Store design ideas?

So some of you know I have a cafepress store. Right now it is a bit boring. Mostly work related designs. I want to expand that obviously. It is the Blue Collar Boutique after all so I want it to have designs for life, it does but not many. I want a lot of designs aimed more towards this aspect of my life. Shooting, survival, planning, and the evil zombie apocalypse for good measure hehehe. So any ideas? Something you guys would love to see on a shirt or mug or something but have never been able to find? I have a file of sayings and such to put up but none really centered on this type of thing. As long as it is not a trademarked phrase or copywrited body of work and the like I can design it.

I am open to ideas!!

Where's the gun? - Southern Nevada Style

Inspired by Weerd Beard and his "Gun Death" pieces I decided to do some here but mine are going to just be stories from southern Nevada. Help people see how even a small area can be full of violent non-gun violence against each other. I could go back and do some of the major cases since we have been here but I like keeping my lunch. Of course this first one is not exactly good at keeping the food down.

Investigators say godmother beat baby with metal pipe:

Investigators are revealing new information on how 14-month-old Dyon Johnson was allegedly abused and murdered by her godmother, Mariann Harris.

Southern California authorities booked 23-year-old Harris on a fugitive warrant late Wednesday night after Harris fled Las Vegas for a relative's home in Victorville, Calif.

After the baby's August 12 death, there was speculation about how the infant suffered the blunt force trauma that caused her death.

Investigators now say they believe it had nothing to do with a fall, but rather a metal bar that Harris used to strike the little girl.

According to court documents, the paramedics that arrived to Harris' apartment home noticed the child was cold, had glossy eyes, and had probably been dead for some time. Once at the hospital, doctors noticed Dyon was covered in bruises around her face, head and collar bone.

Disgusting nasty woman. I am so glad she was caught despite running. Of course this isn't a death to rally against though right because it isn't violent enough? Please people. The filth of humanity is going to find a way with or without a gun. I know many laugh at the saying but face the facts- Guns do NOT kill people, PEOPLE kill people and will continue to do so no matter what laws you put in place.A  criminal is labeled that for the pure and simple fact they have no regard for law!

Our favorite famale survivalist has a fiction book on Amazon!!

Brawny finished her book. I have to admit to some major pride despite having done not a thing but cheer her on. I love seeing someone do something amazing and she has done that. She has done that in a much more courageous way than I. So go to Amazon and download her Kindle ebook A Measured Response (End Of Days). Survival, apocalypse, battles, danger. You know you want to!!

First day of school!

My sweet Bug and the teenagers started school today. Niece is a junior and may even try to graduate early. She hasn't really decided. Nephew is in 8th grade. Last year of middle school. Some days he seems so much older and others so young but that is often the case with boys his age on the cusp of manhood. Bug is entering 4th grade. She is now in the upper echelon of school. Those years feel sweet and I want her to enjoy and savor them. The picture is her being silly. I am so proud of her and the young lady she is. All of them are pretty great.

Poor Monkey was pretty sad to see all the kids leave today. She wanted to follow Nephew out the door and cried when we dropped Bug off. Being back to hanging out with just me is not her favorite thing. I am a little sad too. They finally seem to get that this is their home and so all of them have been really great lately.

Well here is hoping the year is great and we can have lots of good grades and happy days.

Canned!

No, I didn't get fired. You have to have a paying job in order to get fired. Everything I do, I do as a volunteer.

I am trying to work up the ambition to do some canning today. I have a huge amount of green beans that need to be processed. I also have several large cucumbers that I am thinking about turning into relish. They are too big for pickles so dill relish it is. I have eight tomatoes with five or so more that will be ready tomorrow. My jalapeno plant is producing pretty well...for it's size. My peppers were really small plants this year and i didn't get much off them. I think I will have to buy some peppers but I plan on making salsa once my tomatoes really get going. If I get enough, I also want to do spaghetti sauce, tomato sauce and stewed tomatoes. Hrmmm, I might have to buy more tomatoes too, lol.

I had a bunch of peas I was going to can...but I ate them. The corn is alive with bees so we should get a good harvest there as well. My cucumbers are going to go bonkers here in about a week (?). The onions are getting really big too. I am going to have tons of fun with the garden this year. My kitchen is most likely going to look like a war zone from now until November though. Oh well, Hubby will just have to get over it. Think a loaf of zucchini bread will help?

