Meteor Love

                       There is a meteor shower this weekend! I am excited to see it! I don't know that I can say I have just sat and watched a meteor shower ever. there was one time we were chaperoning a youth retreat provably this time of year and we sat on a bench while patrolling for sneaky teenagers or not so sneeky because we knew already where they were going, I do not remember seeing any. I am thinking tonight maybe I will make a picnic and a bottle o' wine and whisk my hubby out in search or a dark spot where we can cuddle up and watch the stars. OR we could find some friends build a fire and drink our wine and watch too. either way that would be a great night.

                     I love that we do little things like this, we have made an effort to make special times just to be. It works for us. I had miss calculated our year we have been married I thought it was 18 for most of this year but it is 17. Still nothing to sneeze at, At my 20th reunion this last summer I had a friend come up to my husband and say he thinks we are the longest married couple in the class. I don't know it has not seemed so long I love spending time with my hubby. I look forward every call every text I get. The sound of His voice and the way he says my name is like no one else in the world. He is my support, my soft place to land, my encourager, truth teller when no one else would dare, the eyes that see through all my crap, and the humor that has kept me laughing and taking life with ease, the heart so big I have yet to see the limit, and the only man that can still surprise me even after all these years.

                         I knew when I met him I would marry him: it scared me to death. 3 months later he was my hubby. It is so cheesy to say but he dreamed of me when he was a kid and knew I was t be his wife, he forgot until he saw me then those dreams came back to him. IT had to be no man would have put up with how mean I was the first week to him I wanted nothing to do with him. Ugh I hate that story it makes me sound like such a jerk, and think about it it is the story people always ask you about. He looks like a saint and I look like a crab. Sigh, I may have to make up a new how we met story. I was always afraid with how quick we married that it would burn out so fast but every year every day I love him a little more. I never thought this would be me, for those that only know me now as a sappy romantic. Honestly in my head some times when I hear my self talk about it even our own story of love and how much I actually Love him, the cynic in me groans and rolls her eyes. I was never going to marry it was crap who wanted that. turns out: I did want that but not just with anyone. He had to be sweet, he had to be kind, he had to be thoughtful, Quirky, and fully mine.

                      I am not saying we are perfect (I want to be very clear on that) I am not saying we do not have our stuff, oh honey  we do. We Learned to fight with respect and talk things out years ago: that has made life so much sweeter for us. You have so much less to get over to remember how much you mean to each other when you do that. We try to talk things out before they become big thing and blow up. I  have to say it is not easy it is hard to admit when your are being a jerk when you are than to have to hold that line to win a battle only to loose part of what you have. To win what?

                             Oh that went a different place I was going to go with this post but I think I will leave it at that get out do something spontaneous with your love or people in your life that mean the world to you. Talk things out listening to each other not just talking at each other.  Don't put it off if: they mean something to you call them get together with them. if they mean something to you I am fairly sure you mean something to them too. unless you are a stalker or Dexter then your way of getting together with some what less what I am would recommend.

                          ( I feel like I need to add a disclaimer to this I know not everyone is safe in their live in their relationships. I have been very blessed with the man I spend my life with. If you are being hit or abused. there are places that can help you. You are worth so much more, no one ever has the right to lay hands on you No one ever! There is no deserving it. seek help, people love and count on you, if you can not do it for you do it for them.)

Savannah on my mind.

             I know all 3 of you reading my blog are going to tire of hearing about this by March But I am loving the South these day re introducing my self with the lore and striving freedom of the oppressed and the warmth of the people and the free guide books to Savannah on Kindle. I love it all of it the movies good and bad the books and pictures.

            I remember when I was young we went down there and brought back some of the air plants and moss they died and lot their allure as soon as we got back to the snow. You have to have grand Live oaks with dripping Spanish moss on them for it to work properly. Come to think of it it may just be the oak tree Spanish moss thing I love so much part of it any way I seriously love the stuff the more drippy gray wispy stuff there is the more in love with the photo I am. The slow relaxed life is appealing too. Sigh I was made for it, except I would die in flames with the heat of it all. If that did not take me my head might explode and the number of bugs. But other than that it is fabulous! I know it can get touristy and be in horror with the forest Gump non existing bench being a horror for all but the romance of it is not lost on me. I have to say I find it funny that one of the reasons that we are going to this place is because My husband is so excited I am related to some one who owned a plantation down here. I was more reluctant because I do not think a brother of my great great great great grandfather is really a relative but I am excited to see the place any way.

           Savannah has me firmly in it's grip love the whole thing and want to move there now. Sigh that may never be but I love the idea of it. That maybe because I think it will be like the sugar baker girls in the show Designing Women, or may be fried green Tomatoes. Maybe We could snow bird there, oh and I promise not to ram any snot nose girls car. Pretty please, oh your right I am my mothers daughter I might ram their car.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXZs3mjGlQU . I loved that part in that movie OH it makes me think of my Mom every time I watch it or hear about it. The first thing is the name Mom always called it fried green Zucchinis because she loved them and could not fathom green tomatoes being good. Have you ever had a relative do something that ends up in a movie a few years after they did it? Yeah my mom tore down a wall in the house one day granted it was a half wall but while we at school and my Dad at work she just tore it down. It was awesome and kindda like mom tore down a wall while you did math today. Just the way Kathy bates played in the modern part of the story was was so like Mom. Sigh I miss her.

