This is morning, it's when I spend the most time thinking about what I've given up

Sometimes I feel invisible. Here's just one example: An email was sent out to a group of people asking if someone would step up and do the job of someone who would not be able to. I happened to be online at the time the email came in and I answered right away that I would be more than happy to cover for that person. I hit reply all, so that everyone would know and everyone could relax and not worry about stepping up to help. About a day later (today, in fact) another person on the email list piped in that he would do the job. Next thing I know, a flood of people replied how awesome this guy was to offer to help. I was like--WTF? I'm just so sick of people and the stupid games they play. Why can't anyone act normal? I know that I don't give off an air of liking to be dismissed and yet...there I was being dismissed by these people for no reason. Joe f-ing Blow is so awesome and I am---invisible, I guess.

Then I email my parents to see how they're doing and I filled them in on what's going on here. I also jumped up on my soapbox and did a little political ranting because I am just so incredulous about our precarious state of affairs as far as the economy is concerned (I believe the government will go bankrupt at some point), and the response I get back from them went something like this..."glad to hear you're doing well, life is filled with disappointments, the better you get used to it, the better off you'll be."

Ok. I didn't mention a thing about being disappointed. Hell, I'm ANGRY, not disappointed. I never get the feeling that they know anything about who I really am. For Christmas this past year they sent me a granny bathrobe and a gold pin thing that you see old ladies wear on the outside of their jackets. I am NOT KIDDING. I've never seen anything like it in my life. When I opened the gift, me and the kids started heart-attack laughing over it and I couldn't stop. I laughed so hard that I knocked off a Hallmark angel from the table next to me and the head of the angel broke off. I figured that was a sign that perhaps I shouldn't have been disrespectful of the gifts I was given because I really loved that angel. Immediately I stopped laughing.

Anyway...if I had to assign a theme to my childhood years it would be that "life is filled with disappointments" line. My childhood was great, but what was pounded into my head from an early age was this: be seen and not heard, don't question anything, dream small, aim low, follow the leader, be a good child of God, be good, color inside the lines, keep anger in check, fighting is pointless, live INSIDE the box, give other people control over your life, surrender. It was like living with someone's hands around my throat squeezing the life out of me bit by bit. It's taken me forever to knock those bastard hands off from around my neck. Forever.

I am running on anger now. It's behind everything that I do. It bubbles up just beneath the surface and is the motivating factor that keeps me moving. I want to break things. Then I want to stomp on top of the pile of things that I have broken for good measure. I keep the anger stoked by reminding myself of all the different ways I am asked to deal with asinine people and situations while keeping a straight face as I'm dealing with it all. I have to keep the fire alive or I am liable to give into a paralyzing sadness where I won't want to do anything.

Some of the anger is self directed because I'm finding out late in the game that I have been had by people I've trusted all of my life. I refused to believe evil exists and now I see it everywhere. I am having a crisis of faith--not in God, because He remains a constant, but rather in people, in humanity. It's like I've been sleepwalking my entire existence and have finally woken up and now I am on the war path. My mind is alert, questioning, and above all else, angry.

So I wake up angry, all day long I am angry and I even go to bed angry. It's with me all the time. Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and it is still there with me in the quiet darkness reminding me that I need to stay vigilant lest I fall back into that mindless, listless sleep again where I can be deceived and not even know it.

There is a reason I am alive right here, right now. There is a plan for me written somewhere and it's important that I wake the f*&k up and stay awake to find out what that plan is. My anger keeps me on the path to searching out my destiny. It my fuel. It keeps me going.

Congress passes Hiltler Youth Service Bill

Expanded Americorps has an authoritarian feel

Is anyone else besides me alarmed by Obama and our government yet???? They've stripped the "mandatory" wording from the bill, but as we all know, it can be slipped back in at any time (Friday evenings after everyone else is asleep). Get your kids prepared to go off to indoctrination camp because it's coming (uniforms included!!!)!

He promised this BEFORE the election, then wiped it off his website when it was given too much negative attention in the blogosphere--however, now that the teleprompter narcissist is in power, the bill was not only added back on, it was PASSED without hardly a word of it being mentioned in our mainstream media (which is there just to feed propoganda to the unsuspecting public--what you don't know won't hurt you and all that...).

This is the kind of bill that is needed when a child does not have parents who puts him/her first in their lives. This is the kind of bill that is needed to keep kids out of trouble--which is something that PARENTS should be doing all on their own without government interference. The wording in this bill is astoundingly creepy.

