"WILD AND WONDERFUL"

For my Valentines weekend, I decided to see a friend out in good ole' West Virginia. We had a great 5 day weekend. I took of work Wednesday - Friday, and I stayed out there in the middle of nowhere until Sunday Mid-day. West Virginia is very relaxing, but the fast speed limit and strange people are hard to get over. I very much enjoyed our Valentines Day couples 4wheeler trip out to "the wall"- though it was very scarry. And driving up to the pizza joint on our 4wheelers was neet to and just intime since it started to rain when we got there.

Nicky worked on my car a little bit, the normal checking fluids and tires, and he changed my fuel pump. Though if you ask him, he'll clame he never worked on that piece of crap FORD.

But I got pictures.

Nicky workin on my car

Nicky working on my FORD "Focus". I have the proof. His co-worker said something about how he would never own a FORD and if you ever saw one in his driveway, it meant he had bad company. FORD's are just misunderstood, why all the hate guys, why?

Feb 7th and 8th

D visit's me. And I get sick.

I was soo sick this weekend, but I got to go shopping with D and her mother and I got these awesome new shoes.. 2 pair actually and a new purse. Momma Oakes (D's mom) and I have decided that D's baby Georgia is going to be a shoe girl.... what do you think?

Meaty.

Meet Meaty.

Meaty is a young 'PitMix', we beileve he is under 1 yr. We don't know what he is mixed with, but he is the sweetest dog you will ever meet. I adopted Meaty from the Essex County animal shelter on Saturday, January 31st? He was abused and on puppy death row. We (D and I) didn't plan on getting a puppy we were just going to see about the shelters requirements for adopting a dog, but we just coudln't resist this timid gentleman. We got him home and gave him a bath... and he is doing very well.

Meaty weighs about 45 lbs. and has a fur less line all the way aaround his neck where his previous owner kept his collar, or chain way too tight. Hopefully Meaty has found his forever home, at my friend D's house. So far JohnWayne (her son- 5yrs) claims Meaty to be his best friend, and BabyGeorgia (daughter-1 and 1/2) just loves on him and tiptoes around the house cooing "gawgie, gawggie". Sunday she used him as a step stool to get up onto the counch, he didn't move a muscel except to lick her feet once she was up there. He doesnt try to get on the couch. As far as we can tell he doesn't bark, which is prooving interesting to know when he's got to do his business, but he seems to understand that he's supposed to go outside, just hasn't figured out how to comunitcate to us yet.

Wish us luck.

More photos to come.

More unhappy News in the newyear.

As it turns out my Aunt Betty in Georgia has also passed on. Her funeral is this weekend. I am not going.. It's quite a ways out there, and I can't miss the work. Not to mention, I promised a dear friend that I would come and visit her for the weekend. Hopefully to raise her spirits a Little. There has been a little bit of drama in her life lately.... we'll who am I kidding, there's been lots of drama for a good long while now.
I have put together what I think to be some good ideas to make her life a little easier, and some ideas to make things fun again. Some of the ideas I have are ...

-Start a online calendar - so she can keep her and her kids appointments and special events in order. I think if I use a email calendar like Yahoo, I can have it remind her too.

-Which brings me to - getting her up to date on the Internet... emails, picture, blogs, and games of course.

-I also want her to set up an "ICE" folder (or 'incase of emergency' folder). Here she can store important medical information such as her doctors, medications and diagnosis'. That way if anything every were to happen, all of the important information would be easily accessible. She can put the kids information there too.

-I want to help her set up a daily plan... including outings for her and the kids, chores, and visits to Nana's house.

-I also want to figure out some personal goals she has for herself, and help her to archive them.

These are just some of the ideas I have thought of to get her out of her rut that she's in. I will post another blog to let you all know how it all works out. Let me know if you can think of anything else.

January's unhappy events bring families together

January came with quite a blow. The same night that I was at the concert I found out later, was the night that my dear cousin Tony left this world. I had gotten a phone call at the concert, but it was so loud that I wasn't able to hear. I got the news the next day. It came as a shock, I didn't even kmow he had been in the hospital, not many people did. They are still trying to find out what happened.
The funeral was held Jan 5th 2009, luckily I was able to take off work to visit with my mourning friends and family. Even with such sad events to bring us together, it was good to see everyone come together. And as with the normal tradition on my moms side, we all decided on a meeting place to enjoy each others company and convers about the good times with our already missed family memeber.
With our tears wiped from our faces and food in our stomachs we soon found each others uplifting personalities to be helpful to manage our troubled thoughts. Our evening ended well, and there were laughs and smiles.

... part 2

My friend Nicky came into town for Christmas. We hung out allot, and visit mutual friends and family. The first couple days he was in town we went to D's house. I took my gifts for the kids out there with me. The kids loved them, but D said I broke the first rule of gift giving - you see I got John Wayne a (learner) guitar. Apparently i wasn't supposed to get them anything that made noise? Ha ha .

Regardless I figured a kid with a name like that needed a guitar, and a nice plaid jacket too. The kids loved their gifts and D loved hers too. I swear I spoil that dear girl every year. Nicky it seams had just as much fun with the kids toys as any child would. Momma Oakes stopped in for a quick visit too, but just to drop off the kids gifts that D couldn't fit in the car the day before.
Nicky and I said our goodbyes to the kids that night as they took off for their dads house all the way down in South Carolina.

Nicky and I caught a show at the 930 club in DC, together. It was a favorite band of Nicky's that I had gotten him tickets to for Christmas. "CLUTCH" was very interesting, kind of redneck meets rock with a really good beat. Their fans were awesome, mostly long haired tough guys with tattoos and Amish beards. If you have every been to the 930 club you probably have seen this huge bald guy with gigantic gauged ears (I totally want to meet this guy by the way)... this guy was singing along to the Clutch lyrics word for word, as he lifted crowd surfers off of the crowd and broke up fights between overzealous moshers. I'd say it's very addicting music - in fact we are going to go see them again in February I think.