I can’t believe it - Evel Knievel passed away. It’s almost like a whole era goes with him, you know? It feels to me, very similar to when Mr. Rogers died. Completely and utterly selfish of me, but, it’s like - ‘Wait, that’s my childhood - you guys can’t die! That’s part of my history - don’t take it away!’

I mean, just check him out, ya’ll:

Isn’t he the coolest? I remember getting so excited when he was going to be on TV doing another stunt - it was so awesome - and so totally scary!! And check this out:

….cool - even as an old guy! How many of us can say that our grandpas were that cool? Not many, probably. Although I did think my grandpa was pretty darn cool! He ate hot sauce by the spoonful and he smoked a pipe - and to this day I love the smell of a pipe - it totally takes me back! But even still - I don’t think I can say he was as cool as Evel Knievel!

It’s so sad, and my heart and prayers go out to his family. The News Tribune says:

Knievel’s death was confirmed by his granddaughter, Krysten Knievel. He had been in failing health for years, suffering from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs.

Evel - you will be missed! You definitely made my childhood more exciting! And just think - no more broken bones!! Yea! I never understood how you could continually get back on your bike after all those injuries - yikes!

God bless you, Evel Knievel!

I’ve been working on getting my husband some business from the internet. He’s not entirely convinced that it’s actually going to work. He is a contractor - mostly residential remodeling. And he just doesn’t see the value in marketing a local-only business online.

I’m working on it slowly, bit by bit. I had gotten a pretty good start on it - I started a website for him, and then I registered him at Merchant Circle. And then I started him a few Squidoo lenses. And then I left it all sitting there. I completely lost all my steam for it.

Recently, however, I received a message from someone on Squidoo about his lenses. The message was from a realtor and he has a group on Squidoo that he was inviting us to join. And ever since then, marketing my husband’s remodeling services has been back on my mind again.

I want so much to prove to him that it would be beneficial for him to establish an online presence, but, I get so distracted with all of my other sites and blogs.

We’ll see - I may just make it work and wind up teaching him a thing or two!

It’s 11pm and I can hear a kid up who can’t sleep for coughing! Nooo! We can’t have any more sickness in this house! Well, Sammie has sick days available, but, the boys sure don’t! And it is Patrick that is coughing!

Our little mini-district has a five-absence-per-semester rule - after that the children need doctor’s notes in order for their absences to be excused. And if your absence is unexcused, your grades for that day’s work? Zeros! Ack! Zeros? That’s terrible.

A lot of times kids get sick and it doesn’t warrant a trip to the doctor. This is a hard rule to follow.

We just had our town Christmas parade, and Patrick and the school band were in it - so hopefully he just got chilled and his allergies are acting up. He doesn’t usually catch the infections that are going around, and if he’s just ’sort of’ sick, I’m not taking him to the doctor - just to ‘buy’ an excused absence! That’s $50 for an excuse note!

No more coughing, kid! And most definitely, for sure - no

And fourteen year old boys are rotten!

When I left the room in mid-post, in the last post - you know, to say my affirmations? Yeah, well, Mr. Creep-o (the fourteen year old, yeah…) was in here on the other computer. And apparently, while I was away, he saw fit to add some delightful text to my post.

He wrote, ‘im gay’ at the very top of my post, I’m sure hoping I wouldn’t see it, and that I would just post away, unaware! I’ll admit, it did take me a few minutes to catch it, but, a good writer always proofreads, my boy!

We have a bit of a ‘thing’ going, I guess you could say! The other day, my friend, Loretta, sent me a Skype-chat message. We were in the kitchen (the next room) and he ran in here in front of me and before I could stop him, he typed a lovely message to her. I think that one said, ‘I’m gaya’. He was typing really fast and accidentally put in one too many a’s. So then he proceeded to giggle and call me ‘gaya’ all night!

Then this afternoon, he got home from school and got on the computer. Big no-no! I asked him what he was doing and he said that he was talking to his friend, Keegan. I declared, “He’s on the computer, too?! Ya’ll aren’t supposed to be online right now!” And I ran over there, held his hands back, deleted what he had written - and wrote, ‘Get off this puter and do your homework right now!’   To which his friend replied, ‘No’.

It was shortly after this that I left the room to put another deposit in my self-esteem bank, and this boy gets over here and messes with my blog.  Right when I’m trying to work on my self-esteem and my positive attitude!  The outrage!

