To The Farmers Market I Go, Hi-Ho-Hi-Ho!!!

Although today didn't have a good start, it got better.  My sis said she would pick me up after work and we would hit the GB Farmers Market so that made me happy.  I had been online the majority of the day but put my laptop to bed before I got ready to go.  When I came out Tina kept asking me why my laptop wouldn't open. I didn't understand what she meant until she showed me, IT WOULDN'T OPEN! Now this comes after not having it for like month, because I had shattered the LCD.  I finally got it back ($450.00 later) and now the damn thing won't open!?!  Yikes.  NOT COOL.  So before the FM we decided to swing by the PC shop and ask them what was up.  I tried opening it on the way there, but didn't wanna force it because it felt like if I did, "something" was going to snap.  We got there and the first tech that greeted us couldn't get it to open either.  She wasn't comfortable reef'n on it so she said she would take it back to the tech that originally worked on it.  She left and soon after she came back laughing.  The tech in back had opened it without ANY issues...so we tested it a few more times, and then decided it was fixed.  Cool.  Crisis averted.  So off to Tina's to meet mom when she was finished working so she could go to the FM with us.  I love the FM! There's so much there! Things you don't expect.  Like, for instance, I scored the absolute coolest dog treats for my pups!

The first is for Luke.  A peanut butter paw print sucker! It's as big as my hand! And it's got a rawhide stick.  The second ones are for Harm and Harley.  "Ice cream cones" filled with a doggy-friendly banana muffin and frosting with sprinkles! LOVE THESE!  They are from the Perfect Pet Gift Shop and Bakery.  I can't wait to get more. :o)

I also picked up a key lime rum cake that Weetabix raved about in her blog....

I have yet to dive into it...I was stupid and actually ate dinner tonight...shouldda just feasted on this cake! They offered free samples of the vanilla flavored cake and it was SINFULLY delish!  I'll let you know just how wonderful it is! YUM!

I also scored some necessities, corn on the cob, yellow wax beans, and some honey wheat bread.  I'm canning vegetable soup tomorrow and those were the only things I didn't have.  So tomorrow will be a busy day of me being all "Chef-ee" and taking over mom's kitchen once again!  I love cooking! :o)

The other thing at the FM that really caught my eye was the gorgeous array of flowers! OMG! I love flowers and the ones that were there today were fabulous! The zinnias, sunflowers, gladiolas, and some magenta colored pompus grassy stuff was awesome! I wished I could just lay down in the  middle of them all and stay there forever!

I need to back up a day and talk about my good friend Jeanne...well, all my friends really.  But yesterday was my day to hang with J.  She took me to GB to Cold Stone Creamery and treated me to ice cream.  I chose butter pecan with pecans and caramel....TO DIE FOR!!! YUM-O!  And then we were off to Barnes & Noble, a favorite place of mine, where I picked Julie & Julia and Julia Child's famous cookbook.  We stopped at a gas station where J bought me a lottery ticket and we vowed that if either of us won, we'd split it and the first thing we would do is jet off to Hawaii.  You have no idea how bad I want to win!!! Good luck J! 

It's been a rough week, but my girlfriends from far and near, have come through for me in ways you can't imagine.  They have spoiled me rotten and their kindness and love was just overflowing.  I'm so greatful and so lucky to have them. 

That pretty much brings me to the here and now, and here and now I am tired from a long day and need to rest so I'm ready to put my Chef-ee hat on tomorrow!

