Deleting Out the Cruelty ... Killing the Judgment ...

I know better than to think that I can change people ... I don't think I can.

Sometimes, though, I bite when given the opportunity to debate something that obviously isn't worth my time, effort or energy. I was highly inspired by Aubrey at Way Too Much Aubrey a few months ago and her post/rant about judgment of those who receive help and subsidies from the government. I have fought that battle myself with people in the Facebook world, and occasionally in person.

I remember sitting around the Thanksgiving dinner table with my family when I was 19. I was in the middle of my sophomore year of college and I was taking a core-required Black History class. I had always been liberal, always believed in feeding, clothing and sheltering the poor, but that class changed me. It wasn't about race, it was about people being told "you're not allowed to have children because you're poor," and then refusing to help them with birth control or abortions or even adoptions. It was about people being treated like second class citizens because of their economic background, not their skin color.

Back to my Thanksgiving dinner table ...

A discussion started because they asked how school was going, and I listened to my grandparents, my aunt, and one of my cousins all lay into me about how all poor people

Lake McConaughy ... Part Two ... My National Lampoon Vacation Continues ...

If you didn't read part one, you might want to catch up, but it's probably not necessary ... just know our first day was filled with missing, skinny dipping teenagers, broken, rented jet-skis, tornado warnings, evacuations, forest fires and setting up camp after the wind blew most of it down ...

So ... day two ... we're ready to put the "fixed" jet-ski back in the water ... and it does the same thing as before ... starts for thirty seconds and then won't start ... I think at this point if the lemon man was the crying sort, he would have been balling ... so, we get back on the phone with the rental people ... and this time he goes alone back to Ogallala to get the jet-ski looked at again ... and hopefully really fixed ...

I head back to camp where I'm left to deal with all six kids and try to entertain the other people there as well ... it wasn't really a chore to entertain people ... it was just hard ... and not at all the way it was supposed to go ...

The lemon man was gone for about six hours only to come back and tell us that the jet-ski wasn't fixable ... the cooling system was dead and the parts were going to take days to get there ... and we only had two days left of our vacation ...

That night was better ... filled with conversation and friends ... the two teenage girls were

Lake McConaughy ... The Most Wonderful, Stressful, Amazing, Horrible Vacation ... Part 1 ...

Headed off to Paradise

I don't even know where to begin ... this post is going to be long I'm afraid ... so I'll apologize up front about that ...

We embarked on a journey that was supposed to be amazing fun and relaxation a few weeks ago ... and there was some fun and relaxation ... but it was like a National Lampoon vacation ... I even asked the lemon man what karma train we pissed off ...

We were planning on leaving Thursday morning, but the lemon man wanted to leave Wednesday night ... we were thinking maybe we would stay in a hotel when we got to Ogallala, Nebraska, but that didn't work out ... when we got there the hotels were all full ... we had spent the entire day Wednesday shopping, packing the car and going to pick up the jet-ski we had rented for our trip at the lake ... we underestimated how long it would take to get there ... so as we pulled into our campsite after 11pm ... we set up camp in the dark ...

We had the two of us, my three kids, my oldest daughter's best friend, the lemon man's younger sister, who is fourteen and her best friend who was fifteen ... we were outnumbered by kids ... but I will tell you the younger they were ... the better behaved they were ... I might actually have to save some of my stories about the two teenagers for a future blog ... but needless to say ... I will not be taking them on vacation with me any time in the near future ... maybe when the

Sabotage ...

The title alone means I know what I'm doing to myself ... I mean, really, I know that I am sabotaging myself ... yet I still do it ... what is it about us? ... humans? ... women? ... all of us that struggle with weight and body image ... what is it about us that makes us fail ... that makes us sabotage ourselves? ... is it psychological? physiological? societal? peer pressure? ... sigh ...

Here is my story ... my crazy story that makes me feel like a failure, but maybe typing it will make me feel like I'm ready to get back on the horse ... I guess we'll see ...

So back in January I started on Weight Watchers ... it was good ... it's worked before for me ... I was good with it ... by March I had lost 32 pounds ... then I plateaued ... and I don't know what it is with me and being majorly discouraged by plateaus ... but I was ... I fell off the diet ... I gained about ten pounds ... then I got really serious and started on the paleo diet ... which was easier than I thought it would be to follow ... my main problem was getting the fresh produce on a daily or every other day basis and the lack of true

Touch ...

Have you ever taken one of those love language tests?... you know ... they ask you a bunch of questions and figure out what love language you are ... well, I have ... and I am mostly physical touch ... I have a lot of words of affirmation ... and then the rest just kind of flitter off into nothing ...

When I was getting ready to leave the hospital after my second child was born, my midwife came to me and said that I needed to be prepared for something ... she told me that never before and never again in my life would I be touched as much as I was about to be ... she warned me that my older child would want to touch me, my husband would want to touch me and of course the baby would need me to touch her ...

She apparently had never taken seven, nine and eleven year-olds on vacation ...

I love to cuddle with my kids ... I love to hold them ... and my goodness gracious was that trip to California (Disneyland, Sea World, Legoland) amazing ... but I have never, ever been

The Karma Train at a Softball Game ...

The amount of emotion I feel over this subject ... and the glee I am taking in other people's misery ... makes me feel like an extremely bad person ... I'm just putting that out there ... because it really does kind of bug me ... but then again ... it kind of doesn't ... because the karma train really did drive straight through the middle of my daughter's softball game ...

Some of you may remember me writing about major softball drama that happened with my daughter's softball team this summer ... she had three coaches ... two of them were so concerned about playing favoritism to their own daughters and just being the kinds of coaches you hate to see coaching your children that it made her miserable ... and this is a game she loves ...

