Happy 4th !

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!

So last night was the kick-off of the Holiday weekend. My BF's family has a 3rd of July party every year in a big field. Volleyball, football, campfire with hotdogs and marshmallows, and potluck meal, finished off by fireworks (see above...lol) and some of the family camping out overnight. We did NOT camp out...lol...I am not a camping kind of girl.

When we first got there, though, I did find this when I got out of the car :

I usually find them pretty easy, but this one was jumping out at me. And I was really impressed with the close-up flower feature on my crappy little camera. This one turned out pretty good.

The cookout was a blast! We had so much fun. The food was great, the company was fun, and the fireworks were AWESOME!

Here lately, I've been playing with Photobucket and their editing features, and I am addicted. I didn't get any really awesome shots from the cookout, but I got a few that were kinda cool. I thought I'd share them with ya.

I just LOVE little Katie's pictures! She's such a doll, and her smile is so cute. I couldn't resist that pink shirt. I really hope everything works out so that she and her brother can stay part of the family. I'll be praying.

We have another party tonight, and I can't wait! Tonight is the up and close fireworks....Bugz and I are the pyros for this party, and lighting up is so much fun. I'm hoping to take more shots tonight, maybe play with a little more color.

I am REALLY missing my knitting/crocheting/crafting. I'm hoping with my extra day off tomorrow, I can work on a few thing. After I wash clothes and dishes, that is. A woman's work is never done. Yahoo.

Father's Day

So....its Father's Day. A day to help celebrate the man that helped to bring you into this world. For some people, that's all a father will ever be. Some people didn't, and don't, have the joy of having a father in their lives. I was fortunate enough to have one when I was growing up. One that was there and cared about me.

But now that my mom is gone, I am learning more and more about how things were, that I was too young and too blind to see. Now that I am older, I see things. I have heard things. And I look back on things I did see and now understand. For instance: My mother was the one that held the steady job. She was the one that stayed in the same job all those years and paid the bills while Dad played around, jumping from job to job, trying to decide what he wanted to do. Mom was the one that did all the cleaning, all the grocery shopping, all the mowing of the yard, even Grandma's yard she mowed (but she liked it, like I do too). Dad did the hunting, fishing, laying around having mom wait on him hand and foot.


Now granted, he was sick for a while, but in the end, so was she, far worse than he was, and she still kept working until it was just impossible, and even then, she was sitting in the hospital bed, calling work checking in to see if everything was ok. Its sad to think back on it now and realize all that she sacrificed for everyone else. I remember she'd hardly ever buy herself new clothes, she just wore the same few outfits and dresses over and over. I wish now that I could have (would have, should have) done more for her. But we don't think about things like that till tragedy happens. Who would have thought at 24 I would lose my mom?


Then we have Dad. Good ole dad, who lives next door to his own mother, yet will not help her with anything that needs to be done. He won't mow her yard, haul off her garbage. Heck, he only takes her her mail once a week, and that's only because she gets the local newspaper in the mail, and it takes up too much room in their shared mailbox! Yet, when he needs something, he doesn't hesitate to call. Many times I've needed help with something, major or minor, and he's too busy. But he wants me to drop everything for him. His priorities lie in the wrong places. And I'm beginning to think they always have.


So now that I am majorly depressed thinking about all this, I realize that things are never going to change. They are always going to stay the same. What I have to change is myself. I have to make things in MY life better for ME. I have been in a very deep pit of depression lately, and it has been very hard for me to get out of it. From missing my mom, to not being happy at work, to having an apartment (crappy duplex) that is ridden with ants (so much so that I can't keep ANYTHING on the kitchen counter without it being covered in ants), to gaining weight and hating my body. I have got to find a way out of this funk, just don't know how.

