CAUTION: Woman In Progress

So. Fun fact filed under Strange But True: If you do a search for Jana Hill on YouTube you may discover that there is a little video of me singing at my granddad's funeral. I'm not sharing the video here in case the share can be traced to this blog. haha (Paranoia for 100, Alex!) My uncle snuck around and recorded me and then posted it on YouTube and I don't really want him finding my little oasis of TMI. I'm slightly mortified that I was even recorded...especially since I can't stand to  hear myself sing in recordings. Mama recorded me singing a solo at church for Christmas and I banned her from playing it in my presence. But. You know. If you're into curiosity, I thought I would give ya'll this little nugget of my mortification to seek out if you should choose to do so. If you're not into curiosity, then, GOOD. Save yourself the earworm. ;-)

...just to enjoy my Panda in some peace and quiet. 

I get jealous when I see my friends' FB status updates where they've gone off and done fun things with their other friends without inviting me even though the thought of going anywhere on a Saturday fills me with dread. 

Is it weird that going to a restaurant I've never been to before stresses me out a little? Every place seems to have a different system for ordering and receiving food. And don't get me started on the different drink station set ups. And omigosh the places that have their full menu (and I'm talking FULL ON COMPLICATED) on a chalkboard above the counter and it's SOMANYCHOICES!!  Half the time I don't even know what I'm looking at and they're all, "What can I get you?" and I'm too embarrassed to say, "I don't know!" Yes, yes. I know I'm weird. I like a paper menu that I can sit somewhere quietly and peruse without someone staring at me expectantly. And I like to be told when drinks/coffee is self serve and where to find those drinks. I'm not a terribly intuitive person. Or I like simple menus above the counter where the choices are spaced evenly and cleanly and I can easily spot, "Okay, here are the breakfast items....

I actually enjoy having Daddy on FB. He's really fun and one of the few people on there who "get" me. Same can't be said about some of my other family. :-/

Weird dreams in Jana-land lately. Well, one weird/scary nightmarish dream last week wherein I visited and sobbed at the grave of someone I love dearly who isn't dead in real life and whose name I will not mention for fear it will speak the dream into reality. In no way, shape or form do I remotely want this dream/nightmare to really happen. I'd be devastated, to put it mildly. But this weekend I had some really weird dreams that really absolutely felt REAL, y'all. Yes. REAL in all CAPS. !!! And because I like to document all the weird dreams that I actually remember y'all get to hear all about 'em. So. The first dream. I was sitting in church--the church I currently attend--and all these people started showing up who had done me, my family or someone I love (and in some cases, all the above) wrong. The kind of wrong that Christians are notorious for because it involves hypocrisy and the kind of ugly that only Christians can do to each other. These are all real...

I've been a regular church-goer all my life. Mama made sure we got into the habit of it from infancy and save for a very brief and miserable time a few years ago, I've always adhered to it. And it's helped shape me into the woman and Christian that I am. So score one for Mama, right? Having a spiritual place of worship is important to me. While there are actually other times and places where I've felt closer to God more so than at a church, church is still where I find that weekly spiritual grounding. An hour (or two, if I go to the evening service) where the ONLY thing going on in my life is learning about my Savior and praying. But lately...*sigh* Lately I seem to have re-developed this social anxiety about church. It's a strange sensation though I must say I've struggled with one form or another of it my whole life. Social anxiety/awkwardness EVERYWHERE is one of my heaviest crosses to bear. (No pun actually intended, if you even got the pun.) But at chu...

Okay. So analyze these... Tuesday night I had a really weird dream involving animals. Libby and I were at home and I was in the kitchen washing dishes while she gazed out the dining room window into the back yard. Much like this. When she's not under my feet or pawing at the carport door to distract me, that's usually what she does while I'm washing dishes. Completely normal behavior. Then she started barking, as she's wont to do. I talked to her a bit asking her what's out there. I figured it was a cat or the neighbor's dog or something. When I glanced out I see this fluffy critter sitting up on it's hind legs and I think, oh, it's a bunny. But it wasn't. When it dropped to all fours and stood up, I realized that it was a coyote pup.( !! ) It looked over and saw us peering out at it and instead of running off into the woods as most animals do, it came lumbering over to the window and started pawing at it to get in. I jerked Libby back and ...

I'm a blog-aholic. I read blogs about as much as I read books. Maybe more. I liked reading other people's more interesting lives. Let's face it. A former city girl married to a hot cowboy ? Yeah. Way more interesting life than mine. Reading blogs reminds me of when I was about 13 and I used to read Sis1's diary. And trust me. There was some dang shore interesting stuff up in there! Yeah, I know. I shouldn't have read my sister's diary. But she hid it in her sock drawer! It's like she wanted me to read it. Also, she would get racy lust letters (Not love letters. Definitely all about lust.) from her boyfriends and keep them in her purse and tell me, "You better not go through my purse!" So of course I went through her purse at the first opportunity and read the racy lust letters. It never would have occurred to me to do so had she not so specifically said not to go through her purse. It was like a red flag taunting me. I knew there had to be ...

