I'm going to hire a wino to decorate our home, so you will feel more at ease here, and you won't need to roam.

I have been daydreaming about where to start on decorating this house. My friend, Jean has already stated about her desire to help, which is cool, but I am afraid that my new house will tend to look a little junked up if I employ her services. I love Jeanie to death but honestly there is no telling what treasures she will show up with. Jean is one serious dumpster diving mama. Did I mention I would be living around the corner from her? I almost dread opening my front door and there stands one of my best friends with a box of garbage salvaged from a blueblood residence in River Oaks.

My mother reminded me about some of my past decorating flops on Monday when we went to visit her and exchange presents. She showed me some pictures of my room when I was a teenager, when I was doing strange things like hanging coasters on the walls and turning on the multi-colored head shop fiber optic spinning lamp that looked a lot like Tina Turner’s wig from the “Private Dancer” album cover. Those were the days when I was craving a hot pink bathroom with Mustang hubcaps. If memory serves me right, that was when I was dressing like a priest and known at high school simply as “crazy girl” like I was hanging out at the greyhound station talking to myself or something.

I bet my Mother wished she had a normal teenager daughter who loved pastels and wore those stupid crocheted lace collars that seemed to be in young ladies fashion, instead of that adolescent anomaly that lived in the nightmare room, which occasionally doubled as an experimental laboratory. There were hairy spiders living in jars, not to mention one poor crippled pigeon and a baby squirrel that I had hid in my closet in attempt to nurse them back to health.

I am sure that I worried her with the rainbow of temporary hair highlighters that I was using during my formative years. That stuff was cool. It was a tube and a brush figuration like mascara. I could highlight whatever I wanted and leave it like that OR brush it through and have an overall totally different color hair for the day. That stuff washed out like a dream too. Back then I was even loving those crazy wig store clothes and would sneak off on Saturday afternoons and walk miles to visit those fun places. I was a mess.

Now things have come full circle, I am an adult now. I can really have my own space to have my will and I still love the bizarre. My mother now wishes to bestow me with her dining room furniture with huge china hutch filled with the conservative and stately Lenox "Eternal" pattern, which is nice but that stuff certainly is a bit elegant and tasteful, and I am not. I was kind of hoping that my home not be furnished with green crushed velvet chairs shaped like high-heel shoes. Maybe even something normal with unique conversation pieces? Is there a future for handmade furniture from prison my new abode? I’m not even sure of this any of this myself!

When the night time has fallen and the roaches are crawlin'. In the kitchen of danger you can feel like a stranger.

I just know that the world is anxious to view a picture of my future roomy ass eat-in kitchen with it's grand island! All the major appliances stay, including the refrigerator. YAY! I can't wait to move in, hang my pots in there, plug in my water cooler and do some serious cooking. Look at all those cabinets I get to fill up! If one looks to the left of the fridge, one will see a door. Inside there is a small pantry, which means even more storage space. :) However, I am having a problem with making a decision whether as to put some stools at that island to make this kitchen even more useful or just decorate that big plain side of the island to make things visually appealing.

Our house is a very, very fine house...

Well folks, here it is, our house! Our months of looking and haggling are over. We sign the papers and move into the love shack in February. It's even got moss hanging from the trees in the yard. Yipee!!!! Hooray!!!

You hung my wings upon your horns and turned my halo into thorns.

Today is all about Loretta Lynn. I love her material. I know she’s a little old school, but what a celebration of sassy she truly was. Trust me, there was not any other ladies out there during her time showing up on television singing declarations, that herself, her body, the baby factory was closing down thanks to the friendly neighborhood gynecologist.

For some reason, her duet with Conway Twitty, “You’re the reason our kids are ugly” is speaking multiple volumes to me this morning. Loretty went ahead with all her thunder during her prime. She proclaimed her independence with a feisty attitude freeing the minds of countless rural housewives everywhere in the 60s and early 70s. Those poor dear hens did not have access to Valium, like their suburban counterparts.

She also did an artistic compilation with Jack White of the White Stripes a couple of years ago titled “Van Lear Rose”. This CD is a very good time. At first, my opinion of that venture was not favorable, but now it moves and grooves me. Thank you both for coming together and opening my eyes.

FYI: The title of todays entry are lyrics from the Loretta Lynn song " Saint to a Sinner". It confesses her feelings of losing her virginity at a young age being that she got married when she was thirteen. I find this honesty very compelling.

This morning I have decided that I need to implement soymilk into my nutritional regiment. I do not care about being a guinea pig in this venture. I want to immediately find an unflavored soymilk out there with the taste and consistency of skim milk. I want this explore this soymilk thing with cereal. I would prefer something without a strong bean taste, no chalky texture and smooth or perhaps even a bit watered down. Color is not really a problem. If I can drink juice containing green food, I believe that I can handle the stigma of beige or even khaki milk. I hear that all soymilks are not created equally, and I am not interested in potentially wasting money on trying many different brands. HELP!

On the other hand, I am willing to try cooking using vanilla soymilk with appropriate baked item, whether for power bars, cakes or other dessert calling for milk and vanilla. Any suggestions to satisfy either of my quests are welcome.

And if I could move I'd get my gun and put her in the ground. Oh Ruby, for god's sake turn around.