All I can say is my children will be participating in this little program OVER MY DEAD BODY.

Read the text of the bill HERE.

Saturday at the park

I have decided I am tired of being phony. It takes too much effort. I used to feel the need to fill silences with lots of meaningless words, asking questions I don't care to know the answer to, agreeing to things I detest, laughing at things that aren't funny--you know the drill.

I am clear on what matters in my life, on the people that matter to me. I never have to be phony around my family--ever. I can be my truest self and they love me anyway. I never have to be anything more than who I am and I never feel the need to fill the quiet with mindless noise.

There are people who teach me things without ever being aware of the lessons they are teaching me. These are mostly people I abhor for one reason or another, but they leave me thinking, questioning, assessing, and ultimately changing the way I move through my life.

Too much time has been spent trying to bend myself in ways that are contrary to who I am. I think of all the wasted time I will never get back and that is more than enough reason to put an end to the phoniness once and for all.

On hair, love, politics, and God

"There are times to cultivate and create, when you nurture your world and give birth to new ideas and ventures. There are times of flourishing and abundance, when life feels in full bloom, energized and expanding. And there are times of fruition, when things come to an end. They have reached their climax and must be harvested before they begin to fade. And finally of course, there are times that are cold, and cutting and empty, times when the spring of new beginnings seems like a distant dream. Those rhythms in life are natural events. They weave into one another as day follows night, bringing, not messages of hope and fear, but messages of how things are.”~Chogyam Trungpa


I chopped off most of my hair today--the first time in about five years. They divided my hair out into four sections of ponytails then cut them off. The hair will go to Locks of Love. It makes me so happy giving it all away. I told my daughter that the best thing about getting it cut today was throwing my purse over my shoulder and not having my hair get all tangled up in the strap. I feel much lighter now, like my head is floating above my shoulders.

I know that a lot of time has passed since I last posted but I have not felt like writing lately. I've had this heavy heart for a while in terms of our world and where we're headed and when I'm troubled like I've been, it helps me to turn inward to try to find peace. I've had this horrible feeling about what's going to happen to the United States--and feel like we're not heading in a direction that I feel is good for us. I believe our government is filled with people who do not have our best interests at heart and it's hard being at the mercy of people I mistrust with every fiber of my being. I've wanted to do something--anything--to make sure that my family survives. I believe the financial crisis is much worse than what our traitorous government tells us and so I've been trying to prepare by doing things NOW that I hope will help us down the line. I've started storing food and other sorts of supplies in preparation for the worst. If the worst does not come, I can always use the stuff I've bought anyway. I'm not typically an alarmist, but I listen to my heart when it tells me something is wrong. I think if I listen to my heart with pure intentions, then my heart will not fail me.

I bought a large print Bible the other day (because my sight is failing me) and plan on reading it cover to cover. I grew up Catholic but have not been inside a church for more years than I care to tell you. I went to Catholic schools all my life but after I left home, I decided that there was too much about the church that rubbed me the wrong way. I know too many people who go to church on Sundays believing themselves to be holier than thou, yet on the remaining six days of the week, they are as hateful as the day is long. I never felt any connection to God inside a church for some reason and because I did not attend mass anymore, I figured that I was knowingly signing a one way ticket to hell for myself (Catholic guilt will do that to you).

But even though I stopped going to church, I never stopped having a relationship with God, in fact, I think my connection to Him grew stronger the minute I stopped forcing myself to pray with a church full of people. And now with everything that is happening all around me, I felt compelled to go back and read God's words to see how I can apply them to my life--to find answers that I know are inside if I take the time to read them carefully. I feel slightly ashamed that I am such a voracious reader and yet I've never read the entire Bible. I've sat in churches and allowed other people to tell me their interpretations, but I've never challenged myself to seek the wisdom I know I will find there on my own. Rest assured I am not getting all God squad on everyone because I still manage to sin up a storm on a daily basis without even trying.

Spring is almost here and I am loving seeing the color come back into the world. There are miracles everywhere when I stop long enough to notice them.

You're as subtle as a brick in the small of my back

The truth is that I know the answers to all the questions I am always asking myself, or at least most of them.

The truth comes back to me, and the choices that I made and make, and really that is all there is to it.

It's all so simple, and I like to make it complicated, mysterious, unique just to me, when it is not.

When I need answers I should just look in a mirror because the answer is always me.