Talking Russian Monkey

                                               I was thinking today about the messages we receive. The cold war with Russia has been over for decades hell the country that was the embodiment of every villain I grew up with as a child of the US does not even exist any more. Yet most times in my dream when there is a villain or someone to be suspicious of they have a heavy Russian accent. The messages of  childhood implanted so deep in my brain that more years of my life have past since I heard those message but still happened when the monkey tells me to do something in my dream with a thick Russian accent I stop and think there is something wrong going on here: Not just because it is a talking monkey that never entered into it it was the accent that tipped me to the problem. Made me wonder about all the messages we receive I have not met many Russian people but the ones I have have been wonderful.  If I think about it the Borg freak me out so much more than any people on Earth ever could, Do the actions of a few people or their leaders have the right to dictate how we see a people as a whole? There should be no reason this reaction still plagues my dreams. I think this is something to think about. Even if talking monkeys and the Borg seem more fun to think about.

                                       

                                         These things in movies and on TV did not seem a big deal to me then and honestly till I could not shake the Russian monkey today I had not thought much about it it just was what it seemed part of what was happening in the world right they were just being topical, relevant. Weren't they? Maybe but how much was true and how much was fear and propaganda? Are the people we having conflict with really as we see them or does our conflict by it's nature distort our view of things. Where anything they do is filtered through the our pain and defenses. Bring this down to a personal level out of the realm of nations if Mo and I bump into each other and our relationship is fine then no big deal but if mo and I bump into each other and we had just had a fight or are having a strain in some way on our relationship real or imagined then there are motives attached to it and I am going to give her a piece of my mind and the heads and fingers start to wag. right? both are the same action but the feel of it is different for us. I would say that I think of that feeling that motive is the same thing as war propaganda put out by other nations. someone move in or upgrades there shoes (or weapons) next to us and if we are ok with them we are like OMG I love your shoes can I get a closer look? BUT if we are not ok with them we are like OMG did you see those shoes really you think you can pull them off. who do you think you are? our own personal propaganda. Take a step back they are just a nice pair of shoes no more no less in the other example it is just a bump no more no less.

                                              Rather than taking a situation for what it is we make it more than it has to be. rather than asking if everything is ok and having some hard conversations with people we accuse and build our propaganda against them. I can say I am not above doing this I have had a hard time learning this to slow down and ask more questions not thinking I know what is going on all the time. This does not mean every situation is going to be great or easy but it does let you into the other persons point of view and can lead to better understanding of each other and a deeper relationship. I can't say I have mastered this or anything but I am working on this not easy change for me to make I come from a long line of propaganda makers but I am working on it.

Nourish

I have been working on a healthier life for my self and have found it interesting how much I try to make my self suffer for it. Not just in depriving my self, contrary to popular belief people who weight more than they are supposed to do medicate with food but also are very much into making them selves suffer in it.   I found a saying the other day that is sticking with me. Fear makes you cling to the strangest things. This is true in this fear of failing makes me not eat all I am supposed to eat of the good things and when I do this that makes me spin off into unhealthy behaviors. This is so true for me in life not just trying to be healthy.

                   I wonder what life would really be like if I treated my self well nourished my self well and lived well. not extravagantly that would just be uncomfortable for me but well. I am on a mission to find out taking what I need not just the scraps I allow my self out of a lack of care or business really taking time to care and do what is right for a good life. Even writing that I feel the need to disclaim about not being selfish and self centered how sad is that. Just taking time to actually take care twists in my head to being something abhorrent to me. (sigh) Maybe one day this will be second nature to me but as for now I am setting alarms to eat lunch take a break in the after noon to stretch and enjoy 10 min minimum to care for my self. I am hoping making these appointments with my self is a good step in the right direction.

Flying death monkeys

                                   Bees are like beans we all know we need them one to pollinate flowers the other to unclutter our insides. But one is a flying death and the other causes moments we all rather would not have. I do not how ever hold the same hate for beans that I hold for bees. Beans can improved in flavor by spices and other things, Bees can not. People always say we can learn so much from bees  they are hard workers well organized. But there other lessons To learn too.
     
                            Bees have a life span of about 1 year but physiologically they could live 5 to 6 years. They work them selves to death they limit their intake to only what is necessary when leaving to get pollen. I am not advocating for gluttony or laziness, just taking care of our selves. Rather than just suffering with hunger in some attempt to loose weight rather find a healthy thing have, moderation in all things but constantly depriving your self is not good. I am not talking about eating healthy and doing what is good for your body I am talking about waiting just a little longer than you have to to eat or drink something not just once in a while but regularly. some would call this disciplined others self control. this last week I have been looking at how I treat my self I have strive to be kind  loving others and compassionate this how ever I have not applied to my self.

                                  In the bible there is a quote that says love your neighbor as you love your self. The traditional view of this is that we treat our selves so well and others so poor. How ever it is clear to me no one is harder on us than us. Even to deep down meanest of us is harder on them selves. We beat our selves and starve our selves from things that are good for us things we need to live. Why would we not be kind to our selves treat our selves as we would treat our best friend or an honored guest. Why does that feel selfish to respect our selves. I have no answers in this I am struggling to find it my self. I guess it calls me back to  the tattoo I got a few years ago it says learning to live loved. that has meant many things over time. but learning to actually implementing it for my self has been spotty at best. I think it is something that we need to do for our selves so that we can treat others as we treat our selves or will be doing disservice to both.

Paradox

I am still so distracted about the trip next year I put pictures every where on the computer it is my cover picture my screen saver my wall paper. I have gone southern mad. I am not sure what it is about the south I loved visiting there as a child the glossed over history and the dark underbelly, beautiful flowers plants air plants that add mystique, old plantations beautiful and sad with history of oppression, The beaches and wildlife, the iron work and just how different it feels from here. I love it! I am so excited to get to go there and see a house that belonged to an 3 or 4 time great grandfather of mine. Tom has been wanting to take me there since we found out the place existed. I was not sure I wanted to be do really want to see it see where they walked see where they lived what they were like.

