The first day the hubster was in Maryland, leaving me alone in this house, I was out of sorts. I hadn’t settled into a routine of aloneness by that point. The second day was much better. And by the third day I was kind of liking being alone, well, most of the time. Today is the fifth day and depression is starting to set in now. It’s not so much the fact that I am alone, it’s more the fact that the hubster is embarking on his new life and I feel left out. By the time he gets off of work and back to his brothers in the evening he is too tired to talk to me. Oh he tries, but the cell phone reception is really bad out in the boonies where his brother lives. So most of the time I can only hear every other word he says and even that sounds like it’s coming from a tunnel. I end up with a splitting headache from it. And the hubster seems to get annoyed at me when I complain about the poor reception. He barks at me with things like “what am I supposed to do about the reception? I just won’t call you anymore if the reception annoys you that much.” So now I don’t even comment on the poor reception. He doesn’t ask about my day, even though I ask about his. I try to tell him about my day anyway and he falls asleep on the phone on me. That’s not very good for my ego. I just feel like we are drifting apart. I was afraid this would happen. He’s just so wrapped up in his new life that he has put all thoughts of his old life out of his mind. But on the up side, he loves his new job. He’s putting in long hours so he’s pretty tired at night.



One good thing that has come out of this solitude is that my writers block is finally broken. Yes, I have writing like mad. My new writing group is publishing an anthology and I have submitted two stories and am finishing up a third. Unfortunately you are only allowed to submit 2500 words. I have exceeded that limit so I need to pick and choose what to submit. I wrote two stories that are in poem format. They are cute and funny and totally adorable. But my masterpiece is a story I am finishing up called “Blame it on chicken poop.” It’s cute, I think. It’s sort of a reflective piece. If anyone is interested in being a beta reader for it let me know. I’m looking for someone to give me their honest opinions. You walk a fine line when writing about chicken poop so I have concerns about it as you can imagine.


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Yesterday we had a horrible ice storm. Of course it hit while I was in the movies. When I went into see “Definitely Maybe” at noon rain was falling from the sky. When I came out two hours later there was two inches of ice on the Pathfinder. I had a heck of a time chipping it off enough to see out the windshield and getting the car door open. Then I get home and I can’t get the front storm door open because it is iced shut. I had to kick at it to break the ice. The ice storm turned into a mild snow storm at nightfall. It was so cozy being all warm and hunkered down for the evening with a roaring fire blazing away. The only thing I was missing was my Greggy Bear. And then tomorrow we are supposed to get 3 inches of snow. I am pretty sick of this Indiana weather. Greg tells me it was in the high 60’s there today and tomorrow is supposed to be a beautiful day as well. He even has had to wear sunglasses when he drives. Damn it.



I was on the back patio shoveling snow this afternoon when I heard my stinky dog barking up a storm. So I went through the garage and I saw a strange car in the driveway. It was the health inspector from the health dept. I had called her on Monday and left a message about that creepy punk kid next door that doesn’t have trash service and instead just throws his bags of household garbage into his back yard. He’s only been doing that for over a year now. He’s getting quite the collection as you can imagine. She had knocked on the kids door, but Brandon wouldn't open his door to her and they are not allowed to go on someone’s property without the owners permission. She needed to go on his property to see into his back yard to take pictures of the piles of garbage. She told me if I were to give her permission to take pictures of his garbage from my property that would work. So I gave her permission to come into Jasmines room, which overlooks Brandon’s garbage piles and take a picture of the garbage. Did you know it is a law that everyone in this county has to have garbage pickup service? I didn't know that. Looks like the self proclaimed faith healer is a law breaker too since she hasn’t had garbage pickup for two years now! Anyway, she said she will send the punk kid neighbor a letter giving him 30 days in which to pick up the garbage or else he is served with a summons to appear in court. She said you would be surprised at the number of people that DON'T comply and end up being sued by the county. That amazes me.