calgon take me away....

Natalie still had a bunch more stuff to get rid of, so rather than sit around the house all weekend picking her nose I suggested she come over and use my mother’s front yard to try to get rid of some more stuff… a change of venue might mean making some more money (which she needs to help defray her moving costs) for unloading her crap, rather than taking half of it to the dump – we get a lot more drive-by traffic here – whereas the only people who really drive by her house are the ones who live on her road

it was a little selfish on my part as well… I really needed the distraction… and I really wanted to spend some more time with her before she leaves (she IS moving over 600 miles away in about a week) =(

the only problem with this plan was that she’d have to bring the kids, at least on Friday, her mother is supposed to watch them today – of course it’s supposed to rain all day haaaa but that won’t stop us!! the kids aren't really a PROBLEM - it's just a lot easier if someone else watches them

anyway… she has a 2½ year old (Squirt) and a 6 year old (Spaz) and the two of them are enough to make anyone nutty!! don’t get me wrong – I love these kids!! Spaz was the first baby to be born into our little circle of friends and I spent almost every day of the first year of his life watching him while Natalie went to school, he calls me ‘aunt’ – he tells everyone that I’m his mother’s sister haaaa – but he has some behavioral issues

Squirt is just a normal 2 year old… the biggest issue with him is keeping him safe and out of the road – but Spaz…. he doesn’t do a damn thing he is told – EVER!! I don’t know if he has ADHD (if he does I suspect it’s more about his diet than anything else) but I suspect that of all the kids labeled 'ADHD' - but that's a whole other post...

last weekend when we did this yard sale thing at her house I was absolutely exhausted after the first day because of the way her kids were acting – Spaz does whatever the hell he wants… which encourages Squirt to do the same – in Spaz’s defense it’s NOT his responsibility to keep his little brother entertained and out of our hair for an entire day, but that was his job (for which he was being paid) really all he had to do was try to keep him in the living room, we were two rooms away, not outside or anything) but that’s not the point

the point is this kid didn’t obey a single order, didn’t accept a single thing he was told – apparently NO is not something he’s used to accepting – if he was told not to come into the garage he said ‘but I just wanna…’ and in he was

if she went outside and left me in charge he wouldn’t listen to me either… and I’m MUCH more stern sounding then his mother!! and it’s certainly not like he’s unfamiliar with me…

by the end of the day he had gone against what each of us told him to do or not do EVERY SINGLE TIME he was told something – and that was A LOT!! like dozens of times – and not just once but several times each!! I wish I could have caught the whole thing on film – it was really quite a spectacle… Nanny 911 would be horrified!!

at one point when I was left in charge and after Spaz disobeyed me for the 7th time in 10 minutes (literally!!) I told him he was the worst behaved child I’ve ever seen in my life – I said ‘you’re a big boy now, you’re fully capable of listening and doing as you’re told, so what is the problem?!’

he said ‘I listen’

I said ‘you may HEAR us but you certainly don’t do as you’re told!’

his response ‘what if I told YOU I don’t want you here anymore’

I said ‘that’s fine, but it’s too bad because you don’t make those decisions’

I started to feel bad…. I wondered if I had been too hard on him… after all it’s not his fault he’s a disrespectful, disobedient little brat – his parents are the ones who allow him to get away with this crap!!

but I was at my wits end trying to keep him out of where he wasn’t supposed to be – trying to get him to pay attention to my words and do as he was told

I tried getting down on his level and talking calmly and trying to let him know I understood (he’s upset because he’s moving away and a lot of their stuff is being sold) I understand this is all traumatic to him and I get that – and if this was NEW behavior for him I’d accept that as an excuse but he’s been this way his entire life!!

I told Natalie what I said to him – I figured she’d be pissed, she just kinda shrugged – but she’s exhausted… I don’t know what I expected from her but I expected more than a shrug… she knows to expect nothing but the brutal truth from me whether she likes it or not, we’ve been friends since kindergarten, she knows me well!! but when it comes to this kid I’m probably a little too forthcoming with my feelings about his behavior!!

at the end of the day we were sitting down taking a deep breath and she said to me ‘well… the kids were pretty well behaved today… considering’

considering what?!?! I thought

my eyebrows must have shot right off the top of my head like a cartoon hehehe

I just looked at her and calmly said ‘you spend way too much time with those kids if you think they were ANYTHING close to well behaved!! they were the exact opposite of well behaved!!’ I said ‘Squirt was just being 2 but Spaz? his behavior is completely, ridiculously unacceptable!!’ and I told her what I told him… ‘he’s a big boy, 6 years old is plenty old enough for him to listen and understand and do what he’s told!!’