Birthday fun with Lila!

Today is my 29th birthday! Yay me! Last night my awesome other half took me on a date. We went to a movie. I chose "One Day" because I adore Anne Hathaway. The story also seemed interesting. Of course I had never read the book. I ended up crying my eyes out. Way too emotional of a movie for birthday fun.

Today I was presented with my gifts. All sorts of fun Browning pink & camo stuff for my Durango. Very cute. The pink is also not so overwhelming that my guy hates to drive it. I love it. My seats were getting just a little sunfaded and I was worrying about it. Leave it to my guy to think about the solution in a way I love.

We wanted to shoot today but of course we are under heat advisory and thunderstorm warning. The heat and wet is oppressive and the clouds are ominous in their rolling black waves. Our club is not quite done with the indoor range yet. Sooo home we stay. Eh. I have movies, chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream, and my brother in law is making a yummy dinner. Life is good.

* yes that is me in the reflection taking the pic!

The Onion say huh??

I know that The Onion is very often beyond sarcastic. Some of their humor I enjoy some I look at and feel like I missed a joke and some I just sit back and go "Huh?" The post of the young farmers son begging the country to stop trying to save small family farms because he really didn't want to work hard for little reward made me giggle a bit I admit. I can see a rebellious teen thinking some of those things. The article on publicists agreeing that celebrities were not famous enough got an eye roll. This one made me fell into the final group of "Huh?" responses. Paypal Founder To Create Island. Island nations for the Libertarian crazies. Guns left in a pile in the middle, A non-functioning but symbolic debt count of 0, and every so often an arbitrary tax on the entire population to get riled up about and make life meaningful. Ooooookkkkkaaaayyyyy...........

Yes I did my research and know that this is an actual plan. Or some of it is like the island nation with looser gun regs and less government input. Good on you.

My issue with The Onion thing is that it makes it seem like Libertarian = dumb hillbilly gun loving illiterate. Not really humorous like they are known to be but more a way to make anyone who even thinks along libertarian lines look stupid.

As too the plan itself. Nifty idea in concept but when you are creating a floating environment like this i just see issues from a basic living standpoint. Islands are great, even tiny ones, but you aren't worried the thing is going to sink due to human error. Add that is is a little hard to practice certain skills that a lot of us enjoy on a manufactured island with no minimum wage and I see disaster. Anybody remember Waterworld?

Shotgun shopping as a woman is suspicious??

Luckily my very hot other half does not read blogs so I can vent a bit. We, like most of us who are preparing for a bleaker future, have a list of things we wish to acquire. We have several rifles. We each have a handgun we thoroughly enjoy. With my darlings birthday around the corner I decided to start on the shotgun list. Our guns, our home, our list. The first shotgun honestly is more mine than his in the sense that it will be an aid in home protection on top of my 9mm and I am the one home more often but I know he will get a kick out of the purchase. Anyway, so really doesn't matter who buys it to us as they are ours. Blah.


So I went to a nearby sporting goods store. They had the lowest price. My brother in law put in some money since I was buying it earlier than expected. He helped me figure out exactly what 12 gauge we wanted because since I am still learning and we have never had one it is Greek to me. I walked in and made my request. Mossberg 500 12 Gauge with a 28" barrel. Well the guy and the female clerk he was flirting with (both Hispanic, maybe it was because I was a scary white chick?) perk up and he asks what model. I then say, "Umm.... Let me look at his text." (BIL had sent me a text days earlier helping me to know what to price search) Guy goes all weird and says, "I am sorry we are out, I can't sell to you." I respond, "Which is it? You don't have one or you can't sell to me?" He then proceeds to tell me to leave and that my looking at a text message from someone out of the store indicates to him that I am purchasing the gun for someone else and thus trying to buy and then pass on a weapon in an illegal manner. WTF?? I explained that my BIL was the expert and I was not and I was taking his advice on what to purchase for my own protection. Didn't matter, government regulations and I needed to leave. Wow.


Suffice it to say I went to the store I prefer anyway where my favorite guy was at the counter and got what I wanted without issue. He is a nice older man and he helped Santa with the great rifle for Bug at christmas.


I really love that my little 5'4" self looks like an evil suspicious villain. Maybe I should cast me as the bad guy of my next book just to shake things up. Dumbnuts.

