Whoo wee… I imagine a few people didn’t think I’d ever be back to update this journal again, eh?

I considered dropping it, but... *shrugs*  What the hell...

So, rewind back seven months or so and ya’ll know my family and I moved.  We got settled into our new home, got the kids enrolled into their new school and our new life began.

It's been going well.  I certainly love being closer to my mom now.  Our house is certainly smaller than the one we left behind, but I don't mind.  It was a little tough downsizing, but we are managing.  At least the kids have their own rooms now, which they didn't before.

Here is our house...

And, as you can see, our house backs up to the hills.  As you can see from the next picture, I have great inspiration for writing about Medjai warriors on watch, looking over my home and keeping us safe. 

Now, can't you just picture in your mind, a long line of horses with black robed warriors sitting along the crest of that hill?  *sigh*

Summers are incredibly hot here.  I think we topped 114 degrees a couple of times in July.  Winters are cold, but not too bad.  We don't get much snow were we are, but enough to keep the kids happy.  LOL!

The kids are finally settling in.  They have made some friends, for which I am very happy.  It was a little rough going there for a while, especially with my daughter who I think ended up taking the move a bit harder than we thought she would.  She really missed her old girlfriend.  We have unlimited long distance, so throughout the summer I allowed her to call her friend as often as she wanted, which helped some.

She is much happier now that school has started up again and she is able to be around other kids her age.  Unfortunately we don't have a lot of young kids their age in our neighborhood.  It's mostly older folks, or what kids are around are teenager age range.

Also, since school started back up, my mom and I have been getting the kids rooms decorated a little.  My daughter wanted horse wallpaper border, so I found some online and we put it up, along with some cute, pink girly curtains.  She loves it! 

My son loves Transformers, so I found some Transformer wallpaper border for his room.  No curtains as of yet, but we'll get some.  Probably some dark blue ones.

Tomorrow, my mom is going to help me put up some wallpaper border in my kitchen.  It's a sunflower pattern.  I seem to have developed a fondness for sunflower decor.  I'm also getting some fall decorations up and the sunflowers really look pretty.

My website is going fine now.  We haven't had any problems what-so-ever since we made that last move.  I'm so happy and so relieved.

My writing time hasn't improved much.  Partly because of time constraints and partly because of the muse not being cooperative.  I did manage to get part of a new Medjai Chronicle story started and I also got a few pages written on the next chapter of The Hitman, but I seem to have stalled again.  I am hoping after my mom leaves tomorrow that I can get the muse to do something.  Perhaps if I dangle a handsome, sexy warrior in front of her, she'll be inspired to pounce... erm, well, perhaps thats not such a good idea after all! 

There have been other things happening, but I won't get into them.  I don't believe in airing other people's dirty laundry out for public viewing just so I can state my opinion on a subject.  I only hope that those directly involved can move on and find peace and that others, who aren't involved, can mind their own damn business.

So, I suppose that is all this time around.  Shall we make a wager on how long it will take me to update this stoopid thing again? 

Peace ya'll...

We sold our house!  We sold our house! 

We've actually been in escrow for 2 weeks now.  If everything continues to go smoothly then we estimate a closing date of around Easter weekend.

I'm so ready to get out of here.  I've lived in California for most of my life.  Was born here, but I hate living here.  It's too crowded, too expensive... oh, the list can go on and on.  It's a nice place to visit, but not to live.

Life is good right now.  I can't complain.  The kids are getting good grades in school, so as a treat, I took them to see Robots yesterday.  That was a cute movie!

We have a lot to do over the next two weeks.  I need to buckle down and start hitting the grocery store for boxes.  My dh, who used to work for a moving company, says that the best packing boxes are the apple boxes from the produce section.  So, if you ever move, keep that in mind.

So, I've been hitting up our local grocery store every few days.  They are getting to know me well over there. 

The weather is being wacky.  This past week has been mid-70's to 80's weather and today it's cold, overcast and gloomy.  Go figure.

Catch ya all later and thanks for reading!

I hate that phrase!  It seems to be the story of my life.  Always rushing to get somewhere or to get something done only to find myself having to wait once I get there. 

And here I am waiting once more.

We decided to sell our house and move.  This decision came around Thanksgiving time of 2004.  After much discussion, we decided that we'd take a two months to get the house ready and have it up for sale by Feb 1, 2005.

