The Hogfather

I knew there was a fantasy world known as 'disk world.' Honestly, though, I'd never pursued the series. The first time I heard of it the name didn't catch my interest. 'Disk World' uh... that's great.... ummm... so I think I'll go read about Pern and the dragon riders now.

Well now I'm interested. All because of a little web comic.

According to the internet the author is adi-fitri from his tumblr of the same name. I couldn't verify. 

This scene is supposedly from the diskworld book 'Hogfather' and I am now incredibly interested in finding and reading this series. 

For those of you who don't know I kinda don't like Christmas and I have a slightly morbid sense of humor. So the idea of Death taking over Santa's duties while ol' Saint Nick is MIA tickles me greatly. Also I don't like how people overprotect children; they need to have age appropriate levels of responsibility and consequence. 

Now to find a good used book store. And remember my lovelies~

Wedding Bells and River Tales

My friends just got married! Yaaaay!
I just got back for the festivities, sort of. We ended up staying the night with my brother in law because we decided not to drive an hour home after 10 pm. It's nice being able to make that decision, and just sleep. We don't get a lot of that in our lives.

Upcoming attractions in the life of Ashes and Jex include a trip to our first Con ever! Storm Con!
We figured if our first Con was also a First Year Con then it'd be doubly special. Right? Haha, no not really. It just turned out that way.
I'm thinking about going to Anime Weekend Atlanta at some point. But I really want to make a ridiculously awesome/silly costume and soak up the entire experience. Haven't had time for the costume thing this year.

Kinda convinced that my baby quilt will never be done. I keep seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and then having to go back and do a bazillion more stitches.

Oh and my pumpkin plants have EXPLODED! Really, they're taking up almost the entire garden now. I had to redirect them away from my herbs and lettuce. I'm so excited for Fall. I'm going to have a dozen pumpkins easily this year. YAAAAY!!!

Also I have pictures from the Kayaking trip a really cool elder couple took us on not too long ago.
Enjoy.

Jex in all his muscled glory

Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream

Merrily

Merrily

Merrily

not so merrily

Life is but a dream.

Then Jex decided to play with the filters on the camera, they're pretty awesome.

The Swinging Bridge

A tree root thing

The river just beyond the Swinging Bridge where everyone got tipped over

River!

Ashes on the Bridge with Kim and Mike

Jex deigning to let me take a picture with him

Mike on the Bridge

Oh hey... there are people...

The tree root thing again, this time with us

And this is us bailing out or kayaks so we can keep going

And me in a borrowed red hat

Zumbariffic?

You are now looking at the blog of a licensed Zumba Instructor!
Yay!
The most disorganized Zumba Instructor EVER! Because I left the training and forgot ALL the teaching tools they gave me.
No, I didn't forget the class. I forgot that bag of awesome that they gave me in the class. There was a CD with songs, and a DVD to show me the stuff my little brain couldn't jam into memory banks fast enough and a teacher's booklet to help me figure out how to choreograph songs. *tears*

So I'm kinda running around like an idiot trying to find everything. Worst part is the training was done 7 hours from where I live. So it's not like I can drive up to the Wellness Center where the class was held and be all like "Yo, I forgot mah shiz in your classroom. Couldja open it up so I can retrieve it?"

Bleh bleh bleh.

On the positive side, though, I joined the ZIN network (like a club for Zumba Instructors, membership fees, cool stuff in the mail that sort of thing). There is a surprising amount of resource there for me.
It might be harder for me to stitch together my first class routine than the other, smarter, members of my class, but I think I can do it.

Until next time,
Shake that booty. (^_^)

I want a scanner

Not only would it make my life easier... well it would just be a fun thing to have. So that I didn't have to take pictures of all the artwork I did for the challenge. Yeah...

Anyways here is a dose of Marriage Giggles thanks to Jex.