50 Followers!!!!

So we are a bit horrible about celebrating the usual milestones. Blogiversaries and hitcounts and the like but this one just made me so tickled I had to share. We hit 50 followers. Sure I imagine quite a few gave up on us in our slump faze. I forgive them. But hello 50 is a pretty nifty number! (Yes there are 52 but Gracie and I don't count, haha.) So woop woop!! Thank you to everyone who reads us. Comment!! We love it and try very hard to respond when you do.  I know for me it makes me feel a little less lonely. Being home with my kids and the stories in my head can be a bit isolating at times. Add that our area is very transient and my health is so cruddy and I am not a very outgoing person and you are stuck with a pretty shy chick. You guys make me feel a lot less like the wall flower! Oh and I even added a cool little facebook button over there in our sidebar to my facebook so anyone who wants to can friend me there. I admit I am not on it much though lol though I plan to be more as I get my writing out there!! So anyway back to the purpose of this! You guys rock!! Thanks again for making us hit the beautiful 5-0 mark!

Bad news/ Fabulous news and great new friends!!!!

I am a kick me and then lift me up girl so bad news first. I seem to be in a lovely flare due to our record heat. Yay me!! It sucks tush. Trying to get the 3 kids that go to school back on decent sleeping schedules for school monday adds stress and my previous post about family drama added stress. So I hurt. Boo.

Now to the FABULOUS NEWS!!! We have been BLACKLISTED. I know. Pretty cool right? Okay so if you are not on the list or your do not read the blogs on the list you probably think that I am in a Fibromyalgia induce brain fog and have completely lost my marbles. You would be wrong, teehehehe. See that pretty image over there -----> that says The Gun Blog Black List? Click it. My awesome friend North made this list. Basically a play on the fact that the anti-gun fun haters stalk us gun happy hillbilly dummies and talk about black listing our evil ways. So now there is a black list. A finer bunch of bloggers you will not meet....err....read, hehe. So go check out the list that we have been included on despite our newbie ways. Click around. You will find some great people there!!

Now for the new friends. I added some more links to our ever growing blogroll as well. I added a few and am sure I have forgotten who all I added but I do know I added Matt's blog Troublesome Times finally. We have another of his blogs up but this one is where he is at these days!!. We also have TinCan writing from Nine Pound Sledge Hammer. His wife has FMS like me and he writes a good blog. Very neat guy! Also got Tam's frequent partner in crime up on The Adventures of Roberta X. Red Woman is a fabulous read out of Oregon and her pics make me miss the PNW. Finally Tales From The Clothesline is awesome. A prepping mom that Stephen introduced me too. Fabulous writer!!

What a week!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I had one heck of a week last week. We went out of state to pick up some hay to bring back and sell. I spent one whole day bucking hay and sacking it. I then spent the evening in the ER suffering from extreme heat stroke. All of my bodily functions were shutting down, I was low on oxygen, all minerals and of course dehydrated. After a few hours and several liters of fluid, they sent me home with instructions to stay hydrated and out of the heat.

On the way home we blew a tire on our trailer in construction. It took us an hour and a half to find a tire shop that would sell us a replacement. We finally got on our way...until a loud thumping noise woke me and all of the kids. We pulled over to discover that the tread had separated on the rear tire of our truck and completely obliterated our rear fender. It somehow managed to miss the new exhaust we had just put on the truck.

Luckily we were only a few miles from a rest stop, so we limped in and put on the spare. It was of course almost flat. We limped on into the next town and got it aired up at a rest stop. We finally made it home sometime in the early morning hours.

The next day we took the hay to a friends house who was buying it. On the way out of her yard, the transmission went out in the truck. Seriously.

We sold the three tons of hay for $450. Half of that is to be sent to my father in law (it was his hay). That means we keep $225. That will ALMOST cover the deductible to fix the body damage to the truck. That does not come even close to covering the hospital bill, the $700+ in tires or the new transmission we will now have to replace in the truck.

Can't get any worse, right? Wrong.

I found out that my oldest son is allergic to bees. He is now the proud owner of two Epipens. I give up, I am ready to just sleep for a week.

Revolver or rifle? How about both?

