We're loading up for the beach! This is a much deserved vacation and a rare visit with my dad. He's flying cross-country to meet us at the beach. The last time I saw him was a year ago when I was in and out of the hospital. I'm all healthy now and I'm determined there will be no medical emergencies this visit. My kids have grown leaps and bounds since his last visit, so I'm thrilled to show them off.

When we get back we are going to be house shopping. We are planning to move one town over, so the adventure of finding an affordable and acceptable place will begin. If I had money, this would be an easy task. I could just have my pick of homes. But as it is, the search will not be easy. At least I have another week before I have to think about it.

Happy New Years to all my LJ friends. I hope 2009 is a successful, happy, and healthy year for everyone!

...has made me a very dull LJ'er. Real Life has been very busy and full, but I've been missing my escape to the fantasy world. I'm hoping to create regular time to get updated on all my LJ friends and to be a part of the community again.

As for me, I'm still high from the election and I've finally (and reluctantly) joined Facebook. It took a lot of convincing, but it's done.

My latest obsession, now that the election is over and Lost doesn't start until January, is Heroes. It does get a bit tiring having characters continue to change from good to evil and back again, but it's intriguing none-the-less.

I have a great week coming up. I'm taking my son to see Annie in Raleigh. He and my daughter (son 4.5, daughter 2) love the music. My daughter can belt out Tomorrow like a pro, but her funniest performance is yelling out the words to Hard-Knock Life ("shine my shoes...and I mean..start now!). She won't be able to sit through the whole show, so it's mommy and son night out.

I hope everyone has a great week. Until next time, remember... "You're never fully dressed without a smile." ~Annie.

GG

So our beloved author Adamanteve19 tagged me. I'm a stick-in-the-mud for the most part, so let's see if I can come up with 7 things.

a. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
b. Tag seven people to do the same.
c. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag "whoever wants to do it."

1. This one dates way back. I was probably 5 or 6. I used to idolize my older cousin. He could convince me to do anything. So, in a moment of weakness I did as I was instructed. I hid myself in the tall grass by the road and I threw rocks at cars. Indicative of what a lousy criminal I would be, I hit a neighbor's car who immediately stopped, dragged me to my house, and outed us to my parents. I suppose that was my first grounding.

2. Speaking of being grounded, this next one is the reason I hate Corvettes. I was probably 8 or 9 at the time. My dad's baby was his corvette. I wasn't allowed to touch it. One day he came home ranting and raving that someone had scratched his baby. He was so upset. I went down to the garage to take a look. It didn't look that bad. I saw some paint and decided to fix it myself (I would save the day and everyone would be happy, right?). Well, at the time I didn't have any auto body experience (still don't). I didn't know that the area first or that I shouldn't have used interior leather touch-up paint on the outside of a car. Hmm. I think I can sum up the results with one word. Grounded.

3. I'm clumsy. Very clumsy. Besides my most recent accident (see my previous post), a great example of this would be that I actually twisted my ankle twice while sitting down. Yes, sitting down. I can't explain exactly how I did it, but I can tell you that while I was demonstrating to my husband how I did it, I did it again. Even he was perplexed at my amazing ability to hurt myself.

4. I have a terrible fear of flying. I'm awful on a plane. I refuse to fly without drugs. On more than one occasion I've had a flight attendant ask me if I was headed for a funeral because I was crying so hard. Since having children, I've worked a lot harder on this fear. I want them to know that I'm afraid and am still choosing to fly, but I don't want them to see me completely fall apart. After much research, hard work, and valium, I had my most successful trip last August!

5. I was a band geek. I played the flute and piccolo. What's funny is that my husband and I met in marching band in college. He played the trombone. If anyone's seen American Pie 2, you'll know how ironic that is. And this one time at band camp...

6. I have a horse, but he lives 3,000 miles away. My horse lives with my dad in Wyoming. He moved out there after my parents divorced when I was in college. That's probably the quirkiest thing of all. I don't know many people whose parents divorced when they were adults. I'm always the oddball in any group. For some reason I can't seem to follow the main stream.

