Holiday post (yea so I'm late :D What's it to ya!?)

I know this is kind of late, but it’s still the holidays so here is my Christmas/Holiday notes…

Its funny how this time of year passes. Once upon a time, I used to look forward to these days. Decorations were never a chore, and snow was something to be loved not feared. As we grow older, things creep in the way of this joy. Too many meetings to make, too many things to prepare for. Dinners to be made, family to be accommodated… travel etc. The past three years for me, each season has been on its own marked by changes in my life. Some may be small, some may be large.

2003 – This marked the first holiday of spousal freedom. Not like I had a spouse the previous years, but LEGALLY, I was free this year. This was incidentally the last year I decorated and I did this alone as well.

2004 – The first Christmas spent alone (literally). I had just moved into my home in July. I didn’t decorate this year; I had no passion for it.

2005 – The first Christmas spent with company. Tony came out to visit me and we did essentially what we wanted to do all weekend long. We visited friends and family and gamed all weekend. I didn’t decorate this year either, save for the prelit Christmas tree I dragged out of the closet.

I miss the passion of Christmas. It was the season I LIVED for. Prior to 2003, I used to craft wreaths and trees and garlands for people. I used to decorate with joy (well ok untangling those lights was a bitch, but that’s an entirely different story). I used to scent my home in the spirit of Christmas with its fragrances of cinnamon, apple, pine…

Christmas spirit is something that I think, is a part of the child in you. The one who looked at the beautiful lights and smelled the scents and tasted the food and thought, THIS is what life is… This child didn’t care that the colors on the tree didn’t match but each ornament had a story, each present beheld our life’s wish, each morning was met with a strange fervor because SANTA was coming.

For me, I used to have this passion even as an adult. I guess I’m lucky in that respect because I’ve not lost the imagination and fascination of the Christmas that I knew as a child. But my Christmas or holiday spirit seems to be resting. I hope she comes back soon, because frankly… I miss her. Maybe next year I will be overflowing with such joy that not only will she be back, she will be quietly tugging on my heart all year long preparing me for the pinnacle of a years life celebrated with love, culminating in the overflowing joy of the season.

For now, I have been given a small gift in a “glimpse” of this spirit as believe it or not, I sampled some Christmas teas and read the boxes that have these lovely quotes. Celestial Seasonings has such a good idea in that they foster a sense of peace and inspiration on their packaging of their teas. I know it sounds corny but I look forward to reading these quotes and such. And believe it or not, today they have done what I thought impossible… they gave me a glimpse of the Christmas spirit in me. So I know she hasn’t left entirely, she’s just vacationing; perhaps in sunny Florida :D

And now the quotes and such:

We never know how high we are,
Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan,
Our statures touch the skies
~Emily Dickinson

Every piece of the universe, even the tiniest little snow crystal, matters somehow. I have a place in the patter, and so do you.
~ T.A. Barron

Creativity demands nothing less than all you have. Talent alone is never enough
~Erica Jong

There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go.
~Frederick William Faber

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.
~Victor Hugo

Mix a little foolishness with your prudence: it’s good to be silly at the right moment
~Horace

A True Home
A roof to keep out the rain. Four walls to keep out the wind. Floors to keep out the cold. Yes, but home is more than that. It is the laugh of a baby, the song of a mother, the strength of a father. Warmth of loving hearts, light from happy eyeys, kindness, loyalty, comradeship. Home is first school…for the young ones where they learn what is right, what Is good, and what is kind. Where they go for comfort when they are hurt or sick. Where joy is shared and sorrow eased. Where fathers and mothers are respected and loved. Where children are wanted. Where the simplest food is good enough for kings because it is earned. Where money is not so important as loving-kindness. Where even the teakettle sings from happiness. THAT is home…
~Ernestine Schumann-Heink

The Magic of Childhood
Know you what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different from the man of today. It is to have a a spirit yet streaming…It is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its own soul…
~Francis Thompson

A Holiday Toast
Let us toast twice. First, to the older generation: May your days come to be many, full of comfort and understanding. May they be spent knowing that those days past have held a completeness uncommon and unknown to many, and that ever detail of your being continues in the lives of those who follow. To the younger generation: May we accept these gifts, knowing that they are of this tradition, of this old-fashioned courage, of ethics, and that they can be carried along forever like rustic relics or they can be worn as wings. Let us wear them as wings.
~Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge

The dreams of childhood…its airy fables, its graceful, beautiful, humane, impossible adornments of the world beyond; so good, to be believed in once, so good to be remembered when outgrown.
~Charles Dickens

Hate is a strong word

I HATE MY JOB.

