Flowers with red background by ~Mugwart-the-orc on deviantART

It's gonna be a rougher week than I thought. Took eldest to take driving test today and... she did not pass. Now Hubby and I are supposed to be at Pentacon this weekend and she is supposed to work all week end Something has got to give. We cannot be at 2 places, 2.5 hours apart at the same time. She has to wait a week to take her test over...

First up, the Mr's computer...
Well the power supply did go wonky and took out the motherboard from what I understand. *sigh* Right now he is using his laptop as a main computer and has ordered some sort of shell so that he can still use the hard drives off the old computer as a sort of external hard drive. I will assume that a new desktop will be ordered soon? It's always something here...

My truck is going to financially kill me. Now the exhaust system has started getting, well um, rumblier. I know, it's 12 years old and how long can a muffler last? That truck oughta be glad I love it right now...

Been spending a little more time over at another website, the Deviant Art Community. I have decided to set up a "blog/art show" there and see if I get very many responses to my art work before I start putting too much time or thought into trying to turn it into a cash business (not that that my art would ever generate much cash flow for me). http://mugwart-the-orc.deviantart.com/

feeling a bit down right now -am gonna blame it on this blasted rainy weather, and the fact that I have my eldest underfoot 24/7. I love my kids, I really do but I love having ME time also. Between her and her "best friend" (her ex- boyfriend *sigh*) I wanna hut something most days. I think I need a job just to get away from the family... anyone want to hire me?

I'll stop now...

Survived StormCon2, didn't kill anyone (or anyone's characters though I tried...). Fun was had by all. I think there are a couple of pictures on my phone but I haven't got them off yet. Will try to do that soon...

Leading into StormCon started a whirlwind. On the Tues. before the con, we met our new minister for the first time and I finally found out what his sermon series was going to be. Luckily the senior pastor was preaching at the Y so I just had to get another person to set up things we already had for that Sunday since I would be at StormCon. Got home late Sunday night and started on things early Monday morning. Had to - I was leaving again for my sister's house on Thursday and wouldn't be back until late Saturday. Spent three days pulling together what I usually do in 2 weeks, and off to my sister's house to go with her, mom, and some ladies from her church to a Women of Faith Conference. Of course, the things I hoped my kids would do before they left for Church camp were not done while I was gone.... *sigh* So today is catch up day - catch my breath, mow the yard (luckily the rain held off or I would be bailing the back yard), and such. I think I need a maid - the dog hair in this house is out of control. I hate house work - literally.

Anyway, this is more of post to remind anyone around that yes I do still exist, and Yes I do still think of this blog. Just not every day...

I have soooo much to do today and I spent a large part of the day fighting a migrane. Need less to say, not much is done yet. and tomorrow we leave to get a head start on StormCon.... I haven't even gather up all the Dragonstorm stuff let alone packed... GAH!

Today was my eldest's last of work - her internship is over. As much as I hated being the chaufeur, now I will have her underfoot here at the house also. Good thing I will be gone this weekend and next... Next weekend I will be going to a Women of Faith Conference with my sister and mother. Poor hubby will have to shift for himself and the kids. He will probably enjoy it....

I have been busy with graduation stuff - my eldest is now a graduate from high school. I can no longer look forward to sending her back to school come next fall and I'm not sure of her plans for college (community college). Please pray with me that I do not loose my temper too much and that she actually gets a job that gets her out from under my feet. Right now I really miss having the daytime for ME - this having people around 24/7 has gotten old fast.

ON a brighter note, I have brought home the posters I did for the last sermon series at church - the series was on prayer. I thought they turned out rather well considering my lack of formal art training (as anyone who regularly checks in on me would recognize anyway). Please excuse the fact that one of the pictures seems to have been half darkened - this appeared in the photo only and I'm not sure why...

Currently I am working on stuff for next Sunday. I should have started this weeks ago but alas, graduation and family got in the way...

On weds. received call that mom was being admitted to hospital. She was having "heart flutters" as she calls them. Local hospital gives meds to bring her BP down, then she had an erratic pulse swinging every where from 30 to slightly over 60 (isn't a pulse of 60 good for an 82 yr. old?). Local hospital finally gets that somewhat stable and transfers her to a larger regional hospital with heart drs. (including the one mom uses) on staff. Mom spends Weds, and Thurs. at the regional hospital, she show no signs of any problems there. When we talk with her. Dr. on Thurs. morning, he has no idea what happened since she was fine at the regional hospital. Regional hospital had asked the local hospital to sent all the data they had on mom's heart... local hospital cannot send it because THEY CANNOT FIND IT! I'm mad. Anything the dr. does to prevent this from happening again is just a guess at this point - she is 82 years old and on enough meds to kill a horse already. What we came away from this with is a heart monitor implanted in her chest to record such events as they happen for the next three years... this is not the first time mom has had the fluttering but it is the first time anyone caught any of it on record and THEY LOSE IT! God as my Witless, that hospital has got to at very least issue an apology...