Jex: Have you taken your Appelopolis today?
Me: You mean acidophilous?
Jex: Yeah.
Me: No.
The acidophilous is kept in the fridge. Which my husband walks over to opens and as he's taking the chew-able allegedly strawberry flavored tablets out of the fridge he makes this adorable little baby dinosaur 'rawr' sound before announcing : "Acidopolis, made from real dinosaurs." *cute rawr*

I love this guy.

30 Days in Wildlife Drawings: Technically day 8

I've been keeping up with drawing one animal a day.
Till yesterday.
And I just haven't posted them here since all the peoples running around with sharp pencils are mostly on the Book of Face.

So here are some more drawings for my lovely readers, both of you. *laughs*

Day 6: Spirit Animal

I've had falcons in my dreams since I was a little girl. I used to have a lot more animals in my dreams, but sadly most of them no longer come around. I'm lucky if I dream of Kq!b' (Kyaba) or Ripley.

So here is my rendition of a Falcon.
I really really hate feathers.

Day 7: Roll a pair of dice (2 D6 for my gamer buddies) and draw a hybrid of the animals you drew for those two days. 

Of course I got Falcon Shark. 

This was the day I spent mulling over designs and didn't actually draw anything. I was really hoping for Owl Tanuki, but of course the freaking Shark has to eat all my happiness.

A big "THANK YOU" to Phaedra and Crystal, without whom Falcon Shark would never have gotten on paper.

Day 8: A Wildlife Creature whose call moves/effects you. 

I freaking love the sound of a chorus of Wolves. Yes, even after watching 'the Grey'. 

I'm actually really really proud of my Wolf. I honestly didn't think I would be able to draw her without her looking like a domesticated mutt. 

I love how it looks like she's singing. 

Später dann. 

The Light Heart Lives Long~

30 days in Wildlife Drawings: Days 4 & 5

Day 4 was actually really hard for me.
Draw the Weirdest Wildlife Creature you've ever seen.
I happen to think that a lot of the 'weird' creatures are actually quite adorable. For example the duck billed platypus, dumbo squid, and echidna didn't make the cut because they're too freaking cute. It took me a long time to finally decide on what I thought was the weirdest creature.
I decided on the Manatee.

Day 5 is: The animal that represents your favorite country. 

This was a toss up between Germany, Japan, and Russia. Germany was a big NOPE because it was a bird, after drawing the owl I have little desire to draw another feathery creature. Then Japan won because it's one of my favorite little things in the world. 

A Tanuki (Raccoon Dog)

Yay! I'm actually almost keeping up this time! 

If anyone wants to steal this 30 day challenge do it! 

See you tomorrow!

OHMG! Is that the Sun?!

Greetings Friends!

This is Ashes reporting from her less hectic life.
After a storm damaging our roof, killing most the garden, cuts to the military making our paychecks very very small, and buying a new car I finally have something good to post about! Yaaay!

I made a collapsible hula hoop. Oh yes. It's awesome! It's also way too big to hoop with in the house, but that's ok, I also made a smaller one. I went from -1 hula hoops to 2! It's amazing! *laughs*

Yup I'm purposefully sounding manic, for the hell of it.

Life really is doing better though. Our new car is super fancy. I told my friend, because you can TALK to my car, that I really want to make all kinds of Star Trek references when I'm in it. I've already asked it about sky net. It says it doesn't know anything, but I know the truth. *laughs* Still haven't figured out why it won't recognize my phone so I can tell it to call people.
Oh yes. It calls people for me. Well it would if it would recognize my phone! I think the car thinks it's better than my cell. My cell is, after all, not a 'smart' phone. It just has a fold out tactile keyboard. (I totally just tried to spell fold as phold, what the heck brain?)

I'm still trying to learn more hoop tricks, but I fail, and comically hit myself in the face or launch the round piece of irrigation tubing at my husband. Though I think that one might be a little bit of karma.

