Well I’m back and rested from an overnight excursion to the haunted McPike Mansion in Alton, Illinois with my ghostie friends at SIPI. SIPI stands for Southern Indiana Paranormal Investigators and they are a bunch of good people that are trying to help people with their paranormal woes.

I had plans of showing you all of these beautiful pictures I had taken with my good camera, a Canon Rebel xti 400D, usually not taken to investigations. But I lost it. That’s right I lost it. I am just sick with the kind of grief you feel when you’ve done something careless and there is nobody to blame but yourself. I have searched high and low, in crazy places I know I would never set it down, but I look anyway. But the sad truth is I think I left it on a bench in a park there in Alton. I only just last night discovered it missing and consequently didn’t sleep well at all. I’m one of those people that doesn’t feel the need to unpack right away. I’m now reconsidering that decision, however it wouldn’t matter now. Alton is about a three hour one way trip for me but I doubt that if I had jumped in my car speeding towards that park it would be sitting there on a cement bench waiting for me. *sigh*

I’ve done everything humanly possible short of driving there to find the missing camera. I’ve called the police to see if anyone turned it in (call me crazy), I called the Mineral Springs Mall where I purchased a sweet little turquoise vase, I’ve called the dental school and the arts and history museum that is across the street from the park in the off chance someone turned it in to a lost and found. I’ve called the two pawn shops there in town and one (Sam’s Pawn) was nice enough to take my info and the serial number down if it turns up. I called a radio station that didn’t want to talk, and as a last ditch effort called a gas station we got drinks at. Heck I’ve even tweeted to the newspaper there and posted on their Facebook page that I lost it hoping someone would see it and know something.

Nope, I have to accept that it is just gone. Gone, gone, gone. I have just about 2 different shots that I took with my phone and one of them is the above photo. I’m so distraught and stressed out about losing my camera that I had to take one of my happy pills as I call them to take the edge off. I might just have a wine cooler or six to help make it all better in addition to the happy pill since the happy pill ain’t making me happy.

I’ve also discovered that I must be a stress eater because ever since I noticed the camera missing, I’ve been stuffing my face with anything that might make me feel better like chocolate covered raisins, banana chips and I polished off the package of Oreo’s. At least they were reduced fat :/  Anything in the pantry was up for grabs. Not a good thing when you’re trying to watch it.

Some may say that it’s just a camera and they are right but it’s what that particular camera did that made it so important for me and I simply just cannot replace it at this time. I used the camera to take good quality shots of my artwork to then tweak and have good quality prints made. So, now I’m looking at everything in sight to see if I can sell it on eBay or Craig’s list or in the consignment shop I like to use called Margaret’s Resale so that I can buy a new one. If you were thinking of purchasing a painting, now would a great time to do that, just sayin’ ha ha ha… My mind is thinking up all kinds of ways to get my paintings that are for sale seen and maybe take them to some local places to drum up some new business. I kinda take the summer off to be with Asher, my son, so I haven’t painted anything new since June. School starts back up in two weeks, so I better get a jump start.

Since this has turned into such a whiny post, I’ll post again about the investigation since this one was used as a rant. Sorry about that. If there are any psychics out there, I’d appreciate your opinion about the camera 😉

Please send me happy thoughts, I could use them about now.