This Perfectly Imperfect Life

the outside pics (taken during the day) are out of order! (and 1 refuses to upload!) they're numbered to help you see what goes where, from right to left! 1. moved the scarecrow girl next to dracula (who's hanging in that dogwood tree!) 3. i've got marcas the carcas down at the bottom of all the flowers ~ he's got a light up head, feet and hands that fade in & out view from inside/bedroom windows 2. that's frankenstein in the front and a ghost w/skull face in the back i've got all orange lights on the bushes and throughout the garden ~ these little good & bad pumpkin heads are from light sets i've thrown away over the years for whatever reason & i've just placed them throughout the garden. close up of the right living room window close up of the left living room window here's good ol' marcas the carcas! a work in progress!

a cool & gusty breeze is blowing through the windows. dried leaves are tumbling along the side walk. thick, fluffy clouds in shades of white & grey have gathered over head dimming what was a bright afternoon. crickets & other bugs are chirping & blowing their whistles to pass the time away. a preying mantis, once a bold green, now the color of a browned fallen leaf, lumbers slowly along the top of an evergreen bush. she has mated. her eggs have been laid in my garden, safely hidden in some unseen nook. and now she waits for her last day. she will not survive the falling tempretures nor see her eggs hatch & her children come into life. but, she has done what mother nature has called on her to do. and so, this coming february her children will continue on the journey their mother is now ending. (copy rght'd 9/27/06-jw)

if you're big into seasonal & holiday decorating like i am, make sure you keep your extension cords, suction cups & some metal ornament hangers in a place like a "junk drawer" or box in a closet where they are at hand when you need them! i seem to have packed away all of my extenion cords & suction cups away in the basement some where & now will have to trudge through all the christmas decoration boxes to try & find them!!!

i'm losing my restraint & the halloween stuff is finding its' way out of the closet! these little crows (on the door windows) are left over from a bunch of halloween themed cut-outs i made from black construction paper last year for our windows. living room, bottom center window. off center shot of the living room center window! this is the top half of the right living room window. left bedroom window. (not finished yet!) left living room window. (that's a light up black cat silhouted (?!) by the moon!) right living room window. (that's a light up witch silhouted (?!) by the moon!) again, the center living room window. a neat shot, i think! i've added my bats, pumpkins & purple light gardland to the entertainment center!

i was thinking this morning that i may start listing the 5 things i am grateful for every day on here since i just don't seem to be able to keep up with my 'gratitude' (did i spell that right?!) journal. just a thought! so, here goes: 1. my husband 2. having a beautiful home 3. my friends 4. for not being the only one to carry the weight of life anymore 5. fall has arrived!

one of my cats (named mr.!).

these are some old pics from where we used to live. october 2004, my old garden, one of my cats (buddy) and the mantle. october 2005 october 2004 october 2004 october 2005 ~ soooo glad this pic doesn't come out too well! that's me in my old garden. NOTE: i've actually been decorating for fall & halloween since 1995 BUT i have no pic's or anything from prior to 2004 (just a few scraps) since that ex(boyfriend) i've mentioned in a couple of the previous posts stole and/or threw out nearly everything i've ever owned in my entire life when i kicked his sorry butt to the curb in 05/04! (broke into the apt & the storage unit). but, i've made peace with all of that ~ i wanted to start over from scratch! (though for every item he stole and/or threw away, may his head of fake hair fall off at the most public of moments (bald of a freakin' cue ball!) and may he have 1 year of "what goes around comes around" karma for every item and...)

yup ~ it's the same bookcase as below! just wanted to list some of the books i've got centered on that top shelf for the time of year! ~witches, pumpkins & grinning ghosts ~ 1972, edna barth ~american folk magick ~ 1995, silver ravenwolf ~witches ~ 1981, colin hawkins & an old witch! (one of my fav's since i was little!) ~witchcrafting ~ 2001, phyllis curott ~the ghost writer ~ 2004, john harwood ~old witch rescues halloween ~ 1972, wende and harry devlin (another fav since i was a kid!) ~clive barker's a-z of horror ~ 1997, compiled by stephen jones ~halloween ~ 1999, silver ravenwolf ~witches brew ~ 2002, edited by yvonne jochs ~halloween ~ 1990, cass r sandak ~ghosts and goblins, stories for halloween ~ 1965, revised ed compiled by wilhelmina harper ~the ultimate halloween ~ 2001, edited by marvin kaye ~100 wicked witch stories ~ 1995, barnes and noble books ~book of shadows ~ 1998, phyllis curott ~seasons of magic ~ 2001, laurel ann reinhart ~celebrate the e

a close up of our entertainment center. the lights are shoprite "gold" 100 count christmas lights that i hot glued fall leaves to! (got the fall leaf fabric cutouts at a dollar store (this year) and cvs (last year). our living room entertainment center. this is our living room mantle w/more of my lights & leaves like i mentioned above! this happy guy greets everyone at the front door! 1 of our living room bookcases. a close up of the living room mantle. (part of a pic of my hubby squeaked in!) no, the large orange-esk pillows are not just for fall & halloween! orange is my favorite color year round!