Oh, and I'm going to be a Zumba instructor. Soon. I'm so excited, and freaked out. One the one hand it'll be a fun job and I'll never have to actually 'work out' in the traditional sense ever again. Score!
On the other hand, I'm not so awesome with strangers.
As you've noticed by my choice of words and references I'm kind of awkward. My kind typically are. Throw computer parts at me and I can help you, throw a room full of strange women, maybe even a token male, and I might be able to help you... maybe... it depends.
Luckily the first class I'll be teaching will be all the really rad elderly people from the church Jex and I hang out at. Who knows, maybe I'll get a kids class after that and work my way up to the frightening mass that is my peer group.
But that's off in the shadowy future.

Till next time my lovlies!
God is good, but don't dance in a small boat.
 PS, I don't know why but I have this urge to post pictures of the wreck.

Notice how our car, the red one, is trashed while the silver one took next to no damage. Figures.
Good news is that my knee is finally healing. I smashed the ever loving crap out of it on the steering column when we collided.

The moral of the story; Honda beats Ford in Life Paper Scissors.

Talking to my self

Ever have those days when it feels like you're talking to yourself?
I'm not talking about not getting comments on your blog or being ignored by your spouse; I'm talking you're staring at the bread in the Grocery store and you realize that your thoughts are no longer silent.
You realize that while analyzing the contents of two competing whole wheat breads that your mouth butted in on your private conversation and decided to alert the whole world. It's like that part in those kids movies when the inventive  and capable hero kid hits the on button on the intercom so that the evil bad guy's words are broadcast for all to her. Yay! the dictator is toppled there's confetti, ribbons, and cake.
Only it's not that fun in real life. Of course when you glance around there's some big white lady giving you the 'oh-my-god-i-hope-i-don't-catch-crazy' look and some young mother shielding her child from your ravings. Or worse, a really nice dude who just smiles at you hoping that you merely smile back and turn away so he can escape before you try and talk to him.

I don't know if this happens to you, but it's happened to me a lot recently. I hate my mouth.

Also the people I talk to randomly disappear. Well, not really disappear so much as they wander off in the middle of talking to them.
For example I'm doing dishes and talking to Jex who's sitting at the computer table close by. He's totally responding. So I continue, hear nothing, then turn to find he's gone.
Or even worse, what you say gets totally ignored.
This I blame on society though. We're all bent on what we have to say rather than what others have to say... not that I can say much about that without being a complete and total hypocrite; I'm a blogger. *nervous smile* But really when you say "Wow it's really grey out today. Do you think it'll rain?" and the other person responds with. "Let me tell you if that **** doesn't call me back I'm gonna kill him. You know how frustrating it is to wait on some one else before you can do anything?"
"I'm a military wife, so yeah."
"You have to put yourself into .... blah blah... two whole days.... blah blah blah..."
"You just want to complain don'cha?"
"blah blah I can't hear you blah blah blah."

I'm convinced that I'm crazy or I blink out of reality for these moments. What other explanation is there... other than that I'm boring... which is probably true.
What?
I'm in my 20's and I quilt. The vast majority my friends in the area are over 50 (which I maintain is totally cool but other people find quite strange). I write stories I tell no one about because, well, I tend to run off to lala land and talk waaaaay too much about them.

But I'm going to fix that.
How? By dying my hair blue! That will fix everything! lol

No not really.
I think the next time I realize I'm talking to myself I'm just going to weird out everyone even more by turning it into a play.
Oh yeah, the epic bread duel. Only one will make it into the cart! Only the best with rise! Take that fiendish unbleached enriched flour take my whole grain fury! Oh but what's this Corn Syrup! Noooooooooooooooooooooo! *ala~luke skywalker*

When people disappear I'll keep talking as if they never left and I have schizophrenia... no better yet I'll turn to my imaginary friends Iv'gar the purple dragon and Fiffle the fire breathing fox and tell them about how rude the other person just was. (^_^) Then continue my conversation with their very pleasant, if a bit mythical, company.