I want another job…
IHATEMY JOB

HAPPY BERFDAY KRAMIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday and Friday can’t get here soon enough :P

So today is Wednesday and while I have some more things to do at work, I’m not nearly as busy as I would like to be.  I’ve been reading articles on changing careers and while I think perhaps service is not my career of choice anymore… I think that I’ll still be roped into it because it’s what I’m good at.  Maybe just doing service with a company unlike the company I work with, in that their procedures work FOR the customer instead of AGAINST them, might make me feel less frustrated ?  Heh, I don’t know.  

I’m tired…   I need to sleep more soon.  

Well in preparation of payday, I decided to balance my checkbook.  So far so good, no surprises…  Hopefully I can avoid a payday rant then :D  I still need to at least find a job that makes equal to or more than I currently make WITH benefits.  I’m really starting to stress over retirement.  Perhaps prematurely perhaps not.  I just know that if I were disabled for any reason right now, I’d be screwed.  I know that if I were to retire right now I’d be screwed and I know that looking at retirement even at the age of 75 (only 40 years away) means I would have to live on $20,000 a year and that’s to stretch what I can save between now and then another 10 years only…  

It’s not as easy as it used to be for me to just get a job and move on.  Once upon a time my talents were sought after in telecommunications.  Since 2001, the telecommunications industry has suffered greatly and now I’m not so sought after.  Customer service in any other field doesn’t pay as much.  So I’m a bit stuck.  

Apparently my neighbor psycho man has been warned that if there is a single incident again, he will be evicted.  If I can get the Rossi’s to fix the few things that are wrong with my apartment, there is a chance that I may stay as long as psycho man isn’t a factor.  But we’ll see.  I really want to take Mushu with me.  I can’t there, unless I try to negotiate that *light bulb goes off*.  We’ll see.  I like my neighbors short of psycho man.  But psycho man has been very quiet lately.  So maybe he got some medication or a job or something.

I’m still considering Tennessee as a place to live.  There is an apartment there I’m very interested in.  They take dogs, they have washer/dryers in the apartments, the floor plans are spacious and the rent isn’t too bad for a two bedroom ($695 for the one I wanted which is high end).  The problem is the “catch” is that the cost of living is DRASTICALLY reduced there. In order to live like I live here but in Tennessee, I need to make $32-$35 a year…. In TENNESSEE.  That is laughable.  The customer service jobs there are $8 an hour lol.  My salary here is even at an hourly rate almost twice that.  

Why Tennessee you ask?  Well for one, proximity to home.  I kind of want a change of pace, warmer weather (even mildly so) without having to go to California, or Florida for it.  Admittedly moving out of state makes me nervous.  But there are a few people who live close enough to Tennessee that I wouldn’t be alone.  AND if things got really bad, I could drive home in a day (10 hour drive to Chicago).  

The truth of the matter though is I do not think I will find a job that will give me in pay, what I MUST make to live on my own there.  And if I don’t have at LEAST that, I can’t move.  I just wont uproot my life on a whim.  I must have a secure base of funding at least.  
So seeing as I haven’t found a place here (yet) that takes dogs, has a washer/dryer IN UNIT, and is $850 a month or less, I may wind up staying here since I have a good job and at least half the battle won with my current apartment.  If psycho man stays away or if he leaves and the new neighbor is good, then we’re all good.  

For now, too much is up in the air to make a decision.

I’m still hoping I’ll come across a philanthropist who meets me and is smitten with my ideas and just showers me in funding for my business, my writing and whatever else I want so that I can pursue the things I want to pursue.  But… that’s along the fairytale lines.  Sigh

Well for now, I will say goodbye lest I get all philosophical (I’m horribly bored at work today) and start crying about my love life or lack thereof.  Be well friends…

Oh and HAPPY BIRTHDAY KRAMIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
*grin*

Happy Holidays even though it's the Day After!

Happy Holidays and all that stuff!


So it’s been a busy busy week leading up to today.  First I had company from Thursday night through Monday afternoon.  Most know him as Tony, some know him as Nyyrikki or Anthony Giovanni.  He came and stayed over Christmas with me.  It was nice.  We did everything we wanted to do.  We visited friends… he met my mother… and we gamed.  Good times for all.

