Just another day in paradise...

My harvest

2011-07-20T14:22:00.003-05:00

Ta-da! Seeds+soil+water and more sunshine than we bargained for. It's amazing, really.

I took this so I could show Josh what he was missin' but I thought, why NOT post it on blogger? I promise not to make a habit of it....vegetable pix don't make the most interesting of blogs afterall. Not stunning material. Perhaps I should have washed them first. Eh. It's edible, I grew it. Be impressed.

Summertime

2011-07-20T13:22:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I feel like blogging....sometimes I don't. I've been in a "don't" season lately. OBviously. But today, it suits my fancy. I'm trapped here in Oklahoma (along with the rest of the whole mid-to-lower region of the US of A) under this dome I can't see but the weatherman assures me it's there and it's highly pressurized (whatever that means). I may not be able to see it, but man, can I feel it. It's stinkin' hot outside and my garden is proof. Poor little wilty okra plants and my sunflowers are so bowed over they look like they're prayin' for rain. Maybe they ARE prayin' for rain....them and every rancher around. Man, do we need it. In the meantime, I'll just sit in here blogging and look out there at the heat. And with sympathy, toward my garden.

Okay, it's Josh's garden but since he's been called to duty outside the Sooner state...it officially became MY garden. What am I learning? That I love my husband, first and foremost, but I sorta suspected this all along so I'm not very surprised. Gardening is not a cinch. I don't care what Home & Garden says...it's just not. Second day after I took the reins I found a nasty looking beetle the size of a small dog poking holes in my tomatoes. What to do? Well, I whipped out my trusty Samsung, of course, took Josh's advice and didn't mess around gettin what he said to do done. I Sevin dusted. Yes, I'm aware my tomatoes are no longer organic but at least they're there and my salsa appetite loves me for it.

Not only am I now the official gardener of the house, I also inherited charge of 26 newly hatched chickens when Josh hit the road. Precious little things...but just until they're big enough to get on my nerves which shouldn't take too long. So cute when they're little, so irritating when they're big. A lot like teenagers, I guess.

I'm in charge of those now too. All. By. Myself. It's tough bein' a single mom. They're aware my rear guard is temporarily displaced and I just know they're circling for an attack. Good thing I am a firm believer in the use of brooms, two by fours, and 'removal of cell phone' war tactics. Until or unless you have teenagers or have already survived them, don't judge me. You don't know what they can drive you to. Hair dye is only the beginning, trust me. If I didn't love them more than my own life, chaining them to a barrel in the backyard would be a viable, sanity saving option. Yesssss, I'd water them.

I can count on my eight year old to give me the sunny perspective I need most days. He is the happiest kid I can think of. Unless he's bored. Oh how I dread that word and it's somehow woven into the fabric of summer vacation. I'll be SO sunny when school starts again and I need a 'to-do' list just to stay on task long enough to get to work every morning. Some people do well with stillness and lack of mind boggling activity. Tracker and I do not. We invent things to do to pass the time. I can't quite convince him that cleaning is SO not boring.

It's only life!

2011-05-05T09:32:00.003-05:00

My life is not perfect. I realize this comes more as a shock to me than to anyone else. As hard as I've worked to achieve order and sanity in the midst of the chaos that is my mind, I'm barely pushin' the 'normal' needle out of the red zone. What most people see of my life is simply an illusion. An illusion very skillfully crafted. Great pains have been taken in its construction. It protects me and what's mine, a comfortable buffer for those I wish to keep at a safe distance. There are those I let in, my "inner circle" who I allow behind the shiny, plastic outer shell. These are people I've deemed safe, those who've watched with me when the shell has sprung a leak and the ugly blackness of what my life can be came pouring out the hole. They stuck around to help clean up the destruction and mess it leaves behind. If not for these, you'd probably find me straight jacket wrapped or a gutter junkie. It takes work to keep patching the holes...and ya know, once you've got a patch, or patchES in my case...well, the illusion just loses some of it's sparkle. It actually becomes quite ugly. Like the neighbor's trash keeps blowing onto your lawn....my mess keeps blowing onto my illusion. It cannot be ignored forever. It will have to be dealt with.

I'm havin' to deal with some mess. That's the simplistic way of expressing life this week. I prefer the simplistic expression because it allows me to remain numb. "Mess" doesn't prick the surface like say, "my family is unravelling before my very eyes" does. "Mess" is a very neutral term that doesn't require much, if any, emotion to be attached. I like the big clump that "mess" embodies. I don't have to think about the specific details of the clump. A clump can be picked up and shoved in a paper sack....tiny little detail pieces require a bit more work to contain. Sorta like mud as opposed to dirt....you're gonna get dirty either way. Which do you prefer to deal with? The wet stuff that sticks together or the dry stuff that you can sweep and sweep but never get totally rid of. I like mud. Yep, a big, muddy mess....that's what life is this week. Thank goodness I get a new one every seven days.

On the lighter and somewhat brighter side of things, the school year is almost complete so I'll get a break from the lists of spelling words, permission slips, parent/teacher conferences, and report cards for a while. Mom is flourishing in the climate of grandkids she's submersed in, even tho she had to put her precious 19 year old kitty down yesterday. He didn't acclimate as well to the new home. It caused him a stroke, in fact. Oh, the memories I have of that cat. Shoot, she'd had him since I was 15...he's as much a part of my family as...well, BILL! I've known them both a fairly equal amount of time anyway. :) She sent me a text with his obituary and a picture of his final resting place last nite. Poor Mom. First, it's Bill not hangin with us Okies (he headed back north pretty quickly) and now, Cooper the Cat.

Nobody gets out alive anyway...

2011-03-02T09:49:00.003-06:00

Ugh...blogging. At this point, I'm so clogged up, it'd take a book with chapters inside of chapters and 124 pages of footnotes and references to even categorize all this mess. So, why bother? Because. BECAUSE, dammit, if it doesn't come out in typed words, it runs out in emotion and YELLED words and fits I can't take back. It's sort of started already. I just really wanna stomp my feet and rage a little bit...a LOT, a bunch, actually. But I'm supposed to be like, mature and civilized and stuff....

There are a couple dozen reasons why I'm pissy but for the tip top of the iceberg I'm narrowly navigating around, I own a gas guzzling Durango that makes me cringe every time I hit the gas pedal. If it weren't paid for, I'd run it off the highest point of Goats Bluff while I toasted its watery demise. But this wouldn't BE an issue today if it weren't for my darling daughter. I love her more than life, but she's as dingy as a doorbell. I flip back and forth between, "she's just really that airheaded" and "she's just really that self absorbed". Her latest shining moment being leaving the key to my car, my car that gets 34 precious mpg, in the ON position all nite. The car that I forked over thirty bucks for her to clean out last nite so she could have more cash in her pocket @ state this weekend. The car that I filled up with gas yesterday. The gas that would last all week. The gas that's sitting in the gas tank of my nice, clean, eco friendly car that's DEAD in my driveway this morning. I won't even go into why jumping it wasn't an option. That's a Josh Lloyd blog for another time.

If it hadn't been for the fact that I was already in turbo charge mode just to get to school & work on time and I'd had to track down my contact solution via TAYLOR just so I could SEE what I'm doing today...I might have let the dead battery thing go. Maybe. Since I can't even find half my kitchen counters for the clothing she "doesn't have time" to put away...probably not. Oh, the proverbial straw. Granted, it wasn't Taylor's fault that I was tripping over the size 11 Reeboks laying in my tiny bathroom floor and I couldn't use the hand towel without knocking Matthew's precariously balanced baseball cap onto the floor and then the toilet seat, left in the UP position in true Tracker-style was taunting me...the dried mud from Josh's work boots in a trail all thru the house, the laundry bin that was almost empty before I went to bed was spilling over onto the floor, the dinner I put up was somehow back out and had been, all nite long, and then, it just happened...the cussin' and yellin' just happened. And suddenly, I could see every single thing that needed to be done and hadn't been done, most of them things I've repeatedly asked to BE done and I hit rampage mode. It's never pretty, it's really not even that efficient unless you count the fact that it causes my kids fall in line like little soldiers and actually hurry their butts out the door....SILENTLY.

I feel like I have no personal space, nothing that is just MINE anymore. My house is overrun with every body's every things, my car and Durango double as closets, lockers, and trash bins. The Who I Used To Be got lost somewhere in the Who I Have To Be and most days, I'm good with that. But there are days when I miss that long lost girl and the carefree, albeit messed up, life she lived. And I know, I know, I KNOW I don't have it bad. I really don't. But that doesn't mean it doesn't FEEL bad some days. Like the days I've busted my butt at work only to come home and bust it some more doing homework and housework and all the menial chores that keep five worlds spinning nicely and then I look over at my dear husband all kicked back in his recliner watching Charlie Sheen spew his insanity all over the world and I have the sudden and almost irresistible urge to bash him over the head with a broom handle. (Charlie ain't the only one goin stark ravin' mad.) The sad thing is, he'd seriously wonder what the hell I'd done it for. He, like my teenagers, is oblivious until I have a meltdown...or I take up smoking on the deck after midnite again. That always gets his attention.

Since this is life and there's never an easy answer to its problems and whining never did anyone any good for long, I'm gonna reign in the pity party for now. It's shallow, I know but this IS the shallow end of it all. I SAID the tip top of the iceberg, didn't I??? I've vented sufficiently for today. I know I'm not alone. There's a million moms out there singin' this same song. The choir does not need another soul sick soprano today.

Never A Damsel in Distress

2010-12-17T14:55:00.004-06:00

I witnessed a sight this morning that made me smile. I may be the only one it made smile but that's alright; I understand myself and we get along pretty good, most days. I pulled up to get some gas and this truck whipped it in beside me in front of another truck, lurched to a screeching halt 'bout half an inch from its front bumper and out popped a skinny little blond girl and her cigarette. Not much more than 16, barely legal to drive, she had her pants all tucked in to her Fat Baby boots and of course, she sported a hood with the fur and plenty of black eyeliner. She flicked that cigarette to the ground and jerked up the hood on the truck she'd pulled in front of, out of which popped a matching girl, boots, fur, and all....only she was brunette and had no cigarette. I watched them while I pumped my gas. Blondie was obviously in charge and Brownie was jumpin to her every command. "Start it! No! Don't let it die. Here, move. Let me do it." :) It so warmed my heart I almost laughed and cried at the same time. This little thing, who to me, looked like someone could break her in half by thumpin' her once real hard, was one tough cookie. They reminded me of myself, my little sister and some of the girls I knew in school. Those of us who had it a little harder than some and who'd had to grow up fast by necessity. We learned early to take care of ourselves and of each other cuz wasn't anyone else gonna do it for us. If I had car trouble...it wasn't my dad I called on...I didn't have one to call on. I called on my friends, an earlier generation of pretty, but extremely tough cookies. Our outer shell may have differed from these two I was watching; we didn't have those cute, fur lined hoods and super tread boots, didn't have as much eyeliner, but the filling was the same: hardened by life but still soft enough to help a friend in need. I stood by as they tried and tried to start that truck, watching without letting them know I was watching and then finally, I offered my help which Blondie immediately refused. But then, I knew she would. :)

And then...I fell down.

2010-11-26T14:17:00.002-06:00

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving day. I woke up yesterday morning with violent tendencies and nearly had a crying fit tryin' to get out the door on time with all my goodies in tow. I was 15 minutes later than I should have been but still was there in plenty of time. Little prayer and some time with my people and all was right with the world again. There was a heck of a turnout at the dinner and the food was fabulous! I'm not much of a turkey fan, but man, I could live on Rebecca's green beans and mashed potatoes. A lady brought a buttermilk cheesecake...excellent! There were no leftovers to have to deal with so I don't have to worry about coming up with ingenious recipes that turn turkey into anything but turkey! The school cafeteria has officially ruined me...I've no desire to cook & clean anywhere else ever again. My only complaint is that time didn't stop or even slow down. The good days seem to pass faster than the rest and yesterday ended way too soon.

Plus, when I got home, I had a head on collision with my deck. It was sleeting and I was running to get in the door and well, I just should have concentrated on the steps instead of the door. I didn't quite lift my foot high enough on that last one and I knew I was goin down. I threw my arms out to catch myself but the deck was slick from the rain and sleet and my hands just flew straight out...I felt like I was sliding for home plate only home plate was the back door. I was flat of my face but not for long. I've fallen so many times, I'm an expert at jumping back up...injured or not. Grace has never been a fan of mine. It's so sweet how the kids and Josh will wait to laugh...they wait for me to start laughing first. When I started falling, I let one single choice word go...along with my cell phone and everything else I had in my hands. I saw Matthew turn away quickly so I wouldn't see him trying hard to not laugh at me. It's not the pain that gets me...I'm far too adrenalized to feel a thing at the time, it's the embarassment. I'm known to lash out violently at the nearest anything when I'm embarrassed like that. I just need a few seconds to try to regain some composure before everyone starts laughing at me...and I die laughing myself. I don't know how tense I was when I hit the deck (lol...literally) but my everything hurts today. Is this what it is to get older? I hope I find a good helping of some gracefulness before I hit middle age or these little clumsy fits may land me in a cast or two. Geeze.

The holiday hasn't ended for my family just yet. The teens are headed to Dallas with my mom to have Thanksgiving at my great grandma's. My Gramma will be there and she and Taylor are going shopping tomorrow...I'm crazy jealous. I miss holiday shopping with her...not the actual shopping but the time I used to get with her doing it. Just she and I. I'm slightly territorial when it comes to my Gramma. (I was her first granchild and I'm not too proud to pull rank. ) Everything about a mall this time of year brings her to mind. One of these days, I will be far enough ahead in life to be able to take time off to enjoy all the things that don't last forever. I hope, I hope, I hope. If not, screw the checkbook, I'm doin it anyway.

Josh, Tracker, and I are headed to his mom's for the evening when I get off work to eat dinner with her and that part of our family. I'm looking forward to it. I'm blessed to have a mother in law I genuinely love and her house is just, well, comfy to me. I'd even wear my sweats if there weren't gonna be other people present. I will take them along, however! This should wrap up Thanksgiving for us for the year. I'm almost sad to see it go...it reminds me that the remainder of the year is about to pass us by at lightning speed...again.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-24T10:25:00.003-06:00

Well, I know I'll not be blogging tomorrow...I'll be too busy eating things I've waited all year to eat, so I figured I'd better say what I have to say today. Not that I have anything at all to say but sometimes it does my mind good to just sit here and ramble. So I shall ramble on...

Taylor's burns are better...she's still walking funny but she is managing to hang for the day at her "boyfriend's" family cabin. I hate that word. It was cute when she was 5 but at 15 it's almost terrorizing to think that she has a boyfriend...AND that she's out in the woods with him. But, she's not 5 anymore so I'm learning to let go a little at a time...a very little with a lot of time in between. I found it extremely amusing that Miss Priss managed to get ready in about five minutes flat at 6 AM and told her that I had taken note of this ability. No more causing the entire family to run 15 minutes behind schedule to everything. Her dad was much impressed with her sudden interest in the deer woods after the years of NO's to his invites to join him. He acts like it doesn't bother him, but I know his feelings are hurt. It's no fun to realize that your little girl much prefers the company of a teenage boy to yours. Probaby why he's been pestering me lately about having another baby....the little girl is no longer a little girl. But that boy is crazy if he thinks I'm puttin another baby in this body on purpose. Huh uh. Pregnancy and I have never been pals.

My "homemade" pumpkin rolls were just delivered. It makes me no difference that they were made in someone else's home. These things are fabulous and it's just a good thing I haven't the patience to make them. I'd rather spend the ten dollars for almost instant gratification....I did have to wait a whole day on their arrival. One of them will be polished off tonite, I've no doubt, at the potato peeling party we're having. I say "party" becuz I'm handing each of the teens from youth group a knife and telling them they can't play ball until they produce skinless potatoes for tomorrow's community dinner. Anytime I don't have to peel thirty pounds of potatoes, it's cause for a party. :) They love it. I have to say, they are some of the most giving teens I've ever met. I love them all to pieces....even my spoiled, rotten, boyfriended daughter. It's so much easier to enjoy 'teen-dom' on this side of it all. If nothing else, I can be thankful I'm NO LONGER 16 tomorrow!

Tomorrow really is a day to be thankful for all I've been blessed with: A family that goes past bloodlines, friends from every corner of the US, a place to call home and love to fill it with. We have never had much, but we've always had enough and to me, that makes it just right.

It's Just Life

2010-11-23T09:15:00.003-06:00

Days like these should come with their own tee shirt, a friendly warning to those I encounter: "PMS: The art of crying for no apparent reason, crying because you're crying, crying in response to everything, basically. I'm livin' it!" Ugh! I hate it when I get like this. After today, so does my poor boss. Men do NOT know what to do with crying women. The one I'm married to does an okay job with it...but he's had years of experience. I learned this morning that I can clear an office lickety-split with just a few tears. There were exactly three men standing in this office when the attack hit....by the time the first tear hit my shirt, there were none. They ran off in three different directions all babbling something about being sorry. They had to have been wondering for what tho. Trained men....throw an apology at her and get OUT of the way. It's comical now but a mere thirty minutes ago, it was disastrous...from my PMS-y perspective. I had to hit the bathroom to fix my face and tell myself how absolutely ridiculous my behavior was. It's hard to stop it when you don't even know why you're doing it. Oh, the high's and low's of these days. I nearly outright bawled watching How To Train Your Dragon last nite. I get on my own nerves but not for long at a time....the moods seem to switch about every five minutes or so. What's amazing is the wide range of emotion I can express in such a short amount of time. Oh and it always lands on the holidays when I'm around people I see only once or twice a year. Terrific...I can only imagine the impression I make. Oh well, I won't care in another five minutes.....

I cancelled Tracker's dental appointment yesterday to take a very ill Josh to the doctor instead and while we were there, Taylor spilled an entire bowl of ramen noodles into her lap. Poor thing...I've yet to get Tracker's eye witness account but apparently, it was pretty intense there for a bit. She said the first thing she did was scream which caused Tracker to jump straight into the air like a scalded cat and cover his ears. Matthew drug himself outta bed to see what the commotion was all about but he said, "She wouldn't tell me what was wrong, so I just went back to bed." Ah, Matthew, the little compassionate thing that he is, could (and would) sleep thru anything. That poor little girl is burned in places she didn't want a doctor to see. I feel so sorry for her. That burn cream is an absolute miracle solution though...she was up and moving an hour after applying it. Impressive. She's better today but is lookin at sweatpants bein her sole attire option for a good while. Not something a very fashion savvy girl wants to hear. And she was so looking forward to her Thanksgiving break from school too....now she'll spend it, pretty much, flat of her back in front of a fan.

The doctors still don't know what's wrong with Josh. So far, it's a medical mystery but he seems to be feeling better today. He ate and drank for the first time in three days last night. He was convinced he would surely thirst to death yesterday morning....I was beginning to wonder myself. All I know is there are some funky illnesses makin' their rounds out there and I'm pretty sure this household's quota has been met. Enough already.

2010-11-19T09:28:00.004-06:00

The chill has officially ARRIVED and with it has come the never ending phone calls from people who are out of propane :), the hunters with their always empty RV bottles, and the knowledge that my wood pile isn't nearly high enough! But, man, how I'm lovin' the smell of the fireplaces and wood stoves. Fall finally feels and smells as good as it looks!

I can't believe Thanksgiving is less than a week away. It's just wild how fast time is flying by. I can't wait til Thursday...the community Thanksgiving dinner is the highlight of my month. It's so much fun to get together with people who mean the world to me and laugh and cook and just exist in each other's presence for the day. Just a day to slow down and enjoy life and the people in it. Plus, we're given a chance to make a difference in the lives of others. You just can't beat the feeling you get when you sit down to dinner with someone who otherwise might not have had a meal that day....but more commonly, we sit down to dinner with people who would have spent the day alone. No one should be alone on the holidays, in my opinion. Not even if they think they wanna be! I've got my heart set on baking a pumpkin cheesecake. I'm pretty sure you can't go wrong with the combination of pumpkin, cream cheese, and sugar...unless you forget the Cool Whip. I never forget the Cool Whip...and it shows!

I've begun the dreaded shopping experience of the year. It's not right to hate something so much that's such a big part of the day you love so much. I despise the shopping part but I love the giving part. Someone mentions Black Friday and I shudder. Why would anyone do that on purpose??? I've been exactly twice. The first time 11 years ago when my very pregnant sister almost clobbered a dude over a VCR and the last time in Colorado with Josh. I literally have witnessed people shop til they dropped...or rather, dropped trying to shop?? I dunno but I've watched a chick hit the dirt grabbin' a toy...one dedicated momma. Both times I went, I didn't get what I went after and because of it, I spent way more money than I wanted to buying things I never planned to buy in the first place to compensate for not getting what I went for! Insanity and it shan't happen a third time. I'm shuddering again. Ugh! More power to those who're braver than I! I'll stay home and out of their way! I had to take Josh to Ft Smith to the doctor last nite and just seeing all the Christmas decor that's already out and all the traffic and the jammed full parking lots triggered a near anxiety attack. (Can we please just finish giving thanks before we wrap the world in tinsel??) So, I'm shopping online....I can breathe while buying. I highly recommend it...it's fantastic!

Hello, Friday!

2010-11-12T09:26:00.003-06:00

Fall is stuck somewhere between itself and summer, the weather can't decide what it wants to be today...but it's definitely anti-hoody. I was so jealous when I read the statuses of snowfall from some of my fellow Facebookers. This year, I'm learning that the main reason I love this time of year has a lot to do with what the temperature gauge reads. I look thru my windshield at the gorgeous colors of the seemingly autumn scene all around me, but then I step outside my car into a humid summer atmosphere. What the heck? I'm still sleeping with the A/C on for cryin' out loud! Oh, but the trees are magnificent this year....the colors are positively brilliant. I'm hoping to get to run the kids up to the Runestone for some pictures tomorrow before all the colors fade and fall away for the year. I'll just look at the pictures and pretend there's a chill in the air!

The kids played their second home game of the season last nite and holy smokes, the boys game was a nail biter!!!!! How I love, love, LOVE basketball....especially the games that have you eating your fingers and screaming at refs. I'm pretty sure I make a complete spectacle of myself....I just don't care. The girls and boys teams both won and I couldn't have been prouder for them. They're finding their groove and moving in it. Taylor played well and my poor lowly freshman was forced to support his team from the bench. He wasn't impressed in the least but it's hard to not be happy about the first win of the season.

They play again tonite and I'm struggling between being the loud mouthed mom in the stands and being the mom who makes sure there are groceries and toilet paper in her house. It's been three weeks since my last Walmart exchange and we'll be using newspaper for toilet paper soon. We're even out of Ramen noodles at this point. Josh is threatening to strike or worse, go grocery shopping himself. If that happens, we'll be broke and the cabinets will be full of Wolf Brand Chili, Little Debbie's, and Oreos, I'll be washin' clothes with Dawn dish soap, and we'll still not have any toilet paper.

Another day gone...

2010-11-09T16:24:00.005-06:00

I now understand what "hold onto your heels" means. I giggled when I read this Facebook status not long ago....she was posting regarding her household's encounter with the flu. "If this flu hits your house, you better hold onto your heels", I think it was. I'd never heard the expression and if I haven't mentioned it before, well, I'm a visual person. So, while I hated that her babies were sick, I still found the image in my head amusing. Maybe I needed a little lesson in why this expression is not funny when used in conjunction with the flu virus. I got one. Poor Tracker was down four days! In all my motherhood experience, this was the WORST and most bizarre flu I've seen. I once was told that the virus will either (either!) attack the digestive or the respiratory system of its victim. Well, that was either a big fat lie or this flu bug broke protocol. Tracker was one miserable 7 year old. He didn't MOVE from the recliner for three days with the exception of bathroom visits, he lost ten pounds, went from burning up to freezing to death over and over, and to top it all off, he couldn't breathe. I felt so sorry for him. It's bad when it's you sick...it's worse when it's your kids. Thankfully, the rest of us have escaped its nasty grip so far. I'm the disinfecting queen of my house....Lysol is the king.