I think if I had a better place to stay, a job I was happier in, then everything else would fall into place. I'd be more content, I'd be less dreadful to wake up in the morning, and everything would start flowing more smoothly. But the way things are these days, those two key things are almost impossible to change! For instance, hardly anyone is hiring, and if they are, its not for as much as I get where I am right now...even though that's not much for what I do. And as for places to live, that's even more hard, because you have to have the money, much less the credit. I would LOVE to have my own house. No rent, no landlord, no worries. Plant a garden in the back, flowers in the front. No neighbors a car length away from you on either side, some even closer thanks to a duplex, with walls so paper thin you can hear the neighbor SNORING through the wall on the other side of your bedroom!


What I need is something to take up my time. Something to do. Yeah, I crochet, I knit, I craft. But I am getting in a slump with them. Everything I pick up to work on just bores me. I need to find something that I am good at, something that will be rewarding, that will make me feel like I am worth something when I do it. Something that will uplift me. something that will make me feel like I really have a purpose in this world.

My cousin, whom I have only seen maybe twice, is working on a family tree. Now, while all the things he is learning is VERY interesting, it is also depressing for me as well. Why? Mostly because of a few things: One, it is reminding me that I no longer have a living mother that I can go to when I need her. Two, it is reminding me that yes, everyone eventually dies, and without my grandma, I don't know what I'll do. And three, it reminds me that I am an only child, with a dad that could care less about her, and I am a 31 year old with no children of my own and a BF that probably has no intentions of keeping anything long-term with me. I say that lightly because we have been together 3 1/2 years, but when anything is mentioned about kids or marriage, he laughs. And while he is good to me, I honestly think that he's looking for something more than me, and when he finds it, he will be gone.


I have GOT to find a way to get out of this funk! I read books, I watch movies, and it makes me want to move, to get away from this dead-beat town. The problem with that? A job in the new place, money to be able to move and start over, and the fact that me leaving would mean my 86 year old grandma would have no one to check on her daily. No one to get her groceries every other week. I could not move away from here knowing that she's sitting there alone in her house, not able to leave the confines of her walls, starving because her pride was too big to call anyone and ask them to go to the grocery to get her food. I just couldn't do it.


So.....I'm done with this long, depressing blog. I do want to leave you on a good note, though. I have decided I want a new, better camera. I love taking pictures, and I see things that catch my eye and want to take pictures of them, but my dinky camera just doesn't do what I want it to. Yesterday afternoon, though, it did. This is what it gave me, and I really like it.

Rainy Picnic

Every first weekend in June is a tradition for the BF's family to have a picnic on the side of the road in the middle of the country. This was my....um....third year? This year, it rained. Which cooled it off, then made it hotter. The good thing is that the sun wasn't out that much, so it didn't get too bad. My glasses did get a little foggy, though, when I started playing around with Katie-bug (that's what I call her anyway). She is one of two siblings that one of the BF's sisters lost. The state took them away from her, so now one of his other sisters have taken the two in....Katie and Titus. They are SO sweet! They just have had a hard life and need someone to really love on them and care for them. Katie is two and Titus is three and a half. They are such cuties! I feel so sad for them!

Anyway! The picnic was fun, even though we had to run from the rain, sitting in our cars, having to turn on the engines to run the air because it was so hot. We eventually had to give up and leave. When we first got there, though, it wasn't too bad. I took the opportunity to use that time, before anyone else got there, and took a walk down the "road less traveled" and took some pictures.

Once everyone got there, I started taking more pictures....


Little Titus

Katie-bug
The BF's parents.....they celebrate their anniversary every year at the picnic.
Me holding Katie-bug.
And a closing self-portrait. I look like a tree-hugging hippie! Haha! I guess its fitting though, beings Bonnaroo is this coming weekend. Alas, I am not one of the chosen few who got asked to work or chosen to get a free ticket, so I will not be going. :( This is the year I wanted to go. Tenacious D, Steve Martin, Stevie Wonder, JayZ, even a Christian band, Needtobreathe! (For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, go to www.bonnaroo.com , this is my hometown, born and raised and still live).

That's about all for tonight. I should be in bed by now, but just got done watching Raw (yeah, I watch wrestling....sheesh) and now I am finishing up this blog and passing out! If the BF works tomorrow, the alarm will be going off at 4am. UGH! Ta ta for now!

