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Today was wonderful...

I got up about ten. I jumped up off my sister's couch after jerking awake in a panic. Where was my phone? I was probably late for work...After glancing around in a frantic search for my cell phone, I paused. I realized that it was monday and I had the day off. Sighing in relief, I trodded off to the bathroom. A few minutes later I plugged in my phone to charge Then took the dogs outside to relieve themselves.

I opened the side door and a gust of cool wind blew my hair into my face and my dress around my calves. I was still in my pajamas, a black, cotton, sleeveless dress with a dark gray long sleeve shirt under. I also had on my black sweat pants a black socks. So comfy. I glanced around to see if there were any neighbors milling about. Deciding we were alone, I let the dogs free, leash-less. They love that.

Leaving the door open for the our two cats enjoyment, I closed the screen and followed the puppies in my socks. I walked out on the grass. The wind blew, causing a shiver to race up my arm. The sky was cloudless, the perfect shade of blue and the sun was a welcoming warmth against my face. I knew that Autumn was finally here.

I paced the yard a bit, waiting for the puppies to do their business, then I brought out a ball to play fetch. I really didn't want to go inside, not with the day so perfect. We played a minute, then I dropped down on the lawn, feeling the cool grass beneath me as I played with the dogs on this most peaceful morning. I laid back, closing my eyes. The sun beat down on the backs of my closed lids, warming my skin while the breeze cooled it simultaneously. I smiled up at the sky. This day was absolutely beautiful. One of those days that have you thinking of everything dear to you from your childhood. The kind of day where you are at peace with the world, where your heart and soul finally feel as though they are healed from all things past. A calming, wonderful feeling of comfort. I could have slept.

My sister came out and sat on the steps. We let the puppies play, planning our day.

We loaded the dogs in the car. They were excited when we said the simple words, "Park? Go bye-bye?" They know these words.

Our first stop was after the bank was the mall. We planned to go in and only stop at Claire's for headbands. I paid for them, and we left. Good for us.

But then we made the mistake of stopping in Bath and Body Works. That is a dangerous store for us. Smells are what make the world go round in our book. We smelled everything, absolutely ecstatic that the Fall and Winter items were out. Smells like Leaves, Winter, Pumpkin Spice....This was heaven. They had small bottles of lotion for a dollar. The new fragrance Twilight wood. I grabbed three. My two sisters and I. At the checkout I couldn't resist adding a 3 dollar wallflower refill to my purchase. It was the smell of Winter and I had to have it. Not much money if you have enough. A fourtune when you can barely make rent each month. But totally worth it.

From there we stopped at Barnes & Noble for drinks and so I could check my schedual

The Mermaid

The painting The Mermaid by Howard Pyle is my all-time favorite piece of art. It is simple and beautiful, full of feeling and passion. The sheer emotions on the canvas reach out and grip your heart. Love can be a powerful enemy.
I once read book of famous paintings that described this painting very differently than the way I see it, but I know everyone sees different things based on his or her own personal backgrounds and lives. There are many perspectives to everything. Even knowing this, I feel the author didn't have a clue what he was talking about.
I recall him writting about how threatening the picture appeared, with the Mermaid clinging to the human as though she is about to pull him down into the foamy sea to his eternal, watery grave. Maybe his glasses were slightly askew? From my point of view, I see the human clinging just as dearly to the Mermaid. She doesn't appear to have a look of murderous contempt for the human at all. Instead, her face glows with a serene happiness, a calm emotion of love. Besides, does the human look fearful for his life? I don't see one iota of fright or struggle in any aspect of his posture. It is clear he is simply hanging on to a woman he loves, a woman who is of a different world than he, but this clearly matters not at all to either of them.
Love can be powerful. It makes us overlook certain aspects of a person, overlook flaws. In this work of art, the fact that she must live in the ocean and he on the land is a little pesky detail neither of them finds too deterring. They may be from two seperate worlds, never to be together, but their love is as strong and real as that of Romeo and Juliet.

McPike Mansion

See, isn't this Mansion amazing?

Look at this! It needs some fixing up desperatly!

