Just Simply Holly

Yes, my feathers do get a bit “ruffled” over the things that go on in our country. But you know, what? There are so many more things in life that make me happy and don’t ruffle my feathers, so lets talk about some of those things instead!

I consider myself to be a very blessed person. I haven’t had the easiest of lives and I’ve mad some not so good choices over the years, but even through the bad times, I always manage to see the good things.

Over the last several years, one of the things that has enabled me to keep a somewhat “sane” balance to my life is blogging. I still have the very first blog I ever created, and I often go back to it looking at how much life has changed over the years. I’ve met some amazing people because of blogging and I even reconnected with a very special friend because of her blog being featured on the local news one night!

Whether I’m down and out or flying high, I know that I can always turn to my blogs to get me through the day! Because of problems with my hands it’s nearly impossible for me to write in a journal, but typing is something I can do, so I view my blogs as my online journals, a place where I can talk about some of the amazing things that go on in my life as well as the things that make me want to give up. And when I write a post about wanting to give up I always manage to get a comment from at least one of the wonderful bloggers I’ve met online!

Unfortunately, recent news articles have tended to focus on negative things that have happened to bloggers. Some bloggers have actually pushed themselves so hard to be the first to blog a huge breaking story that it has actually caused their death. But you know what? That doesn’t represent me or the many hundreds of bloggers I’ve come across. We blog because it gives us a place to share our stories and because it makes us happy! I can’t count the number of times that I have stopped at someone’s blog and read a post that inspired me or brought me to tears. And there are even more blog posts that I’ve read that have made me realize things in my life that needed to be changed.

Anyway, blogging does make me happy, in more ways than I can count, and here’s a little video about why blogging makes me happy! If you don’t have a blog yet, what’s stopping you?

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I’m sitting here watching the noon news when they come on with a breaking news alert. One of the reporters was out about town talking to people and getting their reactions to the overnight hike in gas prices. Now, it’s been a ROUGH night/morning here, so I didn’t pay much attention to the news this morning. So I was totally not prepared to see that the sign at the gas station showed the price of regular gas went up to $3.95 over night. WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?

So, to our oh so lovely President, and ALL members of congress and/or government that “run” this country, I’d simply like to say kiss my butt! How in the heck do you even remotely expect common people to survive this kind of price gouging? You have NO IDEA what it is like to have to scramble around scraping up money to put food on the table or pay your bills. You sit there “running” this country, sucking up every little penny you can off the backs of the people who work their butts off day in and day out hoping and praying they can get by without losing everything they own!

You continue to dump billions upon billions of dollars into a war that cannot be won and needs to end now before you completely bankrupt this country! You pad your pockets every chance you can, yet you continue to cut funding to groups and programs that help people who are working their butts off trying to make it, but just can’t. And now you’re allowing our gasoline prices to reach prices that are ridiculous!

I tell you what, why don’t YOU try to make ends meet paying these prices on the average family’s income? What? What’s that you say? You don’t think you could?? WELL WELCOME TO OUR REALITY! For God’s sake, get off your butts and do something to let the people that put you into your fancy offices know that you really do care about someone other than yourself for once! Give US a break for a change instead of yourself or your “cronies”!

The everyday common people in this country are working their butts off day in and day out and we get NOTHING from you but a slap across the face! You do nothing to protect us from the oil companies taking advantage of us at the gas pumps. You do nothing to assure that we will be able to continue to stay in our homes and feed our families. You made it so that decent, hard working people aren’t eligible for stimulus checks, even members of our military that are serving their country over in Iraq in that God forsaken war that you continue to support and funnel money into!

Frankly, I’m disgusted at the way you are running this country. You don’t do anything decent to cut corners, instead you cut the things that help the people who need it the most. Cut something that “might” affect yourself for once, like your salary, or your benefits, and STOP living off the backs of people that no longer want to support your lazy butts!

