John & I are engaged.

Honk/Splash....zooom

Soduko games, who's finished...Cathy

Honk/Spalsh....zoom

Is that Kelly? Yes, zoom...do you have an easier soduko? No, but Cathy finished this one already so we know the answer...

Honk/Splash...zoom


Okay, want to eat lunch?

Yeah that sounds good....lunch...family time, family time....

Honk/Splash....zoom

Honk/Splash...zoom

Whoa, Kelly looks so small from here, how can she be so fast...

Honk/Spash...zoom

Wanna have dinner? Yeah. Are there any more soduko's while we wait? No, Cathy finished all of them.


Did anyone see my weekend?

Update on $50k: $21,520 cash in hand; $10k in kind donations. Left to report are two banks, coca-cola, gapower, johnson & johnson and ford. Not to mention sales from t-shirts, hats & ornaments. That will bring in another $3-5k. Cross your fingers and hold your breath.

I almost didn't sleep a wink last night. I have my assessment by the Dept of Community Affairs on tomorrow and knew I would spend the entire day today cleaning and preparing for the assessment. It is a big deal and determines whether or not my job will exist next year or not. I get two years worth of probation before it is terminated, however, I generally am not used to failing or probation or anything of the sort. I got to work this morning only to find out that my boss broke his foot this weekend in St. Mary's Island while visiting family. He broke it so badly that he had to have surgery and pins to set the foot. He will be stuck there for two weeks. No more assessment. So now all my lack of sleeping was worthless. Not that worrying isn't worthless anyway, but now it is twice as worthless. I feel badly for my boss though. He has two purple hearts from Vietnam (because he did three tours) and the grandkids are what knock him off his feet.

Thank goodness I don't have to worry again for a while.

I am on my third month of this whole working out scenario. It is apparently working, but I am not able to tell a difference. I haven't lost any actual weight yet. I am apparently toning. I am ready to not tone and loose weight. I want to get back in my old jeans like yesterday. I am doing strengthening four times a week and cardio three times a week. It is hard to do. I like being lazy. I could up my cardio to five times a week. I am still not willing to change what I eat yet. I am not interested in all the diet fads because to me they seem like a quick fix and I am not into quick fixes any more. I am into wanting to look the way I want to look and eat the way I want to eat and if that means more working out, lets go. I am not into limiting my food or having to eat something that tastes like styrophoam or cardboard or like pinestraw. Not gonna happen. Lets work out for two hours and eat at Outback without having to order from the rabbit section. Know what I mean? What's the point in working out if I can't eat what I want to? So needless to say my results are slow to come. John says there is a difference. He says that there is no cellulite in the back of my legs and that I am not as soft as I used to be. He says my shape is coming back. I am still the same weight as when I started though: bleh.

I watched Friday Night Lights again last night. It is such a good movie. This is a differing opinion from my brother. He thinks it is weird that the movie is about a team that lost. I think it is great that the movie takes you consistently through the raw emotions of the team so well. It amazes me everytime when he ends up an inch short of breaking the plane for a touchdown. I love the story pushing the characters. It is so overwhelming. I totally didn't realize the drunk dad was Tim McGraw in it until last night. That was a neat discovery. I haven't ever watched the special features until last night. The whole movie was so intense. I love emotional movies. I also watched the Man from Snowy River. Now I have to get Return to Snowy River. I forgot why I liked that movie. Now I remember. It was such a great love story. They are really in love and it is awesome. It made me want to start taking piano lessons again because at one point in time I could play the theme song and love song. Not as well as they did on the movie, but pretty good for being twelve. Tonight is working out and the Godfather. I just bought it this weekend. I will buy each them over the course of the next few weeks. Such a good trilogy. Wow. Good movies. Love me some good movies.

I am a coffee drinker. When I say that please keep in mind my slight ability to be on the extreme of everything. I like coffee means that I don't go a day with out at least having some coffee, preferably in an oversized mug that has four cups for every one cup for a normal cup. I make half a pot every morning to get going to work and then I drink all of it. If someone else is on their way over for morning coffee (yes, sometimes I have morning visitors) then I make a whole pot and get resentful when I don't get enough. Typically, I have coffee in the afternoon as well, either via a coffee shop or some crummy gas station that has it hot but not totally burnt out. Crummy gas stations with fresh, hot coffee are hard to find, unless you live in as rural a place as I do!

