Recording.....

I went into the studio last Thursday and recorded two more songs. Fred is so easy to work with and the whole process just becomes fun and exciting! I'm always a little stiff when I first get started and sometimes my fingers go in the wrong direction on the guitar or my timing is off or my voice is just a little bit off kilter. But, usually, once I get going and get warmed up and get a good dose of Fred's enthusiasm and encouragement, I get better and sound better and play better. Neither of the two songs that I recorded on Thursday was easy. The challenge of the first was to sing it with as much expression as possible so as to highlight the vocals and the lyrics and pull away from the monotony of the guitar part (adding other instruments will do that even more so, but I really wanted my voice to be able to do it the most). The challenge of the second song was to keep the timing on the guitar and the action of my fingers (which strings were picked in which order) consistent and right on it.

Fred made me a rough mix of each of the songs and I think I met both challenges. I'll have to listen through another twenty times or so to be sure. He also made me a rough mix of the three songs that my son Daniel played the bass and djimbe on. They sound so great!! Especially the djimbe!! And his timing with both the bass and the djimbe is so in sync with mine! I had to call him up and play the CD over the phone for him! I think it'll be a really good record when we get it done. I decided to take my time on it. Do a little at a time so as to spread out the cost and the energy; to really think through all the songs and get a vision for each one. I'm hoping it'll be a 2008 release!! But we'll see.

I am very tired today and over-worked and sleep-deprived. I am looking forward to getting off work this evening, heading to the grocery store for a six-pack of cold beer and the fixins for chicken and rice, then home to unwind and decompress. Work has been so busy. And a bit crazy, too.

It'll be good to crawl into my bed tonight. I was very cold early this morning when I got to go to sleep for a couple of hours. I'm putting the extra quilt back on the bed tonight and filling up the hot water bottle, too! Make myself a nest and crawl in.

Only five more weeks until I head to Russia. I'm getting very excited. A little nervous, too, but mostly getting the start of that wonderful feeling I once heard Maya Angelou call "journey proud."

Peace.

Living at the Zoo......

My house has turned into a zoo. A zoo that I have little control over. I don't know how it happened. I was quite IN control for the longest time but, without my conscious awareness that it was happening, I lost control. I'm pretty sure that the control of the house now lays in the paws of Pete the bitch-from-hell cat (formerly known as Pete the crippled cat - I stopped calling him that because I thought it unfair to label him in such a way that his infirmity defined him and also because his infirmity doesn't seem to slow him down in the least. It certainly hasn't lessened his bitching). Now I've had cats since I left home and dropped out of college at 19. When I moved into my first house (an old mountain house that cost $125 a month to rent), I got my first cat. My dad and my brothers are allergic to cats, so I never had cats when I was growing up. But now I've had quite a few over the past 30 years: Roosevelt, the mighty hunter and master at the art of drooling - pure white, long-haired, green-eyed and very very loving; Frank, Mr. Lazy himself, who spent most of his time hanging out in my potted plants or attempting to turn over the trash can; Earl, the deaf, white cat, very sweet but very stupid (or mildly retarded, we were never quite sure); Moses, an orange and white tabby cat, sweet, calm, lazy, and prone to being attacked by my neighbors' Chow (which is what finally got him in the end); Dixie, a calico who lived in a tree most of the time, she was a tiny little cat and terrified of my dog, who couldn't stand cats and couldn't be bothered with them; Burl, another white cat, he was not hearing impaired and he was a vicious fighter with other cats on the mountain where we lived; Harris and Simko, two brother cats, both kind of weird; Chuckie, another pure white cat and short-haired, Chuckie mysteriously disappeared when my kids went to the beach for a week with their dad (Chuckie was spending the summer with the kids at their dad's house), Chuckie was a riot, loved to play, loved to cuddle, loved to imagine himself in all sorts of attack scenarios (I know this because he attacked most anything, even things that nobody else could see except Chuckie); Pearl, another long-haired white cat, (yes, there was a theme there for awhile with the white cats - I love white cats - Earl, Burl, Pearl, and Chuckie would have been Merle except my kids would not allow it) Pearl was cross-eyed and had nystagmus and was very very strange (she kind of creeped me out), she went to visit with my neighbors one sunny day and moved in; and the old cat...... I can't believe I can't remember his name........ NOPE! I can't remember his name, but he was an old old old cat, nineteen or something, that one of my patients talked me into adopting, he was the first cat I ever had that drove me crazy (Pete being the second), I'd had cats for twenty-five years by then and had never had one destroy my furniture before! he destroyed my couch (it was an expensive couch and I hate that couch because it dumps me out into the floor when I sit on it but still!! I didn't want it ruined!!?), so I gave him to my friend Bobbi and she kept him until he disappeared up the mountain one day, the way old cats and dogs will do sometimes.