7. I go into situations kicking and screaming, but make it through okay. Here are some examples: when I was growing up, my mom explained I would soon get a monthly visitor. I didn't like what I heard and so I declared that I was never going to get a period. Never. And to top it off, I would never suffer the pains of child birth. I would adopt. Net result: I've had a monthly visitor for many years now and I've given birth to two children. My husband says that things have to be my idea before I'll do them. It's a control thing. I am a big control freak (no wonder I hate flying). Even so, I'm just so glad I was able to think of 7 things, even if some of them are mediocre.

So, most of my "friends" aren't on LJ. I'll just tag anyone who reads this and has not been tagged yet!

It's been a while, but here I am. Still here. I owe my disappearance in part to the general busyness of life, and the other part to my clumsiness. Three days before Christmas I dropped a counter top on my foot. Yes, a counter top. I crushed the bones in three toes. It was painful, but even more than that it was frustrating. I have two small children, so depending on other people to take care of me and them was hard. But, in the grand scheme of things I can deal with some broken toes.

It was a week later when my whole perspective on things changed. As a result of the inury, being immobile, and being on BC, I developed a DVT (blood clot) in my leg. I'll save you the gory details of the ER visits and panic attacks (let's all hear it for Atavan!) and fearing my children would end up motherless (DVTs are life-threatening). The end result is I had to take a blood thinner for four months. It was very odd going about my daily business knowing I could bleed to death if I fell or were in an accident.

My recent ultrasound showed the clot was dissolved and I was taken off the medicine!!!! I can never take estrogen again, so I'm doing some research on other BC methods (so far the Mirena is my top choice). As for my toes, they are still healing, but are much better. They actually had me go to physical therapy for my toes. I had no idea there was anything that could help toes. There is. It did.

Life is great now. It feels so good to be free from all the medical crap. It was such a downer every time I had to go to the hospital for tests. Every night taking the medicine was just a reminder to me that my body could fail me any day, any time. Now I'm much more appreciative of my body and the life that I have. I am so blessed to be healthy! Now, if I could just get rid of my clumsiness then I could avoid these situations in the future. :)

Here's to health & happiness!

I must bid a fond farewell to this summer. It was a wonderful summer and I'll look back on it with lots of happy memories. Some of the stand-outs of the summer are my daughter turning 1, my son starting preschool, a quick beach trip, a wonderful two-week vacation in Wyoming, and Harry Potter mania.

But I'll also remember the simple things such as time spent walking while my son learned to ride his bike and all the personal changes I've made to help make this a better world. I made many trips to the grocery store by walking with my kids in the double stroller (no gas used!) and I've bought several reusable bags that I've been using on a somewhat regular basis to cut down on plastics. I've recently started buying Seventh Generation products as well. I know I'm just one person, but I feel that if I accomplish nothing else, perhaps I'll be a good role model for my children and others as well. I've gotten lots of comments on my bags and hopefully at least one person has decided to buy their own. (Chico bags are awesome...they can be found on amazon).

I've also recently started helping a Burma refugee family learn English. On one hand it's easy since I'm already helping my daughter learn words. I'm already used to speaking with slow simple sentences and repeating everything a dozen times. But there is an odd feeling when instead of the cute baby babble I'm used to hearing as my feedback, I hear them speak in Karin...are they making fun of me or admiring me for my wonderful teaching skills? I'll just go with the later for my dignity's sake.

Fall is in the air and with it the excitement of football (Go Heels!), Halloween, and sweaters. I hope all of you have had as wonderful of a summer as I have had.

Real Life has been amazingly full recently. My hubby took a new position in his company and he's had to spend a lot of extra time working while he learns the ins and outs of his job. And today is my son's 3rd birthday!!!! It's so bittersweet for me, but watching him grow up is one of the highlights of my life.

The little bit of free time that I've had I've devoted to reading. There hasn't been too much going on at Portkey, but I've been reading a intriguing new fic by adamanteve19 called Angelica. For books I've finished Voyager (my fav so far of the Gabaldon series) and New Moon (my fav of the Meyer series) and I'm working on The Good Book and Setting Limits with your Strong-Willed child (yes, my son is strong-willed).

I've also managed to continuing reading the New Testament, which is my goal for the year. I've completed the books of John, Acts, Romans, and am currently reading Luke. There is no method to my reading, I'm just picking books randomly and trying to read about a chapter a day.

That's about all for my oh-so-exciting life. But at least I do get cake today for my son's birthday! Yum!

