special delivery =)

Im a confused girl, laying her just listening to the rain,
Trying to sort out hope from pain.

Cruise dance party on a ferry boat?  How gay...

Gonna see how Burlington does Pride this weekend..

a couple more of all 3 of us...

Im going through family photographs of my mother's taken over the last 80 years, trying to frame some things and get them out of dusty boxes and onto her walls.  I saw a lot of my baby pictures tonight I've never seen before.  One in particular made me laugh so hard over and over again, so I'm stealing it and posting it here, along with some other honorable mentions.

um..

From the moment I got up this morning I have been on the phone. Talking to or leaving or returning messages with doctors offices, banks, insurance companies, social workers, my cell phone company, my mother, or, on hold with any of the above for irritatingly large amounts of time eating away my cell usage.  Making appointments, rearranging appointments, trying to sort out medical insurance, car insurance issues, renters insurance issues, make address changes with everyone under the sun, fighting to fix bank transfer error charges at the fault of the banker who can't enter numbers correctly, hunting online for 5 different types of doctors I need to see who will even take the state insurance I just got approved for, arranging rides.  Getting approval from my bank to let my auto insurer remove the expensive liability and collision on my auto policy since I'm not even using my car being its 2,000 miles away. With my phone attached to my ear I did manage to take out the trash and recycle, and do two loads of my laundry and dry and fold someone else's.  I eventually realized all the time I was spending on hold made me go way over my alloted minute usage on my cell phone so then I had to call and rearrange my monthly plan to avoid paying .45 a minute for the 78 minutes I had already gone beyond my monthly even with rollover minutes accrued.  In the moments between phone calls I've been texting with my boss and my best friends about insane and sad health problems they are facing at ages much too young to be facing them.  Trying to sort out life I didn't even eat today till I made myself stop for a minute and go to the kitchen around 3:00, now its 5:30 and I spent the whole damn day on the phone!  I hope I don't get ear, or brain cancer or something.  Yesterday was pretty similar, and tomorrow will be too.  At least it was a rainy day so I got to listen to that in the background behind... please listen carefully as our menu options have changed... due to a heavy volume of calls your wait time will be approximately 5 minutes... please be aware that from this point on this call me be monitored or recorded... for english press 2... please enter the last four digits of your social security number... I'm sorry I did not understand your response, let's try this again, please enter the number on the card you are enquiring about... I'm sorry I did not understand your response... I'm sorry I did not understand your response... let's try this again... I'm sorry I did not understand your response...

Fall in Vermont has renewed my appreciation for apples, 

since I can pick a decent and crisp Mcintosh off a tree
(apples in Texas taste like blehhh),

and also is growing my appreciation for hard ciders.
Thank you apples.

Found a happy place today.

My Little Cupcake
sells nothing but 

mini cupcakes.

(and cake pops)

oh my yes.

wish i knew where this was.

decisions...
decisions...

I wish I could hire someone brilliant,
who made a living
making decisions.

When I want to be completely certain
that the choice I run with
is the best one.

sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad

sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad

sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad

sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad

sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad

and

how

Is this a dream,

or a dream of a dream?

 Sand that’s been magnified 250x .

o.O

my sweet little nephews

Rachel my kind and beautiful friend,
You don't deserve to be there, in fear, again.
In a hospital as much as your home,
Your husband feeling helpless, broken, forlorn.

Hearts by the thousands grieve with you both
All wishing for your miracle cure.
This suffering is so much for one soul.

What we would all give, to see you stand
And effortlessly walk holding just Steven's hand
We live in a strange, unusual world,
Where we have to fight to see beauty
Among so much pain endured.

I value your friendship, and your life.
I know you're disheartened from this fight,
But you are still you, genuine and true
Still full of beauty, and love and light.
I wish for you healing and peaceful dreams tonight.

Raven

new kitteh 

Walked the Burlington Art Hop today.  Ate some free Ben & Jerry's.  Saw some good art, some bad art.  Got to see the Strange Dolls studio, discovered Hilary Ann Love Glass's work,  and a few other inspiring things.  Free day out but now I pay with the price of pain for pushing myself physically.  At least we beat the rain forecast, I got home and then a sudden downpour burst out of nowhere, as I closed the front door behind me.  Now I will spend the rest of the weekend here in the empty house, listening to the rain fall.

everything feels bwoken.  my heart, my body, my mind.
im listening to the heavy rains tonight, 
a dark suffocating time,
on a tormented and extended stay in my old town.
i wish i could find a rabbit hole here 
to slip safely forever down.

if i could have just one thing back which i have lost along my path
it would be her, who has erased me fast, 
washed me clean away from her inside the rolling sea.
i wanted to belong to her, but she feels she was only blind
by my side, so terrible a summer in her mind, her eyes
she says now are open, are glad to be freed.
of me.

i gave her my heart, plus flowers and sweet words
loved and cared deeply, sacrificially.
i think well of our summer
of love and adventure, she sees it as a big failure,
what i valued and treasured,
what i wanted forever, 
two lovers with struggles, yet with room to grow.
but i was a problem, she couldn't take, 
love was not strong enough, she's shaken me off.
loss upon loss is the cost of following my heart across the land,
my lady does not want my hand.

I gave you all my eff-ing medication.  Now when I need it more than ever I can't get any and I'm plain screwed.  No teammate.  No home.  No Furniture.  No money.  No meds.  Just pain.  Brilliant.

This is my last week being 31.  In trying to prepare myself for bringing in the end of this year of mine with what I can foresee being the worst birthday of my life, I've decided to just not acknowledge it when it comes this year.  I've told my family not to do anything.  My current life circumstances are nothing to be celebrated, it would only be painful to have a day reflecting on me and my life.  My pretend birthday was the most traumatic day I can remember in a very long time and I don't need any reasons to replay it in my mind.  Wednesday I give myself the gift of a tattoo to erase a remnant of the old me, and that will be that.  I will be 32 in my mind at that moment and the sunday after will just be another sunday.  32, you better not be an asshole.

I want my life and hopes and silver lining back.  
Life was throwing some awful setbacks and struggles at me, rather relentlessly as it will,
but at least I had my partner by my side each day, to shuffle in some good cards with the bad cards in my hand.  The good, was good.  It made the setbacks okay.  It medicated some of the pain and erased darkness for a while each day.  The good whispered to me about glimpses of better times to come. 
My silver lining completely dissipated before my eyes.  I want it back.

I. absolutely. hate. this. song.

My brother's girlfriend played it for me, asking me,  didn't I think it was a perfect song for a wedding...

I dislike anything in the first place that even remotely has a country music sound, which this does.

The real reason I hate it though, is what it it represents, in the midst of my despair.  It is like lemon juice being squeezed over the open sores of my shattered heart and dreams.  It will forever, anytime I hear it, remind me of a crippling time, when all I wanted was to hear similar words, because cheesy as they sound in this song, is what I felt, but was denied reciprocity.  Hate this song.

Lyrics | Jason Mraz lyrics - I Won't Give Up lyrics