 40+ mph and I was hanging on for dear life in the back seat. He took turns at 40+ also. Crazy! But he delivered us safely to our hotel. Our very, very, very hot hotel.

As I stated in my prior post, I did not go to a tourist spot. This town had very few hotels and most of them are pretty run down. Hot Brazilian normally stays in a kind of run down one because of the work he's doing - it wouldn't look good for him to be staying in the nicest hotel in town. But he knew I would want one thing: air conditioning. So he had decided we would stay in the nicest place in town while I was with him because it's the only one with air. He's a wise man! Our room had a window air conditioning unit and the restaurant had air. The remainder of the hotel had none. As soon as we opened the door of our room each morning, we were hit by a wall of heat. The lobby doesn't even have walls. It is all open air. Here are a couple of photos of the lobby area:

Here are a few photos from the pool area behind our hotel:

We had the most fabulous breakfast buffet I've ever experienced each morning. It was free with our room and I must say, it's a far cry from the cold cereal and bagels American hotels give guests for free. Each morning the buffet had a few things the same, but they changed up some of it too. We had fresh pineapple, watermelon, white watermelon, boiled bananas (Brazil has tons of different types of bananas and this particular kind is only eaten boiled and they are delicious), fried plaintains, papaya, mango, quiches, pastries, cakes, eggs, meat, sausage, ham, varieties of homemade cheeses, breads with cheese baked in them, two varieties of fresh-squeezed fruit juice, coffee, hot chocolate, etc., etc. to choose from. Here is a photo of the buffet for one day (totally free y'all!):

Well, why don't I just go ahead and dedicate this post to food.

I would move to Brazil for the food alone. It was completely amazing every place we went. Fresh, natural, unprocessed, and delicious. I understand so much more about why HB doesn't like American food very much (with the exception of southern bar-b-que but he even eats that with no sauce) after eating for a week in Brazil. I understand why he only eats organic from Whole Foods when he's here or at a "real" Brazilian restaurant. I understand why he gets incredibly ill anytime he finds himself in a bind here and has to resort to fast food. Because since I've been home, I've gotten sick every single time I've eaten no matter how bland of stuff I eat. I've been running for the bathroom within 20 minutes after every meal. I had to teach a class at the studio last night and I didn't eat dinner because I knew I'd have issues getting through my class. My system completely changed in one week down in Brazil. I know that sounds crazy but it's true. The food, the heat, and the sun detoxed me and now our food is making my body extremely unhappy. I didn't get sick once while I was down there. I woke up this morning with the worse leg cramps I've had in my life. I think it's because I'm not drinking as much water as I did when I was in Brazil. I am not very good about drinking water - I never have been. I'm kind of ashamed to admit this, but I often go two months without drinking a single glass of plain water. I really don't drink very much in general - milk for breakfast, ice tea at lunch, and a glass of tea or juice at dinner. Three glasses of liquid a day.....not too healthy, huh? Well, I drank stuff non-stop in Brazil. It was over 100 degrees per day. We froze bottles of water in the little refrigerator in our room each night, grabbed a bottle in the morning and it was completely thawed out in 15 minutes after we went outside. I've never felt heat like I did down there in my life and I thought it got really hot here in Georgia. I probably drank an average of 6 bottles of water per day, one coconut water per day (which is like a natural gatorade because it replaces electrolytes), and 3 mini pitchers of fresh fruit juice per day. When it gets over 85 degrees here in the U.S., I feel completely lethargic. I can barely function. But because I was eating super fresh, healthy foods and drinking fresh fruit juices and water down there, it was over 100 degrees and I had tons of energy all day every day.

The climate and the food also opened up my pores over my entire body while I was there. HB told me my skin would look fabulous by the time I came back because I was going to clean all of the bad stuff out of my body down there. He was right. By my third day down there, I constantly looked like I had splashed water all over my face or poured a bottle of water over my head because I had sweat running down every inch of my face and body. I know that's gross, but I actually haven't felt better in years. I would ask HB to stop by the hotel once or twice during the middle of the day so we could take showers - we both averaged 3 or 4 showers per day. We spent a lot of time with a priest while I was there (long story) and on my last day, he told HB that he thought I was extremely courageous for being there - the town can be dangerous and he knows Americans can't handle the heat. But as I said before, I had never felt better.

Here are a few photos of some of the food we ate:

Brazilian pizza is one of the best pizzas I've ever had in my life. We had ours with cheese, tomato, and some of the freshest basil I've ever tasted.

It's hard to believe, but this was one hamburger that we asked them to cut into four pieces. One hamburger y'all! It's the size of a dinner plate. It had fried egg, lettuce, tomato, and bacon on it. I've never thought about putting fried egg on a burger, but it was pretty darn good. Also, you can see my mini pitcher of fresh pineapple juice in the background and HB's fresh cashew juice to the right in the front.

Very few restaurants involve eating inside. Most of them are tiny places with plastic tables and chairs on the sidewalk. Most of our meals involved being approached by one of the many stray cats that were all over town. HB decided to feed this one a french fry:

We had fresh coconut water almost every day in the late afternoon and with the exception of one day, we bought them at this little street side stand below. This stand has been open for over 50 years. Coconut water is very refreshing when it's super cold. Here is the back of HB as he waits on the guy to drill a hole in our coconuts.

And here I am tasting coconut water for the very first time ever. Excuse the horrid look of all of my hair pulled up on top of my head.....it was hot y'all!

I was going to write about and post pictures of all of the fruit trees and the produce market we visited, but this post is kind of long already. I'll save it for next time.