Break a window, burn a souffle, scream a lullabye

I have it in my head that other people lead more normal lives than I do. By that I mean when other people get in the car to go out to eat with their families, I'm sure the trip to wherever they're going doesn't end up in shouting matches like it does here--where I have to hold myself back from opening my door and jumping out into the road just to get away from all of them. Normal in that when someone suggests to their father that he might be passing by the dry cleaners where he needs to drop off his shirts for work, everyone doesn't end up listening to a tirade about how someone doesn't need anyone telling him how to drive or where to go because he knows everything and takes care of everything.

Normal in that people can agree on one place to go to eat without it being a major production like we always have here--people within a family who can compromise and not always put themselves first because they feel they work the hardest or deserve to make all the decisions for everyone because they earn the money that will buy the food everyone will eat. I want normal people in my life and I don't have normal people in my life, and when I look around me, I think everyone has normal people except me, and I'm jealous of them. I think I started off my life pretty normal then gravitated towards crazy and now I am neck deep in it and I want out even though I know I cannot go.

I know tomorrow I will feel differently, but now, I am beside myself with regret. I don't want out of control yellers who make mountains out of molehills, who fight dirty by bringing up things that have taken place years ago just because it's easier than being normal and letting things go. I'm sick of scab-pickers who feed me the most beautiful words thinking that I will believe in words when there aren't any actions to back them up.

It's the day of love and after attempting to going out to eat with my family, we all came home and went our separate ways because we can't do the simple things without making them difficult and ridiculous and so terribly insane it makes me ashamed to even write it all down. I took the valentine my husband gave me and I went into the kitchen and I got scissors and cut it up into a million pieces and left in by his wallet. It felt cathartic cutting that thing up.

Don't give me a valentine that speaks of love then scream like a maniac about all the things in life that should not matter because that is not the way I have ever operated and if you don't know that by now, then I guess I am living with people who do not know me at all.

And it's moments like this that I wonder how in the world I ended up in this place, in this life with these people. What's the purpose, the message, the life lesson I need to learn that put me right here where I least want to be?

And I think...how could I have gotten it so wrong? How could I have thought I knew that this is what I wanted for my life when I was only 21 years old? And I want so badly to go back and make different choices...ones which do not lead me HERE with a person who finds it so easy to stamp out my light, to leave me lonely.

You're a human sparkler, you are.

For 18 years I have LOVED watching you shine!

Bring your checkbook

It's tennis time which means that I'm going to have lots and lots of stories about how incredibly ridiculous a simple sport becomes in the hands of "professionals."

I am being bombarded already with flyers telling me how much I will owe for sweat suits, uniforms (they get a new one EVERY YEAR), balls, spirit wear, food, booster dues and sponsorship monies. Economic hard times? Forget about it. Bring your checkbook to the meeting, that's what they have in big bold letters at the top of the flyers.

And again with the fake birthdays. I cannot take the fake birthdays anymore!!! I wrote about this last year but I think I deleted it because I didn't want anyone from her team to find it and read it...but the coach assigns every girl a fake birthday if her birthday doesn't fall during the tennis season so that no one feels left out. Then the parents are asked to bake up treats for the occasion and then they all sing happy birthday even if their birthdays are in August. I honestly have never seen anything as silly as this in all my life. I just took a quick scan of the fake birthdays (all scheduled out on a calendar!) and every single girl has a fake birthday assigned to her except MY DAUGHTER who does have a birthday that falls within the tennis season.

It makes me want to scream. This is what is wrong with kids these days. We have to make everything even stevens even if your kid sucks and my kid is spectacular--they will both get an award so no one goes home sad. Boo hoo hoo. As a another example (not tennis related but along the same lines), for senior superlatives this year they have things like BEST SMILE, BEST PERSONALITY, DAZED AND CONFUSED, and MOST ATHLETIC but do you think they have anything that says SMARTEST? Nope. We do not want to celebrate academic achievement IN SCHOOL now would we? Don't get me started because I can go on for days...

Last year we had to donate to a food fund then were also asked to bring something each week to boot and when I questioned them about the money they went into a long spiels about the cost of food as if I am some sort of idiot. Of course I know how much food costs, but do we really need to bring a huge can of Twizzlers and peanut M&M's for the players? If they cut out the crap they'd have plenty of money for food. Let's use a little common sense, people. These moms go crazy about the food and I'm a mom myself and I am telling you I DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT. They police the food and watch how much you take and it's all so petty. I stay as far away as possible from these people because I have a habit of saying what's on my mind and that doesn't go over too well with the politically correct folks who love appearing virtuous while deep inside they are as mean as the day is long.