                    It is weird to think of them being slave owners and doing horrible things that went with that. Finding my family history has been both very fun and not so much all at the same time because of finding people like that in my past where their lives were fascinating yet they were not people of great moral values. May be more a product of their times but it still feels wrong to a person who believes in freedom and honoring and respecting others so much. This will be the first time I have been back down south since I have known about this I wonder if it will change my view. AS a child the drama of gone with the wind filled my head with the dreams of a different time. I did a hell of Scarlet impression, my mom loved it got me out of a lot of tuff spots. But as I grew older and learned the history I was so embarrassed of how much I loved it. There is so much good about the south not just the food but that is high on the list. the music and richness lives there Alligators and dolphins. so much history and so much new that is good too. I don't know if I will ever get over my love of the south but I am in good company so many artists and musicians never have either. There was a part of the book I was reading with my book club that talked about paradox and how that is where interest lives spark of life, I think the south is that for me. So much beauty so much darkness so much life so many ghost tours. (Hee hee hee ) I am excited to see how I see this word as an adult and see it for the first time in my husbands eyes.

wonderlust engage.

                                The art of Whimsy and spontaneity is lost I think in many ways. I find it one of most important things we can hold. It keeps us young it keeps us from being crushed by life. The ability to be dumb and loud and silly is the most important thing we loose as we age. Seriousness of life can drowns it out from our lives. As I planned a trip yesterday with my husband and we wrote our dreams for this time away, we both struggled to actually hope we could do all the things we wanted to do to find something that fit us and was what we wanted not what we thought we needed. I can think of few of our trips that have been just what we wanted out of it we make considerations here and changes there to accommodating both each other and our budgets needs. Some times it is what we wanted some times it is what we settled for. I have never been so excited about a trip in years I can not stop thinking about it I want so badly to be go now all ready and packed.

                       I never had thought about our trip this way before. I think this has relaunched my love of travel that had been sucked dry by the utilitarian ways in witch we have traveled in the last maybe more than 10 years. I feel like a kid excited about Christmas coming the day after it came for the next year. I am going to be working very hard this year to be ready, seams so silly to me that this is going to be be the thing that motivates me to make so many of the changes I want to make. I think it is that finding a piece of us that has been gone too long the couple that woke up one night years ago and just took off for the week not even knowing where we were going. We had so much fun I forgot we were still there. I loved finding them again even if they are a little smarter and planned to have money for gas and food when they go. But I can not wait to travel with them again!

Looking back

                  So I can not divorce my self from the things that I write in my other blog about beauty today, this painting I posted today reminded me so much of my Dad's parents. My grandfather Jim had so much heart, I always remember wanting to be around him. sitting by him while he talked of the south Pacific in the war and how he would go back someday shooting riffles that knocked me on my butt in his back yard. His kind eyes smiling out at everyone. I do not think I went any where with him that everyone in the place did not know him. He smoked so much his voice was low and comforting. He was so short hardly even 5 ft. tall It was a right of passage to be taller than him. But no one could eclipse him any where he went. He was quiet but friendly and such a loving man.

                   My grandmother and him were so funny together I remember when I was 5 watching him mow the lawn he walked over to this flower bed around a tree took down the brinks and mowed the flowers then replaced the bricks. and continued to mow. I found it odd it was not till 3 hours later when my grandmother went out to water her flowers that I heard he yelling about him mowing them and how she could not understand how he could do it she had put the brinks there to stop him and he still gets them with the brinks unmoved.. I laughed but never told. They had such a funny relationship to me they called each other old crab and old crow with such affection. Too hard headed to admit they loved each other you could see it without the words. They made such a funny couple with my grandpa being so short and grandma being so tall seeming to me as child to be almost 6 ft. tall.

            My grandmother was a harder one to know with all her German stubbornness she loved but was not so much with the affection. She was a wild women in many was going to biker rallies and gay bars with her sons, a fire deep with in her. I do remember her coming to take care of us with my Grandpa when my parents went away for vacation. Sitting on the couch with them and her arms wrapped around me talking to me and tickling me. Other times swimming with her in the lake in Arkansas and stopping at any yard sale we could find every where. With all her toughness she put out there was a tender heart underneath. She was a Rosy the Riveter in during the war going to work to support her family and the men fight in the war. She had lots of determination.

                I am not trying to say they did not have their faults just that I loved them and miss them. Parts of them I would like to not know and other parts I long for more of. I miss you love you both. Relationships can be so hard with people living so far apart hell there hard living so close together.  I think it is important to take time to look and remember those that have past and not editing them to suit us ether hard or just good but to remember the whole person. I wish I had known them both better but cherish what I did have.

            I am not sure the blog world will care about this post much but I hope it stirs you to look back at some people in your life you have lost.

Why am I still so surprised?

                                    I was watching "Who do you think you are?" on Friday and Helen Hunt was the person they were researching. She had found out her great great grandmother had been a part of the Christian Women's Temperance movement and had a big reaction to it. In our Day being christian has become more about being against stuff than for things. The image and things said on a large scale in our nation we deserve that reaction. Today it made political news that Jimmy Carter left the Baptist church because of their view on women and what that view breeds in that church culture. I mourn that Christ the One who came to bring freedom and healing has been seen so much as the one who brings bondage and harm.

