Wednesday, November 19, 2008

No body likes good fiction anymore.

"The ink is black
the page is white
together we learn
to read and write"
as performed by Three Dog Night


For as long as I can remember, I have escaped the world around me in with a book. I started to say 'good book', but in all honestly, I have been without good books and just picked up whatever was laying around.



OMG! Just THIS second as I was typing... A shiny New Book was delivered to my patiently waiting hands! It seemed like it took forever to arrive, but its here now. I shit you not, JUST NOW as I was gearing up for a blog about reading. Oh crap, that means I have to hurry and finish the current dribble I had to resort to in the meantime. This is all coming together very nicely. Who says that you can't just KNOW when you are exactly where you are supposed to be in life? No, really, that is a question. I expect you to give me an answer. Down there .
.
. in comments
.
.don't be shy

>>> new book....."Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer (don't hate. I love getting getting back to my roots with a little teenage drama...only in books though, don't bring real teenage drama into my life)

>>> current book....."Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons" by Lorna Landvick ( i read this one many years ago and i was desperate a few days ago waiting on 'new book'. it was on the nearby book shelf and now i must finish it. its really not dribble or is it drivel? but i tend to go for something that enlightens me with a little less reality)



Ok, back to my origin of thinking.

I will be the first to tell, you my memory sucks. I used to think it was alright, but time has always been the author of the unthinkable. There was a framed poem hanging in the bathroom (yes, the bathroom. that is where some of the best reading gets done, am i wrong?) of my childhood home that I memorized at an early age. I knew it then, but I will copy and paste now as a necessity of my ever shrinking brain power.


Don't Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest! if you must; but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up, though the pace seems slow;
You might succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup.
And he learned too late, when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out;
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt;
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit;
It's when things seem worst that you mustn't quit.
-anonymous

If you are still here, congratulations! You may be one of the last "reading" folk around. I do know the difference between reading because you are obligated and reading for enjoyment. I obviously prefer the latter as I am certain many of you do. I can tell you though, that if it weren't for my reading mind set I never would have memorized that poem. When I new it back and forth and up and down I switched to whatever was handy. In my house this meant shampoo bottles and tooth paste tubes. Not many readers there. I am very familiar with words like "Methylchloroisothiazolinone", "Cocamidopropyl Betaine", and "Sodium monofluorophosphate." I am convinced I can pronounce them properly as well.

When I am unable to read I listen to audio books. The iPod is a great invention. Right now I am about a quarter of the way into "Strangers" by Dean Koontz. It is approximately twenty five hours long and let me advise you to just read the actual book because the narrator is complete tool. But I won't quit.

The summer of my sixth grade year I read over a hundred books. "Sweet Valley High", "The Babysitters Club", (i like series books because the story keeps going and going...) and every thing by Judy Blume for the most part. I walked the three blocks to the library all by my lonesome, uphill and in the snow, carrying hundreds of pounds of books at least twice a week. Did I mention I read really fast? Now that I am older, Steven King is my favorite. Give me some of your suggestions on what I should look for. Whats on your bookshelf?




And now for your joy and amusement..... ta da! I figured out how to add images.


fail owned pwned pictures
see more pwn and owned pictures


I know I am guilty of this one, but I'm on a Mac. I type these on Blogger.com and when I click the little i for italic all it does is this -


WTF? What am I supposed to do with that? and how do you do that thing where there is a line through the word?

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Yay all Day.

And so the winter is really here now
And the blankets that I love
I am surrounded sometimes
By too much love...Stevie Nicks


I heard this morning from a reliable source that we were getting our first freeze here in my little part of Texas tonight. It better be true because what I just went through may not have been worth it. Lets hope the beer will make my memories firewood dust in the wind. Its pretty cold out there now and its starting to piss me off. The wind is blowing too hard and its the kind of day to just stay home. But no. I just have to get right out in the middle of of the first dog days of winter. Apparently so did everyone else.

I write down titles and ideas for future blogs all day long. I have scraps and folded pieces of paper and sticky notes everywhere. This was one of the ideas I will put into action at this time, if only in passing. "If you ever get to the grocery store and there are no baskets in the basket holding area, immediately turn around and go back home because the grocery shopping experience is sure to be a bitch!"

Even though that little tidbit of information I just gave out has proven itself to me time and time again. (I love the Counting Crows) I overlooked my well founded fears and obtained a basket from the gentleman that was corralling and herding them in from the parking lot. I saw a beautiful Christmas display upon entering and reveled in the atmosphere of so many complete strangers getting ready for the imminent cold snap or perhaps just doing the ritual they created long ago of Saturday afternoon spending of their zealously earned money. I was pretty much immediately disillusioned and booted out of my pleasant assessments of my surroundings.

