Awwww, thanks for all your sweet wishes, they are MUCH appreciated! Yesterday was a tough day, but I took your advice and brewed myself a pot of tea, read lots of posts, saw many great decs here and then took a long nap. DH got back here early and we drove down to pick up my car. The new battery was a no-charge, but the brake job ~just on the front end~ was over $400! Living here in the mountains, I can't scrimp on good brakes, but good grief, that's a ridiculous amount! (Sigh) what's done is done and my car (actually, minivan) is in great shape once again. Afterwards, DH & I had dinner at a favorite restaurant in town to avoid the rush hour traffic and relax a bit. We had a glass of wine and played Gin Rummy for an hour when we got home, too. That was a lovely way to end a crummy day! With the rest, I'm doing as you advised and taking it one day at a time. All this will pass . . . eventually! Thanks! Yachter: I'm keeping you and your family in my prayers. Please know how much you're liked and appreciated here on this forum! We miss you when you're not around here with us! Lynn

Haven't told this story in a while because we were embarrassed. Friends daughter was getting married in a large city and the wedding was going to be at the hotel. We got to the hotel, checked in, had all the luggage brought up, tipped everyone, paid for the valet parking, we are starting up to the room. My friend called and ask why we were not at the hotel. I explained that we were at the hotel. She said well send you luggage on up and come down to meet me in the lobby. Down we go and look everywhere, my phone is ringing and she said I can't see you. Where are you, I describe where we are standing and she was saying are you sure you are in the main lobby. She finally asked , are you at the right hotel. Well guess what, wrong hotel, we are checked in, luggage in room. How very embarrassing to have to go to the desk and explain we are at the wrong hotel. They were so polite to us, they got our luggage back from the room, brought the car around and were even trying to return our tips. Of course we told them no. How on earth I got confused with the wrong hotel. I will never know. Of course, all of our friends knew by this time, that we had checked into the wrong hotel. From that day forward, when we have an event that involves a hotel I recheck the hotel information before booking. Guess they were trying to make us feel good at the first hotel, they were saying that was not the first time that happened and would not be the last.

"If anything I find my tastes are influenced negatively here, not in a bad way really, just differently. I love funky bohemian combined with traditional and modern but don't feel that love from most posters so sometimes I second guess myself. There are some canvas prints at Pier One I am crazy about yet they are cheap. Will I hate them because they look cheap? ($30 each btw) Will they make my decor seem too wild? Cheap? As an artist, most other artists abhor this kind of thing and usually are quite snobbish about having only originals in their house. They would not buy a cheap print from Pier One! So, can I over come this pressure and the pressure here (subtle however) and actually get what I love? I do not like the vast majority of art people choose for their home so I would never ask anyone here "what do you think of this print?" I'm rambling but I guess it's all about keeping myself true to me." Bumblebeez, I feel your pain, really I do. :) Something that would truly *speak* to me, would be a gliclee of Monet's Sunrise. It was a work that was derided by critics in its time and I had the opportunity to see it in the Monet Museum in Paris. It would have much more meaning to me, and to my husband, than something I bought off of Etsy or Ebay. At least you, as an artist, have the pedigree be able to get away with buying what you want (not that you should have to make excuses). It's the same way about furniture. If it's not heirloom or CL, there will always be detractors. I just try to suck it up and decorate to the best of my abilities.

I don't remember ever getting an actual spanking, I am sure when I was really young I did get them just don't recall it. I would get sent to the corner however. I had gone shopping with my mom and big sister in the BIG city (we were from a very small town), they were looking for a special dress for my sister for some event. Well I was so tired of being dragged around that I crawled up under one of the round dress displays (it had a floor to it) and just fell asleep. My mom finally noticed I was not right there and went into panic mode, they searched and then started hollering then the store workers got into the act. I never heard a thing I was so insulated in my little nap spot sleeping soundly. Someone finally saw my little shoe poking out from under the dresses. My mom was about to have a stroke by then. She screamed at me then nearly hugged the stuffing out of me. I tell you one thing I never did that again. Another time I got a talking to was when mom came out on to the front porch and looked at me and my dog and said what are you eating? Well it was a box of doggie treats, but I was sharing with my dog!! I thought they were regular cookies! My dog really loved my cookies LOL I thought they were a bit dry myself. Now this one not so much did I get in trouble as did my 2 much older sisters! Our house was just down the road from my grandparents so we would walk or ride bikes back and forth. There was a huge barn at my grandparents with a hay loft and a big opening on one end to load the hay in and out of with a rope dohickey out of it to raise and lower the hay. We did not know it but my mother could see that barn and opening through the kitchen window at the sink (at our house). One day my sisters decided we would go up to the loft and swing on the rope thing, which meant we were dangling in the air very high above the ground. Then they decided to make me do it! So of course I did. They lift me up and I grab on to the rope and the push me out of the hay loft, there I was dangling. Well at that very moment my mother was at the sink and looked out and all she saw was me(her baby) dangling out of the hayloft by a rope!! I do not know how she came across that field over the fences, I think maybe she flew... My sisters got the whipping of their lives and I got the stuffing squeezed out of me again! And of course told to never do that again no matter what my stupid sisters said.