Bad habits and old feelings...

So when I was in college, I had a very bad habit.  I hid it very well from most of my friends but every now and then I toked a cigarette or two.  I never to my knowledge smelled of cig smoke and you honestly never actually saw me with cigs on my person but I had them.  I smoked them every now and then.  I coughed politely when someone blew smoke in my face because in all honesty some brands set off my asthma BUT ONLY THE SMOKE.  The three times I tried smoking weed, it put me in the hospital.  I've come to the conclusion that they were all three bad batches.  And I can say that because second hand does nothing to me (Except make me very happy)

The few months that I was between pregnancies, I smoked a little.  When life got a little too hectic, cause you know having three kids in three years is a freaking walk in the park and doing it while your SOB husband is out to sea is a cakewalk in the park, I bummed or bought the occasional cig and used the nicotine to calm myself but as usual in my life, hubs stopped that bad habit cold freaking turkey.  One by spending our money to where a pack of emergency cigs would have actually broken us, and two by nagging at me.  Like really nagging and calling my parenting into question. He didn't actually know that the very little smoking I did do was what kept my family alive because there were A LOT of times I wanted to go running screaming into the night.

The friends that I drink with all know I can take a cigarette and not kill myself.  I don't actually know any of my drinking friends who have NOT had me snatch a cig out of their hand and puff like I've been doing it all my life.

So since I've been working, I have had moderately less stress than I did when I wasn't working and that's awesome beyond words but now my stress is coming back and it's coming with a whole new emotion.  One that I don't like at all... resentment.

So okay, when I was a kid from like second grade to Fourth grade I was an afterschool program kid.  I went to the classroom with the other kids and did my homework, had a snack, and played games until my mom got off work.  Mom would take me home and then fix dinner (If it was summer dinner was whatever fast food was between work and home as she didn't cook in the summer... at all) and after she did that, she disappeared into her room to smoke while I sat in the living room and ate/watched TV.  She called out for bath time, she called out for bedtime.  I rarely entered her bedroom because the cloud of smoke that separated the ceiling from the floor was kinda terrifying...  So very little interaction between she and I.  If she wanted to go hang out at the club I went to a friends house so her mom could babysit me.  I had babysitters come over the house.  I can guarantee you that my babysitters and I probably single householdly kept my local KFC and Roy Rogers in business.  In Fifth grade it was decided that I was old enough to have a key and let myself in in the afternoons.  It was all good, I called the school to tell them I was home, I did my homework, I did my chores, I watched tv.  If she was still working when I got hungry, I made hot dogs or grilled fish on the indoor grill.  She usually made it home from bath and bed time.  Still no real interaction because those days probably included working as a teacher then afterschool teacher or detention teacher, followed by softball practice, and/or a meeting, and then maybe an hour at the club.  I watched a lot of TV.  By high school she had quit smoking but she still came home and sequestered herself in the room.  She actually picked up things at school to do since I was so old and usually wasn't even home anyway because I was in band or at track (Don't get excited, I was time keeper for the boys team, I do not run)

So riddle me this.  I have kids and for the last ten years I have been the stay at home mom because I wanted them to have what I didn't have.  I wait until they are teenagers to get a job and suddenly in everyone's eyes, I'm turning into a bad mom???  My mom worries about the girls because they come home and call me to let me know that they are home because I'm working.  They have sandwiches or leftover pizza, or reheat something I cooked either that day or the day before,because I'm working.  I am home in time for showers and to look over homework and inspect chores.  If pick up a late shift at work, I call the girls to make sure that they are okay and they can call me at anytime.  If i'm closing and they're home, I call to say goodnight.  My mother however, calls then every hour on the hour to make sure that they are okay and when I get home puts on her best mother voice and tells me that she called them to just keep checking up on them. (When I first started working, it was not unusual to come home and find her here with them just sitting with them keeping them company.)

Tonight she advised me to keep a really good dinner for them tomorrow because they deserve it as I'm never here.  I need to make it up to them.

I am seriously not handling this well at all.  When I was there age, where was the person that came and sat with me when she had to work late and stopped off at the club?  Where was the person to call me every hour?  Did anyone tell her that maybe she should come home and cook me a special meal because she had to work all time?  Were the babysitters that washed my hair and braided my hair and got me dressed for bed supposed to be mom when she went to the club for something?  Was my childhood BFF's mom supposed to be the pinch hitter?

Don't get me wrong.  We did things, she and I.  We spent some time together.  To be honest, my memory is lacking a bit because a lot of things are colored red at the moment, but I remember going to the steakhouse on Fridays after work and Sizzlers on my birthdays.  Then I remember her dropping me off at football games that I had to play at.  Picking me up from band practice after school.

WHERE WAS THE PERSON THAT MADE SURE I WASN'T SEEING TOO MUCH OF OTHER CAREGIVERS OR WATCHING TOO MUCH TELEVISION???

SO why am I made to feel like a bad mom?  I don't get it.  I have sat and thought about this for a few weeks now and I don't get it.  Every single part of it is a complete mystery.

I sat home for ten freaking years.  I didn't do babysitters, I gave up my life.  I didn't go to the club, I didn't hang out with friends.  At Twenty something, I was already forty.  My kids didn't eat a shit ton of quickfood or fast food.  I cooked.  I STILL cook.  Do you know how many mornings I've gotten up and made a meatloaf so my kids could have it for dinner.  Or the nights that I stayed up baking a chicken so they could heat it up.  Yes I bring them home pizza.  Yes I take them to work for pizza because it's cheap.  How am I the mom who has the mom who worries about the kids because I'm working all the time???

