I’ve began to eat better in preparations for next year. I told A. that I’m going to be in the best shape of my life next year, and I mean it. It seems when I moved to Georgia and lived with Teresa that we became custom to spoiling each other with sweets, going on short snack runs and the ever so grateful love of my life, Zaxbys! I gained some weight when I moved down there and never seemed to really be able to come back around. When A. and I became serious, I think I became a little more comfortable and didn’t let myself go, but didn’t worry as much about what I ate. While I knew he didn’t like skinny minny girls, I also knew I didn’t want to be out of shape, so that’s really my main goal.

I’ve been buying a lot of meats and those veggie steamers. I cut out regular soda and started drinking a lot of water and juice. I also bought an ab lounge and while I don’t use it as much as I should, it does get used. I have some Pilate DVDs that I bought a few years back and omies, has anyone ever tried Pilate’s? It hurts. A lot. I’d like to get into the routine of using those but I’m leaning more towards yoga, for not only the physical side, but to earn that bit of spirituality that comes along with it, too.

I’m writing this to keep myself motivated. To remind myself of a goal. I’ve never been one to work out because weight has always been an easy thing for me to lose, and it was usually always easy for me to tone up quickly. But alas, my body has gone into ‘woman’ mode, so I have to try a little harder, now. I’m not big on New Years resolutions, but I think this is going to be my main goal. I’d also like to pick up a few new hobbies as well. I’d like to get into my jewelry making a bit more and I’d LOVE to start raising something. Maybe alpacas. Perhaps I should start with growing my own herbs, first. They may be a little cheaper and easier. I just feel like hey, I have 48 acres, why let them go to waste?

Then again, I could always use them to jog, on. Ugh!

I have these moments that some people like to call ‘Ah Ha! moments’. When I find myself doing things and I look inward and self diagnose why I’m doing something.

Being the Christmas season, I’ve found myself spending quite a bit of money on everyone. I was given money as my Christmas gift this year and decided to spend it on everyone else. Sure, there’s a few things I’d like and a couple of things I need, but I’ve found solace in just giving it to others. I think because mainly, I just want to numb myself of Christmas this year and spending money is like therapy. Retail therapy, I suppose. I’d rather get the therapy while shopping for the people I love, though - and this is what I am doing.

This is the first Christmas without daddy and I’m not quite sure how it’s going to go. It’s as though it effects me sub conscientiously without me really putting much thought into it. I think about him every day, but there are some days where the thoughts just suffocate and take over any other thing I may be trying to focus on. It’s like pouring too much asphalt onto a road - it’s just going to seep over and cover anything else in it’s way.

I think I miss his stories the most. We all know how they go, and most people find any way they can to escape them when they start. You have no choice but to know they start because they begin with “When I was your age”…and can go on for hours. Those stories about when he was my age, though? Those were the ones I loved most. Those are the ones that he started out trying to clarify a point he was trying to make, but almost always ended up laughing and everyone else around him laughing so hard they had tears streaming down their face.

I miss the stories about working the farm, becoming a Sheriff, people he arrested and people he sang with in Nashville when he was in a band. He had this gospel/country band and they sang with the likes of Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash and they were becoming pretty big. Daddy was a country boy, though, and didn’t much like the fame, so he quit the band and went to work in a slaughter house as a butcher. He arrested the Hell’s Angels then ate breakfast with them, bought them dinner and went to their funerals. He was chased by wild buffalo, ran over, shot and spat on. We owned 2 Clydesdale’s which we plowed the fields with and even butchered the hog the Sheriff’s Department gave him when he retired. I remember that one, but the others, they were always like magic to me.

I remember one of the last real rides I took with him. It was early this year and I had gotten a ticket for speeding. I was low on cash so Daddy and I climbed in his old 87 Ford and drove to the courthouse so he could pay it off for me. We took the long way back home, stopping to get 2 cokes in glass bottles and we talked and laughed. It was funny that I probably didn’t grow up to be the daughter he wanted, but he always accepted me and tried to teach me better without making me feel like less of a person or like he loved me any less. He wanted a girl, and he had two. It was funny, that he always did things with us as we were his sons, but when it came to things that only men could do, he called the boys. We would go to horse sales, clean our own horse stables, go digging for fishing worms and go fishing, help him in the field. But when something on the tractor went wrong or something that could be potentially dangerous needed to get done? He shielded us and called in the boys, and we could always tell when daddy was serious. He was as gentle as a small animal, yet the strongest most honorable man that most people have ever met.