The time change has begun to kick my butt. Well, that and my two faced friend, Coffee. The thing about caffeine is...it's your best friend when your eyes just won't open but it will stab you in the back about the time you want them to close and then you're forced to make it your friend again the next morning. We'll see how I fare tonite. I'm blaming the coffee but it could have been the symphony of snoring that kept me awake until well past 1 am this morning (my body was feeling TWO a.m., btw). Between Tracker and Josh...no silence was to be had. It's amazing the things that roll thru your head in the middle of the nite. I kept thinking I should just get UP, do something productive. But then I'd talk myself into staying just right where I was. I attempted to initiate a conversation with Josh to no avail. He's told me all kinds of things when under the influence of sleep but not last nite. So I just laid right there and thought.

I went to 16 and back and back again. I guess Taylor being 15 1/2 and with some of the things we're dealing with right now, my memory is freshly plowed. And maybe the "blast from the past" slap in the face I recevied yesterday morning helped the thought processes along as well. And that one's a blog for a different day...perhaps even a nonexistent day. I'm just not sure yet...I'm still in the "I'm not ready to recall" stages. And now, well, it's five o'clock and I'm going home. Blogging always helps me to burn the hour that lasts an eternity!

Where did October go??

2010-11-01T10:52:00.003-05:00

I'm so mad at my computer today. The SD drive will NOT work and I wanted to post pix of my lil Mad Hatter. Tracker won his class's costume contest Friday with his Johnny Depp impression altho, he flat refused to let me paint his face. We did a trial run Thursday nite so I'd know how long I needed to get him ready and that was it. Burned him right out on face paint. He said it itches and chaps his lips so NO MORE. With more than a little persuasion, Amanda and I finally did talk him into orange eyebrows at least. Geeze. Stubborn, strong-willed...whatever you wanna call it, at my house it all means the same thing....Tracker Eli.

I also got the privilege of taking Mr. Tracker trick or treating for the first time Saturday nite. Well, the first time that he can actually recall anyway. We took him when he was one but the poor thing had to stay wrapped tight in a blanket in his stroller on that extremely COLD Colorado nite. Wasn't much fun for any of us...we all returned home with wind chapped faces and runny noses. He opted out of the Mad Hatter costume for trick or treating...well, more like he bawled and had a fit to not wear it. The top hat and wig are a miserable ensemble I guess. Who knew? He plainly told me that next year, he was bein' something NORMAL. Okay, okay. So much for my bright and very adorable ideas. He dug thru Josh's camo til he found the leafy set that reminds me of The Swamp Thing and went as that. Happy as a little lark too. Brat. (Coulda saved myself trouble and money!)

Mom's house was his first stop. I didn't figure she was expecting us, so we parked around the side so she didn't recognize Track by our car. The camo set has a hood and only his eyes were showing. I love my mom...she is the most dramatic person I know. She would have rocked as an actress. She opens the door and yells, "OH MY GOD! It's a trick or treater!" as she turned and ran for her bowl of candy. She was home alone. Maybe she was telling Cooper the cat?? She was so thrilled to get to hand out candy! I got tickled cuz I knew by her reaction she didn't know it was Tracker. So me, Josh and Matt are laughin our heads off and motioning like crazy at Tracker not to give it away. He ripped off his hood when she asked him what he was dressed up as. We got another, "OH MY GOD, it's TRACKER!". She thought that was the best thing ever, that he tricked her and she just laughed and laughed. I love it...love her drama and hearing her laugh. It made our nite, too.

He was a little bashful at the first couple houses, not too sure about bangin' on door and saying "Trick or Treat!" and expecting something in return. He got the hang of it pretty quickly after the chocolate started piling up in his bucket. He was so excited to run from door to door. I hadn't taken any of them trick or treating in so long, I'd forgotten how much fun it is to watch all the excitement. I had a blast and we came home with boat loads of candy. Good stuff too. He got full sized candy bars and light stix. He was most impressed with the lady that gave him a Koolaid Burst...he was wiped OUT from all that candy gathering! Matthew Lee wiped him out on Three Musketeers and Taylor stole most of his suckers. He politely informed us, "It's okay, I'll share....I didn't buy any of it anyway." They must have worn their welcome out with him, however, becuz it wasn't long and he'd labeled everything in the blue bucket as HIS and his alone. The rest, he said, was fair game. :)

We polished off our weekend with a Fall Fest at church yesterday afternoon. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, the kids played flag football and basketball, shot some pool, and of course, the highlight of the evening was yet, more candy. I know that's the teenager's favorite part of the night, when they get their beloved bag of goodies....I don't care what they say, how cool they pretend they are....they LOVE getting candy and you may likely lose a finger if you try to take it from them. I only wish I'd have sat a little longer around the fire. There's something so calming and relaxing about the smell and sound of a campfire in the fall. I didn't even dread Monday morning...but I have a good reason...the kids' first basketball game is tonite!!! I am so excited...can't wait to go watch the mystery unravel...will my sophomore and freshman make it off the bench????? :)

Half way there....again!

2010-10-27T09:50:00.002-05:00

That little button that the manufacturer put on my alarm clock must have malfunctioned this morning. I pressed it ONCE at 6:15....next thing I knew it was 7:15! A "snooze" is only allowed to be 10 minutes long at most according to WikiHow so either I "sleepsnoozed" and I don't remember it or, like most of the electronics in my life right now, my alarm clock is rebelling against me. And why is it that when you're running late, your hair won't do anything it normally does, you can't find a single shred of clothing that fits, your shoes mysteriously walk off (and not in a pair either)? No, one goes to the living room and the other to the bathroom. How does that happen? I couldn't find my keys, my cell phone wasn't charged, and I almost forgot my purse. We did make it out the back door by 7:45 tho....with Tracker's "crazy hat" in tow.

It's Red Ribbon week so each day is a differently themed dress up day. Yesterday was "Red" Day. I'm still red around the cuticles from dying Track's hair blood red....no, Resurrection Red was the technical name for it. He's still sporting a bit on his rosy red cheeks this morning too. Today tho, was Crazy Hat day. He decided to use his one from last year again. Josh fixed him up an orange construction hard hat with deer antlers attached. It's cute....I should really post some pix. I've gotten particularly lazy about photographing the moments of our lives lately. Kodak would be so disappointed.

I miss regular ol' film that you drop off at the Walmart and pick up a couple days later. I was so much better at that than this digital stuff. I have loads of camera cards full of pix that I'm constantly misplacing OR that find their way into my husband's game cameras...magically erased. Grrrrr. I'm also known to have a hard drive full of pix that never make their way to walmart.com for print either. One day, I'll be dead and gone and the equipment to view all these memories I have will be obsolete...oh, I seriously have got to get on the ball around here. Now, I only have to save the five hundred or so dollars it will cost me to have them all printed. Did I SAY I miss rolls of film? I do....one little roll at a time is all this chick can handle.

Weekend Wanders

2010-10-25T15:11:00.002-05:00

Another Monday almost under my belt. That must mean my weekend is gone again. It was filled to the brim as always and I'm fighting exhaustion as usual but I'm mostly a happy camper this fine (but still too warm) fall afternoon. Amanda and I hit Rally in the Valley Friday night. Just us two rode over....no kids this time. I enjoyed it, I don't get nearly enough "grown up time" these days...it never lasts long enough. Saturday morning brought on a sudden thought to shop Hobby Lobby. I needed the perfect birthday gift for one of the moms in my life. I never trust my taste and it takes me FOREVER to pick anything out but I did it....finally. I had been craving Geno's pizza since I'd opened my eyes...what IS it about that mall pizza anyway? It hit the spot too. Tracker eyeballed a Halloween Boo-tique (cute!) so we had to stop off there and then the girl child spied Kohl's, the store I always forget about. She's been "saving" her money since this summer so she can contribute to the vehicle she hopes to be driving come April 2nd. By "saving" I mean that she worked all summer and has more jeans that one butt can wear in a month, various shirts, some still with tags on, some jewelry, color contacts, lots of shoes, and $180 cash. :) I have to say tho, $180 would have paid for a third of my first car. Not gonna be so for "Miss I Want", I'm afraid. So as we break the threshold of Kohl's, I remind her that she is gonna be car shopping in less than six months and that I'm not contributing to her overstuffed closet til Christmas. Period. Forty minutes later, the boys and I have had our fill of the store but Taylor can't be found. Around and around we went looking for her, inside bathrooms and dressing rooms. No Taylor. Well, when I finally DID find her, it was no wonder she went missing...she was buried behind the mound of clothes she was carrying around. Again, I remind her of the car issue to which she replies, "But I NEED it and it's all on sale!". So I shrugged, "Whatever, it's your money but you're gonna be pissy when all your friends are driving and YOU are walking. Guess you'll look cute hitchhiking." I'm still in shock at the justification process she went thru next. "Well," she says, "when you let me drive home from town the other day, I decided that driving was just too scary. I'm not buying a car. When I need to go somewhere, I'll just drive yours." Ooooh. Is that so????? Not even an hour prior to this, she'd told me that she wanted nothing for Christmas....just money for her car. I'd say the girl has a slight shopping addiction. I shall be reminding her of this conversation when April rolls around. God help me survive her.

We went to Amanda & Dustan's for dinner Saturday nite & watched OU play that bi-polar football game. Well, most of it anyway. I'd claim bein a Texas native but that wouldn't be much better and I don't reckon I need any more enemies anyhow. Then yesterday, we listened to the testimony of a family who've just returned from Belize on missions. Absolutely fascinating. I want to go and almost have Josh talked into it. Tracker's game becuz of the snakes and lizards he saw on the slide show but the teenagers?? Eh. They are passionate about exactly one thing....anything that directly involves them. I think they found it more interesting than they let on but they've grown quite accustomed to indoor plumbing and air conditioning.

Josh and I once again tried to find this mysterious piece of property he so desperately wishes to own. Three hours on a four wheeler up the mountains and thru the brush will do a lot to temper a person...especially when you never find what you're looking for. I've decided it's just not out there. Someone is selling a piece of land that simply does not exist so unless this real estate agent wants to give me a personally guided tour, I'm not for it. Josh hasn't quite given up just yet.

Thoughts For This Day

2010-10-22T12:25:00.003-05:00

Well, it's Friday again...let the time warp begin. And it will. Monday will be here before I realize Saturday has begun. I'd dig my heels in the dirt and drag if it'd make it go slower. There are so many things going on around here, it's hard to decide what to do! The Robber's Cave festival last week was awesome but there were so many people there. We spent 15 minutes in a line of cars waiting to park, then spent another 20 in line waiting for the shuttle to take us the three miles back to the festival, then 10 minutes waiting on funnel cake that we had to eat sitting indian style on the grass. The jeans they make these days, plus me in them, plus indian style doesn't always make for the most comfortable of situations but I managed. Then we hit the craft booths. My gosh, I couldn't put my hands on my hips for fear I'd elbow people on both sides of me. It was like an ant colony! We voted to skip the carnival all together. Well, all except for poor Tracker. He assumed the long line we were waiting in was to ride the Rocket. You can imagine his disappointment when he discovered it was only the shuttle line for the return ride to the back forty we were parked on. So, I'm thinkin' this weekend, I'd like to avoid huge crowds of people and mile long lines. Although, the Balloonfest is awfully appealling.

Josh has spied a piece of property and has his heart set on owning it. It's the land he's always dreamed of, he says, surrounded by forest with a creek on one side. Hunter's paradise, I reckon. Problem is, it's landlocked on three sides by the US Corps of Engineering and on the other, a little lady who's convinced she already OWNS that land back there. Lol...oh, life is never boring and always, always a challenge. Josh likes a good challenge. Especially when he can sit in his dozer seat all day and think of things for me to do to help further his plight. If he's called me once, he's called me thirty times in the past two days with marching orders. He's excited...and he's driving me batty. Then I think how much fun it'd be to finally have a cabin that's ours...to disappear into the great beyond for 48 hours at a time, and then I get excited too. But before I put my name on a dotted line of obligation, I wanna SEE it first. So, to Google Earth I went...

I had a map of the property...sort of. So I attepmted to find the coordinates. I had never GPS'd my way thru the woods before yesterday. Interesting in a frustrating kinda way. I led us thru at least six direction changes before Mr. Expert took over and led us thru another six. Didn't take us long to figure out we'd soon by walking by the light of the moon at the rate we were travelling. As romantic as that phrase has always sounded, dense woods in the dark is not condusive to much anything except walking faster and talking less. My dot on the map was extremely elusive. We never did find it but we had lots of fun arguing over which way was that way, and what way was which. (I won.) We're armed with new coordinates and a better map today though. Conquer, we shall.

Life is NOT a highway. It's a NASCAR speedway.

2010-10-19T09:47:00.008-05:00

I'm not entirely convinced that there are 24 hours in a day anymore...I think the clocks are conspiring against me (paranoia induced by sleep deprivation??). My life long, night owl tendencies have recently been replaced by falling face first, fully clothed onto my bed at 10 pm sharp! and not budging the next morning until the snooze button has been exhausted. It's ridiculous. I concoct and scheme with myself about the easiest ways to make the frizz ball atop my head presentable for the day so that I can hit that button for another beloved 10 minutes of sleep. I'm an expert at applying makeup via the rear view mirror in my vehicle...learned that from the best, my momma. Yet even with shaving what time I can off the everyday routine, multitasking in a dozen different ways, I still just can't keep up. I'd give up but 5 days from now when I'm rested and recoup'd, I'd hate myself for the mess I let pile up. So here we go again...and again, and again. (I know I'm not the only one singin' this song...)

We've all been battling an especially horrid round of allergies this year. Well, I say allergies...I dunno what the heck is wrong with us all but it's stickin' around like those little green guys on the Mucinex commercial. I pretty much feel like I got a watermelon for a head these days and my ears are STILL constantly itchy. Irritating. Makes for cranky people all confined to one house. After a full 24 hours together, things get really interesting! Josh and I 'bout screamed the house down around us Sunday evening. If you think you've nothing to argue about, find yourself sick and cooped up in the living room all day together, throw a teenage daughter into the mix and see how different your child rearing perspectives really are...and THEN, well, just how passionate are you about your perspective anyhow?

We learned years ago that as much alike as we think, we can be polar opposites just as easily and that we are BOTH equally passionate about our viewpoints. So much for the "united front" theory we been throwin' around. Funny how you can love and hate one person in the course of an hour, how you can want more than life itself to be by their side forever and ever and the next moment wish them to Saturn or any other God forsaken place they could never return from. I can love with the best and hate with the worst...it's somewhere in the middle where I normally reside tho.

So, our house is pretty tough. It survived the screaming match. That's more than I can say for the innocent cell phone that found itself at the bottom of my closet. This is what insurance is for, right? And what I get for complaining about the $4.99 a month it costs me.

I'm always sorry for the way I behave during a fit of rage...but never soon enough. Never before I've spilled every ounce of poison in my guts, never before I've said every mean thing that has crossed my mind, and most certainly, never before I feel I have justified myself. I have GOT to get a handle on my tongue.

And THEN, well, there's the issue of my back. A 22 year old injury has come back to rear its ugly head and I'm learning to function with one or both legs completely numb for most of the day. I worry that I might jump up from this office chair and fall flat of my face one of these days. But, this is another of those issues that would be helped by the loss of about 20 pounds. (as I eat another tamale & drink my diet DP) What ELSE can I pull out of my hat today to complain about? :)

Really tho, life is good and the best part is, life goes ON. I get a brand new morning every single day (which I'm still thinkin' is no longer 24 hours long) and I have all these nifty people around me who think I'm pretty alright even when I do fall flat on my face or behave like a fire breathing dragon!

From an addict's perspective...

2010-10-06T09:47:00.004-05:00

My cigarette craving has been out of control. I spend way too many minutes of my days dreaming about them lately. Since emphysema doesn't top my list of ways I'd like to leave the earth, I have tried like crazy to just put them out of my mind....usually by poking something calorie-ridden into my mouth. As the scales keep tipping toward a serious meltdown, I have been researching, a.k.a. "googling", things like: organic cigarettes, nicotine free cigarettes, the EZ Smoker for cryin out loud! I made my mother my cohort and we finally settled on some nicotine AND tobacco free smokes from an organic site. I am the Queen of Justification, after all. Snickers vs. cigarette...which is worse? Seriously.

They arrived last Friday. One pack of honey rose Blue Lights and one pack of honey rose Vanilla. I carried them around in my purse and that was good enough, just knowing they were there if I needed one...until Monday. I decided to try the Vanilla first. Oh how I wanted it, WILLED it even, to taste just like my beloved Marlboro Ultra Lite shorts. It didn't. It didn't even come close. Was like takin' a big puff of heated air, in fact. So I thought, "Well, maybe if I drag a little harder on the dang thing...". Nope. Plus, it smelled like the worst pack of cheap cigarettes I'd ever smoked...and I smoked plenty of cheap cigarettes in my high school days. To be absolutely clear, these wretched cigarettes were NOT cheap. No, I believe they average out to be about fifty cents a smoke. Desperate times call for desperate measures. So, I tried out the Blue Lites yesterday. An improvement on the vanilla but still, soooooo not a Marlboro. I WANT a Marlboro. An entire pack. I want to chain smoke four at a time. Oh, the bliss!

I think, perhaps, I've just been fooling myself all these years, telling myself, my husband, my children, "It's not the NICOTINE I'm addicted to...I simply LIKE to smoke. Leave me alone, I can quit whenever I want to." And I have quit....several times now. It seems to be that I can quit whenever I want....it's the restarting I am having trouble controlling. I've the self control, for the moment, to not buy the pack of Marlboros I so desperately crave. Probably becuz I've not yet tried the American Spirit "organic" (lol??!) cigs that still hold the promise (delusion?) of being the alternative I'm looking for. And after that, well, there's still the EZ Smoker!!

THIS is the most wonderful time of the year!

2010-10-05T09:41:00.002-05:00

I love fall...it is by far my favorite season. But then again, I think I say the same thing about spring when it finally rolls around after winter. So, we'll call it a toss up...I love fall AND spring but since it happens to be fall now, well, it's definitely my favorite season. All except for the itchy ears I'm battling right now. I guess it's the warm days followed by the cold nites, but my sinuses are on overdrive right now and there is NOTHING more frustrating than my inner ears itching like crazy and knowing, there's not one thing I can do. I'd love to stuff a pipe cleaner down in there...that would feel sooooo good right now. I can't take a drink, cough, talk, or even breathe in a manner that prevents rattling my ears and bringin on the itch. Ugh!

I drug out all my fall decorations last nite...I love harvest colors...they just make me happy. Why is it I can be happy simply because I'm surrounded by various hues of yellow, orange, red, and brown and the air smells like Friday Night Football?? Pumpkins, hay bales, crunchy leaves, hoodies, and baking...it all makes me miss my Gramma too. Has to stem from my years with her, my obsession with Fall. She never failed to dress up the front porch with cute lil scarecrows and huge pots of mums. What I wouldn't give to be 12 again some days! Well, except for I just remembered how she'd make me get out there and rake up all those crunchy leaves!! I was such a pain in her butt, of this I'm sure. Stompin around, draggin my feet, full of attitude, stopping just short of refusing to rake that yard. I knew better than to refuse...my Gramma is a force to be reckoned with when she wants to be. There's a certain look she gets and you just know, "Don't mess with her, it will end badly for you". I miss her.

This is also the time of year my husband goes M.I.A. It used to really bother me when I was younger...that he'd rather be in the woods trailing deer than spend his time in MY company. Not so much anymore....I've learned to utilize the time wisely and even pleasurably. Trips to the mall without him complaining at every storefront without "sporting" in the name, craft fairs without him watching the checkbook like a hawk, Saturday mornings on my front porch with a book, in peace. He is not a reader and doesn't understand my absolute need for it. Well, anymore than I understand his need for the woods. So, we're even. We'll exist for the next two months married in name only....and we'll be just fine with it, now that we're adults and all. :)

Wake me when September ends!

2010-09-29T12:00:00.004-05:00

Well, this has been a heck of a week so far. Thank goodness for midway points cuz some weeks I need the encouragement of knowing I'm halfway done! Sunday nite was a blog all its own and Monday nite was Open House at the school. I'll spare most of the gorey details but let's just say I left feeling like I should have been awarded an "I attended Open House and SURVIVED" tee shirt. It's so hard to be a mom. I mean, I KNEW it was gonna be, even at 16 when I got pregnant, but man, I never knew that the word "hard" could hold so many different connotations.

It's physically hard: My body has never been the same since my uterus was first invaded. Sick, tired...no tired doesn't begin to touch it, DRAINED, stretched, bloated, hyper-sensitive. I could smell things a blood hound would've missed...and most of them made me throw up. I kept waiting for the "glow" but all I got were some record breaking zits. My hair and nails did seem to grow faster but the pounds I was rapidly packing on somehow outweighed those attributes and my back protested loudly and often to having to carry the extra load. And this was all PRE-delivery... There wasn't much hope for my boobs ever being the same again even before I delivered but I knew it for sure by the third morning after! It's comical now but it definately was NOT at the time. I bawled. Which brings me to...

It's emotionally hard: It's scary finding out you're about to bring forth life. Even when it's planned, the awesome responsibility of what is taking place within you can be overwhelming at times. I know I had several unexplainable meltdowns. I also found that the slightest things could annoy me to the point of rage. Somedays, all it took was a glimpse of my ballooning figure in a store front window to bring on the tears followed by a mad fit and a promise to never TOUCH another sancho (yeah, right). I know there were happy times too but from high to low and back again seemed to come hard and fast. It was emotional whiplash.

It's mentally hard: I'm a person who could think herself to death if it were possible. I go over every possible scenario with a fine toothed comb. I couldn't sleep for all the thoughts; "Will I be a good mother and what if I'm not?" "Can I love a child like it needs to be loved?"" What if I can't and I screw it up beyond repair?" "What if it hates me?" "What if I hate it?" "What will it look like?" "What if I have an ugly baby?" "How bad is this gonna hurt?" "What if I die?" The thoughts did not stop...I existed exhausted; physically, emotionally, and mentally.

All these years later, two more pregnancies and deliveries under my belt, I know now that was only the beginning of understanding what "worn out" means. There are days when I'd give my left arm for all three of them to be back in the womb...the other days, I'd give my right one. That was the easy part...they were tucked away safe and sound. Now I have these walking, talking, back-talking little beings with minds and voices all their own living in this great big world. It requires constant alert...it's 24/7 with no vacation or sick leave, it's exhaustion blown up, in every possible sense. I'll not even go into the huge responsibility that lies on our shoulders. That's a whole other blog.

Reminds me of a movie I just watched. One dad-to-be asks another dad, "What's it like...bein' a dad?" The guy answers, "It's awful. Awful, awful, awful, AWFUL...and then, something wonderful happens and it makes it all worth it."

Things don't always go my way...I hate such things.

