Well, here it is Friday morning, just 13 days away from Thanksgiving and three well deserved and much needed days of R&R in California. The dogs across the wall are going especially crazy today and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. It’s so crazy, twice an hour, one will bark once then the other and before you know it, there are 3-4 dogs just going crazy barking for what seems like three hours but is really only about a minute. Anyway, they’re going at it hardcore this morning, like the world revolves around them.

In other news…I gotta share something about what’s going on with my face. Ya know, last Saturday I had some kind of crazy allergic reaction to something and my face puffed up like a puffer fish. Well, I’d been trying everything, because I have been in a serious amount of pain all week because of the rash. I’m guessing I’ve spent $50 on lotions etc to try to help with the dryness the rash was causing as well as the pain caused by the rash. As I’m sure you’ve figured out, nothing I tried had worked.

Well, over the summer while I was back home my sister-in-law, Jackie, gave me a bag of beauty products she wanted me to try - and because my skin is so darn cantankerous when it comes to using any type of product, I was real scared to try anything. So, I didn’t. I mean, can you blame me?

Anyway, at my wits end last night standing in front of the mirror and talking to John I finally started digging through my ‘basket-o-moisturizing-products’ (I mean, I do live in the desert…) and I came across that stuff my SIL had given me.

I read the name - “Mineral Rehydrator” - that sounded like something I might want to try, so I did.

Wow. Within just a few minutes, the tightness from the dryness started to subside - then the itchiness faded and here I am this morning and my face feels pretty darn close to normal (minus a few little blemishes that always rear their ugly head any time I got through this crap).

At any rate - I haven’t tried the other products Jackie sent with me, but I plan on it and I plan on writing more about it. But even if the Mineral Rehydrator is the only product that works for me - I’d crawl across broken glass to get it - because it’s freakin amazing!

So, check out Avasiare and give it a try. If you’re in the DFW area, I understand she does shows every once and a while and you might be able to get in there. Beyond that - you’re gonna get nothing but rave reviews from me regarding their Rehydrator. I’m a fan. Not a crazy stalker fan, but darn close…

If you try Avasiare, please leave a comment - I’d love to hear what you think about it.

I decided to write this before giving it a title, because I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about. First, I have to tell you that I have just spent the better part of three hours helping my mother with her PC and in the end, I’m not sure anything I did helped, which makes me sad. As we speak, I am remotely connected to her PC and running some virus scans and spyware scans. It’s taking a long long time and I’m not sure I’m gonna make it till it’s done, because I’m tired. 

To update those of you who might be interested in how my face feels today - well, it still hurts. I did gently scrub it this morning as well as this evening because there was a ton of dry skin and it looked gross. I’ve given it a bit more thought and I guess, rather than a sunburn, it feels more like what it must feel like after you’ve had a chemical treatment on your face. My skin is dry, tight and flakey. Yeah, I know - disgusting.

There isn’t a whole ton going on around here really. Jerrett didn’t have school today, which was cool. It was veterans day so I noted it by telling John “Happy Veterans Day” to which he replied, “That’s today?”. Jerrett’s birthday is tomorrow and I am still kicking and screaming about having a 14 year old. It just CAN NOT be. I’m to young.

Of course, my big milestone birthday is at the end of the month and I’m not excited about that either. 

Anyway, enough. I am tired, I need to go to bed. It’s already past my bedtime!

I was sitting here trying to think of what I wanted to write about and I decided that I didn’t really *want* to write about anything specifically. I’m not feeling 100% which kinda makes me worry a bit, because of the new treatment plan I started this week. I’ve had a headache for three days…not something that’s a ton of fun, ya know?

I cooked dinner tonight and it was one of those OMGWHATAMIGOINGTOCOOKWEREALLGONNASTARVE type things…so we had ‘The Kitchen Sink’ for dinner - ground beef, two cans of diced tomatoes, a can of Ranch Style Beans, a box of Mac N Cheese and 2 other quarter filled boxes of random pasta. John said it was great - I’m not so sure. Something was missing and it just might have been the cornbread…but who knows?

So, how about that election? Huh? Talk about edge of your seat suspense the whole night! Jerrett had one of those ‘color the states’ maps for school - and I was telling them as the projections were coming in what color to color each state - we got all the way to the end and realized that some teacher decided to do switch the colors around and the “Blue States” were supposed to be colored red and the “Red States” were to be blue…what kind of craziness is that? I wrote a note and said I was morally opposed to coloring blue states red so we did it the correct way. No one wrote back. 

