Do you ever wake up sometimes to find that overnight your view of things has shifted so that everything looks grey and sad and...I can't even think of the other word that I wanted to use. I don't like finding that I feel that way today. I want to be one of those optimistic people, one of those people who always takes everything in stride and still manages to get quite a bit of enjoyment out of life. Some days I come very close to feeling that way.

Yesterday evening I mowed half of the yard, the other half I started raking since the grass is being smothered by two to three inches of oak leaves, and they're small which means the mower won't shred them up. Last weekend I watched my brother-in-law rake up all his leaves in a long line and then he mowed over them a few times, did a wonderful job chewing them up and now there's no sign of them. But my oak leaves and pine straw have to be raked and picked up. I've been eying the poison oak that's wrapping the pine trees, wondering how I can get rid of it without getting near it. I'm highly allergic. The squirrel feeders and bird feeders are completely empty. I think I still have a little bird seed but I need to buy more corn for the squirrels, I hear them doing their funny barking noises. The hummingbirds I saw for only one day and then they didn't come back, perhaps not liking the sugar water I put out for them instead of the special kind of nectar I used to buy for them. Can't please everyone though.

Yesterday I read off and on a book called "Black Valley" by Jim Brown (if I were the author I'd have changed it to something a bit more catchy than "Jim Brown" which keeps bring to my mind the other bland name of "Jim Jones," the cult guy who caused the deaths of over 900 people in Guyana in the 70's). The story sounded vaguely familiar but I thought maybe I'd checked it out from the library before and hadn't finished it, something I'm known to do more often than I'd like to admit, or it had been made into a movie and that's why the plotline was familiar. But now this morning I finally decided that I had read the book before, not just began it but read all of it, and I don't know why I'd convinced myself I hadn't. One of those little short circuits in my brain again I suppose. They seem to happen more frequently these days. But I still have a whole bag of overdue books to work on.

I haven't written anything this week as I'd intended, mostly because nothing spectacular has floated to the surface, it's still a big jumble of ideas. I'd love to start writing Dean and Sam again but there's so MUCH that's been written about them the past three years that I think anything I wrote would just be absorbed into the mist. Same thing with anything Harry Potter. My old favorite Star Wars is always a possibility if I can decide if I want to write during the time of the OT or something with Jacen and Anakin. I have been unable to find the new Fate of the Jedi: Outcast book yet, surprising since a couple of stores in town are good about carrying any kind of Star Wars novels, but so far there's nothing. I rarely order anything online, swearing off my credit cards after all, but I may have to if I want to read it anytime soon.

My husband's home today, did I mention that? He is a distraction and not in a good way. He is jumpy and inconsistent and unhelpful and loud and a dozen other things that contribute to my overall feelings of uneasiness and unhappiness today. The squeak of the backdoor and slam of the metal screen door grates on my nerves horribly, he's been in and out almost a dozen times since I started writing this and has asked me about the weather this weekend twice already, not counting the two or three times he asked me while I was making breakfast. I think so much discussion of the weather between a couple indicates a more serious underlying problem, don't you? If it were not a grey day for me I'd at least attempt some other kind of conversation to give the illusion that things are better than they probably are.

It was most likely about those little challenging everyday things that can either lift your spirits or have you mired in despair. With probably some fangirl glee over a favorite TV show or movie or book.:)

SPOILERS! Tonight's Supernatural episode, "The Monster at the End of this Book," was great, I was glued to the screen the whole time. The beginning was hilarious when Dean and Sam realize someone's actually writing about their lives in a very detailed way. Apparently author Chuck knows what happened to them plus knows what happens in the future sometimes, including Sam hooking up with Lilith...ewwww, I'm kind of tired of Sammy's little sexual adventures...and every move Dean will make including getting kiddie bandaids on his face and the back window of the beloved Impala busted out. I won't give away the end but it was GOOD and you should watch it if you haven't already.