Working out in the yard today and notice that my blackberries have blooms! My mouth is already starting to water! Moved on to the back yard to mow... those who read this regularly (or as regularly as I post) know that I have two dogs. Before mowing the back yard, I gotta go pick up the doggie by-products, the crap so to speak. Reached for what I thought was a pile of crap in the middle of a tall clump of grass and it moved. I had me a big ole toad! In the 20+ years we have lived in this house, I have never had a toad before. Since I didn't want to mow him, I had to move him and he liked his tall clump of grass. I think it would have been easier to herd a bunch of cats than to get that toad out of the back yard

So as you can see I still exist, haven't had to dip into the bail fund yet (Eldest daughter has me hovering over it tho), and still have Crazy Lady's youngest here as a house guest(?) *sigh* At least it is not raining...

I have been invaded! Crazy Lady's youngest daughter is staying with us. Crazy lady is still in Jail but her husband has failed to pay the electricity bill, FOR MONTHS! So DP&L shut off the lights. No electricity at their place so my eldest offers to let her stay with us... without a consult first. Of course this is the week I get sick and the Mr. is off on a business trip... to warm sunny Florida. (I'm stuck in cloudy, rainy, cold Ohio. Life ain't fair I tell ya, life ain't fair!) The number of dishes has increase, the kid's room is once again an EPA superfund site waiting to be discovered, and I can't keep up with the number of towels we are suddenly going through. I can't seem to get anything done either....

after 2 days of staring at the same wall, all the paper is gone. No more stripey flowers; no more of the 50's looking bunnies, duckies, puppies and chickies that were scarily lurking under the stripey flowers (and would NOT DIE) ; and most of all NO MORE WALL PAPER PASTE! Tomorrow should be a day for sanding the joint compound now filling (I hope) all the holes, then priming the walls. Maybe the end is insight... or maybe I'll have to live with the disaster area from the room now residing all over the rest of the house...

I have converted the kids good and proper - they both swear that they will never ever put up wall paper in any house they should ever buy. They agree that there should be a special place in the Abyss for people who put up wall paper badly. And they both want to make lots of money to hire people to do this work rather than ever having to do it again. Until they move out, I'll bet this is the last time I have to do any decorating in that room. Hehehehehehe......

There should be a special place in the Abyss reserved for those who put up wall paper without properly preparing the wall first. This has been an all morning thing and there is only paper on one wall of this room. ARGGGGHHHHH!!! I have said it since the first time I ever had to help my mom put up wall paper back home - I will NEVER use wall paper in any home I use. Unfortunately, we bought a house that is full of it. I just wait almost 10 years between rooms in the hopes that it will just fall down on its own. I hate wall paper!

Did I mention that Its spring break and this is the kids room? The room that looks like an EPA cleanup site waiting to be found? They have been helping...

I am a mean mom. The eldest is having trouble motivating herself to making time to get her hours in toward getting her drivers license. She claims that if we buy her a car, she will be more motivated. I claim that I am not going to buy a car, have it sit and still pay payments and insurance on it with no one to legally drive it. Today I get an email where I could register to win a Camaro from Jimmie Johnson, my favorite NASCAR driver. Right now I can hear the screaming if a miracle should happen, I win the Camaro, and then tell her she is not allowed to drive it since it is from Jimmie. For some reason I entertain thoughts like that. I am a mean mom.

Well, I found the story I started to write how many years ago? I know I hadn't touch it it in at least a year. Spent the last few days rereading it and cleaning up some little typos and wording problems I missed the last umpteen times I went through it (and in a year I will find more, I'm sure). So I guess I'm back to writing for the short term. We'll see home long it lasts this time. It will be miracle if it ever gets finished, let alone if it ever should be published (taking bets? that's a long shot there folks).

Life goes on here in the messy little hut. Hubby is traveling alot for work, the kids are still getting on my nerves, and my mind keeps inventing projects that will never get started let along finished. Social life is almost nil, every time I think I am going to get to go out with real life adults (as opposed the adult wanna-bees that I used to work with), the social event gets canceled. I am supposed to go out to play DS tomorrow, but am waiting on the game to be canceled once again. I think it will only happen on a night that I cannot make it at this point. *sigh*

as I have to play chauffeur to kids tonight and still have no clear direction as to where or when. Youngest is a bit easier since the where is the local high school but the when is still up in the air... eldest is where and when. *sigh* I did google the school she is heading to for a choir contest but once I get there the where in the school is a problem-as well as the when to leave. she has to head out right after the choir performance in order to get to a job.*sigh*

And it's cold here again - what happened to that 70 degree weather we just had? I adjusted to it faster than I am adjusting back to this near freezing or below stuff. I think I am getting old...