Last week at work had some surprising things in it.  The biggest of which left me absolutely unable to even write and that was: CRONY GAVE ME A GIFT!  I know shocking eh?  And not only that but it was an AWESOME gift of a HUGE candle.  I almost keeled over.  Apparently everyone in this workplace exchanges gifts and with the exception of three people I got gifts from all.  I got everything from a winter pin, 48 zazo teas, Two Candles, Two ornaments, some munchy type stuff, and I even got a Christmas bonus!  The bonus wasn’t much but it was perfectly unexpected and greatly needed.  I spent way too much money while Tony was here, but it was all spent wisely on groceries.  Tony and I had a feast galore everyday this weekend and I still have a full house of groceries for now.  It’s worth it for even that.  

Now however, a day after the holiday I’m back to reality.  All weekend I’ve had a few stories in my head that want to be written and while I’m inspired to think them, I have no desire to write them.  *sigh*  I can’t win for trying lol.  Not only that, but the day after Christmas has left me empty and alone again.  While I’m not wallowing in the quagmire of depression over it, it has left me a touch sad because there are a some people I think I would enjoy to spend time with (holiday or not) and one of them I would like to spend a lot of time with…. Like as a partner.  But, sadly that won’t happen and the sooner I realize this, the sooner I can wake up.  



And now for what has really bothered me fore a few days:

I’ll never understand people’s desire to send me horribly sad, even cryptic messages over a chat client.  I feel tremendously sad for people who really feel there is no way out for them.  I feel sad too for myself because these people would put the burden on me to help support them.  And do not think me unsympathetic, the problem isn’t that… it’s that I’m TOO sympathetic..  I want so badly to help these people if nothing else for the simple reason that they came to me.  But the fact is, I’m not strong enough myself to overcome my own depression/mood shifts/fears.  I can’t offer to others what I do not have myself.  The only thing I can say to those that have confided in me, is please please seek some help locally to you.  If I were there, I would offer a hug, a shoulder.  I would hope to be able to help you find help for yourself.  But I’m not and to place a burden on me some 3,000 miles or more away is not something I can manage.  Not because I don’t want to but because I simply CANNOT being so far away.  If you wish to give this to me and have me help you then take this advice; Seek help!  I do not know how I would handle knowing someone came to me with ideas of suicide and I was unable to help and as a result their light is gone…

A long time ago when I first began my journey online, I knew someone who had some problems.  She had (from her point of view) some sadness over an online with the possibly of reality relationship that had broken up.  As a result she suffered great depression.  Somehow I got stuck in the middle because I knew all affected parties.  I knew her boyfriend, the other woman he left her for, and the original woman who suffered this depression.  One night I got a series of yahoo messages from her about how she was going to kill herself etc.  After a few hours of talking to her and her relaying to me her thoughts on suicide she had told me she heard people outside her door.  She didn’t live in a very good neighborhood or so she said (I did not even know her area to know if she did or didn’t).  I made her give me her phone number and I talked to her on the phone for hours sharing some things about myself with her to try and help her.  I will never forget that night how heart wrenching it was to be unable to DO a thing, but to listen and absorb her pain as best I could…  It is not an easy thing to do.  In any event at about 2am (yes I worked the next day) I finally went to bed.  She had told me she would call the police about the noises outside her door and that was that.   As I heard later from her (the next day actually), the noises outside her apartment were people who supposedly left her a dead cat on her doorstep about a week ago.  Well on this night, they came back … 5 of them she said, and brutally raped and beat her.  This is what she tells me on the phone.  So I’m an absolute wreck knowing I went to sleep with this noise going on… I should have called the cops, I should have stayed on the phone something… anything…  She was at this point on the phone with me, going to kill herself right there and it was all I could do to keep her from doing it.  In the meantime, I had some friends in a different station call the police in this woman’s state so they could come and take her to the hospital as she was not safe to herself and would need medical care as she told me in detail that she did (I will leave those details out)…  It was the only thing I could think to do.  I stayed on the phone until the cops came, and I spoke to one of the officers and relayed to him in a coherent manner (I could hear her screaming in the background) what had transpired.  

Now before you finish this and think Oh my God!  Read on…

The cop that I spoke to that night said there was no sign of forced entry and she had no marks on her of any kind.  Additionally they said they had been out there many times before.  I was so messed up I almost didn’t care, I just wanted them to take her to the hospital to get checked out and get some help for her suicide threats.  

But later on, it turns out (even though the few times I spoke to her afterwards, she swears it all happened) the evidence supported that NONE of the things she said happened actually did.  There are a few things wrong with this.  1.  What kind of person could make this kind of stuff up???  2. What kind of person would involve someone who can’t do ANYTHING to help except be helpless in listening?