That's it for now. I'm sure I'll be back with more shortly!

January is 31 days too long

I'm waiting for January to be over. I know. It's not like once February rushes in that things will magically change and life will be better. I just find January hard, have found it hard for years. It hasn't helped that I've been sick, and that the sun hasn't been shining as much. I was born to have the sun beating down on me, shining on me. I'm not sure of much, but I'm quite sure of that.

I've lived in both the north and the south so I know for a fact that I thrive better where there is lots of sun. I remember moving to the south and being amazed at all the sun I had missed all my life. When I woke up in the morning I couldn't believe it was sunny almost everyday (when I lived in Florida). I'd open the blinds and think, "It's sunny again?" It was like I had died and gone to heaven. I will always love Florida for the sun and for making me feel like I was on vacation every single day that I lived there.

I can't think of anything else to write that I haven't written before so I won't bore y'all or waste your time any further. I'm living. I'm alive. Life is good.

Things I'm tired of...

Here are a few things I am tired of:

People constantly referring to themselves in the third person. Enough already. Say ME, not Her. Say I, not SHE. I have had it up to my eyeballs with this third-person writing crap. Is this the new thing and I'm just out of the loop? If so, I'll remain on the outside. I don't know why it's annoying me so much but honest to God I feel like smacking people who constantly write in this manner.

People who decide it's a good idea to buy a present for someone then solicit funds from everyone because they think it's such a great idea and that you must want to be a part of it. Newsflash: I don't want to be a part of it. I don't want my husband to be a part of it. At work they are always after him for money for this one and that one...for birthdays, Christmas and whatthefuckever they can create, and I am just sick to death of it all. Why do we have to contribute money for a present for the secretary of my husband's boss? HUH? She doesn't do any work for my husband. I type all his shit. Nobody has a collection for me so why should we contribute money for her? It grates on my last nerve.

Also, let me add to this group, people who ask me and my husband to buy crap from their kids when we have three kids of our own, TWO in college and one who will be in college next year. Do you think we have $20 extra dollars to spend on an apple pound cake to support your kid's baseball team? No we do not but my husband buys it anyway because he doesn't want people to think we're cheap. Okkkkkkkkkkk. Every month it's something new. ENOUGH! I never, ever had my kids sell things to other people because I know how expensive it is and yet here we are now stuck with people who want to take, take, take all the time and don't think for a minute about how rude they are being by putting us on the spot. I'm beginning to seriously hate these people.

Birthdays right after the holidays. I know it's not their fault, however, I find myself hating January and February because of all the birthdays that keep popping up. The whole thing wears me out--what with the lists of things people want when they already have more than enough and then I feel bad because like I said before, they shouldn't be penalized for being born right after Christmas. I can't enjoy their birthdays, though. It feels like I'm in the middle of great big avalanche. It feels like I'm drowning.

People who join gyms then come home and eat a whole plate of brownies.

The fact that the price of a barrel of oil keeps going down, yet our gas prices have been gradually creeping up these past two weeks. We were at an all time low a couple of weeks ago at $1.39. Within two weeks it's shot back up to $1.79. WTF? I know that's still cheap, but WTF? The news reports that the price is creeping up so that when summer rolls around we won't have prices spike up quickly. HUH? It's fucking January!!!! And then I start hearing how Congress wants to put a tax on gas to get it back up to $3.00 so that we'll all start driving fuel efficient cars that no one wants to drive while THEY'RE tooling around in major gas-guzzlers. This is America. I want to drive what I want to drive and not what some out of touch elitist bullshitter wants me to drive so that they can feel better about themselves. The hypocrisy of these people is mind boggling. I am convinced that the purpose of the new administration will be to kill the middle class. I am not being over dramatic. I truly believe this. I will be happy if I am proven wrong but I doubt that's going to happen. They do not want working hard to pay off for us. It's too discouraging for me to think too much about.

My husband asking me to come sit by him while he watches television. Huh? He wants me to sit by him and watch him watch tv. That makes no sense. He doesn't want to watch what I want to watch, he wants me to sit beside him and be happy watching him watch what he wants to watch. This makes me think that he thinks I'm the sort of simple minded person who doesn't mind being bored out of my mind for extended periods of time when in fact, I do mind that VERY MUCH. I usually say no but he keeps asking me anyway. I don't ask him to come sit beside me as I read on the computer. It wouldn't occur to me to even ask that and I don't understand why he continues to ask me to watch him watch tv. Perhaps I give off the impression that I am an airhead, but I don't think so.

