The hiatus is over and we are back from vacation.

It started off with a bang. Braeden was sick. Very sick. I ended up taking time off because of that and the sickness rolled right into vacation. The poor kid had a fever up to 105.7 at one point. It was awful.

Fortunately the sickness has passed and he is now doing very well. Plus, we also did make it down to Fenwick for our summer stay at the beach. Rough waves and stormy weather was not enough to keep me down. I love the beach. Everything from the salty air to the freezing water is therapeutic for me. I took hundreds of pictures and will upload them to Flickr when I get a chance.

Right now it is back to the grind and I am at work sifting through e-mails. My personal e-mail account had over 500 messages and my PR filters had more than 2,000 messages. Granted I get tons of messages from publicists every day, but this is just crazy! My web work (full-time) only had 55 messages and I am relieved about that number.

Brian and I watched "The Dark Knight" yesterday afternoon. If you haven't seen it then please go and see it right now. I am still amazed at how well the filming and acting in this movie ended up being. There weren't any crazy action movie special effects that made it either...this was acting, fabulous acting. I mean the effects are always great but sometimes it is disappointing if that is the only cool aspect of the flick. The rumors are true, this was Heath Ledger's best role yet.

More on vacation later and back to work now. I hope all of you are doing well!

Labels: batman, brae, brian, life, vacation

It's a little slow, but we had a very limited time and space. Not to mention I'm not a very good audio editor so the volume is a little nutzo!

Anyway, it's a funny Tuesday for ya!

Labels: craziness, dance, hitch

This morning while searching around for something to get me laughing, I went to Calvin & Hobbes archives. Along with Dilbert, this is one of the only comics which can still get a chuckle out of me.

Labels: calvin and hobbes, comic, funny

Gnomophobia.

This is the fear of garden gnomes.

You may or may not know I have an irrational fear of lawn statues and this fear is heightened by the mere sight of a garden gnome. They are evil. EVIL!

Look at their beady little eyes and stone thin smiles. You know they are looking at you when you walk by. Tell me how does a statue creature follow your movement with its painted on eyes if it is not possessed by pure demonocity.

My dear friend (and neighbor) recently found out about my fear of said statues.

This afternoon on my way in the door after coming home from picking Brae up at day care I had a visitor waiting for me in the front flower bed.

Painted with black puffy paint were the letters "I C U Christty" I'm not sure why she wrote the extra "t" into my name but the misspelling matters not.

Fear the gnome.

Did you know...?

A town in South America is living in fear after several sightings of a 'creepy gnome' that locals claim stalks the streets at night.

And...

There is some belief that Gnomes are in fact real, such as the Gnome sightings in Argentina, though these are disputed as hoaxes by skeptics.

Really, do we even know where the whole gnome business comes from?

You know what I think? I think they have the "Napoleon complex" oh yes, they are short and so they act big. They have an attitude and they are cocky.

You know Pink Floyd wrote a song about a gnome. No good can come from such a song.

Gardengnomeaquirophobia

Labels: barb, evil, evil gnomes, neighbor

Hello everyone.

I apologize for the insane delay of updating the art of living well...or trying to.

We had the holiday weekend and were very busy as a family. There was a lot of delicious barbecue eating to be had and many hours of swimming. I took a million and a half pictures and put them up on Flickr. Although this morning I tried to upload more and kept getting an error. So you'll have to check back later in the evening when I get home.

We saw fireworks on Friday night. They were not as fantabulous as years prior but the rain probably didn't help. =o)

My chiropractor visits have been going well and I have been feeling relief. I have an appointment today and he is going to think I stepped backwards because I'm extremely tense and sore. But it has been a tense week.

I'm working on big projects in the office, but there was also a tragic miracle in regards to a family member.

My Uncle is a bread delivery person for Stroehmann Bakery. They have a warehouse in New Castle, Delaware on North 13. Early Tuesday morning he was shot by a young man who probably wanted to rob him. Word to the not so wise...bread men do not carry money with them unless they have a cash stop along their route. Since his truck was still in the warehouse yard one can assume he hadn't made a cash stop. Comprende?

The man got on his truck without my Uncle realizing it. He heard a mumble and turned around to find a semi-automatic gun pointing at his face. Fortunately God and a slue of angels were with him because he reacted quickly and threw his arms up to shield his face. The bullet went into his left forearm about two inches from his elbo. It ricocheted off his radius, fracturing it severely, and lodged itself up mid-bicep area. He doesn't have full mobility of his hand yet, but the doctors are hopeful the nerve damage is not permanent.

In short he is a lucky man. Had he not reacted so quickly and had the bullet not hit the bone first he would have been shot in the face and the situation would be far more dire.

As it stands now they have been going back and forth over whether or not surgery will help. Surgery could end up causing more trouble. But it looks like they will be operating next week to put pins in his arm. Right now he is too swollen for anything to be done and so they sent him home from the hospital yesterday afternoon. Of course his insurance insisted he go home...

The detective and his team were unable to find the casing of the shell and so the investigation will probably go unsolved. They are lazy as far as I am concerned, but I'm not in the field and shouldn't judge. I would like to think they could at least dust for finger prints elsewhere, I don't know about you but stepping up on a delivery truck isn't super easy and I would think he had to have held onto the frame at some point.

Needless to say it has been upsetting for the family. So I think my doctor will understand my being a bit more tense than I was at my last visit.

Labels: drama, life, miracles, tragedy

Let's laugh and dance on a Tuesday.

Labels: brae, dance