Time smooths out emotions!

Okay, time has passed and now the emotions of Thursday have tempered somewhat. I no longer think life sucks though I'm still not sure that I think it is pretty!

Stephanie has made it home to CO. Snow is pile high there and she has no car, but she is home. Still no word on possible job offer, but I guess that is her concern and not really mine. Though as a parent we do like it when things go smoothly for our children and they are happy and content. (Is there such a thing?) Jerry's mom still hangs in there some where between life and death, but that also is her concern and not so much mine I guess. But how does one disassociate ones own life from those who they love? Though my life is not directly changed by either Stephanie's job limbo or mom Brown's impending death there is still and unsettling impact. Is feeling that being self absorbed or is it a natural thing? I don't know. Neither of those events are really about me, but I feel drawn in and unsettled by them both. I am so confused!!!!

Life out my window right now SUCKS!!!!

Merry Christmas to all!

A very MERRY and BLESSED CHRISTMAS to all who may stumble upon this blog; which I don't really delude myself in thinking that anyone actually will. It is a cool and rainy day here in MI. We are spending Christmas with part of DH's family. It's nice to be together with them and especially with our kids. Christmas is meant to be spent with family. It's a somewhat subdued Christmas this year as DH's mom is not in good health and this will most likely be our last with her. But it has been a very special Christmas! What a blessing it is to be part of such a loving family. Thank you God not only for the gift of your son, but the gift to me of this wonderful family. There can be no better gifts than those!

Well so much for musings on vacation. My computer has decsided to be uncooperative and only let itself be used when a fan in blowing on its backside! It's a real pain, but I guess I am slowly learning to cope. Every so often it desides to just freeze up and go on a vacation of its own, which is a REAL pain.

Anyway vacation was over a month ago. Already I am ready for another! I think it will be a while though. To bad life can't be one big vacation, but then I guess vacations wouldn't be special anymore, would they. Well vacation was wonderful. We did plenty of four-wheeling throughout Southern Utah. It was a blast. Stephanie came over from CO and spent a long weekend with us and she and Jerry went sky diving. They had fun and Jerry is dsefinatley planning to do it again. I don't know about Steph and a repeat performance. As for me it was okay watching, I guess even fun, but its not someting I ever plan to actually do myself. I value my bones way to much and am pretty sure on landing that I would probably be a mass of broken ones.

Now tomorrow is Halloween and I guess that signals the beginning of the 2006 Holiday Season. I sure wish we had another family cruise coming up this Christmas. It was fun and very relaxing. This year will be more work, but we are at least planning on spending christmas with Jerry's folk and sister's family in MI. Mom will be here for Thanksgiving. Time to start cleaning, planning and shopping.

Vacation Time!

Its finally vacation time! A much needed one at that. We vacationed in UT. The first few days were spent in Salt Lake City. It was okay, but it was a city and not really a city to offer big urban fun like NYC! It's just a city, like Detroit, an okay place to visit for a day or two, but beyond that it's time to move on to more exciting locals. Our exciting local was to be southeastern UT.

We've been there before, but always in the summer heat! This was much more pleasent. Rather than daytime highs in the 100's with full sun, we have daytime highs of 70's and full sun. We spend much of our time in Moab area. It is so beautiful. Very different from East Coast or Mid-West. Even very different from CO. There is so much to see and do we definately will need yet another trip if we want to see it all, and I'm not sure we could ever hope to see it all even if we came back multiple times!

On the drive down froim Salt Lake City I was very impressed with how small I am. When home driving on I-270 or the beltway 18-wheeler trucks seem so BIG! Out here when I looked at them against the back drop of the road and scenery they seemed so small. Even when right next to them we both just seemed small! I mentioned to DH that maybe we should move the nations capital and all the politicians out here. Then maybe they wouldn't see themselves as being so big and important, but would put their role in the theater of life into the proper perspective and behave as they are just like everyone else in the world. It probably wouldn't work out that way, but it's a nice thought anyway!

Well enough for now, more thoughts and pictures later. Time for more reflection in my own mind. Vacation time and thoughts are not times for speed! Find me a rock so I can sit on it and contemplate the beauty of life.

Time and Time Again

Time, such an interesting commodity. It is the one thing that no matter who you are, what your age or status in life, what your job or income everyone has the same amount of it. We all have 24 hours each day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. The only difference one might say is that no one knows how many years of parts of years their total life may be composed of. But I submit that since no one knows the length of their life that is a non factor in choosing how we use what time we do have. How we use the 24 hours given us each day is what is important. I guess it is what will determine the success with which we live our life.

So how do I want to live my life? This is probably a question I should have seriously thought about and determined long before now. Sometimes I think I fall into the mold of a person who just lets life happen, rolling with the daily flow of activities rather than creating the path. Is this good or is this bad? Probably neither exclusively but a little bit of both. I like being a fairly flexible person that can roll with the punches life thows at me on a daily basis. I think that is a good thing. On the other hand, there are things I wish I had done with my life, things I could have accomplished or reached for that I haven't because I was to busy with the way life was happening. Stopping the flow and making my life into what I would have liked it to be would have taken more work and more initiative than often I felt I had the energy for. Now that I find sad!