2010-09-27T09:19:00.005-05:00

I was given a good reminder last night of why you should really think about what you say and even after you've thought about it, you should really decide if it needs to be said at all. (Are there enough "really"s in there to stress my point??) Let's see, words can be: twisted, misunderstood, misrepresented, misconstrued, misinterpreted, embellished, you name it. If it can go wrong, it will. But wait! It gets even better; beyond the normal miscommunication problems of life, you've got "pot stirrers" to deal with; those individuals in the world who are just not happy unless they are causing strife for someone else. What I released as (admittedly) careless talk ended up being someone else's malicious ammunition. It's now been nearly a year since a young lady has spoken to me after a pretty explosive confrontation about what she was told I had said about her. I saw her last night for the first time since the "ordeal"...scratch that, she saw ME for the first time since then. I've seen her once, but I stayed back. Sometimes in not knowing how to fix what's gone so horribly wrong, I avoid the situation totally. (I never once claimed to be brave.) But, there she was, there I was and there was no denying we'd seen each other but still, I was at a loss on how to deal.

What was told to her went beyond twisted embellishment, it was an all out lie, plain and simple. And although, I do feel that I owe this girl an apology for the part I played in hurting her by even opening my mouth to begin with, I did NOT say the things she accused me of saying. Quite honestly, I am offended by the accusation but even more so by her blatant refusal to even hear the truth and well, when I get offended (translation: when my feelings get stomped on) I tend to take a Stonehenge position. I will not bend, sway, or even budge to try to make things right. I have a stubborn streak that is at least a mile wide. Unfortunately, my daughter has inherited it. She was ready to deal last night, once and for all....with fists....at church. This stupid thing has affected my entire family and it brings out some less than admirable behavior.

I had decided that if our paths crossed on my way back out to my car, I was going to simply tell her that I was sorry and leave it at that. I lost her in the crowd of people, I even walked back thru one more time looking for her...I never saw her again. I still don't know how to make things right. I don't even know if I can make things right at this point. What I want to know is why it bothers me so badly that things aren't right. I tried, I told the truth. Does my responsibility end there or DO I owe her an apology for even saying what I did say, even if it was said innocently? Had I never said it at all, this mess would never have happened. Relationships...who needs em anyway??? :)

I dunno...truth is, I'd do anything to make things right because that's just how I am. I hate hurting people's feelings...okay, unless I'm in a fit of rage then I usually don't hate hurting anyone until the next day or so. Typically tho, it tears me up until I've made things right, even if it requires jumping thru flaming hoops or my own butt. I'm thinkin', tho, this is where I learn that sometimes, you just can't make things okay again. There are two minds, two wills, and two sets of emotions involved here and I can't make her decide to believe me or forgive me for hurting her and that's that. So, I give....for now anyway. Life just gets way too complicated when people are involved.

I tried a new thing...

2010-09-23T09:18:00.000-05:00

I attempted to make a batch of boudin night before last. I do this when I'm trying desperately to lose weight again...I cook, bake, concoct, and dream up things I've never attempted before and surprisingly, I don't eat as much. Seems contradictory to say the least, but it works. By the time I'm done tasting it, I don't wanna eat it so I begin the clean up process and by the time that's over...I don't care if I ever see food again. (I'm a clean freak who hates cleaning. Again, contradictory. What can I say?) Last summer, I made more zucchini muffins than Betty Crocker could shake a stick at and I didn't gain an ounce! Of course, I didn't lose any either but in these "gaining" times, the plateau periods are fond, fond memories.

So, back to boudin, a FANTASTIC Cajun sausage that I hadn't had since I visited my uncle's family when I was 15. I ate so many things that week that I haven't had since. Man, those folks know how to throw ordinary things into a pot and make it taste like a million bucks. I've been hooked on Cajun cookin' ever since, but nothing I've tasted since matches up. Until...

I stopped over at Mom's a couple of weekends ago and she'd grilled and on the plate was a familiar looking sausage link and I had to take a bite. Sure enough, bonafied Cajun food! But, it'd been given to my brother-in-law by a coworker who lives in Louisiana. Of course it hadn't been purchased here in the Sooner state. But, I studied it long and hard and decided I could make it if it couldn't be ordered off the 'net. Thus began my search. I soon discovered that this little delicacy involved pig livers and lamb intestines (so much for the idea that they threw ordinary things in those pots). So, ordering prepared boudin online was out of the question. Too many flashbacks to my sophomore year and the tour of the lamb-slaughter plant in Denver, CO...I'll never forget the way that lady worked so hard to clean out those intestines...or the way another little lady wielded a meat hook. Ugh. Clean, dirty...intestine is STILL intestine and I couldn't knowingly chomp down one. Sometimes, ignorance truly is bliss.

I decided deer or beef could be substituted and I'd make my own. I also discovered I could order synthetic sausage casing that stands up to grilling but can be removed before eating. Yay! Well, Round #1 was not entirely successful...it tasted okay, but the consistency was crap. Reminded me of baby food...pasty. Let's just say it was nasty. I promptly threw it out before I ruined boudin for myself forever. I shall try again at a later date. Probably much later and most likely, never again......did I mention I hate cleaning??

Today's Roadmap of Thought...(no wonder I'm lost!)

2010-09-22T09:07:00.003-05:00

Today is a good day! I'm quite fond of good days...they aren't guaranteed after all. I am starving tho. I'm not to the point of chewing the varnish off the desk yet, so that's a plus. Food, my best frenemy, and I are at war, once again. I decided I could no longer deny it after riding 5 hours in a truck with Josh to pick up a backhoe Sunday afternoon. I simply sat there but I was miserably uncomfortable in my quite tight, usta be "loose" jeans. What the heck happened....again. Coulda been the nachos, enchiladas even, spinach ravioli?, apple fritters, Carmel Milky Way, fish tacos!, chicken lo mein...any one of these but more likely all of them over the past two weeks has put my waistline in the squeezed position its now in. I'm beginning to think it's no longer the food that is out to get me, but my own hands. They are responsible for shoveling it all in...

There are days, such as Monday, when I wonder if I'll ever EVER gain the ground I need. I have since spent my days on the Medifast regime, trying to regain some control instead of inches. Third day in and I'm feeling somewhat better but certainly not 10 pounds lighter and really, all I want is to eat something. I've made certain this office is void of anything I could ruin myself with and since the closest place to purchase any contraband is at least a mile away, I may be safe (depends...what is the calorie content of varnish, anyhow?). The little packet of dehydrated chicken noodle soup in my purse is beginning to sound quite tasty.

All I keep thinking is, "It's happening again...it has begun." The damn cycle I can't seem to stop living. While I was trying desperately to carve out a new path around this mountain, I somehow slipped back into the worn rut I've been walking for most of my life. It's ridiculous, it's insanity, and it absolutely consumes most of my thoughts.

I've decided that insecurity is still vanity...that just because I'm looking at myself in disgust and I'm ashamed of myself does NOT mean I'm not still focused on ME for most of my days. Quite a revelation. When I've hit a point where I'm directing my days and planning around not being noticed because people will see that I've gained some weight back, when I don't want my own husband to look at me, much less touch me, when I'm hateful to my kids because I'm unhappy with the way my clothes fit today, when I don't speak to friends because I'm ashamed for them to see me this way, when I'm walking around with my head down...whoa! I'm a little consumed with my appearance and other people's perception of me, I think that's safe to say. Sad, that what people think really matters that much to me even tho I proclaim it does NOT.

And really, I say I want to be "healthy", that I want to change my life to get healthy, but the truth is, I just want to be thin. Thin enough to wear whatever I want and not tug at it all day because I'm self conscious about the way it's sticking to the fat, thin enough to feel beautiful, thin enough to finally wear short hair, thin enough to be sure that even if Josh were to leave me one day, I'd be able to find another man (see? insanity!), thin enough to be all I ever wanted to be but couldn't be cuz I've always been fat. But here's the catch, I don't really want it bad enough to never touch another doughnut or to make more than a momentary commitment to a treadmill. Give me the best of both worlds, please, because I WANT it.

I have to giggle when I think of the proverbial, "You want your cake and to eat it too!". YES! Yes, give me my "thinness" but let me EAT too. My prayer, "Lord! Just give me a do-over, let me wake up a size 7 tomorrow and I PROMISE, I'll stop overeating, I'll never be fat again!" LOL...cuz if I don't, I'll cry instead.

But like I started out saying, today is a good day and today, I have Hope so I think I'll leave it at that. For today. ;)

If I could, I would...

2010-09-20T12:34:00.006-05:00

fly to Africa today, right this minute, and rock all those abandoned babies until the day I die.

understand the mind of my 15 year old daughter.

instantly be 35 pounds lighter.

eat an apple fritter every day! (see how my mind works?)

spend eight hours a day with my nose stuck in a book.

never do laundry again!

go back 17 years and be nicer to my mom and a few other people.

turn my teenagers back into toddlers for a few days! (but I want the option to yell "deal's off" at any moment...)

keep my mouth more shut and my ears more open. (okay, I probably CAN do this one.)

'MUTE' the world at will.

drive to Nebraska via Colorado, stopping to visit along the way....today.

have a really nifty, crafty hobby instead of a passion for numbers. (I drive my OWN self crazy.)

Thank God for unexplained fits of laughter!

2010-09-20T10:38:00.006-05:00

Life is always an interesting ride, that much is for sure and it doesn't take much more effort than putting your feet on the floor in the morning to find yourself being swept away in it. Finding the time to sit down, collect your thoughts, and breathe awhile is what really requires some ingenuity!

I say every time I find that I've taken a major, unplanned hiatus from blogging that I'll not ever do it again yet somehow, here I am again. The pattern is: When life gets overwhelming, pretend you don't exist! My heartbeat begs to differ...I'M ALIVE. Some days, I'm probably not as grateful as I should be about that. P.O.D. instantly began singing in my head as soon as my fingers typed that. "Everyday is a new day...I'm thankful for every breath I take..." Days like this are why they taught us our numbers...."Count your blessings, Krista." :)

It's only the days that I wake up focused on the "ME" factor that I feel this way. I realized how ridiculous I'm being yesterday at church. I sing back up vocals for our worship team every Sunday and I do my very best to sing while hiding behind the person in front of me. I actually try very hard to disappear while still being heard. It takes talent. Well, yesterday, for some reason I can't extract from my mind, I looked up and because I'm a full head taller than Becca, I locked eyes with my husband....who decided to wink at me. I was suddenly 14 again, unfortunately. "Omg, he's looking at me. WHY is he looking at me? I look horrible today, I feel fat, fatter than usual even....WHY would he look at me? UGH!" And then, my stupidity and complete self-absorption got the better of me and I cracked up. I'm talkin' full on, got the giggles and could NOT stop laughin.

I tried to get a grip, really I did....but it didn't work. I wasn't about to look up at Josh again to see his reaction to what I KNOW he could see goin on with me. I now know that I do not disappear up there....everyone saw it all. I caught Zack, our 15 year old drummer, looking at me, then out at Josh and then HE got cracked up. That just made me worse, which made him worse...and the cycle continued. It was ridiculous and it would not stop. Only after church did Josh tell me that I like to have caused him to "fall out" laughin and that he almost left. I laughed til I cried and hoped like crazy Zack's mom somehow missed the whole episode. :) WHY do things like that happen at the most inappropriate, inconvenient times? We both swear we almost got kicked out of the church we used to go to once when we got cracked up and laughed so hard during services that we literally shook the pew. Boy, did we get some glares that day. And neither of us can tell you what the heck was so funny still! Childish or not, laughter is so, so good for me in these times when the depression comes creeping back in.

I intend to make Blogger a regular part of life....once again, but sometimes intention is just the best I got.

Amazing Encounters in Everyday Life

2010-06-01T12:45:00.003-05:00

I so wanted to get up at the butt crack of dawn, hit the dreaded Walmart for groceries and a few other of life's necessary items yesterday morning. My pillow talked me out of it, then the hunt for a missing checkbook (yes, I had put it "away" for easy finding later) put me even farther behind in my day. I was almost antsy when Josh and I finally exited the driveway at 10 am. I HATE wasting my days and I know that groceries are a must as is filling up my spongy car with the liquid gold it requires to run...but it doesn't make the chore anymore invigorating for me. I hate it, did I mention that already? Plus, I've discovered you can no longer get back out the automatic doors of Walmart without spending at least a hundred dollars and I don't find "settling up" with them very exciting either. LIFE! Who ever promised me a rose garden anyhow??

As much as I hate the Walmart Experience, it can't compare to how I feel about Atwoods. Unfortunately, this happens to be my husband's very favoritest hang out in Poteau. But, he promised, promised, PROMISED it would be short and sweet so I put on my happy face and trudged along. (are you beginning to get a feel for my attitude this day??)

I was checking out a sale rack of little garden decorations, battling with myself over whether I really needed what I had in my hand...on sale, or not. The checkbook won, I put it back on the shelf and turned to go. A lady there caught my eye...she looked familiar at first but then I realized I didn't know her at all. She must have reminded me of someone, I guess. I smiled and proceeded onward but she stopped me. Typically, I'm in my rushed, borderline bad mood frame of mind when shopping, especially in the farm store but something stopped me from being that way. She asked me, very quietly, if I had a cell phone she could use to make a call and apologized for bothering me while I was shopping. I was embarrassed that she thought she was bothering me, told her she was NOT a bother and handed her my phone.

Her nervousness took over and she began to ramble while she was trying to figure out how to dial my phone. Said she was having car trouble and I'm thinkin', "It's too dang hot for car trouble today." So I asked her what was up with the car. Josh and I are pretty experienced broken car handlers, after all. Then she told she didn't even know where she was, that she had just been passing thru when her dad had chest pains and had to go to the ER, was admitted to the hospital and she had no idea how far she was from home (Moutainburg, AR). I could hear the desperation in her voice and then the embarrassment when she said that she thought she was just out of gas and she'd have to call her sister to Western Union her some money. My heart broke. All I could think about was how scary it'd be to be trapped somewhere with no money, no gas, and no way to get hold of anyone. She was at the mercy of total strangers.

You know, to this day, I have never had to change my own flat. Every single time, there has always been someone to stop and insist on changing it for me. Anytime I've had any kind of car trouble, even just locking the keys in it, someone has always been more than happy to help me out. How could I NOT help this lady? I couldn't help her fast enough.

I found Josh, asked him how far she was from home and filled him in as easily as I could, I didn't want to further embarrass her. He picked up on it and handed over his card. I asked her if she had enough gas to get to a station. Her teenager daughter was driving...she followed me to the Tote-A-Poke, told me she rolled in on fumes. Funny how you have just enough when you really need it. I had my Skillet tee shirt on and she and I decided we were both their biggest fans.....ever. :)

The momma must have said thank you a dozen times and nearly cried twice and all I kept thinkin' was how cool it was that the steps we'd both taken that day had led our paths to cross. I had nearly thrown a "Krista-fit" when Josh insisted we stop at Atwoods. We'd have fought, but I'd have gotten my way....and missed this huge blessing in the midst of it. These experiences are always very humbling...and as much as that little lady thought I helped her...I know the truth. My perspective has needed some changing...I've been in a "poor, pitiful me" state of mind lately. Nothing like staring into the eyes of someone who has nothing to change your point of view. So God and I both know: She was MY help that day.

"And I'll be my brother's keeper, so the whole world will know that we're not alone...." -Matt Maher

Love Speaks Loudly

2010-05-07T09:43:00.000-05:00

So, I'm not usually one of those people who responds to provocation, unless the provoker is Josh...in which case, he's the flame to my gasoline....vapors....it's explosive. But nevermind all that...give us some boxing gloves and a ring, a brave ref, and eventually, we'll get this mess all sorted out. But what I been thinkin' on wasn't provoking in a bad way... quite the opposite. I read a post that provoked me to take a good look at myself, at my heart, at what I honestly believe about life and ask myself some serious questions. And, since I'm my own interrogater...I reckon I'd better have some answers.

I've always believed in Jesus. I can't tell you why, I just do. Now, those who've known me for more than the last 20 minutes know that I've not always lived like I believe in Jesus. I've been the worst of the worst and I know it. I no longer even deny it. In fact, anyone who hangs around me regularly knows that you're very likely to catch a good glimpse now that'd make ya wonder about my faith. I'm a human being, I screw up a thousand times a day, at least. Thankfully, I've learned that empty beer cans and Marlboro packs are not tickets to hell and that I don't walk around with a big red "A" on my chest, and I don't have to walk with my head held down in shame because of my past. But let me tell you about where I didn't learn these things...in a church.

My friend's post said something to the effect of being judged most harshly by "Christians". That hurt me...for her and for the Jesus I know, the one the Bible talks about. I don't even know this Jesus who's name has been used as an excuse to judge and condemn for far too long. It hit a nerve and I'm not done bein nervy yet. This sort of behavior makes me furious, whether or not it's one of my friends who's been affected. I guess probably because I've been there.

I, too, have been judged most harshly by people who called themselves Christians, people who's names are listed as members of churches that they attend like clock work in their very best Sunday attire. People in the community I looked up to and aspired to be like when I was 20 years old...until their (very open) rejection hit me square in the face. I remember, vividly, being at a point of such desperation in my life back then. Josh & I were just kids trying to raise kids...he was never home for all his running around and I was only home because I worried too much about what others would think and say about me if I wasn't. We were broker than broke and having the worst run of luck with our vehicles, appliances, etc. I hated him, he hated me...God only knows how we've stayed together. It was pure hell...I can only think of one or two times in my life when I've been more miserable.

So, at this point in my life when I'd rather been dead than alive, it was said to me that, "perhaps, I might oughta think about darkening some church doors". I hope what was meant was that God could help when no one else could. That's how I took it. Josh all but laughed at me when I suggested church, so I loaded up the kids and went alone. It never occurred to me that the clothes in my closet wouldn't be nearly good enough to wear...oh, how naive I was! I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I think about it. I put on my jeans and a tee shirt and dressed the kiddos like I always did and set out to encounter a God who would change my life. I marched in there with a heart full of hope and no more than broke the threshold when I knew that not only was I not accepted, I was not welcome. I'm not sure what kept them from just flat out asking me to leave...maybe the toddler and two year old I had at my side. Maybe God Almighty decided to let me get a good fill of it so I'd never treat anyone that way. Who knows? What I do know was that I was extremely uncomfortable and embarrassed but too proud to turn around and run back out the door. I wasn't dressed right, I wasn't married, the guy I lived with wasn't even the father of the two kids I had....who did I think I was showing up at their church?? Sullying their atmosphere with my presence? The attack was vicious, yet subtle...harmless in appearance to the onlooker but the arrows were well aimed and I left wounded. I will never forget that day....ever.

It burned me on church for sure and on God for awhile too...but in my heart, I still knew that Jesus wasn't like these people...these people who are hateful and critical but they wear his second name like a big, picket-sign sized badge and climb up on their pews so they can look down on everyone. If they're reading the same Bible I read, they have to know that Jesus Christ didn't hang with the well dressed and monetarily secure...no, you'd find him among the hookers and liars and thieves. People like me who lived some seriously screwed up lives combined with some seriously bad choices and knew they needed some serious change. The very last thing I needed was for another somebody to make me feel like a nobody, like I didn't measure up and that I'd already made so many mistakes in my life that hope would forever be on my horizon but never in my hands.

God was gracious enough, years later, to lead me by a love of music into another fellowship of people and plant a man with a past similar to mine in front of me to teach me about who God really is and confirm to me that yes, indeed, just as I'd suspected, Jesus truly does love me. And there are no stipulations on that love. Refreshing discovery...seemed like every "love" I'd ever known came with a pretty expensive price tag and always left me broke and broken. These people taught me what love and acceptance was in the midst of my levi's and martial status. My life didn't suddenly snap to perfection but I did and still am acquiring new perception on how to deal with all the imperfection of it.

I once heard it said something like this...People don't need to read your Christian tee shirt or hear your "churchy" talk when they haven't got the money to feed their kids or enough gas to get to work. They need food and gas. They need to know that someone gives a damn, to put it frankly, and is willing to help them out, regardless of who they are or where they come from.
My favorite tee shirt simply says, "Love is the Answer". Love needs no introuduction, you can say "I love you" a thousand times a day but it doesn't make it true. People aren't stupid...we know what love feels like. It will never do anyone an ounce of good for me to stand and proclaim my faith in Christ, "I'm a Christian", should never be the only sentence I speak to someone. I have to be willing to put my feet to walking out the love that is Christ and he will speak for himself.

A little bit of catch up...

2010-05-03T13:29:00.005-05:00

I've not been to Blogger in awhile....blogging makes me sort my thoughts and examine myself...something I've been avoiding lately. With great success, I might add. However, after catching up on some blog reading today, I've discovered that I miss it! There's something liberating about letting it all go, the thoughts, emotions, moods that is freeing. With every word that flows out from my fingertips, one gets wiped off my slate up in here...I need my slate wiped regularly. :)

I'm hearing that the concert was a success. Good thing people are talkin' because for the most part, I have no idea what all went on that day. I stepped foot on those grounds at 8am that morning and tunnel vision set in. I set out to accomplish what was mine to accomplish and paid very little attention to anything else. I think I may have begun to breathe again about 10:30 that night. I've no idea how many miles I walked that day but I did decide that my cherished Converse weren't made to withstand that many steps, no matter how favorite they may be!

Awesome doesn't even begin to cover the people who showed up to help. Before I could get a request out of my mouth, someone was already doing it. I realized that day and since then, looking back, how completely blessed I am by the people in my life. They worked their butts off without compensation and without a complaint. They willingly donated their time and resources for the dream I had in my heart. I've not found adequate words to express my gratitude.

I expected chaos that day but was met with order instead. We had exactly two "instances". One: I decided I'd better figure out exactly where the breakers were that shut off the lights and make dang sure they weren't gonna zap any stage lights or equipment when I flipped them. Good news? I found them and no guitars were harmed in the flipping. The bad? They didn't come back on when I told them to. AND, the ugly...I flippped smooth out for the 1st ( & only!) time that day. I was due to open the doors in thirty minutes and I had no lights. Now,with it more than a week behind me, it doesn't seem like such a big deal...but I'm tellin ya...right then, it nearly cost me every ounce of my composure. God masterfully placed voices of reason all around me and they managed to calm me right back into place. As soon as my freak out moment ended, the lights began to warm back up and come back on. Whew...they were like the gym lights from grade school....takes em a bit to do their thing.

So Number Two was a bigger deal, yet, I handled it much more level headedly. Go figure. Somehow, the stage didn't get strapped together in all the proper places and when Kiros held their "boy band" dance contest, it began to come apart in the middle. The little guy who had the job of crawling under there and strapping it tight amid all the jumping and dancing, said it was quite scary looking up and seeing feet nearly coming thru on top of his head. The drummer was talking about it later.... Even tho he never seemed to miss a beat, he was having quite a time back there. The bass drum was falling into the seam and into his knee which made keeping rhythm quite challenging. "Things just kept moving toward me", he said. I told him I was sorry it happened, I kinda felt bad but he then told me stories of falling OFF stages when his stool leg would go thru the seam in the stage. For some reason, that made me feel better... :)

Taylor lost count at 331 when the stream of people began running thru the door so 500 is a rough estimate of how many we think were there. I stood at the back and watched for about a minute when Seventh Day Slumber took the stage...couldn't help myself and I just had to marvel at the crowd. The security team did a fantastic job...I was super impressed. In fact, I was just impressed, period. Even with having to clean a bathroom stall with puke all over it, I can say, it was an awesome night. I will definately be doing it again. Can't wait.

Gettin' there!

