Merry Christmas!

Sorry I'm a day late, but I didn't have internet access on Christmas day, which is the way it should be. My dog and I camped out in front of a REAL fire in a house in the mountains and enjoyed the company of family. We had steaks for Christmas dinner, it was great. We played some Scrabbit and put together a puzzle of the Tybee Island lighthouse.

Here's something funny...we couldn't find our stockings so we had Christmas baskets this year...oh well, at least Santa still came!

Merry Christmas, y'all!

So this is what happens to bored people...

Place an X by all the things you've done, or remove the X from the ones you have not. This is for your entire life!
1. ( ) Smoked a cigarette
2. ( ) Drank so much you threw up
3. (x) Had feelings for someone who didn't have them back (not since high school)
4. ( ) Been arrested
5. (x) Gone on a blind date
6. ( ) Skipped school
7. ( )Watched someone die
8. ( ) Been to Canada
9. (x) Been to Florida
10. (x) Been to Mexico
11. (x) Been on a plane
12. (x) Been lost (Mom lost me in Gatlinburg when I was a child)
13. (x) Been on the opposite side of the country
14. (x) Gone to Washington, DC
15. (x) Swam or waded in the ocean
What happened to 16??
17. ( ) Cried yourself to sleep
18. ( ) Played cops and robbers...
19. ( ) Recently colored with crayons.
20. ( ) Sang karaoke
21. (x) Paid for a meal with only coins
22. (x) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't?
23. (x) Made prank phone calls (I did in junior high, and I sucked, mainly 'cause the kid's mom answered and I told her who I was! stupid! stupid! stupid! I hadn't caught on to the concept, I guess)
24. (x) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
25. (x) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
26. (x) Danced in the rain
27. (x) Written a letter to Santa Claus (It was a school assignment.)
28. ( ) Been kissed under the mistletoe
29. ( ) Watched the sun rise with someone you care about
30. (x) Blown bubbles
31. ( ) Made a bonfire on the beach
32. ( ) Crashed a party
33. (x) Gone roller-skating
34. (x) Ice-skating
35. Any nicknames? Darlin, Joyous
37. Mother's name? Jean
38. Favorite drink? sweet mint iced tea
39. Tattoo? no
40. Body piercing? Yes - but only ears
41. How much do you love your job, from 1-10? 6
42. Birthplace: Murfreesboro, TN
43. Favorite vacation spot? anywhere away
44. Ever been to Africa? No
45. Ever eaten cookies for dinner? Yes
46. Ever been on TV? No
47. Ever steal any traffic signs? No
48. Ever been in a car accident? yes
49. 2 Door or 4 Door? 4 door
50. Salad dressing? honey mustard
51. Favorite pie? pecan
52. Favorite number? 7
53. Favorite movie? My Fair Lady
54. Favorite dessert? cake blended with cookies-n-cream ice cream
55. Favorite food? Southern
56. Favorite day of the week? Saturday
57. Favorite brand of body soap? Dove
58. Favorite tooth paste? Crest
59. What time is it now? 10:43pm
60. Favorite smell? Bob's Flowershop Candle scent
62. What do you do to relax? watch TV
63. How do you see yourself in 10 years? No clue, but ten years ago I thought I'd be living in Colombia today, so I've resigned myself to not knowing.
64. What do you do when you are bored? Respond to questionairres such as this...hehe

I hate it when this happens...

I woke up this morning, flipped on the tv, and all the cable channels had been rearranged. I feel so disoriented! I go to what should be USA and it's SciFi. Very irritating. Maybe this can be attributed to my bad day today.

Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Though I had porkchops and ham instead of turkey, it has been a decently good day.

Hope y'all's has been good.

Moral dilemma...

Ok, how many of you Christians out there don't celebrate Halloween? How many of you do?

I was raised trick-or-treating, then one year, after I was in Junior High, my family learned some of the history of Halloween, and we stopped celebrating it. No more trick-or-treating, no more costumes, no more rolling houses, no more Jack-o-lanterns, no more popcorn balls, and no more Halloween parties. I didn't mind this all that much 'cause I was getting too old for all that anyhow. But now is where my dilemma comes to play...

