I am making a new resolution. Write on my blog every day.

I have been singing the blues lately.
And it ain't a pretty sound. I can't seem to get comfortable in my own body. Personally, I tend to blame it on my friends. Or my old friends, I should say. You know them-Estrogen and Progesterone. They used to hang around a lot but lately, they've left me high and dry. No pun intended. Coming to terms with the new me hasn't been easy. The new grayer hair, the bigger butt, the longer um, boobs, and the urges to hurt people. Oh, and the knowledge that this is only the beginning.

Well, I could set the glass on the bar, change the name of my blog to Short, Bitter, Drunk and fill that glass up with pity. Get a divorce, hang out in bars, join a biker gang, and embarrass my loved ones more than I already do. Or...I could try to find a way to get through this with grace. That sounds better. And I do still have some of my old friends. Hopefully, I won't alienate them all before this is over.

Here is something I am doing to try to find me.

This is a mandala. The word "mandala" is a sanskrit word loosely meaning "circle". The shape is supposed to be a model for the organizational structure of life. A reflection on our relation to the infinite. If you look around in nature you will see this shape often and it represents unity or wholeness or the circle of life, whatever you want to call it. Drawing a mandala is supposed to bring us into touch with ourselves and how we relate to nature, the divine and the universe. Cool, huh?

Some of this information came from this website. I have made a couple of mandala's including this one. I really enjoy focusing on this kind of thing and thinking at the same time. My teacher is a friend of mine who is a nun. She took a class on this type of drawing. The woman who taught the class is named Judith Cornell. You can look at her website here. It is all about light and shading. Please go to her website as I am really not very good at it. The pencils are very special and are available locally at Artmart. They are called Prismacolor.

You can download mandala coloring pages from the internet here.

Have fun and good luck finding balance in your life.

Amanda's Baking Final

This post is LONG overdue. It's all the butt to the chair thing. Click on the photos to see them enlarged.
My wonderful daughter will soon be 20 years old. Who can believe it? Little Panda Bear 20 years old! On the day she was born, Nana said "This child will be the joy of our life." And she has been. She was the perfect baby. I mean it. Perfect! She rarely cried and was always content.

And now she has grown into a lovely young woman. She has an awesome spirit and a compassionate caring soul. She "feels" things and that guides her choices in life. She is concerned about animal abuses and the environment. She has spent many years volunteering for causes she believes in including Girl Scouts. She works as a unit secretary in the intensive care unit of the same hospital I work for.




Now she is studying to be a pastry chef. She is attending the very prestigious culinary school at Forest Park which is a community college but is very prestigious nonetheless. She studies under Chef Casey Shiller in baking and pastry arts. This is like a dream come true for me. My own child a baker, a purveyor of all things pastry. My own personal pastry chef (I'm not sure she agrees with this title). Oh happy day.




Recently they had their baking final. Well it was a while ago but I am just now getting around to posting. I am sorry darling pastry chef daughter.







I believe it was an awesome experience for her. Their final was to design, bake, transport, display and serve a wedding cake. How cool. They held a small tea type gathering for the public for the display, serving portion of the event. To make it even more exciting, a local t.v. station picked up the story and turned it into a human interest segment. The segment had to do with how difficult it was to transport the cakes and they sent Tim Ezell, a funny local reporter to observe whether all the cakes made it safely. Transporting was part of their grade and if the cake fell, they failed! Horrors!!! But luckily all the cakes made it safe and sound. The cake tea service thingie was wonderful. All the cakes were delicious. Amanda's was, of course, the most beautiful of all and tasted the best.

They have now moved on to ice cream and ice cream cakes. They will be holding another event to showcase their latest yummy delights next Wednesday. I can't wait.

California here we come.

Tomorrow I am leaving for California. Yeaaaahhhhh! This is what it looks like at my house.











We went out in the snow and played and had lots of fun.


snow angels



























As beautiful as the snow is, I am looking forward to some warm sunny California weather!

The worst week of my life

We went to Branson last weekend.

We really like Branson. We have some wonderful, kind friends that have a place there and invite us to come down often. We like it so much, we bought season passes to Silver Dollar City. We love having fun with our friends and doing fun stuff.

We like Branson so much we wanted to see how beautiful it was during the Christmas Season. The TV commercial says it is one of the top winter destinations. Boy, they weren't kidding. (spell check is telling me to spell weren't like this- wern't. I don't believe it. Am I wrong?)

So we went to Silver Dollar City, SDC for those of us on the inside, on Saturday. It was cold, about 45-50 during the day and colder at night, but we dressed warm. We got to the turn-off for the park and a nice man in an orange vest holding a SDC parking sign waved us on. On towards West Branson or Branson West, whatever. On toward Arkansas. We sailed past several more parking lots and nice men in orange vests directing us ever onward until at last we reached Arkansas. No really it was close to Arkansas. We were directed into a newly mowed field at the side of the highway next to a bank.

We should have known something was up then. Or maybe when we got out of our cars and had to wait in a line of about 150 people to get on a bus. But no, we just laughed and said "Boy, it must be really crowded." Ha Ha Ha.

