States I've Been To

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What have I read?
These are the 25 most popular classic books at What Should I Read Next?

I liked it!

I didn't like it!

I want to read it!

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

Emma - Jane Austen

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

Persuasion - Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

Dracula - Bram Stoker

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain

Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare

Hamlet - William Shakespeare

The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer

Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen

The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Jungle - Upton Sinclair

Candide - Voltaire, Norman Cameron

Complete Tales and Poems - Edgar Allan Poe

King Lear - William Shakespeare

Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson

Take the 'What have I read?' test now!
Eight different categories to try!
Buy your books at Amazon US or Amazon UK

What have I read?
These are the 25 most popular overall books at What Should I Read Next?

I liked it!

I didn't like it!

I want to read it!

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams

The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

1984 - George Orwell

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling

The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell

The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien

Life of Pi - Yann Martel

Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

Lord of the Flies - William Golding

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut

The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien

Angels and Demons - Dan Brown

Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk

Take the 'What have I read?' test now!
Eight different categories to try!
Buy your books at Amazon US or Amazon UK

Bored?

Try this website. It's sort of like Pong.

Just a Heads Up

I'm as big a fan of the forwarded emails as the next joker; however, there is a little something that people should realize. Most of the forwarded emails you get warning you about something or other, or claiming some wrong doing of some kind aren't true. Examples: Starbucks and sending the troops coffee, dialing such and such a number so that people can make free calls off of your line, dialing *whatever to reach the highway patrol and a bunch of others that I'm not thinking of. If you love forwarding on these emails to help out your friends, try verifying their validity by visiting www.snopes.com first. It's easy and it's free. Just type in a few key words into the search field and voila! You'll undoubtedly find out whether or not your treasured email is true or false and you won't look like a doof for falling for scams and circulating rumors. Thanks and have a nice day.

Just Something for Fun

http://64.82.32.68/Birthday.asp

Check out that link and enter in your info. Make sure and click on your life path number to see what it means. Mine describes me to a t. It's weird.

2003 San Diego Fires

 

Here's pictures from the fires that I've been promising for years now. I just got them developed today. Pictures don't really give that week justice. Anyway, if you'll notice the white stuff on the ground, that's ash and these are pictures from the housing we used to live in. 

Fires Cont.

 
Another picture of the sky. Take notice of the sun towards the top. 

Fire Cont.

 

This just gives you an idea of how dark the sky was. This was taken during the day and I didn't alter it in any way. That's how the sky really looked. 

Civilization

We got a little taste of it this Sunday. We decided to get up early and go to New Hampshire, Manchester to be exact. It was really nice to get away if only for a little while. Manchester is the largest city in northern New England so it was like being somewhere "normal" for a change. We drove around and did some shopping. We also had our first wood fired pizza and if you haven't had one, you're really missing out. It was the best pizza ever. We also went to this gourmet cooking store and bought these soup mixes that are wonderful. Yum, yum.

Other than that, things are pretty much normal around here. It's still really cold, but it's cold almost everywhere right now. We don't have any snow though and that's nice. Ohio has more snow than we do, heheh.

The girls are the same. They annoy the snot out of me, but that's normal. C doing fine also. His job never changes. My school is coming right along. I had midterms and aced the hell out of them. The class averages were pitiful but I got high 90's on all three. Woohoo for me! So, there ya go for now.

Apologies

Do sincere apologies exist anymore? From my experience, most apologies are given to get the person saying them out of trouble or to make the original problem "go away". Or maybe they say, "I'm sorry" because they said or did something that made them feel like an idiot and that's the fastest way to dig their way out of a hole. Do people say that they're sorry because they actually mean it? Because they feel shame or actual contriteness? Because they feel bad for hurting someone's feelings? Because they feel honest regret? I'm a realist and realistically, I'd guess that 98% of apologies given are for the first reasons I listed and not because they feel a "keen regret". And, along with being a realist, I'm also a fairly honest person and will say that I don't remember the last time I apologized for something wrong that I did or said and meant it. People just don't do that anymore. I think most apologies are selfish. People say them to make themselves feel better, not the person that they wronged. Maybe we should start trying an honest approach and instead of saying, "I'm sorry" say, "Well, I surely said something stupid now didn't I?" and leave it at that. Frankly, I'm tired of empty apologies; saying them and hearing them. People should try saying what they mean and not what they think other people expect them to say.

I know that I can say that this post isn't the result of anything that's happened and that it's not directed at anyone specific, but who would believe me? Along with insincere apologies, everyone has an ulterior motive, lol. This was actually just a thought that I had while I was typing up a paper.

Why isn't anyone ever up to chat when you can't sleep at 2 am????

Oh Geez

I like these things. I know. I need my head checked.

9 lasts:

last cigarette: Never
last beverage: Pepsi
last kiss: Yesterday sometime.
last movie seen: Life as a House.
last phone call: My mother-in-law called.

last cd played: Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten
last bubble bath: I have no idea.
last time you cried: Yesterday while I was watching Life as a House. That movie never fails to make me cry.

8 have you evers:

have you ever dated one of your best friends: Yes, I married him too.
have you ever skinny dipped: No
have you ever kissed somebody and regretted it: No
have you ever fallen in love: Once
have you ever lost someone you loved: Various family members.
have you ever been depressed: Yes
have you ever been drunk and thrown up: Lol. Yeah

7 states you've been to:
1. Ohio
2. Florida
3. California
4. Arizona
5. Texas
6. New Mexico
7. New York

6 things you've done today:
1. Talked on the phone with my sister, husband, and mother-in-law

2. Read a chapter in my psych book.

3. Finished reading my Tess Gerritsen book that I bought yesterday.

4. Took a shower and got dressed.

5. Watched some tv.

6. Took goofy pictures of my dog.

5 favorite things in no order:
1. My husband and kids.

