I was lying in bed this morning with a little cereal munching man. My little Dave Brian wakes up so early (6 a.m.!) and his bedroom door is sticking so he can't get out by himself...what does he do? He screams at the top of his lungs until someone comes to get him.

So here we are watching the morning news and weather - it's getting boring so I flick over to cmt and vh1 to see what's going on with some videos. VH1 had "we are the 80's" on. Well, you know, I'm all about that so I stay on that channel a while. Well who shows up but....

...Bryan Adams! Yes, it's my ex-husband! He's singing "Run To You" and I'm loving it. Never mind that I own this video collection - that's not important. It's that I can see it on t.v.!

Isn't it great how a video or song can transport you to another time and place? This was a great way to start the day.

If you don't know the story about Bryan being my ex-husband, I'll tell you some other time.

Well I made it home from Tennessee! Actually came home a day early due to weather and the fact that I had *done* all I wanted to/could do with two year olds!

It was wonderful there - very beautiful. It seemed like everywhere you drove there was a small river coming out of the mountains and spilling over rocks. Very peaceful.
I visited went to the aquarium and into the Smokey Mountains park several times. I even went to Dollywood and spent a morning riding up one of the mountains on a ski lift - that was adventure! Gorgeous views way up on top of the world (or so it seemed like we were on top of the world!)

All the food we had there was great (this is the South, you know).

Dave and Diana were absolutely fabulous on the ride down and back home (7 1/2 hours is a long time for 2 year olds!). So they were rewarded them with a new swing set! Yahoo! It has 3 swings (one for me!) and a big tower attached that has a slide, rock climbing stairs and a sandbox underneath the tower. They deserved it.
All in all it was a great week. This week my Godmother, Elaine, is coming to visit. Should be an adventure! I don't know what we'll get into - maybe just sit out on the deck and sun...

I have been busy packing for our trip to Tennessee later this week. I am excited to be getting away - not that any vacation is a real relaxation vacation with twins. However, I plan on spending our time enjoying them and how much fun they are. I will tell you all about my adventures when I return...promise!
Other than that it's been the usual around the Eastern Shore. Happily awaiting summer now that I have a new backyard fence. I have my cowboy hat on most days - retinol therapy, you know! - so I don't get too much sun on my face. It's nice to be able to sit and watch the kids instead of chase after them.

Just wanted to send along happy thoughts to you especially. I'll be back after vacation!

Okay so it's going to be 85 degrees outside today and I'm still playing on the computer!

The fence is up in the back yard now and the flowers are blooming beautifully in the front and back yards. It looks like we've lived here for a year or so already!

Here's a fun quiz. I enjoyed it anyway. Strange questions but then it's Wednesday in April with weird weather so it screams for something to do. Enjoy!



You are a descriptive writer. An avid reader of
Robert Frost, perhaps, you LOVE to use flowery
words and use the paper and pen as your canvas
and paintbrush. You prefer to paint a mental
image rather than simply toy around with
people's minds. A very inspired person, you
love to be in nature and usually are a very
outdoorsy type of person. A writer with a
natural green thumb, perhaps?


What's YOUR Writing Style?
brought to you by Quizilla

Where there is great love there are always miracles - Willa Cather

Today is a very special post. Why? Because yesterday I was given the special opportunity to talk to my Godmother, Elaine.

I lost contact with her when I was very young due to my family. She is really my cousin but I don't ever remember her as such. I remember her as this wonderful and beautiful presence in my life. I remember her always as a calm and loving person and always wished she was my real mother.

And you know what? She is. She is my Godmother. I don't know how she was chosen for this task but I know that it is as God intended it to be. I am so thankful she is a reality in my life now I can't stop thinking about her. I'm dreaming up and devising ways of seeing her! I just know that I feel so very loved by her. I always have even when she was absent in my life. I have my baptismal cross still to this day and many of you have seen it because I have worn it so much. Through that cross I know that Elaine has always been present with me.

"Each life experience leaves a layer of memory like a deposit of sediment: things weve loved and moments of contentment we've cherished that when recalled, reveal glimmmers of our true selves." Sarah Ban Breathnach

I am so sorry to have been away for so long! Gosh! What on earth could have kept me from writing...? Life perhaps?

Anyway my sister, Cindy, graced me with her presence last week. It was spring break...at least it seemed like it for me! We had a great time (I thought). I don't think her kids enjoyed themselves but hey, when are teenagers ever really impressed by anything?!

I have yet to finish the pictures I started. Too many, I supposed. I can't make up my mind if I should start at the beginning and then work my way back or just stick the stupid things in albums and forget about them! AAACCKK!!! I need advice - please feel free to email me with anything that you think I could use.