Then when I comes to the latter I've decided to reply with sentences that make no sense and counting how many I can get away with before they noticed I'm not playing along.
Like this:
Ignorer: "If I don't get a text in the next 10 minutes we're done."
me: "And I'm sure the flying pig would agree, applesauce."
Ignorer: "I mean really is this how you treat people? It's just rude."
me: "So are mudkips I hear." *nods sagely*
Ignorer: "Two whole days and not a word back. Seriously."
me: "Even the magic academy isn't that capricious."
Ignorer: "Capricious?"
me: "I think I used that word right."
Ignorer: "What the hell are you talking about."
me:*smiles brightly* Two points for me!

But the boring thing I am going to fix by dying my hair blue. People with blue hair are much more interesting than people with normal hair colors. No really. I'll put up pictures with ISpy this coming Thursday.

The Light Heart Lives Long~
till next time my lovlies

P.S. I will finish telling you about the Sunshine Trip. This was just on my mind today... or rather on my mouth as it began flapping about halfway through the thought. lol

Sunshine Trip: Day 3

We woke up to babies. Apparently tiny people don't need sleep like big people do. They had kept Cait up all night and then decided to be done with Druid and Faeriman's spare bedroom.
Which was really lame because we'd decided to sleep until late that day. You know not get up at the ass crack of dawn and get on the road as the first few tendrils of light are shining IN YOUR FACE. But what had to be done had to be done.
This turned out to be the day of God's timing.
I also think this is the day we heard Drunk Grandma preaching on the radio... if it's not it's close enough...
Anycrazydesertradioprograms, we got on the road and made good time. Everything was going along swimmingly. No really. The babies realized that they were going to be in their seats for longer than they wanted to and simply dealt with it. Nymnym was still kinda afraid of the trailer but she'd stopped sitting on my head when I was in back with the babies.
I think this is also the day that Jex sat in back with the babies. He did amazingly well for a dude who is still a little weirded out by tiny humans. He still won't touch a diaper though, wuss.

We got to our dusk fill up and discovered that Jex had completely rearranged the back seat. There were spaces on either side of the car seat because of the way they sat in the Explorer. He'd filled those spaces up to give the person in the middle more leg room. Nice. But we'd have to roll down the windows to get the babies out. Not a problem actually. The car seats held the kids up just about even with the window ledge so it wasn't too bad.
We filled up, changed diapers, got much needed caffeine. Everything was going swimmingly, there was even grass for Nymnym to pee on... oh that right I didn't tell you, when we got to the desert Nymnym wouldn't pee because there was no grass. We're pretty sure she held her bladder for an entire state, maybe even a state and a half.

We started to pull out and I rolled up the windows, most of them anyways. You see, Kitten's window wouldn't roll up. Jex and Cait were trying to wiggle it and force it and everything as I pulled slowly out of the truck stop. Nothing was working. Which was strange because we've never had problems with that window, ever.
Kitten is his father's son, it gets to be 70 degrees and the boy gets shivery. And it was fast approaching night time, in the desert, in December. So after a while we pulled over and tried to fix the window.
We dissected it and called AssbreakerTony when we couldn't figure out what the crap was going on. There was also this little beagle hound mix little squatty legged dog that kept trying to steal Jex's tools and come home with us. To add some craptastic frosting to the frustration cake we pulled over near a railroad crossing. Between the conductor purposefully (oh it was totally on purpose) blowing the horn to freak us out (and it worked I shrieked and jumped in a full circle before figuring out what happened. Apparently train horns turn off my intelligent brain and replaces it with Derp) but when we were troubleshooting the window with Tony trains would come by and make it near impossible to hear him.

Day turned to night. Then the phone started to die.

Luckily my husband is made of awesome. He used to be an electrician and we just happened to have a length of copper wire left over from trying to fix the tail lights on the trailer.
Jex hotwired the window.
I'm not kidding. It was great and amazing and there was much rejoicing.