                                      Later in the show when Helen looked into what the organization stood for she was very proud of what it did. The Women's Christian Temperance movements were where women had a voice before they did, they stood at a time of rampant alcoholism from wounded men coming home alcoholics from being traumatized by war and all kinds of abuse against women and children. bringing light to dark hidden places saying it was wrong.  This movement turned into the suffrage movement gaining women the right to vote be counted as worthy of their opinion mattering, helping men overcome addictions and find healing and getting children out of factories. So why is it over one hundred years later Women in the church looked at with unequal eyes?


                                       Our culture has had to do the job of seeing women as worthy and abuse as wrong. I'm tired of strong smart christian women having to make apologies for their brains and positions they earned and are qualified for in the church. I have been reading Bio's on church pages of the male and female pastors both are qualified with the degrees but only one has felt the need to make the descriptions of themselves into but I cook and garden too. Trying to prove that even though they're competent and deserve their job but they are girly too. It's the equivalent of the smart pretty girl acting dumb so the boys will like them. "But I love to garden and cook. Oh and chocolate, lets not forget the chocolate, not that I eat to much of it have watch my girly figure". Pay no attention to the degrees competence and brain behind the curtain. Why are there no strong women held up from the Bible in the church? or if they are, their strengths are muted on  how God used them, they  are shushed. Where are the volumes about Deborah the judge who ruled and lead the armies into battle?, or even the Proverbs women actually being a savvy business women of her day not the parts held up for women to emulate or passages that declared our equality saying that we are neither slave nor free male or female.


                                       It is not just the men-women. It is time we stop apologizing for our strengths or accepting the negative words assigned to a strong women. Humility is not saying "I am a worm, I am a worm" It's standing in the truth of who we are, good and bad,  accepting our skills and talents and not making them seem more or less than they are. We are more than capable to run more than potlucks and child care. Women's groups can be dynamic places where we tackle life and get real with the grit of it. It is time for the women to stand and be equal,  Why is this such a threat? I will never know. The mousy women that holds her toughts and minds her place while being a chef in the kitchen, Really? Is that our ideal?

                                   Why is it that there are never sermons on men manning up and accepting their wives,  girlfriends and daughters that are being capable and intelligent women that need support love and encouraging to stand in the shoes God gave them? There is all this back story being thrown at men about all they need is the respect of a women, really? I know a few women that want to be disrespected, and I do not think God said anything about respecting men as his goal. God says He loves them, God says He is no respecter of men. I think it's crap. I think respect is built into love in the true from on the word the dictionary defines respect as esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability: I have great respect for her judgment. I think esteeming a person's worth and other things is mandatory in love. 

                                        Even in the way we talk about abstinence it is all about the women, every christian movie has a dad standing up and fighting for his daughters purity. Where is the movie about the son?  Or teaching respect for women.  Why is there no strong mother fighting to teach her son to respect himself and women? Not saying it is not happening but Why is that not being held up as an ideal? Why is it in every christian blog the end is for their kids even though they were strong headed as young kids it prepared them to be a missionary? Why did it not position them to take on other jobs a lawyer a  crusader for the rights of people with AIDS? being bullied by the system because none stands up for them, a Police Officer fighting for our community every day, or a Physical Therapist who helps those hurt get back into action or just a Therapist who helps heal the mind. 

                                             I think it's high time we the church start living and reading what the Bible actually says within it's culture rather than letting people tell us what it says within our own. As modern people we look at the passages about slavery and can detach from that as a cultural reference for the time it was written. we do that with so many things written there but pick a few things out to  be outraged about.  Not many keep a Kosher home nowadays.  I am not sure this post has strung together anything more than my frustration in seeing women diminish themselves to secure their position without intimidating insecure men. We all are stronger and better people when we lift one another up. there is enough for everyone, Your gifts, even if they are similar to another; your gifts with your twist on them and your bent, no one else can do what you specifically can do. We are made to fit together not by making one less so you seem to stand out but by shinning in our love.

                           

The Fallin

I have been sick for a number of days with the flu, my inflammation has been so bad it swelled up my ears so I could not hear. My energy has been zapped and I have been unable to do much other than watch Netflix on my Kindle Fire because even though my ears were swelled almost shut, if I put the little attachment speaker to my ear I could hear it. So, I started watching The Guardian, it looked interesting and had Simon Baker in it so that made it worth a look worst case scenario I get to watch Simon Baker.

                           The story is interesting in this show, it is about a man Nick Fallin who lost his mother when he was very young and was left with a father who had no idea what to do with him so he sent him away to a Boarding School. He was left alone with no one and ended up making a success of his life on the outside, great corporate lawyer but his life was out of control, he was into drugs and was caught but because of who his dad was he was given probation and community service in a non for profit law firm that fights for children and the disadvantaged people.
He is a very good lawyer and does an excellent job but his goal to start is to do his time and sees money as a very big solution for the people. He runs from one to the other, so hurried, not able to take it in, overwhelmed by life and the pressures of two full time jobs now, one with hard detail work, the other one with hard to deal with facts. The battle for his time it's a huge conflict between the corporate work and the work he finds interesting even if he will not admit it. The lack of ability to conceit to his father and others is so painfull to watch. The stories of the kids mirror his own life and being shut down emotionally, he has a hard time connecting to it on the surface to anyone let alone the threads being pulled on his heart, he feels everything very deeply. Every time he seems to get it together he blows it up, his life, his job, everything. He is unwilling to look at his problem seeing him self as being in control until it just becomes so clear he can't look at it anymore but unequipped to deal with it, he hits rock bottom, finally finds some help but some things are too broken to fix and he has lost everything he finds, all he has left is to fight for what it's right and do what he can to be a better man. I hope I did not wreck it for you. I tried to be vague so if you want to watch it you still can without a spoiler bothering you.

