Today I'd like to get away from the frustrations and rejections of job-hunting and not finding, yet.

I think back to when I was young and we already had the fireworks going for the 4th and were preparing for our community B-B-Q. And I long for that type of community. I'm knew here and the only people I've met are my daughters friends, they are not bad. There are just young enough to be my children and I don't want to hang out like that.

So, I sit here broke and flustered. Then I realize that I can go anywhere I want really, well kinda. After some clicking around on the web, I've found what seems to be a good destination.

So, off I go on my own little secluded retreat. It won't change anything about my world, but I think it's better than sitting around pouting or waiting for the phone to ring for the next interview.

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Ghandi wrote that we should "be the change we want to see." I think about this a lot. After much self-checking, I realize that what needs to change most about me is my attitude and mindset. I am good at a lot of things. I can find joy in the simple pleasures and the finer things in life, but I feel trapped and flustered most of the time. If I had my rathers, my life would be totally different. But, I don't and didn't have a choice, so I stay just a little miffed about "what could have been".

It's amazing, I won't let anyone "should" on me, but I could on myself almost constantly. And I know this is why I don't enjoy my life more. I dream about what's around the bend, instead of relishing in what's before me. I continually remind myself of the journey and what it's worth. Otherwise, your dead!

I love butterflies, but I don't like the creepy crawly that it is before it becomes a butterfly. Yet, I have managed to accept that without these hairy slink-alongs we wouldn't have the beautiful flutterby.

Along those same lines,I guess if I take stock in my daily life, ante up and take it straight on, then when the good times come along not only will I enjoy it more, but I will notice.

I feel like a failure because my life doesn't look like the lives of others. I know I'm not born to live in another person's shoe print and I also know that my life won't look like anyone else's, if I am living my life, it looks like my life. Therefore, if I'm going to be the change I want to see, well, then I'll take it a lot easier on me.

I used to go hiking with friends and my children when I was in college in Colorado. We used to love to go up towards Indian Peaks. One thing that makes people think we've lost our minds and wonder if we had any in the first place is. . .there were these evergreen trees. They had fragrances like strawberry, chocolate, vanilla and butterscotch.

We would go from tree to tree trying to see if we could figure out what it smelled like. You should have seen some of the looks we got from passersby. but, if we were able to convince them to take a sniff, then they were roaming around sniffing trees right along with the rest of us.

Threw the years, I've met a few people that know what these trees are, the rest, well they think I need my head checked or some serious meds or both. But, it's true, honest. If you find yourself in the mountains a few miles outside of Boulder, you will be able to see for yourself.

It's almost 30 days until I turn 45 years old. The even decade numbers, such as 30 and 40, didn't bother me at all. But, the halfway markers are a doozy.

I cannot believe it has gone this quickly. It seems like just yesterday when I was pining away to be 21 so I could do exactly what I wanted and no one would be "the boss of me". Uh-huh, yeah, sure.

It's amazing how I have changed. When I was much younger, I had very tight abs and long skinny legs that were probably too skinny. Now, I have a double portion of abs and those long legs are not skinny. I was going to work with a trainer. He asked me to give him two of my workout goals. I thought for a second and told him: #1. When I wave, I don't want my triceps to. #2. And when i turn the corner, i want my butt to turn with me, I don't want it to be a two-step procedure. He laughed long and hard. Then I decided that I had better take my ol' big butt home and work it off where I'm not on public display.

I know what my problem is. I compare my life with how I think it should be and I compare myself to how I used to be. I know things are as they are and you must deal with where you are, but I don't like how things are. I also know that I am no longer this hard working farm teenager and that I probably should have never been that skinny and I really don't want to be that skinny again. (I am almost 5'11", I used to weigh 110 pounds.) All I want to do is get back to 150. People usually thinks I'm my daughters sister instead of her Momma and i want to keep it that way.

Oh well, I have 30 days to work up my nerves and hopefully by the time I turn 55 I will have outgrown all of this.

I remember being 6 or 7 years old and my Mom pulled up to a gas station and gas was 28 cent/gallon, my Mom had a tizzy about the price of gas. I wonder what the gas price will be in 25 or 30 years or if we'll even have gas?

Once about 15 years ago in Oklahoma, some of the older woman were fussing about how this man was robbing this family by charging $125/mont rent for a 3 bedroom house on five acres. Now where I'm from 5 acres is only a swatch of land, most people feel that it's not really enough to receive company and park their cars, but those of us who have been in larger cities know better than that now. I wonder what an acre of land will cost in another 15 years? Even in Rural Southeastern Oklahoma.

I grew up eavesdropping and listening to the adults rant about the struggles of keeping the bills paid and keeping up with the rising cost of living. I'm of age and I see all of the changes on the horizon, the wasteful government spending and the changes in our societal make-up and I wonder how I'll survive.

Now, I can certainly understand the restrain I heard in the adults voices as they pondered living in what were different times for them, because I really don't understand what the heck is going on in this world sometimes myself. And I wonder what this world will be like in a few years. In NYC there are very few streets that are not under constant video surveillance. Then you have the cameras at the stop lights. And lets not forget the online sites where you can logon and watch what a person is doing in real time. I know everyone is different and I respect that. But, when it comes down to my right to privacy and another person's desire to know what I do. . .I simply wonder how and where it will all end.