SPOILERS! I also caught Eleventh Hour which looked like it was probably the series finale. A woman accuses a married FBI hotshot of getting her pregnant and then stealing the child. She looks to be crazy, even Hood thinks she is at first, and she goes to desperate means to prove what she says is true. Poor Rachel. If you saw the show then you know why I say that. I still haven't heard if this show has been picked up for the fall but I certainly hope it has.

Since I recently saw the movie Jumper, I couldn't resist picking up a copy of the book by Steven Gould yesterday evening when I was getting some groceries. It was very good and I couldn't put it down. But it is NOTHING like the film, the characters are different and the storyline itself very different from the film which was at times very confusing.

I loved the film Jumper! I had thought I'd like it but I thoroughly enjoyed it, relaxing back with my popcorn and forbidden Dr. Pepper, and watching the prettiness that is Hayden Christensen. I took the kids with me and I think they liked it though it's hard to tell about the beautiful-but-strange-girl-who's-suppose-to-be-my-daughter. If she knows I like something she'll go the complete opposite opinion.

I'm so sleepy, I actually keep catching myself sitting here with my eyes shutting...

SPOILERS! I convinced my sister to see Awake with me tonight. That's the new medical thriller with Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alba. Hayden looked wonderful and somehow even younger than he did on Revenge of the Sith. He played a rich guy who needed a heart transplant but when he's anesthesized, he's actually still awake and aware of what's happening to him. But there's also something underhanded going on but I don't want to completely spoil it for anyone. I must admit I didn't watch too closely when they were opening up the guy's chest and my sister definitely had her eyes covered. She's horribly upset by even a little blood which is what kept her from going to nursing school.

I am so tired now but reluctant to go to sleep. There are many things I should have done this past week but I just shoved them under the rug, refusing to do them. I'm really undecided about the direction I want some things to take. The gulf between my husband and me seems gigantic, something that seems impossible to bridge and many times recently I've asked myself if I even want to fix things. I just want things to be okay and stable for my kids so I'm trying not to rock the boat too hard yet.

I was up half the night but finished Terry Brooks' "The Elves of Cintra." Now I'll have to wait a year or more for the third book which is always very frustrating. At first I didn't think I'd like this trilogy, it's different from the other Shannara books in that it's set at a time on Earth after some kind of apocolypse. There are still people but many are diseased or changed into something else. There are still elves in hiding but they've lost most of their magic. But it didn't take me long to get attached to the characters.

I have a stack of paperwork that I need to look at for work and you know how appealing that idea probably is. I need to go to the grocery store while I'm off today, there are so many things I'm out of. I want something different for dinner, maybe salmon, though my husband's not too fond of it. But then what does he like.

It really is not right for it to rain on July 4th. It should be a hot, steamy day (like yesterday!) with the odors of mowed grass and barbeque and beer permeating the air. But no, we were all huddled inside watching endless and mindless reruns on the television while I baked our barbecue. Not that it didn't taste good...everything I cook tastes good!...it just wasn't the same.

I slipped off to try to write a bit, hoping a stray bolt of lightning wouldn't kill old Bessie-the-crankiest-computer-ever-made. I meandered around from beginning to end, then decided the story was dead in the water. An English teacher I had in high school always criticized the way I wrote. Now she usually didn't criticize the finished product too much but it bugged the hell out of her that I skipped around while writing. Sometimes I wrote the ending first and then went back to the beginning. I never understood why she had a problem with it as long as the finished product was okay.

I picked McKillip's Riddle-Master trilogy to read over, the beloved characters of Morgon and Deth and the legend of the High One bringing an immediate happiness to my soul. I'm trying to convince my son to read it too, he does read occasionally whereas that strangely beautiful creature who is suppose to be my daughter hates to read.

Well, I have picked up my pen to write again and have discovered I can't do it my old way. After the first page my hand hurts and my handwriting becomes unreadable. In the past I'd scribbled a rough draft on paper, something I could do anywhere, and then transferred it to Word, embellishing and cleaning up as I went along. I'm not sure how long it will take me to adapt not doing it exactly that way, I am a creature of habit.

