THIS JUST IN: I have nothing to blog about

Wow, I can't believe the world lost Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson in the same day. I'm sure others will write in detail about this and will do so much more eloquently than I ever could. I can't say that I was the world's biggest Farrah fan and, to be honest, I don't own a single CD by Michael Jackson, but I still hurt for their families and friends. I've seen cancer take too many people in my life and it just sucks. And Michael Jackson's death was just so unexpected.

Obviously, the remainder of this post has nothing to do with either one of them and the incredibly sad events of this day, but I had planned on posting these so I figured I would go ahead and do so. That's right folks, I have no blog material this week so I've already made you read a meme and now I'm going to subject you to some relatively recent paintings I've done. The usual disclaimer applies: I can't take photographs at all.

Here is an abstract guitar:

And then I did another one. In this second one, I used slightly different colors and did some splatter painting at the end. Oh and one other thing - I paid attention to what I was doing and actually lined up the neck with the soundhole on this one a little better.

I very rarely wear high heels, I just paint them:

Don't worry, I know what you're thinking......I'm not sure about this next one either. It's a funky bird. It was fun to paint, but it looks a little crazy.

I guess I've been on a musical painting kick lately. First the two guitars, and now here is an abstract piano:

I'm actually pretty happy with this next one.

A colorful cross. I think my Mom wants to buy this one. But I'm not going to charge her. She's also thinking about buying the abstract piano. I won't charge for it either.

A gigantic martini. This one could even be a Christmas decoration. :-)

A sassy little girl. Someone told me she looks creepy. What do y'all think? Creepy or sassy?

And not only did I get on a musical painting kick, I guess I also jumped on an Eiffel Tower kick:

This next one looks so much cooler in person than in a photo (okay, I'm not trying to pat myself on the back, but honestly all of my paintings look a whole lot better in person than they do in my crappy photos). This one is also a ton of fun to paint. I've done two of them. But I'll only make you look at one. The other one is very similar - I just did some different designs, swirls, etc. in the girl.

I had never done a sports related painting so I gave this one a shot. I gave it to my Dad for Father's Day last weekend. I don't think I'm going to start a golf painting kick anytime soon.

I've painted this next one twice as well. Again, I'll only make you look at one of them. Sometimes we end up teaching the same painting multiple times. There's a dress painting that I've now painted six times. They all look a little different, but not different enough to keep posting them and making y'all look at multiple versions of the same thing.

Okay, that's all I'll force y'all to suffer through this go-round.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

I'm trying to imagine I'm sitting on an iceberg right now

I'm kind of lacking in material this week. Y'all know what that means, don't you? That's right folks. It's time for a meme. And you're going to have a blast reading it because I can't fix the paragraph spacing.

What is your current obsession?
Trying to stay cool. It's been in the mid/high 90's all week here in Atlanta. It's only mid-to-late June and I'm officially sick of summer already. I dread getting my electric bill this month since my air has been running non-stop. But my gas bill should be pretty low because of the cold showers I've been taking to wash the sweat off. Bailey has been laying all spread-eagle on the cool tile floors in the kitchen all week just to keep from passing out.

What is your weirdest obsession?
Sitting in the dark in my house because I haven't opened the blinds in an attempt to keep the sun out so my house stays cooler. Eating soggy bowls of cold cereal for dinner so that I don't have to turn the stove or oven on to cook anything and heat up my house any more than it already is.

What are you wearing today?
A white flowing skirt, a t-shirt, and some platform wedges. Not completely appropriate for a law firm, but did I mention that it's hotter than hell here in Atlanta this week? They are lucky I'm not working in the nude. Seriously, when you wake up at 6:00 a.m. and turn on the news only to find out it's 80 degrees already, you know you should not wear a business suit unless you want to drip in sweat and stink up the entire office.

What’s for dinner?
I can't decide. It's a complete toss up between Special K and Apple Cinnamon Cheerios.

What would you eat for your last meal?
Not soggy cereal.

This is kind of a depressing question. Way to go, meme. Okay, assuming when I eat my last meal I'm not eating it through a tube or something and can actually enjoy it, I would go with lasagna, mac & cheese, ice cream, and a slice of cheesecake. All washed down with a tub of chocolate milk. And suddenly I feel like I'm going to be sick thinking about that combination of foods.