The cold. I live in the south because I love being hot. I sat watching my daughter play tennis today in the bitter cold. I wanted to sit in the car but then she asked me if I was coming out to watch her and so I told her I'd be out as soon as I saw her match begin. An hour and a half into the match, snowflakes started falling softly out of the sky and we all looked up, and for a moment, I did not hate that my feet were frozen numb or that I could not stop shaking in an attempt to keep myself warm. I haven't seen snow in years. It felt like a small, secret miracle sent to make me happy when my heart was frozen over along with the rest of me.

Off the top of my head

"An honest confession is good for the soul, but bad for the reputation." ~Thomas Dewar


I listen to the same music all the time. I think my IPOD songs tell you a lot about who I am. I never remember my dreams at night but if I fall asleep during the day (rarely) my dreams are vivid. The two recurring dreams I have are of all my teeth falling out while I try to catch them in my hands and of me flying. I love the dreams where I fly. I get angry when I think people aren't listening to me. During Christmas vacation, my youngest daughter started speaking to me in this squeaky, baby voice and I cannot tell you how much it feels like nails being dragged up and down a blackboard. I know it's irrational but it makes me want to scream bloody murder. I want to tell her to knock it off, but I don't. Lately it seems like everyone uses me as a sounding board for all the things that suck in their lives. I find myself tuning them out and you would not believe how easy it is for me to do that. I like eating Kellogg's Honey Smacks out of the box. I'm sick of making the same things for dinner all the time but change is met with resistance here in this house. While I'm making dinner, all I can think about is how much I want to get the mess I'm making cleaned up. I saw a report on Fox News the other day about how more and more adult children are moving back home after college and how married couples don't get to have that "empty nest" syndrome anymore. It depressed me because THAT IS MY LIFE. I can't imagine a time when one or more of them won't be here and I think if I knew this a long time ago, I would have waited to have children because at least then I could look back and remember a time when the world revolved around me, when I got to be first. I love the smell of hyacinths. Whenever I see them I have to stop and smell them and for a few minutes afterwards, I am happy. I think it's great that the scent of a flower can make me happy. I really don't see what the big deal is about Tina Fey. I just finished The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, and I think I will love that book forever. I went out for lunch yesterday and had Chinese food. My fortune said something about "not spending foolishly--and to be frugal." I hate fortunes like that even though I don't place a lot faith in fortune cookies. I guess I'd rather not be lectured while I'm at lunch and that's what it feels like. I'd rather be honest than politically correct. I live inside my head a lot. Sometimes I'm mean and I know I'm being mean but it's like I can't help myself. Mostly, though, I'm incredibly nice. I stopped watching Oprah because I hold her partially responsible for getting Barack Obama elected. I remember her urging him to run a number of years ago when he was a guest on her show and, of course, he said he wouldn't because he was too inexperienced and look what happened. I curse Oprah for that. I used to think that writing letters when I'm unhappy about something or someone was an effective way to try to change things but the last 4 letters I've written have taught me that all I'm really doing is wasting my time. I think marriage is harder than motherhood. I wish I could get back all the time I've wasted trying to get people to like me or think that I am worthy. If I find out someone has hurt one of my children, all I want to do is seek revenge on their behalf. I take burning hot showers when I can't get warm. I always wear socks to bed and have to have my hair in a high ponytail or it feels like my hair is choking me. I think the guy across the street is a drug dealer. He moves these gigantic speakers in and out of his basement on a regular basis and that's where I imagine he stores his drugs. I know a little about almost everything because I read so much. I learn by doing. I force myself to drink lots of water when I'd rather be drinking Diet Pepsi, although Pepsi's new logo, which reminds me of Obama, is surprisingly making it easier for me. I love to bake but I don't usually eat the things I bake. I don't know how to break the habit of wanting to please others, to make other people happy. I do it unconsciously and it's only afterwards that I'm left to think what was I thinking... and I feel guilty for feeling angry at those people who take my kindnesses for granted and allow me to always put them first even though I'm the one who has taught them that it's ok to think of me as an afterthought.