We (meaning the lemon man, my daughter and I) decided early in the season that no matter what she wouldn't play for those coaches, on that team again ... she had played competitive softball before ... before I had to move in with my mom ... she knew, I knew, we all knew she was capable ... so we got her all set up for about twelve tryouts ... and then she went to California ... was rough housing with her cousin and broke her hand ... she was in a cast for four weeks ... so to those of you looking for a follow-up to the last

Rollercoasters of Life ... Yes, I'm Back ...

I think I decided that blogging is something I do for a few reasons ...

One ... I have emotions that cannot safely be expressed in any other manner ...

Two ... I feel heavily inspired to write ... whether by a subject or just in general ...

Three ... Because I am procrastinating ...

Four ... To clear my head to allow new thoughts in ...

For the past few months the only one of these I've really had is number two ... but now three and four have entered the picture ... with a hint of one ...

I took the summer off from school ... which was an amazing, much needed break ... but I had nothing to procrastinate for ... I had nothing new to learn ... no papers to write ... no reason to clean out the gears spinning constantly in my head ...

I had an amazing summer ... and those of you that know my history ... I have been so, so, so poor ... my kids' school district considers me homeless ... but this summer, thanks to other people ... and their generosity ... my kids went on two vacations with me ... I spent

Softball Drama ...

Well, what better to bring me back into the world of blogging than something going on right now ...

I guess this requires some history ... my oldest daughter (who is now eleven) started playing softball when she was eight ... she started with 40mph machine pitch competitive ball on a 10u (10 and under) team when she was eight ...

When she started playing she had an absolutely amazing coach ... we moved to another city and I was naive and didn't know about how the whole competitive system worked in a bigger city ... so she played recreational ball with a wonderfully nice coach who really didn't know how to coach for her first season ...

She ended up trying out for some competitive teams ... but again I was new to this process ... we made some rookie mistakes ... and then she broke her finger during a try out ... it just wasn't meant to be ...

She signed up to play fall ball with some of the girls she played with last summer ... at first it seemed great ... she had started playing catcher last summer and she continued in that position in the fall ... she shared the position with another girl ... and they were about 50/50 ... everyone seemed happy ... as the season went on we noticed that the head coach seemed to get more and more angry ... he had words with more than one umpire ... and then he started in on the girls ... my daughter no longer wanted to play for him ...

Over the winter I tried to get her on to two other teams ... one of them I again lost out on due to naivety ... I knew when and where to sign her up, but I was supposed to have a copy of her birth certificate and they only took cash ... no checks, no debit cards ... so by the time I pulled up her birth certificate, etc., ... the team was full ...

It came down to asking her if she wanted to not play at all or play for that coach again ... she chose playing for him again ... well, she started out slated for catcher (along with the other girl from the fall) ... the coach said he wanted a third catcher because he didn't want any of them being burned out ... an assistant coach jumped at the chance to get his daughter into the position ... and started teaching her how to catch ...

To make a long story short ... as time went by the kids have played about 22 innings of softball (they average about 2 innings a game ... they're timed games, so they go for about an hour and a half regardless of how many innings they go) ... the other girl that my daughter has always shared the position with caught about six innings, my daughter has caught for three and the assistant coach's daughter (the one with no experience) has caught the rest of the innings ... the other girl's dad has stopped coming to the games and is talking about starting his own t-eam ...

Now, if this was all about winning and it was about the better player ... and his daughter was the better player then I would have no issue with this, but that's not the way it is ... even other parents have said that my daughter has skills that neither of the other players do ... and just to make sure I wasn't looking at it through my "mom goggles" as my boyfriend calls it ... I started counting catches vs drop pitches vs pass balls ... the assistant coach's daughter is getting better but she was about 50% ... the other girl was about 75% ... and in the few chances she has had my daughter is about 80-90% ... so it's not about skill ... every time the assistant coach's daughter steps up behind the plate I get sympathetic looks ... and some parents even come up and talk to me ... I haven't been vocal about any of it, so they're doing it on their own ...

On top of that the head coach's daughter is one of the pitchers ... she has missed four games and more than half the practices, but when she is there she pitches all the innings ... despite having two other very capable pitchers on the team ... 

All along, the coach is having major anger issues ... he gets ejected from a game ... in 10u recreational ball ... ejected ... seriously I don't understand ... three other girls have quit the team ... we all cringe at the way the assistant coach yells at his own daughter when she is catching ... or doing, well, anything ... it's not just about my daughter not playing catcher ....

Last night she had a breakdown ... she cried and cried ... and talked about quitting the team ... but she loves the sport ... she doesn't want to quit the sport ... at this point after talking with her father and my boyfriend what we've decided is that she'll go to the game tonight, but her father and I are going to go together to talk to the coaches after the game ....

I, personally, am willing to let her quit ... I understand all the stuff about following through on commitments, but there comes a point when the price is too high ... and teaching her that she has to put up with things she shouldn't have to put up with for the sake of commitment isn't a great lesson either ...

I guess we'll find out what happens tonight ... I'm not looking forward to this ...

Yes, I've Been Quiet ...

Most of you know I went away to the land of Disney ... which was wonderful ... and I have a few blogs to write about it ... I came back ... went back to work ... and then worked six straight days ... took one day off ... and then worked thirteen straight days ....

I'm training someone at my job so that they have someone else who knows what to do when I'm gone ... and a little secret I have is that I often write (and read) at work ... so that has cut into my blogging ... 

My daughter is waist deep in her softball season ... I'm working on my nursing school applications ... and all of the sudden ... two years after starting The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo the first time ... and the third time I started it I managed to get past the really boring beginning and become completely enthralled in the entire series and have been spending my free time waist deep in Steig Larson ...

I have blogs upon blogs in my head .... and they will be coming ... I feel awful for not being able to catch up on all the blogs I read as well ... but should have some more time in the coming weeks ...

