Why is it that the lady on the "time to quit" commercial who encourages people to stop smoking and calls it an addiction to nicotine, like that is not the same thing as smoking (there is no such thing as a social smoker, if you call yourself a smoker--you are addicted), makes me want to pull my cigarettes up and light one up? The problem is that I don't have any cigarettes and haven't bought cigarettes for like five years or something. Not to mention, I don't think I have a lighter either. If I had to start a campfire, I would have to go to the store. Do you know how long it takes for me to get to a store from the farm? Fifteen minutes, minimum. So weird. You'd think that a stop smoking campaign would make you say, golly, glad I stopped that looks aweful not give me a drag, or yeah, let's see if I can smoke an entire pack in the time it takes to play the commercial. Something is wrong with the "your time to quit" marketing. There is a better commercial that is on the dvds as a preview that is a cowboy in newyork who sings through a mike that is pressed into his throat and sings to you that you don't always die from smoking, sometimes they just take a lung and tongue and give you a machine so that you can talk through your throat. Yeah, watching that guy, makes me really grateful that God has removed the obsession of smoking. I mean pressing a mike to your throat to talk? Weird and scary all wrapped into one.

My husband left me this morning. This is not uncommon in our marriage lately. For about the past year he has been leaving me every three or four days. Apparently, he recieves some type of monetary compensation for his disappearance, I believe some people call it a salary. For that first hour or so that he is gone (all though this is a great improvement as it used to be an all day affair), I go into a denial thing. My head registers him leaving as though he was going to Linda's to get some milk. But then that reality hits. I get this grumpiness that settles on me. I find everything in my power to stop it, but inevitably, I get bored. So I just have to watch a movie or some form of tv show. A lot of times this coincides with the VIEW which makes me laugh. It tells me that it hits me about the same time every time. Then, after watching independent women talk about nothing for about thirty minutes, I feel enthused and recognize my own independence.

In the past the leaving for work for three days at a time has been placed conveniently at the same time as a test, paper or project that is due for school. Now, however, I am on break. I haven't had a break since last August. Well, before that actually because I was working up to the day I went to school. So I guess it was last July when I went with Sherry and the kids to Anna Maria Island for a week. So almost a year. That makes it the right time for another vacation. I would say I had Christmas break, but that was more of a run around and see every family member imaginable and work and anything else we could think of to squeeze in there in order to go back to school suddenly. Then there was the break between Spring Semester and Summer Semester that lasted two weeks in which I went to visit Mom, because it is always such a relief to visit Mom, and then thought Mrs. K, John's Mama, was dying. Oof. No break there. Thinking someone is going to die is excrutiatingly hard on the system.

So here I am. First day on a summer break. My husband leaves me and...I have nothing to study, plan, work on, go to, or do. My cabinets are all painted, my sun room established. My house is clean. Maybe the VIEW is on. Maybe not. Who would know that summer break would be so confusing.

There is something brave in going to the supermarket in a small town on a Saturday. There are no parking space, except at the end of the lot. There are people with their dogs in the shopping cart. There are a random assortment of people instead of the normal ones you are used to seeing all the time. I actually did not see one person I knew except my youngest step son. Lucky for me he's big and hard to miss because if he were say the size of a normal human, he would have blended with the tourists and folks in town to see mom, the mountains, helen, the car show, the picnic at the state parks, family fun at the water park (yes, we have a water park), the scenic routes with quaint fruit stands on the side of the road that have been owned by the same family for generations. There were people stopping and starting at odd intervals, trying to drag carts out of the way. The congestion in the aisles was that of gridlock in downtown Atlanta on a Friday at three o'clock. What ever happened to get your groceries before you get there? I mean really, that's just ridiculous. Courage, I tell you. Courage. I dare you to go into the Ingles on a Saturday afternoon when there's not a cloud in the sky and in a tourist-sort-of town. See if you get out alive...ain't easy. Ain't gonna doit again.

I heart Grey's Anatomy.

I have been on a diet for some time now. Successfully losing fifteen pounds so far and would really appreciate losing another twenty to be about the right size for me. This is something that is hard for me, as I have always been a thin person. I have always been a generally active person. So for me it almost wounds my pride to have to DIET. I mean, really isn't that for fat people? I AM FAT. According to the FDA, I am slightly overweight with a slightly higher BMI than normal (I need to lose two points--what ever that means!)

My family thought it would be a great idea to go to Dairy Queen for Father's Day. This is jim dandy if I could eat sugar, white flour and two thousand calories a day, but as it turns out, I can't AND lose weight. But I was curious, how many calories does that Blizzard really have...I mean, really. Dad says 4000 calories. This would explain why the American public is severely obese. Turns out, oh Pop of mine, the oreo blizzard is 570 calories for a small. The one that little brother had, strawberry cheesequake, is 530 calories. I can't remember which one Momo picked, but I would have had a chocolate blizzard: that is to say the one with the most chocolate possible blizzard: Brownie Batter Blizzard, which is 630 calories...for a small.

Don't worry it is only over half my caloric intake for a whole DAY! Can you say superfat?

All I have to say to you mealy mouthed blizzard eaters is HA! I will not be conned into your wiley ways to eat your way to filling, sweet tasting treats. I will persevere! I will be thin again!

HA! Take that!

If you are wondering what happened to all the bees in North America, what's left of them are in my bush in front of my house. They buzz so loudly when the sun comes up that they wake me up in the morning and my brother can hear them over the phone. Bzzzzzzz....See you can hear them too. Bzzzzzbzzzzzzzzz

How Now Brown Cow.