Voyager. I'm flabbergasted. For those of you who have not read the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, you must. It is one of the most complicated, but well put together pieces of work that I've ever read. It's such a mixture of things that it could be categorized as sci-fi, romance, historical, action/adventure, and philosophical. I don't think I give too much away with the rest of this post, but be warned there may be tiny spoilers that won't make sense unless you've read some of the books.

How does she do it? How can one writer have such vast knowledge of so many subjects? I mean, I know writers do research for their books, but come on! This girl knows everything about different geographies, time periods, professions,...she knows what a ship sailing cross atlantic in the late 1700s should have been caring for provisions and how to catch fish with a pelican! And the way she writes leave room for little doubt that she actually does know what she's talking about. That's what really makes her characters seem real and the sensational story lines believable. Just when I think what more can happen...well.

But she also knows how to provoke strong emotions from me as well. From love and hatred to just plain disgust. I never wanted to know why the china man had a fettish for women's feet. I'm going to forget I read that part. I also didn't want to know how Jamie helped himself on long nights in a Scotish prison (with chains on). That was too much information!

It never ceases to amaze me the lack of foreplay and build-up those Scots forfeit during their sexual encounters. It looks like for the woman's sake she'd need a chance to prepare herself since there was obviously no KY back then.

Anyway, I'm getting better at paying attention to seemingly minor characters in anticipation of their showing up in a more prominent role at a later date.

I'll finish with that so far this is my favorite book of the series and it's so hard to put down. I'm 3/4 the way done and am sacrificing online time to finish it.

Cleo, get the next book in the series ready to loan to me. Voyager is going to be setting sail soon!

So I rented Bram Stoker's Dracula this week and watched it for the first time. It was really good and I must say that Gary Oldman was awesome. I can see how this movie prepared him for that crazy Azkaban look in POA!

The thing that kept throwing me off though was his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory look. I kept thinking, "that's Johnny Depp", whenever he was in the top hat and Lennon glasses! lol

I was surprised at how much of a love story it was (since I've never read the book) and the back story really interested me.

Any other vamp movies anyone would recommend to me? (I've seen Buffy but it's been so long I should probably re-rent it).

Here is the reading list for the rest of January if anyone is following along with me on reading the New Testament this year. For Bible recommendations, I have the New Living Translation and I must say it reads like a novel. Very helpful for someone like me who finds it a challenge to read the Bible.

Jan 8 - John 5:17-47
Jan 9 - John 6:1-21
Jan 10 - John 6:22-71
Jan 11 - John 7
Jan 12 - John 8:1-20
Jan 13/14 - John 8:31-59
Jan 15 - John 9
Jan 16 - John 10
Jan 17 - John 11:1-45
Jan 18 - John 11:46-12:19
Jan 19 - John 12:20-50
Jan 20/21 - John 13
Jan 22 - John 14
Jan 23 - John 15
Jan 24 - John 16
Jan 25 - John 17
Jan 26 - John 18
Jan 27/28 - John 19
Jan 29 - John 20
Jan 30 - John 21

Happy Reading!

I realized I forgot to post this yesterday, but if anyone else is interested in journeying with me to read the New Testament this year, below is this week's schedule.

Jan 1: John 1:1-34
Jan 2: John 1:35-51
Jan 3: John 2
Jan 4: John 3
Jan 5: John 4:1-42
Jan 6/7: John 4:43-5:16

Excuse me for a moment, but I just have to have a bitch session.

My insurance company (and we're on the best plan), does NOT cover an IUD for me. Not even a portion of the cost. Now, I thought that seemed ridiculous since the two hospital bills for my children (not to mention the cost of the maternity package) was well over $6,000 each.

But now I'm really ticked. My sweet cousin (I'm so happy for her by the way), is getting an IUD for FREE because the government is paying for it! Is it just me, or does this just seem weird. I am PAYING for insurance and can't get an IUD covered and for her the government is footing the bill.

Geez. Something is wrong with this picture. It almost makes me want to quit my job (if I had one).

Bitch session over. Go on about your day now knowing that I am still able to reproduce.

After a very brief exchange of thoughts with Midnites_Angel, I'm looking into starting a project that is near and dear to my heart. I haven't found any resources out there for people whose parents divorced during their adulthood, not their childhood. So, perhaps Midnite, Cleo, and I could tackle this.