It seems like forever since I've posted something! I am sorry! I have been so involved with my version of spring cleaning...putting up baby clothes into space bags, re-arranging the furniture, getting the spare bedroom in order for my sister, Cindy's visit at the end of the month and re-arranging pictures into albums.

Whew! Just typing that makes me tired...

I finally saw "The Two Towers" on Sunday with Marg. It was such an awesome movie!!! As if I have to tell anyone...even if you don't know the story, you should go just to see the New Zealand countryside! Is this trilogy a tourism thing for that country too? Unbelievably breathtaking!

Oh, and as if I need to mention it, Aragorn is extra yummy in this flick. ROWR!! He's such a man's man. I do believe I'm feeling a little elvish...hee hee!

And Legolas was quite sweet to gaze upon in this movie too. He has certainly come into his own...rowr! I can hardly wait for the next movie - heck! - I can hardly wait to own the extended version of this one!!! Nothing like wishing my year away...

I just wanted to tell you I am around...busy doing the usual: chasing twins, cleaning up after them, shopping, reading....the list goes on and on.

When we ask for Light we see remarkably well.
We see with clarity.
And what we can see if we look deep within is that the authentic self is the soul made visable.
Sarah Ban Breathnach

I just wanted to stop in and tell everyone that yes, we have a lot of snow. Good thing we own a real tractor so we could get out of the lane! Seriously, I measured 17 inches of snowfall and that was where it didn't drift. It's ridiculous. It's pretty. The geese -Canadas and Snows- are crossing the fields in front of our house, looking for the pond and hopefully food. They are so pretty and although the Snows wreak havoc on the fields wherever they go, they are so pretty when they fly. They look like sparkling snowflakes falling into perfect formation on the ground.

We also went out and purchased some corn to feed the deer when they trek out of the woods behind us. The snow is so deep that won't be able to find food for at least a week of warmer weather.

We even spotted a bald eagle on the 15th of February. He circled our back yard and perched on the tree that the buzzard's usually hang out on. If you have never seen a live bald eagle in person you are missing something and need to see one soon. They are magnificent creatures - their wingspan alone is awesome! Luckily we have a spare pair of binoculars in the house so we could see him up close too. What a wonderful blessing he was.

For when you seek and follow the wants and whispers of Spirit, your good fortune in Life and Love is assured, here and now - Sarah Ban Breathnach

It takes great love and courage to excavate buried dreams. Today is the day set aside for love, a perfect occasion to call forth the dream you buried long ago with disbelief.
Sarah Ban Breathnach

Happy Valentine's Day - I wish everyone a beautiful day filled with happiness.

The greatest secret to living a happy and fulfilled life is realizing that everything is created in our minds before it manifests itself in the outer world. We must believe before we can see - Sarah Ban Breathnach

I have been tending to sick children this week and I am not so fortunate to have escaped the flu bug either. Rats!

So today is really the first day I got back on the computer and had around 70 emails to field. Who can work with all that busyness? I had to go through them too.

An interior is the natural projection of the soul - Coco Chanel

I was just admiring my bookcases in my office when I saw this quote.

I am so taken with the different grains in the wood - birch and pine. What a combination! Rustic and refined. They aren't stained just urethaned to show the wood's natural beauty. I like it like that. The desks are all pine. They are somewhat cluttered but I'm still working on the simplicity thing. I think better when there isn't anything to be picked up or put away.

"Every room in your home can tell a riveting tale about the extraordinary woman who graces it with her presence." Sarah Ban Breathnach.

I like that too. I would like to think that someday my children will sit in my home and wonder about their mother. What she thought of as she gazed upon those lovely book cases? Will they believe me to be extraordinary? I hope so.

Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever. - Isak Dinesen

It's very cold here. I just got off the phone with my sister, Cindy. She's going through a difficult time and neither one of us can really understand what the lesson is and why she continues to have these struggles.
Do you ever feel like no matter which way you turn everything and everyone is against you? I've been there. Sinking under the surface, trying to tread water to just keep your head up. Maybe not as bad as others have had it but I too have had many lessons. Some I've learned from and some I'm still having to get beat into my head.
All I know is that there is a beautiful life going on around me and we deserve a big chunk of it. The time will come for all of us , my time, so will Cindy's, and so will yours.

Sarah Ban Breathnach says you can't stop waiting for life to become perfect. You have to work with what you have right now to make it as satisfying as you can. Accept where you are, bless it, give thanks to God and get going. Procrastination has robbed us of too many precious opportunities. Today we can move from lack to abundance. Even in this cold, dreary season we can have abundance. But we have to seek it first.