                                        I found this such a gripping story for life in general, at least for me, life has seemed this way for a while. I functioned well on the outside looking like I had it together to some degree, playing the game; it's just business right. Playing by what everyone expects of you, ticking the boxes, moving along on the path made for you until it became clear to me when my body gave out sending me on what seemed like a fall. I could not stomach, the road the was killing me inside and it started to show more, the more I tried to patch here and patch there, trying to work and just make it through my probation time, I failed to see the heart vs. expectations, I made the wrong choices sometimes and other times made the right ones. Not making the connections in front of me, being human and hating it, making the responsible choice, wanting to be this person I could just never seem to be or how to get there. Unable to know what to do with the awakening of my heart and all that brought, feeling more like the bring to life of my soul was more of a problem than healing.

The circumstances of everyone's life is different but we all face the choice of shutting down and going along or doing what feeds our souls.

                   Being in a basic isolation tank for going on three weeks with a sermon for a series bring to light many things I had not seen in myself or at least in this way. Everyone gives up on the one that acts out and can't go along. It takes courage to stand with others and love them when you can't understand their reaction because you have not walked their steps. A few good people will stand up if you are lucky. The scenarios for the placement of each in bad situations, some seem unfair, some seem to punish the victim, others reward the offender. Everyone deserves a life, everyone has someone fighting for them even if they do not like the place they end up. The Guardian's job is to do with diligence, to know where the best place is for each one and make a recommendation for their care. For a while I have hated watching so many people suffer feeling like the system of life failed them. Not liking where they were placed even when they are doing their best circumstances and wounds both their own and others just changed what should have been.

For no good reason talented and amazing people I knew lost and suffered, I saw the connection to my own losses, not that I put myself on the same platform as they were, they were great. I just was here serving my sentence. I find my self seeing this with a different view today having the sermon of the show making it to my heart. I could be OK, I could get along and join the normal wave that appears to look better, more prestigious while dying inside changing who I am, not being able to take a genuine face value because I feel so twisted, there has to be another motive. Living in a world that does not know me because the "Me, I am" is a threat to that world being ok for me.

Or I can sacrifice it all, sacrifice the image of myself and what I wanted it to look like and live, really live with an open heart without protecting myself, just being me. doing what makes me passionate and what I was made for. The whole "Me" meeting the "Me I used to show the world" and blending of the two being the true self I was made to be, To live fully. I choose to live even if it means having less, when it means. I will be embarrassed. I care so much, But happy.

Bring down a thug!!!!!!

                           Years ago I heard of night walkers children walking the night to not be taken captive and made to be solders and sex slaves for war lords in Africa. I was devastated to know there were people out there who would do this to young children. We hear please like these so often heart breaking situations that are worlds away oceans separate us more than  cultures or languages do. It is so much easier to turn it off or not hear about it than to know and stay with the feeling that there is nothing we can do about it. An impotence comes with that heart break but inability to actually effect a change.

                               For two or 3 days I have been seeing this mans face all over facebook from different people those that would in real life have no reason or place to have met each other unless I brought them together. I found it interesting but I do not often watch or read things a lot of people post like this because Like the video of the man who shot his daughter computer I just don't want to engage in conversations about it because people tend to not like my views. So if I do not see it I do not have too have that conversation. Because opinions about things such as Dad should actually talk to his child not publicly shame her with a violent act of shooting her computer are not really well revived by all. Even after I watched an interview where I watched him intimidate his Daughter shut her up belittle her and answer for her. Ya know stuff like that. 

                           How ever Today I watched this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

and encourage you to do so also. There are a few action steps we can do to bring down this lower than life thug will you join me?  Even in looking up this video to put on there I came across peoples videos that said "Who cares I live in 'merica" REally?! We are the greatest nation on earth because we do care. Would you want someone to care that your child was so unsafe they had to roam the night to be safe. What a short sided narrow view of the world you live in It makes us all smaller when this happens anywhere! WE are the human race the moment we stop looking at that and valuing that we become less than that. Then people like this man Kony win.

The Desert Place

Oh, Monday can be such a bitch when she wants to be. Woke up to hear of yet another friend that is at the breaking point if not beyond that. My heart breaks for them, so many reaching for hope to find none. The person struggling with illness only to find more and more  different types of illnesses coming their way. The couple trying and trying for children only to loose one after another. There is nothing to say, there are no words that seem big enough, no actions seem to fit. It is killing my certitudes about life. I am Sue Heck at the core of who I am, I watched "The Middle" for the first time and knew, the girl who gets so excited to be a part of something and never makes it but has a bounce back rate of like mine is being tortured in me.

                          We have lost so much in the last years; I lost my health, my job, our house, my husbands job, my family and our money. We gained a few things. I would never never want to be without, we gained friends that are family to us. My husband found a job that he loves even if it pays just slightly above what he made on unemployment from the other one, and a deep deep appreciation for Jesus and a more honest relationship with him.
                         I mourn the things I lost. I have always been the Sue with an optimism that could not be kept down, that is fading a bit more to the side of being a slave to hope. I think it might be easier to be without but can't drop. I never was unaware of the bad like most people thought I was. I just chose to not entertain it. But when I go dark, I go very dark.

                     There are those that pull out the Christian phrases and Bible verses that seem in time of hardships; just mock and make one feel less than because "why is that not be true for me?"

