Let me just say that co-workers who bring in bumper crops of tomatoes ROCK. A few weeks ago it was regular sized tomatoes and grape tomatoes. Perfect for roasted veggie pasta and out-of-hand snacking, respectively. This week, it's cherry tomatoes, but the size of golf balls!! I sprayed them with balsamic vinegar spray-on dressing (what a great idea!!) and added salt and pepper. It was the perfect balance to my dinner at the ball park.

My brother-in-law wins the "most romantic moment" prize for calling out the cotton candy vendor. He skipped our section. My sister had been tracking his movements, determined that buying the cotton candy off the pole from the mobile vendor was better than the other cotton candy available. She was irked, and then he called the guy over from the next section. Awwww.

Whoever came up with putting a bit of popcorn in the bottom of the bag of cotton candy was a genius!! As far as we were concerned, anyway, the idea of salty + sweet = winner!! Chocolate would have been good, too, but we can't have everything, plus it's melty when it's hot out.

Feasting on a bratwurst, sipping iced tea, sitting on the first base line, seeing a bat shatter, a home run, a triple play, all in all an excellent Wednesday night with family.

Another day, another dollar as they say. Who are "they" anyway?

Working to overcome my moods that seem to overcome me lately. Not sure why that is, can't really pinpoint anything out of the ordinary normal everyday crud. One has to wonder, is there an everyday crud threshold? Is there a buildup factor? Do I need scrubbing bubbles for the everyday crud?

Seems like it.

Where the heck did the summer go? It started out with a family obligation type of function, and it will seem to end with one as well. I enjoy time spent, but not always the travel one must embark on to GET there and back home.

Where is the transporter beam when I need it?

Meanwhile, I'm hoping my old friends the Indigo Girls will revive me as they always seem to do.

New self-challenge. To embark on thrift shopping. Haven't been in any type of thrift store since Halloween costume shopping in high school. Nothing would fit me. Discouraging. Disorgaznized.

Now I want to raid at least 4 places near work, learn the layout, see what they have.

The goal is to try to find holiday gifts there. Also other items, like household and kitchen things I can use. I hate overconsumption, discarding perfectly good items and shopping at big box stores.

I don't expect to find the plus sized fat girl love of great clothes. I know someone that finds great clothes, but she's not my size.

Ready, GO!

I wish they made sippy cups for adults. I had an incident with my coffee this morning getting out of the car with pot luck supplies in hand.

Maybe it would have helped had I tightened the lid on my travel coffee cup.

Operator error.

At least it's Friday!

Ever notice one person's idea of "good food" or a "great restaurant" is radically different from one's own?

Maybe I have high standards, and I do cook a lot, but I find most places to be overrated. People will rave on about a certain new place (until a newer one opens up) and go on and on about it. I'll go there, and say, eh, it's okay.

I seriously doubt anyone in most of western Michigan has had really truly authentic Chinese food around here. If they have, they aren't telling me about it! What I find is buffets with Americanized homogenized relatively bland chicken pieces in some sort of sauce. Eh. I can make that at home, thank you very much.

I say these things not to be bitchy, but to remind myself NOT to listen to most people. Give me a local restaurant that uses fresh local ingredients. I love lots of different kinds of cuisines, too. I'm flexible and open to a variety of tastes.

Hm... must be lunch time!

Not feeling overly inspired lately.

Though this morning the willpower it took to put a small bag of M&M's on someone else's desk was enormous. I'm proud of myself for that. I have grapes, yummy red seedless grapes. Never ate them as a kid, so grew up thinking I didn't like them. Amazing how they can have a completely different taste.

I had forgotten how good working out with the Nautilus equipment feels. Not sore but a good "I've used these muscles" feeling. I am fortunate to have had the advice of a personal trainer type person at the Y when I first started. I think if I had been sore or unable to move the next day, I might have given up long ago. Now when I skip the weight training, it's because I want to get out of there go home.

Adding exercise to a sedentary life is hard. Every day I go there, though, I win. And I've been winning for 3 years now!

