We had a pleasant time, pretty uneventful, but nice.  We had a small family thing on Friday at my in-laws and then had some friends over on Saturday for grilling, swimming, homemade ice-cream.  I so enjoy just getting a few families together and just "hanging out".  We really have some great families in our life to socialize with.  

We live very close to a "celebrity" that has his own fireworks show on the 4th, so we were able to watch his big display on Friday night from our bedroom window and we also live across the street from a park that shoots their fireworks off on the 5th, so we were able to watch them from the front porch on Saturday night. 

I like fireworks, but since we "lived at Disney" for a year, and saw their indescribable fireworks a multitude of times, it kinda puts all other fireworks in a whole different league.  Nothing can compare to the nightly fireworks, "Wishes", that Disney puts on behind the castle. 

We also were at Mount Rushmore one year at night and they shot fireworks off above the giant carvings, and that was truly spectacular.  It was one of those moments where you hope you can somehow manage to never forget the emotions that come welling up inside you.

Don't you just love it when you are experiencing something and you know that it will turn into one of the memories that you just look back on in the many years to come with such nostalgia.  That sounds kinda lame, I know, but I love "making memories".  I guess it is because you can take them with you anywhere you go.  No matter where you are or what you are doing, you can find a moment of solace and quiet contentment just from bringing back a memory of good times past.  Man, I sound like a sap.  Oh well, what can you do!?!

Thanks for stopping by 8-)

A new post after so much time. The reason is that at the end last march  I managed to finish my PhD and now I'm a sort of postdoc still in my group. I promised to myself that I would have submitted a couple of papers out of my dissertation work. That would primary be good for be. There's always something to finish and life seems always too short for everything.

Second, I would like to share a song with you called "Ready for Love" by a wonderful artist named India Arie.

I am ready for love
Why are you hiding from me
I'd quickly give my freedom
To be held in your captivity

I am ready for love
All of the joy and the pain
And all the time that it takes
Just to stay in your good grace
Lately I've been thinking
Maybe you're not ready for me
Maybe you think I need to learn maturity
They say watch what you ask for
Cause you might receive
But if you ask me tomorrow
I'll say the same thing

I am ready for love
Would you please lend me your ear?
I promise I won't complain
I just need you to acknowledge I am here

If you give me half a chance
I'll prove this to you
I will be patient, kind, faithful and true
To a man who loves music
A man who loves art
Respect's the spirit world
And thinks with his heart

I am ready for love
If you'll take me in your hands
I will learn what you teach
And do the best that I can

I am ready for love
Here with an offering of
My voice
My Eyes
My soul
My mind

Tell me what is enough
To prove I am ready for love

I am ready

You know that moment when a song comes on and you just know that song is speaking to you. It is like your soul and the lyrics have become entangled and then it just absorbs you. The music, the lyrics, the melody it all just becomes a part of you. Well this song did it to me today because it expresses my soul like no other.

Am I ready for love? Are you ready for love? Are we ready for the consequences of loving another person with our hearts, souls, and bodies? Are we ready for the responsibility of being depended on? Are we ready for the pain that eventually comes with giving our hearts away?

I cannot answer for you but for me I am not really sure if I am ready for love. I know that I want love, I know I want to love a good man, I want to be loved by a good man, and I want to see what happens with that love. I look out at the world around me and I ask myself where is he? Is he happy? Is he searching for love too? Has he found love? Has he been hurt by love? What is his life like? Is he struggling, suffering, or scared? Or is he happy, free, and at peace? Will I be able to heal him or him heal me? Will he have scars from his past? What will he look like? Will his voice be like a summer breeze...soft and soothing. Or will he be like a raging storm...deep and complex.

The answer is always the same I don't know. I don't know anything about him and it like there is this hole inside of me getting bigger and bigger until it consumes me. I want to meet him, I want to laugh with him, love him, and I just want to be around him. I want to know that when I wake up he'll be there, when I go to sleep he'll be there. I want to find my love, I want to find that man that God created for me to love and be loved by.

