Yes you read that right. I am taking a leave of absence from my blog. I'm tired of blogging. I haven't felt like writing lately and I feel obligated to post when I'm not in the mood and that just doesn't make sense. It's a little bit of a bummer because next month in the one year anniversary of my first post and I was going to wait, but what's the point? I'm tired now. If I wait I'll end up being resentful and negative. I want to avoid that. I've enjoyed doing this for a long time, with little bits of frustration thrown in here and there, but I think that it would be good for me at this time to step away for a while, like maybe a month. It's not like I have a ton of readers that will be disappointed with my absence although I am grateful for the few that I do have. I'm sure they'll understand my need to do this. I will continue to visit my links and leave comments on those sites; I just won't post here for a while. Maybe absence will make my heart grow fonder and the desire to write again will return with renewed enthusiasm. Until then my friends, until then....

I started taking dance lessons for Salsa back in September 2005. Since then I've taken a couple of classes and have been taking lessons at the club where I go dancing every Saturday night. The girl that teaches those lessons is a very good dancer. My dance partner and I have been taking the lessons with her for about a month now and we're doing very well. She spends some one on one time with each of us, correcting our technique and showing us better ways of moving. I've learned a lot from her. Last Saturday night she told me that she knew I could pick up what she was showing me because I learned the steps fast. She also said that with a little practice I will be a really good dancer. I was psyched to hear that from her. She's a great dancer and to have her tell me that she thinks I'm good was a huge boost to my confidence. Also, I was practicing with one of the other men there and while we were doing our moves his eyes widened in surprise and he got this big grin on his face. I asked him what it was for and he says that I've got the style down. Double woo hoo! I impressed him too. My partner was watching us while we practice and later he told me that he thought I looked great out there and it made him feel like he couldn't dance. I told him not to be ridiculous. He's a great dancer too. It was because of him that I was able to pick it up so well. He already knew how to dance when I met him in dance class.

Growing up, Easter was always a fun time for me. My mom made it special. She would put together a basket full of chocolate bunnies, peeps (my favorite!), jelly beans and a stuffed bunny all wrapped up with ribbons and cellophane. On the night before Easter or early that morning she would sneak into my room and put the basket on my dresser. In the morning I would wake up to find this glorious gift. I remember I would rush into my parents room and tell them that the Easter bunny had left me a basket.

One year I woke up just after the basket had been left and I swear to this day that I actually saw the Easter bunny leaving my room. I remember it so clearly. The bunny was big, at least six feet tall and I saw him from the back as he left my room. He was all white and I saw his ears, his big round butt and fluffy tail. I have no explanation for what I saw. Maybe it was a five year old girl's wild imagination, but it has stayed with me until this day. I also remember coloring hard boiled eggs. The smell of vinegar always takes me back to those times. My mom would hide the eggs in our yard and then watch me as I tried to find them all. One year we went to the desert for Easter because my dad was into dirt bike riding. We had an Easter egg hunt in the desert and it was the coolest thing to find these brightly colored eggs hidden in the bushes. Now that I think back on it, it probably wasn't the safest place for a little girl to be looking for eggs. I could have come across any number of desert creatures that way. Still that experience is one of my fondest memories from childhood.

I don't celebrate holidays that much now that I'm grown. I haven't made colored eggs since I was a teenager. I think that was also the last time I ever received a basket from my mom, but if I let her, she would still make them for me. I know that Easter isn't just about bunnies and candy. It's also about Jesus and His resurrection from the grave. Today is that day, and for that I am truly grateful. I am remiss in celebrating that part of the holiday. Jesus died for my sins so that I wouldn't have to spend an eternity in hell if I accept Him as my savior. I have accepted Him. He has changed my life more than any bunny ever will be able to.

Here is a picture of the beautiful balloon bouquet that my husband had sent to my work yesterday for our anniversary. I was sooo surprised when I got the call that there was a delivery for me at the front desk. Then to see this as I came down the stairs, I was amazed. I've never received anything like it before. My co-worker loved it as well. She said it was so unique and better than flowers. Anyone can do flowers. This was just cool. My husband is very good at surprising me with things like this. Good job Hon. I love it!

