ahh...just got done being curled up on the couch under a warm cozy blanket watching one of my favorite movies, Titanic. Is such a tragic story but the movie always seems to just utterly move me in certain parts..

I start back in the work force tomorrow after being on a year sabatical. It is a very good feeling to go back, but on the same token, I'm hoping that my life can handle right now especially with all the stuff still up in the air with my step-mom who's still battling her illness and still in the hospital...

I was originally ready this past summer, but I held off due to all this illness stuff, but I got to the point recently where I am soooo ready to do something for myself now....and this job opportunity is going to be very enjoyable for myself...so I jumped at it.

but now beginning tomorrow my life gets re-juggled around again to accommodate being back in the work force and all that that entails...lol....ah...such is life sometimes eh?

I went on a very refreshing rejuvinating trip yesterday though to NYC with a slave friend of mine and what a grand time we had and it was such a beautiful day at that. I'm definitely looking forward at doing something like that again next year.

well now that I'm all in my cozy mode I'm going to head off to zzzz-land now to get a good night sleep for my first day back...lol...I feel like I'm going back to school...

ta ta for now

ah...just got my little son's x-mas listing request and what is numero uno on his listing...an "xbox" system.

sooo I'm now on a hunt to find an inexpensive one...but ::sigh:: they seem to be hard to find in the inexpensive route.

but I'm all determined now...lol...

the holiday season has begun!

I've always enjoyed this little movie clip on Potential....tends to be very empowering at times.

www.potentialmovie.com

~Enjoy~

Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn.

~Elizabeth Lawrence

Do ya know...lol...I ended up being Ms. Consumer this week...and I don't think I shall ever use a Car Dealership type of place ever again to perform an inspection on my personal vehicle as they are just utterly either incompetant and/or lack a baseline business ethic.

I purchased my 2000 Grand Am from this specific dealership back in Jan 05. 3 months later in March, it ended up into them for a fee of $500 some dollars to replace a Fuel Pump.

With the purchase of the vehicle, they gave a feature of obtaining your first free inspection...sooo I said...hey...why not...save a few bucks..

Once they had it in their snarly hands...the initial estimate they gave to get it inspected was again another $500...with the breakdown as follows:

- Tire Rod Joints for both front tires - $339 (includes parts and labor) - They said they had some play in them due to normal wear and tear on the car and as it has almost 50,000 some miles they required this for inspection
- Tire Alignment (due to the new joints) - $79.95
- New Wiper Blades - $31.00
- Stop Light Bulb for rear light - $14.95
- Emissions - $48.00

Total: $513.00

aka $1,000 dollars in the first year of buying it from them...sooo either it was a total lemon when I got it or they truly are insane.

soooo I went to my trusty regular mechanic to give it a 2nd opinion type o thing...and lol...ya'll never guess what his estimate was for him to fix.......

$29.00 (which included the fee to replace just the rear bulb)

and he said that the Joints didn't have any play at all and were in fine shape....although he said he looks forward to seeing me again in the upcoming year to get breaks being that I'm historically hard on breaks...lol...

$29.00 versus $500... what is wrong with that picture...

lol...just received the below story in my inbox...and lol...I think I shall definitely continue sticking to razors from now on...

can u imagine! lol...tis a ladies worst nightmare...new form of chastity maybe? eeeek...lol..

Off to zzzz-land now cringing yet chuckling on this one...

------------------
One of women's dilemmas Getting rid of unwanted hair--One woman's story.

All methods have tricked me with their promises of easy, painless
removal: the Epilady, the standard razor, the scissors, the Nair, the EpilStop, and now ... The Wax.

My night began as any other normal weekday night. I came home, fixed dinner for my family and got everyone settled for the night. I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for the next couple hours: maybe I should use that wax in my medicine cabinet.

I made sure no one would need me and I could head for the bathroom in peace. It was one of those cold wax kits. No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the clear strips in your hand, peel them apart, press it on your leg (or wherever). No muss, no fuss.

How hard can t! his be? I mean, I'm not the girliest of girls but I'm
mechanically inclined so maybe I can figure out how this works. You'd think.

So I pull one of the thin strips out. It's two strips facing each
other, stuck together. I'm supposed to rub it in my hand to warm and soften the wax. I go one better. I pull out the hair dryer and heat the SOB to ten thousand degrees. Cold wax, my ass. (Oh, how that phrase will come back to haunt me.)

I lay the strip across my thigh. I hold the skin around it and pull.
OK, so it wasn't the best feeling in the world, but it wasn't bad. I
can do this! So with my next wax strip, I'll move north.

After checking on my beloved family again, I sneak into the bathroom for The Ultimate Hair Fighting Championship. I drop my panties and place one foot on the toilet.. Using the same procedure, I then apply the wax strip across the right side on my bikini line, covering the right half of my vagina and stretching up into the inside of the right ass cheek. (Yeah, it was a long strip.)

I inhale deeply. I brace myself. RRRIIIIPPP!!!!