That is something to be inspired about. I'm sticking with it, even though the weight is still inching back, I'm not giving up. I'm too stubborn for that.

*grumbles something about being a Taurus and German*

I'm sitting here at work listening to some women down the aisle laugh really hard. They keep saying "oh Gary", to this man who must be saying or doing something funny. I can't hear him, though.

All of a sudden, it popped into my head why I, the meek and mild 7th grader that I used to be, got in trouble in Mrs. Partlow's class all the time for talking. John Hardwick who sat near me used to make me laugh all the time. He was smart and funny and an expert at drawing cartoon characters all over the place. I secretly adored him, but could never admit that to myself, let alone him! At any rate, since I was the one doing all the laughing, I was the one who got the evil eye all the time. She never heard nor saw what he was doing! It all makes perfect sense now!!

I believe, (speaking as one who now gets a charge out of making other laugh) that there is a secret delight in evoking laughter from others. Especially when the target seems such a shy quiet one. Then the victory is even sweeter.

Here's to you, John. You will always hold a special place in my heart.

I feel sad and depressed, but I still have hope.

All along my path of life, I look back and realize hope was always there. Even when things seemed their darkest, shards of hope remained. Somehow I was able to gather them together and move along.

I've been through darker days than this. But having moved into the light, when the darkness approaches, I worry that that was the last of the light I'd been allowed.

But I can laugh and smile. I still have hope.

Evidently disagreeing with a group, asking for ideas to compromise and agreeing to disagree means one "has issues".

In the end, I persevered, though. Because excluding people is never a good idea.

Maybe this committee I'm on at work pushes the buttons of high school where I was often excluded. Or perhaps there are too many strata of employees of who reports to who. I just think if we are doing something nice, we should do it for everybody or nobody.

Seems simple to me. Evidently, though, not to everyone else. Or perhaps everyone else can't step back and see the larger picture. I do believe a lot of people are incredibly short-sighted.
They can only see what is in their own little bubble. Their kids, their home, their school or work or neighborhood. Much outside of that, they really don't care.

And that, my friends, is what, in part, has gotten our environment and country and world the way it is today.

Plus, people don't pay attention to much of anything around them when they are driving, and that just plain pisses me off.

I have to wonder, is life really complicated or do we bungle it up ourselves?

I think it would be simpler to live in a different place for me, closer to those I care for, but I can always find an excuse not to move. I think it would be great to have a different job, but I get in a comfort zone (rut) and can't seem to get the oomph to get out.

I see those around me who have far more complexity and drama in their own lives, and most of it yes, is of their own making. It's easy to stand on the sidelines and referee, though.

It's easy to want to do something to make my life or the world a better place. The trick is to not only figure out what that thing is, but to do it.

Trying to snap out of the blues I feel coming around me.

Went to a really interesting Celtic Festival where two of my friends had a psychic reading/tarot card/fortune teller thing. I didn't really have anything to ask, so I abstained. They both seemed to have interesting experiences, one of them having to call the woman back because what they needed to talk about was going to take too much time and energy just then. Wow. And she'd never had a reading of that sort before, at all.

I found some really interesting fairy images, one of which is my zodiac sign. A Taurus fairy, and one for my friend, who is a scary Scorpio. I seem to attract those, it was pointed out to me, which I pondered, and is true!

It is a strange sensation, having two friends discuss me as if I weren't there, though. They both noted that I do have a dark side, which I thought I kept pretty well away from people. But I can't really do that with those who know me well. And love me anyway.
They thought I ought to get a tattoo, which I don't agree with, just because they both have them doesn't mean I will get one. In fact, the fact that more and more people are getting them makes me NOT want to, on purpose.

At any rate, I have a dark fairy picture here with me now, on a bookmark. She's got jet black hair, a red dress and red wings. She's got a crescent moon tattoo beneath her left eye. She's got elbow length gloves and red feathers in her hair, and she's looking at me over her left shoulder.

Maybe it's time to embrace the dark side.

Some days it's just not worth the makeup.


I have a lot to say about work and what it's worth and how I feel about it. Thing is, if I write it all down here, it might just make it feel worse.

