Going...Going...Gone

Things Come and Go

2012-01-14T22:29:00.000-06:00

Things come and things go
feelings, love, friends, foes
all of this i know not where
it hides or tarries, out of site
but this I know, when we grow old
someone leads, where we wish not to go
the youth that was, fades away
gray replaces as gold recedes.
those who once, took care of us
in turn must now reverse with us
the chalice held in youthful hands
disapperars as age advances
the chore at hand, I must now do
switches us from me to you. by sstreight

My brother and I have a very distasteful chore we have to do tomorrow concerning our mother who is getting up in age and making unhealthy choices for herself. The time has come for us to step in. She must be lead as she once lead us. I hope we can convince her not to do what she is wanting to.

Bits and Pieces

2012-01-07T17:04:00.000-06:00

The New Year went well I guess. Didn't do anything. I started watching my new granddaughter this week and her older sister. I enjoy watching them. I was watching the older one 5 days a week but now her other grandmother and I are going to share the task. I'll have two days, she'll have two days and we'll share Wednesday by switching every week.

Last week we went tot he Thunder game the day before New Year's Eve and stayed in a hotel. It was a lot of fun. We only live 30 minutes from there but it's always fun to stay in a hotel, at least I think so.

I still don't think our family is pulled back together although apologies on both sides have occurred. Healing takes time when deep distrust or disloyalty happens in a family to the extent that it went on both sides I guess. I don't care about anything but my daughter and I getting back to where we used to be. We were friends and I enjoyed spending time with her and her wanting to come and visit me and me feeling welcome in her home. She hasn't visited me in a long time or me her I guess...well...I was there on her birthday in October. I'd like to just wrap it all up and throw it all away between her and me but I don't know if that is what she wants. I'm sad.

I'll leave with a poem I wrote.

The things we do, come back to us

heap trouble on us

that

may or may not

leave

The actions we take, leave scars

some deep

some shallow

some never to heal

but

scars, anyhow.

How we react, whether victim or doer

speak mounds of character

whether

good character

bad character

or indifferent

but character, nonetheless. by sstreight

Almost Over

2011-12-26T23:05:00.000-06:00

This year is almost over and I look forward to the new one coming. This year has been...hard. I've been in a cycle of nothingness for about 2 years and I'd like that to change. Nothing to date has made the slightest dent in anything and I am really hoping next year will be better...much better.

We had Christmas at my daughter's yesterday. This is another thing I'm glad is over for this year...Christmas. The three weeks that preceded this Christmas drained me and made it a pitiful day in my estimation. I enjoyed family but that was off kilter too. I pray that it changes but that may not be in the cards. Son-in-law was there. I wasn't expecting that due to being told he wouldn't be there but he was.

I hope the new year brings me a job as I've been out of one going on 2 years. There is nothing open. It is depressing to say the least. I hope the new year brings my daughter and me back to the relationship we once shared, a good one at least in my estimation but that may not be in the cards either. Who knows. I would not have even been able to envision the things that went on in this year so I won't even attempt to with the coming year but I can hope and pray, can't I.

Well, guess that's all for now.

Christmas Blues

2011-12-20T22:26:00.000-06:00

I am not enjoying this year at all and especially not this Christmas. I would like to totally skip the entire year as it has been the most upsetting one of my entire life. Many things have occurred from several different areas that cannot be changed, there's just no going back. And, it's just not personal stuff, it's other things as well...world things...things I cannot change or even make a dent in.

I'd like the world back I grew up in because this one has morphed into a cold, mean, ugly one even though everyone goes around with a mantra on their lips babbling politically correct jibberish when the answer is so very simple if...and that's the big thing, if... If has disolved into nothingness and the world spins so fast now that few even stop to hear what is being said...they just jump on the bandwagon because in many cases, it's the neat thing to do or something to do. They'll find someday they had no roots in it...it was just a moment in time and will look back on it with pride saying they can't believe they took part in it or in shame wondering why they did.

What I see is a public that let's the F word drop at the drop of a hat, rudeness toward young and old, people going crazy in the stores at Christmas grabbing and shoving, reaching out with greedy hands but at the same time talking about bullying and making sure it doesn't happen to their child but look how the parents act out in society--is there any wonder there are bullies? And no, I am very against bullying in school or anywhere else but this bandwagon is only for a few and not for all. I see Christians bullied everyday in someway whether it's in the media, in schools, or personally, I've seen it all this year.

I celebrated Christmas for one reason and now that is being taken away. It's turned into a brawl and greed and only a handfull in America even celebrate for the true reason. Am I a Scrooge this year...maybe...but as I see it, everyday ought to be Christmas with people giving not just to family but to people truly in need. It's become like going to church is for so many people, a social event, like they think sitting in church makes up for all the wrong things done during the week. Going to church doesn't mean a thing! It's what you do and how you act that matters. You can sit in a pew all week long but that's not going to get it done.

I guess I'm through ranting for now but I just don't see myself celebrating Christmas much longer.

To My Daughter

2011-12-12T23:07:00.000-06:00

To My Daughter

2011-12-12T23:06:00.000-06:00

Goodbye Christmas

2011-12-11T21:53:00.000-06:00

I didn't put up the Christmas Tree this year. Instead I bought a very small little purple tree and put it in a corner. I don't feel like Christmas. I usually put up a 9 foot Christmas Tree and load it with Santa Clauses and Snowmen and lights and all the decorations my kids made throughout the years and many poinsettia flowers and the whole tree drips with dangling, pearl type ornaments that I made. It ends up looking like an old fashioned tree with a big train that circled the whole tree.

But this year, there was no reason. My daughter moved out in October, the last of the 5 kids. She was a little disappointed that I didn't put it up but she was always the one who helped me and she's not here. It's not easy to put up a tree as large as that. My husband's not a Christmas type of guy and he didn't want to mess with it.

