Real estate notes, music, photos, and us oh my!

photos from the play

Hey!

I was looking for a photography site of a friend of mine and as it turns out he still has photos from a play I was in last year called Bus Stop based on the old Marlyn Monroe movie. If you feel like looking here is the site:Davage photos. Make sure you check out his other galleries too, enjoy.

Lauri

On pregnancy

Hello,

I have to admit that I love being pregnant, I think that pregnancy is one of the most beautiful times in a woman's life.  It happens to be one of my favorite things to photograph (the belly pics. not the birthing process). This is my third and last time and although I want to see my little girl and give her, her name (Nevaeh) I don't want it to end, not just yet. The reality of it is the word "last" is so final, you know. To be quite honest I'm just grateful for the opportunity to experience it.

Of course you don't always feel so lovely, like when I go swimming with my little ones (cause even pregnant ladies gotta get their swim on) and there is that one (or many younger girls) with the 34 D bust and the size 2 waist and there you are (although you're not huge) feeling like your waistline is, well, the equator. Then of course it's the thin girls that are "evil" for a whole new reason (like it's there fault that your knocked up, ha ha!). Oh well, it's all worth it in the end, and yes I even say that 2 months after the baby is born and I haven't slept in weeks.

Coming from me, to say that I love being pregnant is huge (no pun intended), all being considered that as a younger girl that I was determined not to have kids, partially but mostly due to my 8th grade teacher who was pregnant and kind enough to share the "Miracle of Life" video with our science class because of her un-contained (and at the time, misunderstood) excitement. No offense to the maker of the video as it is educational and something that can be appreciated, just not to a 13 year old girl. For those of you who have not seen the movie, it starts from conception showing you what the baby looks like at all stages and then proceeds to show the Full Monty of the birthing process. It scared the crap out of all the girls, and the boys were probably rather traumatized for a while (not exactly what they want to fantasize about if you know what I mean). None the less i outgrew that fear obviously as i am on my third child. Actually I got to be with one of my best friends recently when she had her first, it was cool being able to be there for her on her first time.

I do have a question though, what's up with men who have kids who get squeamish at the sight of a pregnant woman. Could it be that their pregnant wife beat them mercilessly, or is it just a scary thing for them even though they "survived" it at least once before?

till next time,

Lauri :)   

For more photos of all types you can view our photo album at bits and peices

my book (a small sample)

Hey all,

As you know I am a huge James Rollins (who writes fiction/Thriller books) fan and am sad to say that I am hugely disappointed to say that I received an invite to a writers convention in Maui (sounds good already right?) at which Mr. Rollins would be teaching (along with some of the great writers of our time) and I can't go :( .  Reasons being that not only is money tight, but I am in my 3rd trimester of pregnancy and airlines don't let women over 6 months fly.

It would be cool to have talked to him though. of course I am somewhat hesitant to as questions for fear of sounding stupid. You know, like if I were to ask him how he writes women and scenes for women so well, (given that I don't know him) would I get the Jack Nicholson reply in that movie with Helen Hunt, Cuba Gooding JR. and Greg Kinnear (sorry if I misspelled) "I take away all reason and accountability" or something of that nature.

Anyway since I can't go, I thought I would give a tiny sample of my pet project of the moment (if you can call a year and a half a moment). This is from my Young Adult novel about a 12 year old girl named Snow who discovers some strange things not only about herself but of her hometown.  Here it is:

         Snow starred down at her feet and realized that the sidewalk on which she was walking had suddenly vanished and now was replaced by a waving, misty, green, scene just as you would see the mirage like evaporation that comes off of pavement when it's hot outside. As the waves began to dissipate, Snow saw that they had been replaced by mossy covered earth. Raising her eyes to look around she that realized in front of her where the street had just been, there now stood in its place, a large forested area surrounding her.  She stared transfixed, the forest was no normal forest, at least it was unlike any she had ever seen before. To her left she noted a knobby, well rounded tree.  It looked more like a huge, wooden ball with roots and round knobs protruding from all around it, long thick branches reaching to the sky. Although the tree itself was an awe-filled sight, what had really caught her attention was placed up in the upturned branches. A small, wooden, cottage sat up in the main fork at the middle of the tree. It seemed there was no apparent way to get up into the house, at least not that Snow could tell, but then again who was Snow to say anything lately, nothing was as it had seemed. This scenery in particular looked to have come straight out of an illustration in the book she had found in the attic of her house.  Had a Realtor been showing this house for sale they would have described it as cozy, if indeed any Realtor had encountered such a strange sight and decided it to be normal.  The door stood over to the right side of the small home, it had a peaked roof with a smoking, crooked, pipe, chimney popping out on the left. The funny shaped chimney had smoke of different colors coming out of it in a precise pattern, red, blue, green, yellow, purple, red, blue….. on and on it went. The outside of the house had the look of a small, deep, woods cabin. It possessed a small, four pained, glassless window looking out the front. Enthralled as she was, there was one other thing which had Snow nervous, there seemed to be nothing else moving in the forest, not a bird or deer, no insects, nor was there even a sound. What was this place?