I'd like to use this post as a discussion thread for anyone who would like to comment on their experiences or thoughts on this subject.

Quite a few times in the past I've set an unrealistic goal for myself in the coming new year to read the Bible. Well, this year I'm trying to set a more realistic goal. I want to read the New Testament this year. Perhaps next year I'll tackle the old testament.

If anyone wants to come on this journey with me, I'll be reading John in January and I can let you know more specifically what my daily schedule will look like.

This will be in addition to all the other fabulous books on my to-read list.

I've already started Voyager and silently curse profusely every time I have to put it down. :)

I just wanted to wish all my online friends out there a wonderful holiday season. I hope you get what you want this Christmas (JKR...we'd like Harry and Hermione to, uh, well...), but mostly I hope you find lots of happiness and peace in the coming year.

Thank you so much for your friendship, encouragement, support, and just allowing me to share my crazy, silly, creative side without too much embarassment!

And to all of my Jewish friends, I hope that instead of one day of presents, you have eight CRAZY nights!

Peace,
GG

Here is my attempt at a list of books I've read this year. I know I can't remember them all, so perhaps I'll have to edit this as they come to me. I don't think it's too shabby of a list considering I had a baby during the middle of the year.

Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon (Love this series, still have 4 books to read)
Books 4 & 5 in A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snickett (cute, quick reads)
The Chronicles of Narnia (drawing a blank on the first story, and also Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe) - C.S. Lewis
The Purpose Drive Life - Rick Warren
The Davinci Code - Dan Brown (LOVED it)
The Glass Castle - Jeanette Walls (EXCELLENT, a memoir)
What Happens When Women Walk In Faith - Lysa TerKeurst
The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama (very fresh, highly recommend it)
The World is Flat - Thomas Friedman (eye opening)
Twilight - Stephanie Meyers (most deliciously dark)
Forever Knight - delivermefromeve (best piece of fanfic I've ever read)
Butterfly - Kathryn Harvey (most excellent and wicked)
Stars - Kathryn Harvey (most excellent and wicked sequel)

I know I'm forgetting something. There's also been numerous fanfiction pieces and magazines thrown in there as well. All in all I don't think that 15 books is too bad a number (although I also seem to be drawn to the kids/young adult books). Anyway, I've already got on my list for this coming year: New Moon, Voyager, The Good Book, Dreams From My Father, An Inconvenient Truth, The Dark Materials Trilogy, Because of Winn Dixie, and of course, HP7!!!!

"Come on home, girl" he said with a smile
"I cast my spell of love on you a woman from a child!
But try to understand, try to understand
I'm a magic man!"

So I decided I needed to do an H/Hr update with some of my favorite fanfics and links to other sites.

My favorite H/Hr fanfics as of late have been: (all can be found on portkey.org)
Forever Knight - delivermefromeve
Hermione Full of Grace - delivermefromeve
Island Girl - delivermefromeve
Shadow Walks - lorien829
Resistance - lorien829
Fixing Harry - Lynney (she's disappeared and the story isn't finished)

I've been reading so many real books, that I haven't had time to start any new fanfic stories as of late.

My gap pals Cleo5990 and Midnites_Angel have great LJs with HP info.
http://cleo5990.livejournal.com
http://midnites_angel.com

Midnite regularly posts writing exercises for those of us trying to improve and she also has a blog that's very inspring at http://syncopationinc.blogspot.com/.

Of course I frequently check Anna's LJ (delivermefromeve) at http://adamanteve19.livejournal.com.

And I also go regularly to the Harmony Podcast website for the latest podcast news. www.harmonypodcast.com.

So, if you're wondering where I hang out on line, that pretty much covers it. Happy surfing and reading!

The title of this post is dedicated to my body. For the first time in a while since having two children I got a good look at my naked body in the mirror today. Well...at least I have a body. And for the most part if functions pretty well, too. No major complaints other than small signs of aging, some flab, and battle scars from my pregnancies. So, I guess it could be worse. Still, I think I'll avoid the mirror after my showers for a while.

I am only 2 pounds away from my pre-daughter weight. After that I've a ways to go before I get back to pre-son. Breastfeeding does help take the pounds off quicker. Let's all hear it for milk!