Christmas will probably never be the same again. My step-son is some mixture of weird religions that consist of Gnosticism, Unitarian Universalist and Luciferian. Some people call that Satanism. OMGosh! My daughter is an atheist. My step son will not celebrate Christmas for some reason I don't know and my daughter does celebrate Christmas for some reason I don't understand except that her husband says Christmas used to be a pagan festival. That's not what it is now so I wonder why they celebrate it--maybe for the boys to have presents but I really don't know. Anyway, with all that I just didn't want the tree up.

Christmas used to be so fun! I don't believe Jesus cares whether we celebrate his birth or not in the manner we do. I believe he cares more about us living our life to honor him for the great sacrifice he made for us. I believe and no one can take that away.

Goodbye Christmas, at least this year.

Blue Means Warm

2011-12-09T15:11:00.001-06:00

Husband and I had a little spat today...a rather silly spat I might add on the surface, but as usual, spats, arguments, knock-down-drag-outs and most conflicts have deeper roots and the spats are just symptoms of what the true problem is.

Of course, there are always two sides to every argument, I mean spats, so here's mine. I'm ridin' in your car, you turn on the radio (get it the song Fire by the Pointer Sisters) except my version should be, I'm ridin' in your car, you turn on the air, it's 40 degree's outside, why you do that for. I open my big mouth, sayin' baby I'm cold, just feel my nose, I'm icicle bound, you roll your window down. (Sing these words to the tune and it sounds much better.)

Okay, a little fun there but I was riding in his car and I was cold and it was 40 degree's outside and he did have the outside air on and the temperature was set on the blue side. I finally say, "Could you turn that off, I'm cold." Now I had already secretly turned the temperture knob right between the blue and red and he had immediately turned it back down so after getting colder and colder I asked him to turn it off because there was air blowing on the floor. He promptly shows me by jabbing his finger at the temperture knob that it is on the blue and in his car, that means warm. Then we stop at a stop light and he rolls his window a quarter of the way down. I look at him thinking, "What the heck, I just had you feel my nose and you know how cold I am so why are you doing that?" Instead I say, "Maybe you and I shouldn't be in the same car together today if it doesn't matter to you that I'm cold."

It's at this point he turns it off and says somthing to the effect that he's hot and I don't seem to care about that. I said we should compromise. He said he did compromise by turning it on the blue because in his car, blue means warm. What the crap! I said, "Blue means cold and compromising by rolling down your window isn't compromising at all."

Okay, so then he asks me if I have socks on. SOCKS! YES, intelligent one! I'm freezing! I do have socks on. Of course, all of this is said in my head so I say, "Yes, I have socks on." And a coat and long sleeves" he says. Huh? Yes I do, I reply. When people are cold, they put on more clothes he says and I say when people are hot, they take them off. I say, In your eyes the solution is always for me to do something like put on more clothes while you do nothing and have it your way." OMGosh, we're gonna go full force in a minute!

The minute arrives, we're full force! We keep driving repeating the same things over and over and arguing over how it was said and if we repeat back exactly how it was said and in what order. We get to the mall. He's telling me something about I had to ruin our outing just because I was cold and not caring if he was hot and he never even said he was hot until I said I was cold. We're out of the car and I tell him I have my set of keys I'm going back and when he's ready I'll come and pick him up. This ticks him off really bad.

So, why did I choose to go back home? I didn't care for the situation I was in. I didn't care to ride in a cold car with a husband who did not care if I was cold or not and who would not compromise to the satisfaction of both of us. He could have turned the heat up, he could have turned the blower up, he could have turned the heat and blower up, he could have done all of that or some of that with his window down. He could have taken his coat off. He could have done any of those things to compromise. But no, it has to turn into an argument.

On the way home he's attempting to pull everyone he knows into this argument in a negative way. I tell him it's not about the heat, it's about caring for someone...you either do or you don't and in this instant he doesn't.

Next time we'll take my Jeep and the knob will be set on red if it's cold and the shoe will be on the other foot. And to think, we just made it to our 20th last week. Geesh!

Truce

2011-12-08T23:09:00.001-06:00

A truce has been called...a step in the right direction.

Deleted

2011-12-07T23:08:00.003-06:00

I deleted what I wrote before because even though I believe it I don't want my daughter to be anymore hurt than she appears to be. I don't know if she still reads my blog since she last commented but this would have made her feel bad and that is not my goal. I vented and then took it off.

I am keeping this blog as I've had it for so long, about 8 years and will continue to write on it about other things. I am thinking of starting a blog somewhere on the net that will deal with the emotions of parent's who go through a Christian child denouncing God and all that goes with it. It is almost traumatizing for a parent who firmly believes in God to go through a child denying what you so strongly believe in. I know there are others out there going through this and I found scant little for the parent's side of it and the emotions they go through so I'll be on the hunt. I found one site that did a wonderful job of helping me understand and guess what...it was written by an atheist! Who knew!

Where I Stand

2011-12-05T09:27:00.002-06:00

I am done. Writing my blog was the end result of that. My daughter says I did it for retaliation and to hurt her. I did not but she has always thought ill of me and accused me of things that were not in my heart. I’ve gone through my grief process and am on the other side. I’ve told my story of a mother who has gone through a close family member dropping their belief in God. I am stronger for it. My beliefs are the same. I believe in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I believe in heaven and hell. I believe in Judgment Day and the End of Time. I believe in evolution. I don’t believe the earth was made in 6 days as we understand days. My daughter could learn a lot from me about the Bible if she would have talked to me instead of assuming I believed the Bible the way she does. I may not be a perfect Christian…if I were Jesus would not have had to die for our sins. I’m not where I want to be but I’m sure not what I used to be either.

I am going on. I cannot please my daughter or son-in-law about my beliefs and they cannot please me about theirs. I accept their choices but acceptance does not mean agreement. Now, they must accept me for who I am, the way I am in the same manner that wish to be accepted. I tried to bring my daughter back but could not and my son-in-law too. I will never understand why, even if they no longer believe Jesus is the Son of God, why he is a bad example of a human being and why they would not want their children to know about the man named Jesus if not as the Son of God then just as a man who walked the earth and did good.