.......to be continued.........

Brazil - Part 1

2009-09-29T20:54:00.001-04:00

Well, I've returned from the wilds of the Amazon and I'm changed forever and I'm changed in many different ways.

I did not go to a typical tourist hot spot in Brazil. I've decided for many reasons not to disclose the city we met in on my blog. The city we met in is not the city Hot Brazilian lives in. But it is where he's been doing some very important work. He wasn't able to take an entire week off in order for us to meet up in a more touristy town, but I told him that was fine because I'm really not a tourist hot spot kind of girl. I wanted to see the real Brazil and see how the culture really lives - I didn't want to be surrounded by a bunch of Americans and Europeans laying around on a beach. At this point, I still can't reveal exactly what it is he's doing, but hopefully by the end of the year I will be able to do so. But suffice it to say, he's doing some really good stuff for some people who desperately need his help. If you are the praying type, please say a few for him because he needs them.

This past week was incredible on so many levels and I don't even know where to start to be honest. So I suppose I'll start at the beginning. Don't worry, I'll try not to cover every single detail and I'll break it up over several posts.

I flew out of Atlanta on the night of Saturday, September 19th. I landed in Manaus, Brazil around 4:30 a.m. to begin an 8 hour layover. Manaus is the capital city of the state of the Amazonas. I did not plan to leave the airport in Manaus because (1) it was 4:30 a.m.; (2) I don't speak the language; and (3) HB told me I could quickly find myself in danger if I left the airport. The airport in Manaus is not exactly like Atlanta's airport. It's tiny. And in Atlanta it doesn't matter what time of day or night, there are always tons of people around and tons of flights going in and out. Not so in Manaus. In my first 6 hours there, I may have seen 30 passengers walking around. HB had told me to only exchange about $50 when I got to the airport so that I could get something to eat for breakfast and because he said he would feel safer knowing I had a little bit of cash on me. I was happy I had grabbed a bottle of water and a bag of trail mix in Atlanta before I left - there was nothing open in the airport in Manaus in the middle of the night. I could neither exchange money or buy anything to eat.

I have to admit something: I was excited to see HB, but I was also feeling a bit of anxiety about it. My ex-husband was once gone overseas for 13 months. I visited my ex about half-way through his time overseas and the same has not been true for HB and I. When my ex returned to Atlanta, we had a very rough time transitioning back to being a couple. The first year after he came back was a bit touch and go for us. I can't begin to tell you how different HB is from my ex-husband, but in the back of my mind I had a little bit of anxiety about our reunion because of the experience I had with my ex.

I spent my time in the Manaus airport trying to convince myself that I was being completely stupid and should not feel anxious at all. I began counting down the hours until I would reach my final destination and see him again. My flight from Manaus to the town we were meeting in was a little over an hour. HB had told me he was flying in there on Saturday and would be at the airport to pick me up on Sunday afternoon. As I boarded my plane, I was feeling it even more. I kept telling myself I had one more hour to calm myself down.

I sat down in my seat on the plane, buckled up, a guy sat down and buckled up beside me, and suddenly a head came popping over the seat behind me and I heard a man say, "what are you doing here girl?" I couldn't believe it when I turned my head and suddenly HB was kissing me. Turns out he couldn't get on the flight the day before, his plane came through Manaus and dropped a few people off and picked up some more of us. He never even got to get off the plane. He had tried to get the seat next to me, but the best he could do was two rows in front of me because the flight was packed. I was so stunned when I saw him that I hardly knew what to say. But it immediately put all of my fears to rest because I could tell right away that things were just fine between us. In fact, I could tell they were more than fine from that first kiss.

......to be continued......(don't worry, I took over 300 photos so I'll include a few in future posts)

I'm very disappointed in this story too

2009-09-18T10:46:00.001-04:00

Okay, I did go to the nail salon last night. I have to say, this was a rather calm visit but there was a tiny bit of, uhm, oddness. As I said yesterday, it has been raining all week here in Atlanta. In fact, I talked to my dad last night and he said his basement is flooding and his rain guage, which holds 6 inches of rain, had filled up and overflowed. I heard this morning that some areas have received as much as 9 inches of rain in the past couple of days. It's supposed to keep raining through next Tuesday. I might return from Brazil to find that Atlanta has washed away.

Needless to say, people haven't been out and about as much this week. I walked in the nail salon last night and there were two customers. They were just finishing up and left within the first couple of minutes I was there, so basically I was the only customer in the salon. I have to admit I was kind of disappointed because I had no plans to do anything crazy and thought I would have no stories for y'all.

One of the employees came through a little bit for me though. But this is not as exciting as my normal visits so you may be disappointed too.

There was a guy working on my pedicure and then an older woman started on my manicure. She was probably in her mid to late 70's. She finished my manicure and then walked over to another table, sat with some of the other employees and they all began eating bowls of soup. After a few minutes, the older lady stood up from the table and walked out into the middle of the salon. With her pants pulled up on each side all the way to her waist. Her undies were showing bigger than day. And she simply wandered around the salon for a little while holding her pant legs up to her waist. Odd, no?

My nails finally dried, however, the rain was coming down in buckets so I chilled out for a bit to wait until it slowed down some. It finally got to the point where it was still raining hard, but it wasn't a torrential downpour so I stood up and started grabbing my purse, keys, cell phone, etc. to leave.