The first steps in the journey are always the most difficult to take.

"Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that we become rich" - Sarah Bernhardt

We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become. - Ursula K. Le Gruin

So I am trying to get in a short post today. I have actually been working today. Can you believe it? I purchased these very cool file storage boxes at Walmart and I am freeing myself of these horrible filing cabinets that take up too much space.
I'm trying to get into simplicity here. Hang with me awhile. So I spent the morning doing new tabs and inserting them onto the hanging folders. Is there anything more tedious than that? Well I am slowly putting in the clutter that has accumulated (you know, you have it too!). I found this fabulous birthday card from my Grandma Wilson. Well, she was actually my ex's grandmother but she loved me just like I was her own.
So the text was beautiful and at the end she put "Do take care love xxxxx Sandra" More xxx's then her signature. How precious is that?! I don't recall my real grandmother ever being so sweet and loving. What a shame that this precious person passed away. I miss her so for she loved me so unconditionally. I'm sorry my children will never know her and this great capacity she had for love. God Bless you Gramma Wilson.

I was trying to read "The Hobbit". Very difficult - strange style of writing that Tolkien had.
Anyway, I left it on my bedside table and decided to check out "The Lord of the Rings" instead. Much better and simpler to read. It better be for over 1000 pages!!!
Someone must have told Tolkien his writing style in the Hobbit sucked or something. The story is off to a much better start.

I was told I must be insane to be for reading a book this size.
No offense to the snarky comment maker but most of the time I would rather be reading a great book. And if this book reads anything like the movies play then I'll be through it in no time. Unfortunately I have lots to do with year end things and I do have to spend precious time with my little ones so I'm not able to devote a lazy afternoon to reading as I would like.

Okay. So I just read "The Two Towers" review and it sounds rather fabulous! I, of course, will not see it while it's in the theatres. I'm the mother of twins and it is difficult for me to find someone who will enjoy all this fantasy/lore. So I will wait patiently for it to arrive on DVD and snatch it up! Of course too, I will wait for the extended version, like a good fan. You know there will be one....

Which brings me to this thought. I finally watched the Lord of the Rings extended version. Finally!!! I do have twins (see above).
Did anyone else find the "secret scene" at the council of Elrond or was it just me? It was too much! If not, go back and look through your first DVD to catch it. It's in there if you have the extended version.



Who is your Ideal Lord of the Rings (male) Mate?
brought to you by Quizilla

"It is inevitable when one has a great need of something, one finds it. What you need you attract like a lover." - Gertrude Stein

I was reading for probably the 3rd or 4th time the book "Simple Abundance" by Sarah Ban Breathnach. If you have never read this book I highly recommend it. It is a daybook, meaning it is written with only a small passage for each day of the year.

Sarah says that it is only after we acknowledge our inner needs that we can harness the creative energy necessary to manifest them in our lives.

"Happiness is not a possession to be prized. It is a quality of thought, a state of mind". - Daphne Du Maurier.

Happiness is an inner need. Something we crave yet sometimes can't put our fingers on it.
Sarah says that happiness the world can't take away only flourishes in the secret garden of our souls. By tending to this inner garden and uprooting the weeds of external expectations, we can nurture our authentic happiness. Happiness is a living emotion.

What awesome thoughts for today.

Okay so we haven't even touched on Princess Diana yet. I was just browsing at the Althorp site and it reminded me. The site is pretty nice. I have purchased a few items from their store and all of them were great quality. The information is great.

However, I do think her brother, Charles, is hawking the family name/estate. But he is not doing anything that anyone else who had contact with Diana hasn't already done and will continue to do.

I just read that James Hewitt is "not beyond selling" his private letters from Diana. Money is the root of all evil. Truly.

Lady Diana Frances Spencer - She was a kindred spirit to me and many others.

My daughter is named, Diana Frances, after her. That was the best way I could show her honor. She touched my life. I gave my daughter her name because during her life, Diana desperately wanted a little girl. I hope she sees my little girl from where she is. That's why I call my daughter "Princess".
I have spoken to various people who felt more sorrow at her death than at the death of their real loved ones. Shocking yes. But she was such a real person in the spotlight. Everyone could relate to her; she may have been dressed in Chanel suits and carrying Louis Vuitton bags but she too felt like us; unloved by the one she desired, she had a poor self esteem, she had bad days too. I think that's why she was so real to so many. She was our friend and sister.
I miss her.