2. Reading

3. California

4. Summer

5. Grey’s Anatomy

4 people you can tell [almost] anything to:
1. C

2. Kam

3. Jennifer

4. Bailey

3 wishes:
1. I wish that we get to move back to California (or Hawaii) at the end of this year.

2. I wish that (this is a private wish).

3. I wish that my husband, kids, and I are healthy and happy for life.

2 things you want to do before you die:
1. Travel the world.

2. Finish my degree and get the job that I want.

1 thing you regret:
1. Not going to school sooner.

I Have Been Angry = No Updates

I'm still not over it (anyone who knows me knows I hold a grudge) but I'm here anyway.

So, what's been going on for the past few days? The girls had the week off of school and don't go back until Wednesday. 11 days total for Winter Break. It's been interesting to say the least. I didn't realize how much I am able to get done while they're at school until they were home all week long.

Yesterday, C was on the local radio station promoting the annual softball game that Barre has. All the local businesses compete against each other over the weekend while raising money for a few area kids. Last year they raised over $19,000 and this year they're hoping for $22,000. The Marines team up with the radio station. The radio station thing was funny though cuz they were just talking smack, making stuff up, and joking around. C said he worried the whole time about swearing on the radio, lol, but he didn't.

I've been out of my mind with school work. I have midterms next week and with the girls home, haven't really been able to get prepared for them. I've had dreams the last two nights about trying to study. I started reading, taking notes, and writing my paper at 10 am yesterday morning and didn't get finished until 11:30 pm. Long day for me.

We're waiting for a huge snowstorm to hit. They're saying we should get 6-14 inches of snow by tonight. It just figures that all winter long it hasn't really felt like winter here and then as soon as March hits and spring is right around the corner, winter finally arrives in Vermont.

S would like to thank everyone for her birthday gifts. She thought the phone call and card she got from Toys R Us was really neat and the card she got from Modern Woodman of America was just special.

Way to go everyone.

The Infamous Granny Story of 2006

Here is the actual article that I scanned out of our newspaper. The photo shows the back entrance to the recruiting office as the women were being led away to be arrested by the police. They could possible get 3 months in jail depending on how their court appearances go. C said that his phone's been ringing off the hook from people calling riding them about letting old women commandeer the office, lol. The grannies were also on our local news last night and this morning. I think this whole thing gives you all an idea of just how small the community that we live in is.

Newpaper Article from Yesterday

Three protesters arrested during Barre anti-war rally February 16, 2006 Times Argus Staff

BARRE – Three elderly women were arrested late Wednesday afternoon for commandeering an office room inside a military recruiting office on North Main Street in Barre. Lea Wood, 89, of Montpelier; Mary Belenky, 72, of Marshfield and Barbara Grant, 69, of Plainfield were singing anti-war songs inside the recruiting office along with about a dozen other women. When the women, who said they represented the Women's International League for Peace and the Raging Grannies, refused recruiters' requests that they leave, Barre police were called to resolve the situation, according to a police report. All the women except Wood, Belenky and Grant acquiesced with police orders. The three holdouts were eventually escorted by police out of the building and issued citations to appear in Vermont District Court in Barre to answer charges of misdemeanor trespassing. The women who staged the sit-in were part of a larger contingent of protesters holding signs and singing outside the Main Street building, police said.

Pay Attention Here

This post sort of relates to the one I posted earlier today. Well, I guess it's more of an update. Anyway, for those of you that would be interested, you might want to start paying more attention to the blog for the next 10 or so months. We are on the last leg of recruiting duty and from here on out will be getting ready to move. The first step happened today. C submitted his request for new orders. We will find out in about 6 weeks where we will be going; whether it is where he requested or where the Marine Corps decides that he is needed. I figure it's safe to say where he requested since the paperwork has been submitted and nobody's opinion will make a difference now. His first two choices are with two MALS units at Miramar, CA. His Third choice is with a MALS unit in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. So, there you have it.

I know that all the family is always saying that they want us to get stationed closer to Ohio, but we don't want to move to Virginia and we don't want to live where there are hurricanes every year (North or South Carolina). We want to be warm again. Besides, way more people visited us while we lived in Cali than while we lived here in Vermont and Vermont is within driving distance. And if by some weird chance we end up in Hawaii, are you really going to complain if you come to visit us there? I don't think so.

But, if we end up in Virginia or wherever, at least it's not Vermont. ;)

Things around our house have been pretty uninteresting lately. That's why the updates have been few and far between.

ANYwho, the girls are doing pretty good. With the crazy weather we've been having, I think they're coming down with a cold though. School is going good for the both of them. The year is going by really fast.

C's hanging in. Work is tough for him right now and June can't get here fast enough. He put over 700 miles on his car yesterday. Isn't that just craziness??

My school is coming right along. My vampire class is my favorite by far. I had all my work for the week done yesterday. Art Appreciation comes in second. And Psych is still pulling up in last place. I just like being back in school no matter what the classes are.

I discovered the other day that we have a leak in our roof. Fun for us. I called every roofer in the area and could only get 2 of them to set up an appointment to come out and then they never showed up. I'm sure what I'm going to do about it now. Luckily, it's too cold for the snow to melt and it's not currently leaking. Never thought I'd hope for cold weather, lol. I don't think the cold temps are going to hold out past today though. Keep your fingers crossed.

How Do You Lean

I found this website while surfing people's blogs. The following graphic shows how I scored and it totally reflects where my political opinion lies when I choose to have an opinion on politics.




You can take the quiz yourself if you so choose at the following website:

http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html

Anyway, no point to this post. I just thought the quiz was interesting.