I'm so ticked off right now and I NEED to rant. You ever notice how it's the little things in life that just set you off?

Yesterday I lost my change purse. It had my lipstick, lip gloss, chapstick, nail clippers and some money in it. I'm always using the lipstick and lip gloss so today I felt really weird without it. I was also miffed because I don't normally lose things. Anyways, I went to Target after work to replace the purse and contents. Should be easy right? Except...Target in their infinite wisdom went and changed the entire make-up section, all within the last week. They no longer carry all of the brands I use. I spent half an hour looking for the right color lipstick only to find nothing I liked. Then I couldn't find the lip gloss that I like either so I had to settle for an unknown brand and hope that it is what I want. You can't take this stuff back once you've used it. I know, because I've got a drawer full of lipstick and eye make-up I bought but don't like. It's a gamble everytime so when you find something you like you stick with it. I gave up looking and moved on to the nylon section to stock up on my supply. Guess what? The brainiacs Target changed that whole section too, removing everything they used to carry and replacing it with brands I've never heard of before. WTF people? These things are my essentials in life. I need make-up and nylons.

The other thing I'm ticked about right now is rude people. Women especially. While I was in the make-up aisles I was practically walked over by two different women without a word from either one. No "excuse me" they just walked in front of me without any regard. To the last one I said "excuse you" in a really sarcastic tone and loud enough for her to hear (at least I think it was loud enough) but she didn't say anything. I wish she had. I was in the mood for a spat. Bitch. Yeah, I said it, so what?

Whew! Thanks for letting me rant. I feel better now. I'm putting Target on my crap list for a while.

It was 13 years ago today that Hot Latin Lover and I got married in a little chapel in Las Vegas. It was a small ceremony with many of our friends and his parents in attendance.

It doesn't really feel like it's been that long but it hasn't been easy. Our marriage has had its share of bumps and roadblocks along the way but somehow we've mananged to stay together. My parents marriage only lasted 13 years and their relationship with each other deteriorated very quickly. I've never had a good example of a good marriage. My husband's parents have been married for 37 years and they have been the ones to inspire me in my relationship with my husband. They've been through some stuff that makes you wonder how anyone would survive.

We are older now and wiser and my wish for our lives is that we would continue to work together because we make a good team, to remember the lean times and where we came from and still be able laugh at them and to keep working through our difficulties with each other. Neither of us is perfect. I've learned that I can't change him nor can he change me. I can only change myself and hope that it is enough to keep our relationship moving forward and growing. Our song came on the radio last night. It's Bryan Adams "Everything I do, I do for you". That song is very appropriate from my point of view for our relationship and it speaks true to how I feel about my husband. Happy anniversary Hon.

I've been going to school taking Spanish and I'm doing fairly well. We've been given several quizzes now and on each test I've missed an average of three questions. Our last quiz required us to write sentences which I've been struggling with since the beginning of the class. Just before our professor gave us the quiz, he showed us the basics of writing a sentence. It was very easy once I saw it all written out. It's been 20 years since I've taken any English classes and I've forgotten most of what I learned in school, so to have him explain how to do all of this again helped me a lot.

He began handing out the corrected quizzes tonight and became a little frustrated with the class because he said that 40% of us were still not conjugating the verbs correctly. He's gone over it with us tons of times. I understand that process very well now, but I felt that I had missed some things on the quiz and was expecting to see my errors marked in red. My professor was standing in front of my seat when he held up one of the quizzes and announced to the class that only one person had a score of 100% and then he laid the quiz down on my desk. I was so surprised. My test had a perfect score? Really? Me? I wanted to gloat so bad right then. I wanted to call everyone I knew and tell them about my results. This is a big thing for me, to get a perfect score in a foreign language class after not being in school for so many years. Hooty-hoo folks! I'm as happy as can be.