Jericho the old cat, a calico, and I have shared our living space together now for 15 years. She has moved with me many times in that fifteen years: from Raleigh location #1 to Raleigh location #2 to Morganton location #1 to Morganton location #2 to Morganton location #3 to the Eastern Shore of Virginia. I worried about this last move and about how she might fair. She actually did quite well, and I can see a spring in her step again. I think she likes living at the farm. She seems to be in good health and she's gotten a helluvalot nicer in the past year (she's been known to bite or claw suddenly and without provacation - I haven't seen her do that in more than a year). She's not all that friendly with her housemates (meaning Pete the bitch-from-hell cat or Baby the low-man-on-the-totem-pole/black lab. ) She gets along alright with Buster the cat-who-lives-in-the-tree, if and when Buster comes down out of the tree. Jericho and Buster both know the secret entrance into the root cellar through the maze of pipes under the house. Pete hasn't figured it out yet or maybe he just can't jump from where the pipes come through the wall down to the floor of the root cellar so therefore doesn't utilize that route into the root cellar which then leads up to the back porch. I looked out the window on the kitchen door the other evening and Buster the cat-who-lives-in-the-tree and Jericho the old cat were curled up together on the dog bed on the back porch. It was a sweet site. I guess they've decided to team up in defense of Pete the bitch-from-hell-cat.

So about this Pete the bitch-from-hell cat? I've never had a cat that bitches at me as much as Pete does. He actually SCREAMS at me. I've had demanding cats before, that pester you and whine whine whine when they don't get their way. But I've never had one that SCREAMED at me before. Example - Pete'll be outside, where he has been remanded much of the time these days because he's such a pain in the ass and he's as bad as Jericho about NOT using the litter box but using the area AROUND the litter box instead. Pete recently ruined one of my good suitcases (one from the set of luggage that I saved an entire summer to buy). So he'll be outside and not too happy about being outside. And he'll whine whine whine at the back door. Sometimes he'll come all the way around the house, crying this mournful pitiful, "nobody-knows-the-troubles-I've-seen" kind of cry - a cross between a Siamese and a Malamute in heat (I know I'm mixing my metaphors here, but - you get the picture, right?). So he'll be crying and crying ..... But when I finally feel sorry for him and go to open the door and let him in - he SCREAMS at me. And he continues to scream at me for the next "however long you want to drag this out" length of time until he seemingly gets everything he wants: fresh food in the bowl (EVEN IF he just ate outside), fresh water in the bowl (even if there's already fresh water in the bowl - "snap to, you worthless human, I want my own fresh water"), the chance to harrass Jericho the old cat by obnoxiously ramming his nose up her backside repeatedly until she rises to the challenge and hisses at him so that he can swat her a couple of times and show her he IS, in fact, bigger even if he does have a non-functioning back leg, useless and unworkable back claws, and, in reality, fear of the old cat herself. He STILL has to try to make some point. Then he screams some more until I pick him up, put him down, pick him up and scratch his neck, put him down, and pick him up again. Then he'll generally bitch some more until I either sling him out the front door or inadvertently turn my back on his bitching long enough that he can sneak up behind me and sink his front claws into my calf at least halfway to the bone if not all the way! He is, by far, the single-most bitching-est cat I've ever met - bar none, not even a Siamese!!

