The flowers are ones I picked off my rose bushes.  They're the last roses of the season; it's turning colder and the leaves are coming off the trees.  Those leaves made it harder for me to find his marker this morning, it was covered with leaves that had blown off the sweet gum tree that's close to his grave.  I cleared them away as best I could, as you can see. I've been wondering who James Mayberry is.  Why aren't his parents at rest in the same cemetery?  Wha...

Three years ago today, this happened to me: *Yeah, I know it's small, but I haven't managed to come up with a good quality enlargement yet. When I do, I'll post it* I'm lucky to be here.  I could have died...I SHOULD have died.  According to many physicians and police officers and paramedics, I shouldn't have survived that wreck. But, I did.  There have been days when I wished that I didn't; there were days when the pain was unrelenting and everything in my life se...

I'm embarking on a exciting expedition this morning. I've been anticipating this all weekend.  I couldn't go on Saturday or Sunday because the kids were home and my husband wouldn't have been pleased about my taking him along with me. I even woke up in the night thinking about how today was the day.  I've found a yarn store in a little town about 8 miles away from here.  This is the kind of yarn store that doesn't sell Red Heart Super Saver scratchy acrylic - the kind ...

Okay, bad drivers of America, you are attending this lesson this morning because you have, in the past few days, demonstrated your utter stupidity when behind the wheel of a car and total lack of knowledge about the rules of the road.  I am here to remind you what to do when you are faced with some pretty common driving scenarios. I think that we'll start with one of the most common situations: A Four Way Stop Sign. Contrary to popular belief, it's not a question of  "I've stoppe...

I'm having a lazy day today. I COULD be mopping the floor, but I don't feel like it.  I swept it and did the bare minimum amount of housework that I could - vacuumed, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, swept the kitchen and hallways, made the beds and picked the laundry up off the floor of the kids bathroom - and I've decided that I want to devote today to knitting.  I'm finishing one of the baby sweaters and am trying to chart an anarchy symbol and heartagram so I can make beaded w...

My boss at the hospice called today.   I expected to be asked to go sit vigilance with someone, but instead of giving me a patient's details she said she had a proposal for me. She asked me how I'd feel about an ambassadorship.  I'd be an ambassador for the hospice with one of the local nursing homes.  I'd go and meet with the directors and managers a couple of times and month and be the liason between that nursing home and the hospice.  I'd be dropping in and schmooz...

When our kids were small, we started having what we call 'international night'.  Basically, we'd make food that was traditional to another country for supper, try to learn a few words in the language of that country and we also talked about that country; what it's traditions were, where it was located at geographically, it's culture and what role it played in the global scheme of things.  For instance, when international night was French, we ate coq au vin and had proifteroles for dess...

I have just come across the coolest knitting pattern.  THE coolest pattern.  Of all the patterns I have come across, this is the coolest. It's a doll knitting pattern (patternS, actually).  Not an ORDINARY doll, not just some plain old regular baby doll.  A Joey Ramone doll.  JOEY FREAKIN' RAMONE!  How cool is that?!! But the fun doesn't end there; I also found a Henry Rollins doll pattern, complete with tattoos.  Yes, you read that right.  HENRY...

I'm not going to say where I found this ad at; I just want you to read it. It's titled 'for a man who has got too damb skinny', and it's as I found it, spelling mistakes and all. I am slightly embarised to say this but I've allways been pretty skinny. Well here lately I have been commuting back and forth from college on a bike. Well I did have a mens small size waist and now I find I have the waist size of 10-12 year old boy, according to underwear sizes. Well its really embarising to...

Antique photographs.  Degaeurrotype, cabinet and imperial cards, tin types....anything dated pre-WWII, but more specifically, memento mori. In the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century, most people didn't have access to a photographer.  The photographs that we take for granted these days were almost unheard of, and some people went their entire lives without ever having their photo taken. So, their photos were taken in death instead.  Sometimes people were pose...

Dear Dad, It's me again.  I've lost count of how many times I've written to you in the past few months, but if I had to guess I'd say it was over a hundred times.  I know in my heart that you don't NEED me to write, that you already know how I'm feeling and what I have to say to you...but it helps me to write it down anyway (and I know that you know that too). I miss you, Dad.  I miss you every fucking day, in one way or another.  Sorry for the profanity, btw.  I k...

I don't mind spiders when they're living outside.  I don't mind watching them spin their webs; I'll even go and watch them work and admire the finished results. But what is guaranteed to give me the willies and make me run away shrieking is a decent sized spider in the house.  When I was pregnant with our 12 year old, my husband and I found a hunter spider the size of a bread plate crawling down the side of our couch (we lived in the UK at the time and had the screenles windows open...

I have hair!  I know that we've all got hair, so you can quit saying "so do I!!!" now. What I mean is that I have enough hair to gather into two little ponytails.  It's long enough.  It hasn't been long enough for ponytails since I was in my early 20's. So, ponytails are a big deal for me, and I've been sporting them for a couple of days now.  I figure I'll eventually get tired of them, but right now I'm loving being able to tie my hair up so I don't have sweaty wet hai...

I attended a retirement ceremony this morning.  It's the first one I've actually WANTED to attend.  I've been to others out of a sense of duty, but this one I really wanted to go to. It was for Chief Master Sergeant E.  CMSgt is the highest enlisted rank you can attain, and only a few ever reach it.  You've got to be something really special to be a Chief. We've known Chief E since we were in England, 12 years ago.  He was a Staff Sgt and had made Tech Sgt whilst w...