My favorite place in the whole world is the coffee shop. No one understands the facination. I don't like just any coffee shop nor do I like just any coffee. I like the shade grown Song Bird (appropriately named for my tune) Costa Rican blend. I like it in a whole bean form so that I can maintain the freshness through out the life of the pound of coffee. When I order coffee, I don't know what I want. I walk into the coffee shop and say hi. Eric says, what flavor today Rae, I say Raspberry, Cherry or Vanilla. Nothing too wild. He says okay. I know it is a double but of what I am not sure. I don't know the difference between a latte or a cappucino or a esspresso. So maybe I am not as fanatical as I think, but I know what I like. I have a hard time going to other shops because I don't know what it is that Eric makes for me or what it might be called in other places.

Sometimes coffee can be a problem though. This morning was primo primo bad coffee morning. However, I will not stop drinking it just because of primo bad mornings. This morning the coffee beans spilled all over the place. Coffee beans are like ice cubes, the inevitably leave at least one on the floor to be stepped on. Then I made it through the rest of my morning seemingly okay, but I forgot about the car. The car and the coffee just didn't mesh. Normally, I can get to work with my oversized coffee mug with no problem. I knocked the ceramic on my teeth and I have no idea how I did that and it splattered all over my blouse. This was as I had just gotten out of my driveway. I spilt it three more times before I got to work. Primo. The coffee was great bytheway. And I was beautifully decorated in my professional coffee stained outfit.

We've got this afternoon/you've got this room for two/one thing I've left to do. . .

I love John Mayer. He makes me feel sixteen again. Well, much like my brother I had a similar occurance: I did a budget. I haven't done my taxes yet (that is next weekend) but I did my budget. I am a bride's maid for my longest known girlfriend in the whole wide world and I have to save money or never get there. I needed to save money anyway, but I am not good at the save money because you of that you are supposed to thing. I am better at having a reason. So, Michelle and I found $$%) a month to save so that I could have $!#%) to fly and have fun. That is almost a quarter of what I make on a monthly basis. It also means that I will have no reason whatsoever to not save after the fact for a house. Although it means that I can't get Mary Kay for a while or some other things too. I can give up make-up for a while to get to New Hampshire. (If I were 13 though this would be not be true!) Did I mention she is getting married in New Hampshire? On the coast of NH actually, not that I knew before she invited me that NH had a coast. Dad says it is only about 20 miles long so it is easy to not know. But Mom laughed at me. I don't know geography very well, of course that might be because I have never been anywhere. Taking action on my money makes me feel better. Now I know where I stand and what I can do with it. Soon it will be more than savings though. Michelle wants me to look into cds and stocks and scary 401k stuff. She says that it is easy to do and useful for saving. Runaway. I like the idea behind a cd because I can get to it when I need it. That way if I end up in the hospitalGodforbid (that is all one word in the south) or with the notion to buy a house or a car or something like that, then I can make a down payment on the excessiveness. I am so projecting right now. This month I only put away $@)), but I capped off two credit card bills so that was good. Also my student loan payment didn't show on my last bank statement so I might have another $!%) in my checking that isn't supposed to be there. I am willing to wait until the next statement to find out for sure. If it shows up then I am giving it to the third and final credit card which means I will knock out $@)) in one month off the final credit card. Then I can get my ticket for the plane online! Hurray! That simple in one month! I am all about immediate gratification. Money hard at work I say! Better it than me!

Well I had a mountain hometown weekend. Living in a rural region means several things: first, everywhere you go to get something takes twenty minutes to get there because of mileage not stoplights (if you see a stoplight you are at Walmart or Lowes); second, creativity to find something to do on the weekends without driving more than twenty minutes is a neccessity (Of course this won't be true too much longer because I designed an event schedule for the city I work for!). This weekend I went to Homer and to Sautee (okay so Sautee is closer than 20 minutes but not by much).

Friday night was a trip to Homer in an old chicken house. Yes, I went to a chicken house for fun. The inside of the house was slightly revamped. It was still very apparent that you were in a chicken house. It had the river sand as the floor, which is usually in a chicken house although it lines the house under a bed of mulch and pine bark type mix to catch the litter to be scraped out to give for sale to the pasture owners. The river sand floor was cool. Then the walls were covered in antiques. There was a Hank Williams, Sr poster on the wall. There was old Coca-cola stuff, quilts, tools, bread signs, the Patsy Cline poster was cool because the opener was a newcomer named Lorretta Lynn. She was last on the bill with three other bands before her! Patsy was the headliner though. It was neat. There was a huge stage up front with a small dance floor. There were rough board pews with seared seat numbers. There was a pot luck of dinner for anyone who wanted could donate money to get homemade apple cobbler, hotdogs, bbq or hamburgers, sodas, coffee, cookies & cake. The main draw was the front on the stage. Live bluegrass. Live. Like local guys coming together pickin and grinnin. It was awesome. It was six bucks to get in at the door. No drinkin. No smokin. All family fun, which meant no swearin either. Mr. Irvin owns it and sits at the door to take your money. He also owns the largest carhart distributor in five counties. It was great fun. I didn't even notice the time until an hour and a half into us being there. The music was fabulous. John says that is what we'll be doing for a while on Friday nights. It was the most fun!