My dad had a wreck the other morning in Chico (Texas for you non-local folks) - he was sitting in the turn lane getting ready to turn into one of the crushers and a sleeping truck driver rear-ended him going 60 miles an hour. He actually hit him twice - once in the back of the trailer, which made his truck kind of jack-knife-y and then came back and hit him in the back of his tractor. Apparently it did a lot of damage, but I haven’t seen it. Dad is doing ok - they want to keep an eye out for his back pain, but otherwise, he’s ok. We chatted last night and he seemed in good spirits. 

My step-mom had knee replacement surgery last Monday and is doing ok. In fact, she was doing really well there for a while, but seems to have pushed it a bit hard and is now paying the price. I got her a really funny card today that will surely make her laugh! I’m gonna mail it out tomorrow.

John and I are celebrating our anniversary on Saturday - I know what I’m doing - I see to much gray when I look in the mirror, so I have an appointment at 1 to see Rachel. He, on the other hand, will lay around and play video games all weekend I am sure. 

We’ve finalized our plans for the Thanksgiving Holiday. We’re going to go out to Bakersfield to see John’s folks and hang out for a few days. I am looking forward to getting away, it’ll be nice. My birthday is the day after Thanksgiving, so we’ve decided to stay till Saturday - so we aren’t driving back on my birthday. Hopefully while we’re there, we’ll get to hang out with some of John’s close friends, who we always try to connect with any time we’re in close proximity to each other. 

Overall, that’s really it. We’re just hanging out and taking things easy.

It’s been sort of surreal today - thinking about how tomorrow evening, we will be electing our new President and that there is a very good chance that it’ll be the very first African American elected to the highest office in the land. Over the last few weeks I’ve read a lot of different opinions about a lot of different topics…I am thankful every day that we live in a country where we have the freedom to be able to share those opinions…

Today, John said to me, “You know, if Obama wins the election, we’ll be an ‘Obamanation’” - then he couldn’t stop laughing at himself for the funny joke he’d made. I admit, I laughed too. I think I was laughing at him though, rather than at the joke.

Something totally unexpected and kind of Twilight Zone’ish happened today - a friend at work, whom I respect a lot, said to me, “You didn’t accept my friend request on Facebook!” - now, to really know how ironic this is, you’d have to know this friend. He’s about as Anti-Social Networking as they come…to say that I was stunned at his statement would be, well, and understatement. For the record, I did friend him this afternoon - for some reason, I didn’t get the notification from Facebook regarding the request…(In fact, I didn’t get any notifications regarding any of the things that took place last night/today - very strange).

In other news - John made some brownies just now. I can’t wait to eat them

I had to stop writing for a minute (Ok, actually like 10 minutes) while I prepared our Voter Registration Packets so that we don’t have any problems tomorrow when we show up to vote. Our licenses have our old address, even though the States system has our new one…so we’ve gotta take 2 other forms of ID to ensure we’re who we say we are.

I am getting pretty stoked…I can’t wait till tomorrow

I got a phone call yesterday from an actual real person who was calling to ask me if I supported Barack Obama - it was actually refreshing to hear an actual voice - which begs the question, is McCain using Robo-Calling because he can’t get actual real life people to make the phone calls? Things that make you go hmmm - especially in this decidedly republican state where McCain already holds the office of Senator. To date, 1 real life phone call from Obama’s camp - 6 Robo-Calls from McCain’s camp and/or his local political supporters asking me to support him.

One question, to all of you out there, do the calls really work? I wonder, because I can’t imagine some random (or live or robo) call prompting me to change my mind - I would like to think, at this juncture, minds aren’t being changed by listening to telephone propaganda. I could be wrong though.

The new glasses are pretty awesome. Friday night, I did have some minor headache-ish type stuff, but I think it was because I was relaxing my eye muscles, rather than straining - and I’d been straining for so long, it no longer caused me headaches.

I Twitter’d, Friday night, that it’d been dark for over 40 minutes and I’d not had a single trick-or-treater…shortly after I updated, I got one - it was nothing like Halloween on Hitt Street in Boyd (they closed down the street for trick-or-treating and we’d have thousands of people) but we did have a good turn out - when I’d finally had enough, I dumped my candy bucket in this one kids pillow case, because he had a darn good costume and I was bone tired and wanted to relax.

Our anniversary is in six days - that’s Saturday for all you guys out there wondering. Followed directly by the Marine Corps birthday (11/10) then Jerrett’s 14th birthday (11/12) rounding out the month with Thanksgiving (11/27) and my birthday(s) (11/23 & 11/28) - it’s a full month, for sure.

I’m not sure what we’re going to do for the holidays. We had originally planned on going to Texas, but financially - with the economy and whatnot, it’s just not in the cards. Then, we’d thought we might head out to Bakersfield to spend the holidays with that side of the family, but as that time draws closer and closer - it’s not looking like we will - so who knows. We’ve got a week or so to decide…

Anyway, that about sums up what is going on here. We’re hanging out, as usual, for a day of absolutely zero excitement.