Went to McPike Mansion. Gorgeous, even if it's falling apart. They really need money to fix it up. It's a piece of history worth saving. The paranormal team I joined...we're gonna try some fund raisers this summer and give 50% to the owners of McPike. We really wanna get people involved in helping out. This place is so much cooler than the Lemp mansion, in my opinion. It is so devastating to see it in such distress.
Anyway, we went there last night about five p.m. Left for a bit, then went back to set up for our investigation. No one was allowed in the actual house, we were all supposed to just stay in the cellar. Except the tech team to set up five cameras upstairs. Everyone went up except me and two others. We went up at the end to gather our equipment so everyone got a chance to see the house. Wow, I seriously thought I'd fall through the floor. There were holes everywhere, nothing was sturdy, wind came through the chunk of missing walls and ceiling, no windows in many places windows should be. So heartbreaking. Hopefully we can raise some money...These people are doing their best, spending every dime they have on the place, and they haven't been able to get far. We seemed to hit it off pretty good with the owners, they really appreciate us wanting to help.

They told us they were impressed with our equipment. We had seven cameras set up, five voice recorders upstairs, everyone had walkies, recorders, flashlights, we had a trunk that held most of it which folds out into a table to hold the huge flat-screen computer monitor which shows all camera views. We have a couple EMF readers. They said that everyone whose investigated so far has only had a couple of cameras. Even Ghost Lab only came in with three cameras. Wow....Well, we take this very seriously. It's not for thrills or excitement, though that is a part of it. We try to take a scientific view of it. If we can't say 100% that the image in the photo isn't just one of us or a malfunction of equipment, we toss it. We are very careful and thourough. And, at least for me and the leader, we really like the historical factor in cases like this. I absolutly love this mansion. I want to research it, know everything about it, learn every detail of the lives of the people who lived in it. It's amazing.
Wish us luck on raising money for the restoration of this historic mansion, which, by the way, was built in 1869. Wow. How can a person not want to save it? You should see the detail in the walls around the ceiling, on the edges of the steps...Just brilliant. The door, which half of it was sitting in the entryway, is huge, kind of dome-shaped, large windows in the front. (unfortunatly the windows are long gone...) My batteries went dead before I ever made it upstairs so I didn't get any photos of it, but maybe on our website our president will have something going. Oh, and we have a few EVPs from my best friends house on the site. Samantha's house. The EVP where the ghost told me to "go home!" That, I believe is on the website. Check it out. slaapi.com.
Until next time!

So many people have shot down the movie Paranormal Activity. Why? I have no idea. Lots say it was boring, not scary and all kinds of dumb things.
Scared the shit out of me. It would scare the shit out of anyone whose seen this kind of thing first hand. There may be no bodies buried in the walls (Haunting in conneticut). There may not be a little girl getting sucked into a TV set (Poltergeist). But let me tell you, if you set up a camera in your bedroom at night while you sleep and that stuff started happening to you, you wouldn't think this movie so laughable then, would ya?? Would ya, punk?? All the hype about dumb movies such as Haunting in Conneticut, Chainsaw Massacre, it's so obviously made up by someone on crack. Though, maybe Haunting in Conneticut is based on real events, the movie is mostly false, if not, all false. While Paranormal Activity is fake, the events that happen are very believeable. They are not over the top Hollywood, they are things I see here at my friend's house everyday. Doors opening by themselves, scary photos our paranormal investigators have taken that I will post as soon as I get copies of them. Not to mention all the EVP we've gotten. We actually got backwards EVP, something I've only ever seen in movies. We seriously thought it was a different language. One of the investigators told us to download audacity. We did. With that you can enhance voice recordings, reverse the recordings, cut out background noises. We reversed what we thought was not english at all. Well, English plain as day. "Look, honey, it's here."
Messed up right??
That's all folks.

Facebook | Judy Ply

Facebook Judy Ply: "does wtf stand for what the f---k?"

My mom had to ask. Lol, she at least got it right.

Ghosts on Saturday

This is a strange misty something I captured a picture of while taking pictures in my nephew's room. Up until then, I'd only gotten orbs...this is a little more than an orb...