Then Saturday night in Sautee, I went to a contra dance. What is a contra dance you ask? Why, it is a sqaure dance. Anyone who tells you different is lying. All we did all night was square dancing like we learned in sixth grade phys ed. It was unbelievable how much fun I had. It was hard work too because there was so much dancing. The music was all live music too which was cool. There were about 130 people there which apparently is a slow night because of the weather. It was awesome. I have to get some real boots though. My boots that I wore are about done as it is, but to dance in them was blisterous. I sweat so much. I have never in my life sweat that much. I must have danced for an hour straight before I sat down. It was cool too because there were couples and just women and kids. One of my dancing partners was ten! She was almost one of the best ones too! There were first nighters like myself all the way to professionals who came dressed for the part. This one guy who was dressed, everytime the music would start he would reinsert the smile. He smiled the entire time the music played to dance. It was so funny. I am guessing he does this on a competition level. It was great fun because they taught you the dance before you danced the dance. But the longer the night went on the less times they went through the dance. So the last dance I did, I only got one shot at a rehearsal and off to the races. Luckily, the sqare dances are a repeated dance and are called out so by about the third time you do it, you get it. Although some of the teenage guys were pushing their coordination! It was the most fun!

Sunday was not nearly as fun. It consisted of me and a movie and the coffee shop. Snow was awesome though. The snow line came down to the north west end of White County and that was it though. It never did push into Habersham. It was 24 when I came to work this morning and is supposed to be 57 by tomorrow. 57? Wierd winter.

Life has become one big meeting.

My work and my personal life have been one big meeting lately. There are meetings for this committee and meetings for that committee, don't forget about meeting the trainer or meeting with John for dinner. Meetings with Friends to talk about God and meetings for committees that I don't know I am on yet!

Whew. First of the month always brings lots of meetings. It is overwhelming because the little things go to the wayside. Laundry. Dishes. Dry Cleaning. The odd thing about this month, all of those things are done. My groceries are shopped. My laundry is limited. My dry cleaning picked up. My dishes are put away. My bed . . .well my bed didn't get made this morning, but still it was yesterday.

Cheese Filled Manacotti with Rich Meat Sauce. . .

Yes, I made this for my superbowl party with no superbowl. It took forever. It was as bad as making lasagna. Cook the manicotti which are the same thing as jumbo shells but it doesn't say that on the box so there is no way to know that until after you make the dish. That takes a while because the shells are big. Then there is the meat sauce. There is the measuring of the stuff that goes into the meat sauce. There is the browning of the meat for the meat sauce and the measuring of the garlic which is half a teaspoon of equals one clove of garlic not tablespoon, which luckily I got right but was not so lucky with the oregano, basil and other wierd spice that spilled all over my counter top. The meat in the recipe was 12 ounces of meat and the meat in the package was .97lbs which is close enoungh to 16 ounces and I said to hell with it and browned it all and added it all for the richness. I guess it was better that I added more spices than was called for now that I think about it. Then there is the cheese filling which was probably the easiest thing to make. 3 Cheeses in a bowl with parsley and egg and mix: could have been called cake! Then there is the stuffing the shells without tearing the shells up. Icky cheese under my finger nails, stuck to the spoon, tearing the shells, arg, hard. Then there is the placing the stuffed shells without burning your fingers on the rich meat sauce. Then there is the covering of the stuffed shells without burning your self. Then there is the excess cheese spreading. Then there is the 35 minutes of smelling that comes with the cooking that makes me hungry.

John and I got to the pot luck party only to find that the host was an idiot and forgot to order the superbowl on his satellite so we went to a superbowl party with no superbowl. We left early, but everyone loved the manicotti. It made so much that I have manicotti for the whole week! Hurray! I did it.

Happy Belated Groundhog Day!

One hog saw his shadow, another didn't. So that means we have a fifty-fifty shot at an extended winter, or global warming.