After reading my daughter’s story I understand that she was disappointed in God and disillusioned too. She was disillusioned with religion and the people who represented it. God did not do as she wanted in the time she wanted and in the way she wanted and neither did the people she put her faith in at her church. My son-in-law follows this too. Through her disappointment she chose not to share with anyone who might have been able to help her get through it with her faith dented, but intact.

My daughter and son-in-law want to be who they are now without any flack and I want the same. I want to be who I am without fear of my grandkids being taken away. I want the freedom given to my son-in-laws side of the family. My vocabulary has always been full of God and I am not going to change that just because my daughter and son-in-law have chosen another path. I did not change, they did and I will not hide my beliefs because they now deny what they once believed and we all shared as belief. If they choose not to allow me to watch my grandkids because they fear I will speak to them about my beliefs, then so be it. What I do in my home is my business. What I do in their home is their business. I will not have my freedom of speech taken away by them nor will I any longer be censored by them. I want to be comfortable being who I am and not who they want me to be. They are always welcome in my home and I hope I will be in theirs. I was told by them I could share my beliefs with my grandkids with the stipulation that I let them know that they are my beliefs and not all people believe the same but when I did that they became upset. They did not retain their word. The sad thing to me is that they accused me of sharing my beliefs on a day that I did not. Before all this we all talked about religion and the Bible and God but that has changed with them and I can go through my life without doing that; what I refuse to do is to deny who I am and always be on guard as to what I am saying and to who.

I offer them reconciliation. Reconciliation can be thought of as “burying the bones.” Reconciliation is not forgetting, it is choosing to leave the bones buried. Choosing not to go to the graveyard so to speak, and digging the bones up, examining them, turning them over and over and then reburying them. Reconciliation will not be successful if it occurs like that. In other words, reconciliation is burying the bones, not forgetting they are there but purposely choosing to leave them buried forever. I choose to do that. I love my daughter. I love my son-in-law. I hope they choose to reconcile too but if not, what will be, will be.

Ironic, Isn't it?

2011-12-04T22:01:00.003-06:00

About 5 days ago I met an atheist on FB through a comment she left on a mutual friends post. It sounded as if this person was in desperate need of a friend. They said that they had once been a Christian but had lost all faith when about 15 but was thinking of seeking God again. They also said they felt invisible and didn’t know how much longer they could hang on. I felt moved to say something to this person who felt so invisible they were thinking of turning back to God who they believed had deserted them in the darkest hour of their lives so I commented back in a message. As I was looking over this person’s web page or my message from her, I saw at the top of my FB page something written in blue I think, and it said, “This may be my last post” or something like that. I click on it hoping it will say something that will help me know who I have begun a conversation with like what their background was, why they turned from God, and because their comment sounded so desperate, I thought maybe they were going to commit suicide and that’s why it said “This may be my last post.”

There were several months showing so I click on November and scan through the stuff and go to each month and do the same thing. Finally, I come to a post about disrespect and as I’m reading through it I realize that this post is about me and the blog writer is my son-in-law. What I was reading was too coincidental to be anything else. I go back and reread it and now I’m sure it’s my son-in-laws blog and sure that it is about me. As I read on I had to stop. I could not read it all the way for a time. I felt so betrayed and maligned and his words so unjust that I began to cry.

Hours later I finished reading it. He made fun of my beliefs and me. He called into question my Christianity and personal self. He was unjust in what he said and just plain wrong with most of his accusations. He said, “that my mother in-law took a step back and realized that she had a lot to lose if she wanted to keep stirring the pot as it were and she became very nice and somewhat accepting.” What did I have to lose? I could only think that he meant my grandkids and maybe my daughter too. I felt threatened and unjustly accused and ultimately, stabbed in the back by both him and my daughter especially since I had apologized to them quite a while before stating I was sorry if I had hurt them in my grieving process. I apologized because I was sorry if anything I had said or done hurt them. I was not sorry for my reaction to my daughters leaving the Lord or thinking my son-in-law helped her get to the place she finally arrived at.

I answered his post and then told my daughter I had because I figured he would and I wanted to prepare her. Her reply was, as her husband so elegantly puts it, "freaked out" and totally uncalled for under the circumstances.

His “upset” was over his wrong conclusion that I had talked about Jesus to my grandkids the night I watched them on my daughter’s birthday. I did not talk about Jesus to them but if I had, it would not have been something that my daughter did not say I could do with the clarifier being, “This is what Nannie believes—not everyone believes this.” But I say again, I did not speak to them about Jesus. In my son-in-laws blog he states two contradicting statements the first being this, “We have basically agreed with her that she can talk about her beliefs, but she needs to make it very clear to them that those are simply her opinion that she has and that other people have differing opinions.” I will say it again, I did not speak to them about Jesus but if I had wouldn’t I have been following the rules laid down?

The second statement was this: “what the nonsensical baloney means that someone has told him that was crossing the line and being disrespectful of the parents.” This contradicts “We basically agreed with her that she can talk about her beliefs, but she needs to make it very clear to them that those are simply her opinion that she has and that other people have differing opinion.” If I followed this how could I have “crossed the line” and “being disrespectful of the parent.” Again, I did not talk about Jesus to them that night but even if I had would it not be talking about my beliefs and telling them it was MY opinion that not ALL people believe like me? I felt it was him who was being disrespectful to me and my daughter for allowing him to put it out on a public forum.

For 4 years I was able to talk about God to my grandkids and I did. What makes my SIL think my grandkids would forget that? What makes him think they would not associate Jesus with me and wonder about it? If he thinks that can’t happen he is way off base. I’ve been around those boys their entire life. I’ve always spoken to them about Jesus. Could it just maybe be that they know that and remember that before I was denied being able to speak with them about my beliefs? They have asked me questions at times and I’ve answered. They associate Jesus with me because I’ve talked about him to them since they were brought home and I was there in those first few weeks. Is his mind so small that he can’t fathom that I have talked to my grandkids about Jesus for 4 years and that when they see me they just might think about it all on their own and remember something I told them before I wasn’t allowed to and then ask them about it?