Do I continue to not celebrate Halloween by handing out candy? Or do I join in the community fun Halloween night and pass out cavities to all the young'uns? I don't see how much of anything about Halloween that celebrates God's character, other than God just likes to have fun. I think I've decided to go ahead and hand out the candy. I've already bought the candy and this awesome bowl to pass it out with. I guess I'm just sort of leaning towards just handing out the candy, but not going all out with decor and whatnot.

Let me tell you about this bowl. I walked by it in Kroger, and it called to me...literally. It said, "Want some candy?" It's got a mechanical hand that sticks up the middle of the bowl and it grabs for your hand whenever you reach in for the candy. It scared me as I walked by, as it is motion activated. It scared me again as I reached in to see it work again. It scared me again as I walked with it in my cart. It scared me again as it was in a plastic sack and I set it in the back of my Rodeo and the sack moved. If it hadn't been so successful at scaring me, I wouldn't have bought it...hehe. When I got back to the house, I set the sack on the counter and told my sister to go see what I bought...she jumped. I love this bowl.

Anyhow...y'all have a safe and fun Halloween!

Happy Birthday...

to Titan!!! He is now 4 years old!! That's 28 in human years...he's now officially older than I am. I'm so glad to have him with me. He's such a good dog...just ask Nate!

Happy Birthday...

to ME!!!!! I turn 27 today!! Woohoo! My most wonderful birthday gift was to have my dad back in Atlanta!

I'm busy...

My dad is in the hospital after having an auto accident.

Assinine

So last Sunday I was driving a friend to the airport so she could return home to Germany. We get caught at the railroad crossing and counted 83 cars and 3 engines go by. There was a cop sitting perpendicular to us on our side of the tracks. After the train passed, he immediately pulled us over. I hadn't done anything illegal in just crossing the tracks, but I noticed my friend had tucked the shoulder strap of her seatbelt under her arm so it may have appeared to the cop that she wasn't wearing the seatbelt. We pull over, and he walks up to her side of the car. She rolls down the window.

I didn't know this, did you? He tells us that he saw she had her seatbelt on incorrectly and warned me that I could get a ticket for merely wearing the seatbelt incorrectly, but he wouldn't give me one. I had figured that as long as the seatbelt is on, it's on. I said thanks and continued on my way.

So much for Natural Selection!

Happy Birthday!!

Happy Birthday to my brother, Mike! Mike is actually my brother-in-law, but he's been in the family long enough he's more of a brother now. Love you, Mike! Hope you have a good one!

Go Cubbies!!

To be or not to be...

My friend and I went to Six Flags Over Georgia a few weekends ago. I got a bit of a headache from the ride Deja Vu, and ended up needing some time to sit, so we decided to go to one of the shows. We went to the Honky Tonk show. They sang and danced/acted to current country hits, occasionally interacting with the audience.

My friend and I are sitting there, front row, minding our business when one of the 'cowboys' comes up and sits next to me and puts his arm around me while singing a song. Now normally I would be totally flattered by this, but the song he's singing kinda influences my reaction..."I like my women on the trashy side"

Or maybe I am flattered after all...

Bad joke

All last night I dreamed I was a tailpipe...

...wait for it...

...and this morning I was exhausted!


Another bad joke thanks to Rose from Golden Girls.

Gee...thanks, lawmakers.

I receive a monthly newsletter from my town. There was an article on page 9 of 12, "New state laws may impact you"... so I read.

The one I choose to write about is the first listed: Right to self defense. I didn't know I needed permission to defend myself from a bad guy! It says I don't have a duty to retreat. Well...duh! If I'm being attacked, is there actually a law out there that assinine enough to say that I can't defend myself? This new law says that I would have immunity from criminal prosecution for defending myself or property with deadly force, unless I use a weapon I'm not allowed to carry or possess, which I have my CCL, so I don't worry about that.

Anyway, I thought it was very generous of the State of Georgia to allow me to defend myself with every means possible.

One year ago

One year ago I brought home my motorcycle. I love it even more now than I did then. Hard to believe. I'm riding well, and enjoying it more and more.

Catholic Gasoline

This one's for you, EP...

Sister Mary, who worked for a home health agency, was out making her rounds visiting homebound patients when she ran out of gas. As luck would have it, a gas station was just a block away.

