Another Time- Another Place.....

Have you ever had a REALLY bad day and wanted to trade places with someone in the world who had a totally different life?
I used to do that.
I would be driving home from work , thinking about all my rotten luck and how at that moment i would give almost anything to have someone elses life.
I would come to a signal light and look over in the auto next to me and see someone smiling and think- what if i was them, just driving along with no worries.

Apparently some guy did just that- he sold his life...name, clothes, all his possessions and routines on e-bay for something like 5700 dollars.
The lucky recipient even gets two months free consultations from the guy on how to BE him and they even get to spend the holidays with his family.
What a dumb ass.

Then I got thinking about how it would actually FEEL to live another life. To go into another persons life, where I didn't know ANYONE in it- didn't know who I could trust- who loved me and cared for me. What foods to buy at the store, what relatives I did and didn't like, what routine would I keep. What did I do for a job- what kind of bank account and more importantly debts did I have- how many children would I have and what would they be like- on drugs? pregnant? - and who knows what other problems I would have under the surface of that face behind the wheel of that auto next to me.
All the sudden it didn't look quite so appealing anymore- and my life didn't look quite so dismal.
At least I KNOW whats being thrown at me in MY life- living in someone elses world just seemed horrible and wrong.

I honestly usually started feeling a bit queasy thinking about all the strife and problems I would or might encounter in someone elses shoes.

Then this thought occurred to me....Paulius basically DID give up everything he knew and his entire way of life to come to America and be with me-
How freaking brave and courageous was that?

He had friends, family, a good job, no money worries, a good education, he had just graduated university and had the whole world spread out at his feet.

How did he do it?
How could he give up everything he knew to move around the world to start a new life with me?

I have to be the luckiest woman in the world.

Another Time- Another Place.....

Have you ever had a REALLY bad day and wanted to trade places with someone in the world who had a totally different life?
I used to do that.
I would be driving home from work , thinking about all my rotten luck and how at that moment i would give almost anything to have someone elses life.
I would come to a signal light and look over in the auto next to me and see someone smiling and think- what if i was them, just driving along with no worries.

Apparently some guy did just that- he sold his life...name, clothes, all his possessions and routines on e-bay for something like 5700 dollars.
The lucky recipient even gets two months free consultations from the guy on how to BE him and they even get to spend the holidays with his family.
What a dumb ass.

Then I got thinking about how it would actually FEEL to live another life. To go into another persons life, where I didn't know ANYONE in it- didn't know who I could trust- who loved me and cared for me. What foods to buy at the store, what relatives I did and didn't like, what routine would I keep. What did I do for a job- what kind of bank account and more importantly debts did I have- how many children would I have and what would they be like- on drugs? pregnant? - and who knows what other problems I would have under the surface of that face behind the wheel of that auto next to me.
All the sudden it didn't look quite so appealing anymore- and my life didn't look quite so dismal.
At least I KNOW whats being thrown at me in MY life- living in someone elses world just seemed horrible and wrong.

I honestly usually started feeling a bit queasy thinking about all the strife and problems I would or might encounter in someone elses shoes.

Then this thought occurred to me....Paulius basically DID give up everything he knew and his entire way of life to come to America and be with me-
How freaking brave and courageous was that?

He had friends, family, a good job, no money worries, a good education, he had just graduated university and had the whole world spread out at his feet.

How did he do it?
How could he give up everything he knew to move around the world to start a new life with me?

I have to be the luckiest woman in the world.

How Sweet!!

My Life is full of the sweetest people this week!!

A few shout-outs to these people.

First of all- Thanks to Paulius, who took a good bit of his time this evening to do a bit of Photoshopping for me(Elena) and my SL sisters( Aradia & Zonell) for a group photo. It takes time and a LOT of patience to get us three together and try to get us to decide/agree on anything. He has the patience of JOB but luckily we trust his judgement and prety much let him do what he will and the results were spectacular, if I may say so.

Thanks to Amanda for the Birthday card for me she sent along with Paulius' Birthday gifts and HIS B-day card.
Manda- I loved the card!!! Thank you Sweetie!

