I really don’t have a lot of time to write lately, but I’ve decided to make time. I’ve been so busy with serious stuff lately…the not being able to goof off on the Net is getting to me. I’m not a serious type of person, so having time to chill and be immature is really important to my sanity…what’s left of it.

Lonnie’s dental nightmare is still continuing. He had four teeth extracted…his lower right side. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he ended up getting dry socket in all four holes. Ouch.  The dentist he went to had to scrape the holes out and then pack some clove oil soaked gauze strips in there. It was totally heinous. There’s a lot more to the story, but I’m honestly sick of having to explain it to people, so I’ll just leave it at that.  ;)

Things have really been coming together for us lately. It seems as though we’re being rewarded for all of our hard work, perseverance, and faith. I’m certainly not taking any of the good things for granted. I never fail to stop what I’m doing and silently say, “Thank you so much!” I hate it when people pray and pray for good things to happen and then when the good things come their way, they fail to be thankful for it. Nobody is perfect, and we all make mistakes…but still. Be thankful, people!

My Mom’s birthday is coming up on the 17th. She’ll be 61. I’m not sure what we’re going to do for it, but we’ll figure something out. We went to the beach on her birthday last year. Lonnie said he doesn’t really want to do that again this year, so we’ll have to think of something else. If anyone has any neato ideas, feel free to send them my way. I’m having a difficult time thinking of things that she’d enjoy doing.

My Dad goes in for heart surgery on the 13th. I’m really nervous about it. I think it’d be kind of unhuman not to worry. I’m glad he’s getting it done, though. It’ll really pay off in the long run. It’s too bad I can’t go to Minneapolis with him and be there for him for it, but that’s okay. His girlfriend, Michelle, will be there with him. She’s really good to him. It makes me feel pretty awesome to know that she takes such good care of my Dad. If not for her, he might not even be here. I’ve actually been wanting to write an email to her to let her know how important she is to me, but I keep chickening out. I’m not sure why…I just feel uncomfortable opening up too much to people.  I guess that sounds kind of odd coming from a habitual blogger.  :lol:

We’re completely in love with the new house. We’ve been here for three weeks and couldn’t be happier with it. We even like our neighbors a lot…which is a first!  There isn’t a divider between our front yard and our neighbor’s front yard. We have a fence separating the back and side, but not the front. Well, when we first moved in here, our grass was almost totally dead. Three weeks later, it looks like something from Better Homes & Gardens! The neighbors are little old ladies, so I told them that I’m going to mow, water, and fertilize their yard for them. That way they don’t have to bother with it…and I also benefit from it because they won’t have weeds anymore that’ll work their way over to our side.  They really appreciate me doing it…and I completely love doing it. I’ve got a knack for gardening. Lonnie keeps saying that I should run a landscaping business, but nah. That’s not my thing. I’d rather just work on my own yard…and the neighbor’s yard.

Unfortunately, the time has come for me to wrap this up. Lonnie has another dentist appointment in about a half hour, so I need to go put my make-up on and whatnot so I look presentable. I’ve enjoyed writing this…I can’t tell you how therapeutic it is for me to write my feelings and thoughts out. If not for blogging, I’d keep everything inside. I’m really crappy with communicating my thoughts to other people.

Anyway, have a terrific day, and thanks for dropping by! I’ll probably be using this blog a lot more than I have been….I’m enjoying it more than before.

I received an email from my daughter’s school a few minutes ago. Here’s what it said:

Yesterday a 13 year old girl from the Middle School who was walking home from softball practice was asked by a man in a car if she wanted a ride home. She did not know this person and said, “No.” He said something about it being okay to get into his car, and she repeated, “No.” He then drove away. She described the car to police as a “beat up” red VW Jetta. She described the man as heavy-set, balding, and looking not clean.

Please take the opportunity to remind your children of the “stranger danger” skills that you have taught them. Younger students can find it extremely difficult sometimes to refuse to do what an adult tells them to do.

I live in a small suburb with the population of about 6,000. I think that because this is such a small community, everyone gets to feeling a bit too comfortable. I see kids from my daughter’s school walking to and from school all by themselves on a daily basis. Her school only goes from Kindergarten to 3rd grade. To me, allowing your young child to walk to and from school all alone like that is asking for trouble. We should be able to do that without having to worry…this is FAR from a perfect world, though. We, as parents, must protect our children at all costs.

The email I got freaked me out. I’m so happy that the girl didn’t go with the guy, but will the next girl be as smart/lucky? I hope so, but hoping only gets a person so far.