Yup how about both? I recently posted that my BIL bought a gun. Not just any gun. He bought a Circuit Judge made by Taurus. Yeah honestly I think the idea of a revolver in a rifle just fascinated that kid in side as it really serves no purpose to expand the list of protection weapons. Will it kill a bad guy? I am sure. Shooting 410/45 Colt rounds can do that. But it isn't very practical. Of course BIL is far ahead of us in his stash so practical isn't always the top thing in his mind, haha. He is in love. I think it is funny how he and J.W. both look like little boys in a candy store. I swear they might actually be worse than that. It is cute. They hope to go and play with it next weekend. This weekend he is playing with it by scoping it and getting it just right with a sling and all. I swear if he won the lottery he might not notice.

Well that is a way to try to use the law in a bad way.

Found this lovely Nevada news article. A dad doesn't like his daughter's boyfriend and asks him to leave the property. Boyfriend refuses. Dad shoots him dead.  Fabulous. The anti-gun people are going to get so up in arms over this case. Having been pretty unclear over our location before except for saying the desert I will say we are in southern Nevada AND news like this makes me mad. It gets the entire area riled up over gun rights. As it is we finally made some headway over some stupid permit rules requiring you to qualify with every semi-auto you plan to carry concealed. If you wanted to carry it you had to bring it in and pass a shoot test. However revolvers were considered one thing so you only had to qualify with 1 revolver. That was recently changed so now we only need one qualifier for semi-auto and 1 qualifier for revolver. Soooooo back to topic. Here OC is not a good idea especially in the cities. Police have a shoot first ask questions later mentality. If it is a gun on a person it must mean that person is a criminal bent on wickedness so we better shoot them. I swear we have an officer involved shooting once a week just in Las Vegas. The surrounding areas aren't a ton better. Going to be interesting to see how this plays out.

**Another article, this one from the major paper of the area. I found the comments to be interesting. This one is very much going to create ripples for the area. I also want to say that if my post seems in anyway heartless it is not meant to be so. Maybe my feelings aren't displayed well but just from the facts given it seems that the dad used the fact that he told the boyfriend to leave and he didn't as an excuse to use deadly force. He used the fact that he could technically call him a trespasser as a reason to shoot.  Not knowing anything but the slim details given it looks like stone cold murder that he hoped to hide behind trespassing. That is what makes me mad. We are not a Castle Doctrine state though prosecution is rare when the resident has cause to use deadly force. This still doesn't seem to fall into that type of scenario. 

** More details. This case is looking horrible.

Some great advice for women.

If Women of Caliber isn't on your blog list and you are new to firearms and female it should be. Kellene Bishop is fabulous at providing info in a no-nonsense way. She posted a great post today after an pretty crappy event occurred in Salt Lake last night. An armed man went to rob a gas station attached to a grocery store. When the clerk said they had no money he sent the clerk into the store for some giving the clerk time to call 911. Then a woman drove up to buy gas. He not only robbed her but he forced her to drive him to another location where he sexually assaulted her and then forced her to yet another location to drop him off. Kellene uses this event to discuss ways to protect yourself in a similar situation with or without a firearm. It is a very good read.

Yay!!! Writing is going great!

So I have now got 63,456 words edited on my book. I have 4 chapters left to go and then it is done. Yay. I put up the first 10 chapters of the new version on my website here if anyone cares to read it. Yes it is romantic suspense but I am pretty darn proud of it. I know some of you read the old version posted there. That was easily 5 years old. I think the new version shows where my writing growth has come in and where my own personal confidence is coming in as well.

Now to decide if I want to try an find an agent again as soon as this book is done or if I wait and submit after I get my other completed book finished. Or even further do I get the two books floating in my head finished as well first. I plan to do that by the end of the year, February at the latest. If I have all 4 that shows all of my genres and my writing depth to it's fullest I guess. Hmmmm...... so many decisions.

Can't send them to the gun store!

Yesterday was Nephew's 13th birthday. Poor kid has had some bum luck.

Our original plan had been to make the drive to Utah and go to a county fair with family. J.W. and I take our girls every year and love it. The day starts with a lunch of fair food. You can't be at a fair without fair food. Then we visit all the exhibits and animals. Once the carnival opens we do that for a while. Then the fun. Demolition Derby. This is very much a highlight of the year for the county and it often sells out and is a major thing. We love it!