I got to the front door of the salon, and the same lady came running to the door with an umbrella and told me in broken English that she would walk me to my car. I pointed to my car which was parked right in front of the salon and thanked her for her offer but told her I'd be fine. We went through this a few times but she refused to take no for an answer. She also refused to let me hold the umbrella. I am 5'4". She was approximately 4'5". So I did what any normal person would do walking under an umbrella with a super short person: I bent down at the knees and waddled like a duck to my car with her.

My boobs are still huge and my cat is still a gigantic pain in my butt

2009-09-17T10:38:00.002-04:00

Last night I stopped on my way home for what I hope is the last errand I have to run for my trip to Brazil. Well, the last errand with the exception of the nail salon where I'll be stopping tonight. I had to set aside a separate night just for that because I think we all know I'll have an adventure there and it deserves its own evening.

It has been raining all week here in Atlanta and it supposed to rain until next Monday or I would have waited to run this errand. Because last night I left work and as I was driving towards my house (I needed to stop at Ulta which is within walking distance from my house - although I've never actually walked there) it began raining harder and harder. I can't tell you how many flooded areas I had to drive through and it's times like those I'm glad I'm in an SUV which is up higher off the ground. I could barely see a car right in front of me it was raining so hard. I got to Ulta and sat in my car for a few minutes hoping it would let up some. It didn't. And I had to pee really bad. I decided I needed to just make a run for it, get in Ulta, pick up the three things I needed, and get home before I wet myself. (I avoid public restrooms unless there is a dire emergency.)

I was wearing a long, ankle-length skirt and sandals and when I stepped out of my car, my skirt was floating in water because the parking lot was flooding. I tried to make a run for it, but my feet would not stay in my shoes (they were thong sandals with nothing to hold them on my feet). So I slowly walked across the parking lot because I was apparently too stupid to reach down and take my shoes off and run. By the time I walked through the front door, I was thoroughly soaked. I got what I needed, took off my shoes, and ran barefoot out to my car in more pouring rain.

The good news? When I got home and looked in the mirror, the stomach area of my shirt was still relatively dry. This means my boobs still officially stick out further than my stomach. Yay me.

This morning things were going relatively well at my house. Then I walked into my bedroom to get dressed and discovered Bailey apparently has an upset stomach and had a minor diarrhea incident. Right in the center of my bedspread. So I cleaned that up, got my bedspread in the washing machine and then went back to get dressed. Only to discover I had cat diarrhea on the bottom of my foot. Apparently she tracked it through my house. I stepped in the bathtub and washed my feet off, got dressed and left my house. I will have to mop the hardwoods when I get home tonight. I didn't think "cat diarrhea" would be a good enough excuse to be late for work. My upstairs neighbor was parked in such a way that I came approximately three hair-widths from hitting his car with mine while trying to get out of the odd place I have to park. On my way to work, a woman almost side swiped me when she swerved over into my lane.

I keep telling myself that things can only get better from here on out. Then I remember I'm going to the nail salon tonight.

Okay dang it......I did it. There are two things I've done actually.

2009-09-14T15:44:00.002-04:00

Thing # 1 I've done: I broke down my tough wall against it and I joined Facebook last night. A few of you are already my friends. I would love for all of you to be my Facebook friends. But if you are, please do me a gigantic favor and never, ever, ever mention this blog on my Facebook page. If you do, please know I will delete your comment but it's nothing personal against you if I do that. A number of people in my real life know I have a blog, but I've always told them I will not tell them the name of it. So I guess I should say you can mention that I have a blog, you just can't ever say the name of it. I don't want to censor myself as much as I would if I knew my family and "real life" friends were reading the stuff I write on here.

Thing # 2 I've done: I went this morning to the Brazilian Consulate's office and now have a tourist visa in my hot little hands and that means that a huge weight has been lifted off of me because I know I can officially get on my flight this weekend and go see my Hot Brazilian!!! Yippee! I'm so happy.

There was a guy who came in for his appointment time and was a couple of people behind me in line. When you first walk in the door, there is a guy at a desk and he does an initial review of all of your documentation to make sure you have everything you need (passport, copy of drivers license, U.S. Postal money order for visa fee, copy of travel itinerary, vaccination proof if needed, copy of visa application, photo, etc.) Everyone in line before me and the person behind me had all of our documents. Do you know why? Because when you fill out the visa application online and then email them to request an appointment, they email you back with your appointment time and send you a link to a website which lists each and every document you are required to bring with you. Well, of course there was an idiot who showed up while I was there. He started arguing with the guy at the desk and telling him the website didn't say anything about bringing anything other than the print-out of the online application he had filled out. Uhm dude, what the heck do you think they are going to adhere your visa to if you don't at least bring your passport with you? Why did he think the online application says in several places that you must have a valid passport that doesn't expire within the next 6 months and oh, I don't know, HAS EMPTY PAGES FOR THEM TO PUT THE VISA IN.

It seems like everybody is doing it. Except me.

2009-09-11T12:09:00.003-04:00

I've been fighting this and fighting this but I'm thisclose to caving in. I've been asked to do this by several bloggers and a bunch of my friends. I found out last week that one of my aunts who is almost 70 years old is doing it. Most of my cousins are doing it. Please leave me a comment telling me why I should or should not join Facebook. I'm still on the fence but I'm about to fall off that fence and join.

Laboring on Labor Day

2009-09-08T11:32:00.000-04:00

Apparently we had a long weekend since it's Tuesday and I didn't come to the office yesterday. Why is it that I don't feel very rested?

I will warn you right now that if you can't sleep tonight you should read this post. It's that boring.