I Hate Money

I hate money.  Everything you do every single day is measured based on how much you have...or in my case, how much I DON'T have.  Being on disability is really hard for me.  I get paid once a month, and a huge chunk of it pays for a loan I took out to pay for medical expenses and past mistakes I made.  And this last month a lot of things happened...all at once.  A big thing was my laptop screen shattered and that ended up costing $450.00 to fix.  At the time, I had the money.  But my mistake came later.  That same day, I wrote a huge check for the cost of our hunt club hoodies ($600) and forgot about the pc bill.  How did I FORGET the pc bill?? I mean you would think every time I've logged on to my pc since then, it would be a constant reminder right?  Ya, not so much.  I don't know if all the drugs I am taking is messing with my mind or if the condition itself is messing with me but seriously, I whole heartedly FORGOT about that $450.  So now, I log on to my account, when yesterday I couldn't for whatever reason the stupid online banking system always gives me the finger, and I'm really really really REALLY in the hole and I don't get paid for another 7 days.  It's not just that I only get paid once a month, it's that the hubby is still unemployed and his checks have gotten smaller (how the fuck that can happen I still don't know...) and his money pays our health and vehicle insurance and he's pretty much broke.  I looked into a state funded health insurance and I was really taken by surprise when I saw that our money we bring in, together, is considered to be in the "poverty level."  I never thought of that "word" to describe us before...but....
It just sucks.  I WANT to work, and I CAN'T work.  I can't even drive.  I feel so helpless...and I want to LIVE. I don't want to sit home doing nothing.  If I'm sitting home, I want to be able to cook, or read books, or watch movies or whatever....but all of those things you must buy as well. 
I'm just so saddened and disgusted that I can't even think straight........AUGH.  I hate money.

Thank God Puppies Can Swim...

So I was flipping through the channels and I came upon the very beginning of Little House On The Prairie...I used to watch this show religiously when I was little...now I only see it once in a while.  Strange how I can remember each episode after just seconds of the beginning of the show....
There were puppies, fluffy white puppies, with their mother (who by the way looked NOTHING like the pups).  And then in to the barn comes a man, a  tall dark figure (queue ominous music), and he kneels down to the dogs and he has a sack. A brown canvas sack.  He proceeds to put the pups in the sack.  The pups whimpering the entire time.  The hair on the back of my neck is now standing on end and my whole body begins to burn with sickness.  I have to keep telling myself "it's fake, Ang...it's FAKE!"  And still I'm riveted and couldn't stop watching.  He puts them in the back of his wagon and leaves for what I can only imagine, is a water source.  Cut to Laura and Mary racing to a pond.  The same pond, in fact, that the evil, nasty, puppy-drowning man is arriving at.  Laura hears the pups and inquires about what he's doing and he threatens them saying he'll "stick them" if they don't go away. (Ya know beat them with a stick.) The girls leave but don't go far...he throws the sack of puppies into the pond.  I got shivers...I'm right there, waiting for him to leave because, dammit! I'm going to save those puppies myself! Cut to Laura and Mary jetting out of the woods and diving in the pond...they retrieve the sack and they pull out three, albeit water-logged, puppies and they are all alive.  They have a slight scare when the believe the rock the man put inside the sack to make it sink, is a pup, that has not survived.  I was so relieved. 
I write this because I've noticed over the years that I've gotten really sensitive to issues of animal abuse...specifically cats and dogs and the disgusting cruel things people inflict on them.  I wonder, "what the fuck goes through their mind? How the hell do they justify hurting a poor defenseless animal? Do they have no conscience at all???"  It just makes me physically ill when the news is on and there are cases of animal abuse or mutilation or whatever....  I do EVERYTHING in my power to resurrect animals (strays) from the dead and there are others out there undoing all the good I've tried to do.  WTF? 
My pets bring me such joy.  Such unconditional love.  It doesn't matter to them what clothes I wear, if I have a job or not, if I'm sick or well, if I'm wearing makeup or not....they don't care if 2 seconds earlier I was infuriated by them misbehaving and I've yelled at them...they still cuddle up to me and purr and roll on their backs to let me scratch their tummies...HOW can anyone hurt such a being???
Look at me...I've gone all PETA on you!  I just love my furry children I guess. :o)

Roger that...we've got a 10-80...