The eldest daughter had a finger swell up around her nail for no apparent reason. Since it was not going down, I took her to the Drs. today. Of course, being not a scheduled well in advance trip, we saw the Dr. available rather than our regular dr. This dr. Looked at the finger, listened to the story then, without any tests pronounced that Eldest had a staff infection (note - she did NOT say the eldest had the resistant strain). She proceeded to o send us off with a pamphlet for MRSA and some 'scripts for sulpha drugs.

*sigh* of course what makes this really aggravating is the fact that Hubby is out of town on business and I have developed a "I really don't need to breathe" type of cold. In one way the cold is good, I can't smell the bleach solution that is to be sprayed around as I clean this house. Have I ever mentioned that I hate cleaning? I'm sure I have...

NO school today, even the air force base was closed. We got about 2 inches yesterday, then last night I heard the telltale sound of sleet hitting on the flue of the furnace. There had to be another 4 inches of snow on top of that. The county was under a level 2 emergency which is the first in a long time. Our county usually does not bother with stuff like that.

We at least got the kids out to shovel our drive...

I forgot my camera to take with me to church this morning. I guess I gotta get more prepared on a Saturday night before leaving the house for our weekly D&D game... so I tried taking pictures with the cell phone camera. My Cell phone does not like the lights at the Y Gym (which we use as a sanctuary...) *sigh* Close ups(when too close to get the whole effect of things) worked but a long shot did not.



The current Sermon series is on love and marriage. The book/study guide that the ministers are using had a picture of a couple sitting on a park bench under a tree at a seaside park on its cover. That was the effect I was trying to create. SO, I built two "park benches"; created 2 couples from paper mache, cloth, and yarn; painted up 2 poster boards to look like sky and ocean; and created some trees for them to se under. Those poor basket ball hoops are loaded down with stuff...



I did get some other things done this week... I got DragonStorm events Submitted for the University of Toledo's con, BashCon, in February. I finally sent emails off on other stuff I had been ignoring. The dogs are fed and there is food and clean clothes in the house. Bad news... I have to work this Friday evening so will not be making the bi-weekly DragonStorm game. *sigh* I guess that is my payment for getting tonight off....

Now to get other things done. The oldest got into a technical school (and an expensive one at that...). Maybe she will give up on going into the Marines now - she had been talking with the recruiter. Not that there is anything wrong with the Marines, mind you, but She is a bit lazy, headstrong, and really doesn't take direction (let alone yelling) very well. I'm not sure she would survive in any type of military bootcamp environment. But this means I gotta get started on paperwork stuff and I hate paperwork stuff. Its always something.

I finally got the few pictures I took in West Virginia off my phone... I was half way to work on the Monday night of the trip when I remembered that my camera was still sitting on the computer at home. Since I have never used the camera portion of the phone before I did not think to use it very much on the trip and then had to have my kids tell me how to get the pics off. I am such a technical person... *sigh*

The above picture is from the New River Gorge area. It is such a beautiful place, I could go back and see more of it. The problem with a bus tour is that all your time is planned, there is not enough time to really look at what you want to look at and then more time than you need at other stops. But since I got to spend time with my Mom, it was worth it.


This is a ball room at the Greenbrier Resort. I just had to take this picture because I didn't think that anyone I regularly associate would ever believe me that there exists a room for public use that is this pink. Have I ever mentioned before that pink is NOT my favorite color? Probably not... I don't think this is a room I would ever want to use but for those who DO like the color, have fun!

Am now getting to play DragonStorm on a bi-weekly basis. This is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. I hope that the rest of the group will agree... And on the subject of DS, I guess it is time to start planning senarios again. Pentacon is coming and they want write ups for the pre-reg book by Sept. 5th. That is not that far away!

Spent yesterday at my Aunt and Uncle's place in Southern Indiana. They had invited the whole family (all the cousins, in-laws, out-laws and associated others) to a hotdog roast for the day. It was nice to see the family as I had not seen many of then for over a year. We have spread out over the midwest to such a point that getting all of us together is near impossible! I hope to get the pics off the camera (Yes I remembered it this time) soon but I'm feeling a little lazy about that today...

Don't really feeling getting into everything right now so will leave this alone for now. Hope all have had a good Labor Day weekend!

Monday night drove from Dayton to Richmond In. for work then on to my mom's place in the southern part of Indiana. Actually arrived there about 3:00 am Tues. morning. Mom was awake as I suspected and I made the mistake of telling her it was getting foggy out. *sigh* She got me back up at 4:30 so we could get back to the "big town" of the county to catch the bus for the tour. Bus was to leave at 6:15, we arrived at 5:15. I really could have used the extra sleep...

