EHhhhhhhh I dunno about this....

I grew up with cats. I like them. At times, I've loved them. Some. But.....at my new place, even if they are outdoor - I now have a screened in porch that I want to keep as my sanctuary, but these little cute - ahem - terrors will tear it, and any other tangible screen, to shreds.

Joe found them yesterday at the warehouse and its been his dream lately to have cats around to deal with our living-out-in-the-country mouse and snake problem. But Joe does not believe me that cats are capable of tearing your screen world apart. He's asked everyone else's opinion, NOT listening to mine. HELLO, JOE, honey - you don't have to go any further than ME. I know the relationship. I've never not had cats. Take it from me......

Plus, these little girls are driving Happy and Rudy (the pups) to a whole new level of crazy. Rudy is foaming at the mouth to eat them, and Happy - well, Happy just wants whatever Rudy wants. Truth be told, he'd probably just kiss all over them and cuddle with them if he just had the chance. But not Rudy.... his history concludes that he was bred to catch cats.

If I have anything to do with this (which, you know what happens if Mama's not happy....) they will be chasing mice elsewhere. But they ARE so cute........

I've been away for a while......

I can't take it..... I'm simply in love. This little boy steals my heart every moment of every day. I kept waking up with horrible dreams of him getting hurt, and every dream had something to do with him getting something stuck in his eye. HORRRRRRIBLE dreams.

I don't sleep well these days, but I think its because we're PREGO!!!!! We are going to have another baby in April, and we are pumped. I wish I could sleep better, but that comes with the territory. I havent' slept well since I was pregnant with Joey, and I think that's just part of being a mom. You spend your wakened nights praying for protection over your children and your whole family, as at 2am, you simply have no control over the uncontrollable, or the unpredictable.

Anyway, I'm so sorry that I haven't updated the blog in a while. As many of you know, we bought a house back in June, and its really kept us pretty busy. Plus, I've been working really hard on my website building business. In addition to my mom's site (www.pencilworksbyjoyce.com), I recently built another site for a friend of mine who has put together an AMAZING cause for women who live and deal with breast assymetry. That site is called "Its Okay To Stuff Your Bra." I'm excited for her cause, and I was honored to be apart of the process. I really think it will reach a lot of women, young and old, who have spent their lives hating their breasts and in turn, loathing their bodies and struggling to feel like women.

I have several other clients lined up that I'm working with right now. I'm still learning my skills, but I build to the best of my abilities. I will keep you all updated as I build my sites.

Joe's been doing great as his business. He's turning the place upside down. I'm so proud of him.

We have a trip planned to go see my folks this weekend. They haven't seen Joey in a long time, and they are pining for him. Who wouldn't?!?! :)

Wally

We had a pool visitor last week named Wally. Joey LOVED him, but we had to turn him loose.
Thank God. He was cute, but I'm not in to keeping reptiles in my house...yet. I'm sure in a few years I'm going to have to get over this - especially since we've already pulled Wally out of the pool, and just yesterday, we had 8 frogs in the pool. Joey is going to be bringing them inside, begging for an aquarium. I'm going to have to be ready......

"Dirt Poor"

"You are the proud owner of a big ole pile of dirt."

These were the words spoken to me by my husband this morning when he woke me up.

"What??"

"The dirt people came today and left us a big pile of dirt on the driveway for the dog pen."

"Oh gooooood....." I said as i rolled over.

"And I'm robbing your purse of $34 to pay the dirt people. Hope you don't mind."

"You have to PAY FOR DIRT?" I thought. What the hell kind of deal is that?! I guess I knew that. Back when we were building our home in the midwest, they hauled away a bunch of black dirt, and when we needed it for filling in our landscaping, they tried to sell it back us. What the heck?

Ah well. At least we now have $34 more worth of fishing worms. Not that I'm going fishing any time soon.....

Blessing with Butterflies

I know this is sounds strange, but this is the second time this happened in my life.

See this butterfly? I know its hard to see the detail and the beauty, but it's hard to find a rare and beautiful butterfly like this. Tuesday, we bought a home and Wednesday night, before we left the home (we're having to do clean-up before moving in), we spotted this butterfly in the garage, fluttering around.

The last time I saw a bizarre butterfly was on my wedding day. It was petite with two solid pink wings and two solid yellow wings. I remember thinking how significant it was to see such a rare creation on such a sacred, special day.

when we spotted this butterfly Wednesday night, I had the same feeling. See, the home we just purchased is nothing less than our dream home. If we stay in this town (er, villiage) we will most likely never, ever move. And just the blessing of this home is a significant moment in our lives, just like our wedding day. Its like the beginning of yet another chapter in this crazy life. And it begins with another beautiful butterfly.

She is not my friend

In all her devilish pregnant glory, here is the black widow I pulverized with spider killer this morning. I found her not 2 feet from my back door, trying to enter my domain.

EEEEEEESH! I LOATHE SPIDERS and this mamacita I loathe on a scale of which I hate Brown Recluses (of which we have too) and the growing-in-popularity-since-Hurricane-Katrina, the BLACK recluse which is apparently when the Black Widow and Brown Recluse got together and... you know.

Why does God allow such demonic creatures to roam the earth? I guess for the same reason as murderers and sex offenders.....

