31/365

BUT THE SNOW IS SO DELIGHTFUL...
I'm up in the middle of the night again... I just stood at the living room window with my head up against it because it won't stop pounding... I know I probably have seven thermometers and I only found three - none of them work. I've been sick for the last couple days and my mind keeps wandering. I wish I could sit outside in a little snow globe with the snow falling down around me. It looks like glitter falling down from the sky.

~ The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

30/365

PUPPY LOVE REVISITED
I came across these pictures today on the big computer...  look how dark The Lil Bud was when she was a puppy!

And this was true RoseBud Behavior... ;-)

Here's one of Lily and Koko...

And one of my all time favorites!  I LOVE LOVE LOVE Koko's HRUMPH face!  You may have to click on it to make it larger!

29/365

GHOST WHISPERER
I went to bed not realizing that my closet door was open and it scared the hell out of me. I thought I saw someone standing in it.  I've been seeing shadows - figures - around me.   When I'm doing laundry... cooking... it's like someone is standing beside me. It may be time to get my eyes checked.  Thought this was funny... ;-)

28/365

THE LIGHT THAT SHINES
Everyone keeps telling me I look great. That makes me feel good and makes me nervous at the same time. I'm not as paranoid as you would think I would be about all of this... some days cancer doesn't even cross my mind.  Other days... it's all I think about.  Lately, I've been having a bad feeling about all of this. Like this isn't going to turn out well for some reason.  I went to visit Glo-worm yesterday and her roommate asked me again - actually three times - to help her because she was falling. Each time, I went over to reassure her she wasn't  falling out of bed and the last time she reached up and grabbed my arm and said I don't know what's going on with me. It was like some creepy movie but for some reason I felt like she was speaking for me. I don't know - I just have a weird feeling about all of this.

Anyway, I was thinking - what exactly is cancer supposed to look like?  Please, watch this video of Jill's story captured by the lovely, Australian portrait photographer of the year, Sue Bryce  - video can be viewed here.

27/365

WHAT WILL BE YOUR SPACE JAM?
We all need some inspiration and encouragement and support from time to time... the trick is to actually do something with it. This kid has some wise words. I'm passing the pep talk along - please watch this video and, if you have air coming through your nose and a heartbeat,  pass it along as well.

26/365

AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT

I have to say I'm so glad this lady exists and is ok. This is an old video but if you don't know who she is... you can click here for the video and read her story here. Love her!

25/365

THE WEATHER OUTSIDE IS FRIGHTFUL
I don't really know how to drive in the snow... I've been doing a pretty good job of it the last couple times but I think I've just been lucky. I went out in the snow today just as it was coming down.  I got further and further away and thought it was going to get better but it just got worse. It took me 45 minutes to get to the Parkway. Rodi Road was like a parking lot.

I never even made it where I needed to go. I was trying to deliver a car load of food to the Murphy's.  I had to leave it at Cara's and they picked it up there. When do you put it in 2 or 1???  Can you do that when you are in 4W Drive?  When you start spinning do you go into the spin or what??? I really needed to know that!  I have some serious googling to do. ;-)

24/365

I HEART BINDERS
Not feeling well so doing another "found on Pinterest" post... I'm forever consumed in papers!   I like this idea to organize bills and think I'm going to try it... Now can someone suggest a way to tackle receipts?? No matter what I do I have them everywhere!

23/365

ONE LOVE

22/365

THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME
I think one of my superpowers is that I can see the past in people... I feel like when I look at old people I can see what they were like when they were young. Is that weird?  It's like their whole life flashes before my eyes.  Kind of like the ghost whisperer but not.

Glo-worm moved floors tonight... her roommate now is Emily - she's 90. She totally reminded me of the milkshake lady from awhile ago. I walked in the room and her first words were please help me. I introduced myself and asked how she was and she looked at me and said I don't know.  I wanted to say - yeah, me too, Emily - but I just asked her what she needed instead. She thought she was falling out of bed but she was nowhere close to falling. This same scenario happened about 12 more times while I was in there.

It's kind of sad because I don't really think Glo needs to be in a place like this but since she has nobody to take care of her she's kind of stuck. There's some really bad people on this floor. It almost looked like  a modern day insane asylum.  Well, maybe not so modern day. Glo is slightly oblivious so I think that's a good thing. I'm not sure what's going to happen when she realizes where she is.  It's just not somewhere I would want to be so that bothers me a lot.