Lauri

Hope you enjoyed, let me know.

To visit James Rollins' website here is the link: James Rollins site

Strange Ad

Hey people!

My mom and I came across this ad while looking for a kitten. I thought some of you may get a kick out of it. enjoy!

Lauri

Cheap Place for cat lovers

Reply to:
Date: 2006-06-02, 6:54PM

I am a cat nutritionist offering a room in an apartment with a GREAT location (7rd and 3rd) for a very cheap price. $400/month for june, july, august. I am an extreme cat lover and have a total of 17 cats in a small apartment. I am not going to lie, you must be an extreme cat lover if you want to rent this place for the summer.

The room I am offering up for rent is a room for my cats. I am not going to lie, there is cat litter and droppings all over the room as I have not cleaned it since the middle of January. There is a twin bed on it which about 5 cats sleep in. You are welcome to share it with them, but you must NOT disturb them, as it is their place before yours. You are welcome to clean up some of the droppings, but you must leave most of the cat litter in place in the room, as there will not be much more room in the house for the cats to do their business otherwise. I am not going to lie, sometimes I wake up and have cat litter all over my body, but studies show that it is extremely sterile and will not cause you any sickness if you bathe daily and keep clean.

If interested, please send me an email explaining your situation, and writing a short blurb (essay, history, poem, whatever) about your love of cats. I reserve the right to revoke your room (with a refund) at any time if I feel that my cats are more depressed or are not enjoying your company."

END OF AD

The place I called home

Hello all,

Have you ever had a certain childhood place that you always remember being the happiest you've ever been, and no matter what, nothing in the world could or would ever compare? Most of the time those places turn out to be a disappointment because it was bigger or looked nicer or maybe your young imagination had turned it into this wonderland that, to be quite honest, it never was. That is exactly what I was expecting (but secretly hoping wouldn't be the case) when my husband and I packed up the kids, my almost 7 month pregnant self and lots of movies and toys for the kids. We drove the 3000 mile (or so) trip for our first big family vacation (since our honeymoon over four years ago, obviously we didn't have kids then, but we were still considered a family then). We went up to Washington State which is the state I called home as a kid and in some ways still do, stopping not only in my old hometown, Longview/Kelso, but also Seattle, Kent/Auburn (where I finally went to my first drive-in movie, pitiful I know, but it was great!), Wenatchee the apple capitol of the world, and my favorite Vacation spot as a kid, Seaside, Oregon. I have to say it was even better than I remembered it, yes my old hometown and street weren't as impressive as they used to be, and the old hill at the end of the street where I lived wasn't nearly as high as I remember (my friends and i used to ride sleds, cardboard boxes, skate boards, bikes and whatever else we could find down that hill and I remembered it as a giant), but the house looked better actually, who ever bought it has done a great job with the upkeep. All looks aside, it had been 16 years since I had been back and home had never felt so good just remembering all the things that had happened and the friends I used to know. But the best part of our Vacation (when it came to old memories) was our stop in Seaside. It looked so much better than I remembered, almost ethereal from the water evaporating from the beach as the sun still sat low in the sky, to the moonlit walks on the beach. I love the smell of the ocean, and the sound of the waves, wild strawberries, wild blackberries and all the green.  I live in the desert now and to be honest being back made me wish I could stay forever.

for now, I'm out :)

Lauri

favorite authors

Hello again,

it's me Lauri. So I'm always looking for a good book and when I find one I have to rave about it. My absolute favorite author in the adult book world is James Rollins and I love almost all of his books. The first book of his I got my hands on I could not put down (Amazonia). Out of 8 books I've read 5 (I'm currently reading book 6 Sandstorm) there was only one that I wasn't as impressed with. For anyone who reads Dean Koontz, Matthew Reilly, or similar authors I highly recommend picking up a James Rollins book (starting with Amazonia, Subterranean or Ice Hunt) He truly can capture you into his own world, and the characters are believable to check him out here is his website James Rollins.

