Cable Guy

Apparently for only $5.00 more a month we can add HD TV to our system.

 "What?" "You mean to tell me with all the cords, outlets, inputs, and color coded wires we already have, not a one of them can make the reception as crystal clear or by definition, high?"

Behind our TV looks like the dashboard of some kind of space machine that hasn't even been invented yet.

I am always amazed at the handiwork of God in creating the mind, heart, and soul in each of us. And He did it all on the 6th day and there hasn't been an upgrade or a different operating system, since. All through the holiday season, as I drove over the bridge, I lovingly admired the colored Christmas lights adorning each light pole. It conjured up in my mind a childhood fascination with the magical merry-go-round. But one day, I had to be into work early, and from the conference room window I stood mesmerized by the most glorious sunrise I had ever seen. It made every holiday display pale. I couldn't move, and as all of my human doubt faded away, I heard someone say, "Here, I painted this for you."

And there is more where that came from...the best sunsets in Michigan are in late January and February and they come in HD. And so I sit, this afternoon. between the hours of 1 and 5pm and wait to get my high......definition. Then I think I will immediately step out for some fresh air, aka---head to the beach for my "fix" of the good stuff.

Shape Up

Someone forwarded these to me but since I don't "do" Windows or Fdw's I had to post them. I hope you enjoy ....then take a hike.

~Walking can add days to your life. This enables you, at 85 years of age to spend an additional 5 months in a nursing home at $5000. per day.
~ I started walking five miles a day when I was 39. When I'm 60 my family won't know where the hell I am.
~I joined a health club last year, spent about 400 bucks. Haven't lost a pound. Apparently you have to go there.
~ I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.
~The advantage of exercising every day is that you die healthier.
~If you are going to try cross-country skiing, start with a small country.
~And last but not least: I don't exercise because it makes the ice jump right out of my glass.


OK, I completely blew off yesterday. Mr. "What's for Dinner" has installed a computer voice that comes out of the sky on the hour and announces, "It's eleven o'clock" ....It's two o'clock.....

It's six o'clock???

 Thank goodness for my hair cut appointment at 6:15 that forced me out of the house. Since I feel somewhat out of shape and am looking for ways to get in to it, my smidgen of will power kicked in and I even stopped at the h.s. to walk. Thank-you to the kind stranger that jumped in my car and held a gun to my head until I finished 2 laps.

So today, I'm feeling confident and self assured. I cleaned out my closet. I went through every article of clothing and claimed my own from off of the mounded heap in the basement we lovingly call the laundry table. It was actually kind of fun, I played the 'ole garage sale game with my clothes. Give it away, throw it away, or put it away. Gotta love it. Right now I'm in the middle of trying to find a game to play with the bills.

So yeah, feeling strong, drinking raw eggs, pumping my fists, and hearing Rocky music in my head. And "It's only one o'clock!!!"

That's What I Thought

Time it was and what a time it was
It was a time of innocence, a time of confidences
Long ago it must be,
I have a photograph, preserve your memories
They're all that's left you
~Simon and Garfunkel~


It's two for tuesday! Kinda like waffle cone wednesday, and yet, not.

Journal - Julee - it's a journal. Day by day recording of things that happen.

Last week we went to a Fury hockey game with the Wiseman's. I guess it was somewhat of a solace for not being able to watch the Red Wings. It worked a little bit. Crazy, somewhat mullet-less, fans. Staged player fights and someone in the booth playing appropriate fist pumping music, like when the other team started the fight, splicing in "Girls just wanna have fu-un." But it was no "Joe" and there were no octopi, and I couldn't for the life of me catch any strains of "We will, we will, rock you." But the company was fun, even our impromptu ice capades on the sub terrain wind tunnel called the parking lot. The Station was crammed (you'd think with all those chain restaurants out by the mall people would leave our little R.Park and N.Shores establishments alone) but we pulled strings and got in at Chili's for a sub-standard burger.