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OK, it’s only been hooked up a few hours but OMG, we’re having so much fun playing the Wii and all the different games that game with it! I’ve always enjoyed video games, I used to be completely addicted to Centipede when it was in the arcades back in the 80’s, and more recently I was really into the OODLES of Pokemon games that my son has for his Game Boy. But he’s grown past Pokemon and he’s now into games that I totally don’t understand. No, not the shoot ‘em up kind of games where you’re stealing cars and killing people, more like the fantasy type games. Since I don’t understand them, even though I tried, the days of hanging out and playing video games with my son, as well as my daughter, have been over for a few years!

That was until I won my Wii! It arrived today while I was taking my son to school, and I waited for my husband to get home from work so that the two of us could hook it up. What I was expecting was for me to read the directions while he haphazardly listened, but instead he read the directions to me and I completely hooked it up on my own. OH YEAH!!

It’s been up and running ever since we hit the power button! First I hopped on and set up my Mii, then I checked out one of the games that came with it that’s called “Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree”, this is definitely the perfect game for ME! I love things that make me use my brain and I know I’m going to love this game. As much as I liked that game, I wanted to try them ALL! So I then moved on to the Sports Pack that came with the game. These are the games that you see on all the commercials, the bowling and baseball games. It also has tennis, boxing and golf. These are the games that really get you up and moving! I was totally thrilled when I scored a 111 on my first game bowling and then I hit a home run playing baseball! All 5 of the games in the sports pack are going to give the four of us HOURS of family fun!

But alas, I had to give up control so that my husband could play for a while! He had been chomping at the bit watching me play! I “thought” I was proud of my bowling score until he played a game and whooped my BUTT! He beat my 111 by almost 50 points…LOL! And although he had a difficult time when he was at bat let me tell you, he’s going to be the strike out champ in this house! He then turned over control to our 15 year old son.

None of us had ever played a Wii before, so everything we do is brand spanking new to us, but you’d never have known that watching my son play tennis! He kicked butt and won his first set! But, as much as he thought the sports games were cool, what he REALLY wanted to check out was one of the other games that came with my Wii Bundle, which is The Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess. This is exactly the type of game that he LOVES! And let me tell you, having him out here in the family room playing and laughing and just getting into a game is really cool to me! And his reaction just now when I asked him if he was going to like this game was AWESOME! My daughter hasn’t been able to play yet because she’s not home from her last track meet of the year, but my husband is on his way to get her, so she’ll get her chance soon! The other games that came with our Wii are Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Chicken Shoot.

I’ve already been to Buy.com checking out the other games that I REALLY want! I was checking out their Weekly Deals and about fell out of my chair when I seen that We Ski can be pre ordered right now for just $26.99! Check it out, it looks like a totally awesome game!

Of course, with my upcoming trip to California and the fact that my MP3 player totally took a dump a couple of weeks ago, I could snag up one of the MP3 players that they’re offering in this weeks Weekly Deals so I can listen to some of my favorite songs to help keep myself from freaking out when I’m flying home!

I’m just so glad that I won my Wii, it’s just what we’ve needed to bring us together for more family time! My daughter is home from her track meet and she’s played 3 holes of golf and is on her first game of baseball. Although she’s no where near as good as the hubby is, she’s pretty darned good, she’s been throwing 93 MPH fastballs and is on her second strike out!

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Fortunately, it was a good crazy, but let me tell you, this was will be one for the record books! It started out as a quiet, easy going morning. I was able to enjoy my coffee and wake up well before the kids woke up!

My family TOTALLY respected my wishes and did not buy me a gift or a card. I asked them not to spend any money of me for Mother’s Day in lieu of my upcoming trip to California, so instead they each sent me a wonderful e-card and the kids “promised” they’d be on their best behavior all day. I’m happy to say that other than one or two minor attitudes, the kids behaved themselves wonderfully today, so that made this a wonderful Mother’s Day in my book!

I had told my sister that I would bring a cake to her house as part of the dinner and had found a recipe a few weeks ago for a chocolate cake that I had really been dying to try. So, for the first time ever, I made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting 100% from scratch. I was a bit nervous, even with all of the baking that I’ve done over the years, I had never attempted a cake and frosting completely from scratch. My worries proved completely unfounded as everyone agreed it was one of the best chocolate cakes they had ever eaten! I was quite impressed myself and plan on tackling other types of cakes from scratch as soon as I can!

