bugs, rainy days, and cookies?...

yesterday on the way down to the house in enfield, we stopped at the coos county extention office....i had a weird bug i wanted identified....there have been many of these bugs hanging out around my house and some other houses and places i've been lately, and i finally caugt one and took it out to be identified...it's a western conifer seed bug...relatively harmless, i think...but it's amazing how many of them i've seen this year.... this is what they look like, although the coloration has been known to vary slightly...you can google image them and see what i mean...some have more brown than this one here...

they're harmless, just kind of a annoyance for those folks who aren't overly fond of bugs...they're classified as stink bugs, as i learned from this website here...(it's also where i got the image...)

of course, the county extention office is also home of the county's 4H operations...usually the first (or second??) week in october is their yearly fundraising endavor...this equals sales of cookies and candy bars...

cookies and candy bars that don't get sold apparently get returned to the county office....i happened to notice some yesterday, and got very excited because the lady at the extention office told me i could buy some if i wanted....

the selection wasn't the greatest, but they had my favourite and my mom's favourite, so really, that's all that mattered... :-)

also, i bought a few of the candy bars, too....

i miss 4H...i was a member of it for ten plus years, starting before i could really be considered a "cloverbud" ... maybe when things settle down in my life some, i'll consider being a 4H leader...

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yesterday it rained almost all day...the whole trip to enfield was rainy...some parts were terribly windy as well...and during some parts of the trip, the visibility was so poor that i really had to strain my eyes to see much beyond the front of the vehicle...

what is usually a 2 to 2 & 1/2 hour trip took almost 4 hours...i was so glad to get to the house in enfield, and to be safe, warm, and dry....

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today is the fall family gathering...my brother joe will be here with his (grand)son, joshua...who is just the most beautiful little boy, and who i absolutely adore...joshua's mother passed away after a long battle with cancer, and so joe & ruth (my sister in law) adopted him...he's a great kid, and i love him so much...i'll try and get a few pictures of him on here one of these days...

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today before the gathering, i need to run out to west lebanon and grab a few things at borders...(is there such thing as a "quick stop" at borders?...today there will have to be....) i need to get a new copy of anne lamont's "traveling mercies" ... i seem to have misplaced (or maybe loaned out??) my copy, so i need another one...

i also need to see if they have a few books that i've been looking for...the phantom tollbooth for one...mayra hornbacher's "wasted" with the PS, because i'd really like to know what happened after the book was published....and apparently she wrote a novel called "the center of winter" which seems like it may be good reading....

i also think i'd like to get the DVD of a prairie home companion, but it's slightly possible that wal-mart carries it and may have it for a little less....

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anyways, i should go....i've gotta get ready to head out to west lebanon and then mom & i are cruising down to springfield to get my brother joe & josh....ruth has the car for work, and joe would like to come today, so we're gonna go get the two of them...

aww, joe has this awesome dog named shasta....she is a chocolate lab and she's almost constantly smiling...she just loves life...it'll be nice to see her again...

she's the only dog we've had in my house that didn't get in a fight with my cat, sox...sox wanted to let shasta know she wasn't welcome...shasta just ignored her...for a whole week (we dog sat when joe & ruth went on their honeymoon...) ... it was great!!...sox would growl, and hiss, and make all these sounds...and shasta would just look at her like "what are you complaining about?..." but then she decided to just ignore the cat all together...sox eventually learned that shasta wasn't going to hurt her, and that she just had to accept the fact that shasta was there....

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have a super day, everyone!!