2010-04-21T13:02:00.006-05:00

Wow...I can't believe my 47 day journey is coming to a close...and rapidly. It's been like a whirlwind around here lately. I'm feeling remarkably refreshed even tho my hair has got to be standing on end! I'm nervous, excited, apprehensive, expectant all in ONE. I can't wait and yet, I could, ya know? I'm thru the "scared out of my mind" phase, mostly, and have settled into the "well, if I fail now, it's gonna be a very public fall" phase. Things are starting to come together at lightning speed after a lull that would have had me eating my fingers to the last knuckle if I was a nail biting kinda girl. Thankfully, all my digits are intact. I'm always amazed at people and their willingness to give of their time and resources. For the most part, everyone I've turned to has extended a hand in whatever capacity they were able. I've had a few run in's that were just downright discouraging but thankfully, those were the exceptions and not the rule. I've been getting worked over in my problem areas of insecurity, rejection, and my "run away" syndrome. Typically, when something gets difficult or I get rejected 2 or 3 times, I throw a run away. I say "to heck with it" and just quit. Not an option this time around. See, I opened my big mouth and told everyone what I intended to do so how could I quit when, first rattle out of the box, I hit a big, fat NO to my plans? I couldn't...the prideful parts of me kept me putting one foot in front of the other...even when my head was hung and my tail was tucked. :) I can't wait until it's all over and I can look back and just see how all the pieces came together. Presently, I'm still in a scattered state but I'm trusting I'll have a surge of administrative abilities come Friday morning.

Josh has been great thru all this, an unexpected source of strength really. Money is one of his "issues" and I figured when he realized that, ultimately, the responsibility for all this would fall on our shoulders, I'd have to fight him tooth and nail. Not so. He's been supportive from day one even tho he's gone thru a dicontinued 401k match from his employer and he's no longer guaranteed a paid 40 hour work week. That's quite a lot to be thrown at this very anal and habitual man in a very short period of time. I've held my breath several times, waiting on an explosion but there's a quietness to his temperment lately that blesses me tremendously. Unusual, but I'm hoping it lasts. The older we get, the better we get along. But then again, that could all change tomorrow...

A Little of the Story...

2010-04-20T16:58:00.000-05:00

I removed my blogger address from Facebook becuz I've decided that I don't want the whole world to know my innermost thoughts. I prefer a selective audience so this post showed up as a note over there:

I set out to end my life the first time in 1990. I was 13. I tried again at 15. I desperately wanted to be dead. I couldn’t find a reason to live but I learned to put on happy faces and pretend everything was ok. I wore many masks back then, changed personalities to fit where I was and who I was around. I learned what to say and how to say it so that no one worried about me. But I was drinking, doing drugs, and doing whatever else would numb the pain and help me forget who I was for awhile. Death consumed my thoughts most days. I remember standing at the bottom of the grain towers in the little town I lived in, looking up and thinking, “If I jump, no one could stop me then.” I walked a dark, dead end road for many years. Hopelessness was killing me.

A couple of years ago, a song playing on the radio caught my attention. Music has been a life line for me for as far back as I can remember. When nothing or no one else can, it consoles the darkest parts of me, the “slums of my soul”. This song was one of those. I felt like it could have been written just for me…I wanted to know who was singing it. I’d never heard of Seventh Day Slumber before but I became a fan that day. So, when I heard they were playing a concert in Broken Bow, I felt almost compelled to be there. The music was awesome but what blew me away was what the lead singer had to say. He stood there on the stage and told his story to a crowd of all ages, a story of a broken home, of being a social outcast, of drug addiction, hopelessness, and attempted suicide. I didn’t expect it and I certainly never expected that this successful musician, this guy who had it all “together”, could have once been as badly screwed up as I was. He was real and I identified with his story in more ways than I cared to admit. The message he brought that night was one of restoration and of hope. It was a message I needed to hear and I left there with a desire for more people to hear it, too.

The more I look around me, the more young people I see with the same hopeless eyes I once had. I guess because I’ve walked that road and I know the pain that is still inside in so many ways, I have such compassion for these kids. I’m troubled by the hurt and the brokenness I see all around me. I’m ready to see a change…I want to see these lives filled with hope, love, and LIFE. And that’s just exactly where the vision began for this Friday night.

By the grace of God, I’m alive and more than that, I’m happy to have LIFE. I have been blessed with three children and ironically, my two oldest are now 13 and 15. I watch them and see the whole world in front of them. They’re just beginning. I wonder how I could have been so convinced I had nothing to live for at such an early age.

The line from the song that stuck in my head and spoke to my heart that day was this one: “I know it seems like there’s no hope for you, but I know your life is worth more than you can see.” I needed to hear that I was WORTH something during those years of my life, that I mattered. And that’s the word of encouragement I want to pass on to anyone in a hopeless state: You’re here on purpose and your life counts, so somehow, make your way to this concert. It’s free…you got nothin’ to lose.

2010-04-13T10:21:00.004-05:00

It' s amazing anymore how fast time is flying by. I mean, I know time has always seemed to get away from me but this is just flat ridiculous! Taylor said to me the other day, "Gosh, Mom, my freshman year is almost over...that went by FAST." I thought, now wait a minute....NO one's torturous freshman year is allowed to just be over that fast...that was the ONE year in my life I wouldn't repeat for any amount of fortune and fame and it seemed to last three lifetimes. No FAIR! But that's just it...life IS flying by and even my slightly self absorbed child is noticing. Oh well, reckon I haven't much choice but to hang on to what I can. You know it's bad when I'm thrilled to get 20 minutes of free time and I choose to use it scrubbing the bath tub...oh, it's SO bad!

I thought I may have killed the slightly self absorbed child Sunday....have I mentioned I'm a bit of a drama queen tho? Taylor came to me with a headache and asked me for Tylenol...I told her my purse was in the car and to go see. Now, a little fleeting thought came into my mind at this point that perhaps, I should have her bring me the bottle but, I was otherwise engaged and dismissed the thought almost immediately. About an hour later, I asked her how her head was. When she looked at me, she didn't look quite right and she said, "It's worse and I'm dizzy. Mom, where did you get that blue and white Tylenol? I've never seen any like that before." Well, I had to swallow my heart back down into my chest....I suddenly remembered my "secret"stash of three diet pills at the bottom of a bottle of ibuprofen. I asked her, "WHAT??? Taylor, were there no orange pills in that bottle??? You took a diet pill!!" She said no, no orange pills and the panic must have been pretty clear in my eyes because at that point, she began to cry. Oh, I felt like such a lousy mom! "What are they going to DO to me?", she asked. My head was racing and I couldn't think clearly...I truly had NO idea what they would do to her. It was at this point that she informed me she'd taken TWO of the pills. After all, she takes two Tylenol at a time. I could have died. I almost cried. The triage nurse on duty at the hospital I called was really helpful...after I explained the situation to her, her earth shattering response to me was, "You need to call a pediatrician." If they come out with an iPhone that has an application for slapping the absolute crap out of the person on the other end...I'm havin one. These are the days when I wonder how we ever made it without Google and the world wide web and smart phones. My common sense began to return to me after skimming thru several web articles on overdosing on amphetamines. It's sad, sad that I can recount experiences where I overdosed on PURPOSE when I was even younger than Taylor is now. But, fact is, I did, I took a whole lot more than Taylor had taken and, I lived. I knew she was going to be okay but that didn't make me feel any better about the whole thing.

Needless to say, she was higher than a kite for a few hours and sleep was pretty much nonexistent for her Sunday night and she was still incessantly licking at her lips yesterday afternoon (I thought she may well eat them off her face) but, she's alive. And the two of us have learned some valuable lessons. I need to be a somewhat more alert mother and we've decided that proper labeling is really important and Taylor has decided that she never EVER wants to take a diet pill again. Thank goodness...I'd rather her not battle like I have. "WHY would anyone want to feel this way on PURPOSE??", she asked. Why, indeed.

Less than two weeks to go til SDS plays in Poteau. I'm finally moving to the relaxed end of stressed and enjoying myself...but that could change in a second. Especially if my stage happens to fall through! I'm hoping this is enough of a pleasant experience that I'll wanna do it once a year. We'll see how the world looks on April 24th.

I'm still fighting food...not as aggressively but it's still a war, nevertheless. I win some days, go down in shame and defeat others, but the good news is, I still rise again the next morning! I figure I'm doin pretty good.

2010-03-31T11:25:00.001-05:00

Success!! All systems GO! Yay.

2010-03-31T11:24:00.001-05:00

Hello mobile blogging! Testing...

Tracker, music, and food!

2010-03-31T10:24:00.003-05:00

Allergy season has kicked off...my little one is waking up with his eyes glued completely shut, once again. A couple of years ago, on such a morning, he could only get one eye to open. Now, Tracker is not a morning person...in any way, shape, or form...he's awful. Cranky, hateful...ugh. I stand over him, watch him sleeping, and sigh deeply before I begin the process of getting him onto his feet. It's just that bad. So on this morning, when he couldn't get his eye to open he began screaming, "I can't SEE, I can't SEE...MOM, my EYE isn't WORKING!". And well, I got tickled and couldn't quit laughing...just added to his fury. "It's NOT funny...I CANT SEEEEEEE!". I laugh even now...he got so mad at me, he lunged to take me out and his eye popped open. He calmed right down once he could see with both eyes. I don't know what set of my genes mingled just right with Josh's to create that child, but I'm glad we only did it once. I'd never survived if they all three were this way. Tracker has got to be the only person in the world who can reduce me to tears of fury and frustration one minute and then, once he's realized he's pushed to the very edge of my limit, morph into the most loving little thing ever. He's one of a kind...thank goodness.

Should have the flyers for the concert in my hands by tomorrow. Then begins phase two of the process....finding donors. This is a task I never look forward to. I don't know why it bothers me so bad to be turned down...but it DOES. It hits me in a personal way, hits every rejection button I have and there's no doubt, I will find some no's in my journeys. All part of the process...breaking me out of my "dancing for quarters", people pleasing ways. Sort of like tempering steel, I reckon...it's gotta go thru fire before it's ready. This is an area where I wish I were my little sister...she just don't give a damn. Never has...like her or leave her..she's goin on. I've always admired people who can shrug it all off and carry on. Maybe one day I'll get to the bottom of why what other people think affects me so much....

I'm on my final week of phase one of this eating makeover too...then I have 3 weeks of an Atkins/Southbeach type thing...hopefully, I don't have to repeat the cycle after that. They say, after this 9 weeks, my hypothalumus will be "reset". Whatever that means. I just hope it happens!! The pounds aren't coming off as fast as the inches and that's something I've never understood but I just go with it. If I focused on those scales every day and the fact that they're NOT moving nearly fast enough, I'm afraid I'd be in a hopeless state of depression. Screw that...it's too nice outside for depression! A new season...at long last!

I'm too scared to say spring has arrived...

2010-03-23T09:51:00.004-05:00

So, I ended up taking the remainder of Spring Break off. The Spring Break that ended with a foot of snow on the ground. I don't remember the last time I saw a winter like this one down here....was more customary of Nebraska and Colorado winters! Maybe, maybe, maybe we are summer bound now. I'm normally a cloudy kinda girl, comfortable with stormy, cold weather...but I've had ENOUGH already.

I'm still trudging along....got two weeks of this damn restrictive diet left before I enter a new phase of restrictions. Not that it stopped me from shoving a couple of forkfuls of chocolate cake in my face last nite....really big forkfuls too. Was it worth it? Totally. Why is it that certain foods sooth my troubled soul???? I've maybe lost two more pounds..and that was BEFORE the chocolate encounter. Perhaps I need to direct my focus LESS on the scales and more toward learning to eat better, responsibly even. I can't help it tho...I always turn it into a diet. If one were to flip back thru my journals for the past 17 years (I only flipped thru the past six years), it would be found that, "I'm fat", "I need to lose weight", "I hate the way I look", is the resounding theme thru the years. I'm thinkin' this borders on obsession, no?? Auuuggghhh!! Whatever. ONWARD, I say.

I learned a week ago that my concert is going to coincide with a benefit concert's date. Two huge events in Poteau in one night....Poteau's just not that big. So, we are working to merge the events which should be a good thing for all involved. I hope we drag in fistfulls of money for Whitney, a 20 year old with a brain tumor. I'm so excited, I can barely stand myself. I love stuff like this. Life makes sense to me when I'm helping others. Honestly, it HELPS me to help others. It causes me to look at everything I think is wrong in my world and just say, "to hell with it all", dive in head first and use the energy I spend whining in a more constructive manner. Makes me grateful for my life....and all the beautiful people in it. I love, love, LOVE my friends and family. I just wish I was closer to some and that there were more hours in the day and days in the year. Nothing is ever as bad when you have people to help you thru, is it?

Somehow, I lost my weekend.

2010-03-15T11:07:00.003-05:00

First day of the kids' Spring Break and I'm stuck inside this office. It's gorgeous outside, too. Figures. I'm ready for a new season!! I love winter, but this one has worn out its welcome!! The time change is not kickin' my butt yet, but I can feel it comin' on. Josh and I had our yearly discussion, right on cue. We both have different and opposing views of what the change in the time actually does for the light in our day. And in all these years, it has never failed for us to argue the point back and forth on the Saturday that it takes place. Nowdays tho, we realize we're doing it again and laugh. We may be growing up.... :) I'm not nearly as resilient with the schedule changes as I once was and it starting to show. Matthew Lee (the son I nearly look up to now) came up behind me yesterday and said, "Gosh, Mom...you gotta a LOTTA grey hair...". Thanks, Son, thanks...now pat yourself on the back, you caused a few of them. This tells me it's time to visit my hair magician again. One of these days, perhaps, I'll go grey gracefully. But, not today...and not in the near future either.

My weekend flew by, as always. I just realized I didn't even sit on my couch once in two days. When did life begin to go so fast? Josh got me outta bed long before the crack of dawn Saturday morning. Getting up early and hitting Walmart sounded like a fabulous idea Friday night, when I was wide awake. I wasn't so eager at 5 am tho. He is an early bird, early to bed, early to rise, and I'm the night owl who likes to sleep in. I'm continually bugging him to stay up with me and he's always trying to roust me out of the bed. I hope we find middle ground someday. I made it and it was nice to get all that weekly garbage out of the way by 9:00. It was peaceful, even. We got to eat breakfast without the interruption of 19 different conversations goin on. I asked him when our dates had become grocery shopping and breakfast instead of dinner and a movie. What's up with that??? Yeah, we can handle that peace & quiet stuff for about 3 hours at a time....then we miss the chaos that comes with being the parents of three brats.

Gramma's funeral went well...never fails, tho, for there to be some family mess that makes its way into these types of things. One of these days, maybe, we'll all put aside our differences and realize that none of it matters anyway. Not really. But, I didn't find myself exactly running to make amends with the ones I have issues with so I guess that day will be a ways off still. Family! Guess you can't help but have some problems when you've got this many people involved. My sister put together a slide show...it was awesome, all those memories compiled into five minutes. Of course, I bawled. I'd done so well up to that point. It just hurts to know those are times that will never be again.

I'm still shy a stage for the concert but the contract goes in today. People are beginning to hear about it and some are grabbing the vision I have for this thing. I'm so excited....been almost holding my breath, afraid it would all fall thru. So far, so good.

It's gonna be a bright, bright, sunshiny day!

2010-03-12T11:10:00.000-06:00

These fridays are gettin closer and closer together, I think. My gramma died Wednesday. I'm happy that she's no longer wasting away in a hospital bed, confined to a body that wouldn't cooperate any more, but sad that's she's no longer here. Really, tho, she ceased being with us long ago....my heart breaks thinking about it. The good times we had with her will live on. I love it when the cousins all get together to tell our "granny" tales....she truly was somethin' else! She could wield a flyswatter like no other. ☻Her funeral will be tomorrow at the old schoolhouse in good ol' Bengal, America, (her hometown) with a feast to beat all feasts afterward, wouldn't ya know! I'm skippin that part with all it's pies and casseroles. Figure I'm safer that way and I KNOW all that food is safer that way!

Attended parent/teacher conferences last nite for Tracker and Taylor. Interesting to walk thru the halls of one of the many schools I attended for the first time since I was 17. Brought back lots of memories. Three of my teachers are even still there. Funny how you can almost teleport back to the teenage years when you step into those places...I kept reminding myself..."I'm 32 now, I'm 32 now. It's okay if I address the teacher by her first name instead of Mrs. Brown. "

I'm always afraid to speak too soon for fear I'll jinx something but I found a building!! Yay! After many, MANY no's...some from the same people..more than once, I finally got a yes. Thank goodness. I was feelin a little discouraged to say the least. Plenty of room for bodies and cars. Now, for a stage since all the buildings WITH stages were on the NO list. Who knew there was so much to this? I've still not ruled out a great big flat bed trailer!! A rock band and an ag building with a flat bed trailer stage... combination perfecto! People are starting to get excited and I've lost track of how many days I've got left to pull everything together. How do people plan more than one event at a time? I really thought I'd love being a wedding planner but I'm learning that these things require organizational skills that I just do not possess!! Everyday it's something new but I can't wait to wake up everyday and see what the something new is. Things are definitely looking up and I couldn't be more grateful!

The Countdown Continues...

2010-03-10T15:17:00.003-06:00

First of all, let me just say that I HATE oranges with seeds! How did I end up with a huge bag of seedful oranges??? I bet there were 20 seeds in the one I just ate. It's comparable to my day...it's been pretty good except for the 20 or so "seeds" I keep having to spit out. Ugh.

The civic center is most definately a no go. I'm feelin pretty discouraged at the moment (hence, the orange...the food strikes back). So, I'm on day THREE of still having no set location and it's wearing on my nerves. I woke up in the middle of the night last nite, remembered and it took me a good 30 minutes to get myself calm and back to sleep.

I put in a second round of calls about the building at the fairgrounds and I'm going to be filling out a "Request to Use Facility" form later this evening for the gym and football field. I love forms and all their various names....there's a form for everything anymore and you don't have to guess what the form does for you. It's all right there in the title.

On the flip side of things, I had a blast at the donkey ball game last nite. Whoever thought of playing basketball from the back side of a bucking donkey anyway? I did feel sorry for the teachers gettin tossed onto the floor. I don't imagine I'd be able to get my butt outta bed the next day if I had taken some of those spills. But then again, I'd never gotten my butt up on the donkey to begin with. Good, cheap entertainment. Maybe Taylor will play next year. Maybe they'll do parents vs. the kids and I can volunteer Josh for donkey duty!

And there goes Tuesday...

2010-03-09T16:45:00.003-06:00

Auuuggghhhh!!!!!! I just received a contract and a 16 page rider from the band. WHOA! Am I ready for this? Geeze....I just never knew. I'll never walk into a concert and not shake the hands of whoever set it all up again. Especially the free ones. Holy cow. I'm in for a ride, that's for sure. But, the harder it is to accomplish, the more fun it ends up being, right?

I've had at least 3 panic attacks today and know I've screamed, "You idiot, WHAT were you thinking??" at myself (from inside the head) twice. The search for the venue is still on even while the contract sits in my inbox waiting to be printed, signed, and mailed away with a deposit check. The owner of the Rock Garage has kindly donated its use to me and I'm completely and totally thrilled with that. But I have this nagging feeling that it's just not BIG enough. My initial call to the local civic center found no happy calendar slot open on my day but after some wise counsel, I picked the phone back up and pushed a little harder to get my foot in the door. I shall have my final answer by tomorrow afternoon. I'm tellin' ya...I've hit so much rejection today that if I were still the girl I was 10 years ago..somebody would be diggin' me out of my closet this evening. I'm gettin' this fear worked right out of me. The hard way.

I'm finding that those I assumed would be most supportive thru out the community are pretty much looking at me as tho I've suddenly sprouted another head and that IT has come up with the hairbrained idea of throwing together an event that typically takes months to pull off...in 47 days. Well, 45 after today. Oh well, it's do or die now so unless somebody shoots me this thing is moving forward if I have to have it in my own front yard on a flat bed trailer. So there.

Fight the food is going remarkably well.....but I fear, once again, it's only becuz I'm peaking out in the stress department. All my bad habits are gonna try to sneak their way in again, one little Hershey kiss at a time, I just know it. As of this morning, I'm officially down ten pounds. Hey, that's an entire sack of potatoes. If I gotta feel like I'm starving, I want the comfort of knowing that all the while I was walking into the kitchen only to turn around & leave disappointed & still hungry (and most importantly, without chocolate), I left a bag of potatoes somewhere along the way! ☺ Three more of those suckers and I'll be a happy camper.

A Shiny Monday....Finally!

2010-03-08T16:46:00.003-06:00

I can't say it enough! This Monday has totally rocked...so not typical of my Mondays. The past weeks have been so dim but like the song says, "You gotta face the clouds to find the silver lining". FINALLY!! It's found me, the silver is shining thru!

Seventh Day Slumber is my favorite band for so many reasons...but they completely won my heart at a benefit concert for a pregnancy crisis center last year♥♥. They were requesting bookings for April and May on Facebook last week and well, I had to take a shot in the dark...just couldn't' resist. So, I held my breath, typed an email, and hit send. I got the green light from the leadership at the church I attend to throw a county wide youth concert yesterday all the while hoping and praying the band would respond and still have dates available. Well, first thing this morning, there sat the YES in my little inbox...I coulda just cried. I did do a little freak out dance...

So, of course, I'm way psyched...but terrified all at the same time. The venue, the advertising, the MONEY, the tickets, the opening bands...holy cow....there's a lot to this. And if I screw it all up, it's gonna be quite the public screw up....But I'm STILL psyched...just like a kid on Christmas morning! I can't wait...but I kinda need time to pass really SLOWLY. (Prayers, again, send 'em my way.) Such good news in the midst of some serious crap goin' on. I so needed this ray of sunshine in my life! I can plunge back into the depths by tomorrow morning, I've well learned by now, so I'm gonna hang onto the high for as long as I can....

My eating habits are coming along...I still grab before I think but at least I'm not getting things all the way into my mouth for now. That's a step forward. I've been in such a slump that I've gone the other direction on the emotional eating part of this....I pretty much just want to smoke now days....doing my best to resist. They smell so good when you want to smoke and so BAD when you want to quit!!

Another week bites the dust!

2010-03-05T09:27:00.005-06:00

Wow! I can't believe it's already Friday again. My world spins faster and faster these days. I've had a week from hell, to put it lightly but things are on the upswing again. I am ecstatic that it's finally coming to an end, however. Ah, this roller coaster called Life! I know I'm not alone when I say, "If it's not one thing, it's a dozen others." Well, this week, I'd have settled for the one thing.

Without going into a lot of detail, I will just say that I'm getting my eyes opened to the reality, harsh reality, of the world my kids are growing up in, and the total messed UPness of the public school system. Now, I know we all hear every generation before us say, "things are so much worse than they were when I was a kid", but I'm here to tell ya, things really are so much worse than they were when I was a kid. Perhaps the same sorts of things went on, but not to the magnitude I'm seeing these days. It's wild, it's alarming, it's down right frightening, and as I'm discovering, can leave ya feelin' pretty hopeless at times. But, sticking my head in the sand just won't work. I've got a fight on my hands but I hope that my opposition understands that they've got a fight on their hands. Any prayers anyone wants to wing my direction are greatly coveted!!!Enough of that, for now...

Operation Defeat the Food is going fairly well, I'm proud to say. But I have to wonder if I've just hit that level of stress where I don't eat. What a twisted little web I have woven up here in this head! :) I am down some pounds and some inches....thrilled about that but not thrilled that I don't have a belt and my jeans just don't stay put. Am I the ONLY one who HATES the way they make jeans these days?????? I take two steps and have to jack my jeans up, take two more and jack em up again. Ugh! I'd wear good ol Rocky Mountain jeans again if I wasn't afraid my kids and all my friends would completely disown me! Two weeks of food "boot camp" down....four more to go.