As most of you know, I personally walk my daughter to and from school every single day. I realize that I’m lucky to be able to do that since lots of Moms and Dads work outside of the home and aren’t able to be there at those times of day. In those cases, I think it’d be a really good idea for parents to arrange for another parent to accompany their child to and from school for them. Yes, it might be uncomfortable to ask another parent to help ‘em out like that, but wouldn’t it be worth the discomfort to know that your child is safe? I believe so.

I could carry on about this stuff for days. It’s just so frustrating to see these tiny kids walking all alone every day. I think the people around here think that because we’re such a small community, it’s safe. Nothing could be further from the truth. Crime doesn’t only happen in the heart of the city.

In order to know what’s going on in my community, I have been a member of the Family Watchdog site for a few years. It’s a wonderful site. They send out emails every single time a registered offender moves into the area. Not just sex offenders…felons of all sorts. It feels good to get these updates because I have more of an idea where the offenders are living in relation to my house. I highly recommend signing up for their service if you haven’t already.

I figured I’d better post something since I’ve got this blog still.  I kinda slacked off on the whole blogging thing. With the holidays and everything else going on, I just haven’t felt up to being such a consistent blogger. I still blog nearly daily over on MyOpera, but that’s different. I just kinda chat and blab about whatever’s going on at that time…nothing too profound or personal.

I’ve been working on the website I’m creating. I’ve got the logo and tagline taken care of. Next comes the layout. I am thinking I will go with a Web 2.0 look. Simple yet fun and easy to navigate. It seems as though that’s the hip thing lately, so I might as well follow suit. I also have my Master’s Degree in Web 2.0, so I might as well put it to use!

I have a sore throat once again. This time it doesn’t feel like one of those temporary “I just woke up and ouch” kinda things. It feels like the beginning of a cold. Bah! I haven’t had a cold in like two years…I don’t want one. Especially not right before Christmas. That would suck ass to be ill while Christmas shopping and then during the actual festivities. Not a very good way to spend the holidays. I’ll do whatever I can to nip this in the bud!

Speaking of buds, my Tulips are opening very nicely! They’re so beautiful. I still need to take more pictures of them as they look now. The original picture I have doesn’t do them justice. They were still cold at that point. They are now totally settled in and warmed up and saying, “Hello, Karen! Here we are!” Yay! I love them so much!

My brother’s birthday was yesterday. I called him, but got his voicemail. Luckily, I had sent him an e-card the night before, so at least I don’t come off as totally uncaring. I left a message, but he’s a busy guy, so who knows if he listened to it yet or not. He has a really high stress job…I honestly don’t know how he does it. It boggles my mind how two people born of the same parents can be so entirely different. He is very, very assertive and a born leader. I, on the other hand, am overly submissive and mousy, and a natural follower. I mean, I can be a leader in some situations, but in general, I’m happy following others. Oddly enough, most people who only know me on the Net think I’m full of shit when I say that. I come off as pretty assertive and confident on the Net, I guess. *shrugs* I guess I am to a certain degree. It’s kind of easy to have a feeling of false confidence when you can hide behind a monitor, ya’ know? If any of these people were to meet me in person, though, they would be like, “Um, who are you and where is Karen?” I’m super-duper shy and usually pretty soft-spoken…although my laugh is quite a belly laugh. Not one of those annoying laughs like Janice on friends…just a jolly kind of laugh, I guess. Hard to explain. If you’ve heard my GabCast thingies, then you know what I mean…I think. Hmmm….I can’t remember if I did more than giggle on those. I tend to do that a lot when I’m nervous -which I was when I recorded those things. I hate my voice and I hate talking when I know shitloads of people are hearing me. So yeah - I was a ball of nerves! But at least I didn’t chicken out! Yay for that!

Well, I’m going to go call my friend, Jenn now. I’m very worried about her. They had a winter storm where she lives and her power went out. She ended up having to stay in a hotel last night because her house got to be too cold to stay there. I’m worried because I know Jenn like I know myself. If she had access to the Net, she would be on here right now talking to me…or at least emailing me to let me know she’s okay. The hotel had WiFi, so she must not be there anymore…and if she were at home, she’d have the Net, too. I hope she didn’t end up having to go back home to her cold house because the hotel room was previously reserved or something. Oh no! I didn’t think of that ’til now. Now I’m frantically worried. I don’t want her to freeze to death, damn it. She could also get really sick being in those temps for too long. I gotta go call her before I freak out and give myself an ulcer….