Okay so I realize that it's been a while since I've posted and I probably have absolutely no leg to stand on to complain but do you see the big ADVERTISEMENT at the top of this page?!? URGH. It used to be free to host the LJ here but now you either have to pay for your site OR they run big advertising headlines across the top ( Read more... )

Alright so last time it was Des Moines and now we're headed west - to Phoenix. Some highlights of my 'culinary adventure' in the Sun State:

Padre's: This place bills itself as 'modern Mexican' and it is fabulous. The lazy enchiladas are a tasty blend of cheeses wrapped in soft corn tortillas and smothered in a sweet'n'spicy green chile salsa. A ( Read more... )

You know, this is actually a really harsh reality for me. I’m one of those people - I tend to trust everybody. I help everybody. I do what I can for everybody. (Not to say I’m the best person; it’s just a habit, bred in me by my everything-to-everyone father ( Read more... )

It seems like it would be so easy. People that you talk to everyday, who have known you forever, or who should just plain know better - who seem to have developed a view of who you are that just doesn't make any sense. They say things about your personality, your dreams or your values that ring astonishingly false and you feel... angry ( Read more... )

Last week, a friend of my parents was diagnosed, quite suddenly, with Legionnaire's disease, a severe lung infection much like pneumonia ( Read more... )

This week, on my encouragement, my husband is taking a step towards a very large personal dream. I have done my best to push and prod at the right times, to give space and silence at others. I have worked hard to give him this opportunity and to listen to him talk about all the little nuances of it that I only half understand ( Read more... )

I miss dancing. I was never a really great dancer technically, but I just loved it. It was such an emotional release for me. I could put so much of myself and my feelings in the movement and I miss that outlet ( Read more... )

I have long been a person of very intense, very focused emotions. Perhaps one of the feelings I have the most experience with is that of being a disappointment. Of being less-than-expected. Of being different-than-desired. There have been many times in my life where I have not fulfilled someone else's dream of me, and they have been all too ( Read more... )

Last weekend my husband and I traveled down to Dallas to help my parents settle into their new house. We found ourselves building furniture for my brother's bedroom while my mother and her parent's looked on. At one point, after several pieces had been troublesome only to reveal themselves attached backwards, my husband was annoyed. I was no ( Read more... )

-- Winston Churchill, circa 1940 ( Read more... )