The investigators came on saturday. We investigated from seven p.m. until six-thirty a.m. The usual happened, doors opening by themselves, weird noises and movements, cold spots, sudden headaches that are there one minute and gone the next, an odd feeling of pressure, like something just weighing down on us. One of the investigators got sick. They got lots of orbs, and not just white ones like we'd been getting. A red one, green, some caught while moving so they looked like they had a tail. Sean, one investigator, just got a four hundred dollar phone which had two flashes for the camera so it could take 18 pics in a row without stopping. So while one flash was charging, the other was in use. He got the most pics. They got a hundred of photos with stuff going on. Once during the night, my friend Sami felt very crowded. She started yelling at at everyone to back up. Sean snapped some pics. In them, her face got blurry, and what appears to be a skull looks like it is going through her. Also, in one of the photos is some odd figure next to her, reaching out to her, I think. The EMF readers were insane. They said it wasn't normal for them to be at a seven and in one spot for so long. Like the entity wasn't moving at all. Just kept still in one spot for a half hour. Our electricity was shut off, so it made no sense to be getting such a response from the EMF. Also, a bottle of southern comfort jumped off the fridge. It didn't break, but the cap came off and shot down the hallway. Then, later after two investigators left, Sami's son found a cell phone in the freezer. WTF? Earlier, we'd split into two groups. Sami, her son, and two investigators went outside and into the cellar. Me, and three investigators stayed in the house. We were all going around, shouting for the coward to do something, show itself...We had voice recorders, EMF readers, digital cameras, video cameras...My group was at the end of the hall by the bathroom when we heard a door from the kitchen. We checked the kitchen and the living room. Nothing was different. Both doors were closed as we had left them...When Sam's son found the phone, we realized it was the freezer door we'd heard. The investigators had never run into a case like this. It is insane. Today, nothing has happened yet, except an unexplained rush of cold air hit me. Came from nowhere. And a few things fell to the floor without a cause. Nothing else yet, but it is only 2:37. Things usually start here at about 3 pm...We'll see. I wish I had some of the photos Sean got, but I don't. He will make us copies. I'll post them when I can. We are actually planning to go see them in Illinois this weekend since I have both days off, which is very rare. We are driving there, checking out the evidence they got, and visiting some of the local hauntings in their area. Can't wait. I'll let ya know what happens.

"I don't care if you lick windows,
take the short bus
or occasionally pee on yourself..
You hang in there sunshine, you're special?"

Yesterday my friend and I set out on our road trip to Arkansas to visit my mom and my friend Maria. We spent all morning packing, doing this and that, preparing to be in Arkansas for three days with a three month old baby. We finally hit the road about 6pm. Things are going good, baby is sleeping the whole time. We are jamming to music, enjoying ourselves.

It starts to snow. I can't see the road much in front of me. Sami decides to choose this time to take a nap. I'm tired as hell, Sami is sleeping, and the huge semi in front of me is blowing snow at my car so bad I can't see the road at all. Most of the time I am not sure if I'm even on the road, shoulder, don't care so long as we're not in a ditch. I'm seeing signs saying things like Miami and Vi-something or other pay at exit.. WTF? Pay what? I don't know these signs. Signs saying Tulsa. Really? Really!

"Sam! I think we're lost!"

"Hmm.." She snores.

"Sam, it is snowing, I can't see the road, and I think we missed 65 South!"

Snort snore.

"SAMANTHA JAMES! We're lost! Call Bob and have him find a map!"

She jerks into a sitting position, grabs her phone and calls Bob. Second later she puts her phone down on her lap.

"Got his voicemail." She leans her head back against the headrest and begins to snore. Really!!??!?! This is where I'm swerving in and out of lanes cause I can't see any lines on the road through the snow.

"Sam! GRRR!" I pull my phone out of my pocket and try to use the touchscreen to call my mom. Her and my stepdad always have at least one atlas on the table and five more stacked nearby. It starts ringing while I try desperately not to panic as I see more huge Semis and cars up ahead of me.

"Mom, I think we are lost! Find a map and tell me where we are. Did we miss our turn?" I tell her the last sign I saw, which was maybe ten minutes before. Now we were on a long stretch of road, no signs anywhere, and only one exit every fifty miles, no joke. Where are we!!!