       Or the GCB's in life gloating over people's pain because it proves them to be not worthy or flawed. It is hard to sit in pain with people, so much easier to sit in celebration with those celebrating. Facing the hard life sucking soul crushing things that everyone comes in contact with sooner or later is the things nightmares are made of.  This is why people feel so lonely in the face of the big ugly in life.
                            The end of certitudes in my life has been so hard on me. It is so much easier to cling to behaviors and rules of life; "if I do this this will happen" and if it does not then the beating of ourselves up at least gives us something to do in the face of it rather than the void of "I did what I was supposed to" and it still crushed. I mean there are things that have no reason when you do a + b you get c, but, What do you do when you add it up and it comes out duck, not even a freaking letter? There is no reason it should not be working, every story has an ark, right? It can't just keep plummeting. I have no answers for that. I can no longer say "I know",  there is much firm ground left. It is hard for me to go to this place. I have struggled to go to the sparkly happy twirly bow on it through writing  this whole thing: making the grand Disney ending we all long for: the Hallmark movie we could all write when we were 10 but love and watch anyway. I seriously every other sentence wanted to write the but now answer for it all. What does one do when there is none?

                                       Yes, Jesus will be with the person and us walking them through it. But to hurry through just to make others or your self more comfortable robs us and belittles the person going through it. Sometimes all one can do is sit next to the fire with the person in it, and when the time is right offer a little distraction and a lot of prayers. I have to say right now that sucks, I want to do more. To have answers that really work, some boot strap to offer that isn't busted off yet from pulling trying to get up. I am rung dry of tears and starved for the Knight in white saving at least one person I know from this breaking . Someone, anyone that is not kicked to death once they are down. I am left with so little answers and so many more questions.

                                     Sorry, this is so dark. I hate this view and fear the vulnerability of saying this and conclusions people will make of it. I felt I needed to say this and get it out of my head. The desert in life is not a fun place to be but there is life there. I look at the world God created for quest of life, the lush jungles are great but not without struggle, mountain meadows no one sees and think our lives are much like the land spaces God made but the desert place is such a hard place dotted with so few oasis . Be one for someone starving for it today while prayers that seem more like begging than firm ground it used to feel like. Certitude is starved but continues to cling to life and the Father holding all of you close.

I am not sure why it is so hard to talk about weight not like anyone looking at me would be like OMG I never noticed how did you hide it all these years. It has been a sensitive subject for me for years not that I am afraid to talk about it, but when you randomly get assaulted by people verbally for it in public it becomes an issue. No seriously I have had people run across rooms down blocks and be held back like a person in a fight trying to "help" me: it is not helpful. If you are doing helpful hints to strangers in public to those who do not ask you word of advice unsolicited hints are not advice they are critique and damaging. Stop it!  Also a word to those who tease to help someone make a change Stop it! Last group if you are at the same group to loose weight or make a change you are in no position to judge other that are there for the same, enjoy the comradeship leave the I need to make my self feel better by by mocking and cutting others down at home.
These thing do make it hard to be vulnerable about where you are and the struggle to change, and no not exaggerating real examples and more behind all.

     Sorry sorry. In this day and age it is the thing you do not want to be is Fat. You can be a drug user you can be an abuser all that but fat even gain a few pounds and Bam you are done no redemption. Even if you loose it you are mocked and monitored look at Kristy Alley. It is a little different for men they are more respected when they are heavier my friends cousin lost several hundred pounds and had to gain 75 back because it was effecting his job. But in the land of the 15 inch waist of Angelina how dose one make it when you do not. Don't get me wrong I love all she has over come and what she stands for but eat something!!! In my home town they just arrested a couple for not feeding their baby there was a lot to it but one thing I am talking about is they had the Baby in the hospital on Iv's trying to get the weight up and they snatched her out without Dr. consent because she gained a pound in 3 days way less than she needed to gain. Really we look at those poor kids who survived neglect like not being fed and surviving eating the walls and your first thought is that is so sad but they are trim kids. I know we are not all that messed up but it feels that way some times.

       Having been on diets since I was 5 it is hard to look at with optimistic point of view.  But I am committed to making healthy choices not being on a diet. The out look is so much easier for me to enjoy the process along the way. I am also so grateful for the love and support I have revived not pressure at all but the cheering on and understanding has been awesome. So step by step leaf by leaf I walk this road. Trying to be vulnerable and honest along the way.

      I do not want to make this bog all about weight but I am feeling this today so this is today and what I had to say.

From Chocolate to Kale...Honestly KALE!

OK so I am back, I feel so silly about letting discouraging things and not valuing my voice and trusting I may have something silly if not interesting to say get in the way of posting. So what do I have to say for today?

I have been making striving for healthy living a thing in my life my whole life not just food but that is where I am starting talking about here. I took some advice from an expert on the Anderson show because it struck me as fitting my personality. Rather than depriving my self of the sugar I craved I scheduled it. Between 2 and 3 every day I would indulge in sugar/ sweets, also if some one offered I had to take and eat one. Had to...  I was weary of it at first and though at least this would be a really great holiday season this year. The first week was like oh yeah this is nice a little treat during the day no guilt for the first time ever. It was required so why beat your self up. Then Christmas came and I was so grateful for friends who actually eat well and the sweet count was not as high as I had thought. this was new mind set for me in it almost found my self begging in my mind just set the cookies or sweet bread down don't offer me any! Some times they did some times not. As the weeks and parties went on I found less and less delight in seeing something yummy brought out. I still appreciated the care and love that went into it and the taste but the duty to eat it was the WAh WAh  to my delight of the goodness..  I was still ok with sweets on new years holidays rocks come valentines day OMG I wanted salad! I wanted lentils (odd because I hate Lentils)! I was googling kale for gods sake. I started this last week after feel like I torturer  my self for several months with the the very thing I wanted so desperately to give up. I actually tossed out over half of my birthday cake first time ever for me doing that I just could not eat another bite.

