Welcome to 2007. I sure hope yours is better than mine because mine has just plain sucked. Only two more days and it’ll be February and I’ll be in California for a week that I really, REALLY need.

So, I’ve mentioned it before but I don’t know how much you follow the details on my life. My dad’s been sick. When I was in CA for business I stayed an extra three weeks because my dad was so sick. It was bad. Then after I got home we found out his transplanted kidney failed during this last illness.

So, he’s been having dialysis and waiting to see if he can have another transplant. The dialysis has been difficult but he’s been dealing with it as best he can. Through all of this, I’m 1000 miles away.

Don’t get me wrong, I love where I live. I have no desire to move back. However, I really HATE being away from my family. Especially now with all this going on.

So, I’ve been stressed with him being sick. Then just plain life stuff has been stressing me out. It happens some times. It’s life, I know that. But, right now it all just seems so dang overwhelming.

Then, last Monday my dad passed out and had to go to the ER. Mind you, I’m 1000 miles away when I get the call that he’d had a mild heart attack. It SUCKS. Thursday he has an angiogram and angioplasty. Again, I’m 1000 miles away during all this and getting updates through my sister-in-law after someone calls her to tell her what’s going on. It SUCKED!

So, tomorrow I’m finishing up with some work stuff (because it’s almost then end of January and January just stinks for bookkeepers anyway) then I leave Wednesday morning for a week in California.

I’m so glad. I will get to spend some time with my dad. See him and know for myself how he’s doing. I’ll get to defrost (it’s been insanely cold here and the ice is just irritating me right now — I want to defrost).

So, here I am stressed out and worried and tired and we had a snow storm tonight. I had to go to youth group so off I went. I slid and stressed the whole drive over there. I’m already stretched thin and after the drive I walked in a lost it, I started crying. We went for leader prayer time and the fire alarm went off so we had to evacuate the building. It was DUMPING snow, and we had to evacuate 200+ kids to the parking lot to get the all clear to return to the building. Luckily I had my jacket on still. Most of the kids didn’t have theres and one (CRAZY) leader didn’t even have his shoes on. (OK, he’s just plain weird to not wear shoes anyway but man I’m sure his feet were cold!)

I need a vacation.

Thank goodness I’m getting one this week.

Till later….

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I like animals. But man, this is one UGLY animal. Forget the teeth on that thing, if I saw that swimming by me I think I’d just freak from the sight of it. Rare sight of ancient shark

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I get quite a bit of spam. Unfortunately, it’s a part of having an online business. I go with the flow. My junk filter gets quite a bit of it and periodically I’ll delete what’s sitting in my junk folder to permanently get rid of it.

I’m on a committee for a business association I belong to. I get quite a bit of e-mails for that and with it comes a high volume of spam (again, it’s a readily available e-mail address on the web and the search engines love to grab it for those pesky fools who like to irritate my life with the CRAP they think I need so bad). I get the usual “male enhancement” offers and the regular I have a billion dollars I want to give you e-mails. Lately, through this association, I’ve been getting a lot of “you gotta buy this stock” e-mails. Whatever. They get deleted too. The problem with them is that they put these stupid subject lines on the messages. Completely unrelated to the topic which really irritates me.

Well, today was the kicker. Here’s the topic I got today:

25 US troops die in Iraq Saturday Fresh news

You may be thinking yeah, OK, whatever. But, let me tell you about my morning.

My cousin, whom I love dearly, has been stationed in Iraq just outside Baghdad (I think) since October. The group he’s with has been having some problems, they’ve lost quite a few lives. This morning, for whatever reason, I felt a horrible sense of fear for him and spent quite a bit of time in prayer for his safety and comfort for his family and the families of the guys with him. I can’t tell you why I felt so much fear but I did. My mind has been preoccupied with him and his safety. I was just getting focused on my day without this weight on me for him when I saw this e-mail.