Thanks to my RL sister, Tee- who brought me an early B-day gift this morning as well- a coffee set complete with two coffee mugs, a bag of gormet coffee beans, a mill grinder, and a box of choco cookies. Two things I adore are coffee and chocolate! Thank you Tee!!

And Thanks to Kelly- who sent Paulius and me a whole box of goodies from Merry Old England last week. It had lots of goodies that put a smile on my hubby's face and introduced me to some delish new treats as well.
Thank you Ara, Doll!

And a special shout-out to all you guys- *Saffyre, *Leila, *Ozzy, *Ray-ray, *MC, *Misty, *Amelia, *Cindy(whose blog I miss reading- btw), and Kato- for the comments that keep me thinking- and just as importantly laughing.

SO- altho I didn't win the lottery this week-(AGAIN)- I feel like one of the richest people in the world to have so many people thinking about and caring for me.

I luvs ya, guys!
BIG HUGE HUGZ!!!!!!

WOW!!!!!

HAPPY
BIRTHDAY

TO THE MOST WONDERFUL HUSBAND IN THE HISTORY OF HUSBANDS!! HOPE ALL YOUR BIRTHDAY WISHES COME TRUE!!!

I LOVE YOU BABY- MORE THAN LIFE ITSELF!!!!

Southern Comfort

Yeah- lots of things about the south are comforting to me. Our customs, our little eccentricities, all the little things that make us Southern.

Take Sweet Iced Tea.
Nothing could be better on a hot summers day- except maybe skinny-dipping in the swimmin hole. And yes- every little community has one of those. We may have to drive thirty miles to get to it- but we all have them.
And we bring the sweet iced tea with us to the swimmin hole too.

Take grits. Most people, whether they are from another part of the country- or from another country altogether just don't get the appeal of grits. We southerners LOVE them. A real southern breakfast just isn't complete without a big ole bowl of grits. Either covered in sawmill gravy or red eye gravy, or with a good sized chunk of butter with salt and pepper.

Now lots of people will be askin' what in the heck those gravies are.
Saw-mill gravy is bacon or sausage grease with a liberal dose of self-risin' flour added and browned - sort of a rouge-but not really. Then you add lots of salt and especially pepper to it til its all browned but not TOO browned- and add a big ole bowl of while milk to it and stir it til its thickened. Pour it over all sorts of other southern delicacies like biscuits, or fried meat- bout any kind will do- or grits, or even all by itself. Sticks to your ribs it does. Red-eye gravy is basically the best gravy there is. You take some country ham- fry it up in an iron skillet(that's very important- cant be anything BUT an iron skillet or it just ain't right) and then after you take the ham out, you add a cup or two of strong black coffee to the ham drippins and heat it up. OMG.its absolutely wonderful.
Sounds pretty nasty after reading it over- but it's absolutely divine.

what else..........

Nicknames. Is it just in the south or do we have some of the strangest nicknames ever?
Sweet=pea
Teddy bear
Skeeter
Boone
Bo
Doo
Roho
Re-re
Lucky
Bodidley
tadpole and toot-toot.

Not to mention the southern standards like bubba and sissy and paw-paw or papa.
Granny is a fav- and so is gradma.

Activities....
Huntin, Fishin, goin to the NASCAR races and Monday night wrasslin(wrestling to the rest of you people.) Horseshoe pitchin is fast becoming a lost art.
Playin poker is a fav pastime in the south as is shootin pool. And contrary to popular belief- drag racin for pinks is still big here in the south too.

I don't know if I could ever live anywhere but the south. It would be like leaving the real world and livin in Bizzarro world for me if i ever tried.

Best Weekend !!!!

Pauli us and I had the best weekend in a LONG time!

We were hardly on the computer at all this weekend,
We talked, we cooked together,
We watched movies- several as a matter of fact.

And we had a tussle.
Now it wasnt a bad one.

Story........