I went to the studio on Friday night after work and didn't get home until almost 1:00 a.m. On Saturday I hit the ground running at the bright and early hour of about 10:00 a.m. (I was tired yo'). I went and had a massage, which I realize should have helped me relax but I was super tight and she did a trigger point massage and I could barely move the next day. But I told her to do whatever she had to do in order to loosen up my lower back so I did, in fact, ask for it. I then went to a shoe store to try and find some more sandals or flip flops to take to Brazil. My choices were limited since it is September but I managed to find two pairs. I then went and bought two shirts and two pairs of capris because I have very few clothes appropriate for 100+ degree days in the Amazon jungle area. I'm not entirely sure capris and flip flops are appropriate (my guess is that they are not) but that is apparently what I will be wearing at least a couple of days. And in my defense, I don't know if I'll actually be in the jungle at all. We are staying near it though and the only thing Hot Brazilian told me as far as wardrobe is that I should not wear any dark clothes. So I will wear my capris and coat myself in a half-can of bug spray. And if we are actually in the jungle, I will probably stand out in my lemon yellow capris.

I then had to hunt for a chain because Hot Brazilian gave me a necklace a couple of years ago for my birthday and the chain broke about six months ago. Before he left last summer, anytime he saw me without the necklace on, he asked me where it was. So I figured I'd better buy a new chain so that I can wear it to Brazil.

I then went and bought a new digital camera because I seem to think I poo money these days and have a never ending supply. The digital camera I had was about 8 or 9 years old, it was only 5 megapixels, and anytime I tried to take a photo without using my flash it would come out super blurry. It was also bulky and weighed a lot which is not fun to carry around in my purse. I decided that even though I'm a sucky photographer, I wanted to have a better quality camera to at least attempt to take some decent photos while I'm on the trip of a lifetime. Also, y'all have seen how bad the photos of my paintings turn out when I post them on here. I've talked to the studio owner about opening an Etsy shop to sell some of my pieces and she said she's fine with me doing that. I felt like a better camera might help my photos look better and make my paintings sell easier. (For those of you who have asked why I felt like I needed permission to sell my pieces online, her sister is the creative mind behind our studio. About 90% of my paintings are my version of her sister's originals and not my own "creations" so I felt like I needed to see if it's okay.) I'm not sure when I'm going to actually get an Etsy shop up and going, but I'll let y'all know when I do.

I also did my normal grocery shopping and other normal errands and therefore, Saturday was pretty much non-stop. I was actually supposed to teach a class at the studio Saturday night but the owner knew how much stuff I had to get done and she had not been at the studio much last week and so she decided to teach for me. I cannot thank her enough.

On Sunday, my mom had a cookout at her house for a belated family get together for my birthday. Most of my family left her house by 6:00 and then my mom, my aunt and I pulled out the board games and card games. After one game of Yahtzee, a few games of Ratuki (a VERY fun game if you have never heard of it), and approximately 6 games of Scrabble, my mom said, "Beverly, did you know it's almost midnight?" Uhm, no I did not. My aunt was spending the night at her house and they begged me to stay as well but I didn't want to sleep in my jeans and top and I can't fit in my mom's clothes so I couldn't borrow anything from her. I got home at almost 1:00 a.m.

Yesterday I labored on Labor Day. I cleaned and I cleaned and I cleaned. I spent over 3 hours just on my kitchen and bathroom. I scrubbed floors, I washed rugs, I moved my microwave and cleaned under it, inside it, etc. I cleaned out my toaster oven. I washed the fronts of all of my cabinets. I decluttered. I spent about an hour cleaning my living room. I spent about 2 hours sorting through all of my jewelry (I have a ton of jewelry) - I organized it, I threw out some of it, I pulled out some broken pieces that I have ideas for to use in some art projects, etc. I spent a long time on my closet. I cleaned, decluttered and did laundry for almost 9 hours yesterday (I think I inhaled about 8 pounds of dust and cat fur). And I still am not finished. I wanted to clean really good before my trip so that I can come home to a non-disgusting house. Next Saturday I'm going for another massage in the morning, then straight to a hair appointment to get a cut and color, and then straight to the studio to teach a class Saturday evening. On Sunday I'm planning to go visit my aunt who is dying. They've put her under hospice care and I want to visit her before I leave for Brazil so that I can see her while she's still somewhat coherent. It's about 4 hours round-trip to her house so between the drive time and visiting time with her, next Sunday is completely booked for me. The next Saturday is when I leave so yesterday was my only day to clean before my trip.

I finally stopped around 8:30 p.m. and took a much needed shower. I then ate a bowl of cereal for dinner and turned on the tv. I was surfing through the channels and stopped on "Hoarders". Have any of you watched this show? OMG. I have never been so happy that I had just spent 9 hours cleaning my house. It sort of made me want to jump up and clean for an additional 9 hours. And I've never been so happy that I only have one cat. The episode I saw was about a couple who hoarded cats. The cats had destroyed their entire house. They had chewed up their mattress and box spring and were sleeping inside the bed. They had chewed up chairs and would sleep up inside the chairs. They had 2 inches of cat feces in their garage. Animal Control removed 76 cats from their house - only 41 of them were alive. A cleaning crew came in to clean everything out of their house and they found more dead ones. I don't know if I've ever seen anything that gross in my life. I looked at Bailey and told her she will always be my only child.

List of reasons why I can tell you what episodes of Three's Company and The Cosby Show were on from 2:30 a.m. until 5:00 a.m. this morning

2009-09-01T21:37:00.010-04:00

I have no clue why the font is so small on this post. I've tried several things to fix it but Blogger apparently wants all of you to strain your eyes reading this. Please do not send me your eye doctor bills. I can't afford them.

