randomly chaotic and frequently mundane

Like a lot of people, I love candles. I also think that a nice candle or a pretty candle holder makes a nice gift for anyone who’s fond of candles. It’s always good to know a little something of the persons tastes, of course, but they do make good gifts. Personally, I think some of the candle holders at WroughtIronHaven.com are absolutely gorgeous. Like this one, the ivy is just so pretty.? They have table top holders as well, of course, and holders for more than just votives — actually, they’ve got holders for just about every kind of candle you could buy, even jar candles.? Personally, I’m a very big fan of wrought iron candle holders.? I think they add something really special to the ambiance of a room.? I love the way that the light from a candle casts onto them, the way that shadows dance on them.

Even better,? WroughtIronHaven.com? has a secret back door on their website that leads to a discount, which I happen to know.? Just visit their main page and find the sentence that reads “Our Store now has over 1,300 home & garden items for you to choose from!” You’ll find it about halfway down.? Click on the comma and it’ll take you to the secret wrought iron garden gate (backdoor) and you’ll get yourself a nice discount, perfect for your holiday shopping.? Or why use it for holiday shopping?? Use it to buy yourself something pretty for Christmas.? Don’t you deserve a nice gift after all your hard work?

I have tremendous support for the US troops in serving in Iraq. It’s heartbreaking everytime I read about more deaths over there. For a couple of years, some friends and I sent care packages to some Marines while they were deployed out there, and it felt really good to know that we were doing something for them. I haven’t been able to do much lately, haven’t been able to afford it. I’ve sent a couple of letters, but that’s about it. It truly warms my heart to see other people doing things to show their support for the troops. Apparently, The Gallery Collection, a company that does Business Holiday Cards, recently donated cards that say Happy Holidays and Thanks to be sent to the troops in Iraq this holiday season. They also donated blank cards and elvelopes to Troops to Write Home, to be included in Soldiers’ Angels packages this Christmas. I love Soldiers Angels, if I have the money this Christmas, I hope to donate a little bit to them. If I were a business person, I’d use The Gallery Collection to send out cards to business associates — why not give a little back to a company that gives so kindly, you know?

When I was a kid, my parents did a lot of country dancing. Not line dancing, two steppin’ mostly. I remember watching them get ready, absolutely in love with the clothes. They always wore denim pants and skirts, mostly pants. My dad would wear those plaid western shirts with the mother of pearl over the snaps. My mom was more likely to wear a t-shirt, she didn’t like the way those western shirts looked on her. The hats were a thing of beauty, they had those feathered bands with a spray of feathers on the front. I would hold my mom’s hat and pet the band while they got ready. My favorite part though was the Cowboy Boots. I’ve had a thing for boots all my life, and cowboy boots are no exception. There’s something about the style of a nice pair of western boots that is really appealing. I remember when I was a kid, when I got my first pair for Christmas. I was in 2nd grade. They were brown and black leather and I was so happy. I put them on as soon as I opened the box. I must have looked funny running around in a nightgown with cowboy boots on all morning on Christmas. it was one heck of a good Christmas morning, that’s for sure. Of course they make great gifts for adults, too.

Yes, that is a picture of an elbow.? My left elbow, to be specific. Doesn’t look quite right, does it? The first doctor I saw about it said that it was “misplaced,” when I saw the second doctor he asked where I left it and said that it was dislocated, but had never been repaired. It happened when I was 5 years old. We noticed that something was wrong when I was 10 years old. You might ask how I managed to go 5 years without noticing that my elbow had been dislocated — it’s a reasonable question, I get it all the time. Actually, it didn’t hurt. It just popped. You know how your joints do every now and then? Yeah, it was like that. There was no pain, just a pop. My cousin Willie and I were playing a fun little game, where you twist someone’s arm behind their back and they have to try to get out of that “hold.” This particular incident, I was the twistee and he was the twister. I thought I’d be slick and just straighten out my arm, which is when it popped. We discovered that there was an issue when I went in for a regular check up and the nurse was trying to take my blood pressure. My forearm wouldn’t rotate so that my wrist was turned up. As a matter of fact, it only has about half the rotation that my other (normal) arm has.

The worst part is that the bones rub together. There’s no cartilige in between, so it can get painful. Anytime it’s wet out it aches tremendously, and if I use my arm too much it can get excrutiating. Have I mentioned that I’m left handed? That’s why I consider the day I got some Freeze It Gel samples to be a great day in elbow history. It’s the only thing I’ve ever used on this elbow that actually took the pain away. Not only that, but it takes the pain away FAST, and when you’ve got a 5 year old who constantly wants to be lifted, thrown in the air, etc., fast is a blessing! Can you say love? Cause I love this stuff. It’s good for more than just my elbow, too. I tend to have a lot of back pain because of the child lifting, among other things and it takes that away faster than you can say “chiropractor.”? Winning a years supply of Freeze It would make me so happy.? Especially since we get a lot of snow in the winter and that just kills me.? The aching and the throbbing and that “oh I’m just not going to move my arm for the winter” feeling would go away, and that would be such a blessing.? Last winter, I endured a lot pain to play with Gage in the snow.? It’d be nice not to have to contend with that pain this winter and be able to just enjoy the fun.