Finally we were ushered onto a bus and as it was getting dark were deposited in front of the SDC gates. "Ha,Ha,Ha. Isn't this fun?" We said. Like fools. The next thing we know we see this sea of people trying to get in the park. We're not fools though, we quickly cut through a bakery and take a short cut. Unfortunately the short cut brings us out in the middle of another sea. This time it is the sea of people trying to get out of the park. It is a really, really big sea. And we are in the middle of it and we are going the wrong way. I am thinking we are going to end up like the guy at Walmart who got trampled. We have a small child with us. I am truly scared. When suddenly a very loud mouthed, I mean well meaning, SDC employee sees us trying to go the wrong way and starts hollering at us until we are pushed by a gang of unhappy outgoers into the side that is going in. Remember we have a small child with us. We are now pretty much separated from each other except for my lovely friend Tanya, who did manage to hold onto the small child. We finally get through the front gate and then inside to see a really, really, really big sea of people trying to get out of the park. Did I ever mention that I am claustraphobic? I am nearly in a panic by this time. We finally manage to group up again and someone has the presence of mind to lead us down a path to a spot where there aren't so many people. When we finally get to a spot where the people aren't arm to arm, I am shaking like a leaf, broke out in a sweat and ready to go home. Except now we are trapped in this park.

Well it got better after that. I truly had never seen anything like that in my whole life. Everywhere we went the lines were long but mostly well behaved. We visited lots of shops, rode the train, and watched a parade.















When we got hungry we ate a blooming onion and a philly cheesesteak sandwhich. We had a fairly good time until it was time to go home and then we had to wait in line for an hour and a half to catch a bus back to our field. At that time it was REALLY COLD.

But we made it home. Safe and sound. We were cold, tired and I had developed a nervous tic. We put on our jammies and I slammed two rum and cokes to settle my jangled nerves.

Finally everything settled down and we went to bed. Now here's the best part of the story and hasn't it been good so far?

At five A.M. I awoke with a battle of gigantic proportions going on in my stomach. It seems the 2 rum and cokes, the blooming onion, the philly cheesesteak and some chili I ate the day before were all having a knock-down drag out fight. There could only be one loser in this fight.

Welcome gastroenteritis, otherwise known as the stomach flu. It won't kill you, just make you want to die.

I will spare you the gory details, suffice it to say that when we reached home that evening, everyone was glad to get out of the car. Oh, and there was a lot of laundry.

So that was the beginning of the worst week of my life. On Monday I stayed in bed and bowed down to the plastic trash can. On Tuesday I felt a little better but weak. Then I noticed I was starting to get a head cold. On Wednesday, I relapsed and back to bed, head in the trashcan. Now I had the stomach flu and a cold. Lucky me.

Today is Thursday. I am out of bed and even had a shower. Went to the grocery store even. Actually, I went to a very special ceremony this morning that I will blog about later and that was the ONLY thing that got my sorry ass out of bed.

I am five pounds lighter and still can eat nothing but gatorade. I did get some baby food bananas and ate them and I think they really helped my GI tract because I am feeling much better. Tomorrow it's strained bananas and yogurt with probiotics. I am a BIG fan of probiotics. And Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids. They are SO good for what ails you. Take them, take them, everyone.

Now I haven't written anything for almost 2 months. I wonder why I chose this to write about? I'm not sure but I was compelled to share it with you. I needed to talk about it. I needed to purge these feelings. Get it? PURGE. I crack myself up. Nancy, I wish you read this blog.

Home from College

My college son came home this weekend to visit. It was a nice visit. He brought his new girlfriend, who was very nice, pretty and well-mannered. I had to work and didn't get to spend enough time with them, but other than that it was a very nice visit.

While my son was home I asked him to get a hair cut.

I know, how lame, every mom wants their son to get a hair cut.

Leave them alone for gosh sake, let them be who they are.

Well, I thought maybe something needed to be done. Before he was sitting on his hair. Before movie producers were trying to hire him to be the next Cousin It.





No, I jest.

It's not that bad.

But seriously, it is L-O-N-G.

This is who he really looks like.

Conan the Barbarian.



Oops! Upon further study, I hate to say it but he's not quite so buff. (Are you seeing a pattern here on this blog? Is my subconcious trying to tell me something?)


Maybe he looks more like Daniel Day Lewis in Last of the Mohicans.





Or Maybe he just looks like my son.

The little boy who changed my life, made me a mom, taught me about responsibility and so much more.

Taught me that my heart could be so full of love that it consumed my whole life.

My first born.



Ain't he handsome?



Well, that long flowing hair is no more.





Remind you of anyone?

Please save us

Tribute to LOTR

Amanda and I went to the symphony tonight. They were playing music from The Lord of The Rings. It was awesome. The music was directly from the movie and written by Howard Shore. It was actually a dress rehearsal so there were a few times they stopped and made technical changes.

Amanda bought me the ticket and it is to be my Christmas present.

As the symphony played the music, they showed drawings of scenes from the story on a screen above the musicians. The drawings were very good.

Watching it all made me want to go home and watch the movie. Then I started thinking about all the hot men in LOTR. There are really some fabulous looking men in that movie.

Who can forget Orlando Bloom as Legolas with that silky blond hair?









Or Viggo Mortenson as Aragorn. I'd do him (just kidding, Mom).










My favorite though is Faramir. He is so fine.

oh yeah!



David Wenhem is cute in or out of character.

I've always been a sucker for a redhead.

So there's a little eye candy to make your day.

Now I'm going to go upstairs and climb under the covers with my own hottie.