So we climb back into the car and go to get back on the highway and the highway is a parking lot. Jex says it's ok because the access road will take us all the way into Gallup, where we've decided we will be eating dinner.
Why was the highway a parkinglot? Another wreck. But here is where it turns into some super rad, this can't just be coincidence, stuff. When we pulled over Cait was watching the road when the lights on the highway went all crazy. If we hadn't pulled over we probably would have been in that wreck.
Not only that but the delay made it possible for us to eat at Grandma's Burritos in Gallup (that's really the name of the town, it's in New Mexico. I usually don't use town names because OPSEC is burned into my brain. But no, if you ever go through I want you to know the best place to eat EVER!). Which was amazing.
Adovado with green chili. Best thing in the universe next to fresh Tirimisu and German Goulash. 

We ended up driving through the night because it made sense and the babies were being awesome. And it was good, for a while.

The light heart lives long~

Advanced Auto Rave

I thought about having posts of my marriage scenes, events, moments as something like "Fraking Friday" or "I Spy". Then I blinked. Jex and I have such a weird off the wall life that some times we don't do anything for weeks, or we're not together for weeks, or we're driving for weeks. So, it can't be a staple of my blog, but it is still the biggest part of my life, so it will get written about.

This story begins with the first walk that Jex and I have taken together in three months, round about. We used to walk and just talk and be together a lot more often, when the world was a cooler place and we had cars that weren't broken. In order to not have to climb through the window when my husband doesn't want to get out with me we needed to replace the door handle.
Because my husband is a man, and there for forever 4 years old on the inside, he likes to tell me he's not coming in, watch as I climb out the window, then roll up my window for me, get out, and lock the car. All the while grinning like he's won some kind of competition.
There's an Advanced Auto Parts up the street from the house where we've been staying for the last couple of weeks (thank you Tristan and Cait!!!). We haven't walked in a while, so I invite Jex to come walk up there with me to get the door handle replacement.

We get to the store and I go straight to the line and trade looks with "Jerry" as the customer ahead of me fights with a large box to get a look at the strut he just bought. Before boxing it back up and taking his leave.
It's been about 5 seconds, waaaay past Jex's attention span unless there are pretty colors and fantasmic music, and out of habit I glance around to see where he's got to... and what he may be playing with.
Over the radio Lady Gaga's Poker Face is just queuing up.
My husband is in the aisle behind me, the aisle with all the colored LCD lights that can be attached to your vehicle and he has a full on rave going on. No, he didn't just randomly push buttons like some kind of kid. This man has artistically and perfectly synced a large portion of the light strips in beat with the song playing over the radio. It was like an amateur Daft Punk light show.
Suddenly I was reminded of why I like him so damn much.

In less sappy news I can now get in and out of my car without climbing through the window. Yay!

The Light Heart Lives Long

Quirks

When I have to type security words in order to submit comments I think: "Hey that actually sounds like a pretty cool word. Litexy Ntriad, ooooh! That can be a name for the capitol city in a fantasy book." Before I know it I'm liberally sprinkling hyphens and apostrophe's over nonsense letters pretending that, like sprinkles, they make anything look appealing and snazzy.... maybe even edible? *laughs*
And off I go to worlds known only to myself.

Smiling Saturday

There are some things that make me really really happy.
One of them is a character from a Nerdtastic show called Babylon 5.

He looks ridiculous, acts ridiculous, and is funny in the Eeyor 'I'm never happy' kind of way. There are some things he says that never fail to make me laugh or smile.

I couldn't find my favorite quote on YouTube, so I'm going to write it out and post my second favorite bit.

The Quote that never fails to make me smile: "Do you know what this is?Hm? No, I can see you do not. You have that vacant look in your eyes that says: Hold my head to your ear, you'll hear the sea..."

Tay-has or Bust

You know your cappaccino doesn't have enough caffeine in it when you look in your rear view to see a Semi barrelling down on your bumper and the only thought that comes to you is: "Oooh! Optimus Prime!"