Tour was to West Virginia, first stop was the New River Gorge area. To be more precise, the first stop was the New River Gorge Bridge, the world's second longest (and second highest) single span bridge. (China built a bridge that topped it in both categories with in a year of the WV bridge's completion) We then ate at what was billed as a "premiere dining location on the rim of the New River Gorge". If that place is a "premiere dining location" then they must have only been talking scenery. The food was barely so-so. I think they need to send the chef back to culinary school.

Day two, was a tour of "the Bunker" at Greenbrier resort. This was a cold war secret installation that has been featured on shows such as "Cities of the Underworld". It would have been nice to have a tour of the resort also as it was a very beautiful place but that was not to be. We dined there for lunch, the food was not as good as I expected for somewhere that serves Presidents, and the rich upper crust of the world. They do run a culinary school (the premiere dining location of the day before should pay attention here) so maybe we were the test subjects of their students? Anyway, unless you have made your first millions, do not expect to stay there due to financial concerns.

The afternoon of day town was spent shopping ( a tour of mostly elderly women and no shopping? perish the though...) at a local place that featured local artisans. If nothing else, the prices those people where asking for their wares just told me I really need to find a was to market my own.... The shopping excursion was followed by a play at an amphitheater which told the history of WV becoming a state. This theater was also part of the New River Park system and we got to see an over look of the New river Gorge while talking to a park ranger before the play.

day three was travel back home (or at least back to Indiana) with a stop at Carter Caves State park in Kentucky for lunch. That was the best food I had on the trip. Guess it proves I'm a simple girl with simple tastes as the breaded deep fried catfish and blackberry cobbler were great. Once Back to mom's place I loaded up the truck and drove back to Ohio. I'm still catching up on sleep...

For the first time since Storm Con I am alone in this house. No hubby, no kids, just me and the dogs. *Yea!* Perhaps I can get something done without someone under foot... Probably not but it is a good thought. Unfortunately I have laundry to do as the kids stuff from church camp still has bits and pieces to wash as well as the new school clothes they got on Saturday.

I really just want to veg out in front of the tv and enjoy the morning but that ain't gonna happen. Crazy Lady from down the street will call or something. I can't go 2 straight days without her calling and asking for something. She never calls just cuz I'm such a good person to be around, only if she needs something and that's everyday anymore. Now that her mother died (Funeral was last Tues, THAT'S a story!) I figure that she will call even more. Even though her mother was in a nursing home, somehow Crazy Lady from Down the Street managed to get her mother's SS check each month to spend and now that will be gone unless she found a way to lie about that one too... How do I collect these people?

Will be going to mom's after work tonight. She managed to get me tickets on a bus trip she is taking. Another Lady had to cancel out do to illness in her family. I had already agreed to work tonight so I will leave as soon as work is over. Have to catch the bus at 6:00 am tomorrow, will be a short night for sleeping!

I did actually write a bit on that story I've been working on for over a year. *sigh* It will never be done... so much for becoming a famous author. Yeah, right - HARHARHAR!

I am still here and finally finished the banners for the next sermon series at church. I can now write thanks/thank you in 20 different languages (I hope) assuming that I have my list with me. Of course that means that the next Sermon Series is entitled "Thanks"



It is amazing the languages I found on the 'net when searching for this project. I found a site that had some of the common words in Aleut, another had Jicarella Apache, a third had Quecha - a language from tribes in the Andes, etc. I did ignore most of the Asian languages as well as Arabic... Those used a very different alphabet/symbolism from the Roman/Cyrillic/Greek I'm used to that I was afraid I would put a curve or a line in the wrong place and endup with a word that was NOT what I wanted! (That could be bad for a church service)



This project has taken most of my free time and a lots of Painters tape! LOL! I really hope it is what the minister wanted...



Still having migraines and am definitely sure they are related to work by now. They always occur after I have had to work more than three hours on an assignment for work. I wish they would go away. However, If gas prices keep going up, I will not be able to afford this job as I have to drive all over the county and rarely work right here in my own little suburb. *sigh*

Eldest Daughter is finally giving up on getting her BF back I think. This morning she took down all her "I love *" signs she had drawn and posted all over her room. This should make her roomie (Youngest Daughter) a bit happier...

Greetings from chilly Ohio!

Coming off of 3 straight days of late night work and 2 days of migraines. I'm still alive but barely...

Eldest and Boyfriend are still "BFF" but I think that is going away soon. She is so mad at him because things have changed and she doesn't want things to change. She says he has changed... Worse part is all my free time has been in alterations to a prom dress that may not be worn now. To late, I can't take it back to the store at this time. *sigh*

Hoping to be done with the dress and start the next set of projects for the Church today. I seem to be itching to get that paintbrush back in my hand. Still have to work tomorrow night so that will kill a portion of tomorrow and friday, but then sweet time off for most of next week! If I didn't feel like I need that dang paycheck...

Stay warm out there...