morning rising

full moon is out tonight

enough said.

halloween time has come and gone.

this year is flying past and my favorite time has come and gone.

Halloween!!!!!

We had a good year this year. Lots of fun for all.

these boots were made for walking and then some.

one of my patients came in and I fell in love with his

cowboy boots. He was 5 years old and his mother says he wears them all the time.

I can tell this boy loves his boots.

to lotion or not to lotion

When you have kids and they aren't making any noise...

that's when you worry what they are up to.

working hands

These hands have character.

Orange

riddle

What kind of cap is one you cannot wear, but rather eat?

farm series

Driving along the road back home
I snapped a few farms along the way.
These barns are images of
our American past. How life used to be
when we lived in a simpler time.
Modernization and incorporation came
and took away this lifestyle.
All that's left is the carcass of
how things used to be.

farmhouse

It was a perfect day today. The clouds were thick like cotton candy and floated serenely by.

too cute

So my little neighbor came by today and I asked her if she had put her own lipstick on today. What do you think her reply was?

driving home

sometimes a long drive home can be boring if you keep your eyes on the road. Take a look around and you might just catch a glimpse of beauty.

my glass box

What once used to be called the SEAR's Tower in chicago is now called the Willis tower. These glass boxes hang out over the edge of the tall tower. What a view.

farm along the road

Driving home from vacation the day was beautiful with clouds towering above the scenery.

zip lining away

for my 12th anniversary I took my husband zip lining! We had fun and will definitely return with the kids!!!

We went to Vegas this past weekend and I just wander
around the hotels and look at all the creative ideas the decorators
came up with for catching your eye.

this toad in the road

a generation apart

As I walk with you hand in hand,
I am reminded of how small you are.
Your hand fits entirely in mine and your steps are
3 to my 1.
We are a generation apart and yet you
are a part of me and I am a part of you
now and forever we will be.

gnarled

I was walking past this tree and thought the trunk was beautiful.
The way the trunks weave in and out of one another and the colors go well together. The green with purple with orange.

Along a pond, the green algae grows.
Spring is near as winter slows.
I inhale the fresh air
as my husband mows.

along this road

Another shot taken yesterday. As the sun was setting I liked the look of the trees in silhouette.
Now that spring is coming there will be a lot to take pictures of.

hazy day

The sun was a bit weird looking the other day.
It was one of those days where you could actually stare at the sun and
not burn out your retinas.

sunset in indiana

I am a bad driver because when I see something I think will make a good shot I get my camera out and snap off a few shots. Took this the other day going home from work.

Rob and I went to see Slumdog millionaire.

I'm not sure I see why it got so many oscars, but it was a good story.

I think why so many people loved the movie is because it really shows you what it's like for a kid living in the slums of india to survive. 

We lived in several countries when I was a kid.  Jamaica and Peru, south america.

The kind of poverty you see in the movie slumdog millionaire is the kind of poverty I saw on a daily basis in both these countries I lived in. When people in america think that the 'ghetto' is being poor they don't know what being 'poor' really means until they see a third world country.

Poor in America means you don't have air conditioning in your house, being poor in a 3rd world country means you have no electricity in your house. Being poor in america means your front door bell doesn't work because it broke years ago and you can't fix it, being poor in a 3rd world country means you have no front door. A homeless person in America can find 3 square meals a day at many of the soup kitchens around town. A homeless person in a 3rd world country may not eat for a week. A person begging for money on the street of America usually just spends it on alcohol or drugs. A person begging for money in a 3rd world country spends his money on food. That's a big difference. We need to realize just how lucky we are in life and that we want for nothing. 

confessions of a shopaholic.

it was so bad it doesn't warrant my time to review.

Why does it make me so mad?

I'm sure by now everyone has heard of that crazy woman who just had 8 babies by in vitro fertilization. This story makes me so mad. 

1. the woman has no job- how did she pay for the 7 in vitro fertilizations?

answer: She defrauded the government out of $165,000 claiming to have gotten a debilitating back injury which she suffered while working at a psychiatric hospital. Working at the hospital? It was more like she was a patient there. If this back injury was so debilitating how was she able to carry 7 pregnancies especially the multiple birth ones?

2. The woman lives with her mother in a 3 bedroom house. 

14 kids + 2 adults divided by 3 bedrooms = 5 people to each bedroom.

3. She says she doesn't receive government aid. 

answer: She receives food stamps and monthly stipends for her 2 autistic children.

What does she think food stamps are? Who is paying for her 2 autistic children to go to special schools? We, the tax payers, are!