Of course with my writing I also read young adult books, and yes I have read and love every Harry Potter book out there (My three year old Keith thinks he is Harry), JK Rowling truly has a wonderful imagination, if you haven't given her a chance yet... you should. I have found a few other series that I would also recommend even for adults such as the Pendragon series, the author D. J. MacHale has an awesome way of writing, although there is a normal 3rd person point of view for the side characters off and on, the best part of his writing is the fact that he uses a Journal to tell the story of the main character allowing you into the characters mind so you don't see whats coming. A few other books I would recommend would be Artemis Foul, The Spiderwick Chronicles, and The Edge Chronicles. There are so many more, I wish I could name them all. but at least I've given anyone interested a start.

Lauri   

About us

Hey world!

This is my first blog (So bear with me)!

My name is Lauri and my husband's name is Dwayne. We met roughly eight years ago while I was dating his boss's son. He worked at large car dealership as a lot tech. (which is fancy way of saying that he parked the cars) exciting I know, but hey my boyfriend at the time had the same job so even rich boys can have crappy jobs (well lets face it, he wasn't rich...his daddy was, he just wanted to be). Anyway It was a brief meeting but I knew I would never get him out of my head. And no, I didn't leave my wanna-be-rich-boy for him, not that Dwayne had asked me to considering the only thing said was "hi".  Actually we didn't get together for almost a year after that (long after rich lot boy and I had broken up).

After rich boy's dad sold the dealership, I went back and applied as a sales person (HUGE MISTAKE!!).  I'll own up to it now, I was terrible at selling cars. Not for lack of trying or knowledge though, I'm a grease monkey's daughter. My home away from home was a car shop which was family owned and run. The problem I had with selling cars was that I was young for your average car sales woman (for which the average age is around 40), not to mention that I was thrown to the wolves...Used car sales. And yes used cars salesmen or at least a HUGE percentage of them are everything they are stereo typed to be. So my bad sales record in hand I transferred to the Nissan side of the dealership, where to my surprise Dwayne still worked.

We flirted for what seemed to be forever (just as a side note forever is 8 months). Over the last two months of our endless and shameless flirting I gave up on him asking me out and asked him. It took me two months to get him to go and play pool with me...POOL it wasn't even a real date and it took two months for him to say yes! Thank God it wasn't a marriage proposal. I will say this to be fair,he's shy, really shy. After that night, we were inseparable.

By November of 2001 He asked me to marry him (yay!), by January of 2002 I was pregnant (not planned, we had said we would wait 3 years before kids and of course two minutes later I was prego but not unhappy), by May 2002 we were married. Now we have 2 and a half kids. Number 3 is our last and is due in October. Our two oldest are boys and this one is a girl :)  I know, we don't waist anytime but hey, when your on a roll...

We are real estate note or seller financed Mortgage investors, meaning we help people who had to finance (partially or in whole) the house they sold to make the sale. Most people who have had do this didn't want to but needed the sale and for the most part they aren't aware that they can cash out of those promisary notes and get a lump sum of cash now. That's where we come in, we offer to give them that lump sum of cash so that they can have the money they could have gotten from the sale of their home.  When all is said and done they can invest that cash in whatever they want or need, vacation, car, braces for their kids. If you are interested in for yourself or know some one in that situation check out our website at: www.cash4cashflows.com/lkent

Dwayne is an extremely talented music producer, he specializes in Hip Hop and has been doing this for over 12 years. Hopefully soon, we will be able to add on a few samples for all those interested in hearing what he has to offer. 

I am a photographer, and an author. I'm Currently working on getting my first book published. I'm mainly interested in Young Adult but I do have a few children's picture book and Adult thriller projects in the running (I know those two couldn't be farther apart but hey who said you can't be diverse?).

Well for now I'll let you go

Lauri :)