The week of October 11, 2002 was a bad week for me. You see, I landed my butt in the hospital for 8 days with a nasty case of acute pancreatitis. I could have nothing by mouth other than a few ice chips. At first I was in too much pain to want anything to eat. After a couple of days of watching television commercials from my hospital bed and I was hungry. I asked my co-worker to sneak me in a chocolate bar. She refused. I begged the hubster to bring me in a bag of pretzels. He refused (and told on me). Then I bribed my daughter to bring me candy corn. I let her use my credit card to stock her new apartment with groceries in exchange for bringing me a bag of candy corn. Oh the stupidity. You see, insulin is made in the pancreas, so when you have pancreatitis you generally have some serious diabetes problems going on. They would take my blood every morning at 3am. One day they came in and said I had serious problems going on and were going to have to start me on insulin because my blood sugars were in the high 400’s. I was stupid, it never occurred to me that I had started eating the candy corn the evening prior. So I kept eating the candy corn and my blood sugar kept getting higher. My husband was told about my health problems and rising blood sugars. It was discussed with my daughter. We were still keeping the candy corn a secret between the two of us. Then the guilt got to be too much for her and she snitched on me. The hubster took my candy corn. {{{{sob}}}}. It was for my own good. Now, as I sit here with another bag of hidden candy corn in my desk drawer I can’t help but think fondly of my secret stash of candy corn in 2002. It may have been bad for me, but man did I ever enjoy it. Thanks Brooke!


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We made our annual trek up to country roads of Noblesville yesterday to buy a rick of firewood for our woodstove. Last October when we were on the way to buy a rick we were rear-ended by a young woman on a cell phone. We were stopped in traffic and she was going 50 MPH. This year I was nervous every time a car got behind us in Noblesville. They aren’t known for their good driving up there you know. In fact, we did have to incidents where we almost got rear ended yesterday. Fortunately we made it home safe and sound and with firewood. Just for your reference, a 2005 Nissian Pathfinder (which is by the way a big lemon) just barely fits a rick of wood. I don’t think we could have fit one more stick in that thing. It was packed tighter than a sardine can. Then came the unloading. I can honestly say I unloaded at least one third of that rick, if not half. I can also honestly say I am stupid and overdid it and have been paying for it ever since. I have been hopped up on pain meds today and resting my aching back all day. But, I must say, I have been roasty, toasty and warm as a bug in a rug with that nice firewood burning in the woodstove all day. So when my eldest son came home from work this afternoon and told me that there were snow flurries this morning when he left for work at 6am, and more snow flurries expected tomorrow morning, I really didn’t care. Ain’t it great!


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If you will recall my post a few weeks back about how I am turning orange, it is true, I may have exaggerated the picture. But the truth of the matter is that I am indeed turning orange. My hair used to be blonde. Now, thanks to our rusty water, it is orange. You can’t get a full comprehension from this picture of exactly how orange my hair is, but believe me, it’s orange.


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When colder weather hits I get cooking urges. There is nothing like the smell of food simmering away on the stovetop or baking in the oven on a chilly fall day. Am I right? Come on, you know I am. It makes you feel all homey and comforted inside your soul doesn’t it? Well it does to me at least. Today’s luncheon repast was split pea soup. Ever since I saw the segment on the Food Paradise show (on the Travel channel) about Anderson’s Spilt Pea soup, I had to have it. I’m not in the position to hop on my Lear Jet right now to fly out to Calif to have a bowl so I did the next best thing, I made it in my own little kitchen with my own little hands. Sorry Andersons, even though I have never tasted your soup I think I’ve improved upon it. I found their recipe online and added a ham hock (theirs was vegetarian) and some minced garlic. I also substituted half of the water for chicken stock. At first I was afraid the soup was going to turn out orange, because I grated the carrots instead of chopping them. Seriously, I had orange stock. It kinda matched my orange hair. Does orange hair mean you will have orange soup? Is thta how that works? It turned out all right in the end though and was green. How did it taste though? All I can say is YUMMY! This soup is yummy for your tummy. Good to the last drop! It warms you up from the inside out. I’ll put the recipe below for those of you that would like to try this delicious, good for your soul, soup. Try it folks, it’s a winner for sure.