I mean I would expect and can accept a certain amount of rowdy behavior, there was a lot of commotion and he’s VERY social, he always wants to be involved in everything – but that doesn’t mean he can be or should be… does it?!!!

anyway…. she just looked at me and didn’t really say anything – I mean I wasn’t expecting his behavior to change or anything - I guess I just needed to throw in my two cents

this kid has his parents (and anyone else involved) so exhausted that he calls all the shots!! he even manages to negotiate his punishments!! if he’s told to stand in the corner he’ll spend 10 minutes negotiating a better location!! like… if I’m going to be punished it’s at least going to be on MY terms!! and it works!!!

of course being childless I have no idea what it’s like… I’m completely incapable of having useful input on the situation

but when I told my mother and sister (who have had kids) what I said to Natalie – they said ‘GOOD!! maybe she’ll open her eyes’

so it’s not just me who thinks this child’s behavior is out of control

of course her eyes didn’t open…. she was here with the kids for most of the day yesterday – and Spaz was told by my mother to please not go into her house (her very nervous cat had been through something traumatic and she didn’t want her being scared to death by screaming running, spastic children) he didn’t listen – he opened her door and was running in and out of her house like a lunatic all morning long

at the end of the day I asked Natalie if there is ever a time where he does what he’s told on the first or second try, or does it always take a dozen attempts (and then you give up)?

she laughed and said occasionally… VERY occasionally he does what he’s told on the first try (I thought to myself… when is that? when you tell him to sit down and eat his ice cream? noooo because even then he’d be up stomping his foot whining about why there aren’t M&M’s on top!!)

I said ‘well that may be fine for you guys since you’re used to it, but other people aren’t and he really needs to learn to do as he’s told!! especially when he’s at someone else’s house!!

again she said nothing…. I’m wasting my breath – but I love them and I’m worried about the repercussions of this behavior as he gets older and the toll it’s going to take on Natalie’s sanity – she’s totally exhausted as it is

anyway…. there was a brief moment where I got Spaz to stand still and draw me a picture and I wanted to share it with you guys… when he was done I was supposed to guess what it was of – I was given a couple hints which I’ll pass on to you

1. it’s not a dinosaur
2. it’s not something with 4 legs

so can you guess what this is a picture of?

the first person to guess correctly gets to... I dunno... ummm - the first person to guess correctly gets their choice of prizes

choice #1 - to ask me 5 questions I have to answer honestly

choice #2 - pick a topic for me to post about

what's that you say? those are crappy prizes? sorry but gmail is old news and all I have in my pockets is a box of comfits and a thimble...

smiles and stuff....

well the yard sale went pretty well even though the weather didn’t quite cooperate for most of the weekend – I sold at least half of my stuff and the rest is stuff I didn’t care if I sold, because I know I can get more for it on ebay (even though I kinda hate ebay!) as far as yard sales go, I’m all about getting rid of my junk for CHEAP!! so out of the dozen or so things I had for sale (obviously I didn’t go out of my way to look for stuff to get rid of hehehe) I made about $25

Natalie on the other hand ended up making over $1000!! of course since she’s moving she has an entire house full of stuff to get rid of – but she is like the golden goddess of yard sales!! she sold some mangy looking teddy bear to some chick for $3!!

I would have had a 25¢ sticker on that thing and probably would have ended up having to give it away!!

anyway – we had fun… we played some games and just hung out and talked – it was good because we probably won’t have much more time to hang out before she leaves =(

after THIS weekend that is…. I think we’re doing it again Friday and Saturday… but at my house this time =)

anyway enough about that….

I’ve been so out of it for the last week or so I’ve really kinda lost my groove here (not that I had much of one to begin with)

lets see…. the cat puked on my new rug – but I’m sure you don’t care about THAT!!!