My daughter, and I don’t know but imagine, my SIL have this silly idea that I “stalk” them all over the internet. I have not done that. I don’t WANT to read their disrespect of something I so much believe in. I don’t WANT to read insulting things about myself written by them on a public forum for anyone to see. If I had stalked them I would have found out about their blog 3 years ago when it appears my daughters was first started. I didn’t even know my daughter had a blog until she said, “Our blogs” the other day while we were both at the hospital. When she said that I WANTED to see it and see if I was one of the things she talked about and if she blogged about the night they both imagined I dropped the J word and caused so much confusion. She had and it hurt me deeply both what my SIL said and what she said because I thought everything was okay with them where I was concerned. As I stated, I had apologized to both of them for anything I had said or done that had hurt them and they had accepted my apology. I had followed their rules as to the grandkids and to find out accidently that this was going on behind my back was very disconcerting and upsetting. They were nice to my face but stabbing me in the back behind my back.

So no, I have not stalked either of them. My SIL dropped me off his FB a time ago without any explanation why and didn’t do that to anyone else in the family. They think the wife’s family “haven’t had a big issue with us choosing not to believe Jesus and be agnostic/atheist” but they are wrong. The wife’s family have had a very big issue with it and it’s been discussed among the family. The wife’s father stated he would not talk about it with our daughter and her husband better not talk about it with him. Her brother fell to his knees crying and praying that his sister would return, her other sister was upset and confused and didn’t’ understand how her sister could do such a thing. All these things were hush-hushed so that daughter would not get upset like she had upset all of us. All the family ignored it to their faces but talked about it among themselves. All of them had an idea of who to blame. All of them thought if they didn’t walk on eggshells the kids and sister would be denied them so they kept quiet. I could not. I delivered her. I brought her into the world. I taught her in Sunday School. I loved her so much that I was willing to lose her if someday, it would bring her back.

This is my story, the other side of her story, their story. It is my story and I have the right to tell it just as they told their. They think I am keeping things stirred up but I was not the one who talked about them for years behind their back. I only found out about my SIL about a year ago and my daughter in February of this year. I went through 5 months of grieving. During that time I asked questions, yes I did and I blamed my SIL just as my daughter had when she found out about him. The difference in all of this is I’m not hiding it. I went straight to my daughter asking and trying to understand and yes, trying to get her to come back to God. So what! I have never talked about it for the world to see. I have never trashed my son-in-law or my daughter in a public forum. I am not doing that now. I am telling my story just as they did. I am almost to the end of my part of the story and when I finish it I am finished forever.

What I Suspected Is True

2011-12-03T23:40:00.004-06:00

My daughter and I went out to lunch that day as we had many times before. During the time between my son-in-law’s and my debate my daughter told me why he had turned from God. I wondered if she had too but thought I already knew the answer. I had always spoken to the grandkids about God and it had never mattered but as I stated earlier my daughter had begun to act funny about anything to do with God. I had told the boys something, I don’t remember what now, about God. I don’t know why but I told my daughter that I had and asked her if it was okay. I had never asked that before and wish I had not that day. Her reply, I could not believe. It broke my heart and I didn’t know how to respond. My daughter was nervous and kept wringing her hands. I felt so sorry for her and sorry for me because of what I was about to hear. I don’t remember that day too well except for bits and pieces but here is the gist of what I remember.

When I asked my daughter if it was okay to talk to the boys about God she said something to the effect of, “Well, now that you ask, not really. We don’t want them to think there is someone up in the sky who watches over them or will take care of them.” I said something like, “You don’t believe in God either?” “Well, actually no—not like the Bible says and if there is a God he doesn’t care about you.” I asked her why, what had happened. She said something like she didn’t want to go into details but she didn’t think God cared about her or anyone else if he even existed. She said when her husband had deconverted as she calls it, she had cried out to God to help her and to help her husband but had no response. When she had cried out to God to save her unborn baby that she miscarried with he had not responded. She said the Bible had discrepancies and churches believed things and taught stuff that were not so such as the world was created in 6 days and evolution doesn’t exist. She said God was a cruel God if he existed because he let things happen to innocent people. She said she had believed like I believed and we talked about that some but I found that she didn’t believe like I did at all but she didn’t want to hear that. I don’t recall ever having talked to her about what I believe or she me other than believing in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

I asked her if she was saying I could not speak to the grand-kids at all about God. She said I could talk about God but I must say, “This is what Nannie believes not everyone believes like I do.” She said at family dinners they would respect us in our home if we prayed. I asked her what had turned her from the Lord and she did not want to go into it at that time. She said maybe at a later time. A later time never came. She said she felt like she’d always let me down and that I never liked her. What do you say to that? It was not true. We went back to her house and I tried to talk to her to find out why, one more time and she said, “Mom, don’t.” I left there with my heart heavy and very confused with none of my questions answered and with such a sadness that I didn’t really know how to handle it.

Over the next several days at various times I tried to talk to her, to understand exactly what had happened to cause her to turn so completely from the Lord. I told her how all the family would feel. I told her, her husband had already alienated several people including her father with what he was saying about God. She told me her mother-in-law was okay with it, why couldn’t I be but after reading part of her blog I know that was not so. I felt that my son-in-law caused this to happen and told her so. I felt that she had followed him for fear of losing her marriage. I felt that both of them were angry at God for several things and also disillusioned. I knew my SIL was the first to go and that my daughter followed. I don’t believe that if my daughter were married to someone else or had never met her husband that this is where her life would have gone. She said I blamed him and I did blame him for choosing the path he did and introducing it to my daughter. I blame my daughter for listening and being so afraid that she joined him instead of walking her own path. This makes her angry when I say this to her but I believe it.

She would not change her mind and I never got the full story of why she had turned her back on God. Any questions I asked were met with hostility. She just wanted me to accept and I couldn’t at that time. I had to go through a grieving process just as she did with her husband but I felt she wouldn’t allow it. I told her that it felt like she had a fatal disease that she would not recover from. She didn’t like that. I was talking through the fear of her losing her soul. I was trying to save her, bring her back however I could and then I began to grieve such a deep grief I thought it would never go away. I cried and grieved and became very depressed from February to about the end of June. I woke up thinking about it and went to bed thinking about it. I could not bear the idea of my daughter not being able to enter heaven or my son-in-law either. I could not bear my little grandkids being denied the right to choose heaven or hell for themselves, to believe or not believe on their own terms.