"Here, talk to Monty," she tells me, handing over the phone to her husband.
I don't even know what he is saying cause I'm trying to stay on the road. A huge truck in front of me and I'm almost in the ditch. I hang up the phone, throw it at my snoring friend. She jerks awake, glancing around wondering what the heck.
"Sam, we're lost. Call my mom, I just hung up on them!"
So, awake now, she calls them back. According to Monty, we should see 65 any minute now. . . we are in the middle of nowhere. No signs, no exits nothing but darkness, snow, and a semi truck every once in a while to throw snow at my windshield and make driving even more impossible.
My nerves are shot, but I'm breathing easier now cause Monty says were still on track. Sam and I decided to stop for gas and check out a map just to be sure.
We miss the first exit cause we can't see it.
Seriously twenty miles later we find one. Vinita. Where?? What is Vinita? Why does it say pay at exit or whatever?? I'm not paying anything! I just want to know where I am and how much further I have to go.
There are about four inches of snow on the ground as we pull into the first gas station we see: The Wood Shed. Hmmm....we go in and the walls are all made of wood, there is a train set around the wall and suspended in the air above our heads in half the store. There are magnets, shot glasses, mugs, everything. I grab an atlas, a cup of coffee and sit at a booth by the window. Sam asks the woman at the register where we are.
"Oklahoma."
I look up. What?
"No we're not," Sam says. "Your joking. Where are we?"
The woman and the two male customers she's chatting with look at us. "You're in Oklahoma."
"No way." Sam checks the newspaper. "Oh shit! We are in Oklahoma." We'd missed our exit three hours back, and the snow is still falling thick and white.
We find where we are on the map, we see where we should be. We consider turning back. The snow is about six inches by now. We call mom, she says we shouldn't drive. It's snowing where she's at in Arkansas too! Sam and I think it's best to stop for the night, get a motel room. Mind you, we don't have money for a room. The woman working there gets out a phone book, finds two motel numbers. Sam calls. One doesn't answer, the other, Relax Inn, is 59 dollars a night. Fine!
The cashier gives us directions to the motel, wishes us luck and we slide through red lights, ignoring the law that we are supposed to stop. By this time I don't give a damn. I was irrate with Sam for falling asleep. I kept telling her if she'd been awake we wouldn't have missed 65. She was trying not to laugh at me cause I don't get angry often, but I was pissed. She says I'm funny and cute when I'm mad. She didn't want me to know she thought this at the time, cause it would have made me madder.