I have an online friend who was really bummed out this morning and I gave her some advice that I knew that I needed to hear, as well. I know that I am going to take my advice, and I hope that she will, too.The first thing that I suggested to her was to write a gratitude list. I actually ran across a blog this morning that was called ‘Attitude of Gratitude’, which is a phrase commonly used in 12-step programs. And I heard another person talking about the topic of gratitude, too. And I know - when a subject is ‘haunting’ me - that’s where I need to be. So that is why it so easily spilled from my lips (fingers…keyboard! ha!) to my friend when she spoke of her icky feeling day this morning.

Oh my gosh! And then later - I even heard someone on the radio talking about people who make gratitude lists being healthier, exercising more, etc!! Haunted, I tell you, I’m totally being haunted - I better hurry up with my list, huh?

Lisa’s Gratitude List:

1. My sweet kids
2. My handsome redneck
3. My darling Puppy
4. My folks having come out to visit
5. Dare I say it? This house. (Shh! Don’t tell Mark!)
6. Finally living in a small town, something of which I’ve dreamed for years!
7. The gorgeous geography that is Alabama, especially our area.
8. Being able to work at home.
9. Gorgeous picture of my niece, Alex, that my mom brought me and is now sitting on my desk!
10. Sunshine today.
11. Tonight is the town Christmas parade! Fun!
12. I feel good (*knock wood*) today - no migraine, etc.
13. My peace lily is gorgeous right now.
14. My idea to put yarn on the curtains so I could open them in the daytime.
15. My two new angel figurines on my desk.
16. My comfy GAP sweatshirt I’m wearing from my friend, Deb. See how cozy I look?



17. The $12 Deb accidentally gave me. LOL!

That will do for now, I’d say. On to the second half of my advice - affirmations. Hold on just one second….

I had to run into the bathroom and do my affirmations one more time. See, I promised my friend that I would do them five times today and writing this post reminded me to go do them one more time. Now I’ve got three more to go. I’m just using my standard affirmation, which is “I love you, Lisa. I am a beautiful, gorgeous, sexy woman.” Sometimes I’ll change it up, if I’m having a particular problem that I’m working on, that affirmations can help with, but, usually I just say that one.

I really would love to have this Christmas angel fleece blanket! It is so cute, that I think that I would use it all year, just like I do my angel tree topper. Mark got me the prettiest angel to go on top of my Christmas tree last year, and she is so pretty that I could not bear to put her away in a box to live in the garage for a whole year! I wish that these fleece blankets would be a bit bigger, though. It seems that most of them are 60 inches. Well, it would be a good one for Sammie - or I could hang it on the wall for a sweet decoration. If you’d like to see the shop this comes from, just click here.

Ok, so Sammie’s birthday was November 15th, and she had a lot of stuff going on that day!

When she got up in the morning, we gave her a few small presents to start the day off right, and then she had to get ready for school. Here she is in the kitchen eating her breakfast:

Then we had to go outside to wait for the bus. I drove her crazy out there taking pics, I won’t subject you to all of them, but, how about one of her disgust?

Would you quit it, Mother?!!

No, actually, I won’t. Bwahahaha! I mean, just look how darn cute she is!!

She has those straight-legged, skinny pants with the flared bottoms - I just love that look! She is so totally cute! I did carry her in my womb for nine months, though, so that could just be me! Haha!

And because I’m such a dork, and just can’t get over the fact that the bus actually comes to our house to pick up the kids - and because I think it’s so adorable and cute and sweet that the bus actually comes the house to pick up the kids (I know, I’m a dork, I got that!) :

Isn’t that just cute?

Ok, so we need to move on from the morning. The school had two big things happening on that day - one was the mini-production of Grease, followed by each grade level doing some dances to the songs from Grease. And the other big thing was their Thanksgiving lunch, to which the parents were invited. And then, of course, we had birthday cupcakes to hand out! I only have pictures of the Grease event. (Aren’t you lucky? Haha!)

Here she is laughing and doing The Hand Jive:

And here she is outside with the sign that I thought was very impressive for an elementary, during the school day production:

That night, Mark came home and we gave her the rest of her presents - she got a very cool stereo, that’s kind of space-age-y! And one of those music player-thingymabobs. And the game Cats for her DSPSQR, whatever the hell that gameboy is called!! Haha! These kids are draining our checking accounts!!

Then Mark cooked spaghetti for her and then we had birthday cake! Yumm!

And, of course, all throughout the day we fielded phone calls from one family member and then the next, who wanted to wish Sammie ‘Happy Birthday’!! All in all, it was a great day!