What’s the last thing you bought?
Tampons. Hey, you wanted to know. I'm just here to spread the truth people.

What are you listening to right now?
A Lifetime, by Ziggy Marley. I hope my co-workers like to get their reggae on since I'm listening to one reggae song after another on the Pandora station I created. I've been listening to reggae music for the past 2.5 hours. Oops, the Ziggy song just ended. Now I'm listening to Material Man, by Gregory Isaacs.

What do you think of the person who tagged you?
No one tagged me, but I totally ripped this meme off from Flurrious. And what I think of her is that she is one of the most hysterical bloggers in the blogosphere. I don't know of many people who can write a rather lengthy post about their garbage cans and the city's garbage service and still make me kind of sad when it ends.

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
Anywhere that doesn't get above 75 degrees in the middle of the summer. But I don't really like snow so it can't snow there in the winter. Do y'all know of such a place (besides somewhere in California because I don't think my budget would allow me to live there).

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
A walk-in freezer. (Enough of the comments about it being hot here? Okay...I'll try to move on.)

Which language do you want to learn?
Portuguese so I know what Hot Brazilian is saying sometimes.

What is your favorite colour?
Red.

What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe?
I don't actually own it but I'm looking for an outfit that makes me look about 100 pounds thinner than I actually am. Then it will be my favorite. In the meantime, I guess I'll go with the t-shirts we wear at the studio because I'm always happy when I'm painting.

What is your dream job?
I've always wanted to own a bookstore. Not one of those huge ones like Borders or Barnes and Noble, but a small, quaint, cozy neighborhood bookstore. With a coffee shop in it. And some studio/gallery space. So basically my dream job is to paint all day, occasionally sell a book or two and drink all the free coffee I can possibly stand. Since I haven't won the lottery recently, I guess I'll be sitting right back here at the law firm again tomorrow.

What’s your favourite magazine?
I don’t have a favorite, but I do flip through the artsy ones when I'm not in my dream small, quaint, cozy neighborhood bookstore, but rather, in a huge Borders or Barnes and Noble type of place.

If you had £100 now, what would you spend it on?
According to Flurrious, that is $163.00. I'm going to trust her on that so that I don't have to go to all the hard work of Googling it. I do have $163.00. Since I'm incredibly exciting and spontaneous, I'll probably just leave it in the bank for now.

Describe your personal style.
Anything that covers me up without showing too many rolls of fat. It's a glamorous look for sure.

What are you going to do after this?
Eat lunch. I like to give my personal style a challenge.

What are your favourite films?
I can never pick favorites (oh excuse me, the question asked for my favourite) when it comes to books, movies, songs, etc.

What’s your favourite fruit?
Oh hell, let's just go with pineapple. Or mango. Because this meme is apparently not going to accept that I don't like to pick favourites.

What inspires you?
Rainbows and unicorns.

Do you collect anything?
Well, I currently have over 100 paintings stacked up in my living room floor so I suppose I'll go with that as my answer.

Your favourite animal?
Bailey would probably be upset if I didn't say it was her. It's not, but don't tell her that. I'm kidding people.

What are you currently reading?
I just bought The Doctor's Daughter by Hilma Wolitzer. My friend is starting a book club and it's for that. I haven't had time to start reading it yet what with all of the cold showers I've been taking lately to rid myself of the gallons of sweat.

Go to your book shelf, take down the first book with a red spine you see, turn to page 26 and type out the first line:
My bookshelf is currently about 6 miles from me since I'm blogging on my lunchbreak at the office. But I happen to have a Webster's Dictionary and it's red. The first word on page 26 is "albacore". It's a big fish and canned tuna comes from it. You're welcome.

By what criteria do you judge a person?
I try not to judge but seem to fail miserably. I don't even seem to have much criteria when I do it.

What skill would you like to acquire immediately?
To twitch my nose and be in Brazil with Hot Brazilian.

I'm kind of glad we only do this trip once per year

I think I'm finally beginning to recover from my family reunion in the woods of Mississippi last weekend. It was great to see all of my relatives, however, I can sum up the entire weekend in a mere nine letters:

HOT AS HELL.

