Hi Honey! Well, the girls are off on to see Scooby Doo with your parents. They are so excited! I feel...weird.... it's very, very, VERY quiet in here.

I'm going to hop on the treadmill, then exhaust the hot water supply in the longest shower that I have ever had and then maybe I'll walk around the house naked for awhile... oh no, wait...you won't be here to catch me. There's not a whole lot of fun in that then is there!

You've got MSN messanger working! Hooray! I will do my best to keep the computer on line from 8-midnight tonight in hopes that you can check in. After midnight, though, I may not be awake...or maybe I will. I say no because I had the worst time getting to sleep. There was no one to snuggle up to, your body wasn't there to help me warm up my toes.... So I'm tired today...but, you're not going to be here to warm up my toes again tonight either so...sleep may be hard to find again tonight. Obviously I miss ya, but do hope the conference is going well. I won't bother to write anymore in hopes to talk to you tonight....
Love ya, Honey! ~Me

This week my blog has to take on the role of a message board of sorts. This morning, Honey left for a conference in Boston. He’ll be gone until late Friday evening. Unfortunately for us, the Agency he works for frowns on their cell phones to be used for personal messages. Because of the financial situation we are in right now, we have no cell phone of our own. And, the phone card we have hasn’t many minutes left on them. BUT…we know that the conference center he’ll be at has internet access. (and it’s free!!!) So, I update him regarding the days events on my blog, he plans to send a quick e-card to let me know how things are going. It’s not quite the same as hearing his voice, but I’ll take what I can get.

I hated so much to see him leave this morning. I know most people have said that they don’t like goodbyes. I understand that. Good-bye isn’t a good phrase for me either. Good-bye is the last thing I said to my Dad. I didn’t realize then how permanent Good-bye is until that nasty phone call 4 days later. It has haunted me ever since. There is so much I would have rather said besides good-bye. Unfortunately, I think about things like that. If something were to happen, what would the last thing I would want to remember saying…drive safely (said not only in reminder but protection prayer as well), hope you have a good time (but not so good that you forget about your family waiting for you here at home), don’t eat too much really spicy foods because it’ll bother you the following day (okay..too much like a mom there…ewwwhhhh…), remember me (too desperate?), I love you, I love you, I love you… It usually ends up as sort of a mixed up jumble of everything….I don’t want to leave anything out, after all!!!!

This morning, Honey helped me get the girls in the car to take Pumpkin to school. It’s so very, very hard watching him try to explain to the girls one more time he won’t be home for a few days. It’s worse to watch the farewell process. One last kiss before he goes, another squeeze, and I have to let go. Then it’s the mad scramble for the sunglasses because I don’t want them to see teary eyes. I want to remain the strong independent individual, for them at least, after all… It’s chewing the lip a little (ouch…that’s going to hurt later in the day) to keep the lump in my throat from forming more. It’s focusing on every curve, every bump in the road until the brain rather than the heart takes over once again. Even see ya laters are getting hard where Honey is concerned…..

Until Later~ MacKenzie

Well, Crap! ...and a darn it thrown there, too. What a freakin' weekend this has been on the Stream. We've got people dropping off the stream left and right, demons who wear angelic smiles and other who prefer to show different parts of themselves on different blogs under different names. How could this not effect me as a blogger? It's a lot to take in within a 48-72 hour time span. How is one supposed to keep it all straight?

I feel as if my comfort level has been shaken this weekend. It's mainly the "wolf in sheep's clothing" syndrome that has disturbed me the most. I guess I was getting really comfortable on Blogstream. I "fear" I was leaning back in the waters and floating carefree; and I forgot about the whirlpools and alligators one might meet.

Perhaps I was getting too comfortable with the "spirit of community" that the Stream provides/provided, that I forgot the whole Internet aspect. Anyone can invent a whole new personality, fairy tale, identity which is in complete contrast to who they really are. They may hide behind themselves, but somehow in the end, it seems the truth comes out. Trust is a fragile thing, especially when you can't see the person you are conversing with eye to eye. This weekend reminded me BlogStream is on the internet, a part of the internet. I had separated that in my head somehow and at the end of the day...who do we really know? What do we really know is true?

