Life Got In the Way

Yes. Life did get in the way.

But then, it's the living of life that makes us.
Both the good and the bad things that happen while living our lives.

Sometimes it seems there is a lot more bad than good.
Right now is one of those times.

Yesterday a dear friend died.
I had the pleasure of being able to take care of her, keep her comfortable, and even to give her comfort during her last day with us.

For that I am thankful.

Every person has a purpose.

I believe that my purpose is most often as a caretaker.

And usually I don't mind giving comfort, offering support, being there when others need a shoulder or a body to lean on.

Right now...
there have been too many deaths in my circle of friends for me to bear.

Sheila Kaye Davis         1976-2011

I will persevere.
I will carry on.
I will because there is no other choice but to go on.

And by so doing I will honor my friends who have left me behind...
Cindy and Sheila...

I'm the one that's left... I'll try to make you all proud of me.

And I'll try to get back to blogging regularly and my diet and...

well, Living My Life!

Friday Foto Feature

Yes! It's Back! 


Seeing the World thru the eyes of BratChild...

Friends 

Nature

BratChild's Favorite Charity.... BECAUSE IT"S THE RIGHT THING TO DO! 

TWLOHA

Providing Support and Suicide Prevention for Teens     

To Everything.... There Is A Season...

Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones that we have been waiting for.”

- The Elders, Oraibi, Arizona Hopi Nation

I stumbled across these words that are part of a message to the Hopi Nation from their Elders.


These words, this message, to me, is not just for those people living on a reservation in Arizona... 


These words should be read and taken to heart by 


All. People.


Everywhere.


We live in a time of finger pointing and blame. 


A time where it is more common to sue thy neighbor for slights and insults...
Real and Imagined.


We live in a place that is over crowded and over used...


A time and place that is being destroyed by the very beings that it supports and nurtures..


And in this time and place, We the People, complain about the lack of space, the lack of privacy, the lack of resources...


But WE do nothing to fix the problems.


WE, the public in general, the users of the oil and the energy and the food and the air...


WE do not claim accountability for our actions...


WE. Are. Wrong.


The Elders are so very right...


WE ARE THE ONES WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR


It's time to grow up and face the consequences of our actions and of those who have gone before ...


Unless WE really are that selfish and don't care what kind of world we are bequeathing our children....


You know, like those business tycoons who at the turn of the last century made their fortunes off the suffering of the overworked and underpaid peons of society...while they built mansions and lived lives of privilege and excess.


Theirs is not a legacy I wish to emulate.


Do You?


TO EVERYTHING THERE IS A SEASON....

Me, Myself and ... BusyMom

This was a writing prompt back in December that I have been holding onto and thinking about.... and finally decided to use.... Check out : Mama Kats Losin It

Describe myself in five words... 

1-  busy

2-  disrepected

3-  loving

4-  forgiving

5- exhausted

Okay I'm not sure if these describe me or describe my state of mental being... is there a difference?

I mean, I do refer to myself as BusyMom of the BusyFamily.
Working outside the home, working from home, volunteering with the kid's youth groups and sports teams and schools...helping friends who are ill, who are trying to keep a business afloat, who just need a shoulder now and again... Yes. I. Am. Busy.

Disrespected... yeah, by my kids mainly. They talk back. They ignore me. They make fun of the way I dress.
Okay, they're kids but seriously? They need to cut me some slack.

Loving... yeah I love my family and my friends and I am not going to apologize for that... ever.

Forgiving... been working on that one. Trying to let the past go means forgiving but it doesn't mean I forget. I just means I don't let the past hold me back ...

Exhausted... enough said.

Six Degrees of Separation...

No, not the movie with Will Smith that I have never actually seen.

The idea is that every person on earth is only 6 people away from a famous person, or infamous as the case may be... or from someone who knows someone who knows you... confused yet?
I was.

So I go to thinking and...

There's the girl I grew up with who worked with The Greaseman... and then Howard Stern, whose neighbor and  matron of honor in her wedding was Michele Phillips, the famous actress and singer in The Mama and Papas... you know Chyna and Mackenzie Phillips mom.

Then there's Haddaway... the successful singer songwriter in Europe who was my friend and fellow band member in high school.

Montel Williams, who graduated from my kid's high school, the same year as some of my friends in my neighborhood, although he doesn't claim our town as his and he never comes to the reunions.

There are more.. the guy I dated for a minute but stayed friends with from high school who works for a big music company... his title has the word President  or CEO or both in it, whatever...

Then there are the really weird connections like that my ex- mother-in-law used to babysit my current father-in-law's little brother, Johnny... the little brother HeMan Hubby is named for... the one that was killed in a motorcycle accident and taken to the hospital, the very same one my ex-mother-in-law was in that day giving birth to her 3rd child... the one who grew up to become my ex-husband. There was a ceramic Easter egg dish that my ex- mom-in-law set out each year she told me Johnny's mom had made for her as a wedding gift...the signature on the back is HeMan Hubby's grandmother.

And if that's not weird enough... HeMan Hubby's family came to America at the same time and in the same place and were members of the same church and worked together to combat the Indians and the French and the British and then... moved to the state we now live in, to the same place and same time and moved in the same circles for several hundred years!

My kids always say they hate going places with me because I always seem to run into someone I know... and they think I know everyone... and maybe for good reason..

Like BratChild's boyfriend, JM, whose cousin is a friend of mine from high school.