Y'all, I can't remember when I've sweated so much. It was between 94 and 96 degrees and over 85% humidity from the time we arrived on Friday afternoon until we left on Monday. When we arrived on Friday, I opened up the back of my SUV, grabbed two bags and walked up the sidewalk to our cabin (a total of maybe 25 or 30 feet). When I walked in my niece said, "Aunt Beverly, are you okay?" My face was as red as an apple and I had sweat running down my face like I had just jumped out of the shower. All 50 of us at the reunion walked around for the next 3 days with a paper towel in hand to wipe our faces from time to time. No one wanted to hug anyone because it was simply too disgusting to get that close to each other. And we were outside from about 9:00 a.m. each morning until after 11:00 p.m. each night. I wore no makeup and had a baseball hat on my head the entire weekend. Add in the approximately 48 mosquito bites I now have covering my arms and legs and you can imagine I was thisclose to winning the Miss America pageant.

We also had a few adventures. Of course. Y'all should know by now I can't go through a period of several days without some sort of adventure. Here are a few of them:

1. My aunt was riding with me on the way. My mom had a couple of kids in her car with her. We had to take 2 SUV's because we all packed like we were going to the woods for a month. My brother wasn't coming until the next day so we then had 3 cars driving back to Atlanta. It turns out that the kids were the responsible ones in our group. I've made this trip by myself in the past and it takes me right around 5 hours to drive it. It took us 8.5 hours to get there on Friday because we had to stop at every other exit. One of those stops was because my mom wanted a peach milkshake from Chick-Fil-A in Meridian, MS. About 15 - 20 minutes down the road, my aunt said to me, "Beverly, where is my cell phone? I can't find it." She dug around in her purse for a minute and I told her I would call it so she could hear it ring. But that's not what happened. I called her phone, it rang, and then a man answered. Turns out she had dropped her phone in the parking lot of the Chick-Fil-A in Meridian, MS, someone turned it in, and the manager had her phone. I then called my mom and told her we needed to return to Meridian and why. She decided to keep on driving because she wanted to stop at a W almart she knew was about 30 minutes further up the road to stock up on groceries because then we would be at our destination less than 30 minutes past that. My aunt and I back tracked to get her phone which added an extra 45 minutes or so to our drive, and then met my mom and the kids at W almart.

2. On Friday night some sort of menacing Mississippi bug bit me on my finger. It itched like crazy. I didn't want to scratch it in case it was something that would spread, but then I rubbed it trying to make it stop itching without breaking the skin. When I rubbed it, all of the skin came off of my finger which sort of defeated the purpose of trying not to break the skin. And which, you know, is pretty gross. So now I have a totally disgusting scab covering up a knuckle on one of my fingers.

3. We had a cabin that sleeps four people. However, we had seven people in the cabin. With one bathroom. This was not a positive experience. On Sunday morning, I had to pee. Really bad. My mom was in the bathroom. I turned around to fold up my sheets and lean my air mattress up against the wall while I was waiting. My aunt snuck in the bathroom before I realized it. Then I turned around to do something else while I waited on her and my brother got in there before I realized it. Finally I was able to get in there. I was going to pee and then go ahead and take a shower while I could actually get in the bathroom. I walked in the bathroom, and the second I closed the door, I heard a knock. It was my cousin's 8-year-old son and he told me he needed to go to the bathroom really bad. I figured I had better let him go ahead of me since he's 8 and had to go bad, so I let him in and walked back out into the bedroom area still needing to pee. I was about to wet my pants by this time. And I waited. And I waited. And I waited. And then I waited some more. My aunt kept asking if he was still in the bathroom and I kept telling her that he was. Finally he walked out. He had a video game in his hands. He admitted he had been sitting on the toilet playing his video game the entire time I was out in the cabin doing my pee-pee dance. It's funny now because it's 5 days later. Not so much at the time.

Naturally we had some moments of family drama because, well, this is my family we're talking about. My brother got testy with me a couple of times, my niece tried to boss me around but then I reminded her that she is 11-years-old and I am 40-years-old, and my aunt snored like a truck driver all weekend which kept several of us awake a good part of each night and caused my mom to sigh loudly approximately every 45 seconds all night long. For three solid nights. Good times indeed.