The room is small, two beds, microwave, tv. HBO was it's saving grace...but we fell asleep before we could enjoy it. We hauled our things inside, showered, put the baby down, I had a snowball fight with my dog, then we went to sleep.
Next morning mom keeps calling, telling us to go home there is too much snow and we will never make it down her hill. I'm still half asleep, not wanting to face the fact that it would be best to head back to st. louis instead of continuing on to Siloam Springs then on to Harrison to Pyatt to see her. She gives up trying to convice me, her most stubborn daughter, and calls Sam. Still mostly sleeping, I hear Sam tell her:
"I'll talk to her when she gets up. We'll talk and let you know."
I roll over and sleep. Finally, I get up and get dressed. I tell Sam the snow is melting! That didn't really matter, there was still lots of it, and snow was starting to fall again. A few drops coming off the roof didn't really mean anything at this point. So we decide to take 44 East back to St. Louis. I call mom to tell her.
"I can't drink my coffee, my stomach is all torn up, I'm so worried and stressed. Go home! I want to see you, I'll send you money to come see us in the spring, just go home. It's bad out there and getting worse, just go home! I can't drink my coffee, I'm so worried sick!"
I calm her down, tell her we are going home, not to worry. I tell her I'll call every time we stop and let her know how the roads are doing. She breathes a little easier.
"I love your mom," Sam laughs. She loved my mom last winter too when mom kept calling my work and telling me to go home. She gave up on me and my stubborness and talked to my manager and told him to send me home cause the snow was supposed to get worse. She kept having Sam call and tell me to go home, thinking maybe I'll listen to Sam since I wasn't listening to her.
Did you know you have to pay to leave Oklahoma? $1.75. We pulled out our change and got back on the road. Every half hour we stopped somewhere. We found a sign that said Reptile zoo, seven miles off of exit. Hey, lets check that out. Snowing or not, we're not wasting this road trip. 10 miles later we give up on the reptile zoo, turn around and retrace our steps and get back on the highway.
We were starving and looking for a place to eat. Mcdonalds, Waffle House, etc...We didn't want something we see everday. No fast food. We'd had Waffle House on the way to Oklahoma. After passing dozens of exits we decide whatever, we'll go to Waffle House again. On our way to the way there, we see a small diner called Ali's Family Resteraunt. Oh yeah, we turn around and go in. Wonderful food, nice small town feel, huge windows showing off all the snow falling to cover the five inches of snow already on the ground. Friendly service. An old house across the street we decided must be haunted. We plan to buy that house someday and eat at Ali's everyday. Sam was bouncing off the walls when she found out they had cucumber sauce, or gyro sauce. I hate cucumbers, but I tried it. We got some more and put it on our hashbrowns and our omlettes, on the toast. We asked if we could buy some. She sold us an eight ounce cup of it for $1.50. We were thrilled.
We got back on the road, planning our next road trip. We are going to get in the car and drive. No destination in mind. Just drive and stop at every attraction we see on the way.
The whole drive back was snow. Ice, slush, snow. Lots of it. The entire drive. It started to get dark. Sam goes to sleep. I'm starting to fall asleep at the wheel. I turn up the music, and sing along, but my eyes start drooping and my mind is empty, spacey, I'm so tired. Then I see a sign for Starbucks coffee exit 156. Hold it! I'm suddenly wide awake, searching every exit. No other signs for it, but I'm not missing this Starbucks.
We find it. We get gas for the car, let Kenni out to potty, and I run in for coffee. I come back out and some young douche is laughing and pushing a cart at my car. WTF??
He moves it away laughing and gets in the passenger seat of a car where a young girl is at the wheel. I climb in the car, Sam is getting off the phone with my mom.
"What the hell was he doing?" I ask her.
"I don't know, but I got off the phone quick, thinking I need to jump out and fuck him up."
"Eh," I say. We say this all the time lately. Just, "Eh."
The young prick gets out of his car which is parked in front of us to the right slightly. He goes to Sam's window, she cracks it an inch. Kenni is barking like mad at him. He asks if he can buy a cigarette. She's all sure.
"Better shut up dog or I'll rip you apart." He yells at Kenni. Excuse me? Who's the dumb mother fucker coming up to our car window? This is my dogs territory.
"You do that and I'll rip you apart." I tell him, and start to drive as Sam is hading a cig through the window. I'm hoping to hit one of the little brat's feet with a tire. Unfortunately I missed. He's hollering at Sam saying he'd pay $50 for a pack. I don't even stop, I keep driving. Fuck the little bastard. Who does that? Walk up to a strangers car and ask for a cigarette, then threatens their dog?!?! No, no. You don't mess with my dog. Kenni, as much as she pisses me off sometimes, is like my kid. You don't mess with someones kids, you don't mess with thier dog.
Anyway, I couldn't believe it. We seriously were driving along and suddenly we go from snowfalling onto the already 6 inches to no snow on the ground at all. What??!! I was actually sad. We weren't getting snow at hime, and I have been waiting all winter for some snow, but south of us was getting a hell of a lot of snow. So not fair.
Anyway. That was our road trip.
Oh, we also stopped at a place called Ozarkland: Stores thoroughout the ozarks. "Worth Stopping For" the signs said. We shrugged. Why not.
They had tons of awesome stuff. Sam bought owl statue for our friend Leah. It's cool. I just bought Saltwater taffy and cinnamon covered pecans and two rebel driver's licenses. They were hilarious, we both had to have one.
Anyway, we're planning another road trip. one where we are going to visit every haunted place we can throughout America. I'm going to have to take her to the Lemp mansion. I've been there before and my friend is taking me in Feb. again. But it would be awesome if me and Sami stayed there. In Zeke's room. Oh yea.