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Anderson's Split Pea Soup Recipe Improved

32 oz container chicken stock
3 cups cups water
1 small ham hock
1 ½ cups dried green split peas (do not soak)
1 stalk celery, finely minced
1 large carrot, shredded
1/2 cup onion, finely minced
1/4 teaspoon ground thyme
1 dash cayenne pepper
1 bay leaf
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

Combine chicken stock, water and ham hock in a soup pot. Bring to boil. Add peas, celery, carrots, onions and seasonings. Boil at a low boil for 20 minutes, uncovered. Reduce heat and simmer until split peas are tender (approximately 45 minutes to an hour). Puree soup in a blender, 1 or 2 cups at a time. Return to soup pot and heat until warm throughout. Serve.

Note: Andersons does not use a ham hock. Their’s is totally vegetarian. Feel free to make this without a ham hock if you like.

At Andersons resturaunt they serve this soup with an array of toppings for the consumer to place on top of their soup such as minced ham pieces, bacon bits, cheese, croutons, green onions, etc. It’s great served plain too. Enjoy!

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Congrats to my son in law for making Sergeant in the US Army! What an awesome promotion, eh? They went to an Officers Ball and the picture above is, I assume, prior to leaving for the ball. Brooklyn says they had a wonderful evening. They both certainly looked spiffy. If the picture looks a little odd, it’s because the one picture my daughter sent me of the two of them together, she was (of course) cheesing it up for the camera in true Brooklyn style. That’s my gal, just like her momma. So being a crafty sort of gal (aka sneaky) I morphed them into the same photo. A mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do.

What do you do when you are in between writing chapters and blog surfing has lost it’s appeal? Make gingerbread pumpkins of course! It’s a true win/win situation. You get exercise by welding a rolling pin. You get the satisfaction of making something truly awesome. And best of all, you get a yummy treat to nosh on while you try to hack away at writing another chapter in your tale of vampire love. See, win/win.

When I am hard and heavy into my writing I do all sorts of things to keep from writing. (Defeats the purpose, I know). I will play on Millsberry, I will put moustaches on all the people in my family christmas pictures from years past and in the case of today I will blog surf. Excuse me but what is up with all the plain, boring, blah blogs? I'm not talking about the writing. I am talking about the blog template. Plain Jane, boring, standard comes free with Blogger templates. Not even a pink or blue one. but white or gray. Come on people! Throw a header up there. Change up the color. Do something! Part of me wants to email all these plain boring blog design people and offer to do a free blog design makeover for them. But then I really wouldn't have any time for my writing. White and gray though? Come on!

Oops wine? Who knew? Did I somehow create and bottle wine in my sleep? Or did Oops thieves sneak in my dreams in the middle of the night and steal my shtick? I'm going with the latter. They could at least send me a free bottle. Or a tee shirt.