I needed to talk about it with my daughter but she continued to deny me. She would not allow me the same process she went through with her husband when she found out he no longer believed in God. I don’t know how long she went through the grieving process before she accepted his way and followed but I know she went through a grieving process too. She says he allowed her to. I wish she had allowed me but she didn’t want to see me so upset. They said I flipped out when I realized this was for real and I suppose in their eyes I did. Whenever I tried again to talk to her she became more and more distant and they never asked me to watch my grandkids anymore, at all. She and her husband became very resentful toward me and I felt the same toward them for wanting me to change who I was by not allowing me to speak of God and telling me how and when I could. Also because they used his mother as an example of how a mother should act when a child forsakes God and they threatened me with possibly not being able to see my grandkids if I didn’t play the game in the manner I wanted.

They do not believe in God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, heaven, hell, or any religion. They believe in themselves.

Finally, about the end of June, I was at the end of my grieving, let go, and accepted my daughter would never enter heaven or my son-in-law and possibly not my grand-kids. Things went along a little rocky but okay until about 5 days ago.

The Beginning of Knowledge

2011-12-02T22:34:00.003-06:00

Fast forward many years. I am not going into why my daughter stopped believing in God...I only found out myself the last 4 days but I will go into what happened to our relationship from my viewpoint.

I had noticed that my daughter communicated with me less and less with phone calls and visits but I didn't know why. I also noticed that when I said, "Say a prayer," or anything pertaining to God she became very quiet. I wondered why. As time went on my son told me that my son-in-laws mother was often at their house watching the boys and again, I wondered why. Somewhere around October of last year my other daughter posted this on FB:

It's CHRISTmas.......notX-mas!!! Don't remove CHRIST from HIS birthday!!! Post this if you agree.......Please don't X out the Lord!!!!! (I want to see this on everyone's wall!!!) Jesus is the reason for the season.

My son-in-law commented this:

Actually..Christmas is a pagan holiday, derived from saturnalia..
And decorating trees is absolutely forbidden by the bible..Jeremiah 10:3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the h...ands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

Then I posted:

This is in reference to an idol that was worshiped made from a tree and not a tree as such. You have to read the whole chapter to get this. Christmas, the first part of the word is derived from CHRIST. I don't see where saturnalia is att...ached to Christmas other than it was a celebration that they had where they gave gifts and had holidays and let school out. Everything that I've read on this does not provide documented proof but is theorized that this is where Christmas had it's roots. It is stated as such in some readings, but again in what I've read has no documented proof.

This set off a huge debate between SIL and me which I was enjoying because I like to debate. But, as the debate went on it became increasingly condescending on his part toward me and patronizing and I'm not understanding why. Our debate went on for about a day. A lot of it was him trying to disprove God and his word and me defending it. I finally asked him if he no longer believed in God. He told me he had 3 numbers on his desk and if someone could tell him what those numbers were he would believe in God or a deity as he calls him. It was then I knew he no longer believed in God and became afraid for my daughter. The sad thing was right before this happened he told me that he loved me as his mother-in-law.

While all of this is going on and I am very confused as to why he's quit believing my daughter is standing by monitoring our conversation. There was a lot going on in that debate, me defending God and the Bible and him putting God and the Bible down. He told me my daughter wouldn't let him say a lot of things because she was afraid it would get out of control but what she did let him say should not have been said in what I think is just an email debate between two believers with him acting as the one against and me the one for with rebuttals and all that.

That was my introduction to my son-in-law now being an atheist or agnostic. He used both terms interchangeably. After this I wondered why why my daughter didn't tell me. I wondered how she was taking this. I wondered about my grand kids. I wondered how long it had been this way in their household. I wondered how it would end. I wondered if his mom knew and how she was told. Somehow I didn't she was told in the manner I was.

I felt blind-sided and confused but I thought I had my question answered as to why I wasn't being asked to watch my grand kids as often as I once was and I wondered why my daughter wasn't stopping it. Somewhere around February or March of this year my daughter and I went out to lunch and I would walk out of there and away from her home with a grieving heart.

Stayed Tuned for More Later

Dawn to Dusk

2011-11-30T16:05:00.006-06:00

I've debated on whether to write about this as my daughter has big eyes and googles family things but I think the evolution of what's happened between us is worth the telling. My daughter is an agnostic atheist or was last time we talked about it. My daughter used to be a Christian. She was introduced to God from birth as were all of my children but I never thought she embraced it as her own. She never went to the altar to publicly show she had accepted Jesus and she was never baptized. I asked her why on off during her growing up years but she never had an answer that was solid.

As time moved on I saw each of my other children give their lives to the Lord with baptism following but never her. She would pray and say she believed but never really professed it. I used to say to my mother that my daughter had a coldness about her concerning God. Finally about 6 or 7 years ago, maybe longer, she got baptized as an adult. By this time she had been married for quite some time and had married a man who also believed.

More to follow.

This & That

2011-11-29T21:43:00.003-06:00

Sometimes, certain people believe themselves to be entirely enlightened and look down their long, politically correct noses at the rest of humanity preaching about this and that. I've found that these sort of people have lots and lots of this and that's meaning they jump on the bandwagon of this cause and that belief for a long period of time before they finally choose one to spend all their time on and when they finally make a choice, it becomes their goal to destroy whatever doesn't fit in their little basket.

It doesn't matter whether they are preaching belief in God, homosexuality, atheism, going green, global warming or any number of other soap boxes they willing climb upon... they all have the same basic personality....pushy and incredibility obnoxious and especially those who are doing a flip-flop from an idea they totally believed in to another idea they totally believe in or--don't believe in.