Anyway, saw this today... a photo series by Karsten Thormaehlen of centenarians. Thought it was adorable.  More info and photos here.

21/365

I HAVE A DREAM...

I had to get a shot of Lily watching the paw-nauguration today...

Whether you voted for him or not you have to respect the office. He's the only President Lily knows so I had to document the day - here's a photo of the First Inauguration of Obama when she was just a little puppy dog.

She liked the ottoman in front of the tv and ended up staying there most of the day.... dreaming the dreams that doggy's dream.

"We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths - that all of us are created equal - is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth."

20/365

HOW CUTE IS THIS?

I'm behind on posts here... so I'll do a quick found on Pinterest... How Cute Is This?  Drop cloth, drapery hardware and chalkboard paint = instant fireplace. Cute.

19/365

WALK WITH ME...

18/365

I HEART BUTTER

17/365

SO WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN IT RAINS?
I have no attention span whatsoever these days so watching a movie is really annoying... I tend to watch parts of movies as I'm doing something else and when I see enough to figure out what's going on I'm done.  I had Wanderlust on the other day, though, and had to on demand it to see the whole thing... I was LOLing so hard at parts I couldn't breathe.  Watch it if you can. I think it was on Cinemax.

16/365

BUDS
I posted this over on my Instagram the other day and just wanted to post it here because it's so cute!  I was cuddling with Lily this morning thinking she's so little - though she could probably be a little smaller. RoseBud looks so big in this photo.  She and Koko were pug besties!

15/365

I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS
I've been thinking about this... at what point are you just better off dead? Hence the post title. Some of you may get that. ;-)   Anyway, Glo-worm keeps telling me that she is ready to go to her new home.  With Norman... In Heaven... That there is nothing to do where she is and she would rather be dead. I told her there wasn't anything I could do about that right now and maybe she should just consider going to bingo or do some activities with others while she waits.

There's all kinds of fun things going on... trips to the Dollar Store and Dunkin Donuts... they even take them to the casino once a month.  The other day there was something called "peppermint marshmallows." I'm not really sure what that was - if they were making them or eating them, but I think I would have enjoyed that activity.  Glo said it sounded stupid. She said they are all old people that go to those things and she didn't want to.  She can't figure out how the television remote works so she basically just sits there all day doing nothing. She keeps the tv on the same channel and only watches Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune.  The only thing she will do is circle word puzzles.  She told me she was finished with the puzzle book I just brought her and I flipped through it and noticed some of them weren't done... she told me she only likes doing the ones on the right side of the page.  All of the pages on the left weren't touched.  I tore them out and put them on a clipboard. Maybe she'll do them that way. In the meantime I'm still working on getting her to go to "making cherry chiffon"on Friday.  Another one I think I might enjoy. ;-)

14/365

THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

I've been trying to get organized the last couple days and started cleaning the basement and game room. I bought this little gift set for David a long time ago...

It traveled here with me and I found it today in a bag of gifts along with a bottle of Bora Bora and a few other things that kind of got pushed aside over time... On a similar note, I figured I would post this quote since I came across this tonight...

"Each person's life is like a mandala - a vast, limitless circle.  We stand in the center of our own circle, and everything we see, hear and think forms the mandala of our life.  We enter a room, and the room is our mandala.  We get on the subway, and the subway car is our mandala, down to the teenager checking messages on her iPhone and the homeless man slumped in the corner.  We go for a hike in the mountains, and everything as far as we can see is our mandala: the clouds, the trees, the snow on the peeks, even the rattlesnake coiled in the corner.  We're lying in a hospital bed, and the hospital is our mandala.  We don't set it up, we don't get to choose what or who shows up in it.  It is, As Chogyam Trungpa said, "the mandala that is never arranged but is always complete."  And we embrace it just as it is.  Everything that shows up in our mandala is a vehicle for your awakening. From this point of view, awakening is right at your fingertips continually.  There's not a drop of rain or a pile of dog poop that appears in your life that isn't the manifestation of enlightened energy, that isn't a doorway to sacred world.  But it's up to you whether your life is a mandala of neurosis or a mandala of sanity.
(From Pema Chodron's - Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change.)