I miss you all :) ...

Giving the Best of Ourselves to Everyone Else ... and the Worst to Those we Love the Most ....

Originally posted on my "old" blog ... March 21, 2012 ... 


This is either a subject people know about and understand or they don't ... at least to start with ... but maybe those that don't will understand ... at least a little ... after reading this ....

My father was an amazing citizen ... he volunteered as an EMT ... he was on the Search and Rescue Team ... he was even a State Coordinator for the Search and Rescue Team ... he was social, outgoing and even charming to most of the world ... but at home he was reclusive and closed off ... he gave the best of himself to everyone outside of his family ...

I have had friends have experience with this lately ... and I have experienced it myself ... someone is sweet and charming and funny with the rest of the world ... they maintain their temper ... but then when they are around the people that are "closest" to them ... the

Dancing in the Rain ...

Originally posted on my "old" blog ... September 9, 2009 ... 

So, a while back, someone posted one of those pictures on my wall that says "life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain." In the last few weeks, the very deep meaning of that has come to light for me.

Life will let you down, people will let you down, things will happen that you never dreamed would. You will find out that people you thought you knew aren't the people you thought they were, or maybe even your instincts and bad feelings about people or situations were right, and things you hoped weren't true, will turn out to be true. You will lose your car keys, your kids will do things like color on the couch ... random people will try to make you feel bad, to feel sad, to make you cry ... because apparently nobody ever taught them

Letting Go ... Divorce is Hard ...

Originally posted on my "old" blog ... August 4, 2008 ... 

I am carrying so much with me, so much that I let effect me, I'm just hoping that this will be cathartic, help me to let some of it go and move on . . . I have so much going on in my life right now, so much that is expected, so much that I'm obligated for . . . a lot of stress, both good and bad stress . . . and I need to get a handle on it because I've turned into an emotional basket case - crying at the drop of the hat, or one misplaced innocent action or word from family or friends, or anyone . . . some of this is probably normal, I'm getting divorced, with this comes various stages of grief and stress and whatever else . . . right now I feel like the first and last thing I need is a shoulder to cry on, someone just to hold me and tell me that everything will be alright . . . my finances are well, not even finances . . . my dad who lives 150 miles away is going way out of his way to put gas in my car and help with my rent . . . I miss my kids like crazy when they're gone and they drive me crazy when they're here . . . certain aspects of my job leave me feeling completely unappreciated and at my worst incapable . . . I'm dealing with lawyers and doctors . . .  and I'm trying to hold my shit together for everyone in my life . . . I try not to let anyone in on the emotions . . . because first off, this is nobody's burden but my own, but also I never know the reaction I'm going to get from anyone; sympathy, anger, judgment . . . but no matter what I am countered with nobody has a full grasp of everything I am going through . . . I was asked last night if I still thought it was for the best . . . and yes, absolutely is it for the best . . . there are things that would never be ok, things my kids should never have had to deal with as long as they did, things that I need to let go of because there is no point in me carrying it with me anymore . . . and I'm working on that . . . and of course there are things I miss, as anyone would with anyone they've been with for eleven years . . . most of it is intangible, and actually completely replaceable . . . if someone ever comes along that is willing and I want to replace those things . . . stupid little things . . . a lot of it physical, because I am a touchy feely person, I have a huge desire and need for physical contact with people period not just lovers, or boyfriends, or family but everyone . . . a hug from my friends . . . my boss rubbing my back and playing with my hair . . . it's not sexual just physical . . . but yeah, I miss the stupid little things that helped to reassure me that I was/am beautiful - inside and out, loveable, worth the effort to be touched . . . and these are reassurances that I shouldn't and in all reality don't need, but they are missed and wanted and desired . . . and at some point there will be someone who will be that person to me without all the negativity that makes leaving those things all for the best . . . but as my quote said not very long ago, there's a reason that today is called the present, it is a gift, we cannot live in the past, nor predict the future and live to create it or nurture it, but rather live for today, appreciate what is here, try to ignore what isn't and go to sleep hoping that you wake up the next morning for the gift of tomorrow, but yes, worrying about tomorrow today will do nothing if you don't wake up the next morning . . . so why bother . . . .

The Delivery ...

 Originally posted on my "old" blog ... October 8, 2010 ...

Sometimes it's the delivery ... not the message ...

If someone gives you the best news that you could have ever heard ... but in the wrong way ... or the worst news you have ever heard but in the right way ... it can change your reaction completely ...

When someone is angry all the time ... and everything they say ... even positive things ... come off with that angry overtone (or even undertone) ... the receiver of the message will probably not see things in the positive light that they may have if the delivery was upbeat and positive ...

Body language is extremely important in person, as is facial expression, followed by tone of voice ... over the phone ... tone of voice means more than the words you say ...

In writing ... now this poses an interesting thought process in the reader's mind ... what generally will happen is the reader will take what they know about the writer and put that

15 Days ...

Originally posted on my "old" blog ... November 12, 2010 ... although I added extra information at the end ...  and appropriately this is being scheduled to post on my son's birthday ...

My five year-old son spent 15 days in the hospital, including two surgeries, six in-room procedures and countless tubes, IVs, pokes and other fun things ... so here is the entire story.

First off, I will preempt this by telling all my lovely readers that my middle daughter has a history of chronic illness, and usually when these kinds of things happen, they happen to her. My son does have a history of Reactive Airway Disease (RAD) and has had pneumonia three times, but two of them weren't bad at all and the third was associated with lab-confirmed H1N1 last fall. He did end up on in-home oxygen with that one, and they talked about hospitalizing him, but never did.

So, here is the story of our little adventure this fall ....