So yeah, last weekend, I bummed Patty's e-sig and the nicotine calmed me, tonight I practically jumped Kam for the rest of her cig.  I can so see this becoming a habit again and not a minor one like before.  This time I can almost see it turning full blown.  So far as I can see, I have four choices.  1. I can take up smoking pot because let's face it.  Pot calms everyone it touches.  Two.  I can take up smoking and just not care what anyone thinks about me.  Three, start drinking... again.... or four find a BF and use sex as my stress reliever.  The cons to this.  One, pot is very hard to come by discreetly and I don't really want it in my house.  2. This will cause massive nagging from my mother.  I will care.  There is no way around this.  I will be hounded into giving it up again and feel way worse for causing my mom t give me the talks that she will give me.  Resentment will come roaring back and I will not be a happy person ever. Three.  You cannot be a delivery driver if you exist in a constant state of hungover.  This is no bueno.  This causes you to lose job and  enter more stress... 4. I have been trying so badly to do this one but I suck at flirting, I fell asleep for being direct 101 and literally no one notices me like that.

This shit is going to plague me like this until I have another nervous breakdown and my breakdowns are just that.  The walls go up, the spikes go out and NO ONE gets through to me.  In the past this has caused doctors to drug me and take away my driving privileges.

I so don't understand.  I don't like it.  I don't like feeling this way.  I just want for five minutes to be the normal girl with the normal parents that ignore her the normal amount and let her life life a certain way and remember that she's thirty five and NOT sixteen. Can I be the normal girl that likes a guy and has no problem letting him know because she understands that if he rejects her, it's not the end of the world?  Can I use the car that my own money bought and not feel like it's going to blow up on me?

Can I be normal.  Just one day?  Please.  I promise I've been extra good this year Santa.

Le Sigh... I've got nothing else.  I'm spent. Stay Frosty Bloggers.  I have stuff to do tomorrow and I may or may not be working.  I don't know yet. We'll see.

Goodnight...

Frappuccinos and chapstick

So this morning did not start out on a good note.  I'm sorry but it didn't.  I was up way earlier than I actually planned to get up and then ate way earlier than I ever eat so for like an hour my tummy was tap dancing to  the tune of "You stupid idiot, what am I supposed to do with food this early in the bloody morning?" and it chose some wicked solos at almost the wrong times.  But it was all good because once I got the Venti java chip Frappuccino with TWO shots of espresso in it, tummy said "Ah, there's the flood of caffeine we usually get on Saturday morning, why'd you hold out on me??"  Think my boss may have a new drink cause he tried mine and he was like "Yum!"

See I have this thing where I can be a morning person or I can be a people person.  Without serious amounts of caffeine, I cannot be both at the same time.  And on the way to work this morning, whoever is the Patron saint of stupid drivers played a very nasty game with me.  At least five times, driver moved in front of me and went so freaking slow it was like trying to pluck someone bald one hair at a time.  One very special idiot slid out in front of me and then slammed on his brakes cause me to to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting him.  And one even more special idiot actually stopped in the middle of the street (Slowly instead of slamming on his/her brakes thank God) and thought it was a good idea to throw their car into reverse to try and get back to the street that they bypassed.  I mean really?  REALLY???

I spent only a few minutes this morning squinting my eyes and pretending to pop Deedadee's head like a pimple.  For this I pride myself because if I don't actually squint my eyes and try, I spend copious amounts of time doing so in my head.  And my imagination is a dangerous place for some people to find themselves in.

I'm not going to say work went good because honestly, work always goes well and I'm pretty sure people are getting sick of listening to me praise my job.  I only do it because I love it so much.

Like a quarter to three my x-inlaw tried to tank my day.  Texting me and asking me what time the kids had to be at the church for their performance.  I mean really?? We have been going over this since Last Saturday!!  You asked me when was the performance.  Then you asked me what time they had to be there.  Then you asked me if I was going to come get the kids to take them to practice.  Then you asked them if I was coming to pick them up after practice.  Then you had my daughter call me and ask me to bring her clothes.  Then on the day of the performance you asked me again, what time they had to be there less than a half an hour before they had to be there when you live a good forty minutes away.

*Bangs head against a wall repeatedly* I love my extended former family. I love my extended former family.  I do not want to sell my extended former family to West Indian pirates and condemn them to hard labor for the rest of their lives. I love my extended former family... Maybe if i keep chanting this over and over it will sound like the truth...

Side note: The ex called my mom after the performance which he stayed to watch AND got them there EARLY for... he liked it.  Now he sees why I am so adamant that they continue it.  Yay!! Point to me!!  Hell point to him for actually getting them there without me have a major meltdown via phone and text!

But in my little world I was kinda stressed about the performance when I was at work because I wasn't sure they were going to get there and like always when I'm stressed, I really really want a cigarette. I don't smoke and usually it sends me into a coughing fit almost bad enough to call an ambulance when someone is stupid enough to hand me a ciggy so what did I do?  Naturally, I reached for P's e-cig and took a huge puff.  And she uses the highest level of nicotine you can buy.

OH MY GOD!!! In the one giant and two tiny puffs I took, my stress level dropped by more than half and my desire to make myself two cinnamon breads and go rape the McDonalds across the street vanished!  I wasn't hungry, I did not want to eat my anger away and I lost my anger!  I am SO going to get me an e-sig on Friday when I get paid.  Oh my effing god!  And I felt good for the rest of the day.  Also Joe is like the greatest male friend that I could have because he actually could see the stress on my face and did the one thing that I wish more people in my life would do when I get that angry.... he hugged me.  Just a simple hug.  A transference of good energy to someone riddled with bad energy.  He saw me approaching level three of pissed and rerouted it.  He's awesome!  I do try to tell people that are close to me that if you can see it on my face there is a choice to be made.  Try and deflate, or try and escape.  Most people choose escape and leave me to blow up.  He chose to deflate.  Very Awesome and very brave.