-ramona anne

one good thing that happened today: well, it's too early to really tell, but i know i'm gonna love the gathering...these things are so important to me...i greatly value my extended family....

it's a small world...

last week i talked about having a "small world" story to share...i guess it's about time i shared it...

last week, after home group, a few people were talking, and there's this one lady who is "new-ish" to the area...she was talking to one of the other ladies from church and she mentioned something about "well, i went to the cambridge vineyard before it was THE cambridge vineyard..."

my ears perked up...i said "cambridge mass?..." and she says to me "yeah...cambridge mass..."

i said to her "i know that's probably a big church, but do you happen to know a guy named tigre?...or ti ti?..." she said "yeah, i knew a ti ti...we used to do street ministry together..." i said "he's tall, slender, and he's got nice long dark hair?..." she said "yeah...that's the ti ti i know..."

i squealed and was SOOO excited....

it's funny, i had been thinking of ti ti for a couple of week, wondering what was up with him...(i even asked on an online email discussion list if anyone knew his contact info, and ti ti himself replied, which was great!...) ....

but, anyways, this friend of mine knew ti ti and then she said "wait...how do you know him?..." and i told her "through an email discussion list...and we've met a few times in person..."

it was really cool, though....

she said "if he only knew where i was living now, he would probably be very shocked...i was like the urban goddess, and now here i am in the middle of northern, nh with moose for visitors...."

but, yeah, it was a pretty cool thing...

and ti ti -- if you're reading this... moria says hi... :-D

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my plans for today are to finish packing and get ready to head to enfield for the weekend...this time for a family gathering...(i was down there last weekend for classes) ... i'm kind of excited about that, i really do enjoy the family gatherings...

so i'm actually going to go do said packing and finish getting ready....i'm not sure if i'll blog much this weekend, but i'll try...

i'll certainly resume after the weekend... :-)

one good thing that happened today: i got an awesome comment from warren, who really seems to get it... (thanks, warren!) ...of course, he listens to mark heard, so he WOULD get it...

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have a great weekend, everyone!!

-ramona anne

why i blog what i do...(and don't!)

well, my last post earned a couple of comments, which is cool...and now to address said comments...

i realize this is a "personal blog" ... and i suppose i could make it better by posting about politics, economics and the like...but the truth is, i don't generally discuss those things in my normal every day life...

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and to focus my posts on one specific thing feels almost too limiting to me in a way...

if i were to just write all the time about a specific topic (sports, politics, what have you) then i would certainly feel like only a small part of me would be shown...only one side...and i might eventually feel like iw as shallow or something...

there are so many things in life that just absolutely blow me away...i can find the most ordinary things to also be the most inspirational ...

maybe eventually my blog will take on a bit more of a "themed entry" type of format...maybe i'll make one day of the week special for just sharing a song i like, or something along those lines...maybe i'll make one day a week "share a photo" day....and maybe one day a week could be "bird day" or something...i guess that would make my blog be a little more "focused" in a sense...

so, to the two folks who left comments (thank you!!) what do you think of that idea?...it's still showing/sharing a little bit of my interests, but it's also giving them a certain day to shine, so to speak...

what do some of my other readers think about this idea?...

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i'm a simple person, for the most part...really...i have a part time job and i'm going back to college...i live in northern new hampshire where we have four seasons...i live in a town of 300-something people...the population density is something like 6.2 people per square mile...i love living here...

i'm really not as "informed" as i should be as a "good citizen" ... but things really are different around where i live....it truly is a different way of life...

so, maybe that's part of the reason i stay away from some certain topics in my blog posts...

my "world" is much different than that of probably many of the readers out there...

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anyways, i guess that might be about all for now...

happy thursday everyone,
-ramona anne

one good thing that happened today: i noticed a fairly good sized flock of american robins on the side yard...about 15 to 20 of them...it's the time of year when they have stopped being so aggressive and territorial, and they are starting to form their "feeding colonies" .... this of course means that winter will soon be here, which i'm not exactly happy about...but, it's nice to see the robins like that...they don't migrate in the sense that one would think -- they actually usually just go deeper into the woods and stick close together...i don't think a lot of people realize that...they say spring is here when they see the robins have returned...but the robins never really left in the first place...we learned about that in my bird ecology class this spring...

is anyone out there?

i'm really starting to wonder if anyone really reads this blog...i've gotten one commet in about a month of blogging, and it was from someone who i didn't even know...

so the big question in my mind is "who is out there reading this?..." and also i wonder "is anyone even reading this?..." ...

if you are reading this, i'd love some feedback now & then...if there's something you'd like me to write about or share my opinion on, feel free to leave a message...if there's a question you're dying to know about me, leave a message....if i find it's one i'm comfortable answering on my blog, then i'll certainly answer it...

