this journal is going friends only. if you wish to continue to read it, please post here, this is your only chance ;)

its a bit blurry in spots, and the sound is not great, but all i had was a cheapie point and shoot, so its pretty good all things considered. gives you an idea of how the band sounds and its a catchy tune! I guarantee you'll be humming... domino... all day.

since people asked to see my 'new' haircut and i've taken pics all along the way right from my long hair days (portland with Tina -photo by her hubby) to just this morning. i have a three way mirror which is how i get the shots of the side and back, but thats also why they're hazy some of them - two layers of mirror.

comments and such are all welcome, 

Hair

cant help myself... its just pouring out of me for some reason today. hope y'all dont mind.

-if you're skipping meals to lose weight - me telling you not to aint gonna make you stop, so here's some advice that might work better:  dont skip breakfast or lunch - skip dinner. do that twice and then step on the scale. (i didnt have dinner (other than plain yougurt and fruit one night) for two nights and i've dropped 4 pounds.) DONT SKIP BREAKFAST! (you need fuel to start the engine, so that the engine can burn more fuel later)

-love your kids enough to not only enjoy them, but to do your job. and your job is to teach them well enough to be independent happy adults. i see so many young people these days who are unhappy, not really independent adults yet. some still live at home with mom and dad, even to age 30 and i think personally, that its not a good thing. parents will always be parents, they cant help it.... so most 30 yr olds at home are still being treated as the child even if the parent doesnt want to do that... they cant help it. i think about my own upbringing.. my parents did not prepare any of us for the harsh world outside. we had no idea how to set goals, how to go after what we wanted. we were so sheltered that we believed everything people told us and got hurt innumerable times before we figured it out on our own. we had no idea how to stick up for ourselves with employers who took advantage of us. Kids today know their rights, but many of them know little else. So... if you're a parent, shield your child from the big bad world yes... but teach them how to eventually live in that world. (I think the greatest disservice ever done to kids my stepsons age (20-ish) was to eliminate competition in the schools and tell them that they were 'special'. the cold harsh facts are they expect to be treated special in the workplace and cant cope when they find out théy're like everyone else in this world)

-hug your wife. or husband. or boyfriend. or girlfriend. its not often i ever see people holding hands anymore in public, or hugging. i grew up without hugs. ever. the only person in my life who ever hugged me was my grand dad and i loved it, but i only got one a year most times. i crave hugs now as an adult - love how they make me feel when coming from someone i cherish... but if i get one from someone i dont like or dont know.. i bristle all over :)  Hugs lower blood pressure they say. and they make the huggee feel great.

-give away stuff you dont want, dont need, dont use, cant fit into anymore, is too big for you etc. Some of my friends here are already doing that (kudos to you). if its too big, dump it before you grow to fit into it again. if its too small and has been for years - you're never going to be that skinny 20 yr old again - hate to say it, but once you fill out, thats it. its called becoming an adult (filling out i mean lol). give it away. if its been sitting in your closet taking up space and you dont use it, have already read it, dont like it, have no place to put it - get rid of it.  Its amazing how free it makes you feel to get rid of crap! not only that, but it takes up space. Space you could use and enjoy. AND someone else can get some use out of it too before its too old, outdated, falls apart etc. Dump it. most good wills take anything, some even pick up once a month with a truck, if you call them. some even call you! 

-do a random act of kindness today. forget about your troubles - sick children, bad jobs, bad hair day, nothing to wear, tired, cranky, hungry, teenagers giving you grief, boss ragging on you etc... forget about it for 10 minutes and do one random act of kindness today. Buy someone a cup of coffee. Open a door for someone not expecting it. Send a thank you note to someone who deserves it. Bring an apple for the boss and dont let him see you put it on his desk. Let someone with fewer groceries go ahead of you in line. Say thank you (and look them in the eye) to someone in the service industry (getting your coffee, or checkout at the grocery store) - the service industry is the most thankless job there is. 

once you do a random act today, you'll feel wonderful. and if you do, try it again tomorrow if you can find something or someone to recieve. start yourself on a roll. try to do one or two per week. if that works out, do it every week. and you could even keep a notebook about what you do - go back at teh end of the month and read your little notebook and then tell me you wont have the most awesome day ever. 

-put your troubles in a brown paper sack, and put them down under your desk.(Mentally of course). just tie them up in teh sack and put them out of sight, out of mind for an hour. then try two hours. if you want them back at the end of the day, they're there under your desk... just pick them back up and take them home with you if you really want them. but i guarantee that by days end, you'll have forgotten where that brown paper sack full of worries is. 