And He gave in! That’s right - I got in God’s face and screamed at him, “No, not this one, you can’t take this one!!!!” And then I went horizontal for a month - which is no easy task with a 1 1/2 year old and a 2 1/2 year old to take care of - but, I was determined, so we made it work!

Let me back up a little bit here. I had my first child on 9-22-93 and then I had my second child on 9-22-94, pretty crazy, I know. If you were reading in September, you already know all about that. Not too long after my second child was born, though - I had a miscarriage. That was in January 1995. And then in April 1995, I miscarried again.

And then March 1996 rolls around and I highly suspect that I am pregnant. And then the unthinkable happens - I can feel the miscarriage starting to happen. I will never forget sitting down at my kitchen table and yelling at God. I was sitting there yelling and crying - “No God! You can’t take this one!”

And God changed His mind. I believe that with every single bit of me. Some people say that’s silly, that God already has his plans made, his decisions are final. But you know what, my God is my friend, and I think that day we negotiated, and here is the outcome:

Ain’t she gorgeous?? (She was cold, on her way outside to catch the bus.)

So yeah, that horizontal thing - that was tough! I had two little monsters to take care of, not to mention, dishes, laundry, and all that fun stuff. This is what we did. I really did stay horizontal for the better part of a month. I laid around with the boys while they played, even taking them outside, where I laid upon a blanket in the grass. I’d sit up to change a diaper, or I’d get up to go potty myself, but, that was it. I guess I got up at breakfast and lunch and grabbed us a really simple meal. And then Mark did dinner. And he also did all of the other stuff - he went grocery shopping, he did the dishes, he did the laundry, basically, if it was a job that I could not do lying down - he did it.

After that first month, I slowly but surely began to get up more and more. And I eventually gave birth to my precious, 9lb 7 1/3oz baby girl ‘Beauty Queen’. And I fell head over heels in love with her! I was so taken with her. It came as a real surprise to me the depth of my love for her, because, I always knew I would be good with boys - and I just was never sure if I had it in me to raise a girl. I do, and I have, and I continue to do so.

I’ll continue this saga in another post and tell you all about her fun day last week!

The Mist by Stephen King looks so spooky and so good! There is just something so eery about a mist that consumes a town! And if that’s not enough - the mist is not empty! There are very scary creatures in the mist! From the preview, they look to me like giant bugs! Could you get any scarier than that? I’m going to have nightmares just from watching the previews!!

I have such a love/hate relationship with Stephen King’s material - you know what I mean? I go through peaks and valleys with my ‘allowing’ them into my head. Ha! He is absolutely amazing at crafting his stories, though - so amazing that it is truly sad to me to miss one of them. So for those times when I’m ’sworn off’ - I feel so utterly left out. Then I give in and thoroughly enjoy his latest creation, and am so glad I did, but, have nightmares and ’scaredy-cat-itise’ for weeks! Then I swear off of him, and the whole cycle begins again! Ha!

I think one of my very favorites would have to be Pet Sematary. In fact, that may just be the one that drew me ‘into the circle’ of fans. Just the title alone I’m sure made me look - I love pets and I love cemeteries. I’ve always been drawn to and fascinated by cemeteries. And who among us has not wished to bring someone, be they pet or human, back to life? That urge is so strong when someone (pet or human) dies, that it, to me, almost feels physical. So that story had many things to help me ignore my fear and dive into the chaotic and creepy world of Stephen King!

My brother was a big Cujo fan and when I finally saw it, I loved that one, too! And I really liked Thinner. It would be cool to have a collection of all of his books and movies, actually!

So yeah, I’m excited to see this latest release - it will be fun - in that, ‘I can’t breathe, I’m nauseous, turn on the lights, don’t leave me!’ kind of way!

Devil Boy Amy
Originally uploaded by patsmomlisa

My friend, Amy, showed me a really cool new Firefox Addon. Do you see how pretty I was able to make her? Heehee!

My friends and I always try to keep each other up to date on the newest Addons available through Firefox. We are diehard Firefox fans! (Uh-oh, except for Suni, who seems to have defected on us last week. Oh, for shame!)

This addon is called Picnik and their main website is here: Picnik. I have been using Jing from Techsmith for a while now, so it will be interesting to see how this compares. So far, I’m completely thrilled with it. I even see something in there for a post that’s been brewing in my head all morning. So Picnik is on the same page with me - that’s a plus, for sure!