This Christmas, my only wish is that I make him proud. That I can have stories to tell one day that if I ever have kids, they laugh with me and they think of me as a role model and a strong woman. I hope that I was able to give him everything in a daughter that was possible and that I never let him down. This Christmas, my only wish is to remember these stories forever, and to never forget where I came from, because these are things money could never buy.

So after a short break, I’m back. Does anyone still read? I’d love to know.

A lot has happened in the last month. My photography business seemed to take off, and I have a new computer (for the first time in my life) as well as the new Nikon D300. I hate to admit it, being that I consider myself a professional photographer, but this is my first SLR camera. Everything I thought I knew about photography? Yeah, let’s throw that out the window, move to another country, open the window on our new house and everyone around is speaking a different language. That language? SLR. Geez, I have a lot to learn, but I am rather excited.

So in my relationship with A., we have a few unspoken rules. You know, just small things, things that we know deep down and just respect about each other. Things that run to the core of one another and that we do not disrespect or go without acknowledging at the least. Things like all of our cats are to be treated equally. Of course, that’s hard to do when you’re playing WoW and two out of the three cats weigh 20lbs so only the kitten can help you. Another is that under no circumstance is A. ever allowed to own a better camera than I or be better at Photoshop, and likewise, I shall never own a better computer than him and know more 1337 speach.

Needless to say, one of the rules has been broken, and our foundations have been shaken. The very core of what we once thought we knew and just understood about each other has been tested. There have been many sleepless nights, wondering how, when, WHY?! Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating, but there is a sad sexy man in my house lately. No, it’s not because I knew the term ‘pally’ and used it in casual conversation with him - but rather because I have a new computer and his is a few years old. Be it, I’ve never had a new computer in my life and I’m still excited that I can open two photos at once AND rotate them both one after the other. I’m also excited that I have Word, a calculator, and that I have four times as much space on my desktop to fill up with useless icons!!! I do feel guilty, though, and even offered to let him use my monitor if he’d like, or use my computer when I’m asleep. What I didn’t realize though, that this was an insult and that how dare I consider him embarrassing himself using my hardware?! I apologized more for that than I do when I ask “Do I look fat?” and he gives me that look and I say “Okay, sorry” and he says “You don’t have to apologize” and he means it, because he’s sweet and awesome like that. So what do I do? I say “Okay, I’m sorry”. Then I run. Fast.

So hopefully soon, all will be merry in our household and there will be new computers all around and we’ll spend even more time together, he and his friend chasing and beating people’s asses on Wow and me laughing out loud at Icanhascheezeburger cats. We’re so romantic. Until then, he’ll let his anger out on the Myspace management for deleting his band page 3 months after he put in a request to have it deleted because the member of the band that was kicked out was holding it hostage. (After an attempt to get an answer from them about why this happened, they sent an automated response, and this didn’t make him feel any better).

This is really getting ridiculous. We have a situation here that basically constitutes an emergency for our band. We have sent 3 emails in the past 3 days, and all we have gotten in response is two completely useless canned automated responses. Is there anyone at your company that actually does their job? I mean, for a company that got purchased for over $500 million, can you not hire someone who is capable of doing more than choosing from an automated menu and clicking “Send”? I would be embarrassed if I owned your company. This is the absolute worse tech support/customer service I have ever experienced.

Here’s what you need to do:

STOP SENDING ME USELESS AUTOMATED RESPONSES.
FIND AN EMPLOYEE AT YOUR COMPANY WHO IS NOT COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT (IF THAT IS EVEN POSSIBLE).
FIND AN EMPLOYEE WHO CAN READ.
FIND AN EMPLOYEE WHO CAN WRITE.
READ OUR PROBLEM AND ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING POSITIVE AND CONSTRUCTIVE ABOUT IT.

I know this is asking a lot of you since it is obvious, judging by your performance so far, that your company is staffed by semi-comatose, half-retarded, amoeba-brained monkeys. But, seriously, do you think you could take a short break from throwing feces at each other and FIND OUT WHY OUR ENTIRE BAND PROFILE WAS COMPLETELY DELETED WITH NO EXPLANATION???!!!???

I would say “thanks”, but so far that would be like thanking someone for burning my house down and then, when I ask for an explanation, they then promptly take a dump on my shoes.

Get it together myspace. So far, quite simply, you suck.

I’m sure by now most people have heard about the tirade from Dog the Bounty Hunter. If not, you can check up on it on Fox News. Basically, he had a conversation with his son about his girlfriend and how he didn’t trust her character. His girlfriend is black and Dog used the “N” word quite a few times, basically telling his son that she wouldn’t understand his family using the word as they do sometimes and he doesn’t trust her not to hear them use it and bring down their whole family. Low and Behold, his son actually sold the conversation to the tabloids and now his whole business and show are pretty much at risk.