They are so enlightened they simply cannot keep themselves from squealing at the top of their obnoxious voices their new-found discovery while at the same time hiding it from those they think will not agree or keeping it secret in an inward type of superiority and then pulling it out at unexpected moments on unsuspecting people causing all kinds of confusion.

They are a double-edged sword speaking out of both sides of their mouths demanding equality for whatever soap box they are standing on at present while denying the same rights they are scrambling for on their soap box from another person simply because it goes against what they believe. Also, they show great compassion and concern outwardly while lambasting anyone who does not agree with the way they see things. They point the finger at another while doing the same thing themselves. I've found there's only one equality for them and that's the one they are interested in!

In general, it's been my experience they are the greatest types of hypocrites always yelling for their rights or the rights of others who believe as they do but squashing the rights of anyone who has a different or opposite view. They are not willing to sit down and talk or agree to disagree or to even be friendly antagonists or enemies....it must be their way. You must agree. They have all kinds of rules that you must follow...if you don't, there is some consequence that will be applied. It's my opinion they are the most crotchety, boring, unappealing people you can possibly find yourself to be confined with in any shape of the word yet they find themselves highly entertaining, knowledgeable, and appealing. I think that about covers it on this subject. Stay tuned!

Uhh

2011-10-12T22:58:00.002-05:00

Uhh...it's quiet around here with the last fledgling gone. I don't know what to do with myself. I'm also in a quandary about what to do about NOT having a job or being able to find one. What to do? I've read several things people have tried from submitting a resume daily to the job you want to making a small commercial on a cd about how you can help the company you want to work for. The problem with my situation is that I work in education and most of those are 9 month jobs so when the semester begins, you're locked out until the next year or the next semester depending on what section of education you work in.

Another thing I've been thinking about is just chucking the whole thing and start submitting all those poems, children's stories, fiction, short stories, songs, photographs and manuscripts I have stacked away and see what happens. Something good might come of those and since I have most of them done all I have to do is begin sending them in.

Oh, and one more thing...paint my front door a cheery, welcoming color and change my fledglings empty room into a nice cozy space that everyone wants to gravitate to.

Till Next Time

Last One to Go

2011-10-09T21:54:00.002-05:00

My last chick has flown. How do I feel about that? Well, children have been in my home continuously for 34 years and now it's empty. I feel...lonely. Yes, that's the word, lonely. You see, I raised five children and the baby of the group just moved out two days ago.

I'll sum it up this way, she was not only my child but my friend. We spent 2 1/2 years alone while her dad and my husband served at the Army War College so it was just the two of us all that time. I miss her presence. I miss her humor. I miss her smile. I miss her silly "cheese face." I miss...her. It will require an adjustment on my part. Thirty-four years of kids makes life seem like something is missing. Isn't there somewhere I should be? Or, Don't I have to take someone somewhere?

As I sit and hear the quietness roaring from her room I can't help but feel that loneliness sweep across me but tomorrow, my grand-daughter will sweep in and make it all okay until evening and night and then my husband will go to bed and I will be left all by myself and that's when she would come in and talk to me and make me laugh and I knew that all was right in my home.

I'm sure I will adjust...Won't I?

Hit and Miss

2011-09-11T12:35:00.002-05:00

I used to post regularly but with all my moves I got out of the habit and have not gotten back into it except occasionally...this is one of those occasionally times. I think today I want to talk about jobs or...my lack thereof. Take me for example, I'm beginning to feel cursed if that's possible because no matter how many places I apply or even if I do get an interview, nothing goes right and I don't get the job. Why?

I have several theories. One is that because I taught or worked at the college and university level for the last 10 years or so, public education (I was an elementary teacher for 7 years before that)sees that on my resume, sees my references from all over the world and United States and someone on the committee thinks, "Oh, why is she applying for this job", this job being elementary teaching. Why do I think this? Because someone on the hiring committee ALWAYS asks me that question or will even go as far as to say, "Well, with all your experience I'm sure you'll get on at a college" and then invariably dismiss the idea of even hiring me. HELLO...PEOPLE...I am here aren't I? Please don't decide for me where I should be!

The problem with this idea is that Oklahoma is not overrun with colleges! They are few and far between. Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania and blah, blah, blah, the other states I've lived in are run over with colleges within twenty miles or less of each other so yes, in those places some college would hire me but in Oklahoma, college jobs are very competitive due to the lack of colleges. See how it goes?

Along with that goes my salary. I have seven valid years of elementary teaching. I would not fall into the highest category of salary but not the lowest either. So, here is my second theory...they begin to think hmm, seven years of teaching amounts to blah, blah dollars...we can hire a first-year teacher for less. Well, yes you can but do they have the experience I have? I taught student teachers how to be teachers, I evaluated them and taught them how to manage their classrooms. I taught early childhood classes and elementary education classes. I could show you ways to raise your test scores, manage your classrooms, and act as a standby principle because I have an elementary administration degree oh yeah, and a Master of Ed. all for the reduced price of blah, blah, blah. But, the powers that be don't seem to think of any of that, that being what bang they could get for the buck!

Now for the Oklahoma college take on all this. They see that I taught one year in elementary back in 2009 and dismiss the experience I have in college teaching. They also have questions they ask online when you apply such as, Have you taught or been involved with infant to 3 year olds in the past 6 months? (Not someone else's, but do my family members count?) In the last 6 months have you had any experience with people with disabilities? (Uh, not in the last 6 months but I have had children with severe disabilities in my classroom in the past..does that count?) And, on and on it goes.

I have applied outside education too. I applied at a military commissary which paid 17,000 but due to the "knowledge questions" I didn't make the cut. These questions included, In the last 6 months, what experience have you had using a register? (Come on, I have experience in that, like 20 years ago but how hard could it be...yes, I have experience, just not in the last 6 months.) In the last 6 months, what experience do you have in lifting 40 pounds or more? (Does a kid count that weighs 40 pounds or more? I have experience in that.) In the last 6 months, have you used a forklift, (no but I have lifted an empty 500 gallon hot tub with a service dolly, will that work?) and on and on the questions go.

