About Me

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Well let’s see. I was born during the Blizzard of 1978 in Lima, Ohio. I have lived in Ohio all my life. I like it here. We have corn fields instead of oceans, overpasses instead of mountains and fog instead of smog. Sure it's not the promise land, but sometimes one doesn't need postcard worthy beauty on the outside to have it elsewhere. I'm a writer for fun, a Paralegal for profession, and while one pays the bills, one feeds my imagination, or perhaps my imagination feeds my writing...either way, Writing is as much of who I am as the color of my eyes, or the way that I smile. Blogs are great communication tools, and I'm here to communicate with YOU...yeah, you who's reading this right now....*assuming anyone's out there* *crickets chirp* Alrightee then, IF anyone should find themselves here, be it by accident or on purpose, welcome, glad to have you aboard. Throw anchor, stay awhile! Sunshine & Smiles, ~Heather Lynn~

Friday, February 27, 2015

Something a lil Serious for a Friday:

My Letter to You:

#1 - I believe in paying it forward, and HELPING people when and where we can, as so many have helped me throughout my life.

#2 - I believe that people alone are just that...alone.  While people who join together, are stronger, and can accomplish great things.

#3 - We owe it not just to ourselves, but to those around us, and to our children, and to our COUNTRY to do what we can to put a little balance into the world and to level the playing field between ourselves and our elected officials.

With that said, I give you this:

I just wrote the following letter to the Ohio Secretary of State's Office after reading the article posted below of what's happened to Uncle Al's Pizza. I highly suggested that if you believe in supporting your local community and its businesses, write them a concerned letter as well. They have their own Facebook page, FLOOD them with letters from citizens and VOTERS and request THEY rectify this situation immediately before another business goes under, trying to defend their honor against the very government who's supposed to "regulate" and "organize" and in my opinion....PROTECT the businesses that have to PAY to register and operate in this State. Or if you're not a writer and don't want to write a letter, pop over to Uncle Al's Facebook page and leave him a comment/note of encouragement as he fights the good fight. Oh and I feel compelled to tell you I don't actually know Uncle Al, I'm not related, or am being compensated in any way to post this, I just felt it was the right thing to do. We SHOULD protect our own, and Gomer and Delphos and Spencerville, and Ottoville, and Fort Jennings...we're all the same people....



My Letter to the Secretary of State's Office:

As a active voter, Writer/Author/Blogger, Paralegal, and concerned citizen, IF this happened to "Uncle Al", it can happen to anyone, and IF this happened to him, the State of OHIO should make this right, and not force him to have to FIGHT it out in court to make it so. How on earth did we change our society so much, that honest hardworking people have to FIGHT for the American Dream, and then FIGHT to keep it in today's economy, and then have to FIGHT to defend it's integrity against a government who would erroneously allow him to be hijacked. Please stand up for "the little guy" and show the good citizen's of the State of Ohio that the Secretary of State's office has integrity, accountability and that they are WILLING to stand up for it's citizens who are just trying to make a living and KEEP their piece of the American Dream.


If after reading the Article below and my comments and plea for rectification above and you find yourself wanting to also put a word in, here's a couple links of websites you can go to:


LIMA NEWS ARTICLE - By Greg Sowinski
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Pizza shop owner takes on state government over error
Last updated: February 26. 2015 8:01PM - 3528 Views 



Alan Tyrrell, owner of Uncle Al's Pizza in Gomer, is fighting with the Ohio Secretary of State's office .
Craig J. Orosz | The Lima News
Alan Tyrrell, owner of Uncle Al's Pizza in Gomer, is fighting with the Ohio Secretary of State's office .
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GOMER — When Alan Tyrrell and his father opened Uncle Al's Pizza nearly 30 years ago, it was their slice of the American dream.

It gave Tyrrell a chance to be his own boss and control his future. Up until six weeks ago, life was good. Then, out of the blue, Tyrrell received notice from his insurance company the corporation under which his business was registered was not in good standing with the Ohio Secretary of State's Office.

The insurance company conducted a routine check to make sure the corporation remained in good standing. Because of the error, he now is paying a higher premium, Tyrrell said.