So I got off work and went to get dinner for Mommy and I because by then P had left the store and taken her e-sig with her so the hunger was slowly edging it's way back.  talked with her for awhile then tried to leave before I got locked in with the rest of the convicts...er patients and failed.  Was told to go by Wal-mart for a couple of things before going home and of course I went strait home and got my shoes off and was in the process of taking off the pants and shirt when I remembered where I was supposed to be.  Got redressed and went to Wally World.

And the chronicles of chapstick continue because they have yet another new flavor of chapstick out....

OMG!! Grape to meet you?!?!?  That is soo cute!!  And I made myself feel instantly old because I opened it and tried it so I could decide if I wanted to indulge my obsession and buy three more and the girl asked me how it was.  I told her it tasted like Big league chew bubble gum.  She just stared at me blankly.  She had no idea what I was talking about.  So finally I said it was like grape kool-aid and she said "Oh yeah!"  I felt so old.  So very very very old....  It's rare that I feel that old...

In other personal life news.  I think I am on the verge of a fight with one of my dearest friends because it looks like  to her that I don't have time for her anymore which is simply not true.  I just have a lot of things going on and new doors in my life opening up and conversation even on it's most basic level has fallen to the wayside.  At least fifteen people tell me that I have all but dropped off the earth as far as conversation is concerned.  I'm slowly getting them to understand that if you text me I will normally answer but I rarely have time for phone calls.  I try but mostly when I'm not working, I'm trying to cram a whole lotta shit into a very few hours because my body tends to shut down on me and I fall asleep and NOTHING gets done so if you call me and I'm not all there, it's because I'm really not.  I'm in a thousand different places.  I've actually already had two friends basically cut me off.  I don't want to lose the friend that I think I am on the verge of losing but I might if I can't get them to understand I don't love them any less I just have somethings that are pulling me in a slightly different direction than I used to travel in.

I am going to finish undressing and hit the mattress.  It's been a long day and tomorrow will be a long one tomorrow.  It will be long all week except for Wednesday.

So goodnight bloggers!  Stay frosty!!  

Ciao!

Blind as a bat on crack.

So a few years ago... well more than a few cause a few is three right?  A few a few a couple years ago... Insert emoticon with me sticking my tongue out at you...I have shingles.  The second stage of chicken pox that the seniors are all afraid of getting because of those lovely commercials?  Yeah young people can get it but you have to have a shitload of stress in your life for it to happen.  I had that.  I worked for Debbie and Dionza and if you only knew what I went through those three long long LONNNNNG years... anyway, I had Shingles and it spread to my eyes permanently weakening them so that if there is the slightest bit of sunlight or headlights brighter than normal, I'm basically blind without serious sunglasses.

IT's something I've learned to live with.  Not well because the last eye doctor I saw told me that I will most likely be completely blind within the next fifteen years or so and that it was a miracle I wasn't already legally blind.  I have ways or helping to prolong the diagnosis. I wear sunglasses everywhere and I have colored contacts that block a good bit of light from my eyes because they are opaque.  I avoid going out in direct sunlight and I will make myself late for something if I can't find my shades.

Today I made a rookie mistake.  I was sitting outside soaking up some much needed warmth from the sun and I took off my shades.  I know... stupid stupid me, but I hate the suntan my face gets when I tan with them on and I ALWAYS tan.  There is usually a definite distinction of where my shades where when I sat out in the sun.  Anyway, I was soaking up the sun when a co worker called out to me and I opened my eyes  into direct sunlight.  Boom instant migraine.  It was a very awesome thing that Amber let me go home early tonight or I wouldn't have been able to function much past when I did.

Add to that that I spent all day working with two people I probably shouldn't have.  The first is a female that well... yeah.  I like her okay but she's loud.  I'm pretty sure that when she speaks, Pizza Hut can hear her clearly and they are two parking lots over.  The concept of personal space is sometimes lost on her as is privacy.  Today was no exception.  She was loud and on top of that, she was in a bad mood for God only cares what reason. (It was her only day off and she got called in I kinda would be mad as hell too but sometimes you really do just have to get over it.)

So working around/with her was kinda uncomfortable but nowhere near as awkward as being alone in the same room with the guy that you have a crush on who happens to be one of your managers.  The last guy I had a crush on, it kinda came on gradually.  It worked itself up until one day I was in full blown like.  This guy, Freaking day one, I looked at him and piece of me stopped mid track just to oogle.  Put that together with repeated interaction with him because we work together and awkward hits a new level that borders on high school but since we're both adults it's like high school in your underwear awkward.  At least for me.  I'm pretty sure he feels NONE of the awkward I feel.  I guess that's good because two awkward people will never have a chance at dating.  They will simply avoid all awkward situations until the other goes away.

It's a quarter to twelve and I'm tired.  Long day.  I just want to sleep.  So I'm going to do that as I have a lot to do tomorrow.  I completely forgot to make my besties bday cake and her party is tomorrow night.  So I will be baking and going to get her gift.  Then going over there.  

Yawn!  Love hugs and hair grease!!

Hmmm...

So we're all used to me not blogging everyday, right?  Good.

The job is going great.  Love my co-workers love the place.  Totally awesome  Not going to overgush about that.  I totally want to though.

Not much to blog about at all really.

Baby died.  Her smoking problem finally caused her to have a heart attack.  Thankfully she made it to the doctor before there was no bringing her back.  Wait... you realize I'm talking about my car right?  The big green baby that resides in my driveway.  Yeah her.  Cost a little over 900 to repair her but that's what I get for getting a Volkswagen.  It's all gravy I love her.  Owe my mom big freaking time for helping to get her fixed.  But now I'm back on the road and it feels so good to ride in my little hooptie.  That's her name now. Hooptie.  Don't get me wrong, I love my moms car who BT dubs is named Jenny like every other car my mom has owned, but I love Hooptie.  She's a lowrider so the few times I'm in my moms car I feel like I'm flying up in the air.  And the acceleration on Jenny is lethal.  I'm passing people on the highway looking at them like "Why in the hell are you going so slow??" Then I look down and see that I'm pulling 90... Oh.  That's all I got was Oh.  But now Hooptie and I are back!  The dream team is back in full effect y'all!