So I will end my little tirade with this, I had one guy who told me during an interview that the only reason I got the interview was because I had a Master's Degree and if not for that, they would not have even looked at me. I wanted to yell "For Pete's Sake Man! It's a typing job! I can type 90 words a minute. I can file documents! NO, I have not done it in the past 6 months but I KNOW HOW TO DO ALL THAT! Give me a frikin' chance, would ya!

FEAR CONTROLS THE STOCK MARKET/GOLD

2011-04-22T18:40:00.003-05:00

PEOPLE, QUIT SPAZZING! Don't control the economy with fears! Fear runs the stock market. Fear runs the price of gold! STOP AND THINK! We can adjust all this fear by calm thinking! Now, LET'S GET TO IT!

TAXES

2011-04-11T21:13:00.001-05:00

We owe 12k in taxes...that's all I have to say!

Long Time Ago

2011-04-10T00:02:00.003-05:00

Nearly a year since I last signed in here. Time marches on however, doesn't it? So, what's happened in this time...well...my daughter and son-in-law who once believed in God and Jesus have stopped believing. My heart is broken.

Before I found out I said something to my grandson about Jesus and he said, "I don't know that name, who is it?" I've been told I am not to tell them that Jesus died for their sins or that God exists. I must say, "I believe" if I want to talk to them at all about God.

My daughter who graduated from high school in May of 2010 has decided to change her way of life as well although she has not denied God, she is going to "have fun."

I lost my job in May of last year due to budget cuts. I've basically taken the year off from job hunting but have had an interview or two but no luck to date. My husband is talking about going back into the military to make up the difference.

Oh, that's another thing...my husband retired from the Army after 30 years.

My step-son lost his job in Chicago and has so many tickets that his car is going to be seized and impounded and there's nothing to say about that except more money out as usual!

The rear end went out in my Ford pickup so we put another one in for $2,000 and it did the same thing so, bye, bye truck...HELLO 2011 Jeep! Oh yea! Got our 2,000 back on the truck plus payoff and 1,500 off the Jeep.

Called a guy to look our yard over, rework the flower beds, trim and move trees, keep the lawn up and haven't heard back from him as to the estimate in 3 weeks.

Hired a guy to rework parts of our driveway and when he gets here Saturday he wants to tear the whole driveway out and double the previous quote so...bye, bye cement contractor.

Did I mention that my karma's been off lately?

A Very Long Time

2010-07-20T10:28:00.002-05:00

It's been a very long time since I posted. How quickly time moves on. I'm where I am ending a part of life that has been consistent for the last 11 years. The door closes now and I don't know if my feet will ever trod this path again. Perhaps, the new path will bring me as many friends as this one has.

Where Have the Fireflies Gone?

2009-09-12T23:11:00.002-05:00

Where did they go? The fireflies I mean. When I first moved back to Oklahoma there was such an abundance of fireflies my whole backyard lit up and the next year, they were gone. The only ones I've seen for the past 1 1/2 years were in Pennsylvania this summer. Fireflies were one of the joys of summer for me. I hope they come back.

What I Know

2009-06-24T17:25:00.002-05:00

This is what I think. There has always been a question as to whether God exists or not and a further question as to whether Jesus was God's son or not. Well, I believe he was. That also means I believe in God. At present, the world sees fit and especially in America to deny that God exists and if they acknowledge God, that Jesus is the only way into heaven. I don't' really care what the world thinks or anyone else. The end of time will tell it all. However, this is my personal opinion. The world will not accept God or Jesus because they represent right and wrong. Therefore, they are not trying to get rid of God or Jesus but right or wrong. If there is no God and no Jesus, then there is no right and wrong.

I have another question. If there is no God and no Jesus, why do you care? If they don't exist, why challenge it...just believe what you believe. If you don't believe in God or you're not sure, why bother with it? Why question it? Just go on with your beliefs. Act the way you want. If there is no God, there's no need for you to argue your point...he doesn't exist for you so why bother?

Another question. Why is it that people accept all other history except Israel's history? The world accepts history from Egypt, Assyria, Iraq, and any other place but if God is mentioned at all, there is a big question mark as to the validity of any history that includes God and Jesus. Why? Again, just believe what you believe. You can't disprove his existence anymore than his existence can be proved. Belief is by faith but why ignore this type of history? It doesn't make sense except that the world wants to disprove God's existence. So, don't believe but it's no more invalid that the history of Egypt and their believe in numerous God's. No one tries to disprove their Gods or any of the other previous nations God's. It's just stupid and only God is targeted for question in history.

That's my two cents worth for today.

Too Many Kettles on the Stove

2009-06-23T21:27:00.002-05:00

I have too many things going on and too many online social things like Twitter, MySpace, Face Book and Blogger. I don't do any of them very well as you can see by my posts. This place is private to me though. No one knows about it and I can write what I please at least for now, as none of my family knows it exists.

I am a person who had and still has great potential in many areas and therein lies my problem. I could have gone too many different ways so I didn't go any way. Oh, I achieved degrees, a M.Ed. degree to be exact but that's not what I really wanted to do. What I really wanted to do was something in the "ology" areas. Before that however, I wanted to be a jewel thief...yep, that's right, a jewel thief. Of course, I was just a kid and when I informed my mother of this she nearly had a cow! In fact, it worried her that one of her spawn should want to be a JEWEL THIEF.

So, what did I do instead? I got married right out of high school to a man (actually a boy who had just turned 18) and within 6 months of marriage became pregnant. What I should have done was go to college before I had kids, before I chose the profession I did which I chose because I had kids...oh and because I wanted a divorce and wanted to be able to take care of my kids and...get the picture?

So where am I now? You got it...no where. I'm not even working due to so many things that I'll have to tell those stories one at a time. Oh wait, I think I hear the violin music now! I've written several songs and never attempted to publish them. I've written 5 chapters of a novel, numerous children's stories, taken photographs that could be published, written tons of poetry (thus the title of this blog,) and numerous other writing endeavors. AND I'VE DONE NOTHING WITH ALL OF THEM!