On Wednesday October 13, my cute little five year-old boy started off a cold with some sniffles and a little bit of a cough, but nothing seemed too bad, according to his dad (sidebar- my kids go every other month and every other weekend between their father and me, October was their month with their dad). Saturday morning his dad started getting more worried about him, he was spiking high fevers, throwing up almost everything he ate (including medicine), and had a really good, unproductive cough ... Sunday morning my son was taken to urgent care, they said that he sounded clear, his O2 Saturation was in

Moving ....

Originally posted on my "old" blog ... August 9, 2010 ... 

So, I'm in the process of moving ... it's a long story ... but basically I'm moving out of a house that my dad bought for me into my mom's basement ...

When I got divorced I had been a stay at home mom for 7+ years, outside of a part-time job. Nobody gets married thinking they will get divorced, nobody does ... I was actually very judgmental of people that divorced in the past, but now I am one of them, and that is somewhat guilt that I have to live with, especially for my children, but when it comes down to it now I am.

It put me in an odd place though, I didn't finish my education because of the birth of my first and my pregnancy with my second. I didn't have any solid, full-time work history, so it

I Want You to Want to do the Dishes ...

 Originally posted on my "old" blog ... August 15, 2010

So, this is a blog post that I have been writing in my head for years (that's my way of saying don't take this as a slam on the current man in my life ♥) ... but it seems to be an ongoing theme in my relationships with men and in those of my friends with their significant others. I have heard it reversed and I will get to that as well!

So, let's start with that line; "I want you to want to do the dishes" ... for those of you that don't know where that line is from, it is from the movie, The Break-up Jennifer Aniston's character says it to Vince Vaughn's character after a party has occurred at their house and he sits down to play video games while she is in the kitchen doing the dishes. She of course is angry, she wants his help, he responds and says basically fine, I'll come help, she says something like I don't want you to do it because I'm asking you to, and then says "I want you to want to do the dishes" ... he of course finds this ridiculous, stating, "who would want to do the dishes?"

Unfortunately, the metaphor in all that is one that most women know very well, and some

Labeling Our Children ...

Originally posted on my "old" blog ... October 13, 2010 ... 

I think there is a fine line between encouraging and nurturing the strengths of our children and labeling and pigeon-holing them into something, somewhere that is unfair to them ... so here is my confession/struggle ...

Hi, my name is Lemonade Lady, and I just came back from parent teacher conferences, and this is where I find it very hard to not "label" my children ... let me start out by saying that all three of my children are bright ... all three of them have areas they stand out in and areas they don't do so well in ... but ... here is where the issue lies ...


My oldest is "the creative one" ... she naturally draws better than I did when instructed by high school art teachers ... she is musically inclined, I have never heard her sing horribly off pitch ... not always perfect (and I'm a tough judge with three years of vocal music major fun stuff in college) .. but she is a decent singer ... she is interested in musical instruments and drama ... and writing .. which is about the only academic thing she is interested in ... she has already had plenty of F's and D's and I's and "needs improvement" and "below grade level" and other such negative comments on her report cards ... I fear her parent teacher conferences ... and today was

Unrealistic Expectations ... Are Movies Ruining Relationships? ...

 Originally posted on my "old" blog ... October 4, 2010 ... 

There was a study I heard about on the radio several years ago that touched on this ... and now here is another one that came out a few months ago ... with this news report of a study headed by Dr. Gabrielle Morrissey .. has brought it to headlines again ... and then anyone that has been familiar with MySpace/Facebook or the bumper sticker bulletin boards has probably at some point seen a sticker or icon that resembled the one to the right ...this is actually something I have given a lot of thought to lately, although not in the terms that the studies imply, I have a little different take ... but it's related in many ways ...

So the studies say that our romantic comedies and chick flicks create unrealistic expectations for romantic grandeur and communication and even sex ... that we then have this idea of how a relationship should be based on the romance involved in movies such as Notting Hill, Runaway Bride, You've Got Mail, The Wedding Planner & While You Were Sleeping ... just to name a few that are listed in the news reports and studies ... and I will preface all of what I'm about to say that those listed above and the rest of the movies that I will list are among some of my favorite movies and I appreciate a chick flick and romantic comedy as much as anyone else ... but now here is my take ...

These amazingly romantic movies ... the ones we watch and cry and sigh and wish that our lives, our relationships could just be that terribly romantic ... almost all of them ... involve cheating on some level and the hero or heroine breaking somebody's heart ... so is that the message that these films send that hurts relationships ... the grass is greener idea ... the idea that someone can come along while you're in a relationship and sweep you off your feet and that will be your happily ever after

The Stay At Home Mom Curse? ...

Originally posted on my "old" blog March 14, 2011 ... 

If you had asked me 5 years ago if I would ever be writing a blog like this I would have told you that you were totally and completely nuts ... if you had asked for my honest opinion 5 years ago as to whether or not being a stay-at-home mom was the better best choice for any growing family that could afford it ... I would have said ABSOFREAKINLUTELY ... and then the walls came tumbling down ...

Now before I say all this ... please don't think for a minute that I actually regret the time I spent with my children ... watching them grow ... nurturing them ... seeing every single

Looking Back ...

So I'm taking a blogging break ... but not really ...

I will be out of town for a wedding this weekend and then at the absolutely wonderful Disneyland all next week ...

So, as a treat to those who are semi-new to my blog ... I am pulling the "best of" out of my archives from my previous blog and they will be scheduled to post for the next week and a half ...

I also will be taking a break from YeahWrite this week ... but I will catch up on all the YeahWrite virgins when I return ...

For those of you that don't know ... I had another blog that I ran for almost three years ... but moved here because I decided I needed to be able to pour my heart out more anonymously ...

I hope you like the blasts from my past ... and I look forward to catching up on all your wonderful posts when I return ...

Confessions of a Former Mommy Snob ...