Got my second pizza oven burn last night.  This one was NOT fun at all.  In fact, it still hurts.  Dropped a pan of Cinnamon bread went to catch the bread and the pan lay flat on the back of my hand.  First burn was like "OOH!!  I've been accepted by the oven"  second burn was more on the lines of "Son of a bitch!"

So I'm ready for work.  My hand hurts.  Did i say that?  Pretty sure I said that.  Doesn't stop it from hurting.

Electric bill is due Friday.  Need tips today.  Come on people, if you live in the Sugar creek area order pizza for delivery and tip your driver today!!

Cannot stress that enough.  TIP YOUR DRIVER PEOPLE!  Your drivers make very little when they are out on the road braving idiot drivers to bring you your food.  The least you could do is give them a little something for it.  Gas comes out of our tips.  No tips, no gas.  No gas no food.  Okay, that's a little far because we do get paid but honestly, how much difference is it to you to give your driver two or three dollars for not having to cook your own lunch?  Is it really that awful??  Even when I was just on the customer side of it, i tipped and often tipped well for not having to cook that night.  So tip your driver.  Just do it.  It won't kill you.

Okay off my soapbox for the day.  Bout to head out to work.  Did a bad thing and put creamer in my coffee... don't foresee a pleasant two hours ahead of me.    Toodles!!

My past week.

So I started a new job.  I work at a pizza delivery place.  What can I say about it?  It's awesome!  I love it.  For the first time in a long time I'm enjoying 90% of my life.  That's pretty damn good for me.

I'm no longer caught up on the crush that has dominated a good portion of my life for more than a few months.  I got bold and asked him point blank if he was ever going to ask me and he said no, then basically insulted me.  The sad part is, he didn't know he insulted me.  He's the outdoorsy type and he assumed that because I choose not to partake in outdoorsy things like hiking and fishing and the like that I'm not into the outdoors.  And something about me being disorganized and a homebody...  Whatever, the point was that he insulted me and then made it sound like if I liked all the things he likes, he would ask me out.  Even though I kinda do like most of the things he likes, I don't feel like I should have to prove myself to get a date.  Either you like me enough to take a chance or you don't and he doesn't.  Simple as that.  It was the part where he insulted me that killed the attraction for me though.  I can't be attracted to someone that insults me.  A small part of me wonders from time to time if he will one day realize that he insulted me.... A bigger part of me realizes either he won't, or he won't care.

I'm back to getting my random migraines again.  I have pinpointed the problem though.  They appear nearly everytime I speak with my former mother in law.It's something about the act that I have to put on when I speak to her and the fact that most of the time I'm restraining myself from shouting "Why are you telling me this? I couldn't care less!" at her.  They way she yells at my nieces and sometimes my children bothers the crap out of me.  The fact that in this day and age, she still has no problem lashing out and striking them causes me constant turmoil.  Now I can't say anything about my nieces, but as for my kids, I've already told them.  if she lays a hand on them, they are to lay one right back.  The kind of hitting she does is categorized as child abuse in some places.  And it's not always with her hand, a lot of the time she uses a wooden spoon or whatever is handy.  My Sister in law is a good good woman.  She has way more patience than I do.   I would not be able to sit still if my mother were screaming and sometimes cursing at my children and sometimes more often than not resorting to hitting them.  I just wouldn't.

There's also certain personality traits that annoy me to no end.  A wise woman would find a way to cut this woman out of her life completely, but I'm far from a wise woman.  Far Far FAR from one.  This woman is my children's grandmother, cutting her out of my life would mean cutting her out of theirs and that's not something I'm willing to do.  That's not something I think I'm able to do.

My ex plans on moving to South Carolina this summer.  That's fine.  But his mother lives around the corner from where he lives currently and shes not doing well financially wise.  If he moves the SC, and leaves her in the apartment she's in, her next closest contact is going to me and I don't' have it in me to be her next closest contact.  I just don't.  Most conversations reduce me to battling with a migraine so bad I could burst into tears any second from the pain.  I got one today that took a Tramadol and two Tylenol to tame.  So basically I'm over drugging myself to deal with the angst she raises in me.  That's no bueno.

I was at church tonight and one of my church sister even said I look tired.  I am tired.  I'm tired of everything that has the power to make me feel like less of who I am.  Little by little the bad things in my life are clawing for more space and sadly they are starting to win.  When I get stressed several things happen.  One, I eat.  I've always been a stress eater, No matter what I do I don't see that changing.  The second is I get sick.  I am currently battling the cold of the century.  The third thing is generally, my stomach begins to knot up and everything goes to hell.  It will hurt when I eat which will cause me not to eat which will cause others to worry about me which will cause me to eat to make them stop worrying, which will lead to my stomach hurting and the vicious cylce starts over again.

I am finally getting my life on basic track.  Other than the thing with my xmil, everything is going very well...I just need that one thing to change.  And there's nothing I can ask for help.  If I mention it to my Dr.  She will send me to a therapist who will drug me.  I so don't want to be drugged anymore.  I have actually at this point held sanity and happiness in my hands and I don't want to let it go.  I don't ever want to let it slip away from me.  I am grabbing at it with both hands and I;m not letting go.

As usual it kinda helps to blog it out.  Another thought running free.  To be thought about later.  I'm cheating tonight.  I'm self medicating with vodka.  I know I shouldn't but tonight, I think it'll be okay.  Goodnight bloggers.  See ya in a few days I guess since that seems to be my time scale at the moment.

Stay frosty!!