We got back Monday night, I took about a two-hour long shower to remove the sweat and grime from my body, then crashed. I took a couple of days off after we got back but honestly, I had no energy on Tuesday (probably because I felt dehydrated after sweating non-stop and eating grilled and fried foods for almost 4 days and had to deal with my family in tight quarters for about 3.5 days too long). I didn't even get dressed that day, much less write a blog post. I did take a couple of naps and catch up on some stuff I had saved on my Tivo though. On Wednesday, I did laundry and ran about a thousand errands and then had to teach a class at the studio that night. Then I returned to work yesterday just in time for our monthly billing deadline (I have to process bills for approximately 70 client matters) and it was a time entry deadline. Plus I was several days behind on my regular work after being out. So that's why it's Friday and I'm just now posting for the first time in a week or two.

I can't wait to get around to your blogs and seeing what's been going on in your lives.

I know why men love to have stay-at-home wives to take care of all of their crap. I wouldn't mind a wife right now except for the whole sex part.

Oh internets. I am tired today - trying to keep from knocking myself out when my head slams into my desk and/or keyboard tired.

I was at the studio for 11 hours on Saturday which is not unusual. And then I had my schedule kind of set in my head for Sunday because I had a very, very long list of things to do. You see, I am going out of town next weekend. Before I tell you where I'm going I need to say this: It is going to be quite difficult, but do not be jealous of me.

Sadly, I'm not going to Brazil to visit Hot Brazilian. Don't even get me started on that.

No, no, I am leaving this Friday to drive in a caravan of family driven cars to a family reunion in Morton, Mississippi to stay in a cabin that was perhaps built in the early 1900's and has most likely not been remodeled ever. And I believe the mattresses have not been changed since the day the cabins opened. But that's actually okay, because I will be sleeping on an air mattress laid on top of the disgustingly dirty carpet that has probably never been cleaned. The first year I went, I had to listen to bats in the chimney all night each night. The second year I went, my aunt got freaked out because she thought the Lord God Almighty was revealing Himself to her while she sat on the toilet. I know that it is probably tempting for some of you to want to stalk me and drive to the Morton/Puckett Mississippi exit off of I-20 and drive deep into the woods to a rustic cabin to find me, right? But I will be surrounded for the entire weekend by people. A lot of people. My mom is one of 8 kids. By the time you add up the 8 kids, their spouses, all of their kids, the kids' spouses, the kids' kids, and some girlfriends and boyfriends and in-laws that are joining us this year, I will be surrounded by approximately 900 people from Friday until Monday. Or perhaps closer to 46. And in addition to being surrounded by a whole bunch of people, I will be constantly covered in a whole bunch of "it's hot as hell in the woods of Mississippi in mid-June" sweat, tons of bugs, the odor of a mixture of approximately 5 different brands of bug spray (which don't keep the Mississippi bugs away if you want to know the truth), and the lovely stench of charcoal burning grills and hot oil (because we don't eat anything all weekend unless it's grilled or fried in an outdoor deep fryer). Oh, and some eau du lake. Sounds enticing, doesn't it? Makes you want to hunt me down and hug on me for a while.

My mom decided she wanted me to do some art pieces for her and her three sisters (her family came in a nice symmetrical package of 4 boys and 4 girls) to give them at the reunion. I worked on those pieces last weekend and it took me a total of 17 hours. These are not the paintings I normally post pictures of on here. If they were like the ones I normally post on here, it would have only taken me a couple of hours to paint four of them. She wanted a different style that I also do. A style that takes a whole bunch of time because it involves a whole bunch of layers.

Then last week when she took a sneak peak at them, she asked if I might have time to do four smaller ones for her four sisters-in-law. I was planning to work on them for a good portion of the day yesterday, go to the grocery store, get a mani/pedi, do all of my laundry (which was quite a lot if I'm being honest), clean my house, clean out my car since I'm driving a few people to Mississippi, and possibly run buy a couple of pairs of shorts if I could find the time to squeeze it in because my ass has increased in size yet again and I don't have any shorts to wear next weekend that will not split right in half the second I sit down.