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today it's been grey and rainy all day, and i've been wasting time all afternoon...i have to head out soon for home fellowship group, and i'm way behind in my reading for class monday...so, i guess i know what i'll be doing the rest of this week....

i feel like crud today -- my chest hurts from the breathing test yesterday, and i just want to sleep...(i think it's the grey/rainy weather that's causing that, really...)

this morning i did enjoy babysitting, though...i took a few pictures of the kids, which came out pretty good, i think...i'm rahter unimpressed with my current digital camera, though, and i think i want to get something a little better, eventually...

i also need to get some film for my canon rebel...it's 35 to 80 mm zoom lens, which is a decent camera for pictures when i'm just "goofing around" so to speak...eventually i also want to get a better/longer lens for that...i imagine with a better lens, i can get some even better shots than those which i've taken already...

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anyhow...i'm off to go do something else...i may update later, i ma not...it will depend on how i feel when i get home tonight...

one good thing that happened today: i did get about a chapter's worth of reading done in "wasted" ... i've still got a lot to go, though!!...

happy wednesday, everyone...
-ramona anne

sometimes i feel like this guy here...

sometimes i feel like this guy here ... the one holding the bug in the jar, i guess... (other times i feel like the other guy, too, though...)

http://www.explodingdog.com/october24/hug.html ... "i just want a hug" .... yeah...that's how i feel so much of the time...

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i feel so disconnected sometimes, and so un-real ... not un-real as in fake or pretensious...un-real as in sometimes i feel like i don't even exist...i feel like i'm not really here...i don't feel any connetions to anything, really, and i just feel like i'm "out there"...like i'm just a figment of someone's imaginaton or something...and i feel like at any second i just won't exist anymore...and that nobody will even realize i've gone away...

and that almost makes me feel like crying...

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also, sometimes, i'll feel so very hurt, but i don't let people know...i'll be having a really bad day, and nobody will even know...(but there are a few (very few!) people who can see through my best and strongest defenses, and i am so thankful for them...) ...

all that to say -- today, i'm having a weird day...i'm torn between feeling hurt and feeling like i'm part of someone's imagination....and i'm hurting so much today, i really am...and all i feel like i want is to just not exist anymore...to not be here...and again, i almost want to cry...maybe not so much because of the hurt...but because i feel like i just don't want to be here, and i'm afraid of that...i'm VERY afraid of that...

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you see...something took place yesterday and it was a sort of innocent thing, i'm sure, but there was something that was said by a friend of mine that just triggered a whole flood of memories....

i know this person probably has no clue how i'm feeling (and do they even care, really?...i think they might, and i'm sure if they knew what was happening with me, they might try to help me feel better...but i guess you just really never know, do you?....) .... anyways, they said something...

and there was this one little word in a sentence...and it hit me like a ton of bricks...and i cringed, and i closed my eyes for a moment, and i wished with all my heart that i hadn't heard that word...and i knew then that i would have a rough day -- emotionally speaking -- today...

my back was to her when she said what she did...i was on the way to put my stuff in my mom's van after class...i guess i'm thankful for that, because i know that my face would have given away a lot more than i would have felt comfortable letting someone see....even someone who cares about me like she says she does...

it seems like just when you think you're "all set" with certain things, something comes up and damn it all, there it is again....

i hate that i still remember certain things...(and i hate that there are some pleasant things that i've forgotten...) ...

i hate that i still am not "over it"...or "healed from it"... or whatever i should be....

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and i know i've come a long way...but i see now that i also still have a ways to go....

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anyways, it was a weird kind of day for me today...

