A Long Year

I haven't written in awhile and that is because its been a difficult year. I am trying to get a new business off the ground and finally moved it to my house Oct. 22, 2010. The first year went pretty well and hopefully things will only get better. However on top of trying to make my business a success I am working on a new relationship and remodel a house and all the while take care of my parents that live an hour and a half away. Their health is failing miserably. I am watching my parents get worse and worse on an almost daily basis and even I am shocked. Needless to say I am back on prozac and I battle with depression because I feel like I am failing at every thing. I can't focus on just one project. I am spread so thin so I feel like every thing I do is half ass.

Not much pictures to share right now. I just need to vent my fears and frustrations or I will lose my mind.

I feel so alone and so helpless and hopeless.

Lisa

A Sick Car and a Shitty Roommate

There are some days I wake up and I truly cannot find a single reason to be happy. Now don't get me wrong, I am blessed. I have my own business that in time will make me a good living. I have wonderful friends and I live in a beautiful place but there are just sometimes when none of that is enough. Not when I continually have to overcome ridiculous odds and I have to deal with people that have no soul. It gets old after a while and my attitude starts heading south really fast.

First my car. Its a good car. I love my Mustang. She's a 2001 and I bought her for myself when I graduated college. I drove her to and from work in Williamsburg for years and she never once let me down. I drove her from Virginia to Utah twice and have taken numerous road trips in her to California. But shes getting old and has over 150,000 miles on her. So shit is starting to go wrong. For instance in a matter of two weeks I discovered I need a new exhaust manifold, a new fuel pump and filter and new brakes not to mention I am way over due for an oil change etc.... If I do not fix these things I will have to park her. I live in a fucking desert. Parking her and walking literally MILES and MILES is not an option. So shes going to cost me over 1000 dollars. I don't even have enough money to do my laundry right now and I have to come up with 1000 dollars by Friday. So now sleep is a luxury I don't seem to have as I worry and fret on how I am going to pull this off. I was thinking.....if everyone in Moab donated 25 cents to me I would have the money to fix the car. I know if I heard all I had to do was donate 25 cents to someone that really needed it I would because whats 25 cents? I lose more than that in my laundry. But life doesn't work that way and besides from my experience people generally suck.

Speaking of people who suck....my ex roommate really sucks. I am not going to mention names but when I moved in in August into this womans home I went out of my way to be a good roommate. Come to find out I could've been Martha Stewart and she still would've found a reason to lecture me on a daily basis like I was a clueless teenager. I even voluntarily uped my rent 25 dollars a month to help her out because she was working so hard and she was soooo stressed. I finally could not face another lecture or read another fucking post it note so I told her I was moving. I only stayed an additional two weeks so I could watch her dog while she went on vacation (I guess she wasn't as bad off financially as I had thought but I digress). I cleaned the place from top to bottom and left her a heart felt note thanking her for giving me a place to stay when I had no where else to go. All I needed was my deposit back which would really come in handy right now as I mentioned earlier my car is in the shop and I'm broke. She gave me my deposit back alright. She charged me two weeks rent and half the utilities even though the only reason I stayed the extra two weeks was to watch her fucking dog. This type of shit happens to me all the time. Thats why I think people suck and I would rather deal with an angry Rottweiler than back stabbing chicken shit people.

So I have vented. Everyone keeps telling me God never puts more on your plate than you can handle (thats bullshit and if I hear that one more time I'm going to hurt someone). Or "this too shall pass". Yes that may be so but it will only be replaced by something worse.

So those are my thoughts for today. Its just another crappy day and I don't feel like getting up to fight the good fight anymore. I'm tired. I'm tired of bad news and I'm tired of shitty people. I'm tired of biting my tongue while others just unload their grievances on me. I'm tired of being little miss sunshine. I'm just plain tired.

Jessie and Chef School

I just wanted to share quickly some of Jessie's wonderful achievements in school. For those of you that know her know she loves to cook and she is great at it. She definitely did not get that from me but my uncle and my grandfather both are excellent chefs and my great grandfather was a gourmet chef in a 5 star hotel in California many moons ago.

She just sent me a ton of pictures of some of her dishes. I am so proud of her and would love to share with all of you her lovely presentation.

Case Solved

It took me a few days but I finally got Frankie on the phone and come to find out the empty liquor bottles were for someone else. I reminded him however if the mood ever struck him again to hand out liquor bottles to make sure they were full the next time.

They were actually for someone else. Moab is a very "cowboy and Indians" type of town. All around here John Wayne and Glen Ford made a few westerns and Thelma and Louise was filmed right in Moab and many more movies that I can't remember right now. So there is a photo store here that tourists can go to to dress up in Western attire and have their picture taken and made into a wanted poster. So the liquor bottles are props.

On to other things....lets see...the snow is melting and the sun is shining. The whole town is much busier as the tourist season begins. This month we have a few things going on such as a car show and Cowboy Poetry (don't ask).