Vulnerable, All-Knowing

You know those employee team building exercises where you climb a ladder then fall backwards into the arms of your co-workers down below? I'm not the type of person who could easily do that. Even if you promised me the world, even if my co-workers were all muscle-bound workout freaks who could pump three times my weight without breaking a sweat, even if you told me I would lose my job if I did not do it, I know that I would have the hardest time letting go and trusting them to catch me. Someone would have to push me. They would have to contend with me gripping whatever I could grip in order not to drop. I would put up a terrible fight. I would have the hardest time voluntarily letting go.

I don't like being a passenger in cars anymore, I want to be the driver. It drives my husband crazy the way I am always gasping and shouting "red light!" or "pedestrian 10 feet ahead" or "slow down!" I hang onto the ceiling hook sometimes, and I do this without even knowing I am doing it which drives him all the more crazy until he is shouting back at me that I need to shut up and allow him to drive in peace! and hasn't he kept me safe for years? and what's my major malfunction anyway???? I have no answer for this. I'm afraid if I don't do my shout-out-warnings that something will happen and then we'll all be sorry. I like to err on the side of safety.

I have days when I feel fragile from the moment I wake up. It's like instead of being whole, I'm all these little pieces that are threatening to splinter apart and I'm afraid if I start breaking that I will never be able to catch all that is falling away. I move through the world carefully on those days until the feeling of fragileness disappears. I guess you could say I get through them by living through them because I haven't found a better way around it.

Following my heart

I'm deleting the post I wrote yesterday about my daughter because I've just been feeling disloyal about it (even though everything I wrote is true). I feel like I'm being exploitative--bashing her when I should be protecting her. I know it will remain in reader feeds, but I don't want it up where I can see it.

Wishing for everything, committing to nothing (Happy New Year)

"May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions." ~Joey Adams

I am trying to come up with a list of things that I want to do/accomplish in 2009 but I'd hate to post something that would leave concrete evidence of me failing. I'm more the type that keeps a mental list that can be easily erased, forgotten or revised at any time to suit my purposes. I am not ashamed to say that lists of things to do make me nervous. Whenever I do have the forethought to create one, I usually leave it behind me when I set off to do what needs to get done or I simply just lose it on purpose so I have a ready made excuse for coming up short.

I'm aiming for lots of happiness in 2009 for myself and for my loved ones. And good health, too. I want to read more, to never stop learning because I've found an idle mind breeds discontent. I'm hoping I can find a way to incorporate some of my dormant dreams into reality. I will need much courage for that, and so I'm aiming to reach deep down inside and find that, too, dust it off and use it. I want to remember to look at each day as the gift that it is and do things in the span of each day that will make me proud of how I am living my life. I want to make myself a priority, which I never do, but I think I deserve it now that my children are pretty much grown. I want to keep writing because it feels necessary for me to write things down, even if no one is reading--it's the part of me that says the most about me, even when I am guarded. Mostly, I just want to live another year so that I can come back here next year and wish for another.

Happy New Year!

Togetherness

" When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them." ~George Bernard Shaw


So...um...I'm trying to enjoy all the togetherness we're having around here lately. There's not one quiet place to go to, not one space that isn't littered with someone's "stuff." I remind myself that a clean house isn't what's important in life, even though I've spent so much time lately getting everything organized. I hate thinking that was all a waste of time, but maybe I can get back there again when everyone goes back to school and back to work. I do love sleeping in and not having anything specific to do or anywhere specific to go. That's nice. We went to Outback Steakhouse tonight and we never go out to eat on Monday's, so that's a plus. I count the pros and the cons of having everyone here every minute of the day and I tell myself that what's most important in life is FAMILY. I'll finish the book I've been trying to finish some other time. I've got "little drives up the road" to take with my husband...

Christmas was wonderful. I can't believe it's over already. I will keep my tree up at least another week because it makes me happy. I received some great gifts, two of my favorites being paintings that my son and my daughter painted for me (my children are all so multi-talented that it's not funny--they did not get it from me--I can't draw a stick figure to save my life (and I wasn't so great at sports either and they are natural athletes)--but they have it all--and I am so lucky they are mine!!! The artistic and athletic genes skipped right on over me. I must give my husband his due, he was a professional athlete at one point, so I know they get a lot of it from him (and my father who was an Allstar athlete). My mother has athletic genes on her side, too. I have a cousin who played professional baseball. It's tough being so ordinary among such greatness, but I'm a great cheerleader and everyone needs a great cheerleader sitting somewhere on the sidelines sending positive vibes, or comforting words when needed.

I'm sort of like Mary Poppins. I swoop in and save the day, and make everyone's life easier so that they can be the greatest people ever.