2 be Bliss, as I dance along the road to Nirvana...

hey y'all. does anyone remember the movie " The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal "? it was a t.v. movie, airing back in 1979. i was in junior high school then. the movie frightened me terribly. some of the images from the fire haunted me for years. i was reminded of it today, when i was reading this post at CareerDiva . it was a true story, about the working conditions and deaths of people employed at the triangle shirt manufacturing sweatshop. most of the workers were women and girls and this was back in 1911, before OSHA existed so y'all can imagine what it was like to work there. sad and criminal that some people are still working under conditions that aren't much better.

hey y'all. i saw two interesting items of interest in my travels on the WWW today. one of them was From Haitian Zombie Poison to Inuit Knives Made of Feces the other: America's Money: In their own words

hey y'all. i noticed that one of my ears is pierced lower on the lobe than the other. funny how it's taken me over 25 years to see it.

hey y'all. it's been a long time since i've had a headache . today i had a massive one. it started last night, no doubt fueled by the massive quantities of junk food i've been sucking down like air over the past few weeks. when it comes to my eating habits, i'm an extremist . some days i won't eat until night. some days i'll have lots of fruit, no veggies; some days are the opposite. most days i don't have any water ; some days i'll have a little but not enough. i am able to eat junk food in moderation as long as i don't bring it home. usually it's junk food i get from the healthy foods store. and although i still love my almond joy candy bars (which i'll only eat with plain potato chips) and my cherry twizzler strings, i'm good at forgetting to get them when i'm out. so i don't indulge too often. i can manage to eat well for a time, even long periods of time. and then something happens to take me back to th...

hey y'all. i bet y'all are like "uh oh. a story about the in-laws. it must be some ghetto drama!" right? wrong! LOL mr. bliss has a brother who lives about 30 minutes away, with his family. he's one of the family members i'm cool with. his wife is cool too. we 3 blisses went up for a visit on easter sunday, after church. it was my first time visiting since they'd moved to their new house. it's a big old house. their master bedroom is big enough for a few king sized beds. the men watched one of the "march madness" b-ball games and the ladies watched movies on lifetime. everything was fine until baby bliss got my sister-in-law hooked on one of those games on the laptop. she watched as baby bliss played, commenting that the game looked "complicated" and saying she didn't want to play. then baby bliss said, "auntie can you hold the laptop while i go to the bathroom?" next thing i knew, #1 SIL was hooked....

to God, my Divine Creator, Father/Mother, Love. for such a beautiful day! we're at grandma's. all of us. i'm blogging at a table on grandma's sunny deck, taking a break from work. grandma is weeding her yard. baby bliss is creating a play. mr. bliss just finished mowing grandma's yard. he's taking the trash up front. i guess he'll be leaving soon. we might be too, actually. it's after 1 p.m. and it looks like the contractor isn't coming. maybe they forgot about Good Friday when they made grandma's appointment? although the chaps are out of school (i think), it's quiet today.

hey y'all. i need to make more time for my non-work writing. i know most writers will say set aside a specific block of time for writing and stick to it, no matter what. that might work for some folk but i'm a home schooling momma and my office is at home too. being able to adjust to rolling priorities is a must around here. i have hazy memories of a time when i had more time. they might be flashbacks of another lifetime... i'm not certain. concrete proof exists in the form of writing i've started and finished or started and completed several drafts of. i'm a perfectionist when it comes to my writing. it takes me 10+ drafts to get a satisfactory version of a 3-page short story. which can take several days to several months, depending. then there's the matter of making the rounds with submissions. thank God computers has made that process cheaper, easier, and faster. what i can't believe is that some publications still want snail mail submissions. maybe it...

hey y'all. i'm so thankful that i have a home office that i won't even complain about how long it's taking me to sort thru all my crap so i can toss out as much as possible before i put the rest where it belongs. so now i have sorted piles of stuff all over the floor, stuff on various surfaces, and stuff that's still in boxes. which is good, for me. although i can usually find things in a few minutes, i'm not the most organized being who ever existed. but i'm trying harder every day. filing is second nature to me but organizing items is harder for me. not the how. it's the where that screws with my head. uh oh. i ate some jiffy pop (y'all remember that?) and now i feel drowsy. hmmm. it's the same feeling i get when i eat potatoes. yuck! now i feel nap-ish but it won't happen. i've got too much left to do today. .