Mommy snobbery is not a new subject in my blog ... but I don't know that I've ever dedicated an entire blog to it ...

There are a lot of things involved in mommy snobbery ... the mommy wars definitely are a large part of it ... for those that don't know ... the mommy wars are the arguments like breast vs bottle, co-sleeping vs crib sleeping, baby wearing vs detachment, spanking vs not spanking, etc., etc., etc., ... but my main issue with mommy snobbery and the kind of mommy snob I used to be didn't have much to do with any of that ....

I married young ... had my oldest when I was barely twenty-three ... none of my friends were married ... none of them had kids ... they were in their early twenties ... living it up ... drinking ... partying ... bar hopping ... they invited me for a while ... but after I pretty much flat out said something like "don't you understand I'm a mother now, I have a baby, I don't have time for those childish things" ... they stopped inviting me ... it was funny because in the season finale of How I Met Your Mother Marshall and Lilly have their baby and suddenly they tell their friends they don't have time for them unless they have something to say that is ranked "an 8 or higher" ... I looked at the lemon man and said "see mommy snobbery" ... they even talk about it in sitcoms ... I digress ... for a while I was glad my friends had stopped inviting me ... but then two more kids later I started to realize some things ... and I give credit to a speaker

Living With A Hoarder ...

This post I'm about to write is part of why I started an anonymous blog ... and I still don't know if I'm going to say it all in the right way ... or in a way that people will remotely understand ... but here it goes ...

Many of you that have been reading me know I live with my mother ... I've lived here for almost two years ... one of the many problems with that is that my mom is a hoarder ... she isn't at the level that the people you see on the shows are ... there aren't dead animals ... or at least there aren't any missing animals so I assume there aren't ... and she isn't accumulating more stuff by going to garage sales or digging through people's trash cans or other things you see in the extreme cases they showcase for entertainment ... but she doesn't get rid of anything ... so here we go ...

 

This is a picture of my mom's/our dining room ... the backpacks up front do belong to my children ... but obviously there is much more than that ...

Negativity & Misery ....

This post was absolutely inspired by Robin and her post Misery Loves Company ...

This is something I have actually contemplated a lot ... when I am most inspired to write it's when something has me fired up ... emotional ... angry, sad, frustrated ... whatever it is the negative emotions drive me to write ...

I often wonder if people who read my blogs think I am this crazy, pessimistic, negative person ... because I'm really not (really ... I swear ... I don't spend my whole life bitching about my living situation or my friends or family) ... I am blessed ... I am blessed that I had a mother who could and did take me and my kids in to her home ... I am blessed that I never have to wonder where a meal is coming from ... I am blessed to have an amazing man in my life ... and those three rugrats that I pushed out of my vagina ... yeah ... I like them too ... I am healthy now ... that is a blessing ... I have a job (not one that pays enough to move out ... but I do have one) ... I'm in school, finished my prerequisites and I get to apply for nursing school ... I am an

Memorial Day ... Remembering What it's Really About ...

While branded a holiday about barbeques and drinking many people forget what Memorial Day is really about ...

When I was seventeen my father and I took a trip to Washington DC  ... the first horrific thing that I saw there was the Holocaust Museum ... I don't think that what Hitler did registered with me until I walked through that museum and watched the bulldozing of bodies ... saw the personal stories ... that experience is something that will resonate with me forever ...

Later that same day we visited the Vietnam Memorial Wall ... where my dad broke down and cried when he found the names of friends from high school ... and I think it wasn't until

The Struggle ...

I am caught in a struggle ... well several ... but the biggest of which is whether or not to stay true to myself ...

My last post provides some context for this one ... but basically I am an only child with only three cousins ... two of them are close in age and always lived very close to me ... I considered them more like siblings than cousins ... I'm sure they didn't feel that way ... but being an only child I guess that I definitely had a different point of view ...

Throughout time they have found various ways to exile me ... at my girl cousin's wedding there were reserved tables for "all the family" ... my dad (and his then girlfriend) ... sat at the head table ... by the time my ex-husband and I made it from the church to the reception hall with a four year old, two year old and five week old in tow and then made it through the receiving line ... there was no seating left in the banquet room ... and amongst

Black Sheep ...

 From my archives ... originally posted December 10, 2010 ... this blog offers context for an upcoming blog ... but also needs some itself ... in July 2010 my father evicted me from a house that he bought for me and my kids to live in post-divorce ... his reason for evicting me was that me living in that house was "bad for our relationship" ... I had to quit the job I had at the time ... move three hours away ... and into my mom's basement ... when I first moved in there I had no money ... I was reliant on her for everything ... she had a great deal of control and she exerted it ... the part of this blog that is needed for context for an upcoming blog is the part about my cousins and extended family ... but this has been a short synopsis to understand this blog ...

... so I'm going through one of those times right now where blogging is both my best friend and my worst enemy ...

I have feelings I can't explain ... feelings I can ... and then of course this blog is not anonymous .... so I have to be somewhat careful, guarded if you will, about what I say about certain situations, people, etc.,

The holidays are very hard for me for multiple reasons ... but mostly it's the pressure and the tug of war of both myself and my children .. and then I come off as uncaring and not wanting to spend time with people, which isn't true ... but I've spent a lot of time as a black sheep, and I emphasize a lot ...

I went through a phase right around my senior year of high school where I felt much the same way I do now ... but basically it comes down to this ... I play a very good black sheep from the sidelines ... so what is the purpose in joining a game, where further injury will inevitably be the only result? ... the bulk of my extended family has made it very clear

There Once Was A Blogger Named Sperk* ...

I was very honored when Kimberly Speranza over at the blog Sperk* honored me with a Liebster Blog award.

I love reading Sperk* and all her parenting opinions and her Listicles!