I've been holding out on y'all about something. Well, not exactly holding out - I just haven't had time to blog about it. I suppose I could have blogged about it this morning between 2:30 and 5:00 a.m. instead of watching Rudy not learning how to play the violin because she really wanted to play the cymbals in band class but her friend Kim took the cymbals first and Theo practicing his psychic powers on Vanessa, and Jack acting like a gay man and Chrissy sleep walking in the streets while half-dressed, and Jack, Janet and Chrissy trying to keep a puppy in their apartment and hiding it from Mr. Roper because it's against the rules to have pets, and Jack missing Janet's birthday dinner because a hot girl wanted to go out with him, but I thought watching television would put me to sleep easier than blogging about the reasons I was awake half of the night.

You see internets, something exciting has happened so I can't even complain about not sleeping. It's not like I'm up fretting over anything bad. I just can't turn my brain off and stop thinking about the long list of shit I have to get done within the next two and a half weeks and the massive amounts of money I've spent in the past six days. In the past six days I have spent very near $4,000. Wow, just call me Ms. Moneybags since it sounds like I have tons of money to blow. For the record, I do not have tons of money to blow. Quite the opposite actually. But I have done so anyway.

Here is the list of things keeping me awake at night (in bullet form for those of you who enjoy such things):

During a gmail chat with Hot Brazilian last Thursday, we were finally FINALLY FINALLY able to coordinate our schedules and decide on a week for me to......OMG, OMG, OMG.......go to Brazil!
We are going to an area near the Amazon. An area with no direct flights. An area with only very expensive flights that would cover my rent for two whole months and I live in the city and pay an outrageous amount for rent based on the lack of square footage I am paying for.
Hot Brazilian's laptop died many, many months ago and he's been using his son's laptop. Laptops cost a fortune in Brazil so I ordered him a new one to take down there and he will pay me back for it. But I'm still out the $500 temporarily. And I have to lug a laptop to Brazil. I realize I could be lugging a laptop to Puckett, Mississippi instead so I shall cease sounding like I'm complaining.
I fly out of Atlanta at 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 19th. I have to teach a class at the studio that afternoon. Most people are telling me I'm crazy because I won't get out of the studio until between 5:00 and 6:00 and need to be at the airport by 7:00 or 7:30. However, painting and teaching classes is like therapy to me and it calms me down and de-stresses me so I don't think this is crazy. I know my bags will have to be packed and ready to go when I leave my house at 11:00 that morning to go to the studio and then I can just forget about it for a few hours and not be running around like a nut at the last minute and trying to get to the airport. Also, I've just told burglars the perfect time to come hit my house and that will be what keeps me awake tonight probably. Burglars: please do not harm Bailey. Thanks.
I have received approval for my vacation request from my three bosses at the law firm. I've got my classes covered at the studio that I'm going to miss. I arrive back home at 5:45 in the morning on Monday, September 28th. So I'm taking Monday and Tuesday off too. This is the longest vacation I've ever taken in my entire life. For some reason, I feel kind of guilty that I'm taking a couple of extra days when I come back but I know I'll need to readjust to real life. And when I step off the plane at 5:45 a.m. on a Monday I will quickly lose any feelings of guilt.
I have to teach at least 60 people (plus any walk-ins) how to paint Van Gogh's Starry Night on Saturday the 12th (including my dad and his girlfriend who told me I am fat the first time I met her - no, I haven't gotten over that yet) and I'm getting my hair cut and colored just before I go to teach. It's the only time I could get an appointment with my stylist before I leave the following weekend. I hope he doesn't do anything crazy so I don't look like an idiot on stage in front of 60 people. Well, any more of an idiot than I'm going to look like trying to teach 60+ people how to paint like a master artist.
Don't worry - I'll be going to a random nail salon in Atlanta a couple of days before I leave so I should have some comedy gold for y'all soon.
I've scheduled a massage for this Saturday before I go teach a class. I think I'm going to need 10 more of them before I leave the country.
Hot Brazilian told me not to wear any dark clothes unless I would like to keel over and die of heat exhaustion while I'm down there. I'm sorely lacking in summer clothes so I spent money on a pile of t-shirts this past weekend. This past Friday I managed to get red, white and blue paint all over the thigh of one of my favorite pairs of pants and white paint all over the butt of them. I don't think I sat in white paint and yet my entire left cheek was covered. Who the heck knows how that happened. I have a pretty large wardrobe of painting only clothes now so I'll just add them to it. I couldn't find any pants when I went shopping (Fall ones are already out) so he's going to have to look at me wearing the same few pairs of pants and skirts throughout the week. I suppose this really should not be a source of stress because I know he won't care. But I'm worried about whether or not I will have anywhere to wash them because they might get sweaty.
My co-workers are freaking out that I'm going to the jungle. One of them has told me I'm probably going to end up in the hospital with some sort of tropical virus. I'm currently vaccinated against Yellow Fever, Typhoid, Tetanus, Hepatitis, Whooping Cough, Diphtheria, Measles, and Mumps. I have Malaria pills to take while I'm there. I'm going to buy a jumbo can of bug spray. Hot Brazilian doesn't stay outside after dark in the area we're visiting to avoid the mosquitoes. My doctor has already given me pills in case I eat something that doesn't agree with me. He also told me to take some Milk of Magnesia with me. I think I'm good. However, it is highly probable I'm going to catch a deadly disease I'm not vaccinated against before I leave the country simply by being in my own bathroom. It's way overdue for a good cleaning is all I'm sayin'. Another co-worker told me not to accept any packages from strangers to bring back to the United States so I won't end up in prison in a foreign country because they might be stashing drugs in whatever they ask me to bring. Really? She must have been watching Bridget Jones Diary Part II this past weekend. I realize I was raised in a place called Snellville, Georgia and people might wonder if I actually have a brain in my head but trust me, I know better.
I'm worrying about big stuff like getting my tourist visa in time. It took me three days to actually get my online application to go through due to firewalls on my computer at work, their site being down for maintenance on Saturday, etc.. It finally did go through on Sunday night and then I emailed the consulate's office to request an appointment time. I received a response from them yesterday and I have an appointment scheduled for September 14th to drop off all of my documentation and meet with them. My flight leaves on the 19th which means I have a narrow window to get everything processed. I really hope it all goes smoothly. I also have to get a money order from the post office for my visa fee (which will be another $130 I have to look forward to paying). Do you know how much time I have to make it to a post office to purchase a money order? None. That's how much. But that's the only form of payment they will accept. No Western Union money orders allowed. No cash. No credit cards. So I suppose I will figure out how the heck to make it to a post office during business hours.
I'm also worrying about stupid stuff. Like the fact that I have an eight hour layover in a city in Brazil but won't have any Brazilian currency to buy anything to eat or drink, nor do I speak the language to find out (a) how to exchange currency or (b) how to order a bottle of water. I've never converted money before. I know it can't be that difficult but it's just one of those dumb little things I can't stop thinking about. I'm considering stocking up on bottled water and snacks at the Atlanta airport before I jump on the plane. My mom says I shouldn't worry about it because there will probably be English speaking people in the airport. I'm not so sure and don't want to make that assumption.
And I realized last night that the week I'm going to be in Brazil is also the week of my period. Sorry to any guys who are reading. This sucks on so many levels.