Ever since then I’m VERY careful who I bear pain from.  The next person I did any of that with was Jessie…and since her very few people.  I simply cannot mange that type of pain again…

So please people, before you send me messages like “Well this is the last week I’ll be living, it was nice knowing you” in an offline message, please think.  You are reaching out for help in that statement…. Reach out to someone locally… Please get help, because while I will listen I simply do not have the means to do anything else.

I post this here in the hope that the person who sent me that message will read this and not so much sympathize with my plight, but hear in my typed words the plea that you get help.  Please…

Life may suck sometimes, and for some of us it may suck more so than for others.  But it is OUR life we have to lead.  It is truly one of the only things we have.  Cling to it.  Find some light of hope, ANY light of hope no matter how small.  Cling to it, because it’s truly precious just as each and every one of us is…

Its all Danas fault

It’s all Dana’s fault :P

After all, she had to go have a baby and all ….  Completely made me forget about my payday rant!  SO you have her to thank ;)  Or little Logan Michael, one of the two.  * grin *

Logan Michael is one of the cutest babies I’ve seen!  Congrats to the whole family on the new addition!

I’ll skip the payday rant :P

If you can believe it, I’m still sick ..  Nothing as bad as last week but my ears still bother me.  I hope it goes away soon.  I have a lot to do this week!  I have to clean in anticipation of my Christmas company!  I’m so excited.  

I wish I could have gotten everyone just one thing for Christmas.  Even if it were tiny.  I had a little money put aside for cards for folks, but even that got taken away because I was sick and out on Monday last week.  They’re going to dock me that time off (  So make sure if you’re reading this that I have your email address because I want to send you all some love this Christmas and by god via email will be the way!  :D  

I made soap and body scrubs all weekend long for the first time in a long time.  It was nice.  I made one of each extra for myself and then last night took a long shower with this body wash (apple soy) that was given to me for Christmas and then I used the sugar scrub.  I LOVE sugar scrubs…. They make your skin sooo incredibly soft and they leave it smelling WONDEFUL.  All night I smelled lavender (essential oil not that fake stuff!) and a hint of romance perfume.  It was wonderful.  Hehe my bedroom smells like it now and this morning when I got up I didn’t even need any lotion even with the winter months!  It’s great (

You know… you folks who want to make it can make it at home.  You don’t have to buy that expensive stuff at the store (and it’s better for you if you don’t… less chemicals).  All you have to do is go to any health food store and buy the smallest bottle of lavender or orange or grapefruit (Avoid peppermint and cinnamon as they irritate the skin, ask me if you’re going to do this as to the scent you can use) and a bottle of sweet almond oil.  You can use fragrance oils if you like but you have to get those at crafting stores and if you do make SURE THEY SAY SKIN SAFE!!!  Some fragrance oils are only for use in candles and are very concentrated and likely to burn the skin.  I recommend essential oils anyway as they’re better for you.  

Ok so you have your little essential oil or fragrance oil and your sweet almond oil.  I recommend you buy a 8oz bottle of sweet almond oil if you’re making one scrub or bigger if making more as a gift.  Also make sure you have granulated sugar on hand.  You can add some things as well if you want to get fancy.  You can add chamomile herb (very cheap at any natural food/herb place) oatmeal either whole or ground up (crush by hand if you want too), lavender herb etc.  

Get yourself a jar or hell use a Tupperware if you need and make sure you can cover it afterwards.  Pour sugar in the container halfway to top (or less if you only have small amounts of oil and fragrance).  Add your dry additives like oatmeal, herbs etc.  Then pour in the sweet almond oil (just enough to cover the sugar and a little more… you have to stir it in to determine if you need more.  Once stirred the proper amount of oil will produce a sugary paste).  Add your fragrance.  Now this is the tricky part.  REMEMBER: you can always add more, but you can’t take out if you’ve added too much.  The scent should be slightly strong in that it needs to scent the skin when scrubbed, but not overpowering.  If your oil comes with a ML dropper, typically I put in three milliliters (or less for concentrated essential oils like lavender as it’s strong to begin with).  This equates to about 10 drops maybe 20 if you have a dropper essential oil bottle.  You can blend fragrances too for a unique combination as well.  Lavender orange is heavenly.  Or a citrus blend is great too of orange and grapefruit.  It’s a perfect wake me up.  If you’re giving as a gift, stir it up and make sure that when thoroughly stirred it resembles a slightly liquid paste.  Seal and voila your very own sugar scrub!  You can add other things too if you want to get fancy like vitamin e oil (great for skin!), real honey (a natural antibacterial), and you can even use different oils as well like sunflower, grapeseed,, etc.  Different oils will have different consistencies.  Sweet almond is the lightest.  Anyway there you go a homemade gift you can make for any of your friends (  Enjoy!