We have a whole complex system for feeding everybody so that everybody gets something to eat but that fighting and arguing are limited and so the dog actually eats the dog food and not the cat food (because if she eats the cat food - her favorite - then the whole crazy process has to start over again!). I have to feed Jericho on the back porch, Pete in the kitchen, and Buster on the front porch. Baby has to stay in my presence the entire time until all cat food has been consumed by cats, then Pete has to go out the back door, Jericho has to come in but be out of the kitchen, Buster is left to fend for himself and generally ends up back in the tree as Pete will make a beeline for the front yard as soon as suppertime is over. Then Baby gets to eat. Then I get to eat. And nothing that I am eating is sacred! Oh, no!! That would be asking too much. I had a bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup on the kitchen table the other day, still steaming, and went upstairs to answer the phone. When I ventured back in the kitchen, I found Baby with her front paws up on the table and half of my soup already down her gullet!! (Her gullet was blistered, I'm sure! And it served her right! She got kicked out of the house for the rest of the evening!).

Then we have the whole bedtime ritual........!! I'll save that for another time. Trust me that it is a fiasco as well!

It's a zoo at my house! It's crazy! It's a full time job. It's the nuttiest way to live ever. And it's making me crazy. This cute sweet fiesty little orange and white tabby cat, who survived being run over by a truck, who came back from near death and learned to walk again - that sweet cat that I fell in love with - he has disappeared into the world of testosterone and aggression, and has changed the whole peaceful nature of our home. He's turned into an obnoxious, mouthy, pain in the ass, sorry excuse for a house pet. I KNOW I KNOW!! OFF WITH HIS BULLOCKS - THAT'LL FIX HIM!! We'll see. I'm not convinced that is the entire solution but I'm trying to save up the money to have it done. His original owner (servant) (adopted as he was by the cat not the other way around) was supposed to have had this done before the cat ever ventured into my house. But then the truck accident happened and then the rest of the stuff happened and so I'm stuck with a cat who seriously needs his bullocks removed and a vet that charges more than I can afford just now.

But it won't be LONG!! I keep telling Pete that! "If you don't stop bitching at me like this and if you continue to refuse to let Buster come down out of the tree (I have literally watched Pete lay at the foot of the tree ALL DAY just to keep Buster up there), if you keep molesting the old lady cat (spayed since kittenhood), and eating the dog's food (when she is forbidden to eat yours!!) then I'm gonna have to take you in and OFF THEY GO!! Snip, snip!! I mean it, Pete!!" He generally responds by cussing me out with cat curse words. If you've ever been cussed out by someone in a foreign language - where you don't know the exact words by the general meaning is clear - then you know what it's like to be cussed out by Pete!

It's a zoo. Come watch sometime. I'm sure you'll be quite entertained!
Peace.

I've seen this expression on my cat's face. Anyone who owns a cat has probably seen this expression before - in some context.

As my friend Katy so aptly put it, "You gotta remember this........ Dogs think they're humans. But Cats, cats think they're God."

Blistering Obsessions

I watched you holding hands and the little voice, the dark voice,

Whispered behind me, "You don't deserve that. Look! Yes, look! THAT you will not have. THAT?! Oh no no, you don't deserve that."

I looked over my shoulder in indignation and rage at the demon with his whispering, crushing voice

But I had to hide the fear in my eyes.

I wanted my children. I became like a child, calling for its mother,

A mother calling for her child.

I longed for the sense of a complete self, the whole person that I felt in my children's presence

And in the good job I did as their mother

Or even when I didn't, oh how they held me up anyway.

I wanted to discover you and open myself to you.

I wanted to hold your hand and be the painter of stars in your eyes.