I had to work until noon last Saturday. Josh and I divided to conquer....the teenagers came with me to knock getting groceries off the To Do list after work, and Josh volunteered hair cut duty for Tracker. At 10:30 am, Josh marched into my office with one of those grins on his face, Tracker was close behind, sporting his brand new Mohawk and holding a brand new puppy.
I'd rather him have seen a triple Mohawk in red, white, and blue on his head than to have seen that puppy. A Sale Barn Special...completely and totally free. Lucky me. I swear, they're worse than a newborn baby and I promised both Tracker AND his daddy that I'd have nothing to do with it! Not ONE thing. Yet, it was me who was out in the cold, retrieving the whining thing in the middle of the night and it was me, again, who spent the rest of the night on the love seat with a cricked neck and a very content, brand new puppy.

This Brain Needs Rewiring....

2010-02-26T13:26:00.005-06:00

I'm having mixed emtions about it being Friday....it's good cuz the work week is over, it's bad cuz when my life slows down on the weekends...well, I EAT more. Ugh. Idle time for me is not a good thing. Turns out, not only do I "emotional eat", I boredom eat too. Yay, me. I make myself so mad!!

The past two days haven't been so bad but Wednesday up until about noon...I was a force to be reckoned with. I never realized how much of a "go to" food was for me. And now that I CANT go to it? I just don't know how to handle it well. Now, that really sounds stupid. In fact, I've almost just backspaced and left that out. But it's TRUE.

"I'm cranky." (eat a snickers! chococate will help.)

"I'm PMSin'." (oh! go get some french fries!! You always feel better when ya get some salt.)

"I'm mad at Josh." (well, don't think about that....go get a Java Chiller, instead!)

"I'm bored." (omgosh...Cadbury Eggs! They'll stop sellin' em after Easter and it'll be a whole year before you can buy them again.)

"I'm a bad mom, my kids are gonna be so screwed up and it's all my fault." (What? I couldn't hear you for all the pizza.....)

If my crutch were alcohol....well, I'd just have to have it by IV pump.

I don't know how other families celebrate, but in my family, if we were all gettin' together (cousins, aunts, uncles, grammas and all), there is gonna be plenty of food. Enough for days...weeks, even. And enough to feed an army. Not a small one, either. We eat in my family when we're happy: when we graduate, for birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, when babies are born... Yep, just grin and laugh and stuff our faces with things we don't normally eat cuz "Gramma's cookin'"! Gorging buffet style is NORMAL where I come from. We even eat when we grieve....after funerals, for pete's sake. I have been trained: You have an emotion??? FEED IT & feed it well! The term "soul food" used to confuse me....it doesn't anymore.

So, I wanted to scream Wednesday and several times since then because I'm having to change not only my actual eating habits, but mindsets and behaviors that have been completely normal to me all my life. I feel like I'm being stripped of my security blanket! But, I haven't thrown in the towel yet so that battle rages on....

We Girls Can Do Anything....

2010-02-24T08:48:00.007-06:00

I failed last night. Yep, I sure did. So, I haven't had quite as much of the vicious cycle as I think I have. I was reminded of a video I watched years ago. The one phrase from it that I can quote word for word is, "Well, you haven't had enough of it yet. So go wallow in it some more." So true of so many things in my life. I say, "I'm tired of this", then, I get tired of it, then I get fed up, then I decide I've had enough, then I'm SICK and tired of it, then I'm disgusted with it, then, I just can't take it anymore. And that, is truly, when I'll begin to work to see something change. I have to have a good, long, wallow in it, get my fill of it, really wear some ruts into the side of the mountain I am going around and around and around. Yeah, I'm still in the rut wearing stage of things, I reckon.

All is not lost, however. Every day is a new day and at least, I identified a major pattern in my life. Whether it be food, alcohol, cigarettes, or some form of drug, I use it to pacify my emotions, to escape really, from what I'm feeling. To NOT deal with life. Which is why books and movies work so well for me too. I can take ANYTHING and turn it into a crutch. Just watch me. :) Josh and I had a rather heated discussion last nite that turned ugly pretty quick. He ended up mad and on the couch....I was not mad and quite confused as to why he was. That's all it took. My whole rejection issues got slammed and into the kitchen I flew. A handful of chips, some chocolate, some chocolate chips, and a flippin' tamale later....I was finally ready to sort thru my head. Too late to not have eaten the food tho and bulemia was one practice I just never mastered. I don't know WHY I can't convince myself that a carrot or a celery stalk can be an emotional consolation. No, it has to be sugar or fat and substitutions just will not be accepted. Oh, AND, I smoked two cigarettes to boot. (sigh) So, maybe next time, I'll see the cycle coming faster and only make it as far as the Pringles.

Step 1: Admitting I am powerless???? Never.

2010-02-23T09:26:00.007-06:00

Day two and so far, so good. EVEN THO...the dang tamale man just left here AND I couldn't tell him no, SO I bought a DOZEN of my favoritest food ever...cheese and jalepeno tamales. Steaming hot too. A true test of my will first thing this morning....WHAT was I thinking? Won't be so hard to resist today...try me on day 12 or 14!

I think night time is the hardest for me. I'm such a night owl and sometimes I don't eat dinner until 10 or later...when all the laundry, homework, kidstuff, etc is taken care of and I can actually sit, RELAX, and enjoy dinner, and some silence. Last nite, I was in bed by 8:30 just to keep from pokin' something mindlessly into my mouth. I never realized just how much I don't think about what I'm putting into my mouth. Yesterday morning, I was half a reach into a bundt cake before I remembered, "NO!!" I just had a vision of my fighting off my own arm. :) Did the same thing about six more times with various "snack" type things that lie on my kitchen counters before I even left the house for work! This journey is a lot about food and more about discipline for me.

It would be nice to make a quick run-thru my kitchen cabinets and throw away every single thing that would even tempt me to screw up, to run the tamale man right out of this parking lot, to blow up McDonald's and Taco Bell, for the FDA to make a sudden discovery that guacamole and cheese dip are hazardous and outlaw them completely..... But, I just don't think the world is gonna stop for me and my food issues, nor is it going to cater to them. And my kids wouldn't appreciate me "de-snacking" their house. They don't buy the "rice cake = GOOD!" thing....they'd just as soon eat cardboard.

It's crazy...I think about the recovering alcoholics and drug addicts out there and I KNOW that as much as one can self-medicate with booze or pills, I have chosen food. Maybe it seemed like the lesser of the "evils" but as time rocks on....I am realizing...it's no lesser. I don't know how many people I see everyday with tons of health issues that mainly stem from being overweight. It's like an in-your-face-wake-up-call screaming at me. We're all living in a world designed to feed our addictions. Whatever addiction you've got, and THEN, there's a multi-step program, or a miracle prescription with only 95 or so side effects to help you when you've had enough of your addiction. It's a vicious cycle and I'm tired of this ride.

Here's to new beginnings...I guess.

2010-02-22T11:40:00.007-06:00

Well, our basketball season came to a screeching halt on Saturday. We lost by three measley points. I got my hopes up so many times during the last 30 seconds of that game, kept hoping that somehow, someway we'd either go into overtime with a three point shot or somehow get two shots in before that buzzer went off. It didn't happen. I was disappointed for the boys, I wanted to see them go at least as far as they did at state last year. Oh well. There are some refs out there who are safe from my opinions about the way they do or most likely DON'T do their jobs for the rest of this season. :) On to baseball season....

Today was D day for me.
I'm refusing to type the entire word as my body tends to go into an abject rebellion when I use the "d" word. Last week, I met with a nutrition counselor and have made a pretty serious committment (financially, if nothing more) to retraining this brain of mine about the "f" word. All weekend long, I knew today would be THE DAY and of course, I wasn't hungry at all. However, my stomach began protesting this day from the moment I opened my eyes this morning. My body is bound and determined to fail me...I am at war with myself. :) Hope I win.

I'm hoping by posting my day to day struggles on the world wide web, I'm shamed into doing my best. I tend to cheat, I don't know what I think I'm gettin away with! And, of course, this go round, my skinny husband knows what's up so he will, no doubt, hound me 24/7 which, hopefully, will be to my benefit and not my detriment (or his death). We shall see.

Life in General

2010-02-17T09:19:00.002-06:00

Yesterday was Josh's 31st birthday. Hard to believe I've known him for 16 years. He disallowed papparazzi access last nite so I have no pictures to share of his HIGHLY lit up cake. :) He spent the better part of his evening hanging a ceiling fan for me. The one hanging in my living room had been subject to much abuse. Taylor had broken one of the blades off. How? We have NO idea. Then Josh took another one off so that it was balanced...sort of a propeller type contraption. I just left it ON all the time so no one saw my mangy fan. Then, the motor went so I HAD to leave it off. After that, Matthew was playin air guitar...only with the broom, I guess, and rammed it into the fan and broke one of the lights. You'd THINK, at this point, a new fan would be implemented. But no. Life stops for no fan at my house. Heck, it'd been that way for so long, I didn't even notice anymore. I quit griping about it ages ago. My mother in law sent one home with Josh Monday nite. I guess he was shamed into hanging it. I think it's funny.

These sort of events at my house usually lead to someone throwing a fit and a stream of cuss words. The man of the house does NOT like instructions and sure doesn't like to follow them. Then, when things don't go together properly, he gets a little agitated and he most definately doesn't like it when I say, "Well, if you'd followed the directions...." Makes for some really good times! So, when he called me and told me what he was doing, I cringed a little. it bein' his birthday and all, I just really didn't wanna have to get mad at him. When he called me the second time, I almost didn't answer. I just knew the fit had already begun. He did sound somewhat edgy but simply requested a roll of electrical tape. Dollar General & I were happy to accomodate him. I am pleased to say, no fits were thrown. My new fan, however, is still lacking four blades (yes, all of them) and three light assemblies. It may well stay that way for the next 8 months too. This is my life.... :)

"Just keep swimming. Swimming, swimming..."

2010-01-28T10:31:00.005-06:00

It takes me awhile to recognize it when I'm in the midst of the whole thing, but I'm cycling back thru my normal December/January depression. You'd think, by now, I would see it comin' a mile away. I never do. This year, it seems it began earlier than it should have..and I'm blaming THAT on all the unexpected trauma of November. But really, it usually begins soon after Thanksgiving and lasts until February. Every year I say I ain't doin' it again and every year, I snap out of my bad disposition and general hatred for everything and nearly everyone right about this time and realize I've done it...again. The trigger is still a mystery to me but whatever it is, it's a doozy. I can trace it as far back as I my earliest memory...just a nearly suffocating, heavy feeling that falls around the end of the year. Yet, somehow, it must be comforting or at least, familiar, to me because I don't fight it off...like I said, I rarely recognize it until I've just about become so poisonous, I can no longer stand myself. I'm there, I officially can no longer stand myself!!! The fight is ON, like Donkey Kong, to get OVER myself and on with life!! :)

My "Lily" Encounter

2009-12-09T12:25:00.005-06:00

Monday night was Christmas play night for Tracker. Yet one more source of stress during every holiday season...run like a mad woman home from work picking up children as I go, start yelling orders for bathing and clothing as soon as I hit the back door, hoping and praying the whole time that I will find something suitable to wear and when I look in the mirror, a supermodel will be looking back at me wearing my "suitable" outfit. Yeah right. I actually just hope for a good hair day and for the clock to stop for just about 15 minutes so I can be on time to the big annual affair at Leflore. Needless to say, we were late, as usual.

I went to school at Leflore off and on thru out childhood and was there for part of my Jr and Sr years. I do not have many fond memories of my time spent there so breaking the threshold of that auditorium is always interesting for me. I have two extremes, I've discovered: 1) I keep my head down and speak to no one and hope no one speaks to me or even remembers me, really or 2) I'm loud and obnoxious and overly friendly...even to people I can't stand. I even flip back and forth between the two extremes at times. Ugh...I drive myself nuts. Monday night was a "combo" night, I was all over the grid emotionally. Something about this time of year does it to me anyway then add in the whole school thing...I don't know how I'm makin' it without Valium.

I picked my seat quickly, my little entourage in tow, nearly running to keep up. No "hello"'s or pleasantries.....just get me to the top, back row....corner pocket if it's available. But, since my daughter is baby crazy, I made a trip back down to grab a friends' precious little boy. Turns out, he doesn't much care for the dark. Or strange people. And he particularly didn't care for the Pre-K's caroling with us strangers all up in his face in the dark. So, back down to the momma I went. By this time, I've hit the loud, obnoxious stage of my emotional extremes. Completely inappropriate since the program had already begun and silence had fallen thru out the audience...ahem. I'm a master of timing, what can I say?

Instead of climbing back up to my perch, whispering, "excuse me" and "I'm sorry", and disturbing the show a second time, I decided to just stand by the back exit. I picked the spot where all the restless 3 and 4 year olds were drivin' their moms bananas. Since I no longer have a 3 or 4 year old driving me bananas, I find them completely amusing and entertaining. They were playing tag...around and around and around the adults who were trying to video and take pictures. I was taking turns watching them and the play. I felt a little tug on the arm of my sweater and looked down to see a tiny, white-headed girl. I leaned down to see what it was she wanted and she jumped into my arms.

I really don't consider myself to be much of a "kid" person. I love them, love to watch them play, but as far as really interacting with one? I'm not so pretty good at it, I barely make it thru with my own! I seem to be "relationally challenged", I do best from a distance. But this kid was havin' none of it. I was looking at her, trying to decide what to do with her now that she was in my arms. Do I put her back down? Will she cry if I do? Or worse yet, throw a fit? Is she lost? Has she mistaken me for someone she knows? Where's her mom? Does her mom want a strange lady holdin' her kid? I was in full panic mode: WHAT do I do with this child????

First thing out of her mouth, "What are you chewing on?"

"Gum."

"Let me see it."

So, I show her. She tries to grab it right off my tongue, I almost wasn't fast enough. I thought I might better take control of the conversation. I asked her what her name was.

"Lily."

"Did you know you're named after a flower?", I asked her.

"I am?"

Then, she laid her head on my chest and I thought, "Awwww!". But then she raised up and put her tiny hands on each side of my face and began to turn my head back and forth. "Look over there. Who's that?", she'd say as she turned my face from side to side. She ran those little hands all OVER my face...my eyes, my mouth and then up into my hair. She twisted my freshly flat ironed hair into pigtails and jerked 'em back and forth til I just knew she'd leave me bald headed. She smoothed it all out again and pretended she was cuttin' it off only to wad it back up in a ball. "Why is your hair brown? Why is your hair yellow?", as she flipped it from one side to the other. I stood there thinking, "Why ME? All these people, and she picks me??"

Have I mentioned I have space issues?? And I can't stand for anyone to touch my face or hair, sends me into orbit. My boundaries were being stomped all over by a twenty pound, three year old I'd never even seen before. Had my kids been standing next to me, they would have been thoroughly entertained. I'm sure the expression on my face was a painful one. I literally don't know what to DO when things like this happen. The logical thing would be to put her down and send her on her way...but I didn't do it. I was really kinda just mesmorized by her. I found her absolutely irresistable, adorable. Even as intrusive as she was. Maybe that was the irresistable part, that she had no walls and was completely unaware that she was climbing all over mine!

I held her for about 20 minutes while her hands worked my hair into a frenzy. Then, her mom appeared and told her it was time to go. She stuck herself to me, wasn't goin' anywhere. Her mom finally got her ripped off of me while she yelled, "NO! I want to hold her!". Made me feel just pretty good. The play was cute but Lily was definately the highlight of my evening.

"You can learn many things from a child. How much patience you have, for instance."

-Franklin P. Jones

Simple, routine, outpatient surgery!

2009-12-03T09:09:00.008-06:00

Holy cow...feels like it's been 6 months since I looked at my blogger account or even sat at a keyboard. It'd be nice to say that the time flew cuz I was havin' fun...but that'd be a big, fat lie. It's been like a really fast, really un-fun whirlwind that was supposed to NOT be a whirlwind, but only a light breeze.

I now know that my troubles began about ten years ago, that what I thought was really bad heartburn was actually my gallbladder beginning to tucker out on me. Who knew? Certainly not me. I don't know that I even thought about the fact that I HAD such an organ before 2 months ago. There were all kinds of lively circumstances leading up to the discovery that this piece of me had to go, but the important thing is, I went in for surgery on the 12th of November. I felt perfectly awful the two weeks before I went in; threw up routinely every six hours, my chest felt like it would surely explode 18 out of 24 hours every day. Everyone kept telling me I was gonna (and I quote) "feel like a brand new person" as soon as that thing was out. So, as scared as I was of scalpels, lasers, IV's, surgical masks, and the thought of being incoherent and unable to control what secrets I may or may not reveal about myself, I was actually looking forward to feeling better.

I got dressed up in my fancy, purple hospital gown that had a nifty hose attachment that pumped in either hot or cold air, whichever suited me at the moment, and the socks with the nobby tread (in case I decided to four wheel thru the corridor, I reckon) that they gave me. And then....... I laid there for a couple of hours. Just long enough to get good and nervous and to start having second thoughts about the whole thing, especially since my gallbladder had gone silent the day before and I felt pretty darn good. But, I was outnumbered and surrounded by my family so a mad dash for the nearest exit was no option. The nice little man with the syringe made all that nerve stuff stop in about five seconds flat. Let me just say, it's a good thing that whatever they pumped into my veins is not readily available for me to get my hands on...I'd be a worthless addict. No doubt. The whole world just gets soft and fuzzy and I can't even really remember my own name.... :) Good times, good times.

Anyway! They wheeled me into an operating room, another first for me. At this point, I'm talking nonstop cuz #1-I feel pretty good, and #2-I run my mouth to hide the fact that I'm scared and want to cry. I don't know for sure when I went out but it must've been an all of a sudden thing. When I woke up, ceiling tiles and fluorescent lights were whizzing by and I couldn't get my bearings for all the turns I was being wheeled around. Whoever was pushin' that bed had obviously done it many times before. I kept ripping an oxygen mask off my face...who in the world can breathe with those things on?? They finally shoved the little tube-y things up my nose which I didn't really appreciate at all. They were all talkin' about me like I wasn't there and I couldn't get my mouth to work to demand to know just WHAT was goin' on! About the time they flipped my butt into another bed with its own room and TV, I MADE my tongue work. An overnite stay was not on the itinerary! But, it happened.

The surgery didn't go as planned...that gallbladder was in sad, sad shape. Needless to say, I did not feel like a brand new person and promptly said so. Lies, all lies!! PAIN is what I felt. Not for long tho...they doped me up on enough morphine to make me sleep til two the next afternoon. As sore as I still was when I woke up, I wanted to go home and since it was Friday, the good doc was agreeable.

However, I woke up at 3:00 a.m. on Monday morning with extreme chest pains...JUST like when I had a gallbladder. Hmmmm. It took about 5 seconds for me to lose complete hope that I would ever feel good again. If the gallbladder was GONE and I STILL felt this way....well, as I told Josh, "Just shoot me and don't miss." And, I meant it. And so, about six hours later, I began my trek to the ER. I have serious issues with emergency rooms...all I've ever done is sit in them for hours on end only to have someone send me on my way feeling as bad as I did before. I had no hope they would do one single thing to help me and I would sit in that stupid waiting room for hours in this horrid pain and retching over a public toilet with sick people staring at me. Or, worse, they would simply tell me that I had to live this way...forever.

I'm happy to say that I was wrong. I had a gown and my very own room (again) within an hour. More & better drugs..good thing too, cuz they starved me for the better part of two days (ice chips..whatever!)in preparation of Surgery #2 to remove a stone that was hidin' out when Surgery #1 went down. I was given the consent of now two good docs on the third day to go home again...this time minus 11 staples and a JP drain. Okay, the drain is a really disgusting part of the story that I'm just gonna leave out cuz I'm already shuddering remembering the removal part. Ugh.

Surgery #2 was an "endo" surgery so they just went down my throat instead of cutting or slicing anything. BUT (and it's a big one) , I missed the whole lecture he gave me on possible after effects (couldn't have been the pain or maybe the pain medication). Internal bleeding was one of those effects, apparently. I knew I felt bad the next day but I had already decided I was just gonna be sickly for the rest of my life so I was tryin' to grow accustomed to feeling bad. But, three days later, I couldn't stand up without losing my vision and hearing and well, that scared me more than the pain ever hurt me.

Back to the ER we flew. I didn't even worry this time about whether or not they'd treat me...I knew if they didn't, I was a goner anyway and quite frankly, I just didn't care right then. Three units of blood, more starvation, one more time down the throat to have a look see, four more days in the hospital, two of those in ICU, lots of invasive routines that pretty much took care of every shred of modesty I ever had, seven IV attempts (3 of which were successful), and at least 10 blood draws from every possible source on my arms and hands and they released me for what I hope was the final time. Those people all took excellent care of me but if I never see any of them again, that'll be just fine. I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual.

And now...I STILL don't feel like a brand new person. Lies! All lies!! But, I AM alive and I'm pretty grateful for that. At least for today.

Roadkill Specials

2009-10-30T10:30:00.005-05:00

So, my mom-in-law got a new cookbook. I was browsin' thru it, lookin' for some interesting, EASY new concoctions when I came across these beauties.

(notice: it actually SAYS that potatoes absorb a good deal of the fat and improves the flavor. I been cookin' my potatoes ALL wrong...it's possum fat that's been missing!!)

("...until it bristles like a porcupine..."????????? WHAT? I'm thinkin' if what you're cookin' has bristles at ALL, it should be thrown out immediately. I been tricked into eating turtle before but those bristles...those would be a dead giveaway.)

Who knew??? Who knew that those roadkill tee shirts from back in the day were based on some real live hillbilly homecookin'???

Surgery?? Seriously?

2009-10-23T16:39:00.000-05:00

Seems like it's been a year since I blogged anything...or maybe it's just that a year's worth of crap has happened in what seems like such a short time. Dunno. What I DO know is that I'm gettin' old..and it's becoming more and more apparent every day!

I'm of that group of women who's motto has always been, "If you can still walk and the bone's not pokin' out, you're fine. Get on with your life." I'm that way with MYSELF, not with the kids or even Josh. Just me. I think that's what moms just do...put ourselves on the back burner for the sake of our families.....they always come first. "Mom" should be synonymous with "sacrifice". It's just what we do. Moms rock.

However, about a month ago, I sat straight up in bed at about midnite...it felt like someone had dropped a cinder block on my chest. NOT a good feeling. I sat there for a second, waiting on the pain to pass. It didn't. I thought, "Well, it's just the way I'm sittin'. I'll get up and move around and I'll be just fine." So, I got up quietly (PRIDE in the way of freakin' smooth out), walked into the living room and realized something was bad wrong. I couldn't breath and the pain wasn't showing the slightest sign of receding. Of course, your mind goes a million miles a minute and I was thinkin' about 30 different things every second or so. I was pretty sure I was havin' a heart attack.

Husband's have this intuition thing that kicks in...but never until the last moment, it seems. I turned around to go get Josh and he was just there. The panic must have been evident in my eyes cuz I instantly saw it reflected in his which just made me panic more, which made him panic more...it escalated in no time flat to a yelling match about the emergency room. I didn't put up much of a fight...I couldn't breathe for one and, second, I was sorta scared I might be dying. No bones, blood, or babies tryin' to come out but I was A-OK with going to the hospital, suddenly.

Of course, by the time we got to the ER 20 minutes later, I was better and refused to go in. :) Have I mentioned I have a slight fear of doctors and hospitals????? Anyway, I did go to the doctor the next day...TWICE because the attacks would not stop. They checked my heart and lungs and said everything looked good...that was that, the pain subsided and I didn't think a whole lot more about it beyond the scariness of the whole incident. Did some research and decided I probably had reflux or a hiatal hernia. I'm so good with the self-diagnosis thing, you see.