Plans were dashed. Tuesday we found out J.W. was going to have to work through the weekend making it impossible for him to attend. Then Wednesday Nephew was biking to his friends house and completely tanked it. I mean absolute road rash deluxe. He looks like he was ran over. I guess he was crossing the street behind a car when the car braked suddenly. He swerved and tried to jump onto the curb but his back weighed enough that he hit the curb, flipped over his handlebars and then ran himself over with his bike. His face and chest hit the pavement and then his bike tires hit his back. His chest and face are tore up. He almost bit through his lip. He bruised his ribs. He is lucky his nose didn't break. He is lucky nothing broke honestly. But his injuries meant there was no way he was up for traveling. I was going to take my girls alone but my FMS flared and the thought of fighting a toddler in a fair alone just did not sound fun. Soooooo we changed plans.

Friday we ordered dinner in. Nephew ordered Seafood Linguine. He was thrilled. We also had Cold Stone Ice Cream Cupcakes for dessert. Saturday hubby got off of work early due to monsoon conditions. Lightning and welding are not a good mix and he was on his giant metal machine so danger was a bit high. Add not being able to actually weld from the rain and he came home. So the male contingent went to the gun store. Ugggg......... We got ammo. Always good. BIL bought himself a new toy. LMAO. Poor nephew got ammo. He was feeling picked on despite a pretty awesome knife as a present that morning. His dad buy a gun and he get bullets on his birthday, the horror. Then I show up right before dinner with the girls and a pair of guinea pigs plus cage for them. Yet another cool thing bought on his birthday not for him. On top of that we discover he is allergic to the new additions as he puffs up like a balloon. Poor kid. At least we got him an ice cream cake right?

To try to make up for it the male half went shooting this morning. Hopefully that helps him feel better, lol.

Kidding aside I think he was very happy with his gifts. He received a Judge of his own and the ammo of varying types that it uses, a very nice bike that can be used for trick riding, multiple knives, and some cash to spend as he likes. The kid has a knife collection many would envy and stores it in several suitcases. He has his own rifle but this is his first handgun and he is loving it. He received it early but it was a birthday gift. He is a pretty amazing kid. Even when his mom called against his wishes he handled it with an amazing air of maturity and wisdom. He can drive me batty and I told him if he lets real teendom go to his head I'll beat him but honestly the kid is fabulous. I just need to remember not to send him to the gun store with the menfolk on his birthday next time.

Bee update

I opened the hive today, and boy those bees were PISSED. I was smoking the bees, I was smoking myself to keep the bees off, I was smoking the air around me hoping to clear them enough that I could see what I was doing. They were quickly running out of room so I stopped smoking long enough to run to the garage and grab another super to add to the hive. I got it all in place and left the girls to explore. (Just realized I have not seen any drones in a long while, weird). Now that the smoke has cleared (pun intended, lol) the hive seems more calm than it has been in weeks. I think the girls are all busy inside making sure everything is ok and checking out the new digs. Hopefully that will settle them down a little and give them something to do besides harass us and the neighbors.

Why my mom is my mom.

The woman who gave birth to me did only two things that I can thank her for. She gave birth to me and she gave birth to my brother. Otherwise her drugs were more important to her and still are. She was out of my life when I was 5 and I did not see her again until my father flew her in for my wedding. She hardly spoke and did not add to it at all. I thought seeing her would be this amazing reunion. I was the little girl who dreamed of a mother who adored me but just couldn't be there. I learned that day who my mother was. It was not the woman who gave birth to me and ignored me for years. Instead my MOTHER was the woman who lovingly handmade my wedding dress out of my old prom dress because I could not afford anything else and my dad wasn't to keen to help either. (He later did help.) She went to all the appointments to pick flowers and food and she altered the bridesmaid dresses that needed it. She helped me get ready while the woman who carried me in her womb hid in a hotel nearby. When my first child was born she drove 2 hours to be there to help coach me through labor and keep my hubby from passing out as he watched me in pain. When my second was born she flew 2 states away just to be backup in case hubby couldn't handle the surgery and to help me through that first day. She loves my children more than anything. She treats me like she does the children she birthed. The true miracle of this is that she and my dad divorced not long after my marriage. She had no reason to keep me in her life. Every other woman my dad brought into our lives left when the relationship ended. She stayed. She is my Mom in ever single sense of the word and I am so amazingly grateful for her and for that. On days when it feel like no one is on my side but my husband I know she has my back. She calls just to check on me or say hi. My dad doesn't even do that. It is pretty amazing to feel like I finally have a mom. (I also got 2 pretty awesome sisters out of the deal and a brother who is pretty great too!!)