I dreamed a thousand different dreams of you and me, holding hands.

But the hand you hold is a hand you dream is softer and sweeter than my own.

You didn't see my hand held out. You didn't see me.

I am the invisible, the unconsidered.

You walked on without a notice of my hands, hoping for touch.

When the voice whispers and the calamity of doubt crawls in,

Slipping into the space between my secret desires and my deepest fears,

I long for the familiar - the soft head of a child against my shoulder,

Soothing my soul, wanting nothing more than that.

I am a normal human, I guess, to want what I know is sweet.

But more often now, I am a woman with passion and love in limbo,

Watching hands being held and hearts dancing in sparks.

Longing like a child for its mother, a mother for her child.

Friends.......

I know the wonderful gift of friendship. I've been lucky. Life's twists and turns have put many good, strong, loving, kind, gentle friends in my path. I've been extra-fortunate, in that, two of my closest friends are my children. I know not everyone can say that.

And I have great friends through my music community. Friends I count as some of the most dear folks in the world - the guys who help me keep believing that there are good men in this world!

But I've been especially lucky to have had so many fine women add grace to my life.

I talked with my oldest friend Katy last night for about an hour. I woke her up when I called. I had just watched a wonderful film and I felt the strongest need to tell her about it. Despite that long conversation, I never did get around to telling her about the fim. We talked about work, my kids, music, God, cats, food, and the coming of Spring. We've been friends since high school. We have a lot of common history. Our friendship has weathered time, distance, children, marriages, divorces, failed relationships, unemployment, near bankruptcy, illnesses, and the emotional upheavals that accompany all those things. Still the friendship lives on. Still I know she's always there. I know I can call her anytime, even wake her up, and she'll be right there to listen.

I also talked to my friend Bobbi for a long while last night. I told her the whole movie! She listened to every detail. She listened to me go on and on about it. She told me about all the goings-on at work and home and with friends there in the mountains. We hadn't talked in a couple of days so we had to catch up, ya know! We talked for awhile about "good men". She has one. We have that discussion a lot. I was telling her about a conversation I had with Laurie (one of my newest friends and my partner-in-crime at work) about the collapse of a relationship. Laurie was telling me that I "deserved" a wonderful, strong, loving man. I told Laurie I "deserved" to be single!! Bobbi hates it when I talk like that. She loves me and would like for me to find what she has. I understand her feelings. There have been so many things that I've learned and experienced and discovered that I've wanted her to experience, too. That's what friends do. They want good and wonderful things for each other.

When I was driving home from North Carolina on Sunday night, I called my friend Cindy in Tryon. She's running for County Commissioner there! And she just became a grandmother!! So we had a lot to catch up on. I love to listen to Cindy talk. She has more passion about life and all its intricacies than anyone I've ever known. I always hang up feeling filled up. That's another thing that friends do - they fill each other up.

On Monday night, I went to Kelly's Pub to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day with two new friends, Michele and Theresa - the Ya-Ya Sisterhood reinvented!! We had a blast. We giggled and laughed and bitched and moaned and compared notes on all sorts of things. We did a lot of smiling! My face was sore from smiling so much! That's another things that friends do - they bring out the smiles in ya! And the laughter! And the tears and the anger, too, because they're a safe place to cry and a safe place to rage.

I loved this picture because I know, way down deep in my soul, that I will have friends like this. Friends who will know me when I'm old and who will still make me laugh, make me smile, let me cry, let me be myself - warts and all.

They say you got to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. I think I'll just hang out with my friends and let the frogs sing in the trees. When the right frog comes along, the women in my life will let me know it. They haven't been wrong yet!

Peace and friendship to ya!

Travelling mercies..............

Does travelling have one "l" or two? Guess I could look it up. Oh!! I just remembered a very cool invention called spell check!! I spelled it correctly.

