Blogger is being difficult!!!

I onced love blogger.  That love has now dissappeared!!!

It is so difficult to apply the different "free" blogger backgrounds to the new templates.  They do not turn out right and my blog looks horrible.  Oh well...such is life...

New Beginnings

It's a new day and a new beginning. I am not where I exactly want to be, but I am on the road to being there. More to come soon....

Surprises

I know it has been a while since I have made an entry here on my blog.

Life has certainly gotten in the way yet again, but in a negative way.

I sincerely wish I could go into details; however, it is not in my best interest to elaborate on what has been going on the past couple of weeks. This is a public blog and it will come back to bite me in the butt if I do say anything in detail, so I will speak in a general sense.

A life surprise came into my life last week--a negative life surprise. It completely caught me off guard and in a way I am depressed and sad, but completely relieved at the same time. Does that make any sense at all? *Sigh*...

Now that this surprise has happened, anxiety has now set in. I am a worrier by nature. Worrying propels me into action. Today is the first day in the last couple of weeks where I found myself severly down and sad. I did not want to talk to anyone. Ugh...I know this too shall pass.

I have hope. Hope will help me transition to a better part of that side of my life. :)

Once this part of my life settles down maybe I will go into more detail, but for now it will have to do.

Until next time.....

Cricket

I am back. Well, sort of.....

Hello All.....

I have been absent for a few weeks and I never meant to neglect my blog; however, life has gotten in the way of blogging.

Our Christmas was wonderful, but very busy. Dario and I both had Christmas Eve off this year, so the day started out relaxing, but quickly turned into craziness.

At noon, we headed down to Chehalis, where I was raised, to visit my mother and grandmother. After a couple of hours, we left to go across town and visit with my father's side of the family. Good times....

Then, Dario and I came back home around 6-ish to do our gift exchange at home. Then, it was time for a viewing of TBS's 24 hour A Christmas Story Marathon. It would not be Christmas without that marathon. It has become a Christmas staple for us.

Off to bed we went...

Then, I woke up at 5 a.m. on Christmas morning to head back down to Chehalis to open gifts from my mother and grandmother. We have always open gifts on Christmas morning and that will not change, hence my two trips.

I left Chehalis at 9:30 to head back up to Olympia to head on up to Gig Harbor for Dario's family Christmas get together. Dario and I got home from that around 7 p.m. It makes me tired just thinking about all that traveling and energy. We made it through...

Now...on to New Years....

Dario had concert tickets for the same band at the same venue on 12.30 AND 12.31. I suggested why don't we just get a hotel room for New Years and go up and spend the afternoon shopping and meet with some of my friends that I haven't seen in years and then you can go to the show and I will go back to the hotel and relax and play with my brand spanking new iPad (which was an xmas gift from Dario)????? He said it was a great idea!!!

Our anniversary is technically January 7; however, we met on New Years Eve 2004 so I figured this would be our anniversary celebration. We had a great time in Seattle. I met up with Brad Cerenzia and his boyfriend Ref, whom I have not seen for eight years. It was great to see him. Good times.....

I will post pics of New Years at another time. I have yet to figure out how to save photos to my iPad (where I am blogging from right now).

After New Years, it was back to the daily grind--work, doctor's appointments, etc. Same old, same old....

Well..that's enough of my rambling for now. I am hoping to be posting more frequently throughout the coming months, so stay tuned!

Cricket

Christmas Summary Coming......

I will be posting about Christmas and New Years soon....

xoxo

Cricket

It's Almost Christmas!!!

WOOHOO! 

I will hopefully be posting some pictures of Delaney and her gifts from Santa Paws tomorrow morning...

Happy Christmas Eve Eve!!!!

Cricket

Wine-O-Walla and Finishing a Great Book.....

My high school friend Sandy (left) and me (right)

Dario and I go to Walla Walla (affectionately called Wine-O-Walla) for Winter Barrel Tasting.  Well, since I cannot drink due to my blood pressure meds (my blood pressure drops fast and I pass out when I drink alcohol) it is more fun for Dario than me.  We meet up with his law school classmates and have a great time.