So anyway, that's a small list of things going through my head last night when I couldn't sleep. I'll let y'all know what Jack, Janet, Chrissy and the Ropers are up to tonight.

UPDATE: I wrote the above portion of this post at work but then I was having some computer issues so I didn't get to post it before I left. I stopped on my way home to fill up my car with gas because I am so sleep deprived that I didn't notice this morning that I was about to be stranded on the side of the road. That was another $35 that flew out of my bank account. Then I went to Target and spent another $75 on crap I need for this trip (the aforementioned bug spray and Milk of Magnesia along with sunscreen, new $7 headphones for my MP3 player since earbuds don't stay in my ears, etc., etc.). And I'm not going to lie y'all. I know that this week my rent is due, my car insurance and several utilities are due, etc. and I was beginning to panic because I knew I was going to have to take a loan from my savings account to pay for everything. And I really didn't want to do that. Some people may think I'm stupid for spending money on a trip to Brazil if I'm having to use some of my savings for it, but to those people I say "SUCK IT". I haven't seen Hot Brazilian in almost 14 months. He is going to be paying me back for a decent portion of the money I've spent this past week and I knew I would just tighten my belt and replenish my savings account as quickly as I possibly could when I get back. Sometimes I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is looking out for me. I arrived home at 8:00 tonight and checked my mail. In my mail today was a check for my portion of my grandmother's estate. She passed away over a year ago and while her estate was not very complicated, one of my aunts is dying of cancer and the other aunt has had her hands full taking care of her dying sister and taking care of her own daughter who was recently diagnosed with cancer (but is apparently going to be okay). Therefore, getting all of the estate settlement taken care has not been a huge rush for any of us. I know both of my brothers are experiencing financial struggles (one of them worse than the other) and I am so happy that they have some relief. I am also feeling much relief about things. But I'm sure I'll still find some more reasons to stay awake and keep the Ropers company tonight.

Y'all have no clue how close I was to running for my life.

2009-08-24T16:57:00.001-04:00

Some of you have been reading my blog long enough to know that I have a thing that happens when I go to any nail salon in the metropolitan Atlanta area. The thing is that there is always a crazy person in the salon when I'm there or something bizarre happens.

I worked at the studio Saturday until about 6:00, went and ate dinner with the studio owner and then decided to run to a nail salon around the corner from the studio before I went to the bookstore to pick up the newest selection for our book club and then to the grocery store before I went home. Don't tell me I'm not wild and crazy on Saturday nights. Oh I am. I mean really, the nail salon AND the bookstore?!

I've been to this salon a few times. The last time I went to this particular salon was just before Christmas and the drama queen to top all drama queens arrived shortly after I did. I don't think I ever blogged about it but let's just say she made a scene from the second she opened the front door. She was from New York and, no offense to any New Yorkers who may be reading this, but when you have lived in Georgia for your entire life you know a New Yorker when they open their mouth and you hear the accent. You can make fun of my southern accent all you want to when I visit NY (my ex-husband was from there, we went to NY fairly regularly and I was made fun of constantly - it's okay and I expected it), but I get to make fun of NY accents down here. She opened the door and began yelling, "Oh my gawd, it's stinks in heah (here). Oh my gawd, I can't, I just can't say in heah (here)." Then she spotted a friend of hers: "Oh Deb-o-rah, is that you over theah (there)? Oh my gawd, doesn't it stink in heah (here)? How can you stand it?" She said if the salon would prop the front door open and give her a mask to wear she would stay. So they did it. And then she didn't want to wrap the strap around her head so she held it up over her face with one hand and kept having to switch hands while they were doing her manicure. Idiot. Just put the stupid thing on. She was drama filled about how she was going to have to (GASP!) fix her own hair and do her own makeup for a party she was attending that night. Her exact words were "Oh my gawd Deb-o-rah, I'm going to have to do my own haih (hair) tonight for this pahty (party). Can you even imagine that?! And my own makeup. This is just insane Deb-o-rah. Insane. I shouldn't be doing all of this myself. Can you even imagine?" Then when her friend (Deb-o-rah) asked her about her husband who apparently has a brain tumor she flippantly said, "Oh him? He's fine. He's having another surgery in a couple of weeks but he's doing fine."