Citified little twit

That is exactly what I've become.  Bats scare me when they used to fascinate me.  I was that weird kid in my family that actually thought something that could fly in a general straight line while being pretty much blind was wicked cool.  I admit that sleeping outside wasn't one of my favorite activities but I wasn't opposed to it, only at sleep away camp because I seriously was ALWAYS stuck with the girl that collected farts like she was starting a collection, wanted to stay up all damn night talking when we knew we had to be up in the morning, or who just didn't wash... anything.  Who would have a good experience at camp living with those girls.

I did learn some good trade skills though.  I can cook over a campfire.  I don't eat them but I can make one hell of a S'more.  I can sing a variety of Girl Scout themed camp songs really badly, and I learned to identify a few of the plants that would kill me if I were ever to be dropped off in the woods by myself.

Would I survive more than a couple of days if that happened?  It's iffy.  I know that moss grows on the north side of trees and that the sun moves from east to west so I would probably take those two things into account and start walking.  If I can find a stream, I can fish.  If it ever came down to survival, I could learn to clean one of those bad boys or at the very least stick it on a stick over a fire and roast it until it was edible.  I can't hunt.  I know that much.  I will probably never learn to.  Knowing me, I would pretty much try to find the water.  I'm a water baby, when I find it, I'm fine.

When I was a kid, my family owned a lake house and my cousins and I had a good time exploring.  Well, my country cousins anyway.  I have two sets.  Ones that grew up in the country, lived in the country and loved the country, and the other grew up in the city, visited the country onec in a blue moon, and generally hated the country.  I was born in the city but came to the country every summer, every winter, pretty much anytime my mom had a vacation that would not be wasted by spending eight hours in a car to drive to said country.  My grandfather taught me the basics of shooting and I used to walk outside their house when I was young barefoot across the empty fields to look at the deer that grazed.  When I was small they weren't scared of me and I know that somewhere there used to be a picture of me maybe about five or six sitting on the field with deer all around me.  As I got older and the visits got few and farther between, they wouldn't let me come near me but by then most things in the country bored, scared, or annoyed me.

My country cousins also abandoned me.  I was a citified twit.  I was actually called this.  In my normal life I had water from bottles and paved roads, electricity everywhere and my entertainment came from a brightly lit box that had movie pictures.  Their life included drinking water from the stream (yes we did that in the 80's and they did that probably through the 2000's) running and hiking every weekend and sleeping outdoors in hammocks that were pretty much large sheets tied up between trees. And since the channels were rarely cartoons in that area (You had to have a satellite dish to get more than the local channels 3 and 4 and back then satellite  dishes were huge and expensive DirectTV hadn't been founded yet so very few people had them.) they spent most of their times outdoors.

Now my cousins, THEY could survive if you plopped them in unknown woods.  Hell you'd come back for them and they probably would have built a house, started a farm, an irrigation system, and been featured in better treehouses and streams by the time you went back for them.

And I was always and continue to be jealous as shit of them.

In an unrelated but kind of related conversation I had the other night, I was told that I wouldn't enjoy a week long hike.  That it would be painful for me and it just wasn't my lifestyle.  To be honest, I was mad that the person I was talking to that thought that about me, but then I began to wonder, is that really the image I project?  Do people really not see the little girl inside of me that enjoyed that stuff?  Have I really built such a wall around her that not even she can see the stars anymore?  That's horrible.  I think this summer, on the rare weekends that I may be off, I'm going to try and rent a cabin on the local lake here and introduce my girls to the kid I used to be.  They're going to learn that the world isn't necessarily connected by WiFi signals and cell towers.

They're too young and there aren't any around here but I would really like to camp out by a lake with a waterfall so that I could have the experience of bathing beneath one.  Maybe when I get out west.

It's weird when someone says one thing that causes you to think about the person you've become over the person you used to be.  It's even more disturbing when that same person causes you to actually not like the person you are now because you miss the person you were.

I have some thinking and some planning to do but not right this second because I have work tonight (I never thought I would get to say that again) and I have to figure out why the bottom of my abdomen hurts like all holy hell.  I went to bed with it and honestly don't even remember going to bed.  I just woke up in bed and don't remember getting in or laying down.    It's okay though, tonight is mostly sitting.  So I'll pop a Tram or some tylenol and be okily dokily!

Stay Frosty Bloggers!

Children are parrots...

So be careful what you say.  I know for a fact that I am guilty of not so clean language.  Okay, that's a lie.  I am guilty of some truly bad language and have been known to prove that there are dirtier mouths than drunken sailors when I'm mad.  And honestly, I never thought it was that bad.

Until I had children.

For the first few years of my kids lives... I can say that because I literally had my kids back to back to back.  '99, '00, and '01... I wasn't the mom that I should have been.  I drank, I swore, I drove like a bat out of hell (I still kinda do but they're older so the impression has been made, I'm just keeping up with the standard I set.)  I was definitely NOT Donna Reed at all.  More like... well a foul mouth teen with kids.   Come to think of it, my husband was in the navy and never there.  When he was there he fed them sugar and had an endless string of friends in and out of the house matched only by the endless string of video games.  I would have been a shoe in for Teen Mom back in the day... Too bad MTV was still actually showing music back then....

Anyway, I was not a prime example of a mom and this became abundantly clear when my children began to talk.

While driving up and down hwy 64 in Newport News Virginia I was the one that could always be counted on to be cussing out the slower drivers and trying hard to get around them.  You might remember my 'R' blog on Road rage... One day I was trapped behind the slowest of drivers.  I could not believe that this person was going just that slow.  So of course I was mad and apparently little Jojo must have sensed this because out of nowhere, he yells "Move oudda my damb way mudder fudder!" I almost stopped clean in the middle of the highway.  Needless to say I made the decision right then and there to watch my mouth around my children.

