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I’ve been tobacco free for over 2 months now. I don’t drink alcohol and I’ve been off the anti-depressants for at least as long as I haven’t smoked. And now I’m going to get back on them. This is SO frustrating for me. I really had hoped to be able to function as a productive member of the human race without using artificial balances in my brain but apparently, I need to. My levels just won’t….level.
I’m concentrating on not resisting what I need.
So that’s that. But I’m not happy about it.

My friend and roommate Mickele sent me this link on Women of our Time today. I went through the entire site. It took about an hour and a bit but it was worth it. Not just because I am a woman but also because I’m a photographer. The images were fantastic and the women’s stories were wonderful. Have a few minutes? Go take a look.

Changing servers. I was tired of the old one. Matt at Lamphost hooked me up. I also have my loan site with him. One of the interesting things about changing servers…sometimes little bits of info get left behind. For example, Lilia left me a note the other day as things were getting switched and it was there…for sure….and I read it…..and now it doesn’t exist. At least not on Lamphost.

Getting interviewed tomorrow for Writer’s Monthly. About my art stuff. I think it should be in the May issue. We’ll see.

quick recap for the kids:
mickele saw moshay the other day, i couldn’t find him when i went out to look but she saw him today again and took a picture of him to show me….and it was him. we’ll have to go say hi next time you’re with me. thanx for calling me ty, i love talking to you on the phone, write something in your new journal tony and i’ll add a link on my site to yours like i did for dev and alex, hope your having fun with amber, ali. dev, work on your poems. lets get that done.
grande love,
mom

Last night wasn’t the first time and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

Famous people show up in my dreams.

Last night Gwen Stefani from No Doubt came over to my house. We hung out and talked about girl stuff. We shaved one side of her head. All the usual….

I’ve dreamed about her a few times before. The first time, I was harassing her outside of a home she was staying in which happened to be in my home town. I was outside the window and yelling, ‘Gwen! I’m your biggest fan!’ Like she’d never heard that before. But she did sneak me in and I got to know the ‘real’ her. Last night was an obvious step up from the raving fan dream. We were good girl friends and doing girl-friend type stuff. Which is weird initially because I don’t do girl friend type stuff like hair and nails unless it’s with my daughter and weird further on because in my dream I was an expert at clothes and hair-shaving.

Robert Downey Junior is another favorite of mine. He has shown up in the middle of the night more times than any other star. We have long talks about turning your life around and making the most of every day. It’s like therapy only with a figment of my imagination that is actually really alive but doesn’t know me.

More later. The office is calling.

The other night, Joe and I were at my friend Margot and Matt’s home. We were eating dinner and talking and having a great ‘ol time when all of a sudden I noticed that people were looking at me a little strange. Joe had started rubbing my shoulder in a supportive way, Matt was looking at me across the table with a skeptical eye, Margot mentioned I was clicking and unclicking my pen at a faster than human rate and my friend Jeff had stopped practically mid-word mid-sentence and then slowly brought his words out of slow motion and the record started turning again. All this while I was being very conscience to reassure myself that I was NOT bothered by what Jeff was talking about and I was certainly not showing any outward signs of discomfort.

I consider myself to be an open minded person. I figure I can always listen to someone’s opinion, even if I heartily disagree. In this particular case, however, I didn’t necessarily even disagree with what Jeff was saying. And I was still having a hard time just maintaining the status quo.

We had finished our dinner of sweet and sour vegetables, frozen pizza and salad with optional ‘some kind of cheese/salsa sauce’ which only Jeff was brave enough to try and had brought out the pens and paper to exchange reading, watching and listening favorites. (Margot’s idea…really a great one.) Somehow the conversation had landed on religion. Specifically, the religion I was raised in: mormon. Now, let me interject here that I have never been the ideal mormon and have had serious doubts most of my life about the validity of one religion claiming to be the only ‘true’ church and have almost been the model ‘jack-mormon’ the past 20 years of my life. So, someone please tell me why I suddenly felt like I needed to remind myself to breathe evenly and to not show any streaks on the outside of the inner stress I was feeling? I’ve been known to make fun of policies, rules and beliefs of the LDS church many times. And I’ve heard people poke fun at things I was taught were the gospel truth and never batted an eyeball. Here, we have Jeff just trying to have a conversation about a particular myth in the church history, not even making any jokes or rude comments and I’m having some kind of allergic reaction. What is up with that?