((For those of you who don't know, Semi Trucks scare me. Not just I get a little on edge when I drive around them. No. This fear is on the edge of Panic Attack Land. And since I obviously can't fight the big bellowing monster spewing black into the air and roaring as it barrels down the road in Rinky the dinky red station wagon I tend to turn into speed racer... or make pitiful noises that sound suspiciously like wimpers. ))

So, Jex and I drove the 22 hours to Texas for Thanksgiving with some of the coolest people in our lives. I can't remember if I gave them code names or not. Hmmmm.... Anynames we started driving on the first hour of Yesterday, the 22nd, and began the long trip on a mostly empty road with a cooler full of goodies and several audio books. It started out well. We listened to Harry Dresden ((It's like Harry Potter but actually awesome)) take on all mannor of creepyness (because I am a nerd like that) and took turns sleeping in the passenger seat. The dog only puked once. It was going really well.
Then the battery light lit up.
We've had an alternater in our trunk for a few weeks now. We knew our alternater was going bad. I even took the time to change our spark plugs (and holy crap did they need changing... one of them was bent people! bent!) and install a new air filter. Yet somehow it was a good idea to take the alternater and speakers out of the trunk before starting our trek of grand proportions.
At first the battery light only lit up if I went over 75. It flickered like there was a loose wire or something. Then it began lighting up if we went over 60. And then it didn't turn off.
We pulled over to get some breakfast and I lost the dash. All the lights died, the gages stopped working and there was a beeping sound I've never heard before.
The alternater died exactly halfway to our destination. EXACTLY!
We were back on the road 5 hours, 3 wrong alternaters, and 400 dollars later we were back on the road. So much for the money we got back from our move. But at least we're not in the hole. So that's nice.

We're here now. In one piece and loving on our friends. And I can't wait to get video of the lot of us getting drunk and trying to play Curses.

Happy Thanksgiving. May you're list of Thanks be longer than your list of Disappointments this year!

The 30 day blogger challenge? Sure!

I've seen these on Facebook, 30 days of pictures, notes, statuses and what have you. I enjoy reading other people's stuff and wondering who the heck had the time to think of this list?! But I rarely ever join.
You see, I'm an observer. You know that creepy person in the corner who just watches everything? That's me! I'm deciding wether or not to join the shenanagans or figuring out the food chain and wether or not I want to try and break it. lol

Well, since Marianna Annadanna over at Snappy Surprise was nice enough to ask people to join her (at least when we felt like it or whatever) I'm actually going to try.
Like my comerade in blogs This 30 day blog challenge will probably turn out to be something in the neighborhood of 60-90 days. And depending on what internets I can get my hands on is wether or not I get to post pictures.
Day 01- Introduction, a recent photo, and 15 interesting facts about yourself.

Okay... My name is Ashes, sorta, if you've known me in the past 9 years then I'm Rem or Redd, if you met me before I moved overseas you probably use the name I never identified with and therefore stopped useing.
I like to be an open book, but my pages are out of order so... yeah.
Recent picture huh? Lets see if I can't jerry rig the interwebs.

HA! Take that "this operation is not allowed based on current security settings" !!! Widows were made to be broken... 'ahem' Anyway I'm the one on the far left smiling like an idiot. The guy next to me is a new friend I just made, trouble... er Chris, and the guy next to him is Rudi, the main guitarist for my favorite band Within Temptation.. Far left is one of my best friends, Sonya. That picture was actually taken this past Monday.