-one last thing... today - go. do.  dont say you want to do such and such, or you should do such and such. pick one thing on your list and just go. do.

We;'ve all seen it - ads on tv showing local people in our community down on their luck, standing in line at the food bank for a meal. Or worse, the starving people in Africa lining up for a chance to take some much needed food home to their families, hoping the aid has come in time.

but on the way home the other night from work, i saw something that struck me as ironic, and just a little sad/pathetic. As i was driving home down the main busy street i always take home, it was the dinner hour (i was later than usual) and i saw a lineup of people nearly a block long. They werent lining up for free food from the local food bank however... they were affluent people, well dressed, well coifed... and they were standing in line to get into a restaurant.

i've been guilty of this myself of course... somewhere that is 'hot' or has unbelievably good food, or is new and you want to try it... we've all stood in line to get a table at some dining establishment.. But for some reason this night, it hit me as unsavory to see nearly 50 people in fancy duds waiting on the sidewalk to gain admittance to an eatery. I could see it juxtaposed in my mind with the down and outers in the skids waiting for a hot meal and hot cup of coffee. i dunno... maybe i just was fatigued from the day. i do know that we (me) take much for granted.. and really the only thing separating us from them in that lineup for food, is the good fortune of a decent job that hasnt downsized us out, good health that keeps us able to work or coping with life effectively, or being born to the right set of parents. Something to chew on at your next meal.

alternatively i could title this blog: its baaaack.

yep. after a year and 3 months without a 'you know what' its come back bit by bit - at first as a nusiance, then as a thing to worry about (is this normal, is it coming back or is there something wrong with me?), and now last night and today its hit me full on.

i'm staying home from work today. i took 3 advil last night and devoured half of a huge dark chocolate bar as well as a huge bowl of popcorn, and spent most of the night pretending to sleep... was actually up at 1am for a bit, then back to bed and finally woke up to the alarm at ten to eight. I had to set it because i was supposed to go out of town today with a coworker and had to call in sick so he'd not be waiting for me to arrive. I just couldnt face being in a vehicle for 3 hrs each way. uggh. 

its nearly 9am and im seriously contemplating seeing my doctor at 9. she's in my neck of the woods today at the clinic and i think i'm gonna go see her and ask for a morphine shot. i used to need them occasionally for the pain of the cramps - she'd write a prescription, i'd  fill it next door, come back with it in a vial and she'd give me the injection - saved about 4 hrs of sitting in the emergency ward waiting for a urine test to come back to prove i wasnt pregnant and that they could give me the shot and send me home. 

i cant believe i'm having a full on period. uggh. so much for being in menopause. as i told a friend yesterday, its  almost worth it in a sick twisted way, because now when i go see my cancer doctor - the one that keeps wanting me to take the after chemo drug, the one that told me i'm in menopause- i can tell her that i've had my periods come back. i wonder how thats gonna sit with her? (arent i nasty?)

ladies, i'm back to being sympathetic to your plight each month... its been too easy to forget all about cramps and wonder what the fuss is all about.

so, i was at the doctor's office today and once done, decided to take the stairs instead of the elevator, and saw the sign on the stairs 'fire door keep closed' and had a very interesting flashback

when i was a kid, i was very serious. more serious even than i am now  (if thats possible heh). I remember being in a park or campground and there was a wading pool for kids - the water was only about 10 inches deep i think - not a swimming pool, just enough to get wet. My dad left myself and my younger brother there while they went further down to find a campsite or some such thing... I think i was about 10 at the time so they were pretty safe about me not drowning.

So, it was hot out, and i think my dad said something about going in the water to cool off, and then he left and i went over to look at this little pool and there was a sign - no splashing. I distinctly remember being terribly disappointed that i wouldnt be able to go into the water - for my logic told me that you couldnt wade in the pool without splashing no matter how careful you were! (i also remember when my dad came back and asked why i wasnt in the water, i was too embarrased to try and explain it to him)

so back to my fire door sign of today - it stopped me short for a few seconds and i had to laugh at my twisted logic again - fire door keep closed. How do you enter the stairwell, without opening the door? and how do you open the door if the sign tells you to keep it closed? hah.

and now for the first time in my life, i realize why i have such a problem with multiple choice questions - half the time i take the wording too literal and figure they're trying to trick me into the wrong answer!