Speaking of leaving our little villages alone...WE DON'T WANT NO FLIPPIN WAL-MART. I don't care if I have to buy my toilet paper at Pic-n-Pac for $9.00 a roll. Hell no, I won't go. Say it with me now. Hell no, I won't go. Everybody, c'mon. Journal - Julee - it's a journal. Day by day recording of things that happen. It just so happens, that we done went and got rselves the secund largust Wolmurt in these gosh durn United States of Amurica. Dad gummit.


The week-end was relatively quiet compared to the last few months. I don't think we left the place until Sunday morning. Happy hour on Friday was small and personable, Kate, Melissa, and me. Melissa drank pepsi. More good times.

Time. It's so quiet, controlling, and scary. It waits for no one. I think I wrote this in a former life... you can have a Hummer in your garage but you can't buy a day with 25 hours in it. Melissa says it only goes fast after you've gone through it and look back upon it. But I think she is rethinking her views, somewhat. I skipped walking tonight. Just thought I'd confess, I hear it's good for the soul.

 OK, while I'm at it...I guess my "What's for Dinner" post ruffled a few feathers. I apologize, didn't mean to infer that the male species doesn't work hard, but I can see how that could have come across that way. I guess that's what it feels like to him when I ask, "How much was your paycheck this week?" I guess there are some things you just have to accept and God grant me the serenity.

But I tell you what, I'm not gonna sit still for this Wal-mart thing.

It's Your Turn

Sometimes, when certain people say, "what's for dinner?" I want to curl up in the fetal position and tear my face off.

Who, when, where and why were the household chores divvied up so that it is usually the male species asking the question and then he assumes that the female should come up with a reasonable answer?

Wonder how same sex couples cope with this dilemma? This is just another form of racism and bigotry and somehow, someway, somebody has got to put a stop to this madness. So yeah, as you can tell I'm not really a fan of menu planning, cooking, grocery shopping, and doing dishes.

Oh, don't get me wrong....I have menus, yeah, let's see there's chicken broccoli casserole night, hot pockets night, chicken broccoli casserole leftover night, but even if you add in pizza hut night and cereal night that still leaves 2 nights unaccounted for.

If we learned everything we know in Kindergarten, then the solution to this problem would be to take turns. So that is what we will do...after all you wouldn't want to be responsible for me tearing my own face off now, would ya?

Hold 'Em

On a quiet, snowy, Sunday ride I heard four small words that began to finalize in my heart and soul, that indeed, my apron strings are hanging by a thread. "I'm going to go," she said softly but with much conviction.

We were in the bug and the sound track to Garden State was playing in the background. The song was by Colin Hay entitled, I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You. I had to turn the music down and ask her what she said, although I had heard loud and clear. And so she said it again, "I'm going to go to California."

When she was little she used to say to me with her tiny arms wrapped around my legs, "Hold you?", Hold you?" I guess she substituted "you" for "me" because I always said to her, "want me to hold you?"
And now she was asking me to let her go.

The tears instantly welled up and waited patiently to hear the rest of her reasoning. Which actually kinda caught me off guard.

"Don't you want me to go?" Yes...hell no! I wanted to scream. What I really wanted was to turn the clock back and enjoy the fricken heck out of each day I've been privileged to have her call me mom.

"Yes, sweetie, of course I want you to go. It will be the experience of a lifetime for you," I heard myself saying. But it was muffled and weak.

Why didn't somebody tell me how hard this was going to be? I want to be able to reach out and touch, hug, and squeeze her hand at my choosing. Cell phones and e-mail cannot speak to my heart like the sensation of touch. People can live without all the other senses---but babies would actually shrivel up and die with out someone holding them.

She was rambling on then about finding a black church with some kick ass choir, meeting new people, and what she was thinking of singing for the collage fundraiser. She jumped from subject to subject...something about remaining just friends and how her and Meghan have all but one class together to finish out their last semester. I didn't hear it all. I was too busy trying to turn off the tsunami and shut down the damn flood gates.

I know for certain I will never forget that short ride to church on such a cold January morning.
It's time to start letting go--It's her time.