Not a great start.....

Ok, so I haven't gotten off to a good start on my blogging. It just seems like time flies, then its all over. Besides sharing the PC with my BF and hardly ever prying it from his hands, I have also been not feeling so well. Nausea every time I eat. I go through this phase every few months or so. It really sucks. I feel like I should be one of those government-insured drug heads that sits around and does nothing but has the government pay for everything for them. Here in Tennessee, that would be TennCare, and most of the people are on drugs and sell them, but sit back with their food stamps and lap it up. How can I get in that group? Must be nice to get it all and do nothing for it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to do drugs....just want to be lazy every now and then.

On the days that I do get the PC, I spend most my time on Facebook farming and whatnot, checking out Craftster, and I have become addicted to a blog by another girl named Holly. She and I share a LOT of the same tastes, from what I can tell about her blog. She loves photography (but she's really good at it), is in to ALL things crafty, and she has a really cool style. I think I have looked at her WHOLE blog, and she's got over 300 entries, probably more. Looking at her blog has inspired me, but there are many factors that hinder me from being as outgoing as her:

1) I work for a living....yes, she does to, but it is crafty too (she cuts hair)

2) She has a REALLY cool camera collection...mine isn't all that great

3) She has a lot more time to craft than I do. If I had more time in the days, and actually feet better most the time, I'd be crafting like crazy.

BUT....I'm not going to let those things stop me. I am going to try and do better. I miss my crafting, I miss my feeling of accomplishing something and really being happy about it.

SO...if the BF will ever get in gear, and I can shake the current nausea wave, we're going to head the 30 minutes north to Murfreesboro to go to Hobby Lobby and spend my $25 gift card I won on a fill-out-a-survey website, plus use the 40% one item coupon I printed. Wahoo!

To end this entry, I thought I might share some pictures I've taken since last weekend, including the newest addition to the household, Emma. I LOVE my kitty! Just don't like her kitty litter smelly box (duplex is too small to put it somewhere where we can't smell it...yuck).

Christyn, the BF's niece. She's such a cutie!

Caylee, Christyn's new baby sister.

Emma Kitty....she's so sweet!



Last but not least, a self-portrait. Like you wanted to see me, right? My phone doesn't take very good pictures, either. Oh well, its all good.

R.I.P Virginia George 5-28-10....you will be greatly missed "Ginny". Say hi to my mom up there for me. <3

Starting Over

I have had MANY blogs since I've become "internet savvy", and each one of them, I have fell apart at. I would blog for about a month or so then stop. I am hoping this one won't be the same. The longest blog I kept up was the one on my Myspace page, and I must say I wrote a LOT of good blogs, but for some reason, I just got lost. Lost in work, lost in life. Just lost.

So I'd like to start over. I'd like to blog like I used to, posting my pictures, interesting thoughts and things that have happened to me. Maybe they'll be interesting, maybe they won't. But if its not, you don't have to read it, right?

First things first, I had a tooth removed yesterday, and WOW am I hurting! I am trying not to have to take the pain meds because they make me nauseous, but then again, so does the pain, so what do ya do, right?

Before the tooth-pulling, my loving BF and I went out and visited my grandma and her new kittens. We have chosen the two we want to bring home with us when they are old enough, and actually we could have brought them home yesterday if it hadn't been for the fact that I had to go to the dentist before we could go home.

Of course, as cute as they are, I HAD to take pictures!

This one above is the one that I want to bring home with me. She's such a pretty little girl!


The yellow one is the one my bf Bugz wants to bring home. He's a little mean, but the more we play with him, the more gentle he seems to get.

I have always loved animals, and a cat is so gentle. I sat down with these guys and we fed them some of grandma's scraps from her lunch, to see if they would even attempt to eat. A few of them did, then crawled up in my lap! SO adorable! I can't wait to bring my baby home. The only problem? Got to come up with a clever name. Any ideas?