Not Feeling To Hot.

I woke up sick as a dog during the night. My dang kidney's really don't like all the diet coke I ingest on a daily basis. I feel like yuck, yuck, yuck. You know when you sick and not feeling good, and the only one you want to take care of you is your mama? Maybe I just haven't grown out of that yet. But mama's always make you feel better, I wish she was here to pamper me right now. Oh well I guess Brent will have to do, maybe I'll make him put a blond wig on and talk like my mom, that might make me feel better. I'm going to see the doctor tomorrow, maybe I'll be up and about for the weekend.

My Little Garden.

This is a window box that Brent made me a couple of years ago out of an old door, and he kept the old handle on there for me as well. Right now it's a home to my sage plant

Brent and I spent the day at home instead of work, I think we both just decided not to get out of bed this morning. Mutual agreement, we wanted to sleep. Anyway Brent is such a turd sometimes, he cracks me up. He told me that he had to go to Home Depot to get wood to build the deck of the boat he's redoing. So I said whatever and went back to dream land, where I like to stay in the morning. Then two hours later he calls me and demands that I help him work on the boat, even though I had told him that the house needed cleaning, and laundry doesn't do itself, unfortunately. So he said put work clothes on and get your butt out the door I'm pulling up. By this time I was ready to declare war, and utterly refuse to help with the boat. Well he does this to me all the time, makes me real mad, and then surprises me with gifts that I love. He opened the back door to the SUV and there sat a ton of flowers for me to plant. Then the goob looked at me and said, oh by the way you don't have to help with the boat, I was just trying to get you out here. One time we were in a full out fight on the phone, he's aggravating me the whole dang time, and he pulls up in the driveway, comes inside, tells me to go get the groceries out of the car, and as I walk out the front door fuming, I notice that their is the big, comfy, leather chair, that I had been going nuts to get. He's an aggravater, but lord knows I love his stinky butt!!

So anyway, I get to planting, something that I love to do. Now we rent, so I try to make sure that everything I plant is in pots. It's a small little garden right now, but hopefully it will start to take full bloom, and I'll add some more plants and flowers as I go along. I love digging in the dirt, so that's what I did all day long. You'll have to excuse the pictures, I can't take a picture to save my life, that's David's forte'. I eventually want it to look like a miniature secret garden. And I've planted some herbs, so hopefully they'll start to make an appearance soon. I sure do love an herb garden!!

And Stretch....

Well ya'll, I've been thinking....

I've been thinking that since I'm still trying to lose ten more pounds, and my stress level is higher than a cat's back most of the time, I should take up yoga, again. Now I have to tell you that five years ago I was a yoga queen. I would get my disciplined butt up in the morning, do an hour of yoga, go about my day, come home and do an hour of yoga at night. Yes I was determined and disciplined, and incredibly skinny and in shape. I also was very calm, and after a stressful day I looked forward to coming home to an hour of quiet yoga. (Except for that one time that I got stuck in a new pose I was trying out and my mom had to help me get out of it). So as it usually does, life happened and yoga got pushed to the way side, something I should have never let happen.

Now days I can only dream about getting into a full downward dog pose. I've been thinking about yoga alot lately. My mom always tells me I need to go back to it. So I'm going to make a pact with myself, and try to do yoga at least three times a week. Even if that means I have to get up at the crack of dawn. Mrs. Hippy Chick, I am using you as a role model to get up early and work out, I don't know how you do it, but I salute you. This just isn't about weight lose to me, even though that is a big part. This is about getting myself in a better state of mind, trying to find some other ways to control anxiety attacks, and to make my body and my mind feel better.

So ya'll wish me luck. I'll keep you up to date on my progress. Who knows maybe I'll end up teaching yoga classes like I always wanted to do way back when....

The Truth Is Told.