I was feeling bad about my mental state and the fact that I’ve been busy doing other stuff and kind of neglecting what I need to get done around here, we’ve been eating pizza and leftovers and Sam hasn’t been getting proper lunches and stuff

while I was out yesterday I noticed that my favorite store had everything I needed (on SALE!!) to make him a special dinner…. a kinda surf & turf thing I cooked up a couple years ago that we both really like…. normally I would use a venison tenderloin but yesterday they had these awesome london broils on sale so I got one for about $2.50 – they also had wild Maine shrimp so I got about a ½ pound of those for $2.19!!

normally I would sear the meat in a pan and then finish it off in the oven (last night I grilled it) while I made some shrimp scampi... then poured the scampi over the steak and while the meat was resting I made grilled swiss sammiches on peasant bread - (we get this yummy french peasant bread and last night I used swiss ementhal) and then grilled it up in what’s left of the garlicy butter that didn’t make it out of the pan

then you slice the steak and lay it over the cheesy toasty bread and spoon the scampi and garlicy buttery goodness over top – it’s super yummy!!

this is what it looked like before I sliced the steak and laid it over the toast



for dessert I made berry crisp… well I made strawberry rhubarb crisp for myself…. but since I married the only freak in the history of the world who is allergic to rhubarb, I made him his own with raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and strawberries – I tossed the fruit with a little sugar and flour and then topped it with a mixture of flour, oats, brown sugar and butter – it was sooooo YUMMY!!



so that was nice... it made him smile - and that makes me smile.... see? --> =)

rain dance...

every year Natalie and I have a big yard sale… in an attempt to clear our houses of the clutter we both seem to have so much of – we usually wait until the first or second weekend in June to minimize our chance of being rained on, but this year she’s moving on the first weekend in June, so we have to do it early….

rain or shine we have no choice, since she’s moving we don’t exactly have time to play around with, we have this weekend and next weekend and that is IT!

we usually have the yard sales in my mother’s front yard because there’s plenty of room, plenty of shade, PLENTY of parking and LOTS of drive-by traffic – but since Natalie is movie and she’s selling pretty much everything she owns, we kind of have to do it at her house… she’s set up her garage so for the most part the sale will be indoors – which is good because it’s raining cats and dogs…. not that it matters – nobody goes out to yard sales in the rain!!!

but she spent $40 for an ad so I guess we’re going ahead with it… so that’s where I’ll be all weekend…. and it’ll be fun (mostly)

for the most part we’ll probably sit around munching on popcorn and playing farkel or scattergories and just yakking and laughing the way that girls do… these yard sale weekends usually wind up being more about hanging out than about selling our crap – the money we make is just icing on the cake – well except for this year.. because she’s moving and needs to get rid of her crap and make some money – she’ll probably wind up putting everything she makes into her fucking gas tank!! - maybe if it keeps raining she won’t be able to leave =)

hey a girl’s gotta have something to hope for!!

kitty and the doctor II

it's no secret that I have a lot of anxiety related ‘issues’
migraines and other headaches, hives, neurodermatitis (I have a small area on my leg that looks all rashy and has been that way for 3 years!!), OCD and high blood pressure to name a few

now I guess I can add panic attacks to the list… oh joy!!

friday afternoon out of nowhere I just felt like my heart was going to explode… fortunately my mother was around to take me to the doctor – they gave me an EKG (or whatever they’re called) which apparently determined that my heart was functioning ok… just a little FAST (about 120 bmp) it wasn’t very comfortable!!

my blood pressure was also up, about 152/100 (it’s been worse)

I guess they figured that the racy heart thing was caused by anxiety, and it seems they figure the blood pressure thing is somewhat related to my anxiety as well… although I’m sure my current rotund-ness doesn’t help!! hehehe

my sister thinks this whole panic attack thing is because Natalie is moving in a few weeks – that seems like an awfully extreme reaction but hey ya never know

so anyway they put me on blood pressure medication – something I’ve been trying to avoid for a few years…. I obviously haven’t been trying hard enough

I think I may have been scared straight now though… lets hope!! hehehe and with any luck I'll get myself off of these pills as soon as possible!!

yesterday I had another panicky episode and it kinda threw me for a loop… it pretty much blew my whole day away!! =(
but so far so good today… I may end up having to go on some kind of anti-anxiety medication as well…. she mentioned paxil – we’ll see

so anyway that’s what’s going on with me….

wanna hear about my experience at the doctors office? I know you don’t, but tough noogies!!

we have a clinic right here in kittyville – which is remarkable because we don’t even have a traffic light here…. but anyway, I had been going to this clinic all my life… there have only been a couple doctors there in all that time and the same nurse all along!! the clinic closed down after the last doctor left and stayed closed for about a year…. everyone in the town wrote and called the hospital and started a petition to get our little clinic back and it worked!! they re-opened with a new doctor about a year ago…. the original nurse came back!!! YAY!!