Then, last week, it happened again. Only this time it lasted four days. Of course, I didn't go the the hospital until the fourth day....the pain finally got bad enough. Seems pain, for me, is a way to break down my pride....sad that it takes really INTENSE pain tho! On the way to the doc's, I began to throw up..and throw up some more, and then....even some more. Good thing I hadn't eaten in 24 hours, wasn't much to come up. I was thinkin', "PIG FLU!". But the pain in my chest was SO bad. Child birth x 100, at least. I remember pleading with Josh, "You HAVE to make them help me...please don't let them send me away without helping me. If they do, you'll have to shoot me. I can't live like this."

After 8 hours at the clinic (with NO food), many tests and an ultrasound, they broke the news to me that my gallbladder had to be removed. Sounded like an old person's problem to me. I knew I HAD a gallbladder but never really stopped to think about how it functions and it NEVER occurred to me that this little organ could wreak such havoc in my life and make me think I was dying! But, whatever. The pain had subsided for the time being and I was hungry enough to eat the paint right off the walls so I know I heard the doctor say the word "surgery" but I just didn't really care right then. The doc told me low fat, no chocolate, no fried food and the lovely receptionist told me to report back on the 24th of November. I hit the door and then the drive thru at the nearest Micky D's. Was hard to NOT get fries but I gotta say, that dry salad may as well have been a cheesecake and it didn't last long!

I thought the 24th sounded a long way off...especially if that pain ever came back...I'd RATHER have died than go thru that again. But, I just shrugged it off and assumed that they knew more about this stuff than me and that surely, they must have known I would feel okay until then or they woulda' never let me go that long. Right? Wrong. So, so wrong. The next 2 days were more or less hell on earth and by Wednesday nite, we were, once again, en route to the ER.

I tried to be strong, really, I did. I can't explain how BAD this crap hurts...feels like your chest is exploding, like someone is blowing up a balloon that is crammed up under your rib cage. Hurts your chest, your ribs, your back...you name it, it HURTS. I thought a nice, hot bath might help. No. I didn't even get to rinse the conditioner outta my hair...I threw some clothes on and told Josh to get me somewhere, I was pretty sure something vital had ruptured. He flew 90 or so all the way to Poteau and about the time I hung my head out the window and began to puke, he floored it. We had a cop behind us, not sure for how long and even tho' it was OBVIOUS we were on our way to the ER, he ordered us to PULL OVER. After being told to SLOW DOWN (not in an "optional" kinda way either), we proceeded to drive the remainder of the 3 blocks to the hospital while the officer stayed behind us...closely. I guess just in case the Nascar driver and his gaggin' cohort decided to pull a fast one....

I felt pretty good after throwin' up all over the place but I decided that I better go in the ER after the whole cop car thing. A skinny little cop met me with a wheelchair which I did NOT want to sit in and I certainly didn't want him pushin' my fat butt up the hill and thru the doors. But there I was, in a wheelchair with a heaving little guy pushin' more than he bargained for, UP a dang hill. I couldn't imagine what I looked like but I knew I didn't smell too pretty but I figured I'd be alright once the nurse tucked me away in one of the rooms and no one could see me. Wrong again (there seems to be a pattern here). Some guy grabbed that wheelchair and pushed me right thru a waiting room full of people who looked at me like I was diseased. I was thinkin, "I must look really bad!". I was still thinkin' that he must be taking me to a ROOM with a DOOR. No. My little wheelchair ride came to an abrupt halt right in front of the billing clerk. The nerve!

The little billing clerk couldn't have been a day over 18 and when she looked at me, I could tell she didn't want to get any closer to me than absolutely necessary. I assured her it was OK, that I didn't have anything that was contagious, no swine flu. I was still in shock that I was sitting in front of a lot of people covered in puke! When the cops finished lecturing Josh on the dangers of speeding, I made him answer all the billing questions and I went to the bathroom to take a look at what everyone was starin' at. Good Lord..if I hadn't known it was a mirror I was looking into, I'd have been scared myself. I looked like I'd been in a bar room brawl: my hair was a frizzy disaster with left over greasy conditioner and bits of regurgitated red jello in it,I was also sporting a good deal of red jello on my shirt, AND my mascara had run all the way down about to my knees....I was a walking nightmare. When I walked back out, Josh handed me my newly printed hospital bracelet. I promptly slid it back across the clerk's desk and informed her I would be leaving, but thanks anyway. She didn't say anything...just stared some more.

The next day, I landed myself a prescription for some serious pain pills...life savers, is what they are and I got them to move my surgery up by three weeks. I will be having my first ever surgical experience on the 3rd of November @ 2:45. I'm a little nervous about being put under. Well, and then there's the fact that a piece of me is coming out...and then the horror stories I've heard from all the "gallbladder veterans" about what eating is like afterward...and then the prospect of the weight gain they all keep talking to me about....fun stuff.

Hopefully all goes well and that I'm pleasantly surprised by the whole experience. Hopefully.

Fried Bolgna and Bigfoot

2009-10-06T16:51:00.012-05:00

We took off Saturday afternoon on a hunt for the elusive Bigfoot of Honobia, OK (that's Ho-nubby in case you're wondering...I would be wondering). Okay, not really...we went and hung out at the Bigfoot Festival for the funnel cakes, fried ding dongs(Matthew's choice), fried oreos (my choice), and the cool craft booths. AND...I took some pictures cuz I know there are people out there who are thinkin', "WHAT? A festival in honor of something no one has ever seen? Seriously?" Seriously.

See? THAT is "Bigfoot, The Drawing". I made Tracker pose so the full effect of the size of these creatures would be apparent. I sure had high hopes for seein this thing in person so I could put my skeptical mind to rest. I left a skeptic, still, but a skeptic who was on a sugar and nacho cheese high, at least. Oh well, there's always next year I reckon. Oh! P.S. The fried oreos? Not so hot. Soggy, grease soaked, and MESSY. No more for me.

I toured the smallest post office in America:

Took about 20 seconds, tops!

I did get to sit and hold my brand new nephew for a good long while tho. Okay, not brand new, he's 3 weeks old and this week was the first time I'd seen him. Bad, BAD Aunt Krista. I love babies who smell like pink baby lotion...it reminds me of bein' 17 and thinkin' my newborn baby girl needed like, 6 baths a day. (Poor lil sparkling-clean thing.) Nacona is the new addition's name but Josh and Tracker keep callin him Casper... it has stuck. Ugh. I'd be offended if it was my kid. My sister-in-law has a better sense of humor than I. Their oldest son's name is Jaspur and when Jaspur came over to tell us about his new baby brother, he TOLD us his name was Casper (in his four year old mind, it rhymed therefore, it must be.) I thought, "SURELY not. Surely." Ya just never know anymore...shoulda' seen the looks I got over Tracker!! So, Nacona cured my baby longings for now. She changed that kid's diaper too many times in too small a time frame for me to NOT get it cured.

When we'd seen all of Bigfoot we cared to, listened to all the off-key singin' we could stand to, and ate more than we should have been able to, we headed back outta the mountains. We stopped by the only little store in town before we left and I couldn't resist takin' a picture of their sign.

Appropriate, I reckon. See the little bigfoot footprint border (try sayin THAT 10 times fast)????? Too funny. We advertise our tendency to be a little backward around these parts.

Hillbillies, bigfoot...what's next? Why, Fried Bologna (bolonie, if you will) sandwiches, of course. This little store/cafe was PACKED with out-of-towners wantin' fried bolonie on bread. I couldn't believe it and suppressed a giggle. Poor man's bacon, that's what I call it....and we ate it plenty when I was growin up. I wouldn't pay someone to make me one, that's for sure...heck, I wouldn' take one for FREE. Blech! I still remember what it smells like fryin and how ya had to slice it like a four leaf clover just so it'd lay down in the pan flat. But, hey...if the bigfoot researchers wanna try out the local Hillbilly specialty and pay $4.75 for it & a mini bag of Lay's...who am I to laugh? Least I'll know what pulls em in if I ever decide to open a cafe.

I looked thru the racks of tee shirts while I was in there, and then the bumper stickers..."I Brake For Bigfoot", the action figures (yes, seriously, Bigfoot dolls), hats, home decor, and decided that I couldn't leave without SOME sort of souvenier.

So, I got me a watermelon flavored, bigfoot sucker and hit the highway. I tried to take some pix of the awesome scenery as we were on the top of the mountain and then on the way back down but my cell phone takes really crappy pictures....really crappy. I did manage to get this shot:

We slowed down, just in case. Hey, better safe than sorry, that's my philosophy! Well, one of them anyway.

Ya win some, lose MORE & learn in the process!

2009-09-29T09:48:00.004-05:00

I'm exhausted today...or, from the mouth of the two year old Taylor, "I'm exsausage, Mom!" Gosh, I miss my kids bein' little, miss that little girl who would crawl up on the nearest table and dance anytime she saw fit. I know it'd take big bucks to get Matt to break it down to Back in Black these days, too...I'd pay it but somehow, I'm thinkin it won't be as cute @ 13 as it was @ 2... I still say so many things like they used to when they were learning to use "big words". Anytime Josh or I would run to the store, little voices would yell, "Bring me back a so-prize!!" So now I ask 'em, "Want me to bring you back a so-prize?", when I'm headed to town. They look at me like I've lost my mind and roll their eyes. Guess they're too grown up for all that now. What I wouldn't give to spend a week back then with them. But back then, all I could think was, "UGH! I'll be SOOOO glad when they're grown enough to take care of themselves!!". Careful what ya wish for, I reckon...it comes about too soon as it is.

Had my nephews last nite...I discovered how ill equipped I am at handling a two year old these days when Bronc is around....he wears me OUT! He decided that 4 am would be a good time to start a Spongebob Marathon this morning. He woke me up yellin, "Aunt Pitta....Bumbob???" Aw, why not? It IS four, afterall...what did I think I was gonna do? Sleep til like, what, six??? Sleep is sooo overrated, ya know. I'd bet a silver dollar that lil monkey is asleep right now and I will be fightin my eyelids all day! He's at the "parrot" stage...he mimics everything we say. I told Taylor to "knock it off", he told her to "NAW-TIT ON, Sissy!" Funny, but can be very bad too....all ya gotta do is mess up once and you'll get to fight for the next 6 months to wipe a four letter word from his little mind!! My little sister uses all sorts of choice phrases...and now, so does Bronc. But I remember many a tearful fit tryin to get Tracker to quit usin' the "F" word...he used it correctly too. I got lots of advice from everyone on how to stop him:

"You need to wash that kid's mouth out with soap!" I had to wrestle him down and sit on top of him but I did it...he'd cuss as he spit Dawn dish soap out all over the both of us.

"That boy needs his butt whipped!" Tried that too....it didn't work, he cussed and, besides, it made me feel like crap.

"You put him in the corner/time out long enough and he'll LEARN!" Wrong again, but nice try.

There really are kids out here in the real world who just will not fit the molds everyone thinks they ought to! I gave up tryin to scare him into submission and just hoped beyond hope he wouldn't give anyone a cussin' at church or in Walmart. When I quit makin' a big deal of it, of course, he quit. We took him to see The Santa Clause 3 at some point during this time and that Jack Frost character scared him a little. He climbed over into my lap, pointed at the screen, and yelled, "MOMMA! Tell that guy a bad word!!" :) He was gonna leave the cussin' to the grown up this time. It was a "proud momma" moment as me and the kids all died laughin' and several people turned around to stare at us.

Dadgum Okies!!

2009-09-24T10:23:00.033-05:00

YOU KNOW YOU’RE FROM OKLAHOMA IF…

* You know the address of Mathis Brothers

* You refer to the weather men by their first names

* You planned your wedding around a football schedule

* You call 30mph winds a light breeze

* You have voted on chicken fighting

* When you hear someone say Texas you immediately think “SUCKS”

* Someone you know graduated with a famous country singer

(Go-TEE-bo)!!!!!

* You can pronounce Gotebo

*You plan an additional 30 minutes for any road trip b/c of certain road construction

* You don’t think it’s odd to name airports after people who died in plane crashes

* You can’t name 3 NFL players, but you can name every player on the OU roster

* You’ve had to use both the heat & A/c on the same day

* You’ve asked someone what type of “Coke” do they want & they’ve replied “Dr. Pepper”

* You hear a tornado siren & run outside to look

* You use the word “fixin” when you are telling people what you are about to do (even if it doesn’t involve “fixing” anything)

* You say you hate Texas, but secretly hope they take OKLAHOMA with them if they ever leave the Union

* You don’t think it’s odd to name a college mascot after people who cheated

* Your local car commercials look more like amateur comedy acts

* You learned to shoot a gun before tying your shoes

* You don’t think it’s odd to have ammunition, movie rentals & fishing bait at the gas station

* You think a F250 4x4 is more of a status symbol than a BMW

* You have at least 5 friends who work in the oil & gas industry

* You only have to drive an hour to go on a hunting trip

* You spend 10 minutes at a 4-way stop b/c everyone keeps motioning for someone else to go first

* The word “bedlam” gets you excited

* Every time someone says “OK” you start thinking L-A-H-O-M-A….Oklahoma......OK!

Good ol' Oklahoma!!

Omnia Vincit Amor (Love Conquers All)!!!

2009-09-23T13:38:00.000-05:00

They Threw Off My Groove....

2009-09-18T13:06:00.006-05:00

First of all...its FRIDAY again...yay! I dunno why I love this day so much, I get out of bed easier, I'm in a better mood, I smile more, talk more...oh wait, I also get paid on this day. That may have something to do with it.

And then a phone call from the girl child comes in, just now, yes. Had my day all planned out, perfectly. But, it would seem that the first HOME football game has just been made an away game. Grrrr! Revamp the "Plan for Today". Instead of showing up by 7, she now has to be there at 4:30. Okay, this is all part of the motherhood contract..."You shall give up your life for the next 18 years and longer if deemed necessary. You shall make no plans that cannnot be altered or cancelled altogether at the last minute. Literally, the last minute." FYI: Social life and Motherhood do not work well together!!!! While you're at it, go ahead and fold your identity into your mom role. If at the end of raising all you have brought forth, there's a shred of "you" left....well, peachy! If not? Eh.

Another nifty surprise for today: Walked in the school to pick up Matthew early and was informed that I should make a stop by the superintendent's office on my way out. "Why?", I ask. Various replies shot up from all over the classroom. Apparently, EVERYONE in 7th and 8th grade knew why. I gathered enough info from the chorus of voices to know that this kid of mine was gonna wish he'd wasn't leaving early today. The Super is also the history teacher that Matt's always raving about, he LOVES this class. I was a little surprised to learn there was an "issue". But that's just it, he's a nice guy and lets these boys get away with pretty much anything. Matt mentality: "Steamroll him and push him as far as ya can." Of course! I was amazed at the grace this guy is extending to my son...he gave him an "Incomplete" instead of the C he deserves because a five minute assignment was 2 1/2 weeks late and is STILL not turned in! (Where was this teacher my junior year??) AND, he kept informing me what a "good boy" my kid was. Good meaning......???? I was not a happy camper, no siree. I'm still debating what the consequences of this should be. I mean, the guy sat there and told me that Matt has the potential to be valedictorian but he just won't apply himself. LAZINESS, a lack of follow through, that's what it is and it's drivin me nuts. We deal with this in all areas with Matt. HOW do you make someone give a dang? Arrrrgh!!

Geeze...all I was gonna do was get on here and blog about the crows I saw this morning. Really. :) Another day, I reckon, since it's about time for me and my little car to sprout our "Super-Overscheduled Mom" wings and fly to Kinta. "To infinity and beyond...and back again." LOL! Okay, that just prompted some scheming. I am definately gonna find me a superhero costume complete with cape, knee high boots, and some sort of glittery eye mask thing to show up to the next few school events in. I'll zoom around with my arms straight out in front of me instead of walking and puff out my chest alot. If the teenagers in my life won't willingly acknowledge and appreciate the hoops I jump thru for them...I'll embarass them mercilessly!

Sticks & stones may break bones, but words can destroy you.

2009-09-17T11:23:00.007-05:00

I stay so flippin' busy anymore that I can't believe there are people who have so much time on their hands that they have to dream up things to make the day interesting. People always tell you when you're growing up that all this gossiping, juvenile crap that goes on in junior high and high school ends there, that it's "not like this out in the real world". We're somehow led to believe that our diplomas double as magic wands that suddenly make everyone into adults and open our eyes to the fact that not one of us is any better than anyone else (gasp!) and VOILA! We all live in perfect harmony as soon as we flip that tassel to the other side of our heads. Nearly two decades later, I'm no longer shocked speechless to find that people "out here" are no different than they were back then. But every once in awhile, the shamelessness of it all does catch me by surprise.

I've watched a family be shredded in the last two days by the thoughtless, idle words that some bored and jobless idiot strung together to have something interesting to tell her equally pathetic cohorts over coffee and cigarettes. They remind me of vultures. They circle constantly, looking for signs of weakness in any breathing creature, zeroing in on the easiest targets; those who've got more than enough to deal with and can't fight off an attack. They begin to swoop in, taking pecks here and there, hoping to cause enough pain and exhaustion to bring the prey to its knees. Maybe they'll retreat for as long as it takes for their victim to regain a little hope of survival, maybe not. Disgusting, despicable, carcass-eating, busybodies. They spend so much time in the company of only each other, they grow immune to the stench they emit. Or, perhaps, it's the entire community that stinks, therefore, it's familiar and actually quite comfortable to thrive in the putridness of it all.

I think of ways I've contributed to the pain of others by runnin' my mouth and I'm sorry in more ways than I could ever express. Being the target of it more than a few times will break you right out of wanting to have any part in it. Thankfully, I've developed an intolerance for the maliciousness of it all. In reality, no one is actually dying on account of careless words, but it's bringing about death, nonetheless. Death of trust, death of relationship, death of a marriage, death of family, death of a business ruined by a tainted reputation...death of sanity, it would seem, for the one most affected. We can all sit back and say, "Oh, no one listens to all that stuff anyway.", but the truth is, people ARE listening. They're taking it in, adding in their own twisted perceptions of the situation, and spitting it back out to the next willing listener. If only I hadda dollar for every time I encountered the, "OH! Have I got somethin' to tell YOU...you're never gonna believe this..." intro to conversation. It's the drug of choice in Small Town, America. I got countless other addictions to occupy my mind and time.

Gossip is as much empowered by the listener as by the one speaking it, but it finds its highest glory in the response of the one it's attempting to destroy. It's a fight to get it shut down in a place where nothing makes anyone happier than the misery of another. What I want to do is climb up on a table in the middle of them all, interrupt their gabfest, and really give em somethin' to talk about, let 'em all know what havoc they're wreaking on these poor people. I'm gettin' a good lesson on the destruction that words can bring about. I hope I don't forget it.

chatter boxes die of an empty heart

fools openly spread slander

the blabber of the wicked is worthless

a foul mouth is a stagnant swamp

the words of the wicked pollute the air

"If it's too loud, you're too old"...I somehow got OLD!

2009-09-14T10:43:00.005-05:00

Monday, monday, it's here to stay. This song is always in my head on Monday mornings...guess the Mama's & the Papa's musta felt the same way about Mondays as the rest of us...only they thought to write a song that spent a lotta time at the top of the charts. I'd imagine they didn't mind Monday's so much after that!

Had a pretty wild weekend...feels that way today anyway. Had another late nite Friday waiting on Taylor to get home from the game. She's 14 and not gettin home til after 2 am. Almost sounds familiar. 'Bout had to surgically remove my head from the pillow bright and early Saturday morning. Finally got the troops organized and out the door an hour later than I was supposed to. We spent the rest of the day at Rock the River with friends. It was fun, despite the rain that just wouldn't quit. Thank goodness the stadium was covered. It was nice to see such a good turnout for the benefit. Amanda won fifty bucks in a drawing...appropriate, I thought, since it was her birthday. I've gotten used to never winning a thing yet I always fill out the little slips anyway. Must still have some hope somewhere in here!

Hannah House is a pregnancy crisis center in Fort Smith. They do such an awesome work in this area, helping teen moms and moms-to-be get their feet back under them and givin' em hope for a future again. I loved hearing the girls stand and tell their stories of how the center had changed their lives and empowered them to offer a life for their children. I gotta soft spot for teen moms havin' been there myself. I remember how scary it is when you feel like ya got nowhere to turn. Absolutely a needed ministry and it was a awesome to see 14 bands show up to lend their talents in support of it. All of the bands were comprised of men. I thought that spoke volumes about the heart they have for these young women. Local bands took the stage for the early afternoon, then Every Day Sunday took over and kids came out of the woodwork! By the time Thousand Foot Krutch played, it was nearly packed. Of course, I spent the entire day waiting on Seventh Day Slumber to play.... was well worth it but it's always over too soon!!

I did discover that metal bands playin' in an all steel stadium makes for a rough time on the ears tho. We figured out pretty quick that if you wanted to make out the words, you had to plug your ears! Or go get real up close and personal with all the teeny boppers in the pit. Whichever. I only lasted thru SDS in the pit tho...rough crowd! My ten year old nephew was nearly crowd surfed when he tried to get on a friends' shoulders for a better view. Scared him half to death...thank goodness security was doing their job!!! I still get tickled thinkin about what his face must have looked like when he realized he was about to be bounced around like a volleyball!!! Or what Taylor's must have looked like when she realized she couldn't get to him fast enough! Or what they all looked like when that big uniformed man drug him down and gave em all the "what for" with his big flashlite shinin' in their faces!! Funny stuff.

I sat up top and watched big ol' kids being thrown around down there...I can't imagine what would have happened to poor little Bryar! Taylor made it out unscathed and Matthew only suffered minor injuries for his time spent with the extremely physical moshing part of the crowd. I can't understand why anyone would want to have a part in that crap. I made the mistake of attending a very loud, very hardcore metal concert back a while back with the kids and my very pregnant (at the time) friend, Amanda. Who knew we wouldn't hear for 2 days???

Anyway, before I had this whole thing figured out, I was determined to stand front and slightly right of center so that I wouldn't miss seeing or hearing anything. The first couple of bands weren't so bad...not that they were so good, either, but I can handle some head bangin and jumpin around. Although, the kids were standing so close to one another, I don't see how they weren't crackin their heads together when they were slingin' their hair back and forth. I'm thinkin you need at least 4 feet of personal space...on ALL sides, if you're the head banging sort, maybe more if you got a lotta hair. I spent more time making sure the guy behind me wasn't gonna take me out with blunt force trauma to the head than I did watching the show. But, that was only beginning...then the real bands began to take stage and the exciting stuff began...more like, the aerobics began really. I'm just standin' there, arms crossed, wondering what in the world I was doing there and considering the impact deafness was gonna have on my life when the lead singer spit...and I mean SPIT (more than just saliva, ok?) right out onto the crowd. I'm sure my mouth dropped wide open. I was positively disgusted but others seemed to think it was the best thing that had happened all night and went ballistic! Mr. Headbanger next to me was no longer banging in a back and forth motion. Oh no, it was back and forth, side to side, round and round...and all the sweat from his lovely locks was flying all over me. I'd decided I'd had enough about the time the moshing began and he slammed into me and I slammed into Paula on the other side of me. I got the whole "WHAT are you doing" look from her. I just pointed. I was less than impressed with the whole experience and if Disciple hadn't played "After the World", I would have started a full-scale riot. If I'm gonna put in two and a half hours of time, give up a good portion of my hearing, and be sweat on, spit on, and slammed around, I want to hear the 4 minutes of music I came for, dangit.

Friday Nite Wipeout

2009-09-09T10:01:00.003-05:00

Amanda took Tracker home with her after the game...he couldn't WAIT to spend the nite with Luke & Aaron. I'm thinkin' not a whole lot of playin' went on.... lol!!!! Too cute.

