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...

My husband and I are going to my daughter's school for an assembly this afternoon. She's been nominated as Student Of The Month and the assembly is in her honor.  Dave and I will stand in front of the entire school and hand Shea her certificate and prize. Shea's ecstatically happy about it - she says that it's usually the Preps or the Plastics that get this award, and seeing as she identifies herself as a member of the Punk crowd she feels like she's going to be representin' for them...

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...

As some of you know, my marriage hasn't been exactly blissful this year.  We've had months where we just can't seem to get along, no matter what we do.  We don't have big knock-down-drag-out-fights, we just bicker back and forth and generally get on each other's nerves.  It doesn't make for a happy atmosphere at home, especially for our kids.  It wasn't until our son made a comment about it that we realized just how bad it had become - and we decided to do something about it....

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...