But then my mom called me at 9:00 a.m. yesterday, told me she was all upset about some family drama and could I please meet her for lunch so she could talk to me about it because she needed someone to vent to. Of course I told her I would. So I put in my first load of laundry, started the intial layer of my artwork pieces, took a shower, met her and talked for two and a half hours, got my mani/pedi, ran to the art supply store since I realized I had run out of something I needed for the art pieces, got back home at 4:00 p.m., did some more laundry, cleaned the kitchen (the only part of my house that got cleaned), and then collapsed on the sofa for about 30 minutes to write an email to Hot Brazilian about some things I'm frustrated with him about (the usual: why I haven't been down to see him yet and why we can't seem to talk to each other more often than once every two or three weeks), and realized it was now after 5:00 and I still had much art to do. I painted until 12:30 a.m. and by the time I put all of the wet pieces of art work up high where Bailey could not get her paws in them, cleaned up my art supplies (also so Bailey could not get her paws in them), took a shower to wash the paint off my body (I still found blue paint on my right knee and thigh when I got in the shower this morning) and went to bed it was about 1:30 a.m. Then I was all wired and couldn't go to sleep until almost 2:30 a.m. My alarm then went off at 6:00.

And that is the story of why I can barely keep my eyes open today.

So tonight after leaving work at 6:00 p.m., I need to go to the grocery store, stop to put some air in my tires, try to go buy some shorts, buy Bailey some food so she will not attempt to overtake the world out of hunger and anger at me for running out of cat food, clean out my car, clean my bathroom before my toilet attempts to overtake the world because it grows legs and wants to run away from the disgusting amount of dirt currently in my bathroom, clean out Bailey's litter box, finish my laundry, and finish the four art pieces I started last night. I think tonight I should be done with my list of things to do and be able to go to bed by about 4:00 a.m. I have another list of stuff to get done tomorrow night, Wednesday night I have to teach a class at the studio, and Thursday night I have to pack for the trip and my mom may stay at my house that night.

And that is the story of why I would love to have enough money to hire a personal assistant. Amen.

So this is what all you kids have been listening to!

For those of you who have been reading my blog for a while, you might remember how my month went a year and a half ago. It started off on December 1, 2007 with me being rear ended (in the car I had only owned for 4 months) by someone going approximately 30 - 40 mph . She slammed into the back of my car so hard that it pushed me into the BMW in front of me. Her car was totaled, mine had approximately $9,000 worth of damage to it and the BMW had $10,000 worth of damage. I then had a major water leak at my house. My bill is still in dispute with the City of Atlanta water department 18 months later because they apparently only hire people who don't know how to fix billing problems despite tons of phone calls, emails, and faxes from both me and my landlord. I then had to drive the oddest rental car I've ever driven for 3 weeks while my car was in the shop. On December 14, 2007, I was rear ended for the second time in two weeks in the rental car on my way home from work by the head waitress of a pool hall who told me she hit me because the high heeled boots her boyfriend told her she shouldn't wear while driving to the pool hall slipped off her brake pedal. A few days later, I drove home from work planning to take a nice, long, hot shower and then make a big pot of spaghetti which I had been having a major hankering for all day long. Only I got home to find that the City of Atlanta really screwed up my account from my call to them about the water leak and turned my water off while I was at work and couldn't guarantee if or when they'd be back out that night to turn it back on (even though they acknowledged they were in error) so I called my mom and asked if I could come sleep on her sofa so I would at least be able to brush my teeth and take a shower. And I was totally pissed that I couldn't make spaghetti. On the way to her apartment (already wearing my yoga pants and tshirt I planned to sleep in), I stopped at a gas station to fill up the crazy rental car (which wasn't damaged enough to return to the rental place when I was rear ended by the pool hall waitress and her slippery boots) and the gas tank moved around randomly inside the car because it wasn't bolted in properly and I couldn't tell when the nozzle was in all the way. Gasoline came spewing out of the car straight towards my face so I jumped back and instead got drenched in gasoline from the waist down. So I told my mom when I arrived at her apartment that if I smelled like I had bathed in 87 octane gasoline, that was not at all her imagination. Then the water department guy called my cell phone at midnight and asked me if I had gone on vacation and left a faucet turned on in my house. Which, really? WTF? A few other odd things happened that month, but these are the only ones I can remember at the moment. Oh, I do remember one more thing. The girl who rear ended me showed up in court and decided to plead not guilty so we were re-scheduled to come back for a trial. A trial over a stupid car accident.