But I will always "hold you" even if it's just in my heart.

Working

Interior design jobs on the side! Yeah! Finally back to some creative and inspirational thinking.

I always forget if that is left or right brain. But whatever it is, it sure feels good. Super busy at regular job.

Trying to work as much as I can for Brazil points, so that means two hours at the scrip table tonight. Soon it will mean "Working".

Ordered some old Pop, Tree, and Allegro DVD's for my own library, which are finally ready to be picked up.

After scrip I will walk the insanely boring H.S. halls for my drug of choice these days. Then home to catch up on Lost, West Wing, Guys & Dolls, West Side Story, and Grease.

Probably another scrapbooking marathon this week-end and I should cook the stupid UPS turkey before it gets freezer burn. Maybe I should pace myself.

I WANT an iBook with iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, iLife, iWorks, and a new digital camera. C'mon, a girl can dream can't she?

Technology

The animals broke their chains to move to higher ground. Guess it's always good to go with your gut. ~ Julee

Whoa! We can put a man on the moon AND talk to each other in little boxes that pop up on your computer screen! Apparently so. I guess you have to want it bad enough, though, cuz I have a CB handle and everything and I'm getting no pop ups. That is, until Melissa showed me how to add all my friends to a buddy list. Trouble is, I have no buddies to add. So if you've been to cyber school and back, e-mail me with YOUR CB handle and I'll add you. I promise not to stalk you.

That's What Friends Are For

I love my kids and their friends. I swear, if it weren't for them life would be pretty dang boring.

If I had a nickel for everytime the dog barked over the holidays, to greet friends, I'd be rich. Oh, and richer still if someone paid up everytime Mark threatened to drop kick the dog.

But the rich ones are my kids (and me) for all the gifts of love, loyalty, and laughter that friends have brought into their lives! I want them all to know, and I hope somehow my kids have demonstrated to them how empty their lives would be if each and everyone of these guys weren't around.... In alphabetical order, of course. Amy, Annie, Ashleigh, Ashley, Brennan, Christie, David, Jake, Leah, Mary, Meg, Mooch, Nick, and Tom. I feel privileged to call you all friends of the family. And I pray that all of you find true peace and happiness as you travel down life's path and in and out of our door!

And finally, more than two years after they started hanging out and almost a year since the show ended, Ross and Rachel are finally together.

How Do You Measure A Year?

Eeeeeek!

 I'm feeling the first ever pangs of writer's block. I had a post all ready to go on New Year's Eve so I could post right at midnight, but as I reread it, it seemed trite and juvenile. What movie, book title, song would best describe my 2004?...

Five people I would like to meet in Heaven and scads of names I've grown weary of in the past year. RWT (That's the cyber equivalent of me ripping paper out of my notebook, wadding it up and throwing it away.)

I also started a Julee version of what's hot and what's not. One of my favorites on that list was...What's hot = LiVeStRoNg bracelet/ What's not = Bling. RWT.

I even had silly predictions for 2005, one of which was...."that at least 4 out of my 5, 2004 resolutions would show up on my 2005 list." Sure enough. RWT.

So I tore that one up, and thought I would write the stereotypical Christmas letter filled with immodest and self-centered facts and happenings from my year. But truth be told my year has seemed to afford me such a roller-coaster of emotions, beliefs, struggles, victories, faith, and lack thereof that I couldn't bring myself to construe one. RTW.

 Then I thought, I'll update my web page entitled Beniferissa, but I realized that if I said everything I wanted to say about them....they will, sooner rather than later, give me a hold-my-hallmark-tongue-gag-order. RTW.

And then, since it's been almost a year I thought I'd journal about my job and co-workers. But I had to RTW that one too, since the song that best described my year was....Alan Jackson's, "It's 5-o'clock Somewhere."

So for now, I'll sum up it up this way....2004= been there, done that! LIVE from Julee's journal, it's 2005! Please feel free to e-mail me if you would like to unsubscribe. Or just quit reading, your choice.