13/265

NO PEOPLE ON THE FURNITURE

12/365

I'LL TAKE INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT DAVID VENABLE FOR $500, ALEX.

We stopped to visit Glo-worm last night and had to put up with Cara being a little show off with her Jeopardy skills.  We had to put her in her place and started naming things she would fail in... We would totally kill her if the categories were things such as QVC hosts or the history of Lily Dale...  We were laughing so hard our stomachs hurt.  The nurse came and closed our door - we thought it was because we were so loud but it turned out that a guy a couple doors down died and the undertaker came to get him. Rest in peace, poor man.

Glo was talking about RoseBud so I started recording her.  My poor Lily... not like she doesn't have enough problems and abandonment issues. If she hears this she will be devastated knowing she is NOT top dog. This isn't the first time we've had this conversation with Glo!  She obviously has her favorite but I don't think Lily has any idea. ;-)  If you would like to watch, you can see the video by clicking here.

11/365

SNOWFALL FIGHT
Someone is loving these little snowballs!

10/365

FIESTA TREES
I got the mugs last year and now these... I know they have to go right to storage but I love them.

9/365

THEY CALL ME THE WANDERER... YEAH THE WANDERER...
I don't think I ever posted this one from last week.  We went to visit Glo-worm and saw this on her door...

The nurse was out in the hall so I asked her what happened - she said they have a wanderer!  I was just about to apologize thinking it was HER when she told me this man was wandering the halls and was going in other rooms. We found out later it was the same guy we saw the first night... He was walking down the hall in only a diaper. Nothing else.  Glo was telling me and Cara and Chrissy the story - she said he was standing over her bed and scared the hell out of her and she just looked at him and thought to herself - I'm 84 and I'm going to get raped NOW!!!

I'm not entirely sure how this stops him from coming in but Glo thinks she can't go out. ;-)

8/365

SOMETIMES...
Sometimes the most random things remind me of something and it's hard to catch my breath.

This may just be a photo of bricks painted like books or a set of painted steps to some..

...for some reason I saw these two pins right next to each other and was transported right back to Dixon House - to the futon with the cherry popsicle on the night of the first miscarriage... on the couch watching Wall-E after the second one... and alone for the third. They were like little snapshots flickering in my mind. Even I think that's a little weird.  Maybe it's because, after my shot this afternoon, now BOTH sides of my stomach are hurting! ;-)  Maybe it's because my old home has been on my mind. I'm sure the memories will fade as time goes by, but sometimes they are as close as can be.

7/365

BURNING UP
I had to go here today...

I'm good with most things medical but I can definitely say that that is one speciality I would never want to go into.  My burn is nothing compared to some... I can't imagine how terrible it would be to be burned all over. The doctor peeled off all the dead skin and checked out and cleaned my little boo boo and said it would be 6-12 months before it was completely healed. That messes things up a bit considering I'm due for a shot in my belly tomorrow on - guess which side???  Yes, the lovely red side!

I've been studying the burn like a Rorschach test... I see a frowny face in there and a skull and a slight resemblance to the female reproductive system at the bottom. And if you use the non burnt spot above the "uterus" as a nose there's a cute little guy taking a nap. Can you see his eyes? I can. ;-)

6/365

SNAP HAPPY
I started this blog as a Project 365/ Photo A Day in 2010... I don't know what it's turned into since but here we are today! There are a lot of Photo A Day challenges/Instagram projects going on... I decided to take on a few this year... 6 days in and I'm already behind so I have a little catching up to do! ;-)  If you would like to join a community of photographers, artists, mom(and dad)togs and other creatives in documenting your every day life - please do!   These are the ones I will be participating in this year on My Instagram...

Clickin Mom's CM GLIMPSE

Fat Mum Slim's PHOTO A DAY

Design Aglow's PROJECT365...

5/365

I DIDN'T CHOOSE THE PUG LIFE ~ THE PUG LIFE CHOSE ME

4/365

BFF AWARD GOES TOO...
Chrissy! For meeting me in the parking lot of my doctor's office for the handoff of papers we were up all night filling out and hand delivering them by the deadline while I was getting bandaged up!

3/365

SLEEPING WITH THE FISHES
Impromptu sleepover at Rudy's house...

2/365

WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF

1/365

DAY ONE