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in other "normal" day-to-day news -- i had bloodwork and my breathing test today...apparently the guy seemed to think everything was "okay" and "normal" but i'll have an appointment next week with the ENT specialist to go over everything....i guess we'll see...

also, today i was going to run something into the church office at my mom's church and this guy pulled up like, right behind me and asked me if the pastor was around...i said "i don't know?...i don't come to church here...i'm just bringing something into the church office for my mom..." and he said "well, i need to talk to the pastor, i'm almost out of gas, and i need some money..." i said "well, maybe if you go in?..." and he said "i'm in a wheelchair, i can't go in..." i said "well...i don't know what to tell you?..." and he asked if i could go see if he was there...so i said i could do that...

the priest wasn't in, and so i had to go back and tell that guy and he was obviously angry or upset about something...and he was almost like, taking it out on me...as if i had anything to do with anything?!...then he mentioned that he needed gas money to get to manchester and that he couldn't stay anywhere tonight so he had to go to manchester...and i said "i'm really sorry, i can't help you..."

it was just really odd, though....in lots of ways...

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i guess that's about all for now...i'm really tired, and i think i want to go relax for a while....i babysat josh & abby today...i really love those kids...i'm going to watch thgem again tomorrow and thursday, which will be nice, and it'll be a little more money in my pocket, which is never a bad thing....


until next time...

-ramona anne

it's technically "tomorrow"...

it's actually after midnight, but i wanted to blog a bit before bed...

as you all have noticed from yesterday's post, i've really been digging the tune "stones in the road" lately...

today on the way to class, i was listening to that song and i was driving near the post office in town, and this little boy was walking where the sidewalk used to be before they tore it up for all the construction...my mom was driving, so i king of watched this little boy for a moment or two...he was walking and then he stopped and stooped down and gathered some of the stones in his hand and was looking at them...he had on a warm-looking red jacket and he had this beautifully messed up blonde hair....the typical image of an all american kid...

and the lines that were playing when this boy was doing this were
"And the stones in the road shone like diamonds in the dust
And then a voice called to us to make our way back home"

i thought "how beautiful of a thing that was that just happened"...it was like serendepity or something....

i wondered, what the little boy might go "home" to, though, and i started thinking about how much things have changed in today's society even from the time i was that little boy's age to what it's like for children now...in 20 years things have changed oh so very much, it's downright scary at times....

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anyhow, i'm tired, and i despreately need sleep...i'm babysitting later today (it is after midnight, you know!!...) ... and then i've got some medical appointments...so i need to go get my rest...

happy tuesday to all!!...

-ramona anne

stones in the road...

when i was younger, i think even before my dad passed away, there was this guy who lived up the road from me who loaned me his copy of mary chapin carpenter's tape "stones in the road"...there are some great songs on that album, because even to this day, years later, i still can hear some of them in my mind from time to time...beacuse of this, i have decided that i need to buy that cd as soon as possible, just because i absolutely loved it...

and speaking of "stones in the road" ...i absolutely love that song...i'm not sure whose version i like better, mary chapin carpenter's or joan baez's...but, it's such a great song...something about it just resonates with me...

at any rate, i figured i'd share the lyrics....i'm kind of on a "sharing lyrics" kick lately, i guess...but that's not necessarily a bad thing, is it?... :-)

Stones in The Road
(Mary Chapin Carpenter)

When we were young, we pledged allegiance every morning of our lives
The classroom rang with children's voices under teacher's watchful eye
We learned about the world around us at our desks and at dinnertime
Reminded of the starving children, we cleaned our plates with guilty minds

And the stones in the road shone like diamonds in the dust
And then a voice called to us to make our way back home


When I was ten, my father held me on his shoulders above the crowd
To see a train draped in mourning pass slowly through our town
His widow kneeled with all their children at the sacred burial ground
And the TV glowed that long hot summer with all the cities burning down

And the stones in the road flew out beneath our bicycle tires
Worlds removed from all those fires as we raced each other home

And now we drink our coffee on the run, we climb that ladder rung by rung
We are the daughters and the sons, and here's the line that's missing

The starving children have been replaced by souls out on the street
We give a dollar when we pass, and hope our eyes don't meet
We pencil in, we cancel out, we crave the corner suite
We kiss your ass, we make you hold, we doctor the receipt

And the stones in the road fly out from beneath our wheels
Another day, another deal, before we get back home

And the stones in the road leave a mark from whence they came
A thousand points of light or shame, baby, I don't know