Gratzie, Gratze, Belllllllla!

Mmm! I just heard about the Memphis Italian Fest going on right now thru Saturday.

I've been doing some daydreaming lately - ok, honesty- everyday I daydream. I've been yearning to travel in a BAD way. Not just to Florida or some place in the US. No, I'm talking overseas. I feel Spain and/or Italy calling me. I just need to go to the places I adore. My little village here is just not doing it for me these days.

But ... (sigh) ... travel is probably not in my cards for a while. We are going to buy a house soon, and maybe #2 on the way in the next year (this is not an announcement....I promise!!), and ... well, just lots of other life things. When I was single, as my family knows (and was sitting on nerves about) I was picking up and going to foreign lands on whims. I feel blessed that I was able to do so then - but my appetite for such travel was just beginning to be fulfilled - and then (NOT REGRETFULLY) I decided to get married, and pop out Joey. AGAIN - NO REGRETS!!! But I do long to travel. Hopefully, we'll have a chance to travel as a family in the near future - but for now, its MEMPHIS ITALIAN FEST, watching "The Godfather" a few more times, and taking chances to make my own sangria. I wonder if Memphis offers flamenco lessons??

Pencil Works by Joyce

*Sweat beads rolling down my face*

I've officially completed my first web design. It was finished a few weeks ago, but I hadn't officially spread the word until I had some more kinks worked out, and some blanks filled in. Now that those things are done, I can start passing the link around.

I'M STILL LEARNING.... and have a long way to go ... but I'm truly enjoying this extra-curricular activity, well ... soon-to-be business, or second household income (THANK YOU economy for making it hard to buy food and TP these days!!!!).

Check it out (but don't be too harsh on my inexperienced ass): Pencil Works by Joyce

It is still very amateurish, but that will come with experience. Let me know what you think. No use of templates... just completely built from blank documents - from the ground, up.

By the way, that's my mama's art site. I can only hope that I could do her incredible work justice.

Son of a .... gun buying ebayer?

I can't believe it. Not that this is really something to complain about....

I've finally found a fragrance that I adore, but, at retail, it's $130. That's a little steep for my wallet these days so .... I found it on ebay, and started a bidding war.

Up until about 3 minutes ago, I was winning nicely. I was about to be the winner of some Prada Infusion D'Iris for $47 when I get this email ONE MINUTE AGO that said "Sorry, you didn't win."

While the war was on, I was receiving emails regularly about how I was being outbid, etc., and I finally went to the lead. Somehow, that final email that told me I was being outbid didn't arrive. So i lost.

When I lost, I thought "Damn...... Oh well, I guess she needed it worse than I."

My curiosity led me to see who the winner was. The past review of items bought and sold were composed of manual-loading guns, a E-6 series passenger van, and a package of Hanes boxer briefs.

Now he can add women's perfume to his list.

The 5k

I made it.

I don't know how but .... I made it.

I actually did quite well (THANK GOD) for not practicing or working out to lead up to the event.

I came in 17th place over all (and there were maybe 300 or 400 runners??). I was the 4th female to finish, and I was 2nd in my age class. KEEP IN MIND THIS ROUTE WAS FLAT AS A PANCAKE. I can promise you that if we had even a hint of a hill, my ass would not have made it as smoothly and successfully.

I was SOOOO happy to see such a fantastic turnout for this first annual event. People of ALL ages were there to run/walk. The 2nd place winner was actually a kid that was about 10 years old... maybe younger? The 1st place woman was 42 (go girl!) and people of all shapes and sizes entered. I LOVED IT. A good friend of ours entered the race and finished without stopping, and he JUST started training 5 weeks ago.

I ran the Nashville "Boo Dash" in October of 2001 for a "Jog Run" Class at college (yes, they had this class, and yes I got credit.....sounds pretty unfair doesn't it?) I did alright, but not as well as I would have liked then. But, I must blame it on THE HILLS. And Nashville has them. Oh yes. They do.

But today was actually pretty "easy" (term used loosely) . I'm just thankful that I didn't blow my knee out or fall on my face as I actually almost did about a 1/2 mile in when my toe found my loose shoe lace. (Mom - I had to hold back a "SON OF A BITCH!.... oh my, I almost fell down!" when that happened.....**inside joke**)

The race actually had a weird twist to the whole thing though. The new contestants from The Biggest Loser were running with us, so there were camera crews EVERYWHERE following the race. It was actually quite annoying trying run around them.


Following the race, I was blessed to meet some people. I made a new friend, Simone, and her two beautiful children. They are from Australia, and they moved here about a year ago. She beat me in the race (I don't hold that against her! haha!) but that did strike up conversation that we should go running together sometime when our "kiddo" schedules coincide. I hope that happens, because she is really cool. And I need more girlfriends here. That area of my new world here is coming around. I've made some good ones through events like this race, and at church, thank goodness. And the ones with kiddos Joey's age are coming out of their holes just like I am, because our kids are finally old enough to need buddies of their own. Its about time because Joey REALLY needs to learn how to play nice. (He swatted and screamed at Rudy, our dog, the other day, when he was playing with Joey's ball. Time to find him a good playmate when he gets mad at THE DOG!!! Holy smokes.)