They say that any dream you have can come true if you want it bad enough and are willing to work hard enough for it. I don't know if I believe that or not. I want to. May be it is true, but the key is you have to want it to be true so bad that you are willing to risk anything and do anything to make it come true. Unfortunately not only am I a basically lazy person I also am not a big risk taker. So where does that leave me?

I guess I need to go back to that question. How do I want to live my life? How do I want to use the 24 hours alotted to me each day? These are questions I need to give more thought to.

Vacation

Boy why do vacations go so fast? It seems that so much time is spent anticipating a vacation and then before you know it, it is over and you are back to the normal routine of work and more work. Why doesn't time slow down for vacations so one can savor them and just bask in the relaxation and nothingness they bring? Maybe because today's vacations are filled with everything but nothingness! All too often we bring our "business" with us on vacation. Gone are the days of simply sitting on a beach with a good book day after day, or sitting watching the birds soar on the wind currents in the mountain passes. No we must alsway be doing.

Now don't get me wrong. I loved my week in MI. And I did get alot done that I wouldn't have done in a normal work week. I read a book and started a second. I knitted a half a prayer shawl, stopping only when I ran out of the yarn I brought, and I planned out my fall workshop schedule for my Stampin' Up buisness (ouch was that work?) I also visited with my in-laws in thier new home and visited my alma mater, MSU. But there was very little time spent just sitting and relaxing; just taking time to reconnect with the world around me. Am I even capable of doing nothing for longer then 5 minutes....I'm not sure and that may be sad.

Are They NUTS!

Okay, I now know I live in a crazy world...or rather a crazy part of the world. I just read an article in todays Washington Post talking about how the lastest thing here in the area is luxury bathrooms. Not only is this news in the Post, but it is a front page story!

It seems people in the area are spending not just tens of thousands of $'s to upgrade there bathrooms, but some are sending hundred's of thousands of $'s to do so. This area of the country is way to much into itsself I think. This trend is absolutely insane! The article not only talks about the type of upgrades people are putting in, but how some of them feel pressured by their "bathroom designer" to upscale even further than they plan, because if they don't their home will not be easily marketable. It mentions that $300 water faucets are now "on the verge of becoming a commodity" Puleaseeeee! Get a life people. There is so much more that can be done with $150,000 than upgrading a bathroom....And to the Post I hope you placed this story for the comic factor and not to make more people feel that their lives must be worthless cause they have no interest in a toilet which has a control panel to use. I guess everyone has to have some sort of a vice. Let's see with $120,000 I could take a friend on 10 really nice cruises. Heck I just read on Splitcoast Stampers that for a mere $13,000 I could buy the whole Stampin' Up catalog of merchandise. Now there a way to spend money!

By the way if you want to check out the article click on the title of this post! Have your laugh for the day.

HOT HOT HOT!

That's what today is. It's the 4th of July though and I guess it is supposed to be hot on the 4th! Better than rain; that's for sure. This has been a time for extremes around here. May and early June; no rain to speak of then the last week of June comes and 13 inches + . Now suddenly temps are in high 90's! And humid of course. But that won't stop the brave souls who truck on down to DC for festivities. They are expecting 500,000 or so. Another sign of my age I guess is my thoughts on that are "been there done that". We've been downtown for fireworks at least twice in the past, maybe more but sometimes those types of experiences are wiped out of our memories, and we did have fun. The hassle is getting out of there when 500,000 are trying to get on metro at once! OUCH. I think I can watch them on TV and have a good front row seat; plus I can hear the concert then also. So Independence Day at our house consits of a group of flags posted outside our home, leftover ham, and the internet. What more could a girl ask for? (I suppose I could clean house too.) Hope everyone else has a fun day.
I will eat some watermelon in honor of the day.

Working Toward Vacation

Vacation is coming. The holiday weekend I've already given up on. Could have gone to Germatown Glory Days last night and listened to a symphony and watched the fireworks, but adult lethergy set in, which included not really wanting to deal with traffic jams leaving the event, so we stayed home. Of course 20 year old son went and had a good time. We, meaning husband and I, are so OLD! Anyway, now we are on to trying to plan our vacation in MI. We will be visiting and helping out my in-laws who have just moved into a new home in Chelsea, MI. We will be camping at Waterloo State Park. What do I want to do while there? Good question! Right now I am thinking I would be happy doing nothing more than reading a good book, sewing (the camp ground does have electricity and I now have a feather weight small sewing machine), and maybe even stamping a few simple cards. Sounds like heaven right now but, can a person with ADD who gets real ansy fast do that little? Time will tell!

A Holiday Weekend!

Independence Day or the Fourth of July: take your pick. That is what this weekend sort of is. I say sort of because it really isn't. I keep thinking is is the Fourth of July weekend but there really isn't a weekend for the Fourth this year because the Fourth is on Tuesday. So we get a normal weekend, then go back to work for a day, and then get another day off for the Fourth. The question is will any work get done on Monday or will there just not be much celebrating on Tuesday; after all you can't party late into the night as the next day is Wednesday and that means for most more work! What happened to the carefree summer days of my youth. Now they not only aren't carefree, but they seem to be no different than any others. This year can I declare my own Independence Day and for one long weekend (including Monday) experience four days of summer carefree fun? I fear probably not. I think that ability is a lost art in todays busy adult world. How sad!!!!