In honour of the little, scratched up grey car I will be officially buying tomorrow. All the links with the newsletter today will be car related.

Think of me while you are driving around in your regularly scheduled lives.

I bought a 1993 Ford Tempo, it's red inside and has all manual door and window controls. Some people have been telling me what a hunk of junk a Ford is. But, no matter what kind of car I looked at I could always rely on someone to tell me what a rent-a-wreck I would be getting myself into. Still, a woman has to have a car. The local mechanic I am buying it from says Tempos are cheaper to fix, parts are easy to find.

I'm already planning my first road trip! I'm leaving on Thursday morning, treating myself to breakfast out (it's the cheapest meal of the day). I am looking at maps and listings of local Ontario events to see where I will go. But, I'm leaning to a drive up to Kincardine and then down and over to Sarnia. Not sure I can manage all that in one road trip. But, I don't have to be back on a set day so the trip can stretch on for an extra day if that's what I decide to do.

My first car and I've begun to think of the practical things like stickers, things to hang from the mirror and other related gadgets that will make it easier for me to pick my car out of the masses of little grey cars in the parking lot. How embarrassing it would be to wander around looking for my car. I noticed a cute smiley face thing in the grocery store, that might be the first thing to dangle around the front window. The theory is that yellow will be easy to spot and the smiley face will be something I can stand to keep hanging around days on end.

I've been considering picking up tacky looking stickers from each town I visit and slapping them all over the back end. Hopefully the car has a sense of humour.

Can you imagine how it would have been in the pioneer days to live with livestock in the house? Cows and pigs, sheep and chickens running around your kitchen, under your bed, fleas in your clothes and hair. Yuck!

I am not someone who will keep pets in a house. It's that whole livestock idea. I cringe when I read about pet owners who clean up bodily messes their animals have left in beds and floors and so on. I don't understand how it can be pleasant to live with your livestock. I'm sure most of the pioneers were glad when the warm weather came and the livestock could move outside.

Now we have electric and gas heating, we don't need the livestock to keep us warm or the other way around.

I do like pets however. Cats are my favourite. They look after themselves, don't drool or bark or require constant cage or tank cleaning. They also live just long enough, not too short as many small animals tend to do. I think cats are good pets for children. Cats don't mind some affection but they won't need daily attention. Outdoor cats are especially great at looking after themselves and just being there when you get home and want to spend some time with them. You don't need to spend a weekend grooming them or a big chunk of your day leading them around on a leash. Perfect!

Fish are nice too, but not as clean as cats. Ideal fish would be in a pond outdoors with the odd frog and garter snake. Not great for apartment dwellers but then people in apartments can usually catch their own pet rodents anyway. Just don't tell the kids where Hammy came from.

We've got hornets! They have at least 3 nests built around the house, two at the back, by the pool and one right at the front door. We are surrounded.

Its been a buggy week. My nephew is almost 7, he loves bugs. My Mom will capture something and they stick it in a jar for the day. They try to feed it various leaves and fresh garden compost (apple peals, salad leftovers, etc). Today she found a praying mantis! Pretty rare to find one of those. They really are the most interesting and intimidating bug I have ever seen. It seems they really are looking at you, one human to another. Kind of spooky. I couldn't bring myself to touch it, but I almost wanted to.

After a few hours, the praying mantis, like all the spiders, crickets and caterpillars before, was set free. For awhile he walked around the picnic table. Swaying like a stick, avoiding becoming some bird's snack food. He disappeared, maybe under the table. I didn't look too hard. Tonight I wonder where he is. I hope he is safe. There aren't a lot of mantis's left. If bugs are going to inherit the earth I hope the praying mantis's and ladybugs will still be around the keep eating them.

Now for those stinging hornets. I thing its going to take a professional. My sister's baby shower is less than two weeks away.

Does it ever bother you that we spend at least half our time sleeping? Look at all that time, just doing nothing. If we didn't need sleep we could be out planting, watering, travelling, planning more adventures to take, discoveries to make and so on.

No doubt you can think of a thousand things you've been procrastinating on. I'm sure I could, given enough time, paper and really bad penmanship.

Sleep isn't a bad thing. They say its good for you. Some nights, sitting in front of this very computer, I fall asleep while I'm writing. I know what you're thinking - "So that's why she writes like that!"

All this writing about sleep is having an undesired effect on me. I think I'm going to bed, before 2:00 AM tonight. Just a little change to what has become the routine.

Don't let the bed bugs bite, hopefully you wash your sheets often enough that bugs aren't really an issue.

Allergies: nature's favourite way of making us appreciate our noses.

So, thinking of my nose today, wishing it would just give me a break. Here are my thoughts about the sense of smell.

It doesn't stink. I've read that people actually have clearer memories of smells from their childhood than they do for sights or sounds. Isn't that kind of odd? But, I believe it. I can remember smells of those old oil based paints we used for paint by numbers. The way the apple pies smelled when they first came out of the oven. The weird smell of my brother's head and hair when he just finished playing soccer. Rotting yet earthy smells from the pond in back of the farm house we lived in when I was in grade one. That odd special smell that I only (ever in my life), smelled in my Grandparents house. The smell that will forever be the Grandma and Grandpa's house smell. It even has it's own colour, a shade of green.

I could sit here and think of a hundred more old smells. Things I wouldn't remember at all if not for the odd time I catch the same smell, in a completely different place. Walking down a street I catch a whiff of something that reminds me of a troll-like doll my Mom got for me in the 70's. Without the smell I would never remember, or even think about, that doll.

Another thing I appreciate about the sense of smell is how it makes things taste. Have you ever eaten something you couldn't stand the smell of? Experimental soup flavourings come to mind first, for me. Even if it tastes like a slice of heaven, the smell will make it almost impossible to eat. Your nose knows.

Well, that's about it for this newsletter brought to you by the letter N and that zit on the tip of your nose. Why do noses seem to get the worst of the zit situation?