Well, we met our goal and our house has been up for sale for 2 weeks... and we got nothing. 

I could understand if we had a lousy house or if we lived in a lousy neighborhood, but we don't.  We live in a great neighborhood and the half dozen or so agents that have brought people through have all come back with positive feedback about the house.

So, then... what's the deal?  Why haven't we had any offers?  And why aren't there people coming to look?  We had no calls both Friday and Saturday and only 2 showings today.  It's been like that for the past two weeks.  We'll have two or three days of nothing... no calls, no showings.. nothing.  Then we'll have have a few days of two showings here, 3 showings there...

It's enough to make me scream. 

In the mean time, I bust my butt each morning after getting the kids to school, cleaning and getting the house in "showing" order only to have nothing happen all day.  *heavy sigh*

I know sometimes these things take time and it's not that... it's that we are getting hardly any lookers and the few that have shown some interest have either backed out or cannot qualify.

So, there is my rant for the day. 

Peace, ya'll and hey... thanks for listening! 

  Okay, it's ranting time!

We have a minivan that is held together with spit and a prayer.  One of it's little idiocyncracies is that ever so often the engine will begin to hesitate when you push on the gas pedal and then it dies.  It will eventually start again, but it usually takes several minutes of frustration and cursing.  I discovered one day, when it was doing this, that the radiator was low on water (yeah, yeah, I know.. .it should be antifreeze, not water) and so I filled it up.  Lo and behold, the van stopped stalling.

At that time, I didn't really make the connection.  After some time passed, the van started stalling again.  While checking the fluids (because the stoopid van leaks everything), I filled the radiator and viola, the van stopped stalling.

After several more rounds of this, it began to sink in with me and I told my dh.  Natually, according to him, I didn't know what I was talking about and the radiator had nothing to do with why the van was stalling.  YET... everytime the van began stalling, I would find the radiator low on water and once filled, it stopped stalling.

Now, you tell me... coincidence?  I think not.

But my stubborn, stubborn, stubborn husband would rather not believe me. 

Grrr... so there is my rant for the day!  LOL!

Thanks for listening.

Help!  I'm drowning! 

I'm so tired of the rain!  It has been nearly non-stop for over a week now and yet another storm is moving in sometime during the night. 

So, it's the beginning of a new year.  And as with most new years, I've reflected back on the year I'm leaving.  Some of it was good and some of it was not so great.

The good was another year of health, family and the strengthening of a special friendship.

The not so great was losing my step dad. 

I usually have a difficult time discussing my step dad.  I had a love/hate relationship with him.  As a child, before he and my mom married, I knew him as "Uncle Bill", our neighbors brother.  At that time, I had the biggest crush on him and all the kids thought he was so cool.  Later, after they married and I was older, we didn't always see eye to eye.  He was harder on me than he was my other siblings.  Things that they were able to do and get away with, I could not.  Even my mom noticed and tried to allow me certain privleges.

I was not abused or anything like that, but I always thought it strange that he was harder on me.

In later years, it was discovered he had Manic Depression.  Of course, they only called it that because at that time, no one knew about bi-polar, but that is what he had.  To say he had become a total a$$hole was an understatement.  He became verbally abusive to my mom, he accused anyone and everyone of some bad deed and pretty much alienated most of the family before a certain doctor finally diagnosed him correctly and got him on the correct medication.

But what finally took his life was encephalitis.  It is sad that a once proud and very loving man became a paranoid, delusional jerk.  The last year of his life, he was the "Uncle Bill" that I remember as a child.  I thank God every day that He gave my mom that last year.

I still have a lot of mixed feelings about my step dad.  I do not hate him, but nor can I find it in me to say that I love him.  I respect the man he was and I do miss him a lot.

Now, as we prepare to sell our house and move closer to my mom, I only wish peace and happiness for her.  I hate that she is alone now and am anxious to get out there.

So, now as I look ahead to a new year, I have hope that this year will bring about new and exciting adventures.  A new home, a new school for the kids, new friends... hanging out with my mom and doing those fun mother/daughter things and chatting with a certain dear friend. 

Happy New Year!   And thanks for reading!

Betcha thought to never see me again, hmmm?

If only you could be so lucky! 