I want to find my dream, my happiness, and my future with him. That is why this song really affected me today because it is like my heart was in each verse and my soul the melody. I just want to find that person, that relationship, that wonderful feeling of loving someone and the happiness that comes with loving someone.

Being able to share my life with someone, my dreams, my fears, my hopes, my family. Everything and anything with that person. Someone who sees me in a light that no one else does. Someone who would stand by me and for me in the midst of any storm. I know most of us all want that, but in my heart it is like this all consuming dream.

No matter how much I write, it is like I cannot truly express this entity inside of me. I feel like I am ready for love, but then again is anyone ever truly READY FOR LOVE? Maybe God doesn't think I am ready, maybe I missed my love...I don't know but I do know that it is tiring waking up alone, it is tiring no being able to share my heart with someone who'd understand it, it is tiring waiting and waiting for that person to appear in my life. I am very tired of feeling miserable and sad because no one is there to catch me if and when I fall.

I know that I am young and that I have a whole life ahead of me, but who truly knows that? If I died tomorrow, I would die not knowing what it feels like to kiss someone, love someone, be held by someone. I wouldn't know the happiness and sadness that comes from opening your heart to someone else. If I died tomorrow I would die without ever knowing what it means to love someone else completely.

I get scared of never finding my love, never meeting my love, never experiencing that love. I get scared I will grow older and still be having these same fears. I get scared that my life was never meant to collide with his. I get scared that I will be like my mother. My mother gave her whole heart to one man, and that one man destroyed it to a point that can never heal.

I don't want to end up like my parents. It seems like these days there are so many children like me from homes that are broken. Some like me blamed themselves...but I hope they like me realized we are never the cause of our parents mistakes. It took me years to realize that my father is the only one to take on the blame for his actions.

I cannot lie and say that my parents story hasn't affected my own life story. I don't trust people easily, I have insecurities I shouldn't have, and I guard myself from this world. I am a ripple of my father's misdeeds and my mother's sadness. I have seen what love can do, and it is a powerful being. Some use it for good and other's use it for bad like my father.

I look at my mother sometimes and my heart breaks for her. She never got to experience the beauty of love. She has only seen the pain, and it has scarred her for life. I have prayed to God with all my soul to bring someone into her life that will love and cherish her the way my father never did.

My siblings and I have been denied so much love because of him. I don't know what a father's love is like or the love that parents have for one another. I don't know what it is like to have family vacations or any of those bonding experiences.

It hurts at times like know when I think about all that I have missed out, and then it hurts more when I think about all the other souls out there who feel the same way. The things we all experience from our parents are wounds that for some may never heal.

I get scared of giving my heart to someone because there is that chance that I could end up with a man like my father and end up like my mother. I get scared because there is so much cruelty in this world. It is like people have forgotten what is means to love one another. I mean to truly love someone for who they are. People take love  and marriage as a joke these days.

Leaving behind a stream of broken homes like the one I came from. For some it makes us stronger, but in a lot of ways it makes us weaker. I have learned a lot about the power and strength of women from my mother. She is my Superwoman, she has sacrificed her soul for us and I have been inspired by that strength to become a woman of greatness. Someone who is successful in all aspects of m life. At the same time I have no clue about the goodness of love, I only glimpse the flaws.

Even so I still believe that love is the most immeasurably beautiful thing about being alive. I've never been is love...I have never been anywhere close to being in love with another human being, but I hope and pray that God has not forgotten about me and one day I won't have to ache like this. One day I will wake up and see my dream sleeping next to me. One day, one moment, one choice, will lead me towards him and him to me.

I used to think I should have been born in a different time and a different world because it is like in this time and in this world people have forgotten that love is the most powerful and wonderful element in this world. It is the love I have for my mother that makes me strive to show her the beauty of life and make her proud that her children have made it because of her hard work. It is the love I have for my family that keeps me grounded even when I am pulled in different directions. It is the love they have for me that makes me feel less alone in this world. It is the love that I have for all of you that keeps me writing and praying that my story, my life, my words can help someone, heal someone, give someone hope. If I can touch someone's life for the better then I have achieved greatness. It is the love I have for this world that encourages me to rise above all the sadness and do things that can change it towards a better direction. It is the love I have for my God that keeps me from losing faith or hope in myself, my world, my life. Love is everything if only people would stop manipulating it into this ugliness that makes us hurt each other, hate each other, kill each other....love was mean to heal and never be used to create scars.