And BratChild's elementary school friend whose mother's cousin is a guy I graduated with and sat next to in almost every class from 7th thru 12th grade and yeah we were in band together.

The  retired Navy guy I met when his boys joined DeMolay only to find out he had moonlighted as a floor guard at the skating rink GoodMom worked at... and she was his boss!

SIX's 3rd grade teacher, who at back to school night I realized was a girl who had been GoodMom's friend in elementary and middle school.

Or SIX's 1st grade teacher, who it turns out was my brother's next door neighbor!

How the owner of the skating rink GoodMom worked at graduated a year ahead of  me in school and we have more than a friend or 2 in common.

That kid I went to elementary school with and had a crush on... only to find out thru FaceBook of all places, that he knows some of the girls I went to nursing school with because he ended up going to their high school and graduated with them- oh and a very good guy friend of mine since middle school who had to spend second half of senior year at that same school.

The Army Major who was a very good friend of mine in high school, who ended up some Big Wig in Iraq who ended up being the person in charge of keeping my sister safe while she was there... and who it turns out is very good friends with a guy I went to elementary school with, the guy who had a crush on my best friend when we were 8, because they ended up at college together and then ended up going thru the ranks in the Army together.

My brother in law's boss who is actually the guy who was ManBoy's school PTA President, the one who got me the discount tickets to Disney World for our family trip for GoodMom's 18th birthday.

I don't really know every one. I mean, there's just no way I could know every one, right?

But I guess it seems they do have a point.

Writer's Workshop... Valentine's Day is Coming... or something like that

MAMA KAT's Losin It

This week's writing prompt for Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop is:

5.) Valentine's Day is coming...share a favorite Valentine's tradition

Or something that I think is close to it... I guess we'll find out! 

Yes.

 Valentine's Day is fast approaching and yes, many couples have special little things they do, traditions they observe, unwritten rules they follow, to commemorate their love on this special day of the year, on Valentine's Day.

HeMan Hubby and I have been married almost 15 years now. 

We lived together for a year or so before we got married, and had spent all of our savings on the down payment for the house we had built and just moved into when we discovered that the flu the family had come down with the weekend we moved into the new house was indeed, not the flu in my case, but rather would turn out to be TeenBoy, our now 15 year old son, who was born in December, 8 months after we moved in.

I was working nights and HeMan Hubby was working days so we only saw each other in our sleep, or so it seemed.  

That first Valentine's Day in the house, which was also TeenBoy's first Valentine's Day ever, the older kids were with their dad so I planned a romantic dinner just for the 2 of us, to be eaten after TeenBoy was put to bed for the evening but before I had to take a nap for work that night.

Lasagna, a salad and chocolate mousse with a lovely blush wine were on the menu for the evening... the stage was set. 

Candles were lit, china and stem ware glistened in the flickering glow, the aroma from the oven was delicious and the wine was perfectly chilled and ready to be enjoyed.

Everything went as planned.

HeMan Hubby came home from work and I sent him to the shower to freshen up. TeenBoy nursed and went to sleep on schedule, he was good that way back then, unlike now when he ignores all schedules and rules... but I digress...

And so we enjoyed what I was sure would be the first of many romantic Valentine's dinners to come... perfect food, perfect company, perfect wine... and then...

A perfect case of hives.

Yes, I had become allergic to the wine somewhere along the last 11 months. What with the pregnancy and then breast feeding it had been awhile since I'd had a glass of wine but the thought that I would become allergic to my favorite wine never occurred to me.

The rest of the evening was a blur of benedryl and calling off work for that night, HeMan Hubby sitting at my side watching me breathe and applying cool compresses to the hives over my face and chest while I dozed off and on waiting for the numbness and swelling in my lips and neck to go away.

Yes, it was a romantic evening that started a tradition... okay it was neither romantic, nor the start of any Valentine's Day tradition.

The following year I was pregnant with BratChild and still working nights so... 

and the year after that we spent the day at my ex-mother-in-law's funeral after her very sudden and unexpected death which left me devastated... 

followed by dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant on the waterfront and then home to a house without children. 

The 3 oldest were with their dad for the funeral and wake and the 2 little ones were with their grandmother for the night so...

8 and a half months later SIX was born.

Since that Valentine's Day in 1998 we have been too busy or too poor to do anything as a couple. We do not exchange gifts. We do not have a special dinner. We do not do anything different from any other day of the year.

Perhaps this year, now that the kids are older and we are not as poor as we once were, perhaps this year we can do something special. Something romantic. Something just for grown-ups.

Dinner and dancing? An over-night stay at a local B&B? A romantic mid-night supper by candle light in front of the fire after the kids have gone to bed?

I don't know, but perhaps this is the year we will start a tradition... perhaps.

THE DOG... an Update

There have been inquiries about THE DOG's health.

I posted about THE DOG's disinclination to walk, to go up or down steps, to using his hind legs for anything really, just before I came down with the incredibly awful flu from hell.

For those who have been concerned about THE DOG...

Don't be.
He is fine.

He can walk.
He can run.
He can run up and down the steps.

When he wants to.

He is still urinating on the floor.
He is still rooting through the trash can at night.
He is still laying around looking sad and dejected while the kids are at school.

Because he can.

So, not to worry.
THE DOG is fine.

I, on the other hand, am trying very hard not to kill THE DOG for ruining my carpet,
and the cherry hardwood floor.

Please pray for me, I need patience...
or for THE DOG, he needs me to have patience

I am sure, either way, THE DOG will be eternally grateful.