Don't really have much to say, I don't guess. no angles, no rants, no deep insights.

i'm feeling a little blah today. kind of tired. my brain seems like mush. don't know why either.

here it's either cold or hot and there's no in between. i kept waking up this morning, first around 4:30, then around 7, then at 9. once mark got his heat producing body out of bed, i slept much better. how can one buck-thirty-five man throw off so much heat? i tell you, i could sleep another two hours at least.

my very sweet, often annoying father-in-law is out of town, visiting family in arizona. i got up at 5 yesterday to take him to the airport and of course after traveling the harrowing 4 lanes of 85 (yes, bad even on a Sat morning) i just couldn't go back to bed. but i am looking forward to the week of peace and no interuptions. and as close as his family is, i'm happy he's getting to spend some time with them.

we had an enjoyable evening last night, and my faith in humanity is a bit renewed. over the years mark and i have put forth effort to befriend people in our neighborhood. in most cases, we've ended up getting the short end of the stick. being stabbed in the back numerous times. it brings me down and i always think after it's happened, just what's the use?

we met our neighbor tammy several months ago. she's a spirited woman, who loves to talk. she's very sweet and seems quite geniune. she's originally from pennsylvania, and her husband joe from new jersey. both don't much like it down here(except tammy does like the warmth). i guess it's because they're away from family and friends.

the day we met her, her husband had a terrible cold. by the next day, so did she. i happened to be making my homemade chicken noodle soup, and since i always have some left over(and mark won't eat it leftover because the noodles get too mushy and soggy) i took a big container over to them.

she asked us to come over for dinner, but then was suddenly called out of town for her job. at the time, we thought this kind of odd and just chalked it up to people just trying to be nice. we really didn't think much more about it.

but the other evening, it was so nice outside, that mark and i sat out for awhile on our steps. tammy, whose husband was out of town, came over and spent the evening with us chatting. we had told her about the mexican restaurant across the street and so she asked if we'd like to all go over there sat night(last night).

we did. we all went out and had an enjoyable evening. they are truly nice people. when it came time to pay, they picked up the check, saying it was payback for the chicken soup i'd brought them when they were sick. i honestly think maybe they just know how poor we are, but it certainly does renew my faith that there are nice people out there. people who don't care how much money you have, what you do for a living, or what you can do for them.

mark gets mad at me because i don't always go out of my way to meet people. i've had so many negative experiences when i've put myself out there, that it's just difficult for me to do. being a little shy(i know, hard to believe)doesn't help. he keeps telling me that sometimes you have to meet 50 people to find just one. his personal ratio is less than that. he usually finds a good decent person in every 10. and of course, i'll scale over the fact that every nice person we do find isn't a southerner. it's just too depressing for me to contemplate.

so today's another beautiful day in the neighborhood. mark is helping the carribian people next door move. one of my favorite nascar races is on today...bristol. we'll bbq this afternoon, stuffing our faces with ribs and burgers. later this evening, we'll sit outside under the spring stars and enjoy the night and then cap it all off with the sopranos before bed.

life is full of simple pleasures.