Alright, on to the 15 'interesting' facts:

1. When I'm nervous I keep talking, because eventually I hope I'll sound as intellegent as I do in my head.
2. The above never works.
3. In my head I am rather intellegent, genious even!
4. I don't like water being on my person. In me, fine. On me, NO!
5. I'm afraid of the ocean, not only is it a huge bottomless body of water *shivers* but there are SHARKS in it!6. If I could be anything else I would be a dragon. Because no one would bother me knowing that in my eyes they are crunchy and good with ketchup.
7. The world we live in bores me. No really, all this high tech stuff, social networking, video game systems, corperations, I don't care there's no adventure in it.
8. I am however a huge final fantasy fangirl, though I've only ever actually completely finished one final fantasy game: crisis core.
9. Now that I'm at number Nine 15 seems like a rideculous ammount of facts about oneself.
10. I wish more people used the term 'one' or 'oneself' instead of 'you' or 'I' when talking about hypotetical instances. I also really like terms like betwixt (between) mahaps (maybe) and mislike (don't like).
11. One day, when I grow up, I'm going to have a garden where everything is pretty AND edible.
12. I can't keep houseplants alive. I've killed a sunflower, a cactus (no I didn't over water it, I followed the directions to the letter, thank you very much), and countless other 'easy to care for' plants.
13. I was a virgin when I got married. No joke, and holy crap was that night traumatizing.
14. When I was 7 I was going to learn every language in the world, be a veteranarian, a pediatrition, have hair like repunzel, AND build the first viable giant robot that could be used in place of tanks in WW3, because every 7 year old knows it's only a matter of time before there's another one of those wars.
15. I'm very glad this is over, I was seriously beginning to think that my personality is so 2 demetional that I wouldn't be able to come up with a 15th 'interesting' fact. *phew*

Well either spell check isn't working or I surprised myself by spelling everything correctly (highly unlikely, but for the sake of my fragile ego we'll just go with that. hehe). Anyways, if anyone wants to join me on this bandwagon of bloggerly fun link up your posts in my comments (if I don't already subscribe to you). I'm an observer and I'd love to see what you have to say about whatever we're doing on that particular number. Heck you'll probably be done with this thing faster than I will. (^_^)Y

See you next week, same Bat time, Same Bat channel... till then: Love many, trust few and allways paddle your own canoe!

I'm at Daddio's again. I pray to God every time we flop guest bedrooms that it will be for the last time. Today was good though; I really wish I hadn't forgotten my camera at Will's (note: the picture above is from the last time we went to the lake right before Easter).

Abrigirl went on a walk with Jex and me. Now remember, our walks aren't short, nor do they necessarily stay on any sort of beaten path. At first she pumped her little 3 year old legs to keep up with us. Then Jex picked her up and stuck her on his shoulders (I don't think I've told you how attractive he is when he's indulging small children... OMG!).

After picking almost every flower on the side of the road we made it to the lake.
You know those really unrealistic perfect family moment's that are depicted on Hallmark Cards and in Hallmark Movies and sometimes on the girly cable channels? It was one of those moments. Getting Abrigirl out of her white butterfly sandals so she could splash around chasing green guppies in the water. Her squeals of delight at finding muscle shells and having Jex lift her out of the water onto the floating dock. And my most favorite thing ever, watching little kids mimic the adults near by.
Jex skipped the crap out of some rocks. No literally one of them was spinning so fast it literally propellered itself over the surface of the water instead of skipping (I'm so sad I didn't have my camera). Abrigirl tried to mimic his stance and how he was throwing the rocks. She figured out really quick what kind of rocks he was throwing and was picking out the best flat rocks on the lake shore. It was the perfect little family type moment. It was very fulfilling.

I don't like water. I haven't had a reason to relate the story as to why I don't like water, but I'm sure it'll come up eventually. However the place we visited today had chips of mica scattered all over the beach. It was beautiful.
Best part of all: I didn't get sunburned. Woo!

Spring Time fun

It's spring time in the Appalachian range in North Georgia. Birds singing at 9 pm, wasps making multiple nests in Jex's grill, pot holes full of rain from the last random spring storm that swept through night before last.

It's also about this time my husband and I get stupid ideas. I may not look it, but I'm really really out of shape. When I was in middle school I was tiny, so I vowed to be stronger than everyone. At that time I could do something like 50 chin ups and could bench press close to 90lbs (impressive when you take into account I only weighed about 75 or 80). In high school I played softball, did 20 REAL push ups every night, and ran at least 3 miles a day. Even when I lived in Japan I'd ride my bike something like 5 miles a day, and college 7 mile walks once a week and 20 minute jogs every other day.
Now; I feel good if I can walk just one mile and do 10 girly push ups. So you'd think when my husband asks me if I want to bike ride around his mom's place I'd say 'no'. But it's so nice outside.