Jacob got stuck in Colorado today. I was on my way to Raleigh to visit my parents and planned to pick him up at the Raleigh-Durham Airport at 3:30 this afternoon. He missed his flight this morning and was stranded, almost hysterical with exhaustion and frustration. Between the two of us and the wonders of modern technology (i.e. cell phones), we got him onto a flight tomorrow. He should be back in Raleigh at 2, which will still give us some time to spend together before I have to head back to Virginia.

It's a bad feeling when your child (and I don't care how old they get - they're ever your child) is stranded and bewildered and there's nothing you can do for him or her other than to talk, listen, let the curse words fly free, keep answering the phone, and keep saying, "it'll be alright". I'll be glad when he's back. I'll be glad when I can see his face.

My trip was very uneventful except for the events unfolding on his trip. My drive was smooth, traffic was not too bad, and my folks are both doing alright.

I've got to go get some lasagna. More later......

Memory

I had a cool memory today. My friends Fred and Laura have introduced me to the web site http://www.pandora.com/. If you've never checked it out - I HIGHLY recommend it. It's the coolest website I've ever visited. I am addicted! I've heard so much great music, and I've been introduced to artists that I've never heard before. Go check it out!! It's amazing!

I wanted to share this site with a friend of mine who works here at the hospital. He and I had a discussion back in January about how hard it was to find good music on the radio these days. About how much trash there was out there plus you have to listen to all that yacking, which drives me insane. So I wrote down the link and some artist recommendations to kind of get him started and took them down to my friend. It was cool - he hadn't ever heard of the site either, so I actually got to introduce it to somebody else!! He got to telling me about an AM radio station that he used to listen when he was working in Kentucky. It was out of a university and was kind of a cross between a student-run station and an NPR station. He talked about how much great music he heard on that station when he could catch just right and tune it in.

And this memory came to my mind so clearly and so powerfully, it was like yesterday.......

It was at Christmas time in 1978. I had just finished my third semester at Appalachian State University and promptly dropped out, much to the profound dismay and disgust of my hard-working parents. My father's rule was our college experience was a one-shot deal and if you quit - that was it, his duty was done and we were on our own. And he meant on our own!! We were welcome to come home to visit but not to live. My father always meant what he said. Always. Six years later, when I returned to college, it was on my own dollar and I found myself wishing I could have had the benefit of foresight.........

I had just dropped out of school and was working at the ski slope on Beech Mountain. I was not quite 20. My father bought me a car!! I was floored. I was so surprised. He certainly saved me from a lot of struggle!! He told me that if I was going to drop out of school and work full-time I was going to need a car. It was his seeing-me-off-into-adulthood gift. It was a 1966 Volkswagon Beetle. It had a six-volt battery, dim headlights, and the automatic defrost was opening the window! Somtimes the windshields wipers worked, sometimes they did not. I loved that car. I had that car for 3 1/2 years. I drove the hell out of it!! I drove it everywhere!! It could go anywhere in the snow. It could go miles and miles on a gallon of gas. It had 135,000 miles on it when I got it, and I put another 135,000 miles on it before an obnoxious rich kid in his dad's station wagon pulled out in front of me on Highway 221 and totalled it. I cried for days. I grieved over the loss of that car.

The particular memory I had today was about the night I drove home to the mountains in that new-old car. I was only in Raleigh at my parents for two days because it was Christmas time and I was working at the ski slope - a busy time at the ski slopes. My mother made me a rust-colored wool poncho that year for Christmas with a hood on it and a big pocket on the front. Very hippie-ish, I loved it. I thought I looked very cool in that poncho (plus it was very warm which I would soon learn was quite important in that little VW for all parts of your body except for your feet - which tended to cook). So I loaded up my stuff and put on my new poncho and headed back to the mountains. It was the first of hundreds of drives I would make, alone, and then later alone with my children, between Raleigh and Boone over the next 15 years. It was that night that I started to realize how much I love to travel. Short distances or long distances, places known or unknown, it doesn't matter to me - I just like the adventure.