We are all scarred some more than others. My scars stay with me and sometimes they hold me back from living. They are reminders of the past, and they have taught me that we all feel pain, we all get hurt, but that doesn't mean we have to curl into a ball and give up. My parents are my parents. I am not them, and m story doesn't have to end the same.

I don't know what I need to do to be ready for love, or if there is anything that i can do, but I know that when I find my love I won't take him for granted. If my parents separation taught me anything it is that love is something to be cherished when you have it, and you have to deal with the consequences of losing it. I pray that my story will have a happy ending. I don't mean like a fairytale but I pray that I will have found a love to grow old with, and when I leave this world one day I will have those precious memories to take to heaven.

I have never been in a relationship...I have never even been on a date. I'm different from a lot of women my age. I am not looking for a fling, or anything superficial. I am looking for a man I can call my best friend and unconditional love. The kind of man I can introduce to my mom and build a life with. I pray to God that I get to have that precious love. I pray that my sister finds that love, that my brother meets that love. I pray for all of you may love be good and kind to you.

If that person that God created for me is out there I would like to say to him that I will wait till the day our paths intersect and our lives are forever changed. I will wait till my heart recognizes your soul and I find myself next to you. I pray your life is going wonderfully, that your healthy, happy, and heading towards your dreams. I pray that you are close to God and that your heading towards me. I pray for you without knowing you but in my heart I know that God will bring us together. I know we will each have our own pasts but I know that the future will belong to both of us to make.

Thank you all for hearing my heart and listening to its words.

Will this be my freedom from working? Hopefully if not, it'll be someone elses who reads this blog. Best of luck!

June 3rd, 2008

Daily 3
Midday - 303
Evening - 877

Daily 4
Midday - 2400
Evening - 5887

Fantasy 5 - 12 15 17 20 31

We wish for many things. Most of these wishes are ones we'll never see happen. Others are sitting on the sidelines waiting for us, waiting for us to be ready to see them come true. We wish we could turn back time and that maybe, just maybe, we could sit on the side and just be grateful for the beautiful days that once transpired in front of our very eyes. We wish the world were fair, that love couldn't hurt and all the hurt and pain in this world was non-existent.  Even when everything we want seems so distant, it's really those things we need that are almost out of reach.

After many arguments, lots of whinging, even more pouting and what seemed like an endless stream of open houses that were too expensive, too ugly, too small, too big, too much work and all around not perfect for us, wonder of wonders, we found a house we both liked and so we bought it.  You have to strike while the iron is hot with the DH I've learned.  The new-to-us bootbox is 1700 square feet over 2.5 floors.  Which is a lot more stairs than I thought. 

It's also an old house, built in 1936.  Which means it's charming.  But as I'm finding, charm doesn't come cheap.  The 1936 windows need to be replaced...all 17 of them.  The 1936 floors need to be refinished....all of them.  And while the 1936 knob and tube wiring was replaced, the light switches weren't, which means that you have to go OUTSIDE the room to turn on the ceiling lights INSIDE the room.  Not very intuitive. 

And apparently in 1936 there were no such things as Queen size beds.  This is a bit of a problem for us as our  mattress is currently on the second floor but the box spring is languishing in the living room.  It has repeatedly refused to go past the landing.  Which means the DH gets to play with his power tools tomorrow.  And let's not even discuss how said box spring is going to make it up to the master bedroom in the attic.  Can you say king size bed?  The Money Pit strikes again.

On the positive side though, there is so much more space now.  I know that 1700 square feet doesn't sound like much, especially now that homes are three, four and five thousand square feet or more.  But coming from a cramped two bedroom bungalow to a house where I can actually get dressed in the room in which I sleep at night....oh it's blissful!  My yarn, fabric and books all get a room and so does the DH's 42 inch LCD.  Although the tv and the computer do have to share their room.  It's a win-win situation all around.

