Sidenote: Took me a few days…but I finally hit publish.

1. School is much more important than you think it is. Learning never stops.

2. Worrying about what everyone else thinks about your hair, clothes, etc. isn’t important. They are all worrying about the same stupid things.

3. Art is important. Don’t let counselors tell you otherwise. Express yourself, you are creative.

4. You don’t have to do things just to please others. Stand up for yourself. If they get mad, tough. If someone loves you, they will get over it. If not, oh well.

5. There will be those who say they are your friends, beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.

6. Get a camera, a good used 35mm. You will be hooked on photography and the more you learn the better you will be.

7. That data processing class you take will be worth absolutely nothing in the future. You will become pretty savvy with computers though.

8. When you think you have fallen in love, you really haven’t. It’s just a crush. When it really happens you’ll know, love hits you like a speeding train. It makes your heartbeat flutter so fast you think it will pop out of your chest when he looks at you and after 28 years together he still makes you feel like that. Believe me, save your heart for him.

9. Take lots of pictures, lots of them.

10. When Grandma cooks pay attention, ask questions. Let her teach you, especially her coconut cake.

11. Say “I love you” to those you do.

12. Don’t drink. Don’t drink & drive. Period. It’s not cool, it’s not fun. It’s just plain stupid and by the grace of God you are alive. Someday you will have kids and you certainly don’t want them to drink & drive.

13. Don’t smoke either. It’s a nasty habit and it will take you years to quit. No one likes kissing an ashtray anyway.

14. When you think your world is coming to an end, hang on because it gets good, really good….I mean really, really good!

Dreams, usually you wake up in the morning and you don’t remember what you dreamed the night before. Not me lately! I’m having the weirdest kind. I’m talking waking up and shaking my head wondering what the heck is going on kind of dreams! I wondered if it was something I ate the first night, but it’s been going on for weeks now.  So food is not the answer. I know some medication can make you have freaky dreams, but nothing has changed in that department either. I’ve pretty much cancelled out all the normal culprits, so what’s causing me to have these weird, very vivid dreams lately? I don’t have a clue and to tell you the truth, I really don’t like it! I’m not a rainbows and unicorns kind of gal, but these dreams are just too weird for me! People dying, fires, babies killed, see what I’m talking about? Horrible dreams and some have been extremely disturbing and the fact that I remember them is making it worse. I liked the nights when I had pleasant dreams, woke up not remembering what they were and went on my merry way for the day!

If anyone out there has an idea of why one dreams like this, let me know! Especially if you know how to make them stop!

 Here’s hoping for a good night’s sleep with pleasant dreams!

ROCKY

1997 -2010

I’m alive, just a little withered and trying to get my bloom back. It’s been very difficult and as you can see blogging has been put on the back burner. When you have no creativity flowing through your head you just can’t force a post. I’m not going to go into details of what I’ve been going thru right now, but it’s been extremely rough and I thank God for a loving, supportive husband and daughter who have been by my side through it all. I just wanted you to know I’m alive, and hopefully I’ll get a little more inspiration from time to time.

Hug someone today, you never know what a difference you might make.

with my best friend, I can’t imagine life without you.

Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be! 

I love you!

I received this cutie to add to my collection from my daughter’s boyfriend, he surprised me with it and then told me he also designed Lisa’s (the fabulous artist of poppets!) banner on her Etsy store! Check it out! 

It’s been a long year, but I’m thankful that I am having another one!

This is as close to a ferris wheel you will catch me. This one is a beauty, it sits at Navy Pier in Chicago and I’m sure you get a spectacular view from the top, but I will never know. My fear for ferris wheels has a very specific memory and it’s the reason I will never step foot on a ferris wheel ever again.

When I was around 10 or 11 my mom took part in driving a church youth group to “Santa’s Village,” an amusement park now closed that was located in East Dundee, Illinois . Since mom was driving I got to tag along and hang with the big kids. I was cool like that. Sometime during the course of the day a bunch of our group was on the Ferris wheel and I was next in line with one of the adults ( I was a little nervous about riding it so he offered to take me on). As we were waiting in line there was this horrible sounding snap, and the next thing I remember I was picking myself up from about 5 feet from where I had been standing. I had been pushed out of the way of the band that snapped from the wheel, if I hadn’t been this huge band would have hit me and my riding partner with what could have been very serious or even fatal results.  But the drama wasn’t over, a bunch of our kids were on that now out of control Ferris wheel, it took hours and many men to control the wheel and get the riders off, alternating from one side to another to keep the weight even. Experiencing this so many years ago that queasy feeling I get when I see a Ferris wheel is like it happened last week. I don’t see riding a Ferris wheel anytime in my future, but I’ll be happy to shoot them!