This is a picture of the "gateway of the west" that I found on hubby's cell phone that he had taken while he was on the boat while obviously riding through St. Louis. I sent it from his phone to my email address. Honestly, I wasn't expecting this good of a quality. I am pretty impressed, given that this picture was taken from a moving vessell and at night. I may actually get a camera phone so I can easily take pictures of all kinds of local weirdness in a conveinent fashion. I do not always carry my digicam around and it has quite an appetite for eating batteries, so this is a promising photographic option for the blog.

Hubby is wanting to get me a new cell phone for Christmas. I was leaning towards a blackberry, but I have heard some pretty negative things about them. So, camphone is looking more like a reality. I have never really cared about owning a phone capable of taking pictures before, but now that I have seen that the picture quality is not absolutely horrible, I am somewhat intrigued.

This weekend I was blown away by small town charm. I volunteered to take one of my mother-in-law's neighbor's teenage children to a church in a nearby town. After I got her to her destination, I decided I might would like to see what else this town had to offer by locating a grocery store to purchase some dried fruit. I followed an arrow pointing out the route "To Greenwood Business District". I thought that sounded promising since I was wanting to do just that, conduct business. The route took me straight up downtown along some bumpy brick streets. As picturesque as all that was I was pretty helpless in the supermarket department.

I did manage to find a couple of supermarkets across one across the street from the either, Sav-A-Lot and Piggly-Wiggly. Given my experience at my local Sav-A-Lot, I opted for the Piggy Wiggy which was located at the fabulous "Greenwood Mall" which was really nothing more than this grocery store and an adjacent JC Penney in the same building. There was no indoor foyer featuring a neighborhood of stores like what I picture at a regular mall. Nor do I picture a supermarket at the mall, but at this point I didn't really care. After perusing the ailses of this tiny grocery store, I managed to find some "dried fruits", which turned out to be baggy of prunes and headed to the checkout. Upon adding up my purchase, the cashier asked me if I collected coupons. I told her sure thinking I was to recieve a coupon book of in-store savings. The cashier proceded in dialing up some GREEN STAMPS on some ancient box thingy and gave them to me along with my receipt! Christ, I haven't seen green stamps in about 20 years! I never knew anywhere could be so behind the times. There was no savings card program, which I think those are a bit facsist anyway, but GREEN STAMPS! I believe that this Piggly Wiggly just might be speaking the ancient language of my grandmother.

Too long ago, too far apart. She couldn't wait another day for the captain of her heart.

Hubby made it home early enough Wednesday night; as to enjoy a home cooked meal. I was cooking a meatloaf and attempting that scalloped potato hot dish idea, (which tasted ok, but looked like vomit) when I saw a pair of headlights heading up the driveway. I finished cleaning up and heard the door open. I was so happy and had a big ole kiss on my lips when I went into the living room and found one of my aunts from Shreveport standing in my living room, not my husband. I accidentally blurted out “Oh, it’s just Beverly.” from the disappointment.

I felt so bad for the way it came out, because it sounded so rude. I apologized and explained to her that David was on his way home and she understood. Her ex-husband had worked in Abu Dhabi for years. He would be away for a month and home for a month, so, she has walked in the shoes of total anticipation of the minute when husbands get home. About 20 minutes later, my husband did get home, just in time for meatloaf, barfy-looking potatoes and cream corn.


We went and looked at another house last night. A couple of pics of that place are atop this entry. Our realtor and my longtime friend, Lily, the lean mean Argentinean real estate machine met us there and opened the house up. I know she is getting tired of showing us houses. I like looking at vacant houses better than occupied ones. I always feel like I am pilfering at an occupied domicile, when I do something like open a cabinet door to check out the condition of the plumbing and the homeowner’s liquor is staring back at me. Why is there always a bottle of Malibu under the sink?



This house was an older one, but had been recently renovated. The mailing address and physical location of this house are conflicting, that’s weird, but I kind of like the fact that nobody could find my residence, by simply counting houses. Mapquest results are a fluke, placing the address at a trailer park, where I would not be residing. Come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing a roadside mailbox either (evil grin, heh heh, no bills!). Chances are that mailboxes get the baseball bat treatment out there anyway.

Hubby wants to get a better look at the wiring and I need to make a FIRMette for flood zone information. It is a cute house with a bathroom that Stephanie can easily get in and out, without STUPID glass doors on the bathtub! The kitchen has been totally remodeled with new appliances, but there is no dishwasher. This house has a new roof, new water heater, new flooring with exception of the carpet in the living room that is in relatively good shape, new septic tank, etc. on 2.5 acres! The price is so right. I hope we are able to find a decent house that is properly insulated and that is not a freaking fire hazard. We do not want to live a former snake farm, which we have had the pleasure of viewing. We wish to find a home that is neither on the verge of falling apart nor going underwater. A general lack of neighbors would be a definite plus. We want so much, but our needs are really so simple. We just expect to get what we intend to pay for. What is so unbelievable, most folks want to sell a dump for a mild fortune.

I spent last weekend watching a marathon of a show where people were buying million dollar houses and putting another quarter million dollars in them to fix them up the way they wanted them. That concept seems so insane to me.