BETH I LOVE YOU

BETH I LOVE YOU

There, just had to say it.  


Ok so my goodness the time has flown.  Let me give you a run down.  Thursday’s party was AWFUL.  The restaurant was lovely, the food was exquisite.  But getting there took me TWO FRIGGING HOURS.  The drive is normally as I’m told only 15 minutes.  But it took me two hours, because we were driving in 10 inches of snow.  It was awful.  Of the entire 8 people party, only 4 made it and those 4 lived close (except for me).  Once we got there the food was great, but I worriedly watched the snow continue to fall.  There was talk of me staying at crony’s house * cry* Or Sharon’s, or Carol’s.  While I appreciated the offers, wild horses or 10 inches of snow even couldn’t keep me from getting home.  Not only would I miss being online, but the LAST thing I want to do is stay in a strange environment, sleep in my clothing and go to work the next day in same clothes!  EW

So I begin the drive home at 7:15pm cst.  I didn’t get home until 10:45pm.  On the way I nearly had two very real accidents, and my thanks to my mother and Michael who stayed on the phone with me the entire time.  I was a nervous wreck.  I can handle most driving conditions, but not snow.  My mother says God is the only reason I got home that night.  Maybe she’s right… but I think it was more than just god.  

So I go home intending to get out some frustration in game and make it about a half hour before passing out from exhaustion lol.  OH well, best attempts right?

So Friday, I started to drive to work.  It took me 20 minutes to get from my house to route 59 (normally a TWO minute drive).  I called Sharon and told her, no way.  SO I stayed home Friday.  I started feeling a bit under the weather, but I though that was just exhaustion.  However, you know how it is on a free day.  I spent a good portion of the day sleeping when I wanted, and playing when I wanted.  I also cleaned a bit.  But I did sleep.

Saturday and Sunday were a blur to me.  Sunday around 4:30pm though, I started feeling really sick.  By 5:30pm I was REALLY sick.  I called the immediate care but they closed at 6pm.  So I threw some sweats on and bolted out the door.  I cleaned off my car and got in the car at 5:55pm, but the doctor had already left the immediate care, so I couldn’t get there.  By this time I was in excruciating pain.  I ran back inside the house and I don’t even know what I did at that point.  I remember calling some people but mainly I remember crying lol.  I found some Ketek, an antibiotic that at one point had been prescribed for something similar to what I was experiencing so I took it.  I rarely self medicate, especially with antibiotics, but I was in so much pain I couldn’t see.  I just knew I wasn’t going to the ER to get reamed on the cost there if I could avoid it so I took the medicine.  Thankfully, in about an hour, the meds kicked in and I felt mildly better.  At least I was able to sleep which, I did fitfully.  

Then I got up in the morning on Monday and went immediately to the convenient care.  Boy did I do it up right.  Not only did I take medicine that didn’t help what I had, but it only helped on the surface (at least it was something).  I have three infections.  The least of these infections is an ear infection.  The worst of these infections raises my heart rate and puts me in danger of V-Tach (for those of you that don’t know this is my heart condition, and this infection puts me at risk of going into ventricular tachycardia… a form of stroke).  So now, I’m on two antibiotics, a painkiller, a blood pressure medicine, and a decongestant lol.  I went home after calling off and proceeded to fall asleep in my chair.  They weren’t kidding when they told me the first days dose would knock me out.  I fell asleep so soundly that for 30 minutes my body went numb.  My ENTIRE body.  When I woke up enough to crawl (literally because I couldn’t walk) to the couch, I immediately after the horrible pins and needles, fell back asleep for a few hours.  I still believe it or not today have a fever, and the meds are still making me sleepy.  I don’t remember my drive into work today, I just remember falling asleep at the wheel in the parking lot at 6:55am lol.  Scary shit, eh? Lol

Then on top of it, I have two orders for soap.  One that is actually paying but because of the crazy ass weekend and illness etc, I didn’t get them done!  So now I have to do that tonight or tomorrow * sigh *.  If I can get the one done, I might just be able to cover my shortage…  I think.  Or at least I’ll be one step closer to covering it.  No steps closer to getting groceries though (.  Tony you may want to reconsider coming up for Christmas, it might be better to stay where you are heh.  Oh well…