Yeah...

Next up was my big girl Kay.  We had no road rage incidents around her. (I got in a really bad car accident while pregnant with her and that really mellowed me out for a LONG time.)  So there were no sudden outbursts in the car.  No Kay chose her venue very well for her first swear.  Both Hubs and I were home and had a very religious couple over just hanging out, right?  Kay is toddling around and stubs her toes on the table.  It was a pure accident.  What does my baby do?  She looks down at her toes and then throws her head back and screams, "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCK!"  The couple was shocked, I was shocked, R was shocked.  The problem was IDK what the couple was thinking but R kept saying that she couldn't say that and we had to discipline her but my recurring statement was that she used it right.  You can't punish a child for saying that when she had the context spot on can you?  I mean can you?  To this day I still don't know the answer to that one.  Rest assured one day I will figure out the answer and punish Kay accordingly but 13 years later, I still don't know.  The very religious couple?  Yeah they NEVER came over again.  I decided that night that even if I hurt myself, I would curb my language around my children.

Uh huh...

And just to round out the pot of bad words my kids say, we have Liv.  Again hers was in the right context so can you really punish her??  This was just after we'd gotten to SoCal and we living in Serra Mesa.  R had already gone off to Miss. to help build his ship and I was alone with all three kids so it was before the summer when I had to send the boy away so he could breathe.  I remember vividly because it was one of those moments that stays very clearly in your mind.  Livy was not too steady on her legs having only taken her first steps a couple of months before and Kay was a bit of a meanie.  Kay pushed Liv down (It was intentional, she used both hands)  Liv to her credit got right back and didn't cry but then turned around and told Kay "Fuh Doo!"

I didn't bother to make a life decision about my language then.  It just wasn't worth it.  Now as the years have passed, I don't swear as much. as I used to.  When I have a headache I don't monitor myself but mostly my Fucks have become Frick or Frack, My shits have become ish, my Damns have become dang or darn and the compound words are really funny as they pretty much come out as any matching syllable on my tongue at the moment.

So the point here is seriously watch what you say around your kids.  They are parrots and you never know when they are going to say what they've heard.  If you're lucky, it's around you and you can tell them no or stand there like an idiot a la me. but if you are unlucky, others could be the audience for what they say.  As for me, my world is doomed.  Have I already scared my kids?  Yes probably for life.  Have I scarred any other people's kids?  Not sure but probably.  Will this cycle of language continue into my years of being a grandma and scar my grand children?  Probably yes.  But like I said, I'm just keeping up with the standard I;ve already set...

Don't be a victim like me... End the swearing cycle now!

LOL.  It was almost 80 here today.  I had to roll the windows down.  Now I'm drinking ice cold Kool-aid.  Stay frosty Peeps!!

I think I'm going insane.

I'm up, I'm down, I pull myself up and I sink back down.  I walk around my house and all I do is sigh.

Just once, I would love for my emotions to be on a stable ground without having to take drastic measures.  When I say something to my doctor, she recommends counseling.  Now that would be fine if every single therapist I speak to about my moods says that my massive moods swings are because I basically live in a fantasy world.

Okay so yeah I do, I will admit that one free and clear.  I have lived in my own private fantasy world for years now.  In that world, I am loved by not only my friends; all of them all of the time.  No one takes advantage of me, no one pays attention to me ONLY when they need to vent on me or lay their problems at my feet.  No one expects me to be the stalwart little soldier who stands tall and doesn't cry that I'm expected to be in reality.  I'm not saying that I am the center of attention in that world because I'm not.  Really I never see myself as that; I never want to be that.  I've never wanted people catering to my every desire or making sure that above anything else, I had what I wanted.  That's not my style but in the happy bright world, I do have what I want and need at no expense to others.  And they have what they need at no expense to me.

Here in the real world, I'm loved, I know I am.  But it's a fractured kind of love.  My kids love me but honestly, sometimes I think if I were to drop dead tomorrow, they'd miss me but they'd be okay.  And that's crazy because isn't that what every parent wants for their child?? To know that if something happened to them that second, their kids would be able to survive?  I want that but I don't.  It's very confusing.  My mom loves me, I know she does.  I'm her only child and I have had her undivided attention for years upon years.  That's where we have a fissure though.  I'm the only.  Whereas other parents have a couple of kids and refuse to let the younger grow up, My mom has had no one to let go of therefore, no matter what I do, a piece of me is still a sixteen year old kid who doesn't know how to survive without being told what to to do, how to do it, and when or why.  I get around it.  It's reality.  I have friends who love me but that's where we have another fissure.  I have friends that love me for me.  They don't care if I'm up or down, if I'm down or out.  If I'm up, they roll for the ride and when I'm down they try like hell to make waves to get me up again.  But I also have friends who really honestly couldn't give a rats ass about me unless they need something from me.  Most notably the ones that call me to tell me about ALL the crap they are going through but when the point in the conversation is reached where they ask me if I'm okay comes up... they have to go.  Everytime.  I can't tell any of my other friends about these friends because then they tell me to drop said friends and said friends were there for me when other people weren't so really, isn't it my turn to take one for the team and listen?

Here in reality, no one loves me the way a man should love a woman.  Here in reality, I get up every day and see my kids and listen to my girls jabber about people at school and when they think I'm not in hearing range, jabber about the boys they like.  I would give my eye teeth to go back to a time as easy as elementary school.  To pass a note in class that says Do you like me? Check yes or no.

In my dream world, that guy always checks yes and no matter what we walk off into the sunset.  I don't know if we stay happy in the sunset or we date for a bit then break up and stay good friends but dammit at least he walked into the sunset with me.  At least he kissed me.  At least he gave me a chance.

