Hi friends, I can't really think of much to say today. My mind is full of so many things. I am hoping that two dear friends can work things out. I am going to Coronado Del Island off of San Diego at the end of October for a week. Someone else is paying for it and I CAN NOT wait to just not think and walk the beach. I hope that I come back "in love" but probably not. I almost talked myself into not going because of home issues that I didn't think that I could be away from. BUT... That's why they have phones and airplanes. Speaking of home issues.... Tucker is almost eight months old and he is so beautiful. If you hold Tucker up to a picture of his dad, it is scary. Their eyes are indentical. He laughs all the time now when he discovers something new. What else??? We have a crispness to the air now in the early mornings. That's not usual for my part of Alabama. I don't live in the pretty part like Secret and Randy do. I am drinking coffee with dogs at my feet, talking to friends. Life IS good. I am blessed. See ya later alligator.

I guess that you would have to live on Jupitar not to have heard about OJ's latest arrest. We are not supposed to gloat over someone's misfortune but I am THRILLED. Finally. Finally, the sick and evil murderer may do time. He has been arrested on 10 felony counts including kidnapping. He could get life in prison if convicted and was denied bail. He allegedly went with three others into a hotel room to "collect" some of HIS ( make that the Goldman's) sports memrabelia.(sp). How do you spell that? Simpson ripped a cell phone out of one of the collectors hands and prevented them from calling 911. Simpson fans are already screaming "set up". Of course. That probably wasn't Simpson's voice on that tape. I bet it was the REAL killer of Nicole and Ron. You know, the one that Simpson was supposed to spend his life finding. As a prison nurse, I have worked around sociopaths. They are scary people. They are OJ. Some folks didn't like Nicole. I've even heard it said that she "deserved" to die. NO ONE deserves to die like that and why did Ron Goldman deserve to die? He didn't and she didn't. I knew that OJ killed them WAAAYY back. Before the mockery of that trial, before this country was divided along race lines about the verdict. Think about it. Nicole had an Akita. That's a BIG dog. I have three Rotties. They are sweet and gentle but they would give thier lives to defend mine, especially if they didn't KNOW the person that killed me. Her dog had to have known her killer. I used to imagine that poor dog running in circles whining as it was witnessing his master killing his mistress. If those folks hadn't found that dog wandering around with it's feet covered in blood, the kids may have found thier mom with her head almost cut off. He didn't care. He didn't care about his kids. He didn't care that in his "poor me, OJ" rage, that he killed the mother of his children. The woman that he once promised to protect and love forever. Thank God that THIS time, he can't blame the cops for setting him up. He can't blame Mark Furman for using the N word. That was HIS voice on that tape. It's time. It's time that justice was served. It's time that a killer was jailed. It's about time.

I decided yesterday to move on with my life. I am not leaving the blogstream but I need to get old scars and people out of my mind. Sometimes, it's hard. Especially when he has his fathers eyes. I want to post a poem that says it all. Goodbye.

GOODBYE
Once you said we have nothing left to laugh at together. Meanwhile, you laugh at me enough for both of us. You clean me out of kindness, slowly, till there's little left. The differance in us, I suppose, is that should I have to change for you, I'm willing. But, I want you only as you are. If I don't agree with you,or question you at all, I need help. If I do agree, then I have no opinion of my own.
I said we'd never say goodbye. Today the word comes easily and without effort. Maybe because I don't have to say it face to face to you. We're at either end of telephone lines again. A bad connection.
I love you still. As much, and as love goes, even more than that first half drunk night you concentrated so hard on pleasing me and did.
I love you. I am not afraid to say it, even after all the mean and misery that's passed between us.
Apologies are not enough I know. How could they compensate for rides across the ocean and the continent done in tears and not in laughter?
How could they make up for Saturday soldiers battling one the other,
wounding words spit out machine gun like, or two people desperately in need of one another not making up? But I apologize for leading you,
not letting you love me in your own way,-at arms length. For rushing you, not stopping once to read your needs, thinking that I'd fullfilled them each time you filled mine. For intimidation -- if that's what it was---or being timid and unsure, pretending I was strong when my strength only came from you. For making you think that every night in bed was one more potential crisis. It never was. It never was anything but the very best. Even when I knew that you forced yourself to bring yourself to me. I never felt anything but happiness and honor, joy and a letting go. No one yet has else come close to giving me that feeling.
Goodbye. I love you and I'll go on loving. I will change as you will change. I wish you Christmas every time your eyes close. I pray that you will run with deer and soar with eagles, touching the ground only long enough to find that woman who'll love you every bit as much as I do and one you'll feel the same toward.
It is still early in the day for each of us. Despite the darkness up ahead, I know that there will be someone to lead you through the dark and someone you can lead. That it wasn't me is something that I can live with. I only hope that while you were adding to my life, I haven't imterrupted anything in yours.
Rod Mckuen

WE CAN SEE HOW MANY SEEDS ARE IN AN APPLE,
BUT ONLY GOD KNOWS HOW MANY APPLES ARE IN A SEED.

Hi friends, I'm back. I am not afraid to say that I have been in a big hole. As Winston Churchill said, I have been sleeping with the black dog.I have been depressed, too depressed to even blog. I used to be the kind of person that let things roll off of me. I have cradled the heads of land mine victims that just lost a leg, I have delivered babies that lived and some that died. I have rejoiced with family members that got good news and I have closed many, many eyes of people that left this earth much to soon and some that were ready. I have always dealt with things....But not lately. I am getting older. I am getting jaded. I am overwhelmed with things that are going on in my life, being a single parent, all these dogs and I am lonely. I am missing someone terribly that probably never really loved me. I am empty. I have been propped up by the love of some of you and the letters from the same.( Love you Randy and thanks). I walked outside early this morning and heard birds. There was a crispness to the air, a squirrel was munching on something and looked at me and I felt almost healed. I thought of all the GOOD things that I have. And, there are so many. I felt grateful and I felt hope. I felt as though the OLD Val was reborn. I can go on and I will go on. There are so many that have it worse than I do. There are some that will never be healed. I love all of you. I have come home. Thank you.

Hello friends, I haven't been around for a few days and am feeling a bit under the weather. I may try to blog tomorrow. Take care of you.