when this whole craziness started on Friday I almost had my mother take me to the emergency room but I could just imagine what that would cost…. plus I thought I’d be more comfortable at the clinic – but because I hadn’t been there since they reopened it meant I was a new patient and was going to have to pay a higher ‘initial visit’ fee ($85) and if they had to do an EKG which they did, that would be an additional $45 – ok whatever just make sure I’m not dying, I’ll worry about the bill later!! hehehe

the receptionist wasn’t very friendly at first… she probably saw me as another person she was going to have to hunt down for their money

fortunately the nurse walked out and saw me…. she knew something had to be wrong if I was there!! she got me right in – one of the reasons I like going there is because this woman is funny as hell and she really helps me relax – I get very nervous about being at the doctor!!

anyway… between the nurse and the doctor they spent over an hour and a half with me talking about this and that, doing tests, taking blood etc.

and for some reason the receptionist even lightened up!!

so for $130 I REALLY feel like I got my moneys worth… on top of that they gave me 6 WEEKS worth of samples of my new medication – they asked me to come back on this past Monday for another blood pressure check (NO CHARGE!!) and asked me to come back again next Friday for another… also no charge!! they say they’ll be giving me even MORE free samples then!! (good because they’ll probably have to up my dosage)

but what’s good is, it seems they’re actually more concerned with my health than they are about money - when I was leaving on Monday the nurse said ‘we won’t take money but we WILL take baked goods!!’

haaaa now THAT I can handle!!

I don’t expect freebies EVERY time…. but I DO expect to be treated like a human being!!! I don’t need to walk out of the doctor’s office feeling worse than when I walked in!! and I definitely don’t need the added stress of knowing I’m gonna have to work miracles with the check book in order to pay for a visit that was so quick it left my head spinning… I want to know the doctor heard me and that I heard them and that we’re actually working on ME rather than having some seemingly random prescription thrown at me that seems like it was written more to fill some kind of quota than for fixing my problem

call me crazy but I need to have some kind of a rapport with the person caring for my health – when I walk in there next Friday I trust that these people will call me by my name (without looking at my chart) and that they’ll remember my case and they’ll actually THINK about the best course of action rather than thinking about getting me out of there ASAP so they can squeeze in the next person

so YAY!! in kittyville at least, it seems the good old days of being treated like a human being at the doctor are back *knock on wood*

now all I have to do is take my pills, learn to relax and figure out what I’m going to bake for them next week!! hehehe

what is this a freak out?

so I’ve been having a little anxiety problem and it’s making me not feel very well…. so I’m kinda taking it easy

I have lots to say but I just can’t bring myself to sit here and write …. maybe tomorrow I’ll feel better and have time to spend blabbering away here hehehe

in the meantime I recommend that you check out some excerpts from the lost blogs I particularly like what Poe had to say hehehe

and for your listening enjoyment:
prelude (the family trip) ~ Marilyn Manson

we're havin' a party....

we’ve beaten the odds… by a few years even and we figure that’s cause to celebrate!!

when we got married (almost 10 years ago) I was a slave in my mother’s store, working for room & board – I know I make out like I hated it but I actually liked it most of the time… but that’s not the point…. point is I had no income

at the time I think Sam was working at Jiffy Lube making something like $7 an hour, so he had no money either, which is partly why we got married when we did (financial aid)

*note: don’t get divorced and remarried if you expect your kids to go to college unless you can afford to pay for it yourselves!!

I don’t know what it’s like where you live but here, they take EACH parents income into consideration when determining if you qualify for financial aid, until you’re 24 years old - so even when they all make crap, 4 people’s incomes equals no financial aid!!

unless you’re married – then your parents income doesn’t matter

ao anyway Sam wanted to go to school and that just wasn’t gonna happen unless we got married… we figured we were practically married already (haaaa stupid kids!!)