My book is finally being published.  I can't tell you how over the moon I am about that.  It has literally been a lifelong dream to be published. and now it;s coming true but you know what?  As happy as I should be about that, I find that I'm worried about how it will be received.  Will people look at it in the bookstore, maybe read the back and then put it back?  Or will they read the back and think "Oh wow, this sounds awesome" and buy it, and read it, and convince others to buy it, and read it and so on and so forth?

The stress of all of that is enough to crack the shiny surface alone.  Add the other stuff and really?  Is it a wonder I prefer to live in the world where I'm a best selling author with the guy who walked into the sunset with me?

So back to the therapist/ counselor/ psychiatrist.  They insist that I live in this world but I need to come out of that world and stay here in reality and you know what? They can help with that with fruity tasting behavioral pills that make the voices go away.   They make me see this reality as the only reality

And that depresses me even more.  So they up the meds and I'm basically a puppet who laughs if the mood seems to be jovial, who is caring if that's what needed but basically silent and waiting for the cue card to tell her what the say/do/feel all the rest of times.  I don't write, I don't edit I don't even read when I do the meds and zombie out.

Does anyone else struggle with their psyche the way I do mine.  I feel like I'm in a never ending battle to stay sane and not climb a clocktower.

And if I see this damn shadow dart past me again I swear I'm going to lose my mind.  I have been seeing it for days now!

What the hell is wrong with me??

So Ancestry...

Ancestry is a funny thing.  There are people walking this Earth today that can trace their families back to roots so deep they can come up with vikings or maybe even apostles... (That would be supremely cool.  Can you imagine if someone could trace their line back and come up with an ancestor that was Jesus's younger brother??  I mean that's going on the basis that Mary and Joseph had more children.  I don't know, I never really paid attention in bible school.)  But on the same flip of the coin, there are some unfortunate people out there that might be able to go back as far as a grandmother or maybe even a great gram but not much farther than that.

I am one of those people that fall somewhere in the middle.  Now on my mother's side, we know that her fathers (Both the one that raised her and the one that is her biological; they were brothers.  Don't even try to understand) were from a family with 8 living children  Dunno how many didn't survive or were stillborn.  Aside from my biological Maternal Grandfather's children (Poppa was a rolling stone where) we know where all of their families  are more or less.  We know where My great Grandmother and Great Grandfather are from.  I think their parents (my great greats) were slaves so that's pretty much where that buck stops.  My mother's biological mother was from South Carolina.  She had brothers and sisters and they are all deceased I think.  The only other part of my knowledge about My Grandmother Grace is that she had two brother named Murray and Bubba.  I remember thinking that this was extremely funny when I was a child.  The grandmother that raised my mother (Seriously, I warned you not to try... just listen to the pretty banjos duel) I know very little about other than her mother was full blooded Native American.  I'm not worried about finding out about that side of my family however because almost literally 15+ members of that side of Facebook popped up on Facebook within a week or more of each other so if I ever need to know, I can ask any one of them.  We're tight like that.

Where I run into problems is with my fathers side of the family.  Quite literally it is nothing but a series of dead ends.

First off, no one has any idea whatsoever who my father's father is.  They said that my grandmother was a big wig around town (And a little loose) so she could not be unmarried with a baby.  From everything I was told, she went over her best friends house, had the baby, and walked away.  But not before naming him.  Again from everything I was told, she had a friend who was in the Navy who was named Kerry Wilson and he told her to give the baby his name.  Now I'm pretty sure that if this is true, the man meant just the last name.  I'm pretty sure that if the baby wasn't his (Which we don't actually know that it wasn't) he didn't mean for my grandmother to name the baby Kerry Wilson Jr.  If he was sane, I'm pretty definite that he did not mean to pull out of Lake Charles and leave a child named directly after him behind.  And maybe he did.  As far as I know, we may never know.

So there's a brick wall.  Pretty sure that brick wall may be there after even my kids grow old and die.  The other side of this very tall, very claustrophobic brick room I find myself in is that any and every single trace there ever was about my grandmother has completely disappeared.  This year will make 22 years since she passed away, I think.  They say that I went to her funeral when I was 3.  That means 22 years since I turn 35 this year.  From what we know (meaning what my father knows) she was a principal in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  Someone once told me that there was a statue of her there.

But here's the thing, The two schools that we have down that she was a principal; one no longer exists and the other said they have never had a Pharrie Mae as a principal.  I even called the Lake Charles Parish School board.  No one ever got back to me but I doubt they have her on their rolls either.  The church she supposedly went to: building is there, no one ever picks up the phone.  Not sure if they are in existence anymore.  No clue where she is burried, no clue where her house was, There are more leads in the first three seconds of a game of CLUE than there are to finding my Paternal Grandparents.

It's mind boggling.  I look like my father so the genes are definitely strong.  I have pictures of Pharrie Mae so I know that whoever the man is, my father has GOT to be a dead ringer for the man.  He does not in any way look like his mother.

This is Pharrie Mae holding me when I was a baby:

And this is my father when he was younger...:

Okay, maybe he has her cheeks but that ALL I see...

Do you have any idea how frustrating is it not to know where half of you comes from?  To think daily that somewhere out there, there may be a whole slew of people that look like you, talk like you, act like you...?  No matter what I do if they are out there, they seem to always be behind that fuzzy fuzzy screen of grey smoke and I can't reach through it to find them.

And before anyone suggests Ancestry.com, been there.  Tried that.  Total bomb.  And a complete waste of the two hundred I spent.  The first hundred being for the first month and the second hundred because I forgot to cancel the damn thing on time...

I may try again one day.  Well, no, there's no may.  I have all but decided that if I have to take a trip down to Lake Charles, Louisiana myself and search I'm going to find her.  I will search out every school, I will peruse every graveyard, and I will look at every statue.  Pharrie Mae Washington has had to have left SOME traces behind.  She cannot just wash away that cleanly.