I was sweating sitting on the back porch earlier admiring a nice pot of lantana that I picked up yesterday at the gardening center. I had said I would not buy anymore but it called to me, a mixture of reds and oranges and bright yellows. One end of the porch gets a lot of sun and that's where I put it, giving the singed begonias a break and moving them to partial shade.

I pulled out some of my old books this afternoon, Terry Brooks' earlier ones as well as a set by Patricia McKillip and Robert Jordan. I want to read something that I know will make me happy and it's been several years since I read these. I looked for one I had by Tanith Lee called "Kill the Dead" but can find it nowhere. I assume I either loaned it out and never got it back or lost it during moving a few years ago and never realized it until now. Perhaps the library has it though I'm doubtful.

I make a wonderful chicken spaghetti dish. Tender and seasoned chicken, spaghetti noodles, lots and lots of cheese, sauted onions and peppers in butter, worchestershire sauce (just a touch), and a sprinkle of other seasonings I don't tell anybody about because I want mine a little unique without anyone being able to figure out why.:) I made it for lunch today for my sister and a friend from work. They ate quite a bit of it. The kids did too but they had to pick out anything green or red or anything they thought might be an onion. After they left, well except for my kids, I wandered outside with the intend of pulling weeds but I didn't last too long. It is HOT.

*SPOILERS* for Legacy of the Force: Sacrifice!

So Mara is truly dead. I have an odd feeling about that, mostly I think because once upon a time I didn't like her character very much but over the years I've slowly grown attached to her, and now I realize how much I will miss her. The way her death was done it will be impossible to refute it so the only thing left would be for her to make appearances to either her husband, Luke, or her son, Ben.

Then there's he-who-used-to-be-Jacen-Solo, who's going around wondering who else is a suitable target in order for him to be his sithly best. Most of the book wasn't bad at all even with the emphasis on Boba Fett and company, as long as you skip over the parts containing he-who-used-to-be-Jacen-Solo. I just feel like the writers are digging themselves into a hole, everybody needs a little hope and there's not much around this series. And where Darth Vader was the man we loved to hate (actually most of us left out the hating part somehow), there's nothing appealing about Caidus and that's a shame to waste the character that way.

I have just finished reading Steve Perry's Shadows of the Empire. I had read the book a few years ago but didn't remember much about it other than there was a couple of intriguing scenes where Vader sat naked in the dark in his chamber and there was a lot about Xixor who lusted after Leia for some odd reason. I liked Vader's character in this book and how Perry manages to show how the knowledge of Luke being alive is slowly changing Vader in ways even he's not aware of. I also liked Luke's character too, a nice mixture of the young farmboy and the hero of the rebellion with the unsettling knowledge of Vader being his father. I liked Lando too, his character was much more fleshed out than in either TESB or ROTJ. Leia was so-so, there were several scenes where I thought she didn't sound like herself at all. It's too bad there aren't more books set in this time frame or even immediately before the OT. In other news, I had my doctor's appointment yesterday for my yearly checkup. All seems fine but I did talk to her about all this joint pain I've been having in my knees, hands, and left shoulder. Without going through a bunch of x-rays which I can't afford right now, she said it probably was the beginnings of athritis even though I was younger than most people when it begins. But then my mother has suffered from it since she was in her 40's and the doctor implied that it sometimes runs in the family. I really got the feeling that she's not very knowledgeable about the subject. She suggested I take calcium and try some of the glucosomine something that works for some people very effectively but then not for others. She asked did ibuprofen or tylenol help. I said tylenol didn't at all but the ibuprofen did if I took three or four together. I think what bothers me more than the pain is that I find myself limited in doing some things. I've always worked in the yard a good bit, digging and planting. It's something I've always enjoyed immensely but you'd be surprised by how difficult it is when you can no longer kneel comfortably and without pain. Same thing in the house. Trying to clean things like the bathtubs or any of the bottom cabinets is tricky, I look like a contortionist trying to reach everything without getting on my knees.