           I have a dear friend that is doing weight watchers with a group of the most fab women ever and invited little old me!  For support hints venting celebrating and just general love. I am going to join weight watchers but have not yet I feel like such a fraud being in their support each other group (it does not start with hello my name is..) because I have yet to join. :/  I am really going in but I felt I had to walk out this thing I started to have the revolting of the sweets to keep me from falling back in old habits while I am bring me ones in to replace them.  So honestly I cheat in the best possible way at this time longing for raw snow peas while eating a cookie. Really it is true all my pinterest has switched from cake to smoothies and salad (healthy smoothies not even made with sugar one not the shakes made with ice cream you are calling smoothy so you can drink it with out guilt).

               So cut to this last week went I finally had had it with it. I freaked out about needing a salad to the surprised of my husband. The self whipping with millano cookies had to end or someone was going to get it. But the problem we still have a few remaining landmines in the house of very unopened bag of  good cookies and 3 servings of ice cream. I already  threw out my birthday cake can I really do this with the rest? I am hostage by my thrift in not wanting to waist but can not bring my self to bite one more spoon of it. Guilt and delight in eating it is replaced with revolting at the thought. Win I think for me today anyway.

                               Can this actually be working for me? Could it be that my discomfort with routine is so strong it has turned me against ice cream? That has yet to be seen but I am trusting the changes in my attitude for it will help. I also had a huge revelation the other day in eating my feelings which has always been the case for me. I had a very painful thing happen while I was in my forced sweets time. I made the connection between not going to a soother rather that facing the problem head one and dealing was the adult thing. I had never striven to be an adult the stuffy women of 1900 is what that brings to mind for me think the Dowager on Downtown Abby pinky raised at high tea and all. Not appealing to me at all, But the idea of a women standing in the face of over whelming force. Cut too Oprah as Miss Celie stabbing the knife in the table in the color Purple saying "till you do right by me." I can get behind that. So big girl Panties on we forge ahead.

                     I can not say I am making it this time, Yet. I qam changing for a healthier way but I can say in this moment I am happily munching salad spending my time looking out for healthy dinners and easy quick healthy breakfast smoothies OOOOOOOOOOO the smoothies I could bath in them and be the happy drowning in it. oh sorry about that.. The right amount the green crisp veggies and fresh fresh feel are all I long for at this moment. So I can not say I recommend the torcher your self with cookies and baked goods approach but so far it has pushed me to kale and I could not be happier about it. So we will see where this goes. I Vow here and now to be honest about where I am going with this It may take me to bear raw places but here we go  "loud and proud over pounds we go, I am going to beat those Bitches (the pounds) one at a time it will kill them not me." My new mantra.

Messy

I was thinking today about the romance of things and how that romantic idea sometimes stops us from actually injoying life. Confused ok let me elaberate.

I love the romance of fishing the boat the water relecting

the sky the silence with just the ripples of water on the boat sides. the gental sway of the water rising and falling as the sun kisses your skin:  a soft breeze adds just the right amount of freshness. The struggle with the fish as he fights for his life and the fishermen or women struggle to land the massive fish.

that sanitarily lands on your plate with sauce on the side, and little Baby potaoes browned just slightly on the side.

This is a noble idea of fishing that longers in my brain the reality of fishing in my minds eye is that you get on a smelling boat with water in the bottem and the bugs swarm you as you make your way out to where you are going to fish at you swat away the hords of bug the humming of them never stops and the spead boat runs past almost knocking your som much smaller boat over. You cast out and catch nothing but manage to feed the fish as you bait flies way as you cast. So you pull it back in, as you are putting the new bait on you stab your self with the hook and start to bleed.

 As your casting you catch it on the tree behind you. You struggle to get it out of the tree limb it breaks loose hitting the shirt of the person who is with you. finally you make it into the river with bait in place.

The sun beats down on you breakign through the 5 LB of sunscrean you put on and bakes you like a cake. The bobble bobs down you wait knowing the fish will be back the bobber goes onder and you jerk up on the line snaggin what feels like a huge monster under the water. as you fight to ge tthe fish in when the water gives way and the fish shows Himself to you. He turns out to be too small to keep and he must go back in. So at the end of the day of fishing after you stop at the emergancy room for a quick tenis shotand a few quick stitches on your thumb that would not stop bleeding. from the rust hook that ripped you thumb open and a target stop for the shirt you need to replace from the same hook. you have to gut the fish just bairly big enough to keep with smell and funky stuff ripped out of said fish and put it into the freezer. As you dial for pizza because the thought of fish is making you ill at the moment. Now you might think this is an exageration but these are all actulual fishing memories for me except I think we stopped at JC Pennies not Target for the shirt in full desclosure.

This is what I mean about the romance of the thing destroying the actuall idea of the activity. HAs that ever happened to you? I face this all the time In my mind Life is like a Movie perfectly framed and plotted for every screan there is never any Bugs tring to kill you so they can brag to their Bug buddies. (Yeah that is right I implied Bugs are gangs waiting to kill you. ) there is never offencive oders or sweat in places I may get banned for mentioning. you may glisten with a little sweat on the brow but nothing more. WE may face a trail in our life experiance a huge loss but by the next 3 sceans or 2 hours that is done it will not change the essance of who you are for years.