One of the things I love about driving in the mountains is that there are no stop lights, there are rarely cars and it is like being on a roller coaster everywhere you go. There is traffic though at high points during the day. Mostly the traffic is due to schools and if you can avoid the different schools, you're in good shape. Like most mountain areas, there is always a back road. It might be a little rougher than the one that drives past the school, but at least there is no school traffic. Everything up here is two lanes too so there is limited ability to get around slow folk who have three kids going to two different schools. Two lanes, like one going one way the other lane goes the opposite way and when a transfer truck full of chickens passes you and you're in a Saturn, you get blown off the road because he is running fifty miles an hour and doesn't care about the schools or the super slow Mama that is driving in front of you.

The roller coaster effect adds life to travel. You go up, you come down, twist hard right, back left and up, and up, zoop left and ease down into a town square that comes out of nowhere. There is a road in White County that at the base of it is a sign that says, "BEWARE: More accidents occur on this road than any other in the state. Please drive carefully." The reason why is its rollercoasterness. Even if you go forty, it feels like you are flying. Wee-bumps are nothing compared to this nightmarish twisty-turning, leaping up and down, crazy-ass road. I love this road. It is a thriller.

One of the excitements of the road is that you cannot see anything beyond the turn in front of you. So there could be a car, a dog, a deer, a poorsam, any number of exciting things to dodge and swerve. I can remember in driver's ed when they talked about limited sights. This meant that on a hill there was no way to know what was on the other side so limited sights meant SLOW DOWN, as my intstructor fussed. In the mountains there is no such thing as unlimited sights. Unlimited means you are going down and can see a driveway at the bottom of the ravine before heading back up. This is the ideal place to have a driveway because there is a good chance you can get out of it without getting hit. However, since there is no real planning or structure for housing or businesses here, driveways are everywhere for any reason.There can be a car entering the two lane highway or there can be a tractor pulling a bale of hay or yes, a chicken truck(lots of chicken trucks, Georgia Snow). This combined with the limited sighting and the rollercoaster roads makes the ride to work adventurous if I am coming from anywhere not in the central business district of my county. It is really easy to do: not be in the business district. The business district is where both the LOWES stop light is and the WALMART stoplight is. When giving directions, these are important markers (they are the only markers other than the Dairy Queens, which everyone knows where they are). I have yet to figure out how I have not been killed driving around up here. Although, I am pretty good at deer hunting with my car and getting better at evasive driving (last wreck was someone who couldn't see me pulling out and me going around the edge of their front bumper instead of their driver side door). I have had more wrecks than anyone in my family. I have had three in Atlanta when I lived there and five up here. One of my wrecks was with a tree stump, two with deer, one with the front bumper of a Chevy Truck and my last one was in one of the lazy little town squares where a woman slammed into the back of me and although there was no damage done to either car she said something about being pregnant and not being able to pay attention because of it (whatever) so I filed a report with the police documenting that it was her fault. No way I am getting blame for lack of babies right at the heart of Babyland General. No way.

Now that you have a grasp of the dangers of driving in the mountains, think about this nicely added God feature this morning:

Fog

Out of $50,000 I have already begun recieving the checks in the mail. I expected people to say, "We'll give you a grand" then mail the check a month later, however that isn't the case. Each day brings another check or volunteer or in kind donation. It is amazing. Sometimes I set out to do things and just don't think it will happen but I do them anyway. It alwasy amazes me when it happens. I will start in on the letchanos this week. That way they won't get away.

I am sore all over. The woman I swim with and I have started strengthening training. So far that means that I am either in the gym or in the pool everyday this week. I think on Saturday I will super sleep. She has taught me all kinds of things I didn't know such as the reason athletes drink so much water is to flush the toxins out of their muscles (lactic acid and such). More water. More water. Can't drink enough water.

Movies, movies, movies. . .watched the Accused with Jodie Foster. She is one of the best in the business. Kelly McGillis is so out acted in that movie. Horrible but great movie. About a Boy is so good hearted. I think one of the reasons Hugh Grant is still in the movie industry is that the movies he chooses are generally good hearted loving movies even if he isn't the good guy (Bridget Jones). Saw Glory Road with Grace and Cooper. They thought it was great and made quite the observation that it was similar to Remember the Titans. Funny how obvious things are noticed. Saw Half Light with Demi Moore. Excellent thriller. Can't figure out why I have never heard of it other than it might be a British film. It is really decent. Saw a couple more, but am going to the Post Office and it is almost five. YES I watch a lot of movies. There is no question.

Christ is hanging out with Martha and Mary. He is so cool.