..." No Country for Old Men " um, this one frustrated me. but i liked it because it had two of my favorite actors in it: tommy lee jones and tess harper. and mr. bliss is a big fan of movies by the coen brothers . there's a lot of killing and cussing in this one. my favorite line (tommy lee's): if it ain't a mess, it'll do til one gets here. don't watch it if you're afraid of bloody violence .

..." Closer ", with julia roberts, jude law, clive owen, and natalie portman. i'd seen it before but mr. bliss saw it for the first time. of course we got into a disargeement about it. (have y'all seen it?) if not, *** SPOILER ALERT *** mr. bliss said clive was right to be mad at julia for her affair, even tho he had a one-nighter. i asked him if she was wrong-er because her outside dalliance lasted long-er? why is one a bigger sin than the other? i reminded him that the Bible doesn't say any sin is worse than any other. (not that i recall, any way...) he annoyed the hell out of me when he laughed his head off at jude, when jude reprimanded julia for sleeping with clive again, when she was supposed to be being exclusive with jude. *** END OF SPOILER *** of course mr. bliss is entitled to his own opinion but mine was that they were all full of it . my personal opinion: infidelity can be present in all sorts of actions, not just sexua...

i have a friend who had never heard erykah badu's "tyrone". so we sat in the car and listened to it. and cracked up. i love that song.

hey y'all. it's difficult to believe that next month, mr. bliss and i will be celebrating 5 years of marital b*. but i've known him so long, it feels like we'll be celebrating 20 years . i wonder what we'll do for our anniversary? i'm not sure if we did anything other years. i can't recall off the top of my head... ooops, wait... to celebrate our first anniversary, we spent a wonderful weekend at this wonderful B & B , in the mountains of virginia. (i just visited their website and all i can say is "wow!" those folks have been busy! i see that they've opened a school . now i'm thinking about moving back up north, so my daughter can attend their school. they are really cool people. smart too.) we've been trying to get to a well-known mountain city that's not too far but haven't yet. or maybe we'll drop baby bliss off at grandma's and have the place to ourselves for that weekend. but with the price of ga...

hey y'all. thank God for bells. without them, baby bliss might have spent the night on our balcony. she and i camped out in the living room last night, like we do from time to time. at some point, she had a dream that led to her sleep walking. we have bells hanging on the patio door and although i was sleeping, i heard them ringing in the wee hours. i also heard the lock being unlocked. my eyes immediately opened wide. my first thought was that someone was trying to get in. then i realized i wasn't fully awake because i was looking in the wrong direction. if i wanted to see the door, i needed to look in the direction of the door -- over my left shoulder -- to see what was really going on. it was baby bliss, about to step outside. i called her name. she paused then looked in my direction. "yes mommy?" "where are you going?" "daddy told me to get something for him." "what?!" i checked the time on my cell phone. it w...

hey y'all. i need to get one of those small tape recorders so i can voice-blog. i was blogging in my head in the wee hours and swore i would remember it. y'all know what happened right? LOL this one crossed my mind the other day and it just came back to me... soft toilet paper is one of the best things a girl can do for herself. (ladies, y'all know what i mean.) i remember when i heard that the price of toilet paper was going up. i was worried and mad (cuz i think it costs enough already. y'all feel me? we are paying too much for gas, food, shelter and -- everything! we are paying too much for everything already. how they gonna stick us up when we get our toilet paper?! it's just too outrageous and disgusts me. of course i know why prices rise: inflation, they say. but what is inflation, really? and why is inflation? if it didn't affect the cost of my toilet paper (and other stuff i need), wouldn't i care? any way, i'm thinking about changing brands. we...