I'm blind from the pain! ..... Vision returning. Oh crap. I've
managed to pull off half an inch of the strip. Another deep breath.
And RIIIP! Everything is swirly and tie-dyed. Do I hear crashing
drums?

OK, coming back to normal again. I want to see my trophy -- my wax covered pelt that caused me so much agony. I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair. I hold the wax strip like an Olympic gold medalist.

But why is there no hair on it? Why is the wax mostly gone?

Where could the wax go, if not on the strip?

Slowly, I eased my head down, my foot still perched on the toilet.

I see hair -- the hair that should be on the strip. I touch. I feel.
I am touching wax. I look to the ceiling and silently shout
Nooooooo!!

I peel my fingers off the softest, most sensitive part of my body
that is now covered in cold wax and matted hair, and make the next big mistake -- up until this point, you'll remember, I've had my foot on the toilet.

I know I need to move, to do something. So I put my foot down on the floor.

And then I hear the slamming of the cell door.

Vagina? Sealed shut.

Ass? Sealed shut.

A little voice in my head says, "I hope you don't have to shit
anytime soon. Your head just might pop off." I penguin walk around the bathroom trying desperately to figure out what I should do next.

Hot water! Hot water melts wax! I'll run the hottest water I can
stand and get in. The wax should melt and I can gently wipe it
away, right?

Wrong.

I get in the tub -- the water is slightly hotter than is used to
torture prisoners of war or sterilize surgical equipment -- and I
sit.

Now the only thing worse than having! your goodies glued together is having them glued together and then glued to the bottom of a tub. In scalding hot water. Which, by the way, does not melt the cold wax.

So now I'm stuck in the tub -- literally!

I call my friend, Liz, because she once dropped out of beauty school so surely she has some secret knowledge or trick to get wax off skin. It's never good to start a conversation with "So my ass and vagina are stuck to the tub."

She wants to know exactly where the wax is on the ass. "Are we
talking cheek or hole, here?" she asks. She isn't even trying to hide the giggles now.

I give her the run-down of the entire night. She tells me to call
the number on the side of the box, but to have a good cover story for where the wax actually is. "You know that if we were working the help line at XX Wax Co. and somebody called with their entire crack sealed shut we'd just put them on hold then record the conversation for ! everyone we know. You're going to end up on a radio show or the Internet if you tell them the truth."

While we go through various solutions, I have resorted to scraping
the wax off with a razor. Boy, nothing feels better to the girlie
goodies than covering them in wax, sticking them to a tub in super
hot water and THEN dry shaving the sticky wax off!

In the middle of the conversation (which has inexplicably turned to
Other subjects!) I find the lotion provided with the wax to remove
the excess. I rub some in and start screaming "It's working! It's
working!" I get hearty congratulations from Liz and we hang up.

I successfully remove all the wax and notice, to my dismay, that the hair is still there. So I shaved the damned stuff off. Hell, I was
numb by that point anyway.

I put the box of wax back in my medicine cabinet. Never know when a moustache might start to come in.

Tonight, I attempt hair dying.

Listing of the top 11 Wackiest events in the nation for the month of August.

1.) Ultimate Elvis Tribute Casting Call:
cityguide.aol.com/lasvegas/.../event.adp

2.) National Underwear Day:
cityguide.aol.com/newyork/e.../event.adp

3.) Mashed Potato Wrestling
cityguide.aol.com/twincitie.../event.adp

4.) Twine a Thon
cityguide.aol.com/milwaukee.../event.adp

5.) Twins Days
cityguide.aol.com/cleveland.../event.adp

6.) Armpit Beauty Contest
cityguide.aol.com/reno/ente.../event.adp

7.) Miss Crustacean Pageant
cityguide.aol.com/northjers.../event.adp

8.) Bug Fest
cityguide.aol.com/raleigh/e.../event.adp

9.) Brat-Eating Contest
cityguide.aol.com/milwaukee.../event.adp

10.) Lobster Crate Race
cityguide.aol.com/portlandm.../event.adp

11.) World's Longest Yard Sale
cityguide.aol.com/nashville.../event.adp

'To fundamentally affect the quality of each day, that is the highest of the arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its most minute details and simplest moments, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.'
-- Henry David Thoreau

Definitely life has taken some turns lately which has created much contemplation.

I tend to always be the eternal everlasting energizer optimist in all facets of my life.....buttttt....there are times such as recently where reality hits and just smacks one in the face....

Reality has hit in a couple different fronts of my life predominantly in dealing with an ailing step-mother who's been in the hospital battling an illness for over a week now with no end in sight on that one....makes me ponder and contemplate on the odds of all the parent's I still have living as well as how much of myself do I put into "caretaking" mode across the next few years being that I'm an only child and I don't necessarily get along very well with all of my parent's. Also, another family member of mine recently passed away, which I think has also gotten me to thinking that much more on the subject and how to plan for the future...not only theres...but mine as well.

I seem to be pondering and contemplating much of my life of late with some very optimistic thoughts that progressed, but the above one just seemed to hit to the depths of me.