“I'm pissed,” he said.

A lot of research, consultation with an attorney and a few thousand in legal fees, so far, showed, without his knowledge, another company on the other side of the state hijacked Tyrrell's charter number.

That company had problems paying its taxes twice and eventually lost its charter in 2007, which was Tyrrell's original charter although no longer in his name, according to a lawsuit Tyrrell filed this month in Allen County Common Pleas Court.

He is seeking to have all legal fees paid, and most importantly to have his corporation, which he operates the business under, returned to good corporate status.

Tyrrell never was notified that he was removed from the statutory agent and his company's charter number assigned to the other company. On top of that, a person he didn't know from the other side of the state was listed as the new statutory agent. Tyrrell's company was then dissolved without his knowledge, according to the lawsuit.

“What kind of checks and balances did they have? I had no notification of this. No phone call, not even a paper in the mail saying, 'Hey, you're not a company anymore,'” he said.

Tyrrell said in the lawsuit he did not know about the change and definitely did not authorize it.

He has hired a local attorney who has help from the Ohio Attorney General's Office trying to right the matter. The problem lies with the Secretary of State, which Tyrrell said a representative of that office said would take a court order to correct the error.

Ohio Secretary of State spokesman Matt McClellan said he will not comment on a pending legal issue.

Hence the lawsuit, a lot of headaches and sleepless nights for Tyrrell.

In the meantime, Tyrrell continues to operate his convenience store known for its pizzas. His biggest fear is the couple thousand dollars he has into the matter will turn into $20,000 overnight. He said no matter the cost, he's not backing down.

“This is now a matter of principle,” he said.

Reporter Greg Sowinski can be reached at 567-242-0464 or on Twitter @Lima_Sowinski.

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

What do Crazy Neurotic Writers Do When they Can't Sleep?



Well...I can tell you what they SHOULD do, they SHOULD work on their novel, however, tonight, would NOT let me down that easy, and when I curled up to spoon my love J, my mind was racing...my body unable to melt into our usual spoon-each-other-to-sleep routine.

So I got up.

Then I stood in the hallway wondering, what the hell am I going to do now?  I opened my closet door and took a whiff of my experiment....going well I'm happy to report.  Smells like a French Whore in there...in a good way!

Feeling a bit ridiculous standing in my hallway having no idea what I was going to do next made me decide to dump bleach in the toilet bowls...give em a good overnight soak.  Then I put a post-it-notes on the toilets telling my boys to keep the lids down so the dogs don't sneak a taste.

When that was finished, I snuck back in my bedroom, grabbed my ipod, and my kickass ginormous headphones so I could rock out while I loaded the dishwasher.

Then the moon looked really cool outside, surrounded by an eerie fog, shining through the tall trees in my woods behind my house...So I grabbed my camera, but fate foiled me, dead battery.

I checked on my baby chicks, cutest little chickens this side of the canal they are!  Tonight, while watching "Walking Dead" with Jerimy, one of my little fluffy-butt babies was curled up on my chest.  I decided that watching TV with baby chicks is a good bonding exercise, so we're going to give it a whirl.  We'll see how it goes.


Aren't they freaking adorable?

So then, while in the garage with the chicks I saw my poor motorcycle, COVERED in a layer of dirt so thick, that I just couldn't stand to leave "The Piglet" like that.  Did I ever tell you my Harley's name is Piglet?  Anyway, the BEST part of having a heated garage in February is that you can do weird shit in the middle of the night like randomly polish your Harley that you can't ride.

So that's what I did.  I gave her a good once over, dusted, washed, polished....got my knuckles greasy and hands dirty while the rest of the occupants of my house lay sleeping, oblivious of my new nocturnal prowling about.

You can't tell in this picture, but she's ENTIRELY cleaner than when I started!