My bright spot today!

Once again the blahs set in. I honestly think it is because of how awful I feel. My energy is low and my aches are ever present. Very likely because I seem to be in a constant state of stress. Locally we have had an outbreak of home invasions which comes as no surprise with some of the worst unemployment numbers in the country. My home is not really my haven either.

I need a safe place. One place where I have things my way and I feel safe and protected. Not just from danger but also emotionally. After J.W. and I got married he unconsciously did something for me that I never knew I needed. He made me safe. I never really felt emotionally and physically safe before him. Even now he is the only person I feel safe enough to tell them to stop when they behave in a way that makes me feel hurt or upset. Right now my space is not my own because people who do not know my history and my need to feel safe are living here. I love them. I am happy to help them. It just makes things hard and so my stress is up. Which is making my pain stay up.


A bright spot is my little Monkey. Her creativity and innocence is beautiful even when she wears me out. She has an IKEA tent that my mom bought her. She wanted it to be dark inside so I put a blanket on top. She came racing out of it to hop in my lap as I caught up on blog reading to tell me that robots are scary and we need to shoot thems all lots. She makes me giggle. She has on socks and a tank-top bodysuit that is way to small that we saved from her baby clothes for her babies so she can be the princess baby today. She just climbed into my lap and said "Websites Mommy?" I said "I am telling people how awesome you are." Her response...."I is freakin dorable" Hehehe.

Today is "sneak some zucchini onto your neighbors Porch" day!

I had never heard of this until last week. I have four zucchini in my fridge and four on the vine that are ready. It's not much, but I figure I can give two to a neighbor across the street and two to one of Hubby's friends who is loving our produce. I wish I had bushels I could give to the whole neighborhood but our weather was so weird this year we got a very late start to our growing season. If by chance someone drops a bag full of zucchini on YOUR porch, let me know. This seems to be a really fun "holiday" that I could really get into.

Music is my passion.... well....

Words are my passion. When they flow from me as the scene unfolds it is sheer joy. Music helps with that. Over the course of my editing my very helpful friends helped me discover a gap in the book. Mr. Bad had a missing piece. Why was he the way he was? I hinted at it but didn't explain it and other than the first chapter Mr. Bad was not to be seen again until chapter 13. Granted the first 12 Chapters covered only a few days but still. Once the gap was found I had to solve it. Obviously I knew why he was satan and why we had 12 chapters cover a week and then jumped forward a few weeks in time. The reader had no idea and we needed to cover that. So write I did. I added a nice chunk to chapter 6 from Mr. Bad that explained the questions my team raised. Then I added a chapter between 11 and 12 that answered a few more questions and helped with the leap forward. The chunk was about 900 words and it seemed to take all day to write. I wrote it on my laptop, downstairs, during all the mommy, wifey, Lila day stuff. Ugggg...... It took ages. I worried it was choppy and weird but my team loved it. Today I tackled the new chapter. They haven't read it yet since I just put it up for them but it was 1900 words and it flowed. I wrote it on my PC. My beautiful dual screen beauty with music streaming from Pandora in the background. Oh it was bliss. It was a small chapter but it did what I wanted it to do and in 2 hours the words cascaded out. I wasn't even sure when I sat down what was going to happen, just that 2 vital points needed to be addressed. Why was our hero avoiding our heroine? AND why had a talk not happened that had been alluded too all book long? Answered both. Beautifully. I think anyway, lol. The music helped with that, being in my space helped with that. I have been trying to edit with the kids around and that just ends with me feeling frustrated. This worked better. Yay!!! Lila found her groove!

Got a much needed date!!