She walked to the station to borrow a gas can and buy some gas. The attendant told her that the only gas can that he owned had been loanded out, but she could wait until it was returned.

Since the nun was on the way to see a patient, she decided not to wait and walk back to her car. She looked for something in her car that she could fill with gas and spotted the bedpan she was taking to the patient.

Always resourceful, she carried the bedpan to the station, filled it with gas, and carried the full bedpan back to her car.

As she was pouring the gas into her tank, two men watched from across the street. One of them turned to the other and said, "If it starts, I'm turning Catholic."

More truth than fiction

I got this in an email...enjoy...

A Somali arrives in Minneapolis as a new immigrant to the United States. He stops the first person he sees walking down the street and says, "Thank you Mr. American for letting me in this Country, and giving me housing, food stamps, free medical care and free education!"

But the passerby says, "You are mistaken, I am Mexican."

The man goes on and encounters another passerby. "Thank you for having such a beautiful country here in America!"

The person says, "I no American, I Vietnamese."

The new arrival walks further, and the next person he sees he stops, shakes his hand and says, "Thank you for the wonderful America!"

That person puts up his hand and says, "I am from the Middle East; I am not an American!"

He finally sees a nice lady and asks suspiciously, "Are you an American?"

She says, "Now, I am from Russia!"

So he is puzzled, and asks her, "Where are all the Americans?"

The Russian lady looks at her watch, and says..."Probably at work...."

well, well...

I wish I had more of a life to post about right now, but alas, I do not. There have been two things that have usurped my time the last few months, and will continue to do so for the next couple months.

We are still in the middle of revisions for the books. That means that sometimes, usually once a week, I work until midnight to meet a deadline, but I usually get to sleep in the next day. That's one thing that consumes time right now: work. I'm currently in negotiations with my boss, aka Mom, about my hours, and I think we'll get this beast under control soon.

The other thing that consumes my time, which is work related, and family related, is babysitting. It's a perk of the job. I get to babysit my two wonderful nieces at least once a week for a day. It's wonderful. I LOVE getting to be a regular part of their lives. I didn't know that as a child, having involved extended family. However it is time consuming, but it's one I'm glad to be able to provide. This is one of the blessings I count for still being single. If I was married, or even involved with someone, I wouldn't be able to dedicate as much time to travelling to see Dr. Who, Nate and their sons, Mentsh, her husband and daughters, my dad and stepmom, or Whiskey Girl. It's important to me to cultivate these relationships while I have the time in singlehood to devote because they are SO WORTH IT!

Anyhow, this has been a brief update in the life of JOY!

Too good to be true...

This picture happened upon me. It seems appropriate that Nate's new love is cohorting with Peeps!, his other love...

Saturday's Ride...

Ok, so Nate says I have to write up something. First off, this is a pic of me on Little Red. All in all it was an excellent day. First, Nate showed me how to change the oil in LR in the morning. Then he and I hit the road with no destination other than North for the afternoon. That evening we went to the pool with the family. At night I stayed home with 4 sleeping kids while the rest of the adults went to see X-men 3.

Ok, for the ride... Well, I did pretty good. Nate seems to think that I can ride; I'm not so certain, but I have fun while trying to be safe. I only stalled a couple times. Both times were towards the first of the trip. The second was kinda embarrassing. I forgot to downshift at a red left turn light. When it turned green I didn't move. I ended up costing all the cars behind me the entire green turn light. Oops. Oh, and I finally learned how to smoothly downshift.

We rode around Lake Lanier some. Saw pretty sailboats. You'll notice one picture of Nate by the water. There was a little peninsula right in front of him. I tried to get him to go out there so I could get a pic of him there on his dirt bike, but he was too chicken... He said it was too uncivilized!!

And one more story on Nate. If you read over at his place, you'll notice a reference to "blowing past" a guy on a Harley. Well, what he didn't mention is that as soon as he passed him, he ran out of gas! Yep! He switched to reserve, and we found a gas station to fuel up again. It's just good that he didn't run out of gas while he was trying to blow past the other biker, that would've been too embarrassing.

Anyway...It was a blast. I can't wait to go again. Riding with someone is a ton more fun.