I will be heading up to Salt Lake City this weekend to see Jess and just get away for a bit. I am sure there will be stories as a result of my trip that I will love to share

The Case of the Empty Liquor Bottles

Today has been curious and its just barely noon. I start my day visiting Hershey Bar, a chocolate lab I am pet sitting for. We eat, we drink, we read some "pee mail" and then had our "after walk" treats. I then ran up to where my horses are staying and waited for the farrier. They both were getting a "pedicure" today. Now mind you one of my girls is considered still a baby even though she is probably as big as her mother. She thinks shes teensy and bops around you when you visit. It was especially bad today because its been cold here (as you know). Ice is everywhere. Also they both are feeling a little cooped up because there has been no horse rides or much of horse anything while we get through this winter. And its first thing in the morning. So Penny Lane was "feeling it" this morning which usually means everyone better head for cover because here she comes!!! Luckily both of my girls are starting to lose their winter coat right now which means they are itchy and will sell their souls for a good brushing. Unfortunately its me against 2200 pounds of horse flesh DEMANDING a brushing. Thats good because they are easy to catch, bad because they are so bossy about it and decided to compete with each other and I'm in the middle.

Prudence was a lady about the whole thing (her pedicure) as she always is. Penny ran up and down the fence on the other side bucking and farting because Prudence was getting "all the attention". I took Prue back to their corral but Penny pushed her way through and was now loose in the big corral where the farrier and his 13 year old son was hanging out. Now Penny, up until today, has always been very gullible when it came to putting a halter on her. Not today. She seems to have put it all together. So for about 15 minutes I followed her around as she flitted here and there. I finally got her when she became preoccupied with the 13 year old boy. If no one can handle Penny we always send in the big guns...this little boy and she becomes putty in his hands.

Well Penny's pedicure went relatively well. We danced and tossed our head a bit, then we chewed on the lead rope really hard. We even decided that a noise she heard meant certain death and took off with me holding her but after we calmed back down we finished up with relatively little incident.

What in the hell does this have to do with empty liquor bottles you ask??? Well I come into work after all of that and on my grooming table I have a box. I look inside the box and there is a case of liquor bottles!!! I wasn't sure whether to burst into song or pick one of the bottles up. I maintained my composure and took out one of the bottles. It was empty. In fact they were all empty. So now I become interested in what this was all about. I ask Jessica (one of the owners for The Moab Barkery). She doesn't know so she calls Kaye (the other owner of The Moab Barkery) and she explains that Frankie D dropped off this box full of empty liquor bottles for me. Like I'm suppose to know. WTF??

Now Frankie D is the owner of Frankie D's....a nice bar in town. I went there once last November with my daughter to see an all Male Revue called the Mamas Boys. It had been awhile since I had been out and it was fun and before very long I was going home alittle green around the gills. Then I saw Frankie again with his wife when I had to clip their four Dachshunds nails. So now this.....a box of empty liquor bottles. Frankly I just don't know what to make of this. Maybe this is some local "Thank you for trimming my dogs' nails" gift. I just don't know. So I will be dropping by to see Ol' Frankie today to get to the bottom of this mystery and as soon as I know I will clue you in.

A Mail Faux Pas

Its only been an hour since my last post and already something kind of screwed up happened to me. As I mentioned in the last post Ron and I delivered my flyers out to the main downtown part of Moab.

Theres something you should know about me. I am fairly neurotic (for those of you that haven't picked up on that yet). I get these beautiful flyers made then I hesitate to post them places. Its the whole asking permission and possibly being rejected thing that usually makes me hesitate. I hate throwing myself out there to be judged and/or rejected (though I often am on both counts).

Ron decided this was a good time to learn how to get past all of that. So he enthusiastically insisted I do this. So off we went. I made him do most of the asking even though I was right beside him and its my picture screaming from the page. I did a lot of whining and grumbling but we did it. We placed these flyers all over town. If the people weren't there (it was Sunday) we slide them through doors or left them in their mail boxes outside. Ron proudly praised me the first few times with even a "See... I told you so" thrown in there. I finally threw my hand up with a silent "shut it" implied and we got through the whole experiences.

I admit I was mildly pleased and relieved by the end of the day as well. So why are you telling us this? you say.

I will tell you....I got an interesting call from the Postal Service a few minutes ago with a firm "Cease and Desist" and a patient "If you need our help we would be happy to come to some arrangement" but it was the "this is AGAINST THE LAW" that really got me.

So you can be sure when I see Ron next he will get a huge "See I TOLD YOU SO". I know this doesn't sound like a big deal but for one) I was mortified and 2) this is kind of like a rejection. OMG and WTF??????

Just thought I'd share my humiliation with you

Snow Blows

I know the last time I wrote I was bitching about the snow. That was 2 storms ago. Yes....it snowed again over the weekend but there are nothing but blue skies today and a lot of melted snow and mud. That environment has its own challenges I admit but I feel like the weather is heading in the right direction.

So in the snow storm Ron and I walked the entire downtown Moab area passing out my new fliers that are a lovely shade of purple I might add. The bottom third of my jeans were soaked but my feet were dry in my new Keens. I foot (that has bothered me for 6 years) was really whining (or that might've been me). The rest of the day was spent at home in my little room watching the second half of the Superbowl. I was pulling for the Colts (I know, I know all you Saints fans but I love Peyton Manning) so was so happy to see they were leading. I might've known as soon as I tuned in they fall a part. I use to do that to David's golf game as well so no surprise there. Congratulations to the Saints. My end of the bet I made is pretty easy to pay back so I'm ok.

This morning I went to the bone doctor and I can push back surgery a while but in the meantime he gave me a cortisone shot. First off OWWWWW!!!! I had no idea it would be so unpleasant. Then the numbness set in. But it was a weird numbness like just half of my middle toe was numb so I was kind of weirded out and am still trying to deal.

I rained dogs today as well. Thats always fun especially when they are puppies.

So not much exciting to talk about but I'm sure something will happen that I will be writing about in the future