Hubby took me out yesterday. I actually felt pretty bad about it at first. He was at work and I was at Wallyworld when the idea popped into my head to ask for a date. I gave him an out because he has been working some major hours 6 days a week since July 4th. He then told me he had already planned to do something with his brother but that he would rather go with me. So brother who was in a really bad mood after getting another bill from the lawyers over the custody battle and a week of failed car shopping for his teenage daughter babysat so we could go out. I felt horrible for that at first because I hate when it feels like Hubby has to choose and BIL needed the time away too. I know I come first so I try not to put him in a spot where that puts him in an uncomfortable situation. To make it up though I told him to go shooting today for as long as he wants with his brother. Once that was said my guilt was eased and I settled into our date. We went and saw the new Transformers movie. I love a good action movie and it did not disappoint. Things moved fast and I loved seeing the different transformers. Of course my brother watched the cartoon as a kid so i used him as an excuse to watch too. Yes my geeky ways are showing through. We were at a casino an decided to play a little on the slots and won just enough to cover our movie. We called that good and left. We are definitely not gamblers. Seeing some of those people playing the $25 minimum tables and the $1 slots like it was water was just weird. Neither of us is one to play big. I can't even imagine how the big Las Vegas tables do things and the people who play them just blow my mind. I think of a few hundred dollars and all the needs I could fill. A few thousand or even a million? Wow. Anyway it was a much needed break from mommyhood and a great time with the love of my life. I feel a lot better now and more open to some things I was resisting.

It's jam time!

I went into town today and my favorite fruit stand was back! I bought two boxes of apricots and am planning on making jam tomorrow. Last time I made apricot was several years ago and I just now ran out. It was so good and so pretty that my inlaws raved about it. Quite an accomplishment, I think! I will add pictures as soon as I have it done.

A little late, but.....

I just had to share my favorite pic from the 4th of July this year.No particular reason, I just like the way it turned out. That is my oldest son in the pic. Those horses got so close that the wagon almost hit my car.

Anyone want to try their hand at a caption?

Gracie the lifesaver.

It's a good thing Gracie is posting because try as I might to think of an uplifting post or something that sounds happy I just can't this week. I am in a full blown funk of negativity despite still making good progress on my book. So instead I leave you with a Friday Funny.

flowers bees like

I was soooo concerned about planting flowers that bees liked this spring. I only got a few reported favorites and figured I could add more next year. I might as well not bother. The bees like the microscopic flowers on trees that I never knew had flowers. They like the tiny blossoms on my Virginia creeper. They like the blossoms on the weeds. They are not interested in my poppies. They are not interested in my columbine. They are not interested in my irises, my lilies, my lupine, my lavender, or anything else that I purposely planted for them. They DO however love the lambs ear that plagues my yard. This invasive flower has taken over every flower bed along with certain parts of my lawn. My bees are ALL OVER IT. They love it and it blossoms forever. Who knew?

Heck to the yeah!

If you have read our blog long or read previous post or even just know me you know that one thing that absolutely gets me livid are crimes against children. I go all Wild West justice and honestly want to tar them myself. These thoughts have put a huge gap between my little brother and I because he is against the death penalty where I think that sex assault of a child, murder of a child, kidnapping of a child. Any crime that is done with the intent of harming a child should be a death penalty offense. Yeah that is harsh. It is brutal and I am sure some people think I am way too extreme in that thought but I have seen too many walk after their 7 years and then rape and kill a child because the anticipation built so much. One person that fires me up is Warren Jeffs. Having spent quite a few years in Utah and having become LDS you learn about the FLDS. I am the first to say "Live and let live." I may think the idea of sharing my husband is crazy but it's not my place to say. However when making a girl a bride at 12 or making an underaged girl marry her cousin comes up I want to punch someone. Anyway Jeffs' trial in Texas has been going on and he decided to represent himself. His defense: Everything I do is protected by my constitutional right to freedom of religion. If you speak against me you are a blasphemer and are going against God. He came off as a wingbat. Luckily the freedom of religion he tried to claim did not trump the rights of the girls he victimized and today he was found guilty. I hope the book is thrown at him. A Texas prison as a pedophile will be exactly what he needs.

Teenage girls and car shopping.

Can any activity be more futile? I won't even go into little Monkey and her still nutty sleep patterns!

Twitchy update

Can you guess which one is Twitchy? No? She's the little black one in the front. I can always tell which one she is because she is still smaller than the rest, her tail is always down and she doesn't hold her head as high as the others. Besides those things, she is absolutely normal. When I told her story to the lady at the feed store where I bought her, I was offered a job, lol. She was amazed that Twitchy lived through her attack and that I actually put the effort in to save her. I just hope she can bulk up enough to make it through the winter.

