He who throws dirt...

...loses ground.

This is on the roadside sign of one of the churches out on Franklin Pike and I find it very thought provoking. Since moving to Nashville I have discovered having so many churches does add some entertainment value to my commutes. Sometimes I enjoy reading the various roadside signs; other times they make me so mad, especially when we lived in our other house and one of our closest neighbors was a small very conservative predominantly African-American Baptist Church. So many times I find the messages a bit judgmental and grating; other times the word play is amusing and inspiring. I wish I could remember some of the them. I will begin writing them down and sharing cuz I know I'll be getting more. Nashville is, after all, the belt buckle of the bible belt!

¡Hasta pronto, mis amigos!

~N

Monday....already again?

Where the heck is this year going? How can it be the middle of February?

Well, Valentine's Day weekend has come and gone in a blur of activities. While we don't go all out for this commercially driven holiday, we (as in the entire family) had a good weekend. I gave my daughter a mega-Hershey bar which she gleefully and quickly devoured. On the other side of the spectrum, my son had been asking for this pull-up bar thing that fits in a doorway and I finally relented, telling him this was his Valentine's gift. He is now happily on his way to "buff arms" thanks to this magical device. LOL

Hubby and I had a date night on both Friday and Saturday nights. Friday was a bit impromptu as both kids ended up being out of the house, so we grabbed dinner at our favorite Greek restaurant and went home to watch Brendan Fraser's Journey to the Center of the Earth. Cute movie, but definitely not one of his best. On Saturday, we headed to a dinner we had purchased at last fall's church auction. It was Mediterranean fare and hosted by two couples from our Dinner for Nines group. This is the first time we've bought a church auction dinner and it was great fun. There were three other couples and one individual at the table with us. I enjoyed the relaxed pace of the courses and the great conversations we had that went all over the spectrum--politics, soccer, church events, current events. I will definitely need to write more about the benefits of socializing in your church community.

Saturday morning hubby and I also had a "date" with a dear friend from church. This friend recently, as in less than two weeks ago, had a mastectomy for breast cancer. I had spoke with her a couple of times on the phone, but it was very nice to go to IHOP and share a meal with her.

Tomorrow should be a good day. I'm meeting my friend Stacy at a coffee shop so we can force each other to write. She writes songs and I am suppose to be writing my novel. When I write on the novel, I get so involved in the setting and the characters that it is rather annoying to have to come back to the present, so I think that I will work on my short stories series based on songs.

¡Hasta pronto, mis amigos!

~N

Knocked off my tush

It's been nine days since my last blog. I'm disappointed in myself, but also happy to report I had a reason! Girl child brought home a nasty lil bug and it hit me hard. Yesterday was the first day I hadn't run a temp since last Friday. So, please bear with me. I'll get back into the routine soonly.

¡Hasta pronto, mis amigos!

~N

So we got this new mattress...

...and I had the strangest night's sleep I've had in a LONG time! LOL

First off... the mattress is compliments of hubby's great-aunt who decided she did not like tempurpedic mattress which is about a year old. When she got the tempurpedic last year, she gave us her "old" mattress which was less than 2 years old, maybe even less than a year old, I don't remember. Anyhow, she went back to a traditional mattress and offered us this practically brand-new queen size tempurpedic mattress. Hubby had slept on a tempurpedic when he went to the sleep center for his apnea test and really like it, so we thought, 'why not?'

Well... I decided to turn in early yesterday cuz the kids and I are fighting off a cold bug. Lights off at 8:15-ish and I dropped right off to sleep. A few hours later I hear my son and his friend, who are working on their sermon for this Sunday's youth service, talking with hubby. I look at the clock and it's just 9 o'clock! Whoa! I had been in deep sleep and dreaming in less than an hour?

So, I drift back to sleep and when hubby comes to bed around 11:30, I wake up and am immediately alert, not sleepy at all. Usually he comes to bed and I never notice. The rest of the night I don't toss and turn, but I keep waking up in 45 minute or 1-1/2 hour intervals. I have several wake-up experiences about drowning. Then after hubby leaves at 4am (Yes, world, he goes to bed after 11pm and gets up at 4am!), I have the strangest dream...