OK, I’m PISSED. The crap, I mean spam, they sent is trying to sell me something but there’s no where for me to go buy it. (Not that I want to buy it but I’m so pissed right now I wanted to see what they were trying to sell….NOTHING.) The link in the e-mail isn’t even an active working link.

So, this message is for all those freaking spammers out there. GET A LIFE and leave mine ALONE!!!! I have a few other things I’d like to say to them but I won’t because they probably wouldn’t even realize this message is for them. (And I might offend my mom LOL.)

Till later…

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So, last night I went to dinner and hung out with a friend. I left her house about 11:15 to head home (about a 15 minute drive). It had been snowing so I got in the car and drove carefully down the hill to the highway. Roads weren’t too bad although I was glad I had the winter tires on. (Oh yeah, I was driving my sister-in-laws Expedition because when I was leaving her car was parked behind mine and they didn’t want to get up to move it so they said to just take hers.) I got on the highway and was able to go about 40, for a while at least. Then the snow started coming down harder and harder and I had to go slower and slower. About half way home I was doing about 25 and wishing I’d stayed the night at my friends house.

I tell you in the year I’ve lived here (and the rest of my life too) I have NEVER seen it snow that hard. I’m sure it has snowed that hard in the past year but I was either asleep or gone or whatever, but it was coming down so stinking hard. I figured the highway was safer than the side streets because there is more traffic so the snow wouldn’t be too bad. I got off on a different exit to head home because that road is more heavily traveled. There were about five cars in the ditches on the highway and I saw four cars in ditches after I got off the highway. It was slow traveling but I’m very happy to say I got home safely with no scratches or SLIDING!!!! Only took me about 45 minutes to get here.

I’ve always said we live in the “California Pocket” of town. I’m even more convinced of that now. I was driving down our street and it was dumping hard…I was at one intersection and could barely see across to the other side of the intersection. When I stopped at the stop sign two blocks down the street from the house it was dumping but when I crossed that street it morphed into almost non-snow. I could see the road (there was at least 2 inches everywhere else) and could see in front of me. When I pulled in the driveway I could see the asphalt. So, I guess we really do live in the California Pocket of town. LOL

We got a couple inches here. The rest of town (where I was driving last night) got about six inches.

Here’s some pictures of our beautiful white front yard.

This is from December to show you some perspective on how much snow we got…look at the front fence and the tree.

That’s the car I drove last night that is supposed to be in the garage. My brother had already started cleaning it off. (I guess the doors are frozen shut right now so I’m kind of in a little bit of trouble.) But, there’s a reason it’s in the driveway. There was about that much snow on it last night when I came home and I was afraid that if I pulled it in the garage that would all melt (which it would have) and ice over the garage floor. So, I was trying to figure out what to do and when I got home the garage door wouldn’t open. So, I took that as a sign that I was supposed to leave it in the driveway. Plus, I was shaking so hard by then that I just wanted out of the car and in the house.
The truck, not such a great picture, doesn’t really show how much is on there.
And, this is one of the backyard taken by my 2 1/2 year old niece. Can’t really see the snow but wanted to share her photography skills.

Till later….

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So, we had a high of about 25 today (I don’t know exactly because I was working in the basement) and the low is supposed to be around 14. We’re on an upward trend in our weather, thank goodness. LOL But, this is the view that greeted me when I went upstairs a bit ago to see what was going on. You can’t see her, but there’s another one in the neighbor’s yard across the street. (And, yes, that slick white line in the picture is the street.)

Till later…

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So, the cold has hit. As in, seriously hit. I was out with friends yesterday and when I got home last night, at 8:30PM it was a whopping 2 degrees out. Yes, you read that right 2. And, before you ask, no I didn’t forget a digit. But, remember, 2 was at 8:30 it only got colder after that. <> That’s cold, in case you were wondering.

I have to say, though, I prefer the cold over the heat of summer any time.

Till later….

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