This is Dario petting the cougar statue from the Cougar Crest Winery (Dario received his undergrad degree at WSU and he is all Cougar!!!)

When we got to Dario's friend's house on Friday and Saturday night, I would retreat to read a very good book.  I am mostly a magazine reader and it takes a lot for me to find a book to actually purchase and then read.  The book I bought was Paranormal State:  My Journey Into the Unknown by Ryan Buell. 

As some of you know from my status updates from my Facebook page, two years ago I was working at a different law firm, which housed its business in a house that was built in 1910.  I had, at that point, watched a few episodes of Paranormal State on A&E and found it to be very interesting.  To see how a group of investigators actually investigate paranormal activity was intriguing to me, to say the least.  A few months into my job at the law firm, I would come to work and some windows would be open.  There was no reason for the window to be open because it was twenty degrees out and snowing.  I didn't suspect anything at all at that point and just found it to be weird. 

The house was not that well insulated.  My desk sat in the front room, which would be considered a living room.  I had a space heater I would turn on because it was "mildly" cold in the room.  Plenty of times I would start to realize that the front of my body was warm from the heater, and the back of my body would be ICE cold and drafty.  At that time I did not think anything of it and just thought it was from the non-insulated windows.

There were times when I would be by myself and hear one of the attorneys come in from being at appointments or at court.  I would hear a noise coming from the back room.  I would yell one of the attorney's names and go see if they needed help with anything.  No one was there.  Again, I didn't think anything of it.

The basement was a bit creepy.  It was dark, only had one light bulb and cold.  In fact, the back portion of the bottom floor of the house was always cold--significantly more colder than the rest of the house.  For whatever reason I did not like the basement and hated it when I had to go down there--which was a lot--because our closed case files were down there.  I just thought it was creepy and didn't think anything of it.

One day, I was discussing with an employee something about ghosts and she said there was an apparition here at work.  My face turned ghost white (literally).  My anxiety level shot up to 100 and my heart started beating so fast I thought it was going to jump out of my chest.  I was perfectly ok with watching paranormal activity happening to other people, but not to ME.  I was completely scared.  I really tried to hide my fear to the employee, but raised some concerns and asked her to describe some activity she experienced.  She saw orbs in the basement, lights turned off/on, etc.  Then, one of the attorney's arrived while in discussion about this apparition.  The attorney stated that she had "seen" the apparition and he told her his name was Steve.  The attorney attempted to research information regarding the house and she did not find a thing.  This attorney told us she performed three house blessings on the house and he is still there.  She told us he was not demonic and did not want to harm anyone, but just hangs around. 

At that point, I wanted to vomit.

I came home and told Dario what was going on and how my anxiety is at an all time high.  I asked him, "Hon, do you think if I just had a talk with it and tell him I respect him and his space and I hope it could respect my space and not touch me, do you think he will leave me alone?"  He said, "Probably.  I think so."  I understand Steve might actually have a connection to the house or the wood that built it and I truly respect him and whatever reason he is still here. 

So, the next day I came into work and had "the talk" with Steve.  I was very nervous.  I just said what was on my mind.  After the talk, I still heard things and felt the ICE cold.  The anxiety would start, my chest would pound fast and I would quickly get out through the front door and take a few deep breaths and have to go back in to answer the phone.  Sometimes I would leave the front door open just so I would have "an out" if I needed it.

I was employed at that law firm for one year and was laid off due to economic reasons.  I liked my job, but this is a job that I was glad to be laid off from quite frankly--even during the recession--due to the activity.  Sad, but true.

So, to the book.  I am very grateful to Ryan for writing this book to give me a better understanding of the paranormal and the techniques used to communicate with whoever is listening.  The book includes paranormal terminology, facts and stories.  Most importantly, it includes what to do if someone is experiencing paranormal phenomena. 

Why couldn't this book been published two years ago?????  I would have had a different view on what I was experiencing and been more curious and not so afraid. :-(

Thank you Ryan for writing a great, informative book.  I truly enjoyed reading it.  I hope you will continue to write about your paranormal experiences.

Ok....enough for now.  I am very tired from Wine-O-Walla and need to go to bed. 

Have a great week everyone!!!

Cricket