hey y'all. why is it that people assume that all women are the same? specifically, that we will all react the same if we find out our husbands have strayed from the marital bed. ( Women ponder why Spitzer's wife stood by ) every woman will not have the same feelings upon finding that the hubby got some nookie on the side. because all marriages are not built on the same foundations. in other words, some women get married for things other than love and honor. some tie the knot for cash incentives. these women are known as gold diggers. some tie the knot to raise social standing. these women are referred to as social climbers. some lesbians marry gay men because both need to get the family members off their backs. this is one version of a marriage of convenience. some get hitched cuz they done got pregnant and think it's always best to marry the "baby daddy". later they divorce and are ever after known as so-and-so's "baby momma". finally, yes, some d...

are you a shoe person ? i'm not. i'd rather be barefoot . i'll wear shoes when necessary and i like to try to match the shoe to the occasion, which might happen once a year. conversely, i have more pairs of shoes than i need. for the past few years i've been in love with flip flops . not just any kind of flip flops tho. they have to be wedgies or platforms . i have one pair each of black and brown that have been sufficient for most of my outfits over the past year. i got them from WalMart for less than $5 each. for the past several months i've been looking for more of the same. silly ole WalMart isn't on the job this time around. they have white, dark pink, and brown wedgie flip flops. but no black. so i got a pair from Target. but they're not the same . :-( i've been checking online too and i found a couple of website with rockin wedgie and platform flip flops. lots of colors and styles. :-) only one thing has stopped me from ...

caught using his razor... mr. bliss: honey. what's up? me: nothing honey. why? mr. bliss: using my razor, huh? me (laughing): yeah. i guess i need to buy one for myself. mr. bliss: uh huh. me (still shaving): how long do they last any way? mr. bliss: well they last a long time if your wife doesn't use them. me: oh yeah? mine should last forever then cuz i ain't got no wife. .

hey y'all. i had a thought earlier about the pinch-seal plastic baggies and i thought i'd share it with y'all. it's a good idea to carry a few plastic baggies around in your purse. maybe a few assorted sizes too. they're good to store things in: - the children's snot rags and other trash that you don't want floating around in your car or purse. - socks (and other items of clothing) that get taken off and forgotten in the back seat. - teeth that come out at inopportune moments. - anything small that you need to put in your purse but don't want to lose in the shuffle of bigger things. - an extra pair of panties, just in case. - adhesive bandages that have lost their packaging but haven't been used yet. - extra feminine hygiene products that have lost their wrappers. - wrapperless chewing gum/breath mints/candies - extra fake nails and a small bottle of glue - extra false eyelashes and adhesive - safety pins - bobby pins - spare change - extra jewelry -...

yes Miz Aly , mr. bliss had me working day and night , getting things all packed and moved. and Sister Susan , can you believe that on thursday (of last week), mr. bliss told me i should have everything packed and ready to go by saturday?! i told him he'd gone mad . even God needed 7 whole days to Get It Done. how in the life of bliss did that man think i could pack up an 1100 square foot apartment full of furniture and things in less than 48 hours? i told him i needed at least a week . after i explained how my stress level would be so far off the charts if i even attempted to do what he was asking and that i might never regain the wife-mother sanity i'm hanging on to with both hands, he agreed. but i digress y'all. lemme start from The Beginning . we knew the lease on our 2BR would expire mid-march so i began looking at places a few months ago. we looked at houses and apartments in or as near as possible to our neighborhood cuz we love it here. somehow, i needed more s...

hey y'all. just pics, not much to say... this is the scarf i made for mijn goede vriend in Nederland. okay y'all. gotta run. we found out thursday morning that we would be moving on friday. very last minute. but very necessary and i am thankful for many, many reasons. i'll give y'all more details later.