After my initial shock, I accepted a cup of tea from my grandmother and sat down with the kaleidoscope of strange people I had just met. Never had I thought that I would be sitting next to a gnome, that was stuff of fairy tales, child's play, imaginations that couldn't possibly be real. And the women, who watched me calmly, with such interest, a witch, a witch without moles or a cackle for a laugh, a witch who brought a calm and a protective aura over me. Her name was Ashlin, and she was a local in the next town over, someone I had never heard of or seen. It was though she had appeared out of nowhere.
I sat sipping my tea hands still shaking waiting to hear what they had to say, what they wanted me to know, what I had to know. Something I wasn't sure if I wanted to know. I looked over at my grandmother, she was wringing her hands, shadows under her eyes, something I had never seen before. My grandfather was sitting cross legged in his chair, something my grandmother usually hated, but she didn't even seem to take notice. And he stared into space, as though he was lost in a thought so deep he might not come back.
Her voice brought me out of my trance.
"Child we need to tell you the truth." Ashlin said with a calm smile.
"But I do not think that I should be the one to tell you. Your dear grandparents must."
My grandmother looked at me, suddenly alert with the look I had grown up to recognize, the matter of fact look.
"Emily Jane, you have to make a choice soon, and a very hard choice, a choice that has been passed down through the generations, through all these long years."
" We are not of this world exactly, you are not of this world exactly, we've never been, you've never been."
And at the uttering of this, she broke into a soft sob held hung down.
"My darling girl," my grandfather said looking at me from his seat. We are creatures of the earth, it was mixed in with our blood when we were born. It is a blessing and it is a curse. You will be faced with things so evil and dark that you will be forced to fight, yet you will be blessed with a light so bright, at times it will be blinding."
I put my tea cup down, well more like slammed it down.
" Grandma and Grandpa, now what in the Sam hell are you talking about?" I was screaming now.
"I see a creature on the front porch, I beg for an explanation, and grandma you scream and throw a fit, and grandpa you talk to me like a poet who's hallucinated way to much!"
"And now you want to tell me, you mean to tell me, that I'm not of this world? I'm going to have to make a choice, that I was always going to have to make? Now you tell me after years of thinking you two were just eccentric hippies that never left the sixties!"
"ENOUGH!" Ashlin said with a volume in her voice that I couldn't imagine she'd have.
"You are ready, you must make a choice. It isn't any one's fault. This is in your blood. It is who you are, what you are, who you'll become."
"Well what am I choosing?" I said meekly.
"You are choosing which path you will take. Will you go with your grandfather and choose to bear wings as he does, take care of all the magical creatures, and face those that are unimaginable? Or will you choose your grandmothers path. A sight that is not only from her eyes, the ability to grow and understand the workings of things unseen. Yet also the ability to help those that are lost, that haven't passed over, and the ones that are dark and refuse to pass. Which one will you choose?"
"What if I don't choose either?" I said quietly.
"Then you will become one of the children, the children of the rain. Lost and searching forever, stuck in time, stuck in what was, without being able to touch it. Stuck in self exile, stuck in a sort of purgatory." Ashlin said as she looked at me with wise eyes.
"Your purpose is to help, that is what you are here for, that is what everyone is here for. You are just a tad bit different." She spoke again, calmly and quietly.
I looked around at my grandmother, my grandfather, Sir. Stuart, and Ashlin. I looked around at everyone, knowing that my life would never be the same again. I knew what I would choose. I'd always felt the presence with me. I looked at Ashlin with a sudden shock of confidence and said,
"how do I choose?"

I Have Been Tagged!!

What book are you reading right now?
The Expected One:Kathleen McGowan- This is like the third time I have read it, it is so so good. And I love it.

Last book you read while on a plane?
I can't remember a book, I know my dad bought me a Rolling Stone magazine before my flight because it had Tori Amos on it, and I love her to.

Last book you read on a road trip?
Brimstone: Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston. They are amazing writers, and they have so many books. I can't watch scary movies, or anything with gore in it, but I can read their books cover to cover!

Most unusual place you've found yourself reading a book?
My closet in my room when I was a little girl, I had a huge closet that I loved and I would pile all my stuffed animals in and read away. At that age it was Ann of Avonlea, and Little Women, and south African story tales, because one of my uncles is from south Africa, and a girl has got to know how a leopard got its spots, and a zebra got it stripes.

What would you take with you on a two week trip to the beach?
I live near the beach, but if I was to go visit my dad in Florida, probably half my bookshelf!!

Now I tag Courtney, and Mrs. Cindy.

A Meeting Is Made.