It's Tuesday in name but Monday in nature....

2009-09-08T13:39:00.003-05:00

Ugh...this Tuesday has been worse than a Monday. Well, actually, it all began on a Monday...it's simply carrying over into my Tuesday. Not fair. I did enjoy my Labor Day weekend, though. Went and watched the Poteau football team hand Spiro their butts on Friday nite. Was an awesome night for football, perfect fall weather despite the sudden cloud burst that drenched us all. Baby Noah and I hid out under a backpack for cover. Tried to keep my hair dry...it fuzzed up like a Cheetoh Puff anyhow. Ch-ch-ch-Chia! My favorite freshman didn't get to play, but he did look official all suited up in his brand new Pirate attire. Couldn't be prouder if he was mine. Hit Walmart afterward, thinkin' at 10:30 pm, it would be pretty empty and I could get in and out really quick. Well, everyone else must have had the same idea...it was packed. I survived, but barely.

Taylor cheered at her first football game on Friday nite as well. The boys played in Peru, Oklahoma...who knew there even WAS such a place? Not I. I'm actually wondering if there IS such a place. After googling it, I'm convinced it's either so tiny it's more like a pothole or... it's in Kansas. That's the only Peru I can find. Whatever. I knew it was far enough away that I wasn't driving it. I picked her up about 2:30 Saturday morning...she was wiped out! Next game is supposed to be a home game. Her dad and I can't wait to terrorize her from the stands....too much fun! Can't believe I forgot to get a picture of her in that skirt...guess it's the shock of all of it. You'd never convinced me a month ago that my girl child would be cheering...ever. In fact, when she told me she was gonna try out, I laughed....out loud. Made her mad too. I'm recovering but we're still trying to convince Josh that those blue bloomer things are NOT the same thing as underwear. Taylor and I decided that it's really to our disadvantage that he didn't have any sisters.

Josh and I headed out early Saturday morning in pursuit of some bear watching. We found tracks, but no bear. Frankly, I was relieved. Josh can run quite a bit faster than I can...survival of the fittest. I'm never the fittest. Was an enjoyable walk in the woods...all except for the snake and the disgusting porn magazine that someone had decided to leave behind, a loooong time ago from the looks of it. Josh and I had a heated discussion over his decision to NOT remove the smut the first time he saw it lying there. His thinkin was, he didn't put it there, he wasn't touchin' it. I made my thoughts really clear to him quite quickly as I wadded the nasty thing up and carried it out: "If you KNOW your wife and kids may very well walk past this crap, get it the heck OUT of here!". Maybe I used a few more words, but you get the gist of it.

He and I had the house to ourselves Saturday nite. He fell asleep 15 minutes into the movie we'd rented, then woke up 20 minutes before it ended and questioned me 1000 times, "What happened? What's goin' on? What did I miss?". Grrrr!!

We headed out to the Choctaw Festival on Sunday afternoon for some great music and good food. We weren't even hungry until we smelled it all...I just can't walk pass the funnel cake stands and NOT buy one. Then we found these nifty, little twisted, fried potatoe things that you could get BBQ brisket & cheese on top of...we got a double order. The two or three bites I got were good....Josh took those over, I only looked away for a second too. It's just a good thing that all the food stands were up a hill, a steep one, from where we were sittin'....saved me from ruin!

The kids rode the carnival rides until they ran 'em all out at about 12:30. I totally enjoyed the people watching while we were waiting around. Some situations are just too predictable to be any fun tho. We were laughin' our heads off at a song that was blarin' ..."Do the Stanky Leg", wonderin' what on earth such a dance might look like. Then, it happened. Two girls started doing the dance right then and there. I elbowed Josh and nodded in that direction so he, for sure ,wouldn't miss the show. Body parts were threatening to fly out at various locations from low, really low, necklines and all the jiggling that was going on. We fought the urge to just openly stare with our mouths hanging open. Sad, really....these two girls were so desperate for some attention. I knew in that environment, it wouldn't be long before they got what they were lookin' for. The carny boy runnin' the ride my kids were on couldn't get the ride stopped and the kids unloaded fast enough! I just love it when a boy has a girl to show off for...I was amused at the acrobatic moves he was suddenly capable of. Watching him creatively dump all those kids was almost as much fun as watchin' the stripper-esque dance moves the girls had goin' on. Josh and I whispered bets about how long it'd take the carny boy to holler at the more daring of the two girls. I hoped it was fast cuz I was afraid she was fixin' to start tossin' clothes! We drug our feet walkin away, hangin back behind everyone. I'd say it took maybe 15 seconds flat before they were up in each other's faces. After I'd gotten over the satisfaction of correctly predicting the ending, I started the whole, "Just where is that girl's momma anyhow?" bit. Probably the same place MY momma was when I was her age.... :)

Taylor gained some ground with her dad on Sunday whether she knows it or not. He's always on her butt about her clothes, "That's too low!", "Those are too short!", "Get that off!", "You're NOT goin' out lookin' like that!". I try to hold a neutral position...if he's right, I say so. If she's right, I say so. Their personalities are so alike that they clash, constantly. It's exhausting, refereeing it all. She's the only teenage girl he's been around since he was a teenager and since he WAS a teenage boy back then, tank tops and daisy dukes were pretty cool!! Not so much now. I've always thought Taylor exercises some class when choosing her clothing but he flips out almost daily. I often tell him she is gonna hate him before it's all said and done. Sunday was good for him...he was very quiet for a long time after we got settled in at the concert. Finally, he looks at me and says, "I can't believe what some of these girls are wearing!". I couldn't resist, "Yeah, you should be thankful you have a daughter who dresses normally and quit gripin' so much!" Then he said, "ABnormal, from the looks of things." He truly was in shock....poor little, sheltered man. Wish I had taken some pictures of a couple of the outfits we saw...or even the dancing girls. That way, when he starts up again, I could just whip 'em out and shut him UP!!

"So when you get the chance...are ya gonna take it?"

2009-09-02T12:18:00.010-05:00

On the drive to work yesterday, I was thinking about the day that was ahead of me and wondering what just might be in store for me. I do this alot, not exactly sure why. I never get as far in processing as to actually go thru possible scenarios...just a broad sense of "I wonder" goes thru my head. The way I got it figured, if I made it to another sunrise, I should make the day count. I try to keep my eyes open for opportunities to just make a difference in someone's life... if only in a minuscule way.

I love people, I really do. I'm a people watcher (no, that's NOT the same thing as a stalker!). I just notice things....what people wear, the things they say, their expressions. Women are especially fascinating. We all have our own sense of style from the clothes we put together, to the way we accessorize ourselves, the shoes we choose, the hair we wear, the way we talk, walk, write, and laugh. Some of us are very thoughtful in the way we put ourselves together, meticulous and polished, while others of us seem to be able to throw it all together and be just as fabulous. Amazing creations is what we are.

A few years back, I attended a women's conference in OKC. Beth Moore was the speaker so, of course, the women of Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and more turned out in full force! Before the lights were dimmed, I happened to take a look around the arena. I had to appreciate the view: about 15,000 seats, from floor to ceiling, and in a complete 360 degrees was nothing but women and girls. All ages, races, and every shape and size was represented in that place. Every color I've ever seen was displayed in the clothes we were all wearing. Then, as the conference ended for the night and everyone was leaving, (and me, being the people watcher I am) I couldn't resist turning around when I got down to the lobby just to take a look. It was a literal sea of women, streaming down the escalators, into the lobby, and out the door, very fluid and smooth and calm. Not loud or rude or pushy, no visible irritation at the time it was taking to get out the door. Not at all like what you see if you're brave enough to hit the "day after Thanksgiving" sale at Walmart!! It was a beautiful sight.

Dunno what point I was trying to make with all that but what I mean to get across is that, I'm an observer. In all my travels, this trait has brought some awesome opportunities my way: to help people out and hopefully, to have made a difference in the lives of others. My life has been full of "down & out" moments but there has never failed to be a "someone" who just "happens" to come along and help me get on my feet and back on track. I figure it's my duty, for sure, to step up when I can but mostly, I just want to.

However (there's always one of those, isn't there?), there are times when I'd just really rather not. Yesterday brought about one of these times. I looked up to see a face I just didn't rightly care to engage with walkin into my office. It's not that I even know the woman all that well, can probably count on one hand the words we've exchanged. I do know OF her tho and that I got firsthand. She started a really horrible and completely untrue rumor about me when I was a senior. I was all of 17 at the time and she was close to 40. Why any grown woman would want to terrorize a teenager is beyond my scope of comprehension now, I sure couldn't understand it back then. But, whatever...it happened, broke my heart, but also defined what true friendship was. Those few (very few) who were my friends stood beside me and all the impostors were exposed. Maybe I should be grateful but it still sucked. So much, that I don't want to even go into it now for fear that I will hate her guts again. Blech.

Back to yesterday...I'm face to face with her, there's no one here but me so I'm knowin' I gotta, but screamin' inside, "I don't wanna!". Funny how life brings you such situations. I'm to a point in life that, if I'm not happy to see you, I'm not gonna fall all over myself pretending to be thrilled and makin' small talk. "Can I help you?", was the best I could do. She needed her propane cylinders refilled and when I'm the only one around...guess who gets the privilege? Right. So, while I'm wrestling the bottles outta the back of her truck, I'm wrestling with myself in my mind and I began to have a conversation in my mind. I went back and forth and over and under the completely snotty way I was behaving toward her and the fact that I felt quite justified in it. I tend to retreat behind some reinforced walls when I've been hurt by someone. It's quite obvious too: I avoid eye contact, speak quietly and only when necessary, answer in one-syllable words when asked questions and do it all with just enough attitude to let the person know that it's not because I'm shy. It's a shameful display and I executed it shamelessly.

And then, I looked at her face. I mean, really looked at her face, and what I saw kinda hurt my heart. I saw a woman who's life is catching up with her and time hasn't been kind to. Someone who hasn't got a real friend in the world, and deep down, she knows it. Suddenly, I felt like a toad. A really ugly, slimy, heartless, wart covered toad. Ugh! WHY do I have to have a conscience? How come I hafta care about people...especially those who have gossip-filled mouths that hurt other people??? Dangit.

So, I swallowed my self-righteous, high and mighty, "right to treat you like dirt because you started it" pride parade and asked her how she's been. Those first few words were hard, but it got easier. She immediately went into telling me things about people I had no business knowing (true to form..lol!) but I was able to shut that down peacefully and steer the conversation elsewhere. She opened up and told me some of the hardship going on in her life and I truly had compassion for her. (wow'd even me) She stayed for quite awhile...I think sometimes we just need to be heard by someone and when you stumble upon a willing listener, well, it just all kinda comes flyin' out. I saw her in a different light. Not as the malicious, rumor spreadin', trouble maker I'd always labeled her, but just as a person who is insecure about the mistakes her past holds and desperate to cover them up anyway possible, even if it hurts another. And a woman with a heavy load to carry, no one to help her with it, and no one even to just lean on sometimes.

It was a pretty humbling experience for me. Just served to prove that all the junk that I'm seeing in a person is just really the outward symptom of something that's really wrong on the inside. Maybe I shouldn't decide who someone is based on my first encounter with them...maybe it's the second or third time around that you really get to the heart of someone. I think that all of us, given the opportunity of a second chance, really want to do better the second time. I still had a choice to make about her tho. And I decided I have been given too many chances to deny another theirs.

So far, so good...

2009-08-31T13:58:00.003-05:00

Well, I made it to and thru my 32nd birthday! It was a great day filled with greetings from just about everywhere...California, Colorado, Alabama, Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, the good ol' Sooner State too... I'm a blessed person, indeed to have so many great people around! Makes getting older more tolerable for sure!

The weekend flew like they all do. Josh & I went for breakfast Saturday morning while the kiddos slept in. We sometimes forget what adult conversation with out any "MOM!" or "Hey, Dad" intrusions is like. We waited too long for some not so great food but I really liked just hangin' out with him.

I had a great time with some of the girls on Saturday nite. We're all so busy livin' our lives that we never get to hang out anymore, maybe once or twice a year so I really enjoyed it. The time went by sooooo fast tho! Before I knew it, it was 3:30 in the morning...I got home around 4. I drug myself outta bed about 8:30 yesterday morning and could tell that I really am 32 years old. There's a major difference in how my brain and body handle late nites now as compared to ten years ago!! Felt like someone had thrown a good handful of sand in my eyes and I couldn't seem to find any gear but really, really slow. But, by 9 o' clock last nite, I'd gotten my second wind and couldn't sleep. Bizarre. So, I watched 17 Again instead. Cute movie but not one I'd watch twice.

The weather is just perfect. This time of year makes me miss livin in Nebraska. Even on summer nites, you could get away with wearin' a sweatshirt and a pair of jean shorts....my favorite outfit of all time. Just wish flip flops had been cool back then! They were still called 'thongs' back then, came in black and brown only,they were ugly, cheap, and I'da been laughed right outta town. I still can't get my mother to stop callin' flip flops THONGS!! Ugh...that song ruined that word forever. I love the fact that I can have a pair to match any shirt I own and not go broke buyin' em. Now, if they'd just price Converse comparably, I'd be a happy girl.

Not holdin' my breath...but for now, I'm just thrilled that it feels like FALL outside!! I'm ready to go for a drive and check out the red, orange, and gold trees and decorate my front porch with pumpkins again....to fill up the house with cinnamon and patchouli smells...to build a fire (ok, that one gets old quick)....and to make chili and cornbread again. I LOVE this time of year...wish it lasted longer.

My husband always disappears this time of year...into the woods he goes. Sometimes I see him....but mostly, just evidence OF him. They're opening a bear season down here this year...there are black bears EVERYWHERE right now. He has tons of pictures of one he's found...pretty big for a black bear. Josh turns into a little kid again when he sees the darn thing! He's watched him for too long, don't think he'll go thru with the hunt. We'll see... They really are becoming a nuisance for some folks around these parts tho...and they're gettin really friendly with some houses. Inviting themselves in and everything.

I could never shoot a bear. I think they're just pretty darn awesome...I love to look at them. When I lived in Colorado, they were everywhere. There was a momma and two cubs that used to come right down behind our house and dig in the dumpster. They brought out the crowds for sure...but we all maintained a healthy distance. The little fat, furry babies would climb up the trees and wait to see what their mom was gonna dig out for 'em. Adorable.

I had the priveledge of holding a little cub not long ago. I was in love the minute I saw him....I'm completely senseless when it comes to baby anythings :)!! I wanted one sooooo bad....but what the heck do you do when it becomes a 400 pound bear??? Better leave the bear raisin' to the experts before someone gets eaten.

I've been a fake...

2009-08-27T16:05:00.003-05:00

I was driving home last nite listening to Matthew & Taylor tell me about their day @ school. I always have the radio on and last nite it was turned down kinda low, could barely hear it. But I'm drivin along, half listening to the kids, half lost in my own thoughts and I realized I was singin along to this song but didn't really recognize what I was singing. So I started payin' attention to the words that I somehow KNEW, but didn't know, if that makes any sense. By the second line in the chorus I was just nearly broken, and it was fixin' to run out my eyes but I didn't want to freak the teenagers smooth out. I listened to the rest of the song trying to keep my face hidden with my hair (my signature sign that I don't want to talk about it!).

It's funny how words alone just never seem to do justice to what I'm feeling inside, yet, set to music, those same words will cause me to stare in awe at my stereo thinkin, "How could they have known what's trapped in here?". I think it gives me an avenue for expressing what I don't really know how to get out of me. Dunno if that makes sense to anyone else, but it's absolutely crystal clear to me.

For every season of my life, every trial, every troubled time, it seems that eventually, I happen upon a song that speaks deeply to me. It's been this way thru out my life for as far back as I can remember. That was this song for the season Josh and I have been in.

I used to think that my marriage had to be "perfect", at least on the outside. I worked hard to make sure that no one saw how much we struggled just to hold it together, how hard it was, most days, for us to even be nice to each other. I hid things from myself,even, refusing to look at the huge mess my relationship with Josh was. "I'm rejecting this reality and substituting my own" became my life status. Denial is only good until you can no longer buy it. Neither of us was happy and we were sick to death of fakin' it for everyone else. So began the marital revolution... The big 'D' word was thrown back and forth with many obscenities to decorate it. We both threatened to file and dared the other to do it first. Yet, at the end of the day, when all was quiet, and our tempers had left us exhausted, neither one of us wanted to be apart. More than any ounce of dignity & justice we feel we're entitled to, we made a promise we want to honor and we truly do love each other. So, we made an agreement to try harder then we'd ever before and there is where the uphill climb really began.

I'm not gonna' lie, it's been hell. There were too many times when we both knew it would be so much easier to throw in the towel and move on. It's so tempting at times to resort to the old patterns and start the mud slingin' fest all over again. I just keep tellin' myself that all that mud and hate hasn't fixed anything in almost 14 years, why not try something new? It's been the toughest battle I've ever fought. I think Josh would agree and we both know it's not over yet.

In these times that are so often dismal from the inside looking out, I appreciate a glimmer of hope when one comes my way. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick..." (Prov. 13:12a) My heart has been feelin' a little under the weather lately and it did my mind and heart some good to hear this song. Lets me know that we aren't the only ones who feel like we could fill an ocean with all the heartache we've been thru' and that there really is light at the end of this tunnel.

"If love is an ocean wide, we'll swim in the tears we've cried. They'll see us thru to the other side. We're gonna make it!"

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life."

All the Small Things...

2009-08-27T09:23:00.003-05:00

A bottle of Dasani, spearmint Lifesavers, and the smell of Scentsy....life is good this morning. It's all the little things that make it all worthwhile!! Facebook, however, is bein' a royal pain....not cooperating with me. AND, I'm still itchy and it's gettin' worse.

The excitement and newness of the whole "back to school" routine is wearing off and the crankiness is settin' in. Tracker found a list of excuses as long as his arm for why he couldn't take a bath last nite before bed :). Amusing to hear all the reasonings of a six year old boy who has an aversion to water when soap and shampoo is involved. I've never known a kid like him. If he'd been the first, he'd a been the last!! I love him to pieces, but he wears me OUT..mentally as well as physically. So, we "agreed" that he'd hit the tub first thing this morning. He stumbled from the bed to the bathroom mumbling about nothin' bein' fair and not gettin a "good sleep". I'm not sure he ever opened his eyes at all. I saw that he was in and I was off to flip pancakes. When I went in to check, he was sound asleep in his bubbles. So, in true big sister fashion, Taylor ran to get the camera. He'll be furious when he sees the picture! Oh well, too late!!!

Tomorrow's FRIDAY...yay!! I'm ready for it...beyond ready. And! I grab another gear tomorrow as well...I'll be 32. Wow...that sounds so old! I don't feel old. And the saying is, "I think, therefore I am, right?? Well, I think I'm still 25 so... I must be! (and I wonder where Tracker gets his reasoning skills...hmmm.)

Mr. Hyde???? Noooo, that's my MOM!!

2009-08-20T10:38:00.006-05:00

Why is it that being a parent seems to simultaneously, at times, bring out both the best and the worst of you? It's true, I believe, that you never really understand what love is until you hold your child[ren] for the first time. You would give all you are, all you have, and all you ever hope to be for them and never give it a second thought. They teach us what self-less love really is simply because they exist. They become our "center". We do our best to teach them about life (hopefully as much as they teach us), correct them when they get it wrong, try to model how to do it right, encourage them to chase their hopes and dreams, and protect them with every ounce of strength we have. And then.... they start school.

I don't like bullies. No, it would be an understatement to say that I really, really, really, supremely HATE it when people push other people around simply becuz they're bigger, louder, meaner, RUDER...all that junk. Could be cuz I was the object of many a bully's attention in grade school. Yeah, that's definitely why I have such an intolerance for it. It's amazing how those memories stick with ya...I may have forgotten what I got for Christmas when I was 8, but I can describe to you, in great detail, the snotty brat that was jackin' with me at that time.

So, I have talked to my little maggots about never, EVER being mean or teasing or pickin' on other kids since they started daycare and could understand the words that were comin' out of my mouth. I just ASSUMED all parents had this talk with their children, that we all, now that we're adults, understand that this behavior is wrong and that it scars people! WRONG! I was wrong, very wrong.

I don't consider myself to be of a volatile nature. I'm not mean or violent, not prone to regular fits of rage, not an unruly sort. I'm easy to get along with, I'm a happy camper, dangit. BUT! I've discovered that I can go from "happy-go-lucky" to anyone's worst nightmare in about two seconds flat when it's my kids that are bein' jacked with. I'm pretty sure my eyes glow red and my hair stands on end too. It happens so fast, I've scared myself a few times.... my poor, poor kiddos... :) I morph with pretty much no warning.

I'm not proud of it, either. Not proud of the fact that, last week, I told my six year old to "knock his d#$%! teeth out the next time he even DARES to push you!". Not proud that the whole thing made me so mad my face was blazin' red, I was screamin' & hollerin' about what I'd like to do to that kid's parents for not raisin' him better, and I'm pretty sure you could have heard my heart beat from five yards. Not proud that it took me a good 15 minutes to regain my composure.

It all ended well, thankfully. Only by the grace of God, I reckon, have I raised balanced children who handle opposition far more gracefully than their mother manages to. Tracker finally had to get physical, but once he did, it was all over with. And he did it all so calmly...its amazing the things that I learn from my kids! It's just hard for a momma to step aside and let her little ones learn that the world is FULL of people who are just dead set on causin' someone trouble and even harder to not just step right IN and handle it for them. Yeah, I got no problem takin' on a 1st grader! (Nah...I surely hope I have more of a grip on sanity than that!!!) One of these days I will learn to keep my mouth shut until they COME to me for help.....maybe.

"I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell"

2009-08-19T10:35:00.001-05:00

Ah, Wednesday. Means 5 o'clock, Friday is almost in sight. Good thing too, I'm wore smoooooth OUT. Ready for a couple days out of this confinement I call a schedule. Good gosh, is a mom's work ever done?? All this risin' and shinin' at 5:30 in the morning (okay, 6:10, usually) and not hittin' the bed again until 11 or later is catchin up with this momma. But how else do you get it all done in a day?

To make matters more tiring, I have been waking up around 3 every morning itchy. I mean ITCHY. My arms and legs, mostly. I could seriously scratch until there is no skin left. Annoying, to say the least and enough to drive a sleep deprived woman over the edge. No itchiness during the day...only in the middle of the night. Grrr. So, I googled my problem yesterday and found a variety of possibilities...none of which were very comforting. The things that sleep with us and are beyond our scope of vision....ugh, I shudder now just thinking about the pictures I saw. Little skin chewing, repulsive creatures that I didn't know really existed. "Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite." What a cute, sweet, fairy-tale type saying. Never imagined it was a reality. Until yesterday, that is. Google it, I dare you but prepare yourself for the horror of what you'll find....

Now, rationally, I know that since all this itching only began a couple of weeks ago it has to be more than a sudden invasion of a bed bug infantry. According to the information I gathered about them, we've all (meaning you too!) been good n cozy with them all our lives. I change the sheets on my bed quite often, flip and rotate the mattress as directed even. These routines may help but will not altogether stop the bugs from prowlin' around in your bed. They're after blood, not your dirty sheets. Ugh! This newly acquired knowledge, however, did NOT stop me from ripping every shred of linen off the beds when I got home yesterday and hot water-lysol-bleaching every thread like a tweakin' crack fiend and then runnin' em thru' the dryer on the hottest setting even long after they were dry. (FRY, ya little nasty things, fry!) Didn't stop me from lysol-bleaching the mattresses and box springs either. Oh, and the pillows and even the curtains ( just to be on the safe side) got a good dousing too. So, we most definitely slept sanitarily if not chemically intoxicated last nite. Gas masks for everyone!! When I'm on a roll, it's hard to stop me. (P.S. I didn't find even ONE of these allegedly common critters during my deep cleaning spree but I felt better, nonetheless.)