Saturday's Ride...

Nate is the storyteller, so if you want the stories, you need to visit his site: www.bloggerblaster.blogspot.com.

Saturday's Ride...

Nate is the storyteller, so if you want the stories, you need to visit his site: www.bloggerblaster.blogspot.com.

Flower and Leaf

Here's a sampling of my amateur photography...

Yuppyville

I'm getting a bit too close to being a yuppie than I'm comfortable with. I recently got an iPod nano to listen to music while I'm riding my Ninja. I also decided that I need to get my body condition into better shape, so I researched and found a gym that I love. When I go to the gym, I take my iPod, just like EVERYONE else! As I was walking back to my car today, I just had a hard time accepting what a yuppie I've become.

Let me tell you about this gym...it rocks. It's got like a hundred weight machines and another hundred cardio machines. It's got 4 raquetball courts, basketball court, various exercise classes (I took the Pilates class last Monday, and I'm STILL sore), really nice and clean locker rooms with a sauna inside each locker room, heated indoor pool, hot tub, and more! I love it. Even though I'm not in good shape, I still feel comfortable there because people keep to themselves, so I don't feel pressure, and there are a lot of average people that go.

All in all, I'm having fun. I hope y'all are, too.

Happy Birthday!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WHISKEY GIRL!!!

Today is my sister's birthday!! I love her!!!!

Okay, here are the pictures as requested. 3 sections and 2 other sections are the same size, so that the shelves can be moved around among them. I also ordered extra poles so I can convert more sections into hanging because this closet was pretty much designed with just me in mind.

Progress has been made.

Well, I've finished painting my closet. I chose Slate blue. It's really pretty. It's a tad darker than I imagined, but with white trim, ceiling, and shelving, I don't think it'll be a problem. It'll also look good with the brushed nickel hardware I chose to match the faucets in the bathroom. As far as the boxes go, I got 11 of th 13 up by myself. The last two are these long vertical panels that have to be carried up one at a time. For the moment, I'm just bringing one up with me everytime I go up the stairs. I only have 5 more trips to make! I'm looking forward to having all this done.

UPDATE: I've finished!!! Woohoo!!! I started putting all my clothes back in my closet, and I feel as though I have a brand new room!

Kids are so funny...

This past weekend we had a birthday party for one of my two nieces. The family hanged around their house until their bedtime. I was sittin' on the couch next to my 3-year-old niece, sippin' my sweet tea, when she pipes up and says so matter-of-fact, "Aunt Joy, how many times do I have to tell you not to drink while you're wearing your hair!?!" We all cracked up.

I love her; she's such a silly goose!

one step at a time

It's happening one step at a time. I've hit a second wind on decorating my home. I bought and hung a new light. I converted a chandelier into a swag lamp. That was fun, I felt like an electrician. I even installed the switch!

I finally decided on the design for the shelving in my closet and ordered it. I used www.easyclosets.com. I like this company; they're very helpful when you call, and it's cheaper than hiring a closet design company. Last night and this morning I ripped out the old wire shelves, and this evening I just finished spackling all the holes left. Now I have to choose a color to paint the walls before installing the new shelves. Actually, I welcome the delay because the shelves were delivered in 13 boxes, and a few of those are 70+ lbs AND those have to go up to the THIRD FLOOR!! yikes!

My Valentine was...

ME! I know, I know...so cheesy for a single gal. I've never had a real Valentine before, so this year, I bought myself flowers, the ones you see above.

I gave Valentine's cards to my mom and to my dad & stepmom. I received a homemade card from my dad. He's a good daddy!

P.S. Take note of the dog in the background...don't he look comfy?

hiya!

I'm surprised I remember the password to the Dashboard!

I have been so busy! If I'm not working my butt off to meet 13 deadlines in one week, then I'm babysittin'. And in the rare occasion I'm not doing either one of those, I'm entertaining guests at both my house and Mom's.

And to throw in some more fun, Titan got wicked sick. But I think he's seein' the end of it. I had to stay home all day yesterday so I could rush him out the door when the occasion called...and it did...many times.

Well, I'll be in this mode for another couple months, then I'll come up for some air and go up to help where I can with Nate and Who's move to the great state of Tennessee.