So this is not what I thought I would be doing at 2:00am...at approximately 12:20am, while reading a book in bed, I heard sirens approaching. I got up and actually saw 3 cops go screaming past my house lights blazing, sirens whaling...they didn't go very far because I heard when they shut them off...hmmmm?? Shortly there after, an ambulance goes by with lights on but no sirens...hmmmmm??? Not 5 minutes later a vehicle pulls in our driveway. The headlights shut off and I can see a person lit only by the dome light inside. Then the headlights came back on...then the peraon comes walking up the sidewalk...oh thank god it's my older brother-but wait-WTF is he doing here at 12:30am? Doesn't really matter. He stopped to talk to the swarm of cops up the road and it turns out they are looking for a hispanic male wearing a white tshirt who obviously led them on a high speed chase resulting in him (the hispanic) crashing his vehicle just up the road from my house. And he fled the scene. We watched cops drive by slowly with their spot lights shining in the yards and fields and stopping at our neighbor's house to check things out. So of course I'm all bright eyed and bushy tailed (not) after my night last night and here I am now, wide awake, scared to go to bed because some stupid dipshit thinks he's too cool for school or something. Augh. I need sleep. I'm fucking exhausted. The last thing I heard while standing by an open window was a cop talking over his loud speaker, mumbling and then saying "this is the police"...but our neighbors are (were) having a party and they were talking loudly so I couldn't make the whole thing out. Now it's gone eerily quiet and I don't like it. We need a scanner. Then we'd know if they found the little creatan or not and I would know if it was safe to go to bed or not...hmmm. Note to self: buy a fucking scanner tomorrow! (Well today-but later today). Updates as they occur...Angi-out.

She's In Ruins...