The only thing the Devil Pup loves more than me (and burping in my face) is pizza. Doesn't matter what kind. Totinos, Pizza Hut, Lean Cuisine French Bread, etc. The pup just LOVES pizza. She loves the word "pizza." Even though I only ever feed her the crust. And even though we have it for supper at least one night a week. (On Fridays. A Totinos. Its our "reward" for making it through the week.) She loves pizza. Would throw me under a bus for pizza. I only WISH I had video of how insane she gets in between times when I'm eating it and when I'm sharing bites of crust with her. Barking, pawing at me, lunging for my plate--just NUTS. Anything else I eat she usually sits calmly at my feet (on the foot of the recliner while I have my knees drawn up to balance my plate) with maybe just a gentle nudge to remind me that she's there. But PIZZA!! She goes nuts the instant I say "You want pizza for supper?" I raised my baby RIGHT.

The temps down here in good ol' Northeast Mississippi have been hovering near 90 for the past few days. 70's in the morning, 90 by late afternoon. This is cause for much celebration 'round these here parts. Tis considered a "cool front." Woo to the Hoo! (Please hurry, Fall. I miss you!)

I nearly cried yesterday afternoon when I ordered a caramel iced latte at Sonic and when it came to me it had very little caramel and way too much latte. Botched drinks make me wanna cry. Yes. I have so little in my life that I depend on fancy coffee drinks to bring me joy. Oh, and her. She brings me lots of joy. And pain. And frustration. But mostly joy.

Want to hear a new one??? Let me tell you it. So, I watched The Lovely Bones last night--a deeply haunting story of a girl murdered by a neighbor in the 70's. I figured it might give me nightmares or strange dreams because it was a disturbing film with some rather psychedelic imagery at times. But I don't think that film had altogether too much to do with the dream I had. Dream started out at home on movie night. I was going to watch Hurt Locker (a movie I have no desire to see in my concious state). As I was pulling the DVD from the sleeve, suddenly I'm at what may have been the pshych ward from LOST (the one Hurley's flashback found him at)--we were all wearing blue robes and sitting at round tables--and instead of the DVD, I'm reading a newspaper with the review for Hurt Locker.  Catherine Bigalow (you know, the director of that movie?) is there. She's wearing the dress she wore on Oscar night (because possibly that's the only time I've ever see...

The ankle that bled is healing quicker and hurts less than the one that the vicious beast merely bruised. Chihuahua's are mean! Thank goodness some of the DP's mean-ness got bred out of her by her half Pomeranian mama! Or did it??

Ya'll, I had a weird experience last night. I'm probably just losing my mind and since there's not much left to lose, it shouldn't take long. lol But yeah. Last night=weird. Around ten I got up and started getting ready for bed and such and called the DP to go out one more time. When I got the door that leads out onto the carport, I noticed something moving outside by the carport. The blinds on the door's window were shut but I could see through the cracks. Anyway, my first thought was that that wacko escapted whos-it was out there. (He's still on the lamb.) So I cracked the blinds open a little further and realized that it was a dog. I assumed it was my neighbor's dog out for his last run of the night. But then I looked closer and ya'll...I could have sworn it was my lab/sharpe mix, Izzy...the one that has lived with the folks since my knee injury in 2006. The same size, same fat head (I used to call her fat head. It's adorable in it's f...

Most of the time when I walk, my ankles pop with each step and they sound like someone clicking and unclicking a pen. I'm so used to it that I rarely ever notice it except when a buddy of mine points it out. She says, "Oh, you're really creaking today, huh?" And I'm all, "What? That's normal. I worry when they  don't pop."

So Friday night during Ghost Whisperer, I gave myself a pedicure. Well, I didn't paint or shape my toe nails. I just soaked my feet and scraped the junk off. (Ewe. Right?) Something you may not know about me (and could probably live happily never knowing...oh well!) is that I have horrible feet. Callouses on my toes and heels, cracked heels--you know those commercials for the Ped Egg when they show really nasty feet? Yeah. Mine are WAY worse. Something about the way I walk (I'm flat footed) makes my big toe on my right foot grow a callous the size of Montana if I'm not dilligent in keeping it scraped. And yeah, I realize this is gross, but bare with me. I do have a point. So anyway, while I was scraping my feet, I had another Paw-Paw memory. Weird, right? LOL But most of the things I recall the easiest about him are weird. We're a strange family, what can I say? Anyway, back a couple of years ago before he got so sick, we were sitting in church chatting like usu...

One of my all time favorite habits the DP has acquired: After she finishes her "puppy chow" she slurps water, jumps in my lap and gets right in my face and...burps. hehehe I crack up every time.

When I was in about the 11th grade, my friends and I would make lists of the names we wanted to name our future children. My number one choice for a daughter was Summer Rain . My only excuse was that I was going through a Native American historicals phase. Thank goodness I didn't have a kid back then!

You know all those little "getting to know you" quizzes that circulate incessantly? You know the ones. They want to know what you ate for breakfast and if you prefer summer or winter and who do you think will respond? I admit to having fun with them mostly because each time I try to give a smart alec's answer. Or I'll add random bits that the question didn't ask for. But to be quite frank, I'm bored with them because they ask the same. darn. questions, over and over. And at the end of them all anyone really "knows" about anyone is that so and so eats blueberry special K for breakfast and most people prefer summer over winter. And no one knows or cares to guess who will respond. So I thought, hey, yanno what might be fun? Letting folks know some REAL stuff about me. Because ya'll don't know enough about my warped little life as it is, right? In random order, here are some weird, true and somewhat embarrassing facts about moi. Yes, I should be ...