I think it's amazing how much the blogging world can and does support other bloggers and this is part of it. I am definitely "plugging" Kimberly's blog and I highly recommend people that don't know her writing check it out!

I came to Sperk* through a blogging network/community called YeahWrite. That community has made my constant blogging feel much more rewarding and much more friendly than it had in the past. I highly recommend YeahWrite to anyone who wants to enter a network of other bloggers and blogs that exist to support one another.

Sperk* also narrowed the field of my possible nominations when she nominated four other blogs at the same time as mine in her Liebster Blog post. Thank you so much to Kimberly and all the other amazing bloggers that I've found out there!

When you get a Liebster, here's what you do:

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you for it.  
2. Link back to the nominator blogger(s).  See above.  Then click the links!
3. Display the Liebster Award Logo.  Proudly.
4. Nominate 5 bloggers with fewer than 200 followers - actual followers, not Facebook friends or Twitter followers.
5. Let your nominees know so that they can do the same and keep the awards rolling.

My Nominees 

(I highly recommend you visit these blogs)

PS ... I had several "runners up" ... this was kind of hard lol ... and I'm only mostly sure they meet the 200 follower qualifications

Abby Gabs

Absurd Grace

Clay Baboons

Mockingbird, Don't Write

Thoughts and Reflection, My Lovely Disaster

Scared ...

This is something I don't talk about a lot ... and it's probably something I should be talking about ... I don't feel comfortable with the subject because, quite frankly, it scares the living shit out of me ... so I don't talk about it with my closest friends ... or my family ... but for some reason ... today ... I'm going to share it with the people that read this blog ... the bulk of which are strangers ...

I think I don't talk about it because I don't think people realize how much it really scares me ... how much I avoid it ... and then I finally do say something ... and nobody responds ... leading to me posting about how it actually hurt my feelings to have no responses on Facebook about it ...

So here it goes ... my kidney is slowly failing ... I say kidney because they already took

Why I Actually Like Working the Night Shift ... And Why it Works For My Family ...

People tell me all the time I'm crazy ...

Maybe that doesn't have anything to do with my shift though ... but we'll pretend it does ...

I've always been a night person ... I've always detested alarm clocks ... and I've always, always had insomnia ... that alone explains part of why I like working nights ... my current shift is midnight-7am Monday thru Thursday nights and then 7pm - 7am Sundays ... although my position is PRN (basically on call so a lot of weeks I don't work all those nights) ...

But ... the main reason I work nights ... the reason I seek out night shifts ... is that it is

Being Enough ... The Thing About Being Cheated On ...

Edit: ... I think I say the word "enough" ... way more than "enough" times in this post ... =p

Recently I was out to lunch with a friend and we were talking about things from our distant and not so distant past ... and the subject of cheating came up ... kind of ... she was talking about how it felt like cheating to her when her husband had looked at internet porn ... now this is where you need to hear me out ...

I think that the thing about cheating ... is the feelings that come out of it in the long run ... there is initial anger and sadness ... the feelings that come from the betrayal ... from being lied to ... but in the long run the insecurity that is built is what will make or break a relationship ...

It's this insecurity that is relationship breaking that makes even things that seem mostly innocent an issue ... flirtatious emails, texts, phone calls ... looking at porn ... and of

Ummm ... Hot Tuna ...

Background context may be necessary ... so here it is ... the short version ... post-divorce I live in my mom's basement ... I work nights ... I usually do okay until about Thursday picking the kids up from school and still maintaining my sanity from exhaustion, but then it starts to get me ... but at least Thursday nights are my Friday ...

This is an example (capped off by my daughter's amazing version of "the things kids say") of the little annoyances that build up living with my mom ...

Since Monday she has been talking about making "tuna cheese dreams" for dinner ... this is basically a tuna melt with a fancy name that she decided to give it when I was a kid ... well, Monday we ate out because it was an insane day ... Tuesday we ate with and stayed at the Lemon Man's house ... Wednesday their dad took them out to dinner (per

It's In The Eyes ....

Lately I've received an outpouring of compliments on my eyes ... it's weird ... because that normally just doesn't happen ... walking through a store ... going to work ... random people telling me that my eyes are pretty ... people that know me telling my eyes look brighter and clearer ... I can even see it in pictures of myself  ...

Maybe it's as simple as I haven't been working that much lately ... or that school is over for now ... maybe it's more ... maybe as they say the eyes are the windows to the soul ... I have been happier lately ...

I can't even say exactly why ... there are things in my life that are better ... but there are

Is it all Just Another Popularity Contest? ...

I've been thinking lately ... okay well I think all the time ... but I've been thinking lately about the world of social networking, the blogosphere, the way we use information these days ... and I know for the younger generations it's just an extension of the drama ... the bullshit ... of junior high, high school and maybe even college ... I have seen work drama unfold on Facebook ... I have seen family drama unfold on Facebook ... but I've noticed some things ...

I have a friend that has now had the same issues with different people four, five times in the last two years ... major issues ... life changing issues ... and everyone is always there to offer twenty ... thirty ... comments on her Facebook page about how sorry they are she

How North Carolina Helped Make Barack Obama A Two Term President ...

Whether you are an Obama fan or not ... whether you think he is the lesser of two evils or the epitome of evil or the best gosh durn thing that ever happened to this country ... he made history the other day by coming out in support of gay marriage ... that being said I actually believe that what he was responding to will have more of an impact on the upcoming election than his own statement ...

Top GOP pollsters are reporting that if the Republican party does not back off in the fight against gay marriage that they will marginalize themselves into "insignificance" ... and I agree ... 

Every few generations there comes an issue that just can't be overlooked in the grand scheme of our country ... the end of slavery, women receiving the right to vote, "colored" people receiving the right to vote, the ban on the segregation of schools, workplaces and government facilities, the Vietnam war ... and now we have gay marriage ... in all of these situations what the "conservative" party never understands is this is almost a generational

Relief ...