So I woke up Friday (yesterday) thinking it was going to be a GREAT day! I had plans with MN Amy to go see Julie & Julia and then I was to go goose hunting (if I was feeling well enough to) with the Mafia. Little did I know that God, himself, was planning to black-ball my ass for the day... I woke up and jumped on my laptop right away. We've been separated for almost a month now, so we are still "re-bonding". I logged onto the Mafia FB page and just for kicks and giggles I searched FB for "Goose Mafia" to see what the competition was up to. There's a couple "Snow Goose" Mafias and so I was just curious. And then I saw it...the first thing that ruined my day...some low-life high school punks are trying not only to steal the Mafia name, but to claim they were the "first". Only I know it's complete BS because if what they claim is true, they would have been 8 years old when the club was created. Yuh...don't think so boys...so that pushed my "get our logo and name trademarked" goal into fierce high gear. That was the FIRST bad thing that happened. So then I was off to see Julie & Julia with MN Amy. I was sooo happy to see her and we had a great time! The movie was light hearted and funny and I'm not a Meryl Streep fan but holy shit...her Julia Child character was spot-on! I saw in the credits that the movie was based on a book and so now of course I want it, along with Julia's famous Art of French Cuisine cookbook. Books....my weakness. Being with Amy, Julie and Julia was by far the highlight of my day. Amy went off to Appleton to meet Ali, and Pat came to pick me up. At first it was ok. But then I was telling him how Nick Barnett lost his dog. He was using Twitter as a vehicle to get the word out. Last I heard he had not found him and was fearing someone had "dog-napped" him. I told Pat it was probably someone who found out the dog belonged to Nick and thought...hey...I bet he'll offer a big reward! And somehow Pat and I got in a heated debate about having money and not having money and somehow, somewhere along the way, I ended up crying and we were no longer on speaking terms. I stared out the passenger window all the way home crying and yet, he never said a word. Not one. NOT ONE! So we got to his house and he turned to me and asked (or something) if I as still going hunting. I said "no". How could he think I could possibly just put on a happy face in front of the others and pretend nothing happened? But that is how he works...he thinks that if he just "ignores" it, "it" will go away and everything will be ok. It's partly my fault for letting him get away with such acts for so many years. But I just get tired of fighting and would rather spend my energy being happy and being together...so the next day when we wake up, or when he "comes back" I just let it go. Note to self: BAD IDEA. Anyway I told him I could call my mom to pick me up from his parents and he could go hunting without me. But then he got bullheaded and insisted on taking me home. He didn't say a word while I cried all the way home. But before we left his parent's I asked why he has such a negative attitude toward me, our future, and life in general...."don"t you care about ANYTHING?" I asked. All he did was shrug his shoulders. So when we pulled in the driveway at home, I got out and said "thanks for not even caring enough to say a word to me while I cried all the way home"... He said, "hat was I supposed to say? You won't listen to me anyway!" Um...I know I'm no genius, but being locked in the car together pretty much insures a captive audience. It just killed me that he couldn't say "sorry" or "don't cry" or ANYTHING!!! So he left and I was left to lay crying in my room for the next four hours. After pouring my heart out to my mother (I'm pretty sure she was more than willing to hunt Pat don at that point) I just told her to leave me alone. She said she's had a hard time biting her tongue for THIS long and she wasn't sure how much longer she could keep doing it. She's heard all the disrespectful things he's said to me, and how whenever I'm happy about ANYTHING he manages to say something or do something to completely wreck it for me. So there I was, laying in ruins. He didn't call, he didn't text. Even after I texted him several times, with the last one saying I was "afraid to tell him not to come home unless he was going to start acting like my husband, and to be there for me and quit acting like a child, because then I'm afraid he really WOULDN'T come back"...you'd think something of that magnitude would warrant SOME kind of response...but nope...silence. And maybe that hurt me just as much. Because I knew he as out hunting with his buddies and wasn't even thinking or caring about what had transpired between us. I was sure he wasn't coming home. Then around 8:30 I get the most pitiful text from him "do you want me to come over?" WTF?! I proceeded to tell him I wanted him to come home if he would be my husband. Not a "boy" who thought it is acceptable to put his wife 2nd in every situation and to have a better attitude all around. By that point my eyes were almost swelled shut and I could barely even see my phone and I was utterly exhausted. And I fell asleep. I woke up later that night and rolled over with my head throbbing and blurred memories of what was happening...and then the bed moved. It took me a second or two to process that information and hen I did I freaked out and jumped up and looked and he was there. And all he said was "what?" OMFG. The dude STILL couldn't show an ounce of fucking compassion as I'm laying there gripping the last part of a roll of toilet paper (ran out of tissues) and I still had tears on my face and he never even tried to touch my hand or say sorry or that he loved me. Oh no. I get a blank, emotionless "what"? Fuck you. I didn't have the energy. I rolled over and fell asleep. Even my dreams were plagued of events of him not caring about me. So the events were still very much in the front of my mind. When I woke up he was there, but still wouldn't say anything (surprise surprise). I couldn't even look at him. I rolled away from him and stared at the wall with tears streaming down my cheeks again wondering how the hell we got to this point. What had I done? What did I do or say wrong??? Wait!!! How could I think this was all MY fault? Maybe because of the few words he DID say the day before, among them was that I was "mean" to him. So I asked how? How am I mean to you? WHEN was I mean to you???? And funny part is, he couldn't cite one instance. Pfffft. Finally he said he was leaving if I wouldn't talk to him. Omg. That opened the gates and I let loose. In the end, I pretty much gave in. Maybe because I was exhausted or maybe cause I am stupid. Finally with a sigh I said "will you please bring me a fork?" He said, "why do you want a fork?". Omg is he really so stupid to actually ask me that???!! "Just get me a damn fork!" So he went and I walked over to where the last piece of blackberry pie was "hid" and grabbed the plate. When he came back in he saw the pie and it finally clicked why I wanted the fork. The situation warranted a small giggle from us both, and although I STILL haven't gotten an apology, he did manage to say "I love you". My response?? "I love you too, but, you need to quit being an asshole."

And So It Begins....

I've been dying...well not "dying"...but really WANTING to start a blog for a long time now. I'm not even sure what it is that I'm writing it for...maybe because of my financial/social/career situation. It's all very complicated which you will all find out soon enough. Maybe it's just a way for me to fill the "void" in my life. Or maybe it's a way for me to feel as though I've "accomplished" something. No matter how you look at it, I think it's going to be a good thing. A fun thing. And I'm looking forward to future posts. I'm hopoing to be able to link this to my Facebook page as well. Ahhh, I have so much to do........ Well, this is the beginning of "My Charmed Life". :0)