Holy Pumpkins!

As I've been a bad, bad blogger (DVR and the Wii are sucking my life away!), I've decided to post some photos of the wonderful pumpkins we all carved Sunday night. First we enjoyed Chicken Enchilada Soup and then Troy's delicious cherry dessert thingee. Then watched Paul fall asleep SITTING UP on the couch before ordering him to bed. Then we carved. And carved. And carved some more. I myself did four and had wrist pains the next day. Then everyone left and I separated and cleaned a shit-ton of pumpkin seeds. Now, enjoy the shiny, pretty pumpkin pictures!

Celebration!

I was very privileged to attend the celebration of my Uncle Bruce's life! What a wonderful tribute!! There was plenty of laughter and beer drinking that I think he would have approved.

Uncle Bruce had over 300 people attend his memorial and what a testimony to the very full life he led. He truly never met a stranger and he while he will be missed, I couldn't have asked for a more joyful celebration of the life he led while he was with us on this planet.

I hope that everyone can learn from his example and truly love your fellow person. Thank you Unc, for allowing me to be one of the many people you cared for! I am so grateful to have been in your life!

Love,

Belinda

Family Reunion "Pro" Photos

My favorite Uncle...

So, here we are in August and it's been an alternately wonderful and sad summer so far. While we had a blast at the big family reunion trip, we were all worried about our beloved uncle who's gotten progressively worse.

Cancer not only kills, but it destroys the essence of the person it is killing. It takes their dignity and their strength. But as long as we are left on this earth, our memories stand strong. While there is pain, there is also love. We can bask in the remembrance of those that have gone before us, secure in our knowledge that we let them know how very important they were to us. Every moment, every breath we have, is for those people who have placed a finger on our hearts. And my uncle is one of those.

Love you, my favorite Uncle. May the way be easy for you.

I will continue to try to better this world and make it a place where cancer cannot have another parent, spouse, uncle, aunt, grandparent, cousin, brother, sister or friend. Take my hair, take my blood, take my money. But stop taking people I love.

Love,

Belinda

And a month+ passes

I am an awful blogger. And it's even the good season, when interesting and fun things are happening in the garden.

We've enjoyed zucchini, cucumbers (although these are prematurely dying off), tomatoes, zucchini and pumpkin flowers and green beans already.

I go out there and am amazed at how HUGE everything is. The zucchini are under attack and I haven't been able to kill all those bastard squash bugs, but here's to hoping they won't get them all.

I have no pictures to share because I am truly that lazy. So many things have happened since I blogged last. Let's do the reader's digest version of the Potters.

1) Mom and Dad visited, we ate and shopped. Dad tried to fix my laptop power cord, which I think worked, but since my logic board is fried (I think), it doesn't really matter. Good try though Dad!

2) Potter bought a Rat Truck thingee. Go read his blog if you actually give a damn.

3) Garden is massive and huge. Grass is still a problem. Bugs are definitely an issue.

4) We're kicking Time Warner Cable to the curb (we hope). DishNetwork has a helluva deal and that's who we're hoping will slap a dish on our house and give me entertainment. I will FINALLY have a DVR. Welcome to 2009.

5) I bought a new iMac. It will kick ass in every way. I also got a free iPod Touch. I am so geeked out about it, I actually had a dream on Saturday night. In the dream, I was uploading movies. My life is quite sad really.

6) Speaking of dreams, Beth will be so proud, but I totally had a dream about zombies last night.

7) Relay for Life is coming up on the 24th! I have to walk. Probably would help me out if I hadn't totally just slammed some fried green tomatoes for dinner tonight.

8) Potter is still on overnights. I am still watching/doing whatever I want. Heh.

9) The 4th of July was un-eventful although we went to a friend's house and watched boys with their fireworks and played a game.

10) Life continues on.

Love,

Belinda

No worries!

I survived my ride-a-long!! It was in reality kinda boring. These poor guys get called out on a lot of goofy stuff. The most scary thing was racing to a call. The HUGE amount of multi-tasking that was going on was CRAZY! He would be hitting siren sounds, typing into a computer, driving at 80 mph and trying not to hit the idiots that wouldn't get over for him. My life flashed before my eyes several times.

We had a nice chat along the way and he's a fairly new officer (been on the force for 2 yrs) so that was interesting. Although I felt super old. We went on 6 calls in the 3 hours I did the ride-a-long. All were goofy. Nothing too exciting, although that's ok by me. The officer kept apologizing for boring me, but I was all "Hey as long as I leave here with no gunshot wounds, it was a good night." 

Apparently, they do ride-a-longs all the time, you just have to apply for it. We met up with another officer who had a civilian with him too, so it's pretty common. 

Unfortunately, I have no great stories to entertain you with. Just a suggestion, don't call the cops for something goofy. 

Belinda

Nervous much?

All of us in the Trace and DNA sections are supposed to do ride-a-longs with officers. As mine is tomorrow night (what sort of genius does theirs on a FRIDAY night???), I'm a smidgeon nervous. Hopefully we won't see any crazy action but I just wanted to tell everyone hey and remember that I love you all. Just in case, ya' know.

Heh.

Belinda