I work in a field that some nurses and healthcare workers are afraid to work in ... I work with the people society rejects ... sometimes those that the CDC puts in quarantine ... I work with people who have infectious diseases ... mostly non-tuberculosis mycobacterial infections (in other words bacteria that pretend to be tuberculosis) ... but I also work with people that have tuberculosis ... people that are HIV+ and those that have full blown AIDS ... patients that have Hep C and C Diff and a whole slew of other things the public has never heard of ... I work with people that have MRSA that can't be stopped ...

I hate what society does to these people ... I hate the lack of education that the general public has ... and I don't hate a lot of things ... but still I find this weakness in myself ....

I know ... logically ... I know that I take every precaution, follow every rule (and still do my best to make sure that the patients still feel a human connection) ... I do everything to protect myself ... yet every four months when I come up for testing ... I am always relieved to get the negative results ... despite knowing I was never at risk ... to see the negative TB test ... I can breathe easier for a while ... the silver lining of course is that it always is negative ...

Moderation ...Rising Above Being a Child of an Alcoholic ...

I remember it clearly ... sitting in a meeting with my peers ... none of them I went to school with at the time ... but one I knew from church ... and all of them would eventually become schoolmates in middle school ... and when we saw each other in the hallways in the sixth grade ... we pretended we didn't know each other ... our eyes would meet ... and we would quickly look down or away ... it was a mutual shame we all felt ...

Children of Alcoholics ... COA ... we met in a small room at a counseling center in the middle of the mountain county where I grew up ... we spent an entire school year ... all of us in the fourth grade ... nine/ten years old ... talking about what it was like to grow up with an alcoholic parent ... what it was like when they were either recovering or kicked out of our houses ... and how we could avoid the same fate ...

The experience scared me ... 

**************

Probably in some blog down the line I will talk about what it was truly like living with my father up until he stopped drinking ... the abuse ... the car accidents ... the puking ... the

Trying to Forget ...

I want to say it's a "girl" thing ... but in all honesty I don't think it is ... while I totally believe in the theory that the male and female brains are very different ... I think that the flashback is a unisex trait but more common in women than in men ... I think men require the right circumstances in order to hit that point ...

So what exactly is the "flashback" I'm referring to? ... it is the sudden onset of emotional, mental and physical reaction to something that happened a very long time ago ... something reminds you ... something triggers you ... and all of the sudden you are reliving something you would rather forget ...

Something happened in the foundation of my relationship with the lemon man, before we

Every Once in a While ....

Every once in a while ... when I'm writing my blogs ... and I'm grateful that in a sense there is a journal of me ... a permanence of my being ... until the interwebz disappear anyway ... I wonder what my kids will think if they ever come back and read it all ... will they think I was crazy? ... will they be proud that I'm their mom? ... will they have kids of their own and relate? ... I love those little munchkins more than anything else in the universe ... and I hope that when they get truly inside my head ... that they don't think less of me ...

The Stepparent Errr ... Issues ... ??? ...

Okay, so this is going to be a hard post for me to write ... but I feel like I need to write it ... my lemon man is basically a stepparent ... two of my most faithful readers are stepparents ... so I am going to do my best to not be offending or disrespectful in any way ... and I am also going to say up front that my situation may be very different from other people's ... and other moms and dads may feel very differently than I do ... okay ... so that's my disclaimer ...

My kids have a new stepmom ... that's okay ... that I can deal with ... not a big deal ... for a long time through my ex's and her engagement we got along perfectly ... things were going well ... I figured she would be easy to co-parent with ... until the first issue actually came up ... my oldest daughter hadn't completed any of her homework the first month that they had custody of her ...

So, I emailed my ex ... and I could tell that there was some influence from someone else in his responses ... and these conversations are difficult ... it's hard when someone is

Promote What You Love ...

I could go on and on about how this picture ... the quote "promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate" means in the world of politics and religion ...

I have written paragraphs trying to express what this little ten word phrase says and means ... but today I'm not going to talk about politics and religion ... I am going to talk about the effect this saying has on personal relationships ... balance in romantic relationships and friendships ...

Many people have probably heard the "how full is your bucket" theory ... it started as an adult theme and turned into a popular children's story ...

Basically the point of the theory is that you add drops of water to a bucket with positive things and you take water out of the bucket with negative things ... the people that we love

Rest in Peace MCA ...

The death of Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys (aka MCA) hit me harder than any celebrity deaths have in a very long time ...

I think there are several reasons for this ... age being a major part of it ... he was forty-seven ... he was still old enough that technically he could have almost been my father ... but his picture hung on my wall as a teenage girl ... along with the other Beastie Boys ... I thought they were all cute ... all within reach ... another part of it is that he died from cancer ... from something that made him just as human as the rest of us ... and something that he didn't bring on himself ... he didn't die from a drug overdose, like so many young celebrities do ... he was also a very good person ... philanthropy was a huge part of his life for the last two decades ... he started foundations and contributed to others ...

I think my own sense of mortality kicked in ... my own sense of the people around me being vulnerable ... the phrase "the good die young" went through my mind when I first heard ... what I do know is based on several of my friends' responses through social networks that I am not alone in feeling this way ... I am not alone in being deeply affected by the loss of such an amazing artist, philanthropist and person ...

He will be missed ... and many in my generation grew a little bit from the news of the last two days ...

Flinching & Cringing ...

I kind of expected ... correction ... I always expected it ... but I remember the first time it actually happened ...

I was at a school function with my younger daughter ... it was a field trip ... and the kids were outside doing their thing ... eating lunch ...

Another mom who was chaperoning started making small talk with me ... little questions here and there ... and then there it was "what does your husband do?" ...