This might as well be Friday the 13th instead of Monday the 13th as far as I am concerned. The “Adam Henry’s” (A.H.’s; figure it out) next door are putting a new roof on the house next door that is being flipped and the considerate roofing crew has driven across our front lawn several times. They even parked on our front lawn once. They told us today, when we asked them not to drive across our lawn, that they would be working over there at least three more weeks and even adding a trench of sorts to help with some sort of drainage problems that property has. Oh goody, backhoes. As if that didn’t raise my blood pressure enough, then I look out the back window and see the people that are in the process of buying the house behind us. All I will say is I’M NOT HAPPY! It’s like the worst possible people you could imagine for neighbors. It’s like my worst nightmare come true. (And no, they are not Hispanic. I don’t judge people on the color of their skin; I judge them on their actions. And Brooke, yes they are WORSE than the people that lived in the rental house across the street a few years ago). And couple that with the rental house across the street from us which is currently for rent and the pack of redneck hellions that looked at it on Sunday and stayed for 45 minutes, thus most likely renting it. Just moms and pops along with their 5 kids and one in the oven. Moving into a 900 square foot house with 3 of the tiniest bedrooms I have ever seen. The kids were chasing each other with sticks, trying to beat a squirrel to death, trying to beat the faith healers dog with a stick and taking turns punching the window in the front door, just to name a few of their friendly, cute games. Mom and Dad didn’t seem to be bothered by it. Actually I think Dad might have been too drunk as he was stumbling quite a bit and Mom was more concerned about chain smoking. I think she was chain smoking because she was smoking for two, therefore she wanted to make sure the baby got it’s share of nicotine as well. At least she is thoughtful, eh? This neighborhood has changed so much and not for the better. I think it is well past time to get out of Dodge. Where to go is the problem. What to do with the rest of our lives and where to go. Too many decisions.

The hubster STILL hasn’t found a job. I will reserve my comments on that for a non-public forum. His Mom continues her weekly phone call to see how we are doing, which I have to say we both appreciate. It’s nice to know someone is there for you emotionally when you are going through tough times. She let it slip in last weeks phone call however, that some family members are upset about her calling us once a week and thinks she should only call once a month, if that. They said that they stopped calling us because not only was it depressing for them to hear about how ad things are going for the hubster, but also they felt they should leave us alone right now until we got our lives in order. WTF? She wouldn’t say which family member said that, but it could have been more than one family member because no one else in the family is calling or emailing us. They are all giving us a wide berth. I guess we just depress them too much. How bad of us. Maybe the hubster should go out and get a job so his family won’t be so depressed. You know, it scares me the way some people think, it really does. It’s like when I got cancer in 1990. Almost all of my friends dropped off the face of the earth. Later, after my operation and treatments, one tried to come back into my life. She told me that the reason she was scare during my treatments was that it was too upsetting for her and she wanted to make sure I was going to make it before she opened herself up emotionally. WTF? Needless to say I dropped her like a hot potato. That’s not a friend in my book.


(I stole this pic from Gunter. He is a much better photographer than I)

Now that I’ve complained throughout this entire post I’d better get back to my vampires and shapeshifters since I have a writers group meeting tonight. I don’t want to make it seem like I do nothing but complain lately however so I will leave you with this thought – the fall leaves are absolutely spectacular this week are almost at their peak. A true sight to behold, which fills my heart with joy. That’s one of the best parts about Fall.

There now, I said something positive! Auf Wiedersehen!

Hurray, I’m still alive! Well, barely, but nonetheless. Life is still the same old depressing blah blah that it’s been all year long. 2008 has been one crappy year I gotta say. Nothing new to report really. Some days are better then others. There have been some pretty depressing things that have occurred but there have been some freaking awesome things that have occurred as well.



Something depressing is happening but I am hesitant to mention it. Oh what the heck - I am turning black and orange. Or rather, I turned orange and now I am turning black. You see, in Indiana the water is very hard and mineraly so you have to have a water softener. The water is not fit to drink or cook with or even to bathe in. It’s disgusting. Our water softener stopped working a couple of months ago. First my hair and toe nails started turning orange. Then my finger nails turned orange. Now my finger tips and nails are turning black from the mineral build up. We can’t even wash our clothes in our home anymore because everything turns orange. It’s the damnedest thing I ever saw. It’s literally disgusting. And the more I wash my hands the blacker they turn. Unfortunately I am an obsessive hand washer so I am getting the worst of the situation. It’s going to be extremely expensive to replace our water softener because of the plumbing issues involved. So by the time my money arrives (I’m expecting a big check) and we can replace the water softener I may have to change my race on my drivers license. Good thing I’m fond of orange.