Dearest Saffyre, as you have read on Pauli's blog, sent him/us a care package form Britian. Now i say him/us because altho it was certainly sent to him to give him a bit of home- paulius is generous and shared some of his goodies with me. I've heard so much about items like Hula Hoops, Buttons, Christmas Pudding, and gourmet Pringles but didnt have a clue what they were al about. So I got a taste of thos when saffyre sent the care package.

Well some of the things were GREAT- I adored the sea salt and pepper Pringles chips, The beef flavor Hula Hoops and one other item.
But I detested the Mince pies-(Mainly because they had icing on the top of them- entirely too sweet for my taste) and the Flaky chocolate bar which basicly is tiny strings of chocolate put together into a bar of chocolate(too dry for me). I didnt get to try the noodles-I was at work when he opened them. Nor have I gotten to try the Christmas Pudding - he has yet to open that one(I think he may be saving it til his Brthday).

But the one thing I fell in love with was another chocolate bar called a Crunchy Bar. Lemme see if I can describe it to you.
It was a candy bar about three inches long and an inch square that had a layer of creamy milk chocolate covering an inside filling of what can best be described as packed butterfinger flavored cotton candy. It literally melted in your mouth after a few seconds. It was as decadent as the most expensive pure Belgian chocolate you will ever find and makes Milton Hersheys concoctions seem like bars of bland sand. I know that seems a bit un-American, but take it from a Chocolate Conissure- It's the gospel truth.

Well after that Crunchy Bar was gone- and I made it LAST, savoring every last taste I could from that small piece if Cocoa perfection- I put the wrapper in my pocket.
And kept it there for the next three days- occasionally taking it out and sniffing it to remember the taste. Yes I KNOW how weird that seems to most of you- but I'm sure the women at least will know exactly why I did it.
Well anyway, after three days of hearing a ting rattle of Crunchy Wrapper- paulius had had it and blew a gasket( not really but I'm telling this story and this is MY version of it- if he wants to dispute the story I tell here let him write his own version of it)and demanded that I stop sniffing the wrapper and hand it over to him.
To which I promptly responded my refusing to give over the last remnant of my cocoa perfection. He let it go the first time- but a half hour later i was sniffing that wrapper again and this time he put out his hand for it. And once again I refused sticking it back in my shirt pocket and spouting off that he couldnt make me.
Well at that point, he got up and walked over to me with a huge grin on his face and his palm up wanting the wrapper. I grabbed it out of my pocket and wrapped it in my fist telling him it was MINE- he gave it to me and it was MINE-MINE- MINE!!

So hepulled me up from the sofa trying to pry my hand open and take the annoyance from me- and of course you just cant DO that.
So we ended up wrestling on the living room floor for close to 15 or 20 minutes over that candy Wrapper, the whole time laughing about it like a couple of deranged lunatics who had escaped from the asylum. He eventually won and pried it from my hand- but only because I got a horrible cramp in my hand from gripping the wrapper so tightly in my hand for so long. He conceeded that I had a grip like a bricklayer(whatever that means) as he gleefully stuck the wrapper in HIS pocket.

I have to admit tho that he gave it back to me after a while. He's sweet like that, you know.

So see? Acting like a couple of juveniles is good for a couple. As long as no one else sees them doing it. Just like when we jump on the bed. Or when we go to the park and play on the slides and the swing-sets. Or when we have water balloon fights or squirt each other with the hose while we're washing the car. Or when we go out and play Lazer -Tag at 11PM at night, crawling under tables and porches and in trees and crawling around in the yard thru the grass and mud like a couple of GI Joe Special Ops guys to sneak up on each other just so we can gloat that we GOT them!!!

But I wont tell you about those things cause then you would just think we are nuts.

Another Question.....

I heard on the news that North Carolina is raising it's minimum wage from $5.15 and hour to $6.15 an hour.

That's great for the minimum wage earners...but when the minimum wage goes up like that why doesnt EVERYONE get a "like" raise? I mean the rest of us bust our asses to get paid above the minimum wage- and then they raise the minimum- so SHOULDN'T we get a like amount to compensate for our effort?

Sometimes things like that just annoy me.