We had an AWESOME time at my sisters house! Of course, by the time we got there she and our mother had already drank two glasses of Sangria, so they had a head start on me…LOL! But I didn’t even try to catch up with them! My sister made an AWESOME lasagna and besides my chocolate cake, we also had strawberry shortcake for dessert!

The trip home, however, became an adventure! We pulled out of my sisters driveway and I happened to look at the dashboard of the car (my hubby was driving). I looked at him and said “You need to stop for gas because we will NOT make it home”, but he assured me that we had more than enough gas in the car to make it home. I told him that I had driven that car for more than 5 years and I was certain that there was no way we would make it home, but he had it in his head that we would make it home just fine. Can you guess who was right? That’s right, I WAS! LOL We were about 2/3 of the way home with about 15 miles to go and the car started that running out of gas “chug-a-lug”. I looked at him and he had this look of complete disbelief on his face, to which I said “I TOLD YOU SO”.

See, we don’t drive the Honda that much anymore, so we hadn’t put any gas in it. He drove it up to my sisters house yesterday morning and had used my brother in law’s truck to drive back and forth with the loads of firewood from the trees that they had cut down. So today we drove the truck back up to them and brought the Honda back home.

So here we were, basically in the middle of no where, with no gas and no gas can to put gas in. My husband walked to one of two houses that were nearby to see if he could buy some gas from them, but they said they didn’t have any. The did, however, offer to call the Sheriff’s department stating that they thought the sheriff always carried a gallon of gas with them. So, we waited for the Sheriff to show up, and when he did, he had no gas. He stated that they stopped carrying gas with them quite a while ago. My husband then walked to the other house that was nearby and was able to get a gallon of gas, which was more than enough to get us home. He brought the can out to the car and put it in and as he was taking the can back I decided to start the car. Only thing was, when we ran out, we coasted off to the edge of the road and the car was on a slant, a bad enough slant that the car just would not start. Thankfully the Sheriff’s deputy stuck around to make sure we stayed safe. Between him, my husband and our son, they were able to push the car up onto a flatter area of the road side and after a few more minutes of cranking the ignition and pumping the gas pedal, the car finally started.

I tell you though, laughed my butt off the ENTIRE time we sat there on empty! I don’t know if it was the 2 glasses of Sangria, or just the fact that it had been such an enjoyable day, but I just found the entire situation hilarious!

We got home and had to clean up after puppies, the only damage they had caused was a chewed up tube of lip gloss that brat gurl had left laying on her desk, so that tuned out better than it could have! I made a pot of coffee and got the kids started on their showers, made a few phone calls to let everyone know that we made it home safely and poured myself a cup of coffee.

Just as I sat down with my coffee, the phone rang. I seen that it was my step daughter, so I let my husband answer the phone, thinking she was calling to talk to him, but I was wrong. She was calling for me to wish me a Happy Mother’s Day, which meant a lot to me! For a few years of her life, she lived with my husband and I full time. Although she was a wonderful child, I easily qualified as one of those typical wicked step mothers! I won’t go into the details, it serves no purpose anymore. I will say that it was better than 10 years before the two of us sat down and talked to each other and the only thing that I could offer her was my heartfelt apology. I knew that my mistakes had damaged her relationship with her father, and I offered to remain in the background so that the two of them could mend their relationship. It was a step in the right direction and over the past 2 years all four of us have developed a wonderful relationship with this very amazing young woman!

As a matter of fact, the relationship the the kids have developed with their older sister has grown so well that they are actually flying out and spending some time with her this summer, all on their own. Which leads to the final “WOW” of my Mother’s Day! I’ve known for a while now that the kids were going to go spend time with their older sister this summer, it’s about all they talk about any more and all three kids are really looking forward to it. I had initially thought they’d go for a week, maybe 10 days, but almost choked tonight when their sister asked if she could have them for a full MONTH! While I’m not even remotely against them spending a month with their sister, I’m a bit worried because the last time they spent any time with her was when she came to stay with us for a week, over 8 years ago. I trust her to take care of them, even though they’ll be in a major city over 500 miles from home. But the kids and I have never been away from each other that long!