Don't you wish you could pick your nose with your tongue?

I have a friend who is dieing.

She has cancer, but that is not what's killing her. What is killing her is the cirrhosis. He body is no longer protected from the toxins in her liver. Her eyes were yellow. She had beautiful blue eyes and today while the blue is still there, the yellow is overwhelming. If she makes it alive until 17th she will have two years without a drink of liquor. Two years without a drink and it still is killing her.

I have another friend who cannot go 24 hours without a drink. She has a kid, a husband and knows about God, but cannot not drink. She cannot figure out how to have a relationship with God and doesn't understand how I do what I do. She hasn't had a drink since last night and it is killing her.

When I look at my life today, I see a sleeping husband, a lazy dog, a violin begging to be practiced, books waiting to be studied and bank account thirsting for money. I am one of those people who is broke and happy. I can remember seeing people who were broke and happy and wondering how they did it. Now I know.

You know, when I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is get on my knees and say a version of the Jabez prayer, and then I ask God to remove the obsession and compulsion to drink, I ask God to give me a desire to stay sober today. I don't know that I truly did that until I was in my Sautee apartment and had almost two years without a drink. Before then, I asked God to give me a desire to stay sober, but it was while I was still in that not willing to get out of bed stage of sleep and not sleep. It was still a prayer, but it is not the prayer which I take to Him today. I have an honest desire to stay sober today. And my disease is not killing me today.

I like the way my fingers feel after I have practiced. They are tender on the ends and my arm is always aching. I am pulling my elbow more in so that I can relax my pinkie more to get a better fourth finger sound and my arm aches because I don't know that I have ever practiced it right. But now that I am, owee. It was weird when I picked up my violin today, it was all in tune about a half step low. I think that the heat has something to do with it. The temp at the bank in Clarkesville was 102. The temp on my computer here at the farm says 91. The best part of it is, farm life mean no AC. So it is probably 85 in my house right now, thus the reason I am drinking ice water and sweating like a pig. I actually had to put a wash cloth on my chin rest so my chin would slip off from sweat. It also made the chin rest like ten times more comforatble. Gavotte in G Minor is coming along. My fours are not sounding like fours much any more. They are sounding like notes. Now, if I can just add some vibrato, I will be professional...in ten more years with intense work!

My new son. Oprah thinks she has really cool guests when she brings on the guy who can hold his breath for the world record. I say that's nothing. I can have children without giving birth. Even better than that, I can have children that are six months older than me. Do that Oprah!

Yeah, it has been a regular soap opera in my life this past year. We lost a grandson through a paternity test and gained a son, daughter-in-law and two more grandkids as a result of ghosts revealing themselves from the past.

This week is crazy for me. We are having our makeup day for Memorial Day so instead of having my normal Friday off, I have Friday on which means lots of school work. There is an anda that goes with that: And I am doing church flowers this week, and I am chairing Sunday night, and I am printing out invitations for David's birthday, and I am making a care package for a mentoree from John's work, and I am studying for a test that is on five chapters on Monday, andI am going to church Sunday morning if it kills me, and I am writing two papers due Monday, and the Donnelly's want me to have dinner, and I have been craving some Sweetwater coffee time, and I am supposed to hang out with Veronica Saturday night. Can you say INSANE?

There is a reason my life is a soap opera.

I lost five pounds. This means that I am fifteen down on my forty that I want to lose. I didn't think I was ever going to lose any more weight, I thought I was going to be stuck at ten pounds forever.

My Mikey dog is losing five pounds in fur all over the place. Shedding makes me grateful he is an outside dog.

I am totally cruising on Minuet two and am looking into Gavotte in G minor. I am working on getting the dynamics right not to mention the intonation. There is a little exercise that is listed for the song for intonation. I was horrible the first time I played it. My guess is this piece will need more work than the last one.

I'm trying to think of a title for my soap opera. "Life on the Farm" Nah, nothing happens on a farm, well not usually. Normally we just get new calfs not new sons.

I really like my old farm house today. It was a little scary this morning in the summer thunderstorm, but otherwise, it is turning into a cool house. The sun room has come along nicely. John has stored cabinets in there, which I think he may have thought they would be used it the kitchen, but I liked them so much right where they lay, I loaded them up with stuph. It gives the sun room an air of a study with a lot of light. I like it. It helped that I took the dead fish off the wall that looked like at one point in time was a trophy of some sort but lately looked like it should have been inside Grimald Place with Kreacher. I have hung pictures up instead. Pictures are nice. It is a way of filling the room up with people who love you and who you love without haveing to deal with any of their defects. All I have left are to put in the books that are at storage. Maybe Tuesday.

I have a test tomorrow on Interest and Time Value of Money. I am haveing a hard time finding motivation to study, but it always comes out okay in the end. How? Its a mystery.

I also finished painting my kitchen cabinets. They are now all blue. I like that. Blue. Next, the walls. I was thinking green, but the color green I have is icky. Kind of looks like mud actually. I think I will try a yellow instead. A real yellow as opposed to the white that has turned yellow due to being painted in the fifties? We shall see. That is a big project.

My next small big project is to get the computer area cleaned up. This is a lot bigger deal than painting the walls because it is mostly John's things. He is not much on change, but I can't stand the random clutter any more. It has some semblance of organization in his mind...not mine. Gracefully, he is allowing me to move things. I hope he will like it. I hope I will like it.

I think this random farm house is becoming my home. Ah...the little things.