this is out back! (johnny #1!) these little guys are out front on the porch! he's also out front! another johnny out front! (johnny #2!) and of course, standing proudly at johnny's side is joanie!

this is a pic of the wreath from ground zero i mentioned in my previous post.

it's just as beautiful today as it was five years ago ~ sunny, breezy & cool. perfect fall weather. it's a bit eerie that it seems to be this way each year now on this day. i've put out the wreath my ex rescued from a dumpster near ground zero well before the 1 year anniversary. it's hanging on a shepherd's hook on out our porch. my mother thought i should get rid of it when my husband & i moved here, because it was from my time with my ex(boyfriend). i had considered doing just that but realized that what that wreath symbolizes and where it came from is so much bigger than something so petty as not keeping it because my ex brought it home years before and i just couldn't part with it. it goes out now for every july 4th and today's anniversary. five years. so much is different for me now! this is the first time i am not in my old apartment, 13 miles north of here, for this anniversary. i am very happy about that. i am still floundering & trying t

i've dragged out the fall decorations ~ in previous years i've waited until the day after 9/11 to take down any of the summer patriotic stuff and will do so again this year. it's a very small way for me to pay my own tribute to the day and all those lost, i know and unless you were family or friends, you wouldn't realize that's why i do it but i feel it's better to do something than do nothing. i feel so connected to 9/11 and sometimes the survivor's guilt still overwhelms me. i could've been on the 78th floor of wtc tower 2, the south tower, that morning. for a very long time i felt i should've been and could not begin to understand how my life (the life i had up to 9/11 and even for nearly 3 years after) was worth more than any one of those who died who left husband's, wives and children. i felt they'd had the courage to do what i had back out on only 3 months earlier ~ work in manhattan in a high stakes career ~ how fair was it that i got

roller coasters ain't got nothing on me & my weekend! friday i realized that my daughter would've been starting second grade yesterday & i got a little bit down ~ did a lot of missing & wanting what could've been with getting her ready for school through the cozy, rainy indoor weekend. (see previous post entitled "missing what could've been.") so i was pretty upset while we were trying to shop in shoprite on saturday ~ all the moms picking out school supplies with their kids ~ the kids getting all excited over the halloween decorations & candy ~ it all really made me just want to not have to go through any of this anymore. none of it. i felt like no matter what i do, nothing ever gets any better for me i just couldn't live through it anymore. saturday night and sunday morning i figured out that if the catholic religion happens to be the "right" religion & i killed myself, i definately wouldn't have a chance of going to

through the tropical storm & it's nasty weather, the bickering with my husband, the food shopping and the usual chores around the house, i've been missing what could have been... getting my daughter ready for her 1st day of 2nd grade this coming tuesday ~ having this last weekend of summer to do all those little things with her that there may not be time for once school begins ~ dragging out the fall decorations and resisting the urge to drag out the halloween ones as well once her eyes lit up ~ reassuring her that school will be fun & go well ~ reading her stories ~ tucking her in... it's so hard sometimes, missing what could've been. wanting it more than anything in the world but knowing it will never be.

this was taken this morning, 9/3/06 and underneath all those leaves and branches is our patio & back yard area! we'll be going out soon & i'm taking my camera with me! (heard there's some really big trees down around the corner!) these were taken yesterday, 9/2/06 during the storm and were the only ones that came out clear enough! (yup, that was an access ramp to the water for small craft!) weather reports 1st said the rain & winds would begin to diminish around 2pm. ha! the wind & rain only got worse as the afternoon wore on! new warnings were posted to end at 4pm. then 6pm. then 7:30pm. then after 10pm! what wasn't flooded in the morning certainly was by late afternoon! we had to pick up my sister-in-law in cliffwood beach and parts of rt. 35 were flooded but passable on the way there and not passable on the way home. parts of matawan, cliffwood and keyport were completely cut off by water! all the traffic lights on rt. 35 in middletown