In other news my love of Miami Ink has been rubbing off (literally) on my son. He's being potty trained and so for doing the "Big Job" in the toilet he gets a (temporary) tattoo. After a couple of weeks of this he's now got two half-sleeves of spiders and dragons on his arm! He actually looks pretty tough. He'd give Ami a run for his money! ;)

BTW, my pal Midnites_Angel is posting writing exercises on her LJ site for anyone who is interested. I know I need all the help I can get. Her site is http://midnites_angel.livejournal.com.

Have a magical week!

Maybe it's the season, or the recent post in midnites_angel's blog, or even the weather, but we had a visitor recently that helped shift my perception, even if only temporarily.

I live in a small 3 bedroom house that is close to 22 years old. It's not a shack by any means, but lately it has felt cramped with me, Mr. GG, two kids, and a dog. It doesn't help that the people I usually surround myself with either have a bigger/newer house or are getting a bigger/newer house. So I'm used to seeing homes that are nicer than mine. It's hard because it makes you think - why can these people afford such nicer things or wow I wish I had all that extra space or I at least wish mine didn't still have the original carpeting upstairs!

But now I am once again content and GRATEFUL that I have my house, thanks to a visitor we had. This was her first visit to our home and she kept saying what a nice house we had. This meant a lot because I know of her situation. Not only has she had to move a lot in her short life, but the places she's lived have not been so nice, or clean, or safe. Suddenly, I was seeing my house through her eyes. How warm and friendly it felt, clean, safe. Each of our kids have their own bedroom. We have 2.5 baths so we don't have to wait to go to the bathroom. We have hot water, electricity, and heat. Everyone can go to a separate room if we get tired of each other.

It just goes to show you what a difference your experiences and perception makes. I'm so glad that I'm the kind of person who easily sees things as others might. When my visitor was here I initially felt guilty that I had this nice house and had even taken it for granted. But now I realize there is no reason to feel guilty. We work hard for the things we have. But I do feel GRATEFUL. And that's what was missing before.

So although my visitor may never see this entry, I do want to thank her for coming to my house. Her visit left a lasting impression on me.

This past weekend we had my daughter baptized. I rarely put her in a dress (I'm just not a frilly kind of person), but I bought a gorgeous dress for her and she looked so cute in it. It feels good knowing that I'm giving my children a foundation on which to grow spiritually. Ultimately the path they take is theirs, but having a church family while they are young is definitely beneficial.

We also took both kids with us to vote this year. I LOVE early voting. It only took 5 minutes and my son got a sticker that said "future voter". I want my kids to see me fulfill my civic duty, but I also didn't want to stand in line with both of them for 3 hours on election day. Thank goodness I didn't have to. It poured the rain on election day and I probably would have forgone the whole thing. Whoever decided to implement early voting here was using their noggin! Makes me want to knit them a hat! LOL

I'm almost finished with Barack Obama's new book, The Audacity of Hope. But, darn it, it's due back at the library today and I can't recheck it out because someone else is waiting for it. So, the last 3 chapters will have to wait for a few more weeks. In the meantime I've got Butterfly Stars and Voyager to keep me busy. ;)

Will's top iPod requests last week were Space Cowboys by J. Geils Band and Spiderweb by No Doubt. He asks for the "spider song". Unfortunately this week there were no iPod requests because I somehow managed to erase my entire iPod and Mr. GG has had the tedious task of finding all of my songs on our backup and putting them back on for me. This is the second time I've done this. I'm really not that incompetent. You'd think Apple would make it quite a bit harder to just delete the entire thing. Pooh.

Finally, I'm going to list the artist of the song lyrics of each entry under the Mood for each entry. The only one I can't do this for is the title of my LJ. So, 10 points for whoever guesses correctly....Are We Having Fun Yet are lyrics from the song This Is How You Remind Me by Nickelback. Ta Da.

Happy Thanksgiving!

then don't have kids. My bed stays annoyed at me for not showing it enough attention. And Daylight Savings is one of my least favorite days of the year. Try telling a 3 month old that it's too early to be awake!

Other than that things are going well. Business has picked up, so therefore my reading has slowed down. Halloween was a lot of fun this year and Will got to dress up 3 different times!

UNC Basketball starts their season tonight, so I'll have yet another obsession on my schedule. Go Heels!

Until next time...Happy November!