So I didn't really know what to expect on Saturday evening. I went in and they sat me next to an older woman (mid to late 60's probably) and she was almost finished when I arrived. She pulled out her calendar and said to the manicurist, "Cindy, make me an appointment for two weeks from now. So that's for September 24th. Write me down for September 24th." And of course I'm thinking that since it was August 22nd, that September 24th is way more than two weeks from now. Then she told Cindy, "I also want you to make me an appointment for August 22nd." Hmmm, strange. Cindy seemed as puzzled as me and tried to tell the lady that it was already August 22nd. She kept insisting. "Cindy, WRITE IT DOWN. I want you to make me an appointment for August 22nd. Do you have me down for August 22nd? Why aren't you writing that down in your book?" Cindy explained to her again that it was already August 22nd. I just kept biting my lip so I wouldn't laugh. This went on about 3 more times until the lady finally asked, "what is today's date?" and approximately 14 people screamed out, "IT'S AUGUST 22ND!". They finally managed to get an appointment scheduled for two weeks away and for September 24th.

Then the guy who was doing my pedicure started chatting with me. I'm not sure if he was trying to hit on me or not but he asked me if I had any kids. Then he asked me where I live. Then he asked me whether or not I'm married. Then he told me, "I'm single and I have nothing to go home to and nowhere to go tonight. What about you? Do you have anywhere to go when you leave here?" He was very sweet, but he looked like he was approximately 12-years-old and my wrists are probably bigger around than his thighs.

A few minutes later, the owner of the salon came in with bags of groceries and her two completely adorable little girls. I found out as I chatted with her that one of them was 5 and the other one was 2. I wanted to kiss them they were so effin' adorable. But the 2-year-old was eyeing me with much suspicion so I doubt she would have let me.

Then they started going through the grocery bags.

Y'all, never in my life have I seen two itty bitty girls eat so much. They each opened their own "Lunchables" and each finished eating an entire one in approximately 2.8 seconds. Then they each opened a second one. And finished them off. Then they each ate two giant cookies. Then one of them ate their third "Lunchable" package. Then they opened a bag of candy. They each ate two mini chocolate bars. Then they each had a lollipop. All of this food was consumed in less than 20 minutes. Apparently their mom is not concerned with them eating healthy foods either.

Then my eyes saw something horrible and terrifying......a package of hot dogs. And the 5-year-old was attempting to open it.

OMG. Y'all just cannot fathom how much hot dogs gross me out. I would rather watch someone eat canned dog food than a hot dog. Okay perhaps not, but they are pretty close on the ick scale for me. I have not had a hot dog pass my lips in almost 30 years.

One of the women in the salon took the package from the 5-year-old......

and she opened it up......

and the little girl took one out and.....holy crap I can barely type this next sentence......

ate it cold straight out of the package.

I almost had to jump up out of the chair and run out into the parking lot with a half-finished pedicure. I can't remember when I've been that grossed out. But it was about to get so much worse y'all. I just didn't know it.

The adorable little 5-year-old then handed out cold hot dogs straight from the package to several other employees. And they all ate them. And the mother of the little girls was working on the money and paperwork for the day at the front of the salon. And she did it with a cold hot dog hanging out of her mouth partially eaten. She just sat there for over a minute with a half-eaten cold hot dog sticking out of her mouth. OMG. OMG. OMG. And then I looked at another lady and she was walking around sweeping the floors with a half-eaten hot dog sticking out of her mouth. And the 2-year-old walked around the same way.

So now y'all know how to torture me. It isn't even expensive.....just the cost of a package of hot dogs.

Oh so this why all of those doctors tell us we need 8 hours of sleep each night!

2009-08-20T13:19:00.005-04:00

Apparently after you turn 41 the most awesome thing in the world to do is.....sleep. My mom took me out to dinner on my birthday two days ago. She had returned home from Phoenix (unfortunately because she had attended the weekend funeral of a family friend) at 1:00 a.m. on Tuesday and was already at work by 7:00 a.m. She was exhausted by the time we met after work to have dinner. I was also exhausted - a combination of working four nights in a row at the studio (arriving home at almost 2:00 a.m. one night), attending my book club meeting, attending a cook-out, addressing and stuffing some invitations my mom needed out in the mail that I agreed to do for her since she unexpectedly had to go out of town for the aforementioned funeral, trying to squeeze in a little house cleaning, and basically only sleeping about 3 or 4 hours a night for the past two weeks. Throw in a scare from Hot Brazilian (they thought his son had swine flu and he was in the hospital for a few days - turns out it was something else and he is recovering now and should be fine) and receiving text messages from him at 5:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, and I was loopy from exhaustion.

When my mom called me at work to arrange a time and restaurant for dinner, I begged her to not suggest going anywhere else afterwards because I was planning to go to bed as early as possible. On my birthday. Because I'm a party animal like that.