I awoke to a room filled with morning sunlight. I knew I was snug and tight in my grandmother's old iron bed. I looked out the window, trees swaying in the wind, still groggy and hurting from my fall. But most of all confused as ever and desperate for answers. I made my way out of bed, noticing I was in one of my grandmothers nightgowns, with her socks on my feet. I grabbed a lavender cotton robe that someone had layed out for me, and started to make my way downstairs. I stopped on the second step, I heard voices. Some recognizable and others not. I heard grandma and grandpa, that strange English accent that sounded like it was coming from a miniature man, and another voice of a women with a twang of Scottish to it. My grandmother was arguing with the Scottish women from what I could tell.
"I don't think now is the time to tell her." My grandmother said sternly.
"Well you certainly didn't think that a day ago when she passed out in the barn, white as snow from what she'd seen." The miniature English accent said.
Stay out of this Sir Stuart, you will not make decisions for the what I think is the best interest of my granddaughter." My grandmother said in a voice that would chill anyone to the bone. The famous grandma voice I thought.
"Now Magda don't you think that it is time that she knows, all the signs, all the visits, and the questions she's had, I'm surprised we weren't faced with this years ago." My grandfather said, again not in rhyme?
"I will make the decision! I will decide what we will choose to tell her!" This time my grandmother had lost that icy cool she always had, and was screaming like a banshee.
All went silent for a few minutes until I heard her talk. Her voice was calming, and filled me with a warmth and comfort and I felt safe just hearing her speak.
"The girl needs to know what she faces. The girl needs to know the truth. I've watched her for many years, and she is ready. Their is no other way, we tell her now, we tell her to enlighten her, to give her something she has always been missing, to protect her. We tell her because we must." The Scottish accent lulled me into a trance almost, and all the anxiety I had been feeling left me, and I felt light.
"We will tell her now, because she has been standing on the stairs for sometime now, and I am perfectly confident that she has heard us all. My dear child won't you come down and join us in the living room?"
I was nervous instantly, I didn't know what awaited me, who awaited me. I slowly cautiously walked into the living room, to find my grandmother, looking as though she hadn't slept in days, to my grandfather in his usually attire, looking drained as well, but with a warm smile on his face. To a strange little man, about the height of a small four year old, propped in one of my grandmothers wing back chairs with overalls and a red coat on, and a red pointed hat sitting in his lap. His hair was white and long, and he had a beard as pure and white as snow. He was round and jolly looking, reminding me of a miniature Santa Claus. He smiled at me, knowing I was studying him in shock, and when I must of looked as though I recovered somewhat, he smiled at me and said, "well hello love, a pleasure to finally meet you, I'm Sir Stuart, and from what it looks like you've gathered to answer your question, yes I am a gnome."
Then I looked to my right and faced the voice that had been talking to me, the voice that knew somehow I was on the stairs hearing everything. And I came face to face with one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Her hair was as red as Mr. Stuart's coat, eyes a blazing green. She wore a green wool sweater, thick and high around her neck, jeans that were slightly faded and riding boots that came up to her knees. And dangling around her neck was a necklace with a spiral charm with a rock black as night in the middle, no not a regular rock, as I looked closer I saw movement in it, people that were moving as in another world, and I looked up from her necklace to her eyes that seemed to look right into me and I knew this women wasn't an ordinary women, no this women was a witch.

The only picture I could get were she would hold semi still. Doesn't she look like a little French pup?

Bass Man

Here are some pictures of my bass man!! Brent lives for bass fishing, and he's really good at it to. We can spend all day out on the water, I'll catch some sludge from the bottom of the river or lake, and he'll be dragging in fish left and right. He fishes tournaments now, and I know one day he's going to win one. Side note: he doesn't usually wear handle-bar mustaches, I don't know what he was thinking that day, or what the poor people at the park thought of him either. He takes the fishing look to far sometimes and I think he likes to look trashy for all those fish.

Oh cleaning, how you stress me so.

Yes ya'll spring is almost here, and Brent and I are trying to clean up as much as we can. Brent likes to spread things out everywhere, it looks like Bass Pro Shops blew up in our house most of the time, especially if Brent is headed off to a tournament. I on the other hand get the nickname "the crammer." I get so overwhelmed sometimes I just put it in a drawer and get in out of my sight. This leads to many a lost item, mostly for Brent. So while Brent is working on his ultimate fishing room, building shelves in the back yard as we speak, I'm trying to get everything dusted and vacuumed and cleaned, just so I can relax. I'm sure some of you know how I feel. If only I could hire a maid.

So it begins....

I stirred dizzy and blurry, hearing faint voices all around me.
"I think she'll be fine, just let her come around," someone said in a small English accent that I didn't recognize.
"Yes but she has a nasty looking bump on her head, are you sure she will be okay?" That was my grandmother from what I could gather in my hazy state.
"Ah a bump and that is it, better than a gash or worse, well you understand." The little English accent said again.
"Well Magda I think she is fine, let's just give her a minute." This was my grandfather, and not speaking in rhyme?
I tried to sit up, no that wasn't going to happen so soon, I moved my fingers, some feeling, and then I felt the throbbing pain in the back of my head, oh I must have fallen hard I thought.
"Oh look now she's a stirring. I better get a move on, don't want to scare the poor dear anymore."
And as the small English voice said this I opened my eyes to a blur of my grandmother, grandfather, and a strange little man retreating with a red pointed hat on.
"Grandma, grandpa?"
My grandmother knelt down and looked at me with kindness in her eyes, something I rarely saw.
"Oh my Emily Jane I'm so sorry, I should have told you a long time ago."
"Told me what grandma?" I said with a weak voice, still barely conscious from the fall.
"Well my dear child, tell you about, well fairy."
"Fairy?" I said as I slowly fell back into unconsciousness, where dreams came swiftly of wings and gnomes, ghosts and far off lands.

"God's voice speaks to the listening heart."

These pictures were taken in a Catholic Church in downtown Savannah. I grew up in my grandparents church, and ever since I was a little girl churches have fascinated me, as well as religion. Everyone on my mother's side of the family is a minister, including my grandmother. I have been to so many churches while growing up, and every single one has left a lasting impression on me. My mom and I like to explore churches and graveyards when ever we get together, weird to some, but really interesting and exciting to us. These pictures are not the best, but the experience was very emotional for me. Every time I enter a church I feel closer to God, and their is a peace that comes over me.

I would recommend visiting if you're ever in Savannah. It's so beautiful!!