I try to keep a good positive attitude. I try to realize what I do is important somewhere, to someone. I try to do my best each day.

When you have the type of job though were the only reward for hard work is MORE hard work, and it never really ends, it's hard to keep away from that "gerbil in the wheel" feeling.

I'm in this place of hate right now and I don't like it very much because I feel it spilling over onto other areas of my life where it really does not apply.

I know there's more to life than this, and I know I'm meant for more important, rewarding and satisfying things. Meanwhile, I have rent to pay.

It is Friday, though!!

Usually there is all manner of festivals around here in the summer. A Polish Festival, a German Festival, an Italian Festival....food and random items for sale along with music and great people watching. Sadly, most of them have been canceled for lack of money. Usually the city kicks in some stuff for free, and what with the state clamping down on funds, the city has to as well.

I understand the why of it. I'd pay a few bucks to get into one of these festivals, but I don't think they want to do that. Maybe they'll move them to an alternate location.

At any rate, a smaller suburban community here is having a Celtic Festival this weekend. Aside from getting my friends to skip the Haggis booth, I'm looking forward to it a great deal. Men in kilts, swordplay demonstrations, browsing, food, music and friends gathering. What could be better on a summer afternoon?

I'll miss my allotment of brats and German wine-tasting and cooking demonstrations, though.
Maybe next year.

Yesterday I voted in the primary election. It wasn't a huge monster deal. At 7:15 pm when the polls were only open for another 45 minutes, I was voter #100.

That's a shame. Also a shame was the young woman trying to vote and looking puzzled at the ballot because some of the names she'd been told of weren't on it. All the education we are doing just isn't enough. But, sometimes people don't take responsibility for their own information gathering.

I voted because I could. All around the world there are people who can't.

dammit.

I miss buying school supplies. They are having a donation program here at work though. But *I* want new pens too!


I wish I knew why I keep watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition. It only makes me cry. It's good they do what they do, but is it just contrived to make me feel better by watching it though I didn't do anything? A big network and big department store did. Maybe it makes THEM feel better by having the chance to put something that isn't totally crap on TV. But it seems contrived really by having these awfully sad stories of families they choose.

I don't like watching movies I know are supposed to make me feel sad, either, so why on earth do I keep going back for more?

*sigh*

I wonder if everyone has days when they just want to give up. I am sure they do, but most people don't likely dwell on it or think about it too much.

I see trash on the ground around my apartment that I usually pick up. People are pigs. "Hey, that's my front yard!" , I think to myself. Today, feeling defeated I just thought, they'll do it again tomorrow anyway...

I just feel tired, kind of "beaten" by things just now. I'm not sure why, though things haven't been particularly difficult, although sleep eludes me.

I don't feel like exercising, like cooking nor cleaning the house, all the things that are normally "me".

Maybe I just need some sleep. I surely hope that's all it is.

Does food equal love because that's how it worked when I was young?

Eating certain things I enjoy is a pleasure. Sunday it was biscuits. Today it was kibbee and tabooli. It's not just "comfort foods" nor foods that are just bad for me. Though Dove dark chocolate is always love.

I am part Italian, Polish, German and English, while being Lebanese via osmosis. Almost any ethnicity shows love with food. Heck, we celebrate with it, mourn with it, cure with it, console with it, rejoice with it. It is a constant companion.

Right now I'm so full I might not have any dinner. But I likely will anyway. I wish I could better understand WHY I eat when I'm not hungry. What is that urge? It's not like I ever was starving and am trying to make up for that feeling.

The older I get, the harder it is to get those extra pounds to come off, though. Exercise is not as effective as it was when I started this ride.

I'm working on it. But not only do I love to eat, I love the feelings I have when I eat good food (meaning things I like prepared well), food that I love.

Yes, it's "fry an egg on the sidewalk" hot. I saw them do it on the news this morning.

I'm grateful for air conditioning at home and a job where I can work inside, sitting down, sipping coffee and be a bit chilly in my sleeveless shirt.

*counts her blessings*