Well, there isn’t really any end to this story. It’s just something that happened that I haven’t been able to figure out yet, but haven’t stopped thinking about.

In other news, I spent almost the entire day from 6 am to 6 pm in my car driving to various photo shoots for North magazine. It was a long day. But good, too. More on that later.

quick recap for the kids:
you don’t have to know everything all the time, your mom still has lots of questions about things, i’m using the new camera a lot, can’t wait to see you this weekend! the new strongbad is pretty funny…..
hugs and kisses,
mom

Someday I want to be able to sit back and not worry about bills.
I can hear my fifth grade teacher saying ‘People in hell want ice cubes!’

Things are actually great.
I have a new digital camera for my new job at North. The old one was no longer available to me and the borrowed Canon from my good friend Rob needed to go home after an extended 6 month working vacation at my house. So, I took the plunge and…

…got a credit card to buy the camera to take the pictures to make more contacts and get more photo gigs and make more money and pay off the camera. *gasp for breath*

A bonus from the photo job: I get to put in a mortgage ad for the loans in North magazine. Joe is working on it even as I type. He keeps AOL IM-ing me to give me the progress reports. He had it mostly done last night except for the addition of my photo. Incidentally, why does my picture have to be on that ad? Why do real estate and mortgage lenders feel it’s required to add their face to the advertisement? Is it really going to make more people want to contact me? I doubt it. It’s silly. But chalk one up for conforming. I did.

There are about 7 new photos on the website. Two of them even include Joe. : ) He’s a cutie! A few more paintings, too.

quick recap for the kids:
i like the little movie you made, dev. let’s figure out how to go to the gaming meeting. check out this link….i wrote you a secret message.
grande mucho grande love to all of you.
mom

It’s April Fool’s Day. I only just realized it. I guess it’s lost its shine since I was little. That or my brothers are too far away to pull pranks on me and remind me what the day is……

It was so wonderful to see my family. The only drawback…my kids werenÕt there with me. Hopefully in June I’ll go again and take them with me. Anyone with a van want to trade cars with me for about 10 days?

I saw Laurel and family, Natalie and family, Celia and family, Craig and family, Nate and family and my parents. And if that wasn’t enough, also an old friend from high school that I still keep in touch with. I held babies, played with toddlers, listened to adolescents sing and perform musical numbers, made lip balm and lip gloss, talked to siblings for hours, hugged my parents, and took a kazillion photos, some for a book I’m illustrating and some just for fun.

I’m almost caught up on my sleep. My face has had an acne attack from all the different water types and soaps. I brought home an orange candle my niece Marisa made for me in a pickle jar that smells like….pickles. I’m caught up on work. Things are good.

I’m looking for a new home. I’ve outgrown this one and need something before the 1st of May. Anyone know of any homes or apartments that aren’t outrageously priced in rent?

quick recap for the kids:
1st, april fools and no way to prank you, 2nd, the entire cousin mass says hello and come visit, 3rd, your grandparents miss you and can’t wait to see you, 4th, i’ll see you in like 2 days.
grande love,
mom

It’s nice to be home. It was great to see my family.
I’m behind in a million things but it’s all good.
I’m playing catch-up.
It’s not always a fun game.
But it’s usually entertaining.
I took lots of photos and I have lots of stories to tell but not now.
Too much work to do.
hangin’in.

quick recap for the kids:
ali…i like your journal! i added your link to my sidebar.
see you in 3 days if you don’t count today or friday…….

I totally and completely love driving.
It calms me. It gives me time to think.
Long stretches of road in front of me and behind me.
Something about anonymity?
It’s very compelling.