But life is not like that Life is grit in your teeth as you fight through heart break and sturggles. Some times in life when I am most on track and doing what I know I am made for is when I feel the least sure of my self the confidant in what I am doing because the dream in my head interfears with the reality of what that actally fleshes out to be is unrecognisable. I have been bleassed in my life to have many of the things I dreamed of as a girl I have a quirky group of friends that are fun and funny yet deep and real some newer some older I planned my life with as a geeky preteen girl. I have a hot hubby with an acent from a forine land and a heart that should be on display some where the most beautiful I have ever seen: He loves me like crazy for which I have no explination. We may not have much as far as things and cars but we have what we need.

I think about the romatic notions that could make me dissatisfied with my life yeah we can not aford a lot of things trips are years apart and new things are few and far between. I do not get to see my friends daily or weekly for that matter but I do see them often. We have not been able to have children and my health has not been the best. I could micro scope in on the things that anoy me about my husband. But what would this get me? My life may not be an ideal picture on a post card or even make a good christmas letter. I did that one year sat down to writeout a chirstmas letter because we just felt so great and I had time so I did and when I went to the standered form of what people write int he letters It was the most depressing thing I have ever read. It was wierd to me how different it felt vs. how it read. So I choose life the real grit and strif hopes and crushing blows bad smells and sunburns and all. The romancic ideal or ideal just numb you to the treasure that actually awaits int he failing and struggle of real life.

I had a friend of mine described the grossness of birth with the water breaking the blood the poop and guts that come with birthing a baby, If that is how we come into the world how can we expect to live a life other than how we entered it. messy.
But we wait don't we: we wait till the Baby is all washed up with the blanket wrapped just so and the little yamica hat babies wear is on their head and sleeping 

so there is no crying in the picture. There was even a huge up roar over the artist Jill Greenberg the took candy away from children to
capture the pure sadness.

People were out raged! Not that life is always sad or hard but Those times and the hard parts make the joy so much brighter. If we sanitize the bad we will not ever feel the joy and contentment of Life. It has been my experiance that as I face things things look them in the eye brings so much more than the disapointment and beating our selves up for wrecking the image.

We are so obsesed with the romance of things sanitizing things into beautiful picture  that leave so many feeling inadiquit. Reality is relity the messy is life. You cna be Lerical and build a pretty picture and dramatise it all you want and I love me a good dramatisation, but real is real the rest is just going to rob you of life and happiness.

Romance of the road

My sister has been posting about herecar trip outwest with her family and it has been making me remember the trips we would take as kids in the back seat, no seatbelts, actually the one trip Dad took a piece of wood and made the back seat into a bed.

No, we did not have a van, we were four people crammed into a 5 passanger car, sometimes 7 people crammed into the car if we met up with someone like my grandparents and I had to ride in the trunk, ok, well the hatch back or up on the shelf back window. We would drive for time and distance. Every time we stopped Dad would say "We are makin good time". I always wondered as opposed to what the other drivers who are not going where we are.

The trips always started in our house at like 3 am, on the road by 4 at the latest. Therewas endless singing of songs either by my parents or my sister and I,  each being horrified by harmonizing of the other, then there I was getting the words wrong just to bug my sister. The  constant look out the window, if you are bored there is so much to see, you know boring people get bored, there is away something to do, of course shortly followed by "Stop kicking my seat".

This was the days before cell phones, and everyone had some sort of scream in front of them at all times. Man, How did we make it? We as a family several times a year would drive down south at least once, usually twice, we made it to my grandmother's house one time in Arkansas in around 11 hours, when the fastest time before that was 13 hours. But this was after the fuzz buster (police radar detector) made it into our lives and we would race random people on the Highway at night with my sister or I running interference for my dad with the garage opener. See, the first ones you could fool the other driver into slowing down by pressing the garage door opener really fast making the other person think a Police officer was near.

I really liked those times, for a house that hardly ever got junk food it was heaven, dry cold pop tarts for breakfast, chips to snack on and soggy lunch snadwiches from the cooler filled with mostly water. There the moments striking lack of parenting like when because Mom and Dad would not pay 3 dollars a piece for 2 cotton in the shell in a bag they made us steal it from a field. They didn't even get out to help us, they sent 2 fairly young girls out into a feild in Louisiana to steal it and put it in the sandwich bag from our soggy lunch sandwiches.

I remember vividly shopping in flea markets and getting the super cool Don Johnson coat with the big fruit all over it that no one at school would have, not because it was hidiously ugly as you would assume (it was by the way) ,but because it was from New Orleans. The random back hills hillbilly stalking your family in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, podunk after staring at your licence plate for a good 10 minutes while you ate dinner and watched him silent fear.

ya know getting the flavor of the place experiencing culture, or lack of.

I do not know that this post is anything more than a tribute to the family car trip on the open road but there is so much more with that than just hitting the airport and taking off. there just seemed to be more time to just be thinking in those days. I am a fan of the airport and take off, get there enjoy were you wanted to go longer and in 4 hours as opposed to 2 days. but there is a love and romance for me in the ride there in the dirtiest backwoods bathroom to the really cool little place you find in the middle of nowhere on the way, that makes the trip. Most of my memories of the trips and fun of it were the times we were filling time in the car. I think it was the first time as a kid I was forced to get to know my parents as people. The most interesting things happened there, the love of getting there  taking the time for the unexpected detoures and twists and adventure of it all make the trip.