When I was coming up the mountain from Wilkesboro to Deep Gap, I got a radio station on that little AM radio that was being broadcast out of Ohio or Kentucky or Missouri - somewhere in that part of the country. It was coming a LONG way!! It was a folkie station and they were playing some great music. Some I'd never heard before, some that was as familiar as the songs I played myself on my beat-up Yamaha classical guitar. It was an absolutely crystal clear night. The stars were blazing over head. They were breath-taking. And I remember, more than anything, that I was filled with the great gift, the great sense of "possibility". I felt like I could do anything, go anywhere, be whoever I decided to be. And there was no hurry in making the decision. Not then. I had time and youth and that lingering adolescent sense of immortality that would stay with me until I became a parent myself!

I remember coming across the mountain and looking back over my shoulder and down into the valley below. The sight left me breathless, overwhelmed, in love with my new home - the beautiful western North Carolina mountains. And the music - that clear, lovely music from the heartland of America - my own personal soundtrack - folk music as ever and always.

I hadn't thought about that night for many years. It was a wonderful, small gift my mind gave to me today. Left me smiling, with an inside smile that's lasted all afternoon.

Pretty cool, huh?
Peace.

Spring Peepers.......

Have you heard them? I was driving over to my friend Laura's house on Thursday night and had the windows rolled down. I stopped at a stop sign on a back country road and heard the spring peepers singing with all their might. It was the first time I've heard them this year. They sounded ecstatic! They sounded like they were drunk with love and springtime. They sounded like they were overwhelmed with gratitude. They sounded free. They sounded happy.

The joyous singing of the spring peepers and the haunting, ethereal song of the whippoorwill are two parts of nature's symphony I look forward to every year. They are the precursor to spring. They sing her welcome back. I have listened for them now for many years. When I lived in the mountains and the foothills of North Carolina, the singing of the peepers could be almost deafening while the whippoorwill's cry could almost be missed in the spring if one's ear wasn't listening carefully or if one wasn't up late into the night when she was most likely to sing her lonesome song.

Poor little peepers - they came out last Thursday - on a gloriously warm day. The sun had been shining all day, warming the fields and the trees. I walked three and a half miles on Thursday, around the entire perimeter of the fields at the Homeplace farm where I live. (I know how far it is because I subsequently drove my car around the entire perimeter of the fields to measure the distance. No, it's not a SUV - it's a Mazda. My car did not appreciate this much, but my dog Baby thought it was the grandest car ride she'd ever had. She got to stand between the two front seats the entire way round, tongue hanging out, grinning and panting with sheer joy, tail beating the back seat furiously!). Thursday was such a beautiful day. I felt renewed, revived, like I was coming out of a long, heavy sleep or recovering from a long, drawn-out illness. Friday, the cold returned with a roaring wind and sheets of rain. Poor little peepers! I wonder if THEY wonder why they must go through this every year. It's amazing. The peepers and the daffodils - they come out and wave and dance about, praising the coming of Spring. But then Old Man Winter always has to have the last word, and he generally gives everybody a little smack with his chilly fingers, just to remind us all (peepers, daffodils, and me, too) that he is in charge until he decides otherwise.

Just between you and me, though, Spring kissed me awake on Thursday morning. I felt the wisp of her breath across my brow and her sweet kiss on my cheeks, each side, as if in greeting. She is coming soon to stay.

I am grateful for the song of the little spring peepers. It means Spring is coming soon.

Peace.

Eve Marie Carson

Eve Marie Carson was killed this week in Chapel Hill. She was murdered, shot in the right temple and left in the middle of the street. She was the student body president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was a brilliant young woman - a young woman who was destined to be a light in this dark world, to be a gift to all those who knew her. Her light has been put out, the gift she was has been taken away from the rest of us in the world.