When I finally got my car back I discovered that the collision center had not taken care of getting my CD player repaired which I had reported to them as part of the damage from the accident. I hate listening to the radio - I only listen to CD's. My first mistake was listening to the guy at the repair shop who told me it would be easier for me to call the insurance company and set up that repair with them because they didn't repair audio systems and he'd have to take it somewhere else anyway. The insurance company argued and argued with me saying there is no way the accident damaged my CD player since there was no visible damage to the dashboard. I explained to them that my CD player had worked just fine until the exact moment their client plowed into the back of my car and pushed me into another car and demanded they pay for the repairs. They reluctantly agreed to pay for repairs. They referred me to a car stereo shop.

I ended up having my CD player "repaired" on five occasions. I was sick of dealing with the stupid insurance company and I knew I would never get them to agree to replace the system and I really don't have time to sit on the phone with them arguing about it. So a couple of weeks ago I decided to just go buy another one because I am trying to do my part to stimulate the economy even though I don't have the money to make spontaneous large purchases like this. Also, I had six CD's in the player and they were all jammed. They would not play. I could not eject them. And the thought of taking my car to the repair shop, waiting for 30 - 45 minutes for them to remove the stereo system, and then driving around with a gigantic hole in my dashboard and no music for another couple of weeks for the sixth time in 18 months made me crazy. And the thought of having to listen to the crap radio stations here in Atlanta for the rest of the time I own my car made me even crazier. (The radio worked fine - it was only the CD player which was testing my patience.)

I started looking online and could not find a basic stereo/CD player. I went to Best Buy and told them I wanted a very basic system - no IPod hook up, no MP3 hook up, no satellite radio, no blue tooth, etc. I just wanted a radio and multi-disc player. The salesman said, "yeah, good luck with that......they don't make stuff like that anymore." I explained that I am 40 years old and like to rock it old school and I told him that I didn't even have an IPod or MP3 player and that I didn't want one. He laughed at me, but he was very patient and kind and I didn't take it personally. He told me he resisted them when they first came out but eventually caved and bought one and how much he loves it. I asked him how long it took him to cave and he said, "it was a long time. At least 6 months after they came out." And I felt like an idiot because it took me closer to 6 years to even stand in a store and discuss them with anyone.

So I eventually did what any 40-year-old technology challenged person would do and said, "oh hell, help me join the year 2009 and tell me exactly what the heck I need and how to use it all because I am a stupid, stupid girl." I am paraphrasing. Obviously. Because I'm not really stupid. Only when it comes to audio or computer equipment. He told me step by step how to download music from my CD's onto a MP3 player. He told me how to hook the MP3 player into the stereo system. And less than 30 minutes later, I walked out with the tiniest and cutest red MP3 player thinking it was impossible that an object smaller than a credit card could possibly hold 300+ songs. Sadly, after all the time he took helping me, the store was out of stock on the stereo so he sent me to another location down in the hood (which honestly is not far from where I live) to buy the sytem. I then took it back to the original store last week and had it installed. Because puhlease. I have my limits on how much technology I'm willing to learn in a short period of time and I was not about to try and figure out how to install my own audio system. Which I discovered was a very wise choice since he had to take my entire dashboard apart - including all up under my steering wheel - to wire everything.

Y'all - why have I been resisting the whole MP3 thing for so long? This is one of the most awesome things ever!! I have to admit it took me a little time to figure out how to sync from my computer to my MP3 player since it didn't automatically choose some certain setting, but once I figured that out I downloaded to my heart's content. Now I just plug it into the front of my stereo and have all of my favorite (read: dorky) music at my fingertips without having a car full of loose CD's laying around, cases getting broken, etc. And if I ever get my trip to Brazil scheduled I will be listening to music instead of having to talk to the person next to me on the plane for the entire 20+ hours. Win-win the way I see it.

But I have one question for those of you who have been listening to MP3 players and IPods for years already:

Is there something wrong with the shape of my ears? I can't keep those earphones in my ears at all. If I move the slightest little bit they fall out. I see people jogging with them and they stay in their ears so please tell me: what is wrong with my ears? Is this just one more thing that is evidence of my weirdness?

P.S. Now I want spaghetti again.