When I was a little girl, I had a love affair with Daybeds. I thought they were so cool, so pretty and I wanted one desperately. Even now I think that they’re perfect for guest rooms and for little girls bedrooms. Especially when the room is designed for a little princess. Even though I was a tomboy, there were a few girly things I liked. Unfortunately, with all of the moving around that we did and the fact that I had to share a bed with my little sister meant that it just wasn’t possible to have something so nice. I’m looking at the daybeds available on Home-and-Bedroom.com and falling in love all over again. Some of them are gorgeous. Someday, I’d like to have a daybed in a guestroom or something. Or maybe have a bedroom large enough to have one in there in addition to the bed I sleep in. A nice comfortable place to stretch out and read or do a little cross stitch.? The site is pretty interesting, too.? There’s a nice selection of furniture on the website, good prices too (most of the daybeds are under $300).? Add to that, no sales tax and free shipping and it’s a? heck of a? good deal.?

I worked for a little over 5 years for an investment firm. I started out as a secretary, then I transferred to a new branch and did all of the back office stuff: wire operator, cashier, new accounts along with doing the office secretarial work and making sure that all of the files were in compliance. There were a number of times that I considered studying and taking the Series 7 exam. I even asked once if the fees would be covered or if the process would even be supported by the branch. Unfortunately, I was told that I was told that because I wasn’t a college graduate, the branch wouldn’t support the idea of me taking the exam. It was disappointing. I even got a call recently, based on my resume, from a company that’s opening a new branch in the Denver area and was looking for people to take the Series 7 and work in the office and build up a book as a broker. If I’d had a car, or other means of reliable transportatioin, I would have jumped on the opportunity.

Several years ago, some friends and I were talking about taking a trip. We never got past the discussing phase, never entered the planning phase and of course never took the trip. I’d love to be able to take that trip sometime. The goal was to get some good gear for camping, including tents, backpacks, warm North Face jackets since even in summertime it can get pretty cold at night and then take a camping/canoeing trip. Pack some very basic vegetables (potatoes, onions, etc), seasonings, some meat/jerky, but rely on fishing for most of our protein. There are some places in Pennsylvania that they’d found where you drop off your car, get transported up river however far you want to go and then canoe back to your car at your own pace, stopping to camp wherever you feel like making camp. We’d talked about doing something like that and taking 3 or 4 days. At one point we talked about bringing no meat whatsoever, but pack a few MREs just in case. Now that I’m in Colorado, I think it would be more fun to do it here than in Pennsylvania. Find a place to go camping up in the mountains. I have to admit that the idea is very appealing to me. Catch some fresh fish, cook it over a fire and have it with some nice fire roasted potatoes. Sleep under the stars, in the crisp night air, surrounded by nature. Conversation with good friends around a camp fire.

I a package in the mail today. It was a package of product samples from Vat19.com through PayPerPost. Got some cool holiday stuff in the package, too. An ambient fire DVD that’s 3 hours long. Me and Gage can celebrate Christmas this year by having hot chocolate by the fire on Christmas Eve. That’ll be cute, no? I also got some Insta Snow Powder — I haven’t tried that yet. Gonna give it a go tomorrow and if we like it we’ll order some for Christmas. I think the coolest thing I got (so far, since I haven’t tried the snow) was the Smencil. It’s a gourmet scented pencil. Mine’s bubblegum flavored, but they also carry Chocolate, Orange, Cherry, Cotton Candy, Grape, Watermelon, Popcorn, Root beer and Very Berry. What I think is especially cool about the Smencil is that it’s made with recycled newspaper. Looking at the pencil, you can see that it’s definitely made of newspaper — very cool, and green! Gage loves the pencil, too. Checking out their site, they’ve got a lot of different items that are very cool and unusual; Conceal Floating Bookshelves, flying alarm clocks, floppy disk journals and a whole lot of cool. Great stocking stuffers and interesting Christmas gifts.

Looking for love in all the wrong dumpsters? These days it’s easy to search for a relationship without doing the bar scene what with all of the Dating Services available online. The problem is knowing which one to use. There are so many, after all. That’s why there are sites like PrimeDatingSites.com to help you sort through it all. They provide reviews of various online dating sites to help you decide which one is right for you. It’s definitely a helpful website, although I’d like it more if there was more information on fees (if there are any) that the sites charge. After all, cost is often a factor in these decisions. Maybe a side by side comparison of the features and fees, but the review information is quite good, and helpful.

I’ve never had much luck dentally speaking. I had 6 cavities on my first trip to the dentist (I was 8 or 9, I think). They weren’t too bad, but one of them was one of those big jobs. Unfortunately, by the time I was 14 the filling fell out completely. That wasn’t fun, especially when it started hurting really badly. Turns out it needed a root canal from the beginning, not just a filling. So I get the root canal. Here’s where it gets interesting, the root canal and the final capping of the tooth were scheduled 2 weeks apart, I don’t know why. In the two weeks between those two appointments, there was an earthquake. A big one. The “great quake of ‘89″ as a matter of fact. Remember that bridge that had one section collapse? We lived on one side of that bridge, the dentist was on the other side. My mom didn’t know how to get me to the dentist, except to drive over the bridge that was temporarily out of service, so my tooth didn’t get capped. A few months later, the “filling” they put in after the root canal fell out and about 10 feet of cotton came out of it. It’s never been fixed. Eventually, I look forward to signing up for one of the many discount dental plans out there and getting it taken care of, along with the 1 or 2 other issues I have. It would be nice to be able to talk to a dentist and find out what should be done about the wisdom teeth that won’t come in, too. Particularly those times when my gums open up a little and I can feel them right there, just not wanting to come in. So when the time comes I’ll check out DentalPlans.com and see which plan is the best option for me. Which one has the best annual rate and the best discount on dental visits.