Sam gets pissed because I always say we got married for the financial aid…. we got married because we wanted to spend our lives together – the financial aid was just a perk!

so anyway we had a lot of financial help from my grandfather with planning our wedding, Sam’s father was great too!! and I think I was able to bum a couple hundred bucks off my father – my mother made most of the food and the cake – Sam and I spent countless hours making mixed tapes for the music

neither of us had any grand dreams for our wedding day but there were some things we would have done differently if we had more time and a little more money – I know it’s totally played now but we would have wanted to do something with a medieval twist – the flowers would have been different, there would have been lots of candles – it would have been closer to fall and closer to evening – that sort of thing

instead we got married on June 2nd at something like 1pm – don’t get me wrong, it was an absolutely BEAUTUFUL day and everything went very well!!

and looking back now I’m grateful to have the memory of getting married in my grandparents back yard, a place where I spent so much of my time growing up…. camping out with my sister and cousins, picking back caps, catching lightening bugs, jumping in puddles, playing with snakes and frogs, helping grandma do yard work, watching grandpa whack golf balls etc.

it made me feel kinda like even though my grandmother wasn’t actually there she kinda was, ya know? plus now that the house has been sold it’s nice to have those photos and memories….

but it wasn’t exactly how we would have wanted it to be… and we always said we’d do it all over again for our 10th anniversary – we figured we’d have our own property (with tons of trees) and a better financial situation and we’d be able to do things exactly how we wanted

obviously the last 10 years didn’t go exactly how we expected – but the important things did!! we’re still together and we still want to celebrate that fact and share our love and happiness with everyone we know…. and that’s all that really matters!!

so even though once again it won’t be exactly what we figured on, we’re having ourselves a big anniversary party… well a big anniversary barbecue anyway

we’re inviting everyone we know… well almost everyone, I guess we can’t invite you guys =(

but everyone else we know adds up to somewhere around 40-45 people… so pray for sunshine because if that many people show up at our tiny house and it rains we’re totally screwed!! hehehe

so whaddaya think, can we pull off a party for 40 people for under $100?

a couple people have suggested we do a potluck thing… but since we’ll probably be telling everyone to bring their own alcohol (and chairs if they have them) – if they had to bring their own food too they might as well stay home!! hehehe

any suggestions?

boo boo leg....

there was too much hostility in my head about that last post…. I get so worked up sometimes over the craziest stuff!!! so I though I’d lighten things up a bit hehehe take a break from bitching about the high cost of living :)

a month or so ago my little niece got a blister on her toe – ever since, every time she thinks of it she points down and says ‘boo boo toe’ with this pitiful look on her face all frowny and sad – it’s just about the cutest thing you ever saw!! (the only thing cuter is when she performs…. when she does a little dance or sings a song afterward she puts her hand flat on her tummy, bows and says ‘thank you thank you’ with this big grin!!)

anyway ever since she got her boo boo toe every little thing is a boo boo something – boo boo hand, boo boo chin, boo boo finger…. if the wind blows wrong suddenly she has boo boo hair hehehe - every time with that pitiful little face you could just eat up!! the sad little frown and droopy eyes :(

a couple days ago I dragged Sam outside to enjoy the beautiful spring weather with me…. we were sitting at the picnic table talking about what we’d like to do with the garden – of course I was taking pictures of every little thing that caught my eye…

out of nowhere he starts pointing to his leg…. I looked down and said ‘awww you have a boo boo leg…’

and it makes it’s own pitiful face!!

the high cost of living PART 1 or taking it in the ass one gallon at a time....

when me and my sister were teenagers most of our friends lived about 25 minutes away in another town – so if we wanted to see eachother we had to come up with ways to put gas in someone’s car… we were kids, none of us had jobs… we would gather up cans & bottles to return or somehow scrounge up some change – that’s right… CHANGE!!

remember those days? when a few bucks in the gas tank would get you a whole night of fun!! maybe even a weekend!!

now what? a few bucks doesn’t even get you a full gallon anymore!!

back then we never thought about the price of gas from one week to the next… and it wasn’t just because we were stupid kids…. the price of gas just didn’t fluctuate much more than a couple cents here and there - the price of gas didn't really make a difference in our lives

but what has gone on with the price of gas in the last couple years has had a serious impact on the way we live!!

and until a day or two ago it seemed like nobody else seemed phased by it…. I kept looking around at everyone thinking ‘are me and Sam the only ones affected by this crap?’ nobody seemed to be saying anything about it!!

sure there was the shock last summer after the hurricane when the price went up something like 40 cents literally overnight – but it’s been fluctuating back and forth between $2.80 and $3.20 (around here anyway) ever since and everyone just seems numb to it…. until recently I couldn’t even seem to say 2-something in reference to the price of gas… it was just so ingrained in my head that it was 1-something

and now 2-something seems like a fucking bargain!! that’s just not right!!