I mean DUDE, WTF is up with people? Don't get me wrong here. I am not the least bit prejudice to any race, religion, creed or color but what is up with those damn little black "think they own the world" teenage girls. I know its not just the black ones. Most teenagers think they own the world. Its great to have confidence and all but once again, damn! The ones I encountered today just happened to be black. They clearly saw me trying to pass. They practically stared a hole through me like they couldn't believe I had the audacity to imply that I wanted by. MOVE THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY ASSHOLES!! Oh, and tuck your boobs back in your shirt. Its cold outside.

Hence the reason for me being out in this crap in the first place. I needed firewood. And marshmallows. And homemade chicken noodle soup with grilled cheese sandwiches. And beer. Can't forget the beer.

I always look forward to the changes of the seasons because I get sick of the same thing. Every. Day. God had a brilliant idea to give (most of) us this welcome change in our environment a few times a year. If we didn't get to see something new all around us once in a while our pathetic little minds might shut down with the min-ot-a-nee (I cannot spell that an the stupid spelling bee and dashboard dictionary on this mac can't make sense of may sad, sad attempts to try) of our lives. About the time I get sick of sweating, sunburns, and mosquitoes, (not to mention the killer electric bills)... viola - fall starts showing its pretty little head. And winter soon follows.

Ohhh winter. How I longed for the relief in 100 degree+ temperatures. BUT the cold wind that blew the sunglasses off my head that I had to bend down and pick up causing my purse, once hanging safely from the shoulder strap to shift and spill onto the asphalt my very beloved cellphone giving it a scratch that I could have done without-and the cumbersome coat I was wearing would not surrender the keys that were in my cumbersome pocket-and the firewood that was bundled not so securely in its firewood bag was depositing firewood dust all over the back seat floor board and mixing its dusty self with the Poptart crumbs and gum wrappers that my oh so adored children left me as an early Christmas present. Sorry 'man that was walking by' that surely heard me say a not so nice word. Or two. Grrrrr, (not Brrrr) to say the least. At least it wasn't raining as well.

As hostile as my relationship with winter is, I must admit I absolutely delight in an enjoyable winter night in front of a popping, crackling, oh so warm fire. With homemade chicken soup and roasted marshmallows.

So now I must go and start the chicken... and get the hearth ready because it has been blocked all summer by the TV, for which my loving husband is currently building an new stand...and make sure the naughty word I just heard him say isn't due to the fact that he amputated a limb while using a very sharp and loud cutting instrument. And get another beer. Yay Saturday! Or using the very Dr, Seuss ish words of my new friend David, "Yay all day."

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

To be a child again...no thanks!

I hated being a kid. Now don't get me wrong, my childhood was fine. There are only a few things that really stand out as being repulsive. I was very trusting and some very bad things that happened to me didn't hit me as "obviously wrong" until many, many years later. I may or may not get into all that at some other point. Right now I want to talk/blog about the agony of being a poor helpless child.

I have some kids you see. A sixteen year old boy, two fourteen year old girls, and my youngest girl is seven. If you have read my previous blogs you will know that I did not give birth to all of these children. In addition to the afore mentioned, it always seems that the kids on the block swarm my house and its the place to be after school or on the weekends... All. Weekend. Long.

I was raised in a blended family and we took in the ones that needed a little help.

I clearly remember sharing a room with an aunt that was having a disaster of a life with her mother. It wasn't long ago that I was at the 'My Schools' (or whatever its called) part of this lovely site and someone was looking for 'the one that had a mohawk in school way back when'. My aunt Penny. We don't have much communication now, (I forward emails but I never hear anything back) but let me assure you she has straightened up quite nicely.

I grew up in a family of nine. I was the oldest girl. Eventually I started refusing to miss school to babysit the young ones when my parents had something pressing to do because school was way more fun. I had crushes you see. I had to go to school and see what would happen in class. If 'he' (sitting RIGHT behind me ) would put his chin on my shoulder and try to cheat off my paper, or if 'the other he' (there were many) would come up to my locker and make plans for our fake date. "Alright see ya, pick ya up at 7" he would say. Both of us knowing that when I got red in the face I was way too shy (and had two older stepbrothers that were just not gonna have it). I wonder how different I would have been if the 'guys' weren't scared of my big bros. I still got pregnant at 16, so a lot of good that did huh?

Anyways, back to my origin of thinking.

Now that I look back on it, I HATED being a kid. I can still feel the feeling of utter despair I got when I had to wait on something to happen. When my parents told me we were going to be moving in a couple of weeks, I had my entire room packed within 20 minutes. And I lived with it that way for two weeks. I had a job by the time I was 13. I bought my own deodorant, toothpaste, and snacks. I paid for three years of drill team I did my own laundry. I didn't like to be told what to do so I did everything in my power to prevent that from happening. I tried to grow up way too fast and no one tried to stop me. I moved out the day I turned seventeen and proceeded to do EVERYTHING WRONG. No really, I fucked up with the best of them. But I was free! I I now had options. I still do. I have control. I have a car, I have my own mind to make up, I don't have to follow anyone else's rules, the world is mine to do with as I so choose. And I still fuck up sometimes.