I did not wake up itchy at 3...yay! But seriously...I know this is not the source. I'm the only one being affected and it makes no sense that bed bugs would be choosy about whom they wish to devour or that they would suddenly, after years and years of residing with me, find my skin so appealing.

So, I wonder....can one suddenly become allergic to soaps, shampoos, detergents, softeners? I've used the same ones for years, doesn't add up. But I did change detergent about a week ago, just to be sure. No cigar, the itching continued.

Next ponder: could I be having an abrupt change in my hormonal balances which could be causing my skin to crawl?? I'm sure my hormones change on a daily basis, considering my mood swings, but since some mornings I awake to very small, red, rash like marks on my skin, I'm thinkin' that's not it either.

"Is it stress related?", I've asked myself. For pete's sake, my life has certainly been more stressful than it is now so how can that be? "Am I losing my ever-lovin' mind?", I have even wondered. Especially after my adventures last night...can you say obsessive compulsive disorder five times, fast??

I'm at a loss, an absolute loss. I am grateful for my almost uninterrupted night of sleep tho'. I shall continue on, hopeful that if the culprit was some sort of chewing organism, it was blasted off the face of the earth by the spray bottles of chemicals that are my arsenal.

Driving Under the Influence of.....Texting

2009-08-18T10:10:00.000-05:00

I feel utterly lost without a device I'd never even heard of 15 years ago.... freakin' cell phones!! I may lock my keys in my car every now and then, may even make it all the way to the check out at walmart without my wallet, but you can bet I will have my cell phone in my hand. It's as much a pain in the butt as it is convenient.

I find it funny that it doesn't bother me one bit to ignore an actual call if I'm tied up and can't get to it, but a text hits that inbox and it'll drive me crazy until I can reply. Dunno if I'd go as extreme as the little diagram above, however, and talk2text just doesn't hold the same appeal to me. I like the typing part of text messaging! Besides, I'm not too sure how a computer would translate half the words I use...no tellin what it'd look like I said. My husband despises text messaging with a passion. He'll have no part of it and if ever left alone with my phone, I suspect he'd rip every button with a letter on it off.

I'm trying desperately to break my really, REALLY horrible habit of texting while driving. I know, I know...its so dangerous and not just to me and my carload either. It took someone almost plowin' ME over last week to convince me tho'.

I wasn't even texting, had looked down to skip ahead on my Lecrae CD (awesome tunes, btw). When I focused again on the road...well, what I shoulda' seen was the road, what I saw instead was a set of headlights, flashing hazards, and a FORD emblem headed straight for me. But I was still on my side of the yellow lines! It's amazing how many things can go thru your mind in a split second. I was confused initially...I'm used to seeing tailights ahead, not headlights! It was a "whoa. Now, wait just a second here..." moment. An 8th of a moment? Cuz then I looked to my left and realized the other lane was full of traffic and that this maniac had no where to go even if he/she suddenly became aware that they were in the WRONG FREAKIN' LANE and were fixin' to, at the very least, severly mangle some cars, mine bein 1st in line. (I never saw a face but I'm gonna go with my gut & say this person was of the male gender.) So, as I glanced to the left I immediately thought, "No hope he's goin' that way", and steered right and onto the shoulder hopin' he didn't decide to try to go around me on my side of the road when he realized there was no getting back over. In that second, I also remember thinking, "Oh! I am SO lookin in my rearview mirror and gettin' that tag number!!!". As I did, I saw that the line of cars behind me had also done the same with this triple x wanna be stunt man and that he had just nearly taken out the lead car in the line of traffic he was flyin' around. Didn't get the tag number, but at that point, I was just happy to be alive! Maybe the guy he nearly side swiped got it before he sped outta sight. It all went down in less than 30 seconds, way less I imagine. So, in the five seconds it took to replay that whole scene in my head, the adrenaline rush began to subside and then I realized just how close I'd come to a head on collision....I didn't know whether to cuss or cry. Scared me to think of just how narrowly I'd escaped what surely would have been one heck of a mess. I hope those flashers meant there truly was an emergency somewhere that warranted him taking a chance on pickin up the tab on ambulance rides for everyone!

So anyway, I'm pretty sure that guy wasn't texting and driving either but near death experiences (yes, I DID feel as tho I got real up close and personal with death that day) tend to make you value life a little more than you did before. I've decided to keep my phone out of arms' reach during my travels. Good for me, good for my passengers, good for all who travel the same roads I travel!

Open WIDE the door...here comes the drama!!

2009-08-14T17:00:00.000-05:00

I feel like I've been riding the tail of a tornado for the past week...perhaps today will be the beginning of normalcy for me??? Whatever normal IS for this family...it varies from day to day.

Taylor started high school on Wednesday. I knew THAT part was coming but the fact that she gave me a whoppin' two day "heads up" on the fact that she wanted to go to a different high school than the one we had enrolled her in was a little unexpected. Thus began the beginning of the tail spin... Leflore High was where her dad went, I attended the school sporadically during my hiatuses from good ol' Gordono Beach. Leflore High is only seven miles (yes, pretty much exact) from my driveway. Leflore High runs a bus to and from my driveway. Leflore elementary is where her baby brother goes to school. In a nutshell, Leflore High was gonna be an answer to some simplicity in my life!!! In my 14 plus years of being Taylor's mom, you'd think I'd have learned that nothing with this child is simple. On Tuesday, one day before school starts, after some reasoning, a little bit of debate, and not a ton of thought about how I'm gonna pull this all off, we took the grand tour of Kinta High (and did a drive by of the elementary since its all right there together). I have to admit, I was smitten by the tiny little school with its homey feel and country appeal. There are only 197 student enrolled, K thru 12, I like this! I was more than happy to hear that Taylor would be offered two foreign languages, Art I & II, Speech & Drama, Humanities, as well as our SE Oklahoma staple electives, Ag 1-4, Home Ec (goes by a new name that I can't ever remember) 1-4, and of course, Athletics (yes, this IS a regular part of the daily curriculum down here....). So, we signed on. Problem 1: solved. All is, once again, right in Taylorville...

Problem 2: Kinta is close to 50 miles from where I live. FIFTY MILES!! All is NOT right in this world over here...the Mom's Free Taxi Service world. This is an anxiety attack waiting to happen! Fortunately, there is a van that picks the kids up about 12 miles from our house and transports them to and from the Land of Far, Far Away. And, as life would have it, I have to travel that 12 miles everyday anyway to drop Matthew off at Fanshawe Elementary. This will be his final year there and then he too will be off to Kinta. Problem 2: solved (yay!).

Problem 3: Tracker! Enough said? Not quite...lol. Have you ever just met a teacher and known it wouldn't be a good thing to have your child under her care for the better part of a year?? *Let the record show that I am not, for one second, insinuating that the woman is not a good teacher. However, after the two of my children who are the most docile, most well mannered, most well behaved of the three struggled to get along with her, I am quite sure that my little heathen baby boy would most certainly drive her to the brink of retirement, possibly even insanity. After much thought, I decided it would just be best that she not have Tracker for the next 2 years (she teaches 1st and 2nd). SO...since Kinta isn't an option for him this year because the van doesn't drop kids off until about 5:30 and that would mean him driving his sister crazy for two hours until time to come home, Tracker is a 1st grader at Leflore! Yes, that's right, all three kids attending three different schools is the only solution to Problem #3!!!

I don't know if I'm nuts, have too much confidence in my ability to handle stress, or just a glutton for punishment.....the jury's still out, but I am hoping for the best for all of them. The past couple of years haven't gone so pretty hot, we NEED a good one! Josh still works away from home, I'm just a single mom who happens to be married, so somehow, some way, these offspring and I have got to keep it all together!! Luckily, they're fairly adept at dealing with their momma when she has her "crazy days". I also have some pretty fantastic friends who were more than happy to help me with the Trackman til I get off work.

Today is the beginning of the first full week of school (that makes it a dang Monday), I made my 40 mile route, getting everyone to school on time and made it to work....ON TIME, an incredible feat for me without the new school circuit. Taylor did have to get ME outta bed this morning tho. Good thing we take turns being the responsible one...

Less than 24 hours of sanity left...

2008-04-01T09:09:00.001-05:00

It's a new day, a new month, a new quarter even but tomorrow is when the fun begins... Taylor will officially be a teenager tomorrow :). Seems almost impossible that 13 years has gone by so quickly. She and I went thru a box of pictures last week.....how come I wasn't paying attention to the fact that she was growing up? It's alarming as a parent to wake up one day and realize that you have less years left with them than have already flown by.

I hope beyond all hope that our next 5 or 6 years are so different from the last 5 I spent @home. When Taylor looks back one day, I want her memories to be filled with good things, lots of love--even in the midst of the disputes. I have worked hard @ tryin to be a good parent. Some days I feel like I am failing miserably and that they will surely grow up to hate my guts, some days I just don't CARE either. But for the most part, it's easy for me to remember what life was like at their age (just one of the advantages of early motherhood!), I remember how confusing the world is when you're 12 and 13, I remember that it only gets MORE overwhelming when you're 15 and 16. I have total compassion for any kid in junior high or high school.

This has been a pretty tough year for Taylor. It was tough watching her go thru it too. My daughter doesn't cry, so I cried enough for both of us. She won't cuss either, so I filled in the blanks for her there too. Seventh grade just SUCKS. I remember that year myself and wouldn't repeat it for less than millions (plural). It rattled us both for a few months. Taylor has always been so grounded, so sure of herself, so UNLIKE her mother so it scared the pants off me when I saw her begin to change to fit in, to wear a different personality every day of the week if she felt it necessary, to become a complete stranger right before my eyes. I have prayed my guts out for that kid simply becuz I didn't know what else TO do. Let's see, she has been stabbed in the back repeatedly , left out, lied about, been used and abused, and dropped abruptly when she was of no further use. For those of you with baby girls coming up, let me tell you, you have GOT to pay attention, they don't want to TELL you all this crap is going on. Dunno if it's pride with Tay or the fact that she's terrified I will have one of the fits I'm so notorious for....:). Hey, when it's your kids gettin hurt, you will KILL somebody....even if the one hurting her is only 12..... Just kidding, I did GOOD, handled this stuff like a pro....okay, semi-pro. But it IS my first round. Doesn't mean I didn't want to go to school with her everyday just so she'd have me and my biting wit to battle those witches with.

We're on the down hill slope of the battle now and overall, Taylor has grown as an individual. This has made her dig deep to find the things that are really important to her, to find the person she really wants to be, and the set of morals that she is okay with living by. I learned that it really doesn't matter what I think, how I feel, or what I say, in the end, she is not ME. I can't fight her battles for her (I will, however, be directly to her right!) and, as much as you want to shelter them from harsh reality, I can't encourage her run away from it all either. We decided this was probably the first of many life-changing seasons and that they'll probably get tougher as time rocks on.

She does have green hair tho. Hey, I gotta choose my battles wisely and if teal green hair is all the kid wants @ 13.....I'm gonna consider myself blessed beyond words. AND, when I figure out how to post pix on this thing, I'll be sure all of you know how teal hair looks that way when YOUR daughters ask you...you can smile and just say yes!

The chapter may be over, but it's still a part of the story....

2008-03-19T09:38:00.000-05:00

As I scrawled the date in a rush to write a check yesterday morning, a flood of memories came rushing back. Most years, I can't help but think of my sophomore year of high school when I see the date March 18...... Gordon's class of '95 lost a member that day, I lost a friend and my sense of invincibility. I remember it like it was yesterday, it was a blur then, like we were caught in a whirlwind, knowing full well when the wind died down, life would never be as it was ever again. The sights, sounds, and smells of those days haven't ever left me. It's funny how the brain will hold onto not only the memories, but will release the flood of emotions to go with them. If I stay here, I can be 15 again. Has it really been 16 years? It never occurred to me as I walked thru the days then that anything like that COULD happen, much less that it would. My heart was broken in so many ways, it affected me deeper than I ever made known. I felt betrayed, but I didn't know where to look for the one who'd betrayed me, where to place the blame for the robbery I felt had taken place.

It's like seeing thru two different sets of eyes now, that 15 year old Krista's eyes, and looking back thru the eyes I have now (which don't see nearly as well as they used to, by the way!) I watch my own daughter and can't help but think of Jenny's mom. I can't even go there, to that place where she must have been, to even catch a glimpse of what she was going thru, what she still goes thru on March 18 or November 19....Jenny's birthday. I cannot imagine life without my daughter. The gigantic hole her leaving this earth would leave in my life.

There will never be words to explain well enough to me why tragedies happen, why beautiful people are taken before we're ready to let them go, why everything can change in the blink of an eye, or why it sometimes takes my world being shaken and torn to make me appreciate what I've been blessed with......and it's too late to say how grateful I am sometimes. I truly think the class of '95 was closer after that, we seemed to realize that this life was bigger than our differences, and definately too short to dwell on them.

Overall, I have fond memories of my classmates and my time at Gordon High. I laughed, cried, kicked, and cussed with some really great people, people I'm proud to have known. Regardless of how we felt about each other, it took all of us to make up that class and all the memories, good and bad, that go along with it.

2008-03-14T16:38:00.000-05:00

Friday's just keep coming faster and faster! So does the gray in my hair... it is SO time for a hair appointment!

This week has flown by, as they all seem to anymore, and I'm grateful, cuz I'm tired.

Friday comes so much faster when you call in sick on Monday!

2008-03-11T10:33:00.000-05:00

Well, we made it to Tulsa, found the Spelling Bee site wonderfully....didn't get turned around once. Oh, wait, yes we did...we had to TURN around after discovering Josh had left his wallet on the toilet paper holder in the Quick Trip on 71st!!!!! He's was cussin' a blue streak about me drivin' like his gramma and as calm as I was trying to be, I couldn't resist reminding him that he does this EVERYTIME we go somewhere. It's almost predictable, to the point that the kids usually ask him, after a public bathroom visit, where his wallet is!! He is so dang lucky, too. As he was panic-strickenly walking into the store, a cop was walking out with his wallet in his hand.

A few years back, we had been to Worlds of Fun @ Kansas City all day and had whipped into the first Long John Silver's we found which just happened to be on a not-so-good side of town. Josh had to do his business and did. Then we left town for the motel we were staying at about an hour away. Forty-five minutes later, he can't find his wallet and freaks, knowing exactly where he's left it. Only, all our cash and credit cards were IN the wallet and we were on empty, couldn't exactly write a check for fuel 6 hours from home.... I tried to be rational. He was irrational enough for 5 people at that point. I found my receipt from dinner and called information for that LJS location, called them, but to no avail. The wallet was no where to be found. We accused everyone of those clerks & everyone in that restaurant (in our minds), went thru every possible scenario...they took the cash and trashed the wallet, etc, etc. OH! And here's a treasure, my little husband also had his birth certificate AND social security card in there! He had set someone up for a new identity with some credit cards and cash to boot! I was SO impressed with him at this point, but saying so would only have caused WW3 so I shut up.....mostly. We called and cancelled cards (not the first time for this either!) and applied for new documents, shopped for new wallets, none of which impressed him in the least (the wallets, I mean. He has an unnatural attachment to this particular wallet...)

Then, one day I couldn't get in touch with Josh on his job location and I got worried. I'd left him message after message and he hadn't called back...not like him at all. So, I checked his messages to see if anyone else was frantically trying to reach him or if it was just ME he was avoiding.... and there was a message from a man in Mulberry, Arkansas saying he'd picked up a wallet in a bathroom about a month earlier and was trying desperately to get in touch with its owner. I couldn't believe it! Mulberry happened to be on Josh's way home that week, so he drove over and got his wallet....the man was a trucker for Walmart and had picked it up and took it with him, afraid to turn it in to the teenagers working the front counter that nite. Every dollar was in it and Josh tried to give it all to him for his trouble (he'd had to call the DMV in Colorado to try to get a number, I guess he really had a time trying to find us since we'd moved back to Oklahoma....) but he wouldn't take it. Sometimes, people amaze me. Kinda' like Josh not learning from past experiences.... :). Oh well, life is more exciting this way, I reckon.

Anyway, poor Matthew got out of the state bee on the first round. He was #7 and two little girls had just gotten out before him and I think he was so nervous he just didn't know what to do. "Meticulous" did him in! I stayed for two more rounds and I was floored at the words these kids could spell that I had NEVER heard! He felt bad cuz we'd all driven up there to spend a whopping 15 minutes, but I'm still proud of him for even making it that far. There's always next year and besides, it was fun watching Josh squirm all the way back to that Quick Trip to find his wallet!!

I love Fridays!!

2008-03-07T10:39:00.000-06:00

Friday has finally arrived! I awoke to my world being blanketed in snow. It's prettier that way but it sure makes me want to stay at home in my sweats and watch movies all day. Yet here I am...workin! What a trooper, eh? :)

A couple of months ago, Matthew, my middle son, popped off, "Hey Mom, you gonna give me a hundred bucks if I win the school spelling bee?" "Sure, Matt.", was my answer. Didn't think twice about him actually winning. Not that I doubt my son's intellectual ability at all, but he's a 6th grader and most of those competing were 8th graders. He ran in a few days later hollerin', "You owe me a hundred dollars!!!!". That'll teach me to make a split second bet.... Taylor wasn't impressed in the least.....not only did her little brother BEAT her in the bee, but now he had money to burn too.

So, a hundred dollars later....he has also won the regional spelling bee and we are on our way today to Tulsa to the state spelling bee held tomorrow. He's more excited about the indoor pool in the motel! Okay, maybe I am too, a little.

Did I say paradise? I mean winter wonderland...

2008-03-06T15:19:00.000-06:00

It's MARCH...and it's SNOWING, I mean snowing in OKLAHOMA!!!!!!!!!! I'm usually in shorts by this time of year!

That beautiful man I'm married to is on his way home from Louisiana so I'm goin' home and fixin' chili and cornbread and making him pile up on the couch and watch chick flicks with me!!

Life is good, don't ya think?

Life begins when you think it's ending.....

2008-03-06T10:21:00.001-06:00

Oh, I am in a FOUL mood. There are days when I just don't like people....period. I don't even like myself right now. I'm staring, no GLARING, at the world today thru furrowed brow (shoulda' slathered on a little more anti-wrinkle something this morning). It has to look ugly from the outside, but y'all should see it from in HERE. I think it can safely be said that I might have some "issues". But anyway....

I've been so out of touch with the world the last year or so. Been anti-myspace and yahoo....no just anti-social, really, for way too long. I was jolted back to reality yesterday by a beautiful poem ( I guess it was a poem) posted on another friend's brand spanking new blog. I realized, quite suddenly, just how fast time flies, how easy it is to lose touch with people in your life that really mean A LOT to you, how insensitive I can become and not even realize it, and just how truly gifted I am at putting walls, thick walls, around myself and becoming quite self absorbed. So, I figured, a blog would be a wonderful way to keep everyone up on my comings and goings and who knows? It just might help me to sort out some of this junk floating around in my head!

Where do you start when this much time has lapsed? Sometime in the last year, I gained another 30 pounds, turned 30, got married to the man of my dreams (nightmares too!), entered back into the working force, started a diet...for REAL this time, and became the mother of a pre-teen daughter. (sorta sounds like I gave birth to a 12 year old, huh? That would explain some of the weight gain! )

My life was pretty calm a year ago. Coulda been cuz I was living inside those 4 self-constructed walls. How bad can things get if you're shut off from the world anyhow? As we all have learned, what goes UP, must come DOWN. In my case, the walls came crashing down and ya' know, false security is, well, FALSE!

We'll start with the weight gain. I have had a weight problem aaalllll my life. I filtered everything about myself and in my life thru the fat I saw. I could find nothing to like about myself. I hated what I saw when I looked in the mirror, refused to look at pictures of myself. I'd joke about it, but it was killing me. But if I didn't look, I could still sort of deny it, or at least not have to deal with it. Until I had to look at pictures taken the day I got married. I couldn't believe the person in the pictures was ME. Had I realized that is how I looked, I'da never gotten married. I broke that day, could deny it no longer. I was disgusted and sickened. I don't ever remember actually loathing myself like I did at that point....

But why did I ever think that one crisis at a time would be enough?

Josh and I began to have all kinds of problems about this time. Funny, we didn't have them before we signed any legal, binding documents....:) My weight was triggering every insecurity I have and I was making mine AND Josh's life a living hell... Sometimes, I wonder how he doesn't crack under all the pressure of my issues. Guess that's why God gave him to me, He knew I needed some stability in my life, someone who can deal with all my problems and still love me at the end of the day. Doesn't stop me from convincing myself that he's on his way out the door with the next cute, skinny, SANE thing that walks by. She couldn't be more real if she walked thru my front door. But I ain't goin' down without a fight....

I promptly made appointments with two different diet doctors. My theory was: I could go both places and rack up enough prescribed crank to lose all the jello...and maybe not lose all my teeth in the process....

Dr appt #1 rolled around....only the doc had hired some help so I got the new addition. Ya' ever met someone who just made your skin crawl? Yeah, me too. He lectured me on drinking cases of Mountain Dew, eating donuts by the dozen, and eating one of everything off the dollar menu at Micky D's. Did you know that you will NOT lose weight if you do these things????? He apparently thought I did not....WHAT??!!! He hurt my feelings and made me mad all at the same time! WHY are there people out there who think that just becuz you are FAT you must stuff your face from the comfort of your couch while watching your soaps all day and WHY are they allowed a license to practice medicine? Could he NOT tell I was a woman on the EDGE? Well, I started bawlin' and left his office with a prescription for prozac in one hand and a brown bag of diet pills in the other.

I was in SHOCK! So, I called my rock, my voice of reason, the one who lifts me up when I am down, to hear him tell me he loved me even if I had lost it a little and now needed to be medicated....he LAUGHED. Told me to pop a prozac and go eat a cheeseburger. Sometimes laughter is the best medicine....I couldn't cry for gigglin'. I kept that piece of paper with the Rx for Prozac on it for months so I would remember just how low I can go if I let myself. Don't misunderstand me tho', I will not judge another for how they best see fit to deal with their own life. I obviously use food. It just freaked me out to actually be prescribed something to control my emotions. That freaky little man was a turning point in my life.

I did go to Dr. appt. #2 but have since put the diet pills behind me. I have been on the Medifast program since November and have lost 50 pounds! The scales and I still have a love/hate relationship and I have a long way to go but I AM in process. Instead of my "fattest ever" jeans, I can wear my "bigger than I was @21 but I'll take it" jeans! I like the food plan becuz I'm learning HOW to eat, how to be disciplined, how to deal with my emotions without food. It still sucks most days.... :) but I can deal.

I heard someone say that once you're an addict, you'll always be an addict, whether or not you're using. Some people are addicted to drugs, alcohol, tobacco....my monkeys are food and shopping. I do still struggle with smoking, but that one gets easier every day.

There you have it...a little slice of my life. I promised myself that this year, I was gonna get real. As Beth Moore says, "If I have to go thru the trials of life by fire, then I at least want the fake burned right outta me!!" I'm tired of changing to be who I think I need to be to fit in at the time...it's exhausting! I still struggle with liking myself, but I am learning more about who I really am. I'm THIRTY dangit, I'm ready to put all this emotional roller coaster stuff behind me, tired of the waves of life knocking me down everytime I get on my feet! The waves are never gonna stop but I wanna be strong enough and secure enough in who I am to stand!

Thank goodness Tim McGraw saw fit to write me a theme song for "my next thirty years".....