I never knew her, but I am moved to tears at the loss of her. It is so senseless. It is so frightening. The world is so damn crazy. Is there no place or no one that is safe anymore? It is beyond anything that I can comprehend.

I think about her parents and I can hardly breathe. How do parents survive a loss like this?

I think about my son Jacob, a sophmore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I think about how he and all the other students at Carolina must feel, the impact this has on their lives, their ability to feel safe in the world around them.

I have been praying all day. I have thought about this beautiful young woman all day. There is nothing else I can do but pray. Pray and hope. Hope and pray. I lift up this young woman and her mother and her father. Her family and her friends. I lift up all the students at Carolina. I lift up the young woman at Auburn who was also murdered this week, also shot to death. And I lift up her family, friends, and fellow students.

I hold them up to the light of God and pray for protection from violence, for all of us.

I pray for my son Jacob, too. That God will keep him safe.

The long sleep...................

I went home yesterday afternoon with a bizarre episode of pain that radiated from the middle of my back down through my hips and from just below my belly button down to my thighs. It felt like my insides were going to explode. Being the compulsive nurse that I am, a myriad of things ran through my mind - kidney stone, a twisted ovary, appendicitis, pyleonephritis, colon cancer (I have a serious cancer paranoia), a rupturing ovarian cyst........ the list could go on, but I'll spare you. More than anything, I just wanted to get home and soak in the bath tub. Hot water is my cure-all for everything. That helped a little, but not enough. I figured if I could go to sleep, the pain would magically resolve itself while I was sleeping. And, of course, it did.

The interesting thing was that I went to sleep about a quarter till 6 and slept until 7:15 this morning. I was awakened at about 2:30 by thunder booms and lightening and realized that my dog Baby and Pete the cat were both outside in the middle of the big storm. So I got up to let them in. Baby came right in, but Pete was unwilling to come out from under the corner bush into the rain.

I slept a long time. I don't know why I slept so long. As folks always say, I must have needed it. I don't know why I needed that much sleep. I'm still sleepy today. I feel like I could go back to sleep right now and sleep until tomorrow.

Must be the last lingering vestige of winter hibernation. My body must be holding on.

Personally, I'm ready for spring and working in the garden and walking around the fields as the sun is setting and building a fire in the chiminea to sit beside at night.

This yawning thing, though!! I have yawned and yawned and yawned. Like a new baby or a new puppy. Nap time, I guess.

Peace.

Amazing picture

I thought this was just amazing.

Daniel and Emily

Daniel and Emily are coming to visit today! I'm so excited - I can't sit still! I've been cleaning and fixing things up and getting things ready.

It's a big event!

It's a mom thing, I guess, this cleaning every inch of every surface! And a middle-aged thing, too, this becoming such a big event! And a living-in-the-middle-of-nowhere, far-removed-from-family-and-friends thing, too! I can't wait!!!

This is my son, Daniel. Looks like me, don't you think? And this is his sweet girlfriend, Emily. She looks like me, too! She's a red head, so I liked her immediately. She's fair and freckled and she loves my son - so she's GOT to be a good woman!! In all sincerity, she is a good woman - smart, sweet, patient. I took this picture the weekend of the Surviving the Winter party. She spent the weekend surrounded by "the boys" - Daniel, Jacob, Sam, and Eric. And she was right there in the middle of things, not about to be overwhelmed by all the testosterone!

So I'd best get back to work. Dishes need washing and I'm determined to get the kitchen floor mopped if it kills me!! (I hate mopping!!). I've got to make a run to the recycling place and then on to the grocery store to get the stuff to make one of Daniel's favorite meals.

We're going into the studio tomorrow. Daniel's going to play bass, djimbe, and maybe even the mandolin on several of the songs I've already gotten recorded. I can't wait!

So celebrate the day with me! One of my soul mate's is coming to his mama's house for a visit. We'll be playing music and eating good food and talking talking talking! We'll be having a few Guniness, too, I'm sure, to toast the occasion.

Peace and love to you all.