4. She says she's going to go back to school to get her masters to support her kids.

When is she going to have time to do this great feat? Who will watch her kids while she's at school and then who will watch them while she's studying for her masters? How much money could she possiblly make that would allow her to support 14 kids? 

5. What F*cked up doctor thought this was a good idea to artificially inseminate a woman who has no job, no means of support and already has 6 kids at home and supposedly a debilitating back injury? This doctor should have to pay for these babies since he didn't care to look into the fact that this woman wasn't all there mentally. So he should have to take care of them until they are 18 years old. 

6. The government should investigate the money she received for this supposed back injury that she suffered, because I can tell you right now there is no way she has a back in jury and was able to have 7 pregnancies.

7. Has anyone seen that she is basking in the glory of the media attention? She's obviously had her lips plumped and her nose done and she looks botoxed out of her mind. 

The woman is a whack job and should have her kids taken away from her. 

8. she claims her whole life is dedicated to her kids. She says she holds each octuplet for 45 mins. every day. 45 x 8= 6 hours a day she's at the hospital holding her babies. What are the other 6 kids at home doing? I feel sorry for the grandmother in all of this because she's the one it sounds like that is taking care of this woman's children. 

The  media and sponsors should show this woman what she did is not ok and not persue her for interviews or sponsorships. She doesn't deserve to get paid for what she is going to make all the tax payers pay. The hospital bill alone for the 8 babies is going to be over 2 million dollars. I do believe that there has been enough public protest to this woman that potential sponsors are not going to use her for ads or shows. 

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR-

her story reminds me of another story I heard about a guy who was on government support for years. Didn't work and took his check from the government month after month. Well the money he got monthly he would waste on lottery tickets. Well one of the lottery tickets paid off and he became a millionaire. Whose money is that really? The money he used to buy the ticket was from his government check. When asked if he was going to pay back the money he took from government support he said, " NO!" 

People like this are assholes to society! They are leeches! Government needs to do a shake up of it's handouts. I'm tired of these people on government welfare who have this attitude that they deserve it. I had a patient who is on medicaid, 16 years old, and her mom waited for her in the waiting room. We did 6 cavities on her that day and it did take a long time- 2 hours to do them all. The mother was such a bitch saying how she's getting tired of waiting! Started getting all upitty and snotty. I was about to tell the woman to shut her mouth and sit her ass down and wait since she's not paying for a damn thing! the government was! Where do these people get off having any sort of attitude about their treatment when they aren't even paying for it? If she thought it was taking long then she should have come up front and asked how long it was going to take and if she didn't want to wait that long she should have left and come back when her daughter was done. Easy to solve that one! 

fountain

sunset in the distance, light leaves behind.
Slowly the dark creeps up and blinds everything.

I think of silver when I look at this picture.

puffs

geometry

Geometry of the sky.
Overcast days make everything gloomy. Sometimes it's
hard to find a subject that catches my interest.
This wrought iron gazebo made for an
interesting forefront to the winter sky above.

Benjamin button

I sat through the 3-hour long movie called,

" The curious case of benjamin button".

Ok so it was a nice movie, good story line, but I wouldn't say oscar worthy performances. 

I give this movie an 'OK' rating. 

look what I saw this morning

Every morning I wake up and come downstairs I
pass by a window on the way down the stairs. Usually I can tell by
what I see out this window if there is a beautiful sky out or not. When I see
it's going to be a good one, I run outside with my camera and snap off a few shots.
I can't believe how fast the scenery changed in the few minutes I'm out there.
The sky went from a deep orange like you see on the bottom shot to a light pink like you
see in the upper shots. This all happened in a matter of 3-4 mins.

sunsets

This sunset caught my eye since it had
a large ray that went straight up to the sky.
Sometimes when you see something in nature and you take a photo of it
it doesn't quite catch how amazing it really is. I had to take this
shot while driving and trying to avoid cars getting in the shot and
telephone poles.

We went to see Gran Torino last night.

It was rather excellent if I do say so myself. 

It kept us entertained for the entire movie and got

good belly laughs throughout. 

So this movie isn't for the person who

doesn't like to hear racial slurs because there are tons of them

in this movie. So if you can overlook the racial slur part then 

sit down and enjoy. 

Clint Eastwood got his character down pat. He came off

as a believeable old fart that was stuck in his ways.

The story line itself has been done in movie after movie,

but what made this one stand out is the great one liners he has.

Whoever wrote the movie did a great job with the lines. 

rating: :O) 2 smiles from these viewers

World's biggest mullet on youngest kid!

We were at the mall tonight and we saw
the world's largest mullet, and it was on the youngest kid
who was about 4 years old. They must have been growing this one since his birth!
Business in the front, party in the back!