I have no idea, if I’ll be docked for these last two days.  But I have to assume I will.  So the extra money I had for groceries this coming check is gone, and then some.  I’ll have to figure out what to do about bills again.  Thankfully the last check was full so I didn’t go behind on some of my other bills, which affords me the ability to make arrangements on some of my other bills, but still…  The visit to the doctor was not covered because I have no insurance.  Thankfully the doctor on staff that day knows me well and knows my situation.  She argued with billing to make them lower the visit cost.  But all in all yesterday’s visit was about $190.  Thank god for my mother, (but it gets added on to my ever increasing loan from her * sigh *).  Tack that onto the two days lost and I’m in the hole about $430. $190 of it I can pay later, but I have to make room for $240 in my budget somewhere.  There goes the $110 groceries, and I still need to find a way to move $130 around just to make ends meet, so yea merry Christmas to me.

Ok enough with that rant.  

Thank you Beth for the wonderful dark chocolate/orange truffles!!!  They were such good comfort food this weekend!

*hugs to all*

EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!!! THE MUSE IS PUBLISHED!

I’m posting Beth!!! Look I’m posting!!! :P


So something’s wrong with the world…. Crony is being nice to me.  No, I mean REALLY nice to me.  Tonight is the work Christmas party and I don’t want to go.  The restaurant I’m told is quite nice and it has gotten good reviews.  But it’s hella far away and I don’t know where I’ll be or how to get home.  I SUCK at directions.  Anyway, I pulled down map quest, while I hope and pray for either Dana or Alice to go into delivery today and need me to be there with them :P Map quest says it will take one hour to get home from there and the directions are whacked… like take a u turn at 147.  U turn?!  Who does a u turn anymore/!?!  Aren’t they illegal?  Lol

Anyway so I’m stressing about it and Crony actually took the time to draw me a little map complete with little streetlights (which she colored lol) with directions on how to get back to the office in 15 minutes.  While it will still take me an hour to get home I’ll only have 15 minutes of nervousness as opposed to 60 now and that’s thanks to crony!  * gasp *

She must be under the weather or something.


But now onto the really BIG HUGE TREMENDOUS OH MY GOD NEWS!!!  I am a PUBLISHED AUTHOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The only thing that could really take equal the absolute heavenly feel I have about that right now would be like an entire basket of perfectly ripe avocados :P  or a good night of wonderful sex… erm or hmm never mind :P

But YES I am published!  My first book is called Free Form; Poetry from the heart.  It’s published on www.lulu.com and is available for either digital download or printed paperback copy.  The digital version is $7.40 and the printed version is $13.99.  I’m so nervous though lol.  I will never forget when I first read my poetry to people I was so nervous.  My poetry is not arbitrarily written about inanimate life.  It’s written about my life AS I live it.  It’s intensely personal and deeply intimate.  It’s sadly 80% dark but that’s because I’m writing about depression and my past more than anything.  Now, however, my poetry is lighting up a bit since I’ve gotten quite a bit out.  I honestly could care less if anyone buys the thing… Truly lol.  I’m just happy that I accomplished a goal : )

Next I am working on publishing the Utopia Skye calendar.  It will be ready for purchase by christmas (just barely lol) but it will be available by download as well as print for 2006 calendar year.  Then the next book slated for publication next year is the Digital Soup for the online soul book.  It will prove to be a small book, but it will have a few stories of people’s online experiences.  I don’t have many submissions for it actually.  I have 2 chapters I wrote, two from Jessie, one from Shaun, one from Craftkiller, and I think that’s it.  I had hoped for more * frown *.  We’ll see how it all pans out.  

What else what else… did I mention I got published? :P

By the way the book contains 97 of my internet published poems.  It’s basically the poetry I put on Allpoetry and Utopia Skye.  It’s broken out by year and covers 2003, 2004 and 2005.  But it’s ONLY my online  published works.  I have still over 500 poems at home lol

For now, that’s it…  Pray this year that I get lucky in love guys.  I really need it.  And now the anticipated return of random poetry, but this is not a random poem :P  This is a poem that STARTED as a random poem, but became a very rare muse rhyming poem that won a contest on Allpoetry (  It’s Christmas related so it being December I felt I should post it for you all to read (and yes it’s in the book)

“A Muse’s Christmas Wish”
Well it didn’t post right so here’s the link to it:
http://allpoetry.com/Poem/958112


* hugs for all of you *