Oh internets, I wish my life always worked out like I planned.

I got home from dinner and there was a box at my front door. It was a delivery for my new neighbors who moved in upstairs about 3 weeks ago (who I'm going to write an entire blog post about soon because they are cuteness and sweetness and honesty all wrapped up in a darling package) so I called them to see if I could run it up to them. When I got upstairs, they were sitting out on their back deck eating dinner and we talked and talked and talked for nearly an hour. The girl half of the couple is also celebrating her birthday this week and we had discussed all of this over the weekend. Turns out they remembered that Tuesday was my birthday after our conversation and they were baking brownies for me. See? Totally sweet people. Sadly, my mom and I had stuffed ourselves on pasta and bread pudding and I had to turn down the brownie for fear I would actually explode right there on their back deck.

After I got back downstairs to my apartment, I checked voice mails to discover that a friend I've known since we were 12-years-old had called for my birthday and an ex-boyfriend had called me (a different ex than the one who called me a couple of weeks ago - I don't know why my ex boyfriends are suddenly calling me). I first tried to call the ex boyfriend and left him a message. I then called my childhood friend back. We talked for approximately an hour. My ex called back while I was talking to her, so I had to call him back after we finished. He had not remembered that Tuesday was my birthday (we ended our relationship about 3.5 years ago) but knew it was in the summer sometime - it was pure coincidence that he had called me on my birthday. I talked to him for over an hour and while we were talking, my younger brother called to wish me a happy birthday. So when I finished talking to my ex, I called my brother back and he apparently just needed to talk about some stuff going on in his life. And he did talk.....a lot. We finally hung up the phone at 1:00 a.m. So much for going to bed early. After doing a couple of things that I had no choice but to get done that night, I went to bed around 2:00 a.m.

By the time I left work yesterday, I should probably have called a taxi because I had no business driving as tired and sleepy as I was. I got home around 6:45, made a cheese sandwich because that's as much energy as I had to put into making dinner, ate my cheese sandwich and a glass of juice, and then laid down on the sofa. By 8:00 I was out cold. I woke up a bit later and thought, "wow, I'm glad I woke up when I did.....I need to turn the lights out and set my alarm......it must be at least 3:00 or 4:00 a.m.......I'm still tired though - I hope I at least have a couple of more hours before I have to get up for work." I decided I needed to go pee and when I started walking towards the bathroom I realized I was still so exhausted that I felt drunk. I walked into two doors and a wall, my head was swimming, and I could not stop my eyes from rolling around in my head to see where I was walking. I can't remember when I've felt so out of it from exhaustion.

When I returned to the sofa I looked at my cell phone to discover it was only 9:30 p.m. SCORE! I still had many hours to sleep. I was too tired to walk the approximate 8 feet to my bedroom so I collapsed back on the couch. I woke up at 7:30 this morning when my cell phone alarm went off and I have to tell y'all that I feel like a different person today. I suppose 11.5 hours of sleep will do that for a person though.

So to summarize, I'm old as hell and I need to sleep more.

41

2009-08-18T13:10:00.004-04:00

So I'm another year older today and I'm feeling all reflect-y. I'll try to keep this short though. Birthdays are the time of year that I look at my life and think about where I am and whether or not I'm happy with the place I happen to be. This year I'm okay with where I am. I can barely believe the path my life has taken to get me here, but I'm okay with the way things are and I think I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.

I sometimes wonder if my Dad (who remembered my birthday this year, unlike last year) ever looks at me and thinks back to the day I was born and thinks about how different my life has been from what he probably wanted for me. I wonder if he is kind of blown away by all I've been through and how I became who I am today - the death of my biological mom when I was 5 years old, a slightly dysfunctional childhood (full of family drama, big time poverty, and major adjustments to a new mom and huge new family only 10 short months after losing my biological mom), his emotional detachment from our family, the divorce of him and my mom, my own really ugly marriage and difficult divorce, other traumatic events I don't really care to reveal on here, etc., etc., etc. I hope he's proud of me. I hope he's amazed at how I've come through the things that have happened in my life without having any addiction problems, not being medicated for any major emotional problems, etc. Sometimes I'm amazed at that last one myself! I think about the fact that he told my younger brother that after our mom died, he was thisclose to packing his clothes up in his old VW Beetle, driving out to the West and leaving me and my brothers behind with our grandmother so he could run off and start a new life without the burden of three kids who had just lost their mommy. I hope he's glad he didn't do that. But sadly, I think he often wishes he had. Sometimes I wonder just how different my life would be if he had. But I guess we shouldn't ever think about things like that because the truth is, we'll never know how different things could have been if different decisions had been made in the past.

I'm also thinking a lot about Hot Brazilian. He has e-mailed me, IM'd me, and called me for my birthday today.....all shocking since he doesn't even remember his own birthday or the birthday of his kids. I do miss him a lot. And I am really looking forward to our future together after he gets back. There is so much going on that I simply can't tell people about (good stuff, albeit a little frightening right now while he gets some of the groundwork established - but not stuff that can be revealed yet) and no one in my life understands why I'm willing to be so patient and why I'm still in this relationship. But I know why and I know how much I love him (as well as how much he loves me) and that is more than enough for me. I just have to realize that other people simply don't understand because they don't know all of the details of our relationship.

So anyway, that's kind of where my head is today, on my 41st birthday......I'm thinking a lot about my past and how I got to be where I am and I'm also thinking a lot about my future and all of the juicy, wonderful things I have to look forward to. And thinking about all of that means that overall I'm in a pretty happy place right now.