Going...Going...Gone

DON’T MOURN

Don’t mourn for what is lost
nor look behind in grief
Don’t cry, for what once was
the past we can’t repeat

But live within, the here and now
new memories do occur
The old unseats, the new entreats
begging us to come forward

After all, just a razors breadth
separate the pair
The old that was, the new to come
kiss and become best friends.

Kids came up this weekend. It's a long drive, around ten or eleven hours, but I enjoyed every minute of it. It's always so quiet when they go. It's funny because my oldest child, who was supposed to be my only child, was by herself for five years before she had any siblings. Now, my youngest daughter is like an only child because she is the only one left and she'll be raised for approximately the last five years of her life as such.

Our family has a lot of doubles, I like to call them. For instance, my son and I both have birthdays in November. My daughter and I share the 24 as a birthdate, two of my daughters share the same birth sign, but different months, and all of my natural children and myself were born in fall or winter months. There are seven years between my oldest daughter and middle daughter and seven years between my middle daughter and youngest daughter. My oldest daughter was an only child for five years and my youngest daughter will be "an only child" for five years until she is an adult. All of our birthdays either fall on even days or add up to even days.

Hm, maybe I am a numbers person.

BITS AND PIECES by Sherri Streight

Bits and pieces of her life, scattered round the room
Bits and pieces of her life, left for me to view
Her actual being, gone from me, far, far away
The silly smile upon her face, no longer in this place
The little girl who made me laugh
all those many years
The off key song; the dance-along’s
Never more to see
now echo in the silent halls, the shadow of my mind.
Her memories swirling, twirling round
rewinding throughout time
How I miss those golden times, when she was just a child
But time goes on
eternity calls
She can’t ignore its voice
so grasping hold of destiny's hand
onward she does march
as I salute the girl that was
and the woman she's become.

Rain & Son
It's raining again! Terre Haute got over 5 inches of rain in the first 5 days of January, that's the whole month's total in 5 days! Then Friday night, it snowed approximately 6 inches. We had a day or two without rain and then last night the rain starts again. We've been under flood warnings for days on end. Needless to say, I am tired of it all. The sun has come out for only a short period once or twice and I WANT SUNLIGHT!

Now, for a different type of complaining about a different type of Son. Son has decided to grace our lives again. The reason, he needs money, food, and anything else we'll give him. He quit his job and allowed two people to move in with him without paying a cent toward his rent. He says they bought the food. Last month his dad kicked in over a $100 dollars toward his upkeep. Now, he wants us to co-sign on a $600 dollar bed and he doesn't even have a job! I told him no way right in front of dad. He's irresponsible and we're not going there! I told Son if he had to come back, it could not be like it was before. He said he didn't want to come back, he liked not having to go outside to smoke and such. He came over Sunday with his group and they ate us out of house and home.

One of his roommates, which was also his girlfriend, had him asking for food and not just one box of this or that, but could we have two or three boxes. He was asking for stuff he wouldn't eat around here and when I laughed, he said he didn't want it, THEY did. They were also, all bringing their clothes to my house to be washed. His dad gave him 13 dollars last Sunday and our detergent to do laundry, and of course, they spent it on something else. He and the girl also got two puppies and used up or dog cologne on those puppies and also washed them in our tub using my towels!

I told his dad that if he came back, I would be going! You just can't imagine how much my stress level shot up after three hours of all that. In that short time I had to wash a load of towels, a dishwasher load of dishes, mop the floor twice, he let our dog out front and forgot him and he ran all over the neighborhood, the puppies peed on our floor once and nearly twice, mess with the smell of smoke in the house, deal with him asking for my mop, money, food, wanting us to co-sign, and not putting the dogs in their cage when I told him they could not run free in the house, and putting up with the puppies when after they got here, they told us they had worms and fleas! That ticked me off because we have animals and I don't want fleas started in my house. I ended up washing two huge sacks of laundry too.

He's driving me crazy, AGAIN and just like before, it will be left to me to say, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! NO MORE!

Good Day
I've had a good day. I'm listening to Paul McCartney's "Red Rose Speedway". I love that album! It brings back good memories. I accomplished all I set out to do today. I washed all my sheets and bedspread, the rugs in the kitchen and bathroom. I began taking down the old wall paper in the hall. I wrote over 20 minutes on my book (20 minutes a day is a goal I have), I cleaned the kids bathroom (only one kid left), and I wrote letters to my dad and one to a hospital in Oklahoma. All these are things I have been putting off.

Tomorrow, the Lord willing I will repeat the above except with a few changes. I will join a gym and get started back on weights and aerobics, drink more water, exercise my mind, and other things.

I still miss Keelan very much and I am trying to get Brandy through a hard time in her life, but we will all survive.

Good luck to all who are facing changes in their life they'd rather not deal with.