Thu, Dec 25 2008 by Vanessa.

Today is Christmas Eve, one of my favorite days of the year.  Each year, since the day I was born, Christmas Eve found my family and I singing Happy Birthday, opening presents and generally celebrating the fact that we made it another year.  My aunt Carol’s birthday was Christmas Eve, so never an excuse could be found for not celebrating December 24.

Carol loved her birthday.  Starting the day after Halloween (give or take a week or two) Carol became rather “difficult” to live with.  She knew her birthday was on the way, however, given the inability to read and interpret a calendar she found herself lost in a sea of “is today my birthday?”  I can’t even imagine the frustration that she must have felt each year.  Watching stores display Christmas decorations, making her way slowly through each snowstorm, listening to Christmas Carols and yet never quite knowing if today is the day. The funny thing is that Carol could not understand the meaning of a calendar but always knew which soda dispenser had Pepsi.  She never understood FICA, taxes and health insurance but always found great pride in receiving her paycheck which usually totaled no more than $5 or $6 per pay period.  Carol’s brain may not have possessed the ability to solve world hunger but she knew more than enough about this world to teach me a lesson or two. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tue, Dec 16 2008 by Vanessa.

I believe that stereotypically muses and big old dirty diapers rarely find themselves associated with one another.  I could be very wrong about this but I often think of fairies, angels and Tinkerbell-like creatures when I think of muses and I bet most people think the same way.  I imagine a sweet sounding voice in your head that speaks so intelligently and thoughtfully, giving you idea after idea, when I think of a muse.  On the other hand, I don’t think there’s really much imagination that can be applied to the thought of a big old dirty diaper.  So how do they relate to one another in this post?  Well, they don’t, really. Read the rest of this entry »

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Wed, Dec 10 2008 by Vanessa.

I just do not understand how someone can preach love, tolerance and acceptance and declare all people to be God’s children and then turn around and suggest that the act of declaring two people of the same sex to be legally married a “cheapening” of your own marriage.  If it is true that legally allowing two people of the same sex to marry each other takes away from my own marriage, I simply missed the memo.  I had no idea that the act of any two people on this planet, declaring their love, devotion, support and complete acceptance of each other, could cheapen my own marriage.  Frankly, to those who stand by this creed, go to hell.  You know nothing about my marriage and if gay marriage cheapens your own marriage, maybe you need to consider looking for another partner. Read the rest of this entry »

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Mon, Dec 08 2008 by Vanessa.

Antsy antsy antsy.  I wanna go!  I wanna start a new life in an RV with my husband and my pack.  I don’t believe it to be too much to ask for.  My desires are less than most.  I don’t ask for BMWs.  I don’t want a 5500 sqft house.  Jewelry and I never hit it off.  Designer clothes don’t thrill me.  I don’t even need a closet full of shoes.  I just want to move on.

While driving back from our Thanksgiving trip to CO John and I decided to take a more structured approach to the remodeling.  Not too structured of course, we don’t want to move backwards and start re-living Section 1.  :)   However, our increasing feeling of antsiness needs a cure and the only cure is to get out of the house.  I actually find the entire transition to Section 2 interesting from the perspective of our continually changing mindset.  Initially, my event line placed remodeling the house as step number 3 for our transition.  I now believe I misjudged the house remodeling and it should be considered top priority.  Anyway, in order to move toward a full transition to Section 2 we’ve decided to focus more attention on remodeling.  Since painting proves to be easy, cheap and messy, we figured that finishing up all the painting first makes sense.  So, every Saturday morning and Wednesday evening we spend 4-5 hours painting.  In order to add a bit of interest to our evenings of painting we make a pizza and nicknamed our nights of painting bliss Paint and Pizza Wednesdays.  A bit corny but why not?  Pizza makes everything better and the paint fumes make us laugh. Read the rest of this entry »

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