I don’t get it. Do people really think that NO ONE uses that language and that it’s so forbidden that when someone finally does that you have to take everything they’ve ever worked for from them? People are called names every day and this term is no longer taken seriously, and people need to realize that. It’s not a secret - people call other people, and not just blacks, the “N” word all the time. Hell, they do it to their faces and in most cases it seems like a compliment. I just cannot fathom why it’s OK for certain people to use it and not others?

I bought Dog’s book a few months back and am all for, hell and high water, what this man and his family are doing. Sure, he’s made some decisions in his life that weren’t very smart, but his career now, this path he’s leading and the way he is touching people’s lives is his retribution for the mistakes he made when he was younger and knew no better. When he was ignorant, and what’s that mean? Oh, if I’m not mistaken, I think that would make him a “N” word too - since really, the word has no proper association with color. Now, because of MONEY, his whole life can possibly be ruined.

It just irritates me that he seems to be a constant target. He vows to chase down and find the most vile, raging, disgusting serial rapist ever and not quit until he does - and he does it. Andrew Luster was heir of Max Factor and seemed to pay off everyone who ever tried to capture him for raping over 60 women. Dog wasn’t going to fall for the money and he took the monster off the streets and what happens? He gets thrown in jail! He gets put into jail for going into Mexico and capturing this monster since no one else would do it or was paid off to leave him alone - he does millions of women a favor and he gets that treatment? I read the book, I read what he had to go through in jail, and no one who takes a rapist off the streets should ever be treated the way he was.

I dunno, it just seems to be pretty personal to me. Maybe it’s because my dad was in Law Enforcement until he retired and when you’re out there with these scumbags, you’re going to lose your temper, you’re going to have to go into hostile mode, you’re going to have to go into a moment of rage so they won’t completely tear you apart - but when it’s all said and done, they’re just words. People insult other people every day, and using ‘Asshole’ or ‘Douchebag’ or ‘Prick’ shouldn’t be any different than using the “N” word, especially since the people who seem most insulted by it use it amongst themselves everyday.

I suppose before anyone gets their panties in a wad, they may want to look into what the word really means, and to learn that it isn’t a color, but merely a word meaning ‘ignorant’, and I know a lot of ignorant people and would never lose my job over telling them they are so.

Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive. a person of any race or origin regarded as contemptible, inferior, ignorant, etc.

This past weekend was rather nice. A. and I had intentions of going to the Renaissance Festival but instead stayed the night in Virginia with his Mom. She is such an amazing inspiration and lady all together. We actually took a huge step forward in getting my photography business rolling - with talk of a couple of private investors and new equipment, I can’t help but get excited.

We spent Saturday walking around the little shops in town and having a nice lunch at a little cafe. A. had been looking everywhere and asking everyone about a cameo ring, as I’ve been looking for a nice one for a while now. It seemed his search was greater than mine, though - as I just thought they were nice and wouldn’t mind having one. He was asking about history and so on, and we found out a lot about the genuine cameo, and with the price of around $300, I knew that the purchase of one would be far into the future, or as A. stated, a gift. When we got back to his Mom’s house we were sitting around for a few minutes and she walked into the room and handed me a ring! She had some estate jewelry that she bought at an auction and in it was a beautiful cameo ring. She told me she had forgotten about it but I could have it if I wanted. It fits perfectly and I’ve barely taken it off since. What a nice, perfect, meaningful little surprise that was.

Other than this past weekend, I had a nice photo shoot Sunday with one of the belly dancers I photographed before. We went to a hidden house (not hidden as much as I can’t know who lives there, as it’s someone relatively famous, an actor and writer) which was HUGE and stunning. I’m sure there were no less than 20 rooms in this house and it was built to look like a Tuscan Villa and had gardens and ivy and little secret passages everywhere! We were really lucky to get to shoot there and I had some beautiful, stunning even, turn outs.

Speaking of photos, I am going to get back to editing. I have been in search of a new print place and came across Meridian Professional Printing in my Rangefinder Magazine. Has anyone ever had any experience with them? I’m going to send off a few prints for test before I order any for professional business. Just curious!

Last night was amazing. A. is so amazing, patient and willing. I put him through a lot without realizing it, from my moods to my attitude to my whining. It’s all part of this healing process and dealing with the death of the person unlike any other that will never be in my life again.

After weeks and even months of depression and anxiety and impatience and insecurity, we went back to basics. To us, that was having a few beers, eating pizza and playing each other in Tekken. Not much, but all we needed. It was one of the funnest nights we’ve had in a while.