So I’m torn, yes, they’ll be 15 and 13 by then and their sister is 25 and VERY responsible. I’m just torn you know! What would you do?

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I’d like to take a moment and wish all of the mom’s out there a VERY wonderful and happy Mothers Day! I’m just chilling out this morning (no one will let me do ANYTHING), but we’re heading up to my sisters house this afternoon for dinner with her and our mother!

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I’ve been a fan of ALL the CSI shows for many years. I watch the new episodes when I can and catch the reruns of some of them on an almost daily basis. But the original CSI has always been one of my favorites! And I have to tell you that I have been in lust with Warrick Brown since the first time I laid eyes on him! But his recent arrest and felony drug charges disgust me!

Yes, I know the trend among today’s stars lately has been getting into trouble, going into drug rehab, going to court and having their hands slapped, then turning around and repeating their mistakes. But the arrest of Gary Dourdan, a.k.a. Warrick Brown, goes above and beyond what we’ve seen lately. His charges are for felony possession of heroin, cocaine and ecstasy and all I can say is WOW! Why would someone with such an amazing future put themselves into that kind of situation? Yes, famous people are human and they do make the same kinds of mistakes that us “common folk” do, but I don’t even understand why ANYONE would put themselves in a situation like this! Do people honestly NOT realize how badly drugs mess up not only your life, but the lives of your family and friends?

I don’t know, I probably never will understand people or the really dumb choices that they make that eventually ruin their lives!

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Plane, train or taxi cab, all the choices HIP! LOL NO, I’m not losing it, I promise!! But I need to let you know that at the end of this month I’m going to be going away for a few days. My best friends daughter took a job offer in San Jose, California and we are going to accompany her on the drive out to sunny California. We’re planning on taking our time and stopping to see some of the many wonderful sites this country has to offer. Once we reach San Jose we’re hoping to be able to make the 50+/- mile trek up to San Francisco so I can see something that I’ve dreamt of seeing my entire adult life, The Golden Gate Bridge!

We’ll be leaving either Memorial Day night or the Sunday night before. And I’ll be flying home very late on the night of Monday June 2. I’m so very excited about being able to take this trip, but I also feel guilty…LOL! This will be the first time I have ever gone away from my husband in the 16+ years that we’ve been married and it is also the first time I’ve ever gone away from my kids for more than a couple of days. I know that they will be fine while I’m gone, but I also know that I’m still going to worry about them!

But for once I’m going to be selfish and do something for myself! I need this, I REALLY REALLY need this! Life has been VERY stressful lately, not that it hasn’t always been filled with stress. But the things that have gone on in the past month or so have really pushed me to the edge. I think getting away is going to be just what I need and am hoping that when I come home I will be a little less stressed and maybe even a little more happy!

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The kids were asking me the other day what we were going to do for their dad for Fathers Day. It wasn’t until they asked me that I realized that it’s only a few weeks away. My husband is like most other guys, he likes tools and gadgets. Since I don’t know enough about the types of tools he really uses and needs for work, I decided that the best thing we could get him for Fathers Day would be in the gadget department.

Since he purchased a new laptop a few months ago, he doesn’t need a new computer, so there’s one thing to take off the list. He also purchased a new MP3 player recently, so I can take that off the list as well. Then I remembered something he said the other night when we were watching a movie. We have an old and very cheap surround sound system that does not work well, and he said something about how nice it would be to get a better system that actually worked like it was supposed to!

So I clicked on over to Buy.com to see what kinds of surround sound systems they had the best deals on and found an awesome Harman Kardon CP40 5.1 channel home theater system with a DVD player AND a powered subwoofer that I could snag for way less than the normal retail price!

I’ll admit that I’m not the most technical savvy person when it comes to stereo type equipment, so I hopped on the phone and called my sister who is. She and I both looked around the Buy.com website for a while, checking out the great deals that they have on every type of electronic gadget you can imagine. My sister couldn’t get over the amazing prices they were offering on their weekly deals and she even snagged up one of these Digital Spectrum pink digital frames that they have on special right now for $59.99!

Anyway, back to me and my search for a surround sound system. Buy.com had several to choose from, and it was not an easy job trying to narrow the choices down, each different system had it’s own awesome features, but ths Harman Kardon just seemed to jump out at me as the best system and the best deal!