I realize all this even more when I deal with my kids on a daily basis. They may even have it worse than I did. Back when I was a kid we had a lot more freedom than I give my kids. Especially my youngest. She told me the other morning that she "is the only one on our street that is not allowed to go in the street". I still say "Keep your ass out of the street! You are only seven years old and you still have to do what I say." I can actually see the despair start bellowing out of her ears when I repress her.

When I was little it was obviously a different world and I'm sure a million blogs have been written about our "abilities to run the streets from sun up to sun down without worrying our parents" so I will spare you.

Do you want to know the real reason all those other kids flock to my house? Well let me tell ya. Its because I trip out when my kids get out of my sight for more than a few minutes. And I'm scared of how they will act when they finally do get out of smacking range.

And maybe because I'm pretty damn cool and my husband rocks. Literally. ;-)

Xerox is doing something cool!

XEROX IS DOING SOMETHING COOL
If you go to this web site, www.LetsSayThanks.com you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq . You can't pick out who gets it, but it will go to a member of the armed services.
How AMAZING it would be if we could get everyone we know to send one!!! It is FREE and it only takes a second.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the soldiers received a bunch of these? Whether you are for or against the war, our soldiers over there need to know we are behind them.
This takes just 10 seconds and it's a wonderful way to say thank you. Please take the time and please take the time to pass it on for others to do. We can never say enough thank you's.
Thanks for taking to time to support our military!


Verified by snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/letssaythanks.asp

Is it a full moon?

I have always had some sort of interest in all forms of the supernatural. I wanted to be psychic or be able to read palms or perform magic. Wiccian magic, not "pick a card any card". I wrote my middle school research paper on witchcraft and when I played "light as a feather stiff as a board" at a cheerleading sleep over it really worked. I spent days trying to recreate that with different friends to no avail. I still believe I saw a ghost walk down the hallway in my childhood home. My stepmother says she saw it too. I don't remember ever getting the Ouji board to work but it wasn't for lack of trying.

I had a big book of astrology and would do readings for people and try to find out if the guy I had my eye on was right for me. I tried to see auras and had chakra oil . Some friends and I made a huge list of superstitions and the repercussions for breaking them. I read all the 'deciphering your dreams' books and the "Secret Language of Signs". Yet none of this made me stand out as strange or gothic. I was still a pretty typical kid and teenager. I went to church and had a firm belief in God. Still do.

Sometimes I wonder why I pretty much got out of all that. Some people would say God put it on my heart. Maybe so, but with all that He has created I find it very hard to believe there are no other forces or dimensions out there. But let us save the religious philosophies for a different day.

I guess I just got too scared to keep that proverbial (or maybe not so much) 'door' open...to find out what sorts of things were out there that were not visible to the naked, unenlightened eye. Creeps me out just thinking about it.

When I was six or seven I woke up practically every night screaming bloody murder. I still remember some of those dreams very clearly. Much less scary now. Then I learned how to dream lucidly so I really didn't have any bad nightmares for many years. Blame it on all the drugs I did in my teens if you will, (because all this did start about the same time I decided I'd better quit acting like a fool or I would soon perish) But in my early twenties I started having the most terrifying experiences. Not dreams. I am certain I am fully awake and its like something is holding me down to the bed. I am paralyzed. I hear and see the most frightening things. Spirits flying around making the most horrific sounds. Its so vivid. I can't scream, I can't move, I can't wake up, I can't go to sleep. When its finally over about a minute or two later its like a haze is lifting and the room turns back into my room and my husband is sleeping next to me and has no idea what I have just been through. I've learned to get up and stay up when this happens the first time because if I roll over and go back to sleep it will happen over and over until I am so freaked out I have to wake up my husband, turn on the light and read a bible. I still have those "night terrors" occasionally. Its the scariest shit I have ever been through in my life. I spent time following the stages of the moon to see if these "episodes" coincided this the full moon. I spent time researching my "condition" online. I had no idea what to call this thing that was happening to me and I still haven't seen a doctor or attempted to make a self diagnosis so it's pretty hard to Google it. Maybe I will try again.

I don't know why I bring this up because I haven't had an episode since we moved into our new house back in June. It must have been the crazy lady that came into the office today soliciting something or other then asking to use our phone. I guess she was placed on hold because she stood there with the phone to her ear saying (to us) that she and her daughter were on the internet last night and now she believed that Obama is the anti-christ and we would have to forgive her because she was a little stressed out now because of that. She even made mention of the pick 3 type lottery drawing that turned up 666 in his home state the day after the election. I wonder who she voted for. As she drove away she was spotted talking on her cellphone in her Lexus with Illinois plates. Oh yea, she was black.