In the past few months I have seriously considered deleting this journal because I just don't do well with them.  I've always had a hard time keeping up with them.  But, I'm gonna give it another try.  lol

Life has taken a different turn for me and my family.  My stepdad passed away the week before Thanksgiving and so we ended up spending Thanksgiving with my mom who lives about 8 hours away.  During that week, we decided to move there.  *blinks*

So... now we are back home and preparing to get our house ready to put up for sale.  We hope to have that done by Feb. 1st.  We've got painting and some minor repair work to do first.  We are very excited and of course, my mom is doing this ---> 

In the mean time, Christmas is just around the corner and I haven't decorated yet.  I hope to go get our tree  either this afternoon or tomorrow.  I am pleased to say that I do have most of my shopping done.  I might need to get one last gift, but that's about it.

Otherwise, life is good.  The website keeps me busy in my spare time and my muse has been peaking her head out and has decided she wanted to play with my boys - thus the new Medjai Chronicles story.  My muse really likes my boys.    And my boys really like it when my muse decides to play with them.  They hate inactivity.  lol

No promises, but I'll do my best to keep up with this thing.

Happy Holidays everyone!

That I would end up being a Peanuts character that I'd never heard of. 

Okay, so it's been a while.  Didn't intend to let so much time pass before making another entry, but life intrudes.

Honestly, I don't know how working mom's do it.  Day in and day out, 40 hours a week they work, come home, fix dinner, take care of the kids, the house... then start all over again the next day.

When I had my daughter 7 years ago, I quit working.  Recently, due to financial strain, I've had to go back to work temporiarly.  I work M-F, 8 to 5.  I come home, help the kids with homework, fix dinner, make sure the kids bathe, do laundry, empty the dishwasher, fill it, get the kids in bed by 8:30 (week nights).  Somewhere in there I remember to breathe... I think. 

Next friday is my last day of work.  THANK GAAWWD!  I'll continue to do some occassional temp work, but forget working full time.  blech!  I'm also thinking of renewing my notary license.  That would be something I could do on the side on my own time.

My writing has seriously suffered since I started working again.  I haven't written anything in months.  Then today, I had a major brainstorm of an idea for a UC story and I'm hoping that I will be able to bring it to life.   

First, however, I need to wrap up poor Gabriel and Rachel...

Okay, that's it for now.  Thanks for reading and I'll try not to take so long next time.

Cheers!

Finally!  *takes deep breath*

So, my first thoughts are - as I begin this - what the heck does one do with a journal? 

I've never kept one before and so I'm rather clueless.  I mean, I know it is to write down ones thoughts and hopes or to vent or just voice to ramble, but really... my life is so dull that I can't imagine what anyone would find interesting about me. 

However, I am a determined Bug and so I will give this journaling thing a try.

I suppose I should start off with a little about me.

I came up with the screen name 'Ladybug' about 4 or 5 years ago when I decided to join a message board dedicated to the yummy Israeli actor Oded Fehr.  At the time, my young toddler daughter loved ladybugs and everthing was ladybug this and ladybug that.  *shrugs*  It's not an exciting story, but it's the only one I got. 

I'm mostly known as Bug or Bugsy.  A few call me LB and I was once dubbed "Resident Pest" by a board administrator as a joke.     But my dearest friend calls me Baqq, which is Arabic for Bug.

I'm in my early 40's, have a hubby, two wonderful kids, a pyscho cat and a goldfish.  My hobbies consist of reading, playing on the computer, co-owning and running an Oded Fehr fanfiction website, which, you will eventually hear, can be a pain in the butt!    BUT - pun intended - I enjoy it.  When things are going well, it's fun.

If there were more hours in the day, I also enjoy scrapbooking.  I haven't touched my scrapbooking stuff in years, sadly to say.

I also enjoy writing, but unfortunately, time and my muse have been uncooperative the past year.  I have several stories on my website, which is currently offline.  That is a rant that I will get too another time, but for now, let's just say, it's been one of those 'pains in the butt' kinda things. 

By nature I'm a shy bug.  In a crowded room, I'll be the one hiding in the corner watching everybody mingle while nursing the same drink all evening.  Meeting new people takes an effort on my part and it isn't because I don't want too.  I'm very friendly and easy to get along with, I just have a hard time with meeting new people. 

And on that note... enough about me. 

Until next time... may the road to peace rise up to embrace you.