On a side note, my baby chicks LOVE it when I sing to them.  They really have no accounting for taste in the musical department mind you...they are chickens, so my singing is ok with them.  They don't know any better.  I sang to them on my way home from Van Wert after picking them up, and then again tonight while sitting with them.  After I covered my beloved Harley with a sheet to protect her from another 2" of fresh dust and grime, I turned out the garage lights for the night, and went into the house.  One of my little chicks REALLY started peeping!  I stopped, and turned, and went to see what was bothering her....the other five chicks were all nestled up together, but this one was peeping for her life it seemed.  So I asked her, "what's wrong little one?"  She cocked her head sideways, peered up at me and ruffled her feathers.  I asked her, "you want one more song before bed?"  She let out a single sweet peep.  Ok, ok, lets see what have we got on the ole ipod that I can sing you to sleep with....I just so happened to be listening to my headphones as I cleaned and whatnot.  I tried to sing them All of Me by John Legend, wow, they were having NONE of that, they all jumped up like I'd dumped a bucket of water of them!  GEESH!  TOUGH CROWD.  Ok, ok, no John Legend!  So I went back to one the first track on that particular playlist:  As it turns out, my chickens really mellow out to "all about that bass" by Meghan Trainor.  Only my chickens!  I've corrupted them and I've only been their Momma for about 9 hours.  I think that's a new record!

In happy news, you would never know that a HOLE like THIS:

could bring joy to so many people!  {Yes, I meant for that to sound a wee bit naughty in nature}

THIS HOLE, turned our little chilly house in the woods with baseboard ELECTRIC heat, into freaking Cancun during spring break!

Our Thermostat does NOT get higher than like 62 degrees from November to the end of March.  We all wear fleece socks, pants, shirts, hats etc. just to lounge around watching tv, while snuggled under TWO blankets...My friend Steph came to visit me the other day and she never took her coat off the ENTIRE time she was here!  Yeah, it's chilly here!  So when this hole, turned my world upside down and gave me THIS little thermostat boost of:
I nearly fell over dead!  I mean seriously, 83 degrees, I don't even know what to do with that many warm scrumptious delightful degrees.

My cheeks are flushed, I'm wearing a tank top and contemplating shorts, and I may or may not have pretended to ride a wave on a fake surfboard beneath the magical hole that Jerimy put into our ceiling.  I had to come back here in my office just to cool off!

EIGHTY THREE FREAKING DEGREES PEOPLE!
I can almost feel my bones thawing out!

Feel free to do the "osting/Siefker" happy dance with me

This is how we do it in Spencerville, feel free to practice...they'll keep dancing for you until you got the moves down pat!

Ok, so it's 2:39 a.m. and I'm finally starting to feel a bit weary.

Time for bed before I get a THIRD wind!
Plus the notion of assuming the spooning position with J sounds mighty fine right about now!

Night night!!

~HeatherLynn~

An Experiment....

WARNING: before you continue to read this post, I should warn you, most of my experiments turn out like that seen here.  I'm pretty sure my mom may of had an affair with beaker, and out came me nine months later...just sayin....Maybe don't try any of MY experiments at home!


I love a good Experiment, especially when it goes right, and you find a solution for one of life's many problems.  Today, I'm tackling Closet odor.

You see when we moved into our home going on two years ago, the house had sat empty for quite sometime due to it being a foreclosure.  It had it's own smells and inhabitants that took over when the human's checked out.

I saw a mouse...and the evidence THEY leave behind, I'm not positive, but I think there may have been a squirrel or two who might of taken a couple laps about the place.

The house needed serious serious cleaning and disinfecting and beautifying upon our ownership.  So I set out and painted like the whole house, scrubbed floors, shampooed carpets, in some case actually dyed the carpet to hide the stains that were too set in to get out.

Anyway, so our hall closet, where we keep all of our linens, bedding, extra stuff for guests, etc. are all in there, and I cannot tell you how angry it makes me to wash these things, get them smelling all wonderful and fresh.  Only to take them out when needed and have them smelling like a teenage boy's socks....or something.  I can't quite put my finger one WHAT the smell is comprised of, but it's just so stale and unpleasant.  I tried putting dryer sheets in there, I tried air fresheners, I tried odor absorbing products, but nothing really seems to do the trick....and YES, for those of you who are asking yourselves and hence ME if I looked to see if there was a dead body hidden in there, yes, I took every single thing out of the closet just to be sure!