I don't miss the bungalow at all.

You can make your own at Despair.com

If ever some power with three wishes to grant were to appear before Pierce Moffett, he or she or it (djinn, fairy godmother, ring curiously inscribed) would find him not entirely unprepared, but not entirely ready either.

...

There turned out to be so many angles to consider--his changing desires even aside--that, a grown man now, professor, historian, he still hadn't completed his formulations.

Pierce is on a long bus ride, and mulls over these angles to pass the time. Long ago, he formulated his ideal first two wishes:

The lifelong and long-lived mental and physical health and safety of himself and those whom he loved, nothing asked for in a subsequent wish to abrogate this

An income, not burdensomely immense but sufficient, safe from the fluctuations of economic life, requiring next to no attention on his part and not distorting his natural career.

Image via Wikipedia

But what about that pesky third wish? In his childhood, Pierce had often resorted to the greedy idea of using the third to wish for three more, ad infinitum. But with growing maturity he came to see that unintended consequences could render that course fraught with danger.

He had pondered the rather safe idea of wishing the third time for oblivion: "to forget he had ever known wishes could be granted, to be returned to his (present) state of ignorance that such irruptions of power into the world, power placed at his unwise disposal, were really truly possible at all."

What would your wishes be?

"I saw 2 shooting stars last night; I wished on them, but they were only satellites." Billy Bragg

Why do people make wishes on stars?

Birthday candles are far more reliable: I have a 100% "wish come true" rate with birthday candles.

but ...

I only ever wish for cake.

note: "If wishes were horses, rides would be free." and ...  I'd be wearing rubber boots everyday.

http://humor-blogs.com/

Although she's not quite up to talking on the phone, Cindy does have her computer. If you do not have her email address and would like to send her warm wishes and supportive words to help her through this difficult time please do. You can leave your thoughts in the comments section, or email them to me or Ginevra and we will pass them on to her.

I had that once so I know it's possible. But I did not have it with CM at all.

CM was so quick to give up and look for someone else that he actually posted a Craigslist ad looking for new dates immediately after we had an argument today. An argument regarding why he was still logging in to Match.com and maintaining his profile there. I have all the proof I need to show that he wasn't in it to win it. Unless he clearly has a different definition of "winning."

I thought he had made progress, but he is just as lame as he always was.

I know I deserve better. But I feel so disappointed, rejected, and abandoned.

I don't understand why someone who I cared about so much and treated well would knowingly hurt me so much? Would show such blatant disregard for my feelings and our (supposed bond)? Why? Why? Why?

Getting time for physical activity is one of the main concerns of my health; I often work long hours here in my computer updating my blogs, doing more programming and writing work. It's just all earning money each day and I neglect to do housework (it is a batch job that I prefer doing after finishing all the projects each day). However, I am aware that my health might slowly suffer the effects of doing less activity.

There are various weight loss programs out there that really work, and those that do not really work. In my opinion, I believe that people respond differently with these weight loss programs. One particular weight loss program may really work with one person, but will not with another. It is just trying to find which program really works best.

Weight Loss Diet Help is a very useful resource on leads related to weight loss programs. Each program has its own general description on how the plan goes about: for instance the Medifast diet plan is simply a 5 & 1 plan that gives results in a single month. At the top of each description, coupons are also available to save a lot on weight loss expenses.

In contrast, the Nutrisystem Advance online diet program works differently as that of the Medifast diet plan (I think I'm going to go for this). It is designed to work more on the convenience of the person - in place of the practice of counting calories each day.

Indeed, giving out Santa letters and gifts to our kids needs a lot of creativity. You would not want your child to realize that his next-door best friend gets to have a better Santa gift and letter, so it is often better to consider having a custom made Santa package made for your kid.

PackageFromSanta.com reminds us to prepare for the ultimate gift and letter from Santa to give to our children. What really makes their service unique from the other Santa packages is that they do more by giving out custom letters for each kid - so each kid in your household and even in the neighborhood gets to have a unique set of Santa letters which will definitely convince them that Santa Claus really monitors their good deeds.