And I really like the fact that it comes with a built in DVD player, the one that we have right now is a combination DVD/VCR and we lost the remote for it in the last move, so you actually have to push the buttons to work it, which is a pain, especially with my old eyes….LOL!

Now all I have to do is figure out which day I can order it so that it will be shipped to the house on a day that he’ll be at work and won’t see it so that he’ll be surprised when he opens it on Fathers Day!

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For the past week or two, I just haven’t been feeling that good. I’m always exhausted, VERY grumpy and just plain out of it! Yesterday, when my husband and I were cutting the boards for the Dogs In Yard sign, I went to go down the steps on the back porch and blacked out for a split second. Long enough that when I came to I was completely missing the top step. If it weren’t for the fact that I had a 6 foot length of 2 by 4 in my hand to use as a brace, I’d have fell straight on my face!

The other morning I woke up at 4:00 AM in the midst of an asthma attack, what’s really strange about that is the fact that I haven’t had a problem with my asthma in at least 3 years, if not longer, other than the two times I’ve had bronchitis.

Today, I’m very shaky for some reason. I ate breakfast and I also ate lunch, which I never do, yet my hands are still really shaky. I know, rather than sitting here and blogging about it, I need to go see the doctor. But I just don’t like doctors and I think, somewhere deep inside, I worry that they’ll tell me that there’s something very wrong with me.

On a more positive note, the weather is BEAUTIFUL here today! It’s sunny and in the upper 60’s with a light breeze. I have the slider door open and can hear all the birds outside. It’s probably one of the nicest sounds in the world! And the breeze feels and smells wonderful! It’s one of the biggest reasons why I love this time of the year so much. So what are you up to today? Anything fun going on?

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Being a dog owner in the country definitely has perks over being a dog owner in the city! And with as far back from the road that our house is, I rarely have to worry about the dogs heading out to the road when I’m outside with them! One worry we do have, however, is people coming onto the property that don’t know that we have dogs.

Many people post beware of dog signs, but because of the possible liabilities a sign like that could cause, we’ve never wanted to put one up. On top of that, the average beware of dog signs aren’t very nice looking! So when I was given the chance at receiving and reviewing a Dogs In Yard sign, I was THRILLED! I had a choice of a Chocolate Brown, Grass Green or Cobalt Blue sign, and since I basically live in the woods, I decided the Cobalt Blue sign would stand out the best of all the colors! When I received my sign this week, I was so happy! The cobalt blue is a nice bright color and the wording and trim are done in a white color, so it really stands out nicely!

All of the mounting hardware was provided with the sign as well as easy to follow directions. I opted for the wood mount because we didn’t have anything that would could use the cable ties on to secure the sign. I managed to convince my husband to break out his trusty tools after I told him the idea that I had for mounting the sign so we could display it near the front of the driveway. Being the typical guy though, he’s always happy to have a reason to break out the power tools…LOL!

I’m very happy with how my idea for mounting the sign turned out and I’m even happier with my choice of the Cobalt Blue sign! I took a couple of pictures of how it turned out so that I could show you! The first picture is one that I took from the end of the driveway so you could see just how visible the blue sign is!

This next picture is one moving a little closer in from the first one

For the last picture I zoomed in so I could get a clear picture of the sign and how nicely it contrasts with the pine trees behind it!

The sign is just fantastic, and it’s an awesome way to let people know as soon as they pull into that we have dogs. It’s also WAY better looking than those standard beware of dog signs, and it doesn’t open us up to possible liabilities that those signs can!

The DogInYard.com website is such an easy website to get around, and unlike the majority of online retailers, they do not require you to pay first. You simply choose which sign and mounting hardware that you want, fill out the order form and your sign arrives in just a few days. They just ask that you send in your check or money order as quickly as they sent your sign, they don’t accept credit cards, they have a “Good Karma” policy and they don’t charge shipping!

So if you’re looking for a nice looking way to let people know that you have one or more dogs as well as a company that truly believes in putting their customers first, stop by and check out the beautiful signs available from DogInYard.com!

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