surely you would think the price of gas going up more in the last 2 years than it did in the 30-40 years prior would be seriously newsworthy!!

before the year 2000 gas prices seemed to increase by about 30 cents every decade:

in 1966 gas cost about 30 cents a gallon
by 1976 it was about 60 cents a gallon
in 1986 we were paying about 95 cents a gallon
and by 1996 it was up to about a whopping $1.25 (which we thought was high… turns out it was right in line with the way things had been going all along… it just seemed high because we were now talking dollars instead of cents)

anyway that’s an increase of about $1.20 over the course of THIRTY YEARS!!

by those calculations we should be spending approximately $1.60 a gallon right now

but apparently something happened in the late 90’s that made gas prices start to increase more rapidly – it also started fluctuating wildly going anywhere from $1.25 - $1.99 a gallon between 1996 and the middle of 2004

since THEN (mid 2004) gas prices have gone up approximately another $2 per gallon - at this time 2 years ago gas was just around $2 a gallon which means that the price of gas has increased by more than a dollar in the last 2 years!! (in the past it took over 30 years for an increase like that to happen)

yet between 2001 and 2006 the price increased by more than it had in the entire FOURTY years prior – isn’t that just a little bit INSANE?!?!?!!

and yes I know that this is going on all over the place...

it DOESN'T help to know that!!

it doesn’t help to know that no matter where we go in this country, chances are in 6 months to a year we won’t be able to cover our bills if something doesn’t change!!

it also doesn't help to know that they pay $17 a gallon in Canada or $28 in Europe or whatever the hell their insane gas prices are

up until a year ago we were paying $80 a month to keep our car in gas – now it’s twice that!! $160 a month just for Sam to get back and forth to work and for us to run normal errands like grocery shopping, banking, and the chiropractor – all three of which we do in one trip to save on gas!!

and we have a pretty small car, not some gas guzzling truck or SUV – I don’t even know what the hell those people are doing – I know that it cost Natalie $40 to fill her Subaru Forrester the other day and she said it would have taken another couple bucks if she let it!! $42?!?!?!!

my mother drives a tiny little Hyundai and it cost her $26 to fill her tank the other day!!

our car is somewhere between those two - at this point Sam has to work TWENTY HOURS for the money we need to gas up our car!! that’s 2½ days at work just to cover our gas expenses for the month!!!

and we have no choice but to bend over and take it in the ass…. there’s no real public transportation to speak of in kittyville – we have a bus that runs through here a couple times a day but it doesn’t go anywhere near the town where he works

the only bus that goes near his job would either get him there 2 hours early or two hours late and he’d have to drive to the next town over to catch it…. the only bus that could bring him back to his car leaves the area of his job at around noon – so that’s really not very helpful

he really has no choice but to drive to and from work every day – for people like us who literally live paycheck to paycheck, this kind of drastic change in our living expenses is really rough!!

I know what you’re thinking ‘if it’s that rough why don’t you get a job?’ I suppose I could get a job…. but where? it would have to be along the route to Sam’s job and coincide with his hours or it would cost us even more in gas!! – especially considering my qualifications and how little money I’d be bringing in

so what the hell are people like us supposed to do?

should he buy a bike and try to ride that to work? it would certainly be healthier.... but that's a hell of a ride!! and what would he do in the winter... or if it rains?

and who the hell wants to ride a bike at least an hour to get home after a long hard day at work?!

I don’t know how the rest of you live or how this is affecting you - I know we’re not the only ones struggling with this…. and I’m sure some people have it even worse!!

knowing that doesn’t help either… it just makes me wonder how many cents ago they were in our position… and how long we have until we’re in theirs…

and where the hell will they be then?!

P.S. I changed the song of the week…. I recently got a bug up my butt to hear Paul McCartney (I LOVE PAUL!!) and I thought all I had was RAM on vinyl – and me without a record player I was kinda bummed… until I remembered Sam bought me WINGSPAN a few years ago – YAY!!

am I the only one who has a hard time imagining Paul McCartney married to anyone other than Linda McCartney?

hmmm anyway all I know is if something doesn’t give with these gas prices we may need his new wife’s wooden leg to heat our house next winter hehehe

Paul McCartney ~ Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey

**UPDATE** apparently my math skills suck (I already knew that though) hehehe Sam says my calculations were screwy.... it would really only take him 16 hours to make enough money to fill our tank for a month - WHOOPIDEE DOO!! hehehe

another day another park....

for weeks we’ve been trying to go to this park a couple towns away – we keep hearing how beautiful the place is and what a great relaxing place it is for a walk or a picnic

one week we got lost (actually we were given the wrong directions) the next week it rained – I don’t remember what the heck happened last weekend…. but this weekend we FINALLY got our chance and I’m so glad we did…. everywhere I looked I wanted to drop a house and never leave the place!!