So, my experiment is this:  I have a bunch of these laying around:  


So two nights ago, after my dog ate an entire bottle of Jerimy's $20/bottle vitamins, which is highly poisonous for dogs, I sat in the garage, going through my old magazines, and waiting for my dog to puke after giving him something to make him vomit up the gummy vitamins he ate.  Anyway, it was a long wait and disgusting and awful on so so so many levels, but the magazine gave me a nice distraction.  Inside the magazine I came across and sniffed lots of These:


which really helped me survive the wretched smell coming from my dog's stomach contents that he was puking up within 5 feet of me.

I ripped them out and thought I'd maybe rub them on and see if I liked the perfume they contained, because as you know, you never know what a perfume smells like on you, until you wear it awhile and see how it smells when mixed with your own personal set of skin oils and whatnot.  Perfume smells completely different on my mother than it does on me....and we share DNA!

Today, while going through all these, I decided to do this instead of trying to give myself rug burns on my wrists trying to rub the scent off the paper and onto my body:


So in case you can't see what you're looking at here, I took the entire pages, folded them down the middle, and then taped them to the inside of the closet door.  I taped them like this to allow some air flow to swish the scents around when you open and close the door.

So, I'll give this a month and see if my sheets smell like 80 to 100 dollar designer fragrances instead of the stale awfulness that refuses to surrender it's claim over my poor hall closet!

Wish me luck!
I'll keep you posted on how it turns out.

It's times like this, that make me really really really looking forward to Summer, when I can hang my sheets out on the clothes line, and bring them in smelling like absolute heaven in the form of fabric.

Man I'm looking forward to that!

Oh, and about that whole dog vomiting debacle...two things I will never allow my house to be out of and that's hydrogen peroxide and sawdust  and/or kitty litter.  Because Magazine pages will NOT soak up or properly COVER UP dog vomit to allow you to clean it up without adding to the mess by barfing on top of the damage you're trying to clean up.

In Closing, I give you a thoughts to live by....if your closets don't smell like ass, and you're not cleaning up dog vomit, you're life is going pretty fantastically right now!  So much so in fact, that others, NAMELY ME, ENVY your life right about now.

Happy Tuesday,


Luv,
~HeatherLynn~

Monday, February 23, 2015

Good Thing I'm not walking down the Aisle today....





Hard to believe that THIS snowy, cold frozen Tundra will EVER look like THIS again in time for the wedding:


{While under construction}




Would you look at that grass, that sunshine...flowers....I can almost smell em!  

C'mon Winter, bid us adieu so we can get onto "greener" pastures..LITERALLY!


Luv,
~HeatherLynn~

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Meet "The Darryls"

I'm not sure if I've introduced the newest members of our family...and by "new" I mean like last year...I'm really slow at introductions sometimes.  My Apologies.


Anyway, so last fall, in an effort to get Speedy, our beloved turtle, some friends, we purchased two little fishies from Walmart.



We got the orange and white ones, because I told Jerimy they were redheads, and boys love them redheads....surely a REDHEAD could liven up Speedy's life!

If Matthew McConaughey says so, it MUST be true!

Anyhoo, so we picked out two, and we brought them home in hopes that having some buddies in the tank might make for a more interesting day for Speedy.  Now that we live in the country, we have so few visitors who want to play with him.  Back on Clime Street, Marbletown Days Especially...there would be gangs of kids who would get him out and take him for a spin around the yard.

I'm not entirely sure why, but when it came time to name our new pets, I said I say we name them "Darryl & Darryl".....and the names kinda stuck.  Mostly, I wanted to name them the same name, because at the time, you couldn't really tell them apart.

Not sure if any of you are old enough to remember Bob Newhart, or his Television show, but I used to watch it when I was a kid with my folks, and I never will forget the two brothers with the same name.  You just don't forget something like that!



You see before there was THIS Darryl:  

There were THESE Darryls:  

Which leads us to my Darryls

Known now as
"Big Darryl and Little Darryl"
As we can CLEARLY tell the difference between them now!
Big Darryl is a real pistol!  
I think we may have gotten a cross breed between a piranha and a coy!