I've had my rant for the day I guess.  I'm going to step down from my soapbox...

It's very easy to say Stay Frosty here cause it's friggen cold today so I'm going to leave you with I hope you are warm and toasty wherever you are.  Hugs!

Car care and the Noob... Among other things...

So I'm a noob at some things, I admit that free and clear but I know that most things simply require a little common sense.  If it leaks, make it stop leaking.  If it steams or smells like it;s burning, cool it down.

My grandfather had this saying that I'm pretty sure a million old people say all the time. "If it moves and shouldn't; use duct tape.  If it should move and doesn't; Wd-40."  You have no idea how much those words have helped me in the last few years of my life.  I mean I'm pretty sure that he didn't mean duct tape something so that you couldn't tell what you were fixing nor do I think he meant drown it in a can of lubricant and let it marinate but then sometime you have to go a little apeshit on stuff like that.  Or at least I do.  I'm like that.

My window washer fluid drips.  No, not drips... drains.  In the past week I have been through two huge bottles of washer fluid and I finally figured out where the leak is coming from.  Yay me!  I just have to wait for the little bit I put in to find the leak to drain so I can plug that hole and go about my business.

And while I was at it, I got tired of eyeing the clear/orangeish bottle that had the thermometer picture on it.  For days now, I have been looking at it and wondering why it looked empty.  I mentioned it to someone but they said, no it was full.  It was orange slash red.  I wasn't convinced so today, I opened that bad boy up and stuck my finger in.  Dry as a bone.  No wonder my baby smelled like she was burning up everytime I drove!!  She was.  She was gasping for a bit of coolness and I was denying her!  I mean I noticed that she went from cold to middle of the gauge rather quickly for an old car, but I stupidly (For a week) figured that if it didn't go past that little boat, I was good.  So this morning, I hit the internet (God bless whoever created the internet) and found out what anitfreeze/coolant I could put in.  Thankfully that was an easy fix.  Hopefully the burning smell will go away as my baby isn't thirsty.  I got her a gas treatment as a lollipop.  Maybe she'll forgive me.  I hope she will.  I only wish I had the lifts to drive her up on so I could see under her.

I don't want to be that girl that doesn't know anything about cars.  That got me in trouble the first time.  I saw the check engine light and I said something but no one took me seriously.  I convinced myself that I didn't know what the hell I was thinking I knew and I let it go.  The result was me stranded on the side of the highway watching as my stationwagon turned into a hatchback Yugo.  That was not fun and I told myself, never EVER again.  And I'm going to hold myself to that.  If I have to bug every mechanic I can find, I will know about my baby.  All her knocks and purrs will be a language that I will understand.

More importantly, I am going to start urging my children to learn about cars.  Someone asked me about my engine the other day and I said Shiny.  I don't want to pass that to my kids.

I'll admit, having a car is like having another child.  It's a lot of work and if you don't treat it right it will have a temper tantrum and leave you looking stupid.

But enough about my car.

Did I ever mention that I love my friends?  I really do.  Just when I've worked myself up into a dizzying frenzy over what most possibly is nothing, they come in and they prove to me that it was just that... Nothing.

Lately, and for no reason that I can ascertain, I have been having very... weird dreams.  Well not weird.  Sexual.  I guess they would be the female version of a man's wet dream?  I don't know.  I know that they have been increasingly alarming me because in them, I am doing/getting my favorite sexual act-- Cunnungulis. (I don't much like the act of sex.  It really seems like a lot of grunting, groaning and putting square pegs in round holes and such.  I probably should talk to someone medical about it, but I'm pretty sure that it stems from my rape in college.  It wasn't my first sexual experience but it was the first where I was fully cognizant of what was going on. It's just since then, I find that if I can everything... over with by the time it reaches that point, I'm much happier. Several friends tell me that just because I haven't had the right experience but not even I know how to define the right experience so...) Anyway... in the dreams, I am being--- for lack of a better word--- eaten out and everything is good until  I look down in my dream and *SHOCK* it's my ex husband.

Really truly freaking out with no hope of coming back down to Earth now right?  How can I tell someone this and they not think I still have feelings for him??  I don't have feelings for him.  Yes he was my husband but he was really more like a roommate with benefits.  It sounds cold but there was never love between us, just good sex. (Or what I think was good sex. I don't really have much to compare him to...)

So I mentioned it to my best friend and she very calmly and concisely brought me back to the ground where I need to be.  She explained that I'm in a drought so to speak and seeing my ex in my dreams is my body remembering a time when at least the physical part of me was happy.  Case closed.  It didn't mean that subconsciously I was showing feelings for my ex despite what more than a couple of people around me have said.  So I'm not freaked out now.  It's all good.  I love my friends.  If I'm a mylar balloon that floating way up high and dangerously close to popping in thin air, they are the counterweights that pull me back down to a safe flying height every time.

In other news, I was wrong when I assumed that the audiobook contract that I was sent was a mistake in whole and not meant to be sent to me.  They mean for me to be in audiobook as well as print the name of the cook was just wrong on the contract, but seeing as how it's in MS Word format, that was just a backspace and retype move I could do.  NOw I just have to sign then, get them notarized and we're all good.  I hope we are able to get started soon.  I'm really excited.  I hope people want to buy my book.

Okay, so I need to get up and get out of here.  Things to do, people to see.  I want to go to the movies.  There's a couple out there that I'd like to see.  I also need to work on that whole going to the movies alone phobia.  I always think people are looking at me thinking that I couldn't get a date or a friend to come along with me.  Stupid I know but that's me. Even when I look like I don't care what people might think about me, I do and I exaggerate... a lot.  I always do. LOL.  It's fun being me.

But not really.  Not all the time.

But when I bounce back it's awesome being me!

God I am so bipolar sometimes!

Ciao bloggies!! Stay frosty!!