I wish I could bottle up the peace and relaxation there and share it with you =)

apparently there are a few miles of trails to walk and stuff.... we were there for a few hours and we only saw maybe half of it from what I understand

there was only one minor problem with the day… and that was when we took a break to eat our lunch – we stopped at a nice bench in the middle of nowhere (the whole place seems to be the middle of nowhere) along a long winding path…. we were just lazily enjoying the scenery and nibbling on our sandwiches
every once in a while a couple of people would stroll by and smile and say g’mornin –we remarked at how it seemed like a whole other world there…. like those Walgreens commercials where everything is just PERFECT! everyone seemed so happy, like it would be impossible for anything crappy to happen in this place hehehe

then just barely in sight a ways down the path came this group of people yakking loudly, disturbing the peace and quiet – they didn’t bother me but Sam has ZERO tolerance for people like this – try as I might to explain the kind of people I’m talking about unless you live in a place where you get tourists/weekenders/summer people you would probably have NO idea what I’m talking about

and I’m not saying that ALL tourists/weekenders or summer people are this way – and maybe it’s not like this outside of NY but here there is this certain type of people you can spot before they even get close enough to really make them out – there’s just SOMETHING about them that gets on your nerves

they’re the kind of people who come up to the 'country' and run around barefoot and chew on straw because they think that’s what we do – and that is the best I can do to explain how these people are

anyway they eventually made their way to us and they had two dogs with them NOT on leashes – but it’s a HUGE park so I guess leashes aren’t necessary if your dogs are well trained – these dogs weren’t!

the dogs walked up to us, sniffing about as dogs do… I said ‘hi doggy, you sure are pretty’ the people said (in the most cutesy NON serious tone imaginable) leave the people alone fido and fifi

fido and fifi didn’t listen…. my sandwich was sitting on the wrapper on the bench between me and Sam – you can see where this is going right? hehehe

the people said the dog would grab my sandwich but by the time that was said it was too late – I wasn’t about to stick my hand between a strange dog and a roast beef sammich!!

he dragged it down on the ground and licked it for a second (trying to decide if he liked roast beef I guess) and as he did that one of the ladies said ‘no fido, don’t lick it’ I said ‘uh well I’m not gonna eat it now so he might as well’ before I had the last word out he had swallowed that thing like Scooby gulping down a 6 feet sub!!

within seconds the mangy mutt had devoured my entire lunch!!

they apologized weakly once or twice… I said it was ok (what was I supposed to say) everyone I’ve told this story to has said I should have stuck out my hand and told them they owed me $5

but I just kept saying it was ok… I really didn’t want Sam to go off the deep end – I could see him totally flipping his lid haaaa I guess we should have said SOMETHING – but with both of us it’s all or nothing – we either need to blow it off or we’ll go ape shit and really what would be the point in going ape shit? it wouldn’t solve anything…. so when it comes down to it, I’m proud of us for taking a deep breath and letting it go =)

anyway aside from that little glitch in the tranquility it really was an absolutely beautiful awesome perfect day!!

of course I had my camera with me…. so at the risk of boring you to tears with another slide show I thought I’d share a few – and I took 150 so you’re getting off easy here!! hehehe

unfortunately these pictures don't even come close to doing this place justice!! it’s weird how awesome something can look in person but how much it loses in the pictures =(

anyway… on with the show (clickity biggity)

the long winding path:



the place just seemed never ending!!



down below are the train tracks at the edge of the hudson river which was looking surprisingly BLUE that day hehehe and off in the distance are the catskill mountains (I think) hehehe



a closer view of the river and mountains…. there was a little old couple sitting on the bench ahead of us - hopefully that will be us in 40 years =)



a few more random views....









I always like the black and white pictures best....

this is the awesome gazebo-like thing



this is.... a fence hehehe



and this is my very favorites picture of the whole day!! a picture of the sun up through the trees



ok ok I'm done!! hehehe

now WAKE UP!!