What starts going weird in your lives when the full moon rolls around?

Longing For the Good Ole Days

This is the first year I voted. Shame shame, I know. My guy didn't win. I am still coming to terms with this as I type. As I was about to press the big red VOTE button I was still confused and undecided because basically, I spent all of 20 minutes total reviewing the candidates' policies and standings and B, I hate to be wrong and 3, I don't feel qualified to put my opinion into the universe. It's not really that I hate being wrong, I just want to do the right thing. So the right thing at the time was just to do what my very republican daddy (and a few other trusted people in my life would do). Indifference is something I've grown to accept in myself... one other thing I must work on. Everyone needs an opinion right? It seems that I always have more pressing matters in my immediate vision than what is going on around me. I don't even really remember the last election but I guess that is because I was being self centered and I probably didn't give a shit. I am in my 30's now and I have a bunch of kids (even though I have only given birth to 2, there are a bunch more that call me "mom"). This was a very important election and that, I could tell, not only because my kids were worried about it as much as I was, but I think it could have been a big scam to change America very quickly. They can try right? I mean really, In the same election year a black man and a woman were introduced into the highest level of politics and "servitude" possible. This opens up 2012 to amazing and very varied possibilities. It's quite possible that McCain was "planted" to minimize the effect of Obama's win. He had to do something as different as a black man running for president so he picked a no name woman to be his running mate. She will always be a fixture in society now, as will Hillary (that was fu**ing funny). It could be that this was all staged and there are way higher powers that we will never know about running this country and affecting our "votes". I guess I long for the days when I didn't care. I guess all we can do now is come to terms with what is in front of us and sit back and giggle (or cry) when things don't go as we expected. Lets just stop paying our mortgage because Barack will fix it when we get foreclosed on and who needs to save gas money because Barack will give us all handouts whenever we need them......BULLSHIT. Hey, I'm not bitter, I'm ready for change. How about you?? What did you expect?
Shitty outlook? Yes. Paranoid? Yes. Completley honest? Yes. Don't hate me because I'm a blogger.........or because I can't spell. ;-)

No more politics for me in the future, it will be way more boring from here on out.

Is this for me?

I'm pretty sarcastic. Hmmmmmm, is that the first sentence I am going to use to describe myself? I guess so. I have been every form of most personalities that I have come in contact with. I tend to be a......., what's the word I'm looking for.... lets just say.......adaptable. I can adapt to any person I come into contact with and still say "I am myself". I get self conscious when people start minding my business, but I like it when people show an interest in my life, so obviously, I'm weird and can't make up my mind & the natural thing to do is start start a blog and share my innermost thoughts, opinions and annoyances right? Well- I guess we will see. I have a sort of malfunction with my "follow through" gene or I would have finished the book I started writing when I was 9 years old, and the quilt I started when my youngest was still in a crib, and the oil change I've supposed to be getting on my car for quite some time, and... well you get the idea. Be aware these posts may come few and far between. Today I got the itch to let myself out of the fence I've built around me. Its like when you see a movie about "Solo Synchronized Swimming',...( I think that was a real game at this years Olympics) or something else you would never dream of doing,... and come out of the theater wanting to be the next Solo Synchronized Swimming' Olympic Champion. You know what I mean...
If you are reading this on Myspace then be aware that the war raging in my head has come to an end and I have decided that it is OK to allow people that actually know me, that see me every day, that may have thought that I am incapable of such an outlet, to get inside this cranium o mine. No fears right? This is quite possibly the therapy I need to break the brick wall I live behind and hear from others that are just as anti-social as I am. Anti social is probably not the best wording I can use. I CAN be very social and mix in with any crowd. Usually that will have to involve a few alcohol treats... but only until I am sure you are not a fake ass. Fake people irritate me. If you have a question, ask it. I might need a moment (or a week) to think it through but I will come back with an answer that is totally real. I'm not a person who has all of my thoughts and opinions on the tip of my tongue. I need to think it through. I don't tell lies for bullshits sake. If you are speaking to me in person and it seems I look at you like you are some kind of moron, please, please forgive me, that is not how I intend to come across, that is just my complicated thought process at work & I haven't figured out how to rattle off an answer that pleases you but still reflects my actual thoughts on the subject. I will work on this. Just be aware I am not trying to please everyone. Many things I say will not please you. I don't need comments that reflect that but I am aware they will be there. I have something in me that wants to please everyone, I will work on this also because I know it isn't healthy. I analyze everything that comes out of my mouth at a later date and I hate doing that so I tend to not say much. Like I said at the start of this thing... Maybe this is my outlet.... Maybe not.........

This took me like 75 1/2 years to get this ready for posting so I would appreciate any feedback (be kind please) and thank you to the ones that have inspired me.... I will probably delete this as soon as I realize what I am getting myself into