Imagine an Atom

You have the nucleus of protons and neutrons and then you have electrons circling about it.

That's what's in my stomach.

No, that's not what was for breakfast. That's how I feel in the pit of my stomach. One center thing and a million things buzzing around it, creating noise and confusion.

I'm having a hard time with people lately.

On one hand-

Julie's death is still haunting me. WWJD has turned into What Would Julie Do, for me. I think about her often in the day, and wonder how she would handle things. I think it's because she's one of the more perfect people I've known personally. When I get frustrated with my kids, I feel guilty, because then I think of her and how she loved kids and how she probably wished for marriage and kids herself and if given the chance she'd never yell at her kids, and just loved them.

Because of her death I've been trying to reach out more to people, but they don't seem to be reciprocating, at least the people I know. Strangers have been much more welcoming to my attempts than people I know. But in my journal I wrote, I'm not going to give up. I'm going to keep trying, no matter how long it takes.

On the other hand-

I'm tired of yucky people. I have a neighbor that plays horseshoes and every minute or so we can hear "&#*$%*!" from his house, five houses down. Other people in between us often fight loud enough for us all to hear.

I also have another neighbor who is about 300 lbs. and wears skirts and tank tops every day, and also has her 13ish year old daughter who is equally heavy in her age group wearing the same thing. One day when we were entering the neighborhood and the tornado alarms were going off we saw them running for the shelter carrying dolls with them. I thought maybe they were trying to save precious heirlooms. But then a few days later I saw them in Sam's Club with the dolls in the shopping cart. No, these were not pretty dolls in fancy dresses. These were worn out Chucky looking dolls with cut hair and dirty ugly clothes. I'm a bit worried about their mental stability and all the countless others in this neighborhood that are suffering from lack of reality, sanity, or normalcy.

Then there's the little stranger boy who walked up to my son in our front yard and punched him in the face, taking off so I couldn't find him, although I tried to hunt him down.

I'm ready to give up on people because I can't handle their issues, problems, mental instabilities, whatever you want to call it. They are unsafe to me, and I like a safe, organized, clean world. I don't feel my children are safe from, dare I pass such a harsh judgement... the word that comes to mind is "freaks". And wow, what kind of monster does that make me, to think of my fellow brothers and sisters that way? I'm never going to make it to Heaven.

And then on this foot-

I've also been doing a lot of thinking... yes, again.... about my business.

I've found some really fun items that I would love to add to my products besides prints, but I don't know how people will be with them. It seems most of my customers are interested in just prints and getting a deal on them, and not the icing type of products... like handbags with their kids pictures on them, or cypress albums, or a Press Printed Book with all the pictures of their session. These things aren't cheap, but are OH SO FUN! But my customers don't seem to understand that I'm not Sears, I'm a Custom Photographer.... "Think Lexus vs. Hyundai, think Nordstrom vs. WalMart." as one fellow photographer has said.

I've thought maybe I should just get these products with my kids in/on them and show them about so people see them and want them, heck, I'd love to have them myself!

My computer is still struggling. It shut down on me twice yesterday. I have plenty of memory. It's just really old and can't handle these new big programs I have running. This makes my work take me longer than it should because the programs run slow, and if I have to shut down, well there goes 20 minutes because it takes forever to start up again. But all the money I am making is going towards paying off my teeth, so I'm not able to even think about getting a new computer any time soon.

But I think I'll get a handbag... Now I just have to decide on a picture for it.

On the other foot-

Well, that leg is haunted so I don't have an issue with it, other than it's haunted (Gilmore Girls fans will know what I mean).