Helping at the fair

I was asked a few days ago if I would help with the canning department at the fair. I am unsure exactly what I will be doing but as long as I don't have to judge, I am happy to help. Especially since I can myself, I am really looking forward to seeing what kind of things other people can and how to dress it up for fair. I will take lots of pics and let you all k now how it goes!

Garden update

I went out of town for a week and my garden went CRAZY! My pumpkin plant has probably eight little pumpkins, this one is the biggest.

I have four or five little tiny watermelons.

Three deformed peppers, all on one plant.

Three of my sunflowers blossomed overnight. I will get better pics later.

My potatoes grew enough that it is time to add another box to the top. I couldn't get any closer because the bees get pretty pissed off when we mess with anything in the vicinity of their hive.

And I saved the best for last. This is my crazy, fast growing, gigantic tomato plant. All of my tomato plants have several green tomatoes on them but this particular plant just exploded. It is the same type of tomato, it gets the same amount of sun and water, but for some reason it is over twice the size of the other plants.

My corn is doing well but the wind keeps knocking the stalks down. I am going to build up the rows with more dirt tomorrow.

One of my chickens got out of the pen and made a dust bed in my new radishes and ate quite a bit of my lettuce and swiss chard. She's lucky she's one of my best layers or she might have ended up as soup. If she doesn't stay in the chicken pen, she will have to live in the empty dog run until after the harvest. My peas and beans doubled in size while I was gone and my onions are starting to blossom. (Do they need to be harvested before they do that?)

My carrots are almost big enough to start eating and my Jerusalem artichoke is getting a little bit taller.

The Monster List for FMS and feeling rather out there.

As I try to figure out this thing called Fibro (And pull Gracie along because I am pretty sure it is what she has too since she has never been able to get diagnosed either.) I discovered a fellow sufferer who turned her high-octane exhausting career into a wonderful job where she gets to be home but still make money and she helps those of us who suffer with her. She became the Ask.com guru on FMS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. She keeps up on research and posts valid tips and things stemming from that research to help us in our own journey's. She has what she calls "The Monster List of Fibromyalgia Symptoms". It has over 60 things related to our lovely life. Some even are their own disorders or diseases. At last count I have 43. I am afraid I am developing another. I feel very frustrated. I feel like such a frumpy failure some days. Not trying to complain and my hubby tells me I am being silly but some days I am lucky to keep track of the girls and cook dinner. I am usually in shorts and a tank. I don't wear makeup. Being raised by a single dad until I was 16 meant that learning girly things never really happened. My amazing guy tells me often how beautiful I am and how amazing and I am so lucky I have that in my life because if I had someone who had no patience for this and who expected some perfectly coiffed barbie all the time I would feel even worse. Ugggg..... That is one of the rough things about this illness. It is ever changing and because we have to limit ourselves and completely change how we do things it means that we learn very quickly if those around us truly love us for better of for worse. I am lucky. I know some who aren't.


On another pity Lila party moment: I had a moment today where I was reminded yet again how very different I am from some of the people who should be closest to me. I don't know how it happened or why but I seem to be even farther away from some of the people I love. I do love them, so much. My life is about love. I just seem to have nothing what so ever to relate to them with. About the only thing we seem to share anymore is a love for my girls but even then it is rough because what we value is so different that often blind trust has resulted in some situations that haven't been ideal. Humph..... This trying to vent but also be respectful is a precarious line. I want to have good relationships with everyone I love but I also don't know how to do that most days. I am happiest at home or with my husband exploring somewhere, metal detecting, shooting, doing what we do. My faith is so important to me yet places a wedge because either they aren't sure they believe at all in anything bigger than themselves or they aren't sure they like what I believe. How do you find a place to heal old wounds to the point of closeness when you are so very different?

Crazy bees.

It is HOT. I am not complaining, we had too long of a winter to complain about the heat once we finally get it. But it is so hot that my bees just hang out on the hive in the evenings enjoying the cool evening temps. My queen comes out onto the porch and her secret service guard bees freak out and get VERY aggressive. The crawl all over her and sting everyone (me) that gets close. She is really causing them some serious stress. I would hate to have their job.

The first time I saw this, I completely freaked out and called my big brother (once again big bro comes to the rescue) to ask if my bees were running away. We finally decided it was simply too hot to stay in the hive once the outside temps cool.

Makes for a cool pic, but the bees are certainly more on edge when Queen Anne is taking risks.

Oh, by the way, Orajel works very well on bee stings : )