And to close, I leave you with this, because I like to laugh, and because I love "The Walking Dead" and "Love Actually"--the movie, and I love Andrew Lincoln in Love Actually, and my favorite character on Walking Dead IS Darryl Dixon....I saw this next picture, and seriously laughed OUT LOUD.

It's Sunday,
Walking Dead's on tonight!
Woot Woot!

Luv,
~HeatherLynn~

Everything has a purpose....

Remember when I had that hair product experiment go horribly wrong?  Remember that?

I case you don't, I'll copy and past it here for you:

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Ok, so I'm trying to grow my hair out for my upcoming nuptials, and I'm the type of person who likes to be proactive.  I know that a little extra effort can go a long way, so I'm all about helping my own causes, doing what I can to reach my own goals, etc etc, blah, blah blah!

Basically I want to look like THIS:



At my most recent hair cut apt, my cousin, Tim, Whom I adore told me, next apt., if you're hair's still dry, we'll do a deep conditioning treatment.  So in an effort to be the good little hair client, I set out to have better conditioned hair by my next apt.  I'd drink more water, I'd NOT brush my hair when it's wet, I'd sleep with Hair Masks and Coconut Oil treatments, I was going to come back shiny haired and improved at my next visit...and really wow him, like "look at me, I did good right?"
then THIS happened:


Picked er' up at my local Walmart, bought a fancy satin hair wrapper thing-a-ma-bob to keep my pillow protected and was so excited for the results of this "Blue Magic"...I mean, it says right in the name...MAGIC!  I like Magic!

The next morning, I got up early, unwrapped my head like a Christmas present on Christmas morning, threw myself in the shower and couldn't wait to blow dry and see how shiny, how luxurious my hair would be!

To my dismay, After i blowed it dry, I looked like THIS:



except red, and more like dreads, less like snakes!

I didn't have time to take another shower, or I'd be late to work, 



so I had to suffer through the day hoping to pull off the WET look, which I did NOT pull off.  Instead I looked like a homeless, shower-less, GRUNGE-loving, Grease monkey who has never heard of DRY shampoo!

I was basically George Clooney in O' Brother Where art thou"



Because as it turns out, BLUE MAGIC COCONUT OIL, is NOT Coconut Oil, in fact it is Petroleum oil that smells like Coconut oil.  

Basically making your hair look like it was a victim of the Exxon Mobile spill


Some say Pomade, I say pure motor oil!



or in my case, I DON'T WANT PETROLEUM JELLY IN MY HAIR G*DDAMIT!!!

Sure, if i would of turned the jar around and read the ingredients, I'd of saw that, but talk about misrepresentation.  In researching the product the next day in an attempt to find a way to get this stuff OUT of my hair, I found many online reviews from poor saps just like myself that had the same experience.  #1 rule of trying new products...GOOGLE THAT SH*T!  Take my word for it....

And if you do try this and find yourself in my shoes, the remedy is this:  You're going to need to douse your whole head with baby oil, take a hot as a shower as you can stand, and then rinse out the baby oil and then wash your hair like six times with Dawn soap, and every bottle of shampoo in your shower.

And on another note:  Biotin!!  Great product, said to help you grow your hair long and luxurious....So I've been taking that stuff religiously.

What they don't tell you is that it also grows your leg hair and your armpit hair super fast!  So here I am yesterday, legs like THIS:

armpit hair growing before my very eyes:


and hair on my head that looks like THIS:


How is it that every time I try to get ahead, 
I get A HEAD full of mishap?!

*sighs*

I think once again, if you look up the word HAPHAZARDLY in the dictionary, 
I swear there's a picture of me as the definition.

I will prevail, long hair will once again be mine....
which is why I bought some hair extensions....
and will have a standing apt. with my cousin Tim,
every five weeks, for the unforeseeable future.
Leaving all hair matters to the professionals!

AMEN!

~HeatherLynn~
---------------------------------------------

Well, I'm happy to report, I FINALLY found a use for that hair gunk!


It makes a wonderful shoe polish/leather conditioner!

My poor Harley Boots were breathing a sign of relief....
as if they were saying: 
"ahhhhhh...that feels so good, thanks mom!"
And if my boots could talk, I'd reply with:
"Your welcome boots; happy to oblige!"

~HeatherLynn~