I stopped at my sister Laurel’s home last night.
Today I drive another 5 or so hours to another sister’s home, Natalie.

It’s fun to see family and get to know their kids a little better.

Still looking for a new place to move into and someone to move into my current space.
Still working via the internet and cell phone.

Still me.

quick recap for the kids:
hope the wedding went well, miss you.
mom

Been taking care of a post-surgical patient the past few days. He’s really quite a trooper.
That sounded so official but it’s really just been fun.

It’s fascinating to watch Joe go through a new experience. We are very similar in the way that no matter what the experience is, we view it as writing material. Every feeling and thought must be acknowledged and put in place to be written about and explained later. I could have just chopped off my left foot and I’d be thinking about how I was going to write about it. Joe has gauze packed in his cheeks, can’t say a darn thing intelligibly, has bloody saliva dripping out of the side of his mouth and is barely conscious because his surgery just ended 20 minutes ago but keeps writing down everything so he can relay it accurately later. I love watching his mind work. Maybe I love it just because it reminds me of myself. I don’t know. Something to think about.

It’s funny to me that even though I’ve had my wisdom teeth out years ago and had babies and had surgery and anesthesia and the whole thing, I’m experiencing it through Joe’s eyes and it’s different.

Been busy working my three jobs. I like the flexibility of working from home most of the time. It allows me to get more work done than if I had to physically be at the work sites all day.

A guy in New York wanted me to send him some of my paintings for a gallery show. He also wanted me to send him $250.00. I told him I’d think about it. That means no.

I really like this quote:

“I have tried out numerous professions just to find myself right where I belong, as a starving artist. (The best diet I have ever found.)”

Jan Lukens
Winston-Salem, N.C.

GO Team!

quick recap for the kids:
when it comes time to get the teeth yanked out of your head, i’ll mash you some bananas and make you chocolate pudding….i know how now.
miss you
love you
mom

I am considering…..

A trip to Utah.
A trip to Utah.

I am considering….

That, my friends, is a really lame attempt to imitate a song called A Move to Memphis by The Colorblind James Experience.

I’ve been going back and forth about going for a variety of reasons, but I believe this is my final answer, Regis. I’m leaving Sunday and coming home in one week. I’ll get to see 5 of my siblings plus my parents (bonus!) during those 7 days.

This trip brought to you by my sister Rhoda and her husband Dave which would have liked our oldest sister Natalie to come and visit them in Washington. Rhoda wanted to sneak a turn at taking care of Natalie’s two youngest: Laura May, 1.5 years and Nicole Noelle, 2.5 months. Natalie couldn’t go to Washington due to the responsibility of her other 4 children ( ! ) but will instead get ME for a week and she’ll hopefully get some much needed rest while I get to play with the little girls! It’s a win-win…except for the fact that Rhoda doesn’t get to see the babies…..

My ex-husband is getting married this weekend. It’s a strange feeling. I wish them the best.

My website is revamped courtesy of Joe. Look at it if you have time. I now have an art therapy page.

quick recap for the kids:
i’m a going on a trip, be back soon, call my cell anytime, i’ll miss you more since i’ll be farther away…it’s a law of distance/ratio or something. you all have a page on my site. they are blank! help me decide what to put there!
much LOVE
mom

Which is good.
But still…….

Leaving to go see my kids in a few hours. woohoo!
Had a meeting and another meeting and another meeting and anoth…….
Met my deadline fo writers monthly.
Getting loans submitted.
Things are good.
I’m blessed.

Go team!

Quick recap for the kids:
see you in less than 4 hours!
today’s joke:
Goin’ to Church

One Sunday morning a little girl in her Sunday best was running so she wouldn’t be late for church. As she ran she kept praying, ÒDear God, please don’t let me be late to church. Please don’t let me be late to church….Ó And, as she was running she tripped and fell. When she got back up she began praying again, ÒPlease, God don’t let me be late to church — but don’t shove me either!