The site has three Santa packages that make a perfect setup for your kids: the simplest basic package is simply a letter from Santa complete with the red metallic envelope; but their deluxe package offer is definitely worth buying off from the site. The latter is made up of letters from Santa and Rudolph, an official Nice List Certificate, a glossy autographed photo of Santa Claus, magical reindeer food that comes from the North pole, an authentic collector's piece of swatch fabric from Santa's suit, an audio CD of Santa's personalized greeting - all of these are shipped out in a nice red box that kids will surely love to see with their name on it.

Oh, have I mentioned that the child can write back to Santa Claus with the return address provided with each package?

And this is today's anagram, the full collage is below this mini-collage. "What if old cotton mill had a pool? Maybe next year...willing to change, we came back. Vickie was sent a month swim membership check, is glad...water feels good to us fish."  Part of my wish list is in there. There is a major re-hab going on in the old cottom mill on the riverfront. One of the things I have hoped for was a pool, so people could either swim year round or at least the full season of summer. It would be nice to have that in their project, but I didn't see it on their site, so who knows if they have a plan for one or not. The city's pool closes when the kids go back to school, which is usually the second week of August, leaving the hottest part of summer with no place to swim. I think maybe the enxt town over has a pool that stays open a little longer. The YMCA is 20 miles from here, and with gas at $4.00 plus, it doesn't make sense to drive 40 miles to swim. Meanwhile, I was actually sent a check from my daughter for a swim membership, even though it is only for a month...better than nothing.

After looking at TODAY's COLLAGE you might want to back it up to the last couple of days. The quotation marks are a big visual connection. They are actual size as found in the safe havens comic strip today, and it seemed to fit right in with the "AI" mention of the last few posts: charmed  / CERN ‚Äî /  to cern or discern .

Eat berries forbidden, stay behind a veil...leave behind a body.

No choice is too hard if it means I get to live as I truly am inside.

-Akasimova

"An Anniversary is a time to celebrate, the joys of today, the memories of yesterday, and the hopes of tomorrow."

Have a wonderful day.

Busiest day: 1,634 — Wednesday, March 7, 2007

According to my records the biggest hit. So now I see the graphs as the slope heads back down to its average 170-250. What causes all this? I'd say just pure randomness, since I rarely get comments. When I do, it's 20% good comments, 5% cocky comments and 75% that are just people complaining that I don't know what I'm talking about since I didn't win the lottery. Those are usually the harsh comments that aren't spelled out correctly and last 1 sentence and I can usually smell the halitosis from this side of the computer. The ones claiming they won the lottery and type like that, make me wonder...If you just won millions of dollars, is there really a lack of things to do besides search out lottery blogs and type like a 3rd grader on crack? So those get spammed right away. That and to date, over 80k spam comments have been blocked. There is probably 1 or 2 spam comments I let by, just for the fact they had sites associated with the lottery. Do I approve of them? Well they aren't scams as far as I know.

Winning Numbers
June 28th, 2008
Daily 3
Midday - 357
Evening - 300

Daily 4
Midday - 0189
Evening - 7291

Fantasy 5 - 03 08 16 29 35

Classic Lotto - 02 11 13 20 30 39

Extra fine melted chocolate

Double coated.

let my tongue swirl around them

Like a snake who found

The stolen apple

And caused the woman

To give birth

Meanwhile, here is my shopping list for when I have money. I must have these things as soon as I can afford them.

- Black Christian Louboutin Pumps (or maybe the Nude ones)

- Lanvin Skirt (pencil, preferably)

- Dries van Noten Dress (I fell in love after last season)

- Valextra Bag (this is thinking far into the future)

Others:

- Hermes Bag obviously (I would like to mention that my jaw dropped to the floor when K thought that the Birkin bag (as in the style) thought that Birkin was a company different from Hermes. I actually stood there, mouth agape)

- Vintage Versace gown (second-skin tight, in a vibrant color)

- Missoni Dress

- Emilio Pucci bathing suit