I am driving my 17yo daughter (who drives herself in the '92 VW Cabriolet) to school in a Chevy pickup truck (one of those late '70s models with a bench seat, not an extended cab). We are driving in an area that reminds me of Los Angeles in the '70s. We need gas, so I turn into a busy gas station and have to manuever through to get lined up on the correct side. While I'm getting the gas started, girl-child goes inside to buy herself a bottle of water. Suddenly, who appears, but daughter's evil kitty Kage Neko (pictured above after his *SECOND* operation after being mauled by two dogs). We are miles from home in a pickup truck with no extra room. From where did this cat come? When daughter comes out, I have this squirmy cat in my hands and all I say to her is, "How rude! Why didn't you buy me a water?" Then the dream gets weird. I put the cat in the cab and go over to a building sitting next to the gas station lot. For some reason, I am doing church committee work here and talking to some Hispanic women who also run the gas station. When I go back out after 5-10 minutes, the truck is gone. I figure daughter went on to school and I am stranded here for the day, so I go back into the building.

My dream changes as dreams seem to do so seamlessly while sleeping, but make NO sense to the awake me! Now hubby and I are in a community center which reminds me of the downtown YMCA, but all on one level. I don't know why we are there, but a set of double doors open into a big room and we see/hear someone playing the piano, which isn't a piano. Instead of keys, this piano shaped instrument has hinged boxes, which get flipped over and back to create sounds. Hubby and I take a seat on the second row of folding chairs set up. After a few seconds a meeting starts and it is some activist group. All the people are middle Eastern or Hispanic. Hubby and I realize we are in the wrong room. This is not the event we were suppose to be attending, but neither of us wants to leave, so we just listen to the speaker, a young 20-something middle Eastern man. Suddenly a teenager, who looks very similar to the speaker, steps into the room and begins to spout off to the speaker in a very disrespectful manner. Turns out the teen is the speaker's younger brother. As they begin to argue, my alarm went off. I wish I could remember what their difference were, but I can't...Maybe I'll have more dreams tonight.

The jury is still out on the new mattress because I should be tired after waking up all night and having such strange dreams, but I feel rested, so the jury is still out on the new mattress.

¡Hasta pronto, mis amigos!

~N

Cosmogony

I have always been interested in philosophy. Maybe it's genetic from my dad, who was always waxing philosophical, or maybe it's just wanting to know more about more. I really enjoyed getting my minor in philosophy at Belmont University, although I think I did get more out of being an adult student than I would have had I chose philosophy the first time around. Anyway, today's word is... cosmogony, which means the study of any theory relating to the creation of the universe, not to be confused with cosmology, which is studying the universe at large and throughout its existence.
The differences in opinions about the creation of the universe and existence is fascinating. My mind cannot accept the Bible's creation story, but I also wonder about the big bang theory because it supports the cause and effect theory, which says every effect has a cause. But.... what about that first cause? If something caused the big bang, then what caused that? Most people can't accept the infinity of the universe, saying that it has to have some beginning. Strangely, I find infinity more comforting than a first cause.
So, here's my crazy theory.... Our human brains, running on such a low percentage of ability, do not (YET) have the capacity to comprehend the complexity of our universe. Basically, humans can operate in 1, 2 and 3 dimensions, and I believe the universe operates on many, many more dimensions. If humans can evolve our brains (before consuming ourselves and our Earth into extinction), then maybe some day many, many generations hence we will begin to understand that complexity.

¡Hasta pronto, mis amigos!

~N

Almost Heaven--Kwajalein

This picture brings back one of the best memories of my childhood. We lived on a small island in the South Pacific called Kwajalein. My dad worked for a company which contracted with the US Government to do a bunch of top secret stuff. As a kid I learned not to ask too many questions about what my dad did!

Anyway, this picture was taken on the family beach. I guess when I was young I loved to swim in the ocean. As an adult, though, I can't stand being in natural bodies of water. At this particular junction of my life, however, going to the beach with my family was the best!

My memory is thus.... We would get up early in the morning--my mom, my dad and me---and head down to the beach on our bicycles (no personal vehicles on Kwaj). My dog Friskey would, of course, accompany us. After a dip in the ocean, we'd gather back on the family blanket for a Sarah Lee coffeecake my mom had heated up and brought along. Mom and Dad would drink coffee and I'd have ice cold milk. After waiting the required time before going back into the water, I'd swim some more. Then the Tradewinds would open. The Tradewinds was this little shack on the beach that coooked some of the greasiest hamburgers in the world. I'd take my burger plain and it was the best tasting thing ever! Something about sun, sand and salt mixed in with all that hot juicy grease... Yummmmm!!

¡Hasta pronto, mis amigos!

~N