Category: Blog

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Deity Dad?

A Rendering of Zeus (with my Dad’s actual face superimposed, LOL!)

So for the past week my car has been giving me trouble. Anyone who knows me well is probably nodding their head right now, because I am notoriously unlucky with vehicles… hell with just about any mechanical or electrical device! Any sufficiently advanced piece of technology that I own will inevitably end up dying before it’s normal lifespan, because I am just cursed. I think I was meant to live in the stone ages, LOL.

After a week of my transmission acting up and getting decidedly worse each day, it finally died completely. Replacing or rebuilding a transmission can cost thousands of dollars (that I definitely don’t have) so I was in a bit of a panic! Enter “Mr. Fix-it Extraordinaire”; aka my Dad, Carlos. He’s famous among his friends and family for being a jack-of-all-trades who doesn’t believe anything is beyond fixing! After a morning spent under the hood/car, he finally traced the issue to a transmission fluid leak, which was being caused by a faulty CV Joint that had been installed at Pep Boys just 6 weeks earlier. It is unclear whether Pep Boys installed it wrong, or if the new part was defective, but either way it ended up being covered under warranty, which saved me a potentially expensive repair bill.

Now on the morning the car died, I had texted my client to let him know, and warn him I may have to rearrange my work schedule if I was without a car. As a devout Christian, he told me he would pray for me to receive a quick and inexpensive answer to my car repair woes. Although I am an atheist, I appreciated the sentiment.

Pep Boys managed to get my car finished in a day, and I was able to pick my car back up a few hours before I was scheduled to work. Talk about my luck looking up! I even had time to have a delicious brunch at Angie’s Restaurant with Dad & Pam. I headed to work in a good mood and with a happy belly!

My client wasn’t home when I arrived at his house and started cleaning. When he pulled up and saw my car in the driveway, he came in the house and called up the stairs to me, “Prayer answered!”, referring to his recent promise to pray for my car troubles.

I couldn’t help but smile at his enthusiastic faith and good intentions… but the atheist in me, who credits my Dad for my good fortune since he found the Pep Boys error, couldn’t help but have the sacrilegious (but oh so funny) thought:

“So does this mean my Dad is God?“

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Nostalgia

10 days ago I scanned a few old pictures to compare myself with my younger sibling, and now look what it started! I have not stopped scanning photos since! That little task got me motivated to pull out my 2 giant boxes of old pictures and start organizing and scanning them into digital photos. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for years, but could never quite face the daunting task!

So far I have scanned almost 500 photographs, and still have thousands left to go. I suspect I will run out of motivation before I finish them all, but my first goal was to pull out all the photos I could find of me. This wasn’t too big of a chore, since once I hit my teenage years I started hiding from cameras, and there aren’t all that many photos beyond my grade school days.

I managed to find most of my school pictures, although a few years are missing. Try not to make fun of me! (Click the first picture to open the gallery full-size)
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Blog Index List

Here is a list of ALL my blogs listed in reverse, chronological order (newest first).

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Blast From The Past

So this past weekend at the Garner Grows Plant Sale, my Dad pulled out some pictures of me from elementary school, talking about how much you can see the resemblance between me and my youngest sibling Layla at that age. It got me thinking… we looked even more alike when I was a teenager. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of photos from that era because that was the age I developed my camera-shyness (bordering on a phobia, LOL).

So I contacted my Aunt and Uncle, remembering that I was a bridesmaid at their wedding, to see if they had any photos of me. Sure enough, they had a couple, and here they are!

I was 14 during this wedding
Me, Mom, Stepdad Dale & Brother Ray

Here is a comparison of Me and Layla at around the same age:

Layla has more freckles from their Mom, but we both definitely have a lot of our Dad in the mix! I don’t have any pictures of Dad that young, but here’s one of him at 19, and another in his 20’s.

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Pawprints On My Heart (& Skin)

My kitty Cali left an impression on me this morning… quite literally! Because EDS affects my skin, making it fragile and prone to being easily marked, it doesn’t take much to leave a lasting impression, or even a bruise or scar.

This morning Cali was feeling a bit insecure. She suffers from severe anxiety (treated with Prozac) as well as PTSD from a previous abusive living situation, so it’s not unusual for her to need a little extra attention. She planted herself on my knee for about 10 minutes wanting some reassurance, and left these adorable paw imprints in my skin! My friend Aimee pointed out that the 3rd toe on her right paw is shaped like an adorable little heart (click here to zoom to full size)!

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Food, Fun & Friendship

Like most of us for the last 2 years, I haven’t done a lot of socializing or entertaining since the beginning of the Pandemic. Even an introverted hermit like myself was starting to feel the pressure! Although the Pandemic is far from over, I think things are starting to get back to normal just a bit, and it has been really nice to start having people over again.

Normally my motto is “Solitude equals Serenity”, but even I have my limits! I have always enjoyed cooking for people, and while I am far from a professional chef, my guests always seem thrilled with my culinary offerings! Without anyone else to cook for, I never really felt the urge to cook anything special, and I was getting tired of soup and sandwiches.

Now my skills are being put to the test again, especially since lately it seems all of my guests have dietary restrictions. I’m getting pretty good at cooking gluten-free and vegetarian, but vegan is a tough nut to crack (and all the dairy products are even made of nuts, lol)! Having to forgo my usual dairy staples is something I have a hard time with, so when I cook for vegans, I often cook 2 separate meals.

Once the food is put away, it’s time for the “fun” part of the evening, and out come the games! My sister has been bringing a whole new group of friends around, and it has been interesting meeting new people. I can’t count how many people we have introduced to the world of geeky strategy games! It’s not the hobby for everyone, but this new crew seems to really enjoy it, and we’ve been having get-togethers much more frequently than usual, which has been a nice change of pace. Food and Fun has led to new Friendships, and you just can’t beat that, can you?