Most of you are probably thinking: "what's the big deal?" It's not the ride that's the problem, it's the terrain. My mother-in-law and step-father-in-law live on a Mountain. Yeah.
The bike ride started out awesome, because I love speed (there's nothing like flying down the steepest hill ever and shooting through a covered bridge at 45 miles an hour without an engine). Getting back to the house was the problem. My bike is only a little 6 speed, foldable, bike that I got in Japan specifically for getting around at college in Oklahoma. It has 12 inch tires. Even on the lowest gear possible I was going up the hill slower than I could have walked up the hill.
However this is not the first time I've fought up the steep incline. Last year when my husband wanted be to train with him for some of the more secret parts of his job I jogged up the hill (and my jogged I mean more like limped).
All the memories flooded back as my body was leaning over the handle bars in a vain effort to pedal faster. I only made it a fourth of the way up the hill before I gave in to common sense and walked my bike to the top.

When we FINALLY made it back home my husband was awesome. Before bed we both got leg massages and Jex got a hand massage (because unlike me he isn't comfortable going 45 mph without better breaks than the two rubber erasers on his back tire). Thanks to my loving hubby I can mostly walk today. Mostly. (^_^)

You know you married into Rednecks When....

Your husband gets you out of bed to watch him pet an Opossum with a shoe.




Maybe I should be fair. It didn't start out that way.

My back hurt, my hubby had gotten a back rub, we were laying in bed trying to sleep when we heard the metal food bowl on my father in law's porch start to clang. Munching and crunching noises filled the night and my husband asks: "Is that the Opossum?"
I answer with a groggy: "Yup."
Jex gets out of bed to try and get a peek at it. The guest bedroom windows are long and have a great view of the porch. But it was a little too dark for him to see.
Jex: "Hey hun?"
Rem: "uhhnng?"
Jex: "Would you mind turning on the porch light? If you don't want to get out of bed I can do it."
Rem: "Grmbleminute."
So, I get out of bed and turn on the porch light. And, ya know, Opossums aren't as ugly as I thought they were supposed to be. This one was actually really fluffy with a cute white face topped with little black mouse ears.
We oogled for a minute or so (I'm not a city slicker, but I spent a good chunk of my life overseas where foxes and tanuki are more normal than Opossums) then my husband picks up a shoe gets on his shorts and announces with more excitement than I've seen him display in a while: "I'm going to go pet it!"

Hmmm. My woman instincts aren't sure this is a good idea, but hell it's a little guy what harm could it do? So I open the door for him and flip on the light.

The Opossum was not sure about Jex at all. He stayed about a food and a half away. Slowly trying to back peddle from the huge monster that erupted unceremoniously from the building that gave him a steady supply of cat food (poor U-gly <-- my father in law's cat). Jex moved to match the Opossum's speed and before I knew it they were in the corner of the porch; the Opossum with his pointy mouth wide to show off needle like teeth and growling pitifully, my husband cooing to it while he pet it with his sneaker.

This morning I stood in the doorway of my father in law's alternately gawking incredulously and laughing hysterically at the sight gifted to me. There's no denying it now... I married into Red Necks.

Guess my Faith, get a Cookie

Why do I get asked if I'm wiccan? Is it the long flowy skirt? the floofy wash and wear hair? my general interest in using God's creation of nature as it was intended to be used? Maybe I should get a t-shirt that says "Christ follower incognito." ((because 'follower of the Way' or 'Child of Light' probably wouldn't dawn on people. haha, pun!))

I'll let you know if anyone's mind changes when I finally get down to making my steam punk dress. (something like this with belts and buckles... and Goggles!)