What I write is what I feel. I don't want to be two faced. I don't want to say something I don't necessarily feel. That isn't being true to myself. I've tried to be honest with this blog and with my thoughts and feelings that I write into it. In spite of cyberlines, I have done my best to portray myself as real, as who I truly am. I started to let walls down. With the thought that there may be those on blogstream who are out to hurt others, to play with others emotions, who enjoy nothing more than to cause chaos, well, it's a troublesome thought at best. Being on the Stream this weekend has made me very sad, in more ways than one.

So where does that leave me now? Do I continue to blog away as I have been and hope that I just fly under the radar? Do I hold a part of myself back in protection mode? I guess I need to step back and figure out the balance again.

Yes, I will keep writing. I enjoy it very much and I think, I hope and pray that a few of you who I have gotten to meet and hopefully know are true to the face you put here on Blogstream as well. Will I continue to write with the same Inner fire that I have tried to release previous to this post? Well...only time will tell.

Sincerely ~MacKenzie

Good evening, everyone!  Before I post more, I just wanted to give you all a huge thank-you for the wonderful birthday wishes!  I can't tell you how much I appreciate it!!!  Tomorrow I will will respond to all the comments left to me.  Unfortunately, I have only time tonight to share a few poems I've found and then, it's back to work.  Yes, crummy yucky work.  But hey...it pays for that new car!!!!

Untitled  by Emily Dickinson

The morns are meeker than they were-
The nuts are getting brown-
The berry's cheek is plumper
The Rose is out of town.

The Maple wears a gayer scarf-
The field a scarlet gown-

Lest I should be old fashioned
I'll put a trinket on. 



Silence  by William Carlos Williams

Under a low sky-
this quiet morning
of red and
yellow leaves-

a bird disturbs
no more than one twig
of the green leaved
peach tree


Fire and Ice  by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice,
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice. 

~~~

Night Opera:

 Tonight, as the last fun thing to do on my birthday, I decided to treat myself to a little star gazing. There was a meteor shower on the 23rd, but due to the weather, I was unable to see anything. So tonight, at least I was able to spot a remnant of the shower. As I was watching, I was actually treated to a much better form of relaxation. The Night Opera. And what an active night it was! Wow! I feel as I received a special gift from Dear Mother Nature herself.

It started with the occasional insect who just isn’t willing to come to grips with the fact that it’s autumn and it’s getting colder. So there was the sound of an occasional zip, fizz, zip. Then the rustle of the wind through the trees kicked in. Where many of the leaves have turned now it creates a nice crunch/shaking sound. I even knew when they were falling off their perches to float down to the ground. Suddenly silence and the loud clear braying of a moose calling out to it’s mate rumbled in the wind. Fortunately, it sounded way down by the river so it didn’t bother me at all. Then silence. And anticipation. I nearly jumped when the hooting of an owl right across the field boomed out into the night. One, two…long pause, then three lonely calls went out into the wind. But then, when another one answered the call and they hooted and chatted back and forth for well over a minute, well, in all my years of star gazing and listening to the night sounds, I have never heard and owl conversation. It was marvelous!!!! I wish so much I had some sort of tape recorded to have gotten it. So, the opera went something like this…..

Shaking, shaking, zip fiz zip…
Silence, crunching
Deep low bray…
Hoot, hoot hooooot
Shake, crunch, shake
Hoot, and Reply, reply, echo
Bray!
Dogs in the distance calling out who’s there,
Bray,
HOOOOTTTTT…hoot, answer, chatter
Zip, fizz zip,
Shaking shaking…..
Wood snaps behind me
Bray…echo, not an answer anywhere
Hoot, Hoot, Hoot!
Where’d the other one go?
Dogs feeble attempt to join the show
Shaking shaking, silence….
CRASH!
Ah, Shit! That was most definitely the trash can by the side of the house. No way am I sticking around to find out what it is!!!!
Footsteps retreating to the house,
Door slams and bolt clicks,
Silence, quiet.
All is calm once again.
The Opera is over….

Okay, okay….I’m being weird I know…but hey, it’s my birthday….don’t pick on me!!!! And thus, another year closes and another one begins. I wonder what life will have in store for me? Do I get to follow the yellow brick road to home, meeting all sort of interesting people and experiencing all sorts of different adventures along the way? Will I go left, will I go right, or maybe straight ahead? I don’t know….Yet, somehow tonight, that doesn’t bother me.

Cheers! ~MacKenzie