"Well, I'm divorced, but he's a drafter" .... "Oh, I'm so sorry" ...

And then she turned and WALKED AWAY ... she walked away ...

Maybe she was embarrassed by the fact that she asked the question ... maybe she didn't know how to respond ... but she, in that moment, symbolized all my fears about telling

Surprising New Love ...

I've always been into sports ... okay not always ... I used to think it was funny though that my dad would fall asleep "watching" football every Sunday ... it wasn't football time ... it was nap time ...

I started playing basketball in the third grade ... it was the first sport I fell in love with ... but volleyball in the eighth grade quickly took over as my favorite ... in high school I was a cheerleader ... I didn't know what a down was ... but one of the guys I went to school with sat down one day and explained football to me in a way I understood and cared about ... and I became a football fan for life ...

I love live baseball games ... the stadium ... the smell ... the excitement ... I love live basketball games ... neither am I a big fan of watching on TV but I will sometimes ... and

Finality ... The Sense of Being Reborn ...

“I think it happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you've known forever don't see things the way you do. And so you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on.”   ~ Nicholas Sparks

My ex is now married to someone else ... I've had people come to me with condolences ... worried about how I'm doing ... and really ... I don't care all that much ... and the part of me that does care ... is extremely glad and relieved ...

His marriage gives me a sense of finality and closure that I didn't have before ... when I first found out he was engaged my first thought was "thank God, because now if I do it I won't be the bad guy" ...

Maybe that sounds cold and uncaring to some people ... but they haven't walked in my shoes ... it amuses me because less than a week before his wedding he told me that I needed to "move on and worry about (my)self" ... I moved on long before he did ...

I remember standing in a parking lot after exchanging the kids and he was yelling at me about finding girls that were hotter than me ... telling me that he could have them ... I

If It's Possible ...

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Lao Tzu

I think I'm falling in love with him all over again ... not that I ever fell out ... but I think I'm just seeing him again ... in the ways we sometimes don't see people who have walked the same path as us for so long ... he would think it was cheesy to say that to him ... so I'll say it here ... but I love him more everyday ...

The Moment of Clarity ...

I received a gift about six months ago ... a gift that nobody plans on giving ... a gift that nobody plans on receiving ... but one that forever changes you ...

I received the gift of peace with death ...

A spiritual concreteness flushed through me in a way that nothing ever had before ... at this point in my life I am more spiritual than religious, however I stand by the religion I have been part of all my life, because I believe in their philosophies on people ... on issues ... on everything non-biblical ... and then as much faith as I can put in the bible I believe in their philosophies on it too ... I believe in walking by faith not by sight ... but at the same time there are holes in the bible that I can't wrap my mind around ... but that being said ... I spiritually grew that night in a way that I probably never would have without it ...

It was a fateful evening ... my previous employer had taken me off the schedule ... I had unplanned time off ... then my dad called ... then my cousin called ... both of them with

The Kindness of Strangers ...

An event occurred the other night that I don't think many people experience ... it was a normal evening ... the lemon man and I waited around for his brother to come home so that we could leave his grandpa in good hands and head off to the store to buy some necessary items ... on the way home debated stopping for food ... we decided we would and then we debated where ... and we decided on the good old golden arches ...

Before we pulled in we saw that there was a girl standing at the drive-thru window ... anyone who has ever been a teenager without a car anywhere near a drive-thru knows that 99% of the time they don't let you do that ... so we found that kind of odd ... we went to give them our order ... and their computers were down so it took forever ... and while we

Cutting the Cord ...

I am still getting used to not having my kids with me ... the breaks can be nice ... but it's hard sometimes because since I've had them I've almost always been the sole person in their lives that was constant ... and in many ways I still am ...

For the first seven years I was a mother I was a stay-at-home mom ... so I was with them constantly ... I basically continued as such after my ex and I separated four years ago ... only I got a few breaks here and there ... some weekends ... some weeks ... and then I moved and the only time they were away from me was every other weekend ... which wasn't enough time to miss them really ... unless

The Power of a Smile ...

"A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles." ~ William Hazlitt

I ran into the grocery store at 1am ... I work nights ... that's fairly normal for me ... the security guard smiled and asked me how I was doing ... then I went on to the section of the store I needed and there was a man cleaning the floors ... he also smiled and said hi ... finally the clerk at the front

My Helicopter Mother is Driving me Nuts ...

A little over a year and a half ago I moved into my mom's basement ... after my dad evicted me ... it was a very hard time for me and for my kids and I am entirely grateful for her taking us in ... however ... I think she misunderstood why it was that we did move in ... or at least her actions speak to the fact that she thinks I needed much more than a roof over my head ...

This is a difficult area of contention for me ... because I know that she thinks she is trying to help ... she is well intended ... and we are in her house ... so it's hard for me to say things without sounding ungrateful ...

The problem is that she is now over-involved in my life and the lives of my kids ... she takes over meals ... she takes over laundry ... she takes over homework ... she nags me about stuff in my life ... including if I reset my alarm from 7:00 to 7:20 to get a few extra minutes of sleep ... she is either

What I Meant to Say Was ...

So ... when you decided to be a total and complete asshole and comment on my status on Facebook ... I responded ... but in a nice way ...

I'm glad that you decided that my completely innocent post that had nothing to do with you or your job became your place to decide that you would throw out your superiority ... your casting of inferiority on the rest of the American population ...

Don't get me wrong ... I'm thankful for what you do ... freedom isn't free and men and women that are all over the world doing it are all deserving of thanks and honor ... and you are far from my only friend that is currently doing it ... far from the only person I know that has been there ... and definitely not the one with the worst story to tell ...

What I meant to say when I commented back was ...

It's a good thing you and your family never needed help from us inferior healthcare workers