Why? I've decided I don't multi-task too well and I get overwhelmed with all the details and don't know where to start but all that's just excuses--isn't it?

Time to go. Hopefully, it won't be an entire year before I write again and even if it is, who would know?

Not Like I Hoped

2008-09-16T22:15:00.002-05:00

My husband and I have been apart for 18 months now and won't be back together for another 11. It's hard, but the technology we have now makes it a lot easier. When we really get lonely, we use the web cam and chat face-to-face. If we did not trust each other totally, it would be unbearable to be apart for so long but we do and I can't say how thankful I am that I have a true blue husband.

When I first moved back all my kids lived here too. I tried so hard for 8 years to come back home and when I did, they all moved away--not far, but far enough that I don't see them much. Two moved about 40 minutes away and one moved around 20 minutes away. I see her more, but only about once a week. I don't see my grandkids nearly as much as I'd like to.

Such is life. At least I have my feet back on Oklahoma soil and my 16 year old daughter with me.

I REMEMBER

2008-09-12T13:14:00.001-05:00

I Remember

It’s not too often that I dwell on things that happen in America, but each year on the anniversary of 9/11, I have to confess, I do remember and take a moment to think about it.

On 9/11 I was at Cameron High School in Southeastern Oklahoma speaking to high school students about the benefits of attending college. It was while I was there, just before my time to speak that the first plane flew into one of the towers. The students came in frightened and asking questions and their teacher told them to be quiet and just listen to what I had to say. As I looked out over those faces, I saw fear and wonder and tears. I could not speak without first trying to alleviate some of their fears and giving those students the respect they deserved when their nation was at risk so before I began speaking, I told them the situation and what had happened. It seemed to calm them a bit, too at least know what had happened.

Five days later, I was on a plane to Presque Isle in far northern Maine. It was an experience never to be forgotten by me.

At Will Rogers World Airport in OKC, armed guards stood waiting to search our car. They searched under the hood, in the trunk and everywhere else. When we got inside the airport we went through rigorous security. The further we went into the airport, the eerier the feeling became and we could see that we were among only a handful of passengers. We didn’t have to ask why, we already knew. It was the effect of 9/11 and the fact that two commercial planes had been used to fly into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the third one had crashed due to the courageous passengers aboard.

My son-in-law works for the FAA and was in Washington DC when the Pentagon was hit. He heard a great boom as the plane flew into the Pentagon. The airports were closed so he and his co-workers were told to rent a van and drive the 1313 miles back to Oklahoma.

Our flight out of OKC had only 5 passengers. The stewardesses didn’t talk as they went about their job and neither did anyone else. Our lay-over in Raleigh, North Carolina went the same. An eerie silence hung over the airport and all airport TV stations were tuned to CNN or some other news station. Speculation was still high as to whether more attacks would occur and all ears tuned to the news.

Our flight from Raleigh to Presque Isle went the same with one exception, as we neared New York City our pilot spoke over the intercom and said, “We’re nearing New York and we’ll be flying almost directly over the Twin Towers, may God rest their souls.” As we flew over, we could see the smoke from the fallen towers rising high up into the air in an almost straight line and fires still burning. I looked out and felt sick to see the smoke knowing people were trapped down there and many others dead and that our country had been violated by terrorism.

As we came even with the site, our pilot tipped his wing to those down below and to his fallen comrades.

Yes, I remember.

My Poems

2008-08-04T17:09:00.001-05:00

TIME FRAME OF LIFE by sstreight

Poems are prose in the time frame of life

Adhered together with molecules of existence

Stanza’s added with each passing moment

building into full blown rhythm

verses lingering long after death

in tidbits of poetry and rhyme long left

each verse exposed and explored by men

to judgment or glory of poetry now spent.

2008-07-23T14:59:00.009-05:00

My grandson who is a twin was found to have an enlarged heart on one side and lumpy ventricles. It's frightening, but I believe he will be ok in the end. If any of you pray, pray for him. He was born 2 months premature along with his twin and they made it through that doing remarkably well in the situation they were in. I believe God saw to that.

It seems that at the moment, my life is in constant turmoil. My husband and I have been living apart for a year now and he's been called to active military duty and will be gone another year. It's hard and you must have a strong constitution on both parts to endure such a separation. I have no doubt we will and hopefully, after this, he will finally be home with us, us being my daughter and me. He will have missed 2 years of her life and will come back when she is a senior in high school...cross your fingers for us.

Here's some of my poems...enjoy.

No Title Necessary by s. streight

My heart feels, as if on fire

Thoughts tumble round

Words heard, throb through my brain

Then spew into the air

Viciousness, full of wrath

Arrows aimed to harm

Final shot…torn apart

Winner stands their ground.

But oh, the cost of such uproar

casualties abound

inner spirit, stands afar

watching tumultuous scenes

and as they tally, the fateful score

each claiming victory

another marriage, hits the ground

lost in silent sound.

AT LEAST I THINK by s.streight

you do exist, at least I think

saw you once, but can’t sense when

felt your lips, brush my mouth

feel your touch, must have dreamed

married, at least in name

reality…

or just a dream.

2008-07-15T14:49:00.010-05:00

Ethic, Honor, Fortitude

It's not popular...no one wants to hear it, but nonetheless, it needs to be reintroduced into America and the rest of the world too. What am I talking about--fortitude. It's an old word and I'd be willing to bet not many people even know what it means. Along with it goes integrity and ethics, something our nation is sadly lacking.

So...what do these words mean?

Ethics, honor, integrity, and fortitude do not come from education or wealth. They come from what is inside the person, the bare essence of the person, the roots of that person and what they believe.

Let’s break it down further. What is ethics? What is honesty? What is integrity?

The dictionary defines ethics as: A set of principles of right conduct, a theory or a system of moral values, the study of the general nature of morals and of the specific moral choices to be made by a person, their moral philosophy, and the rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession.

Honesty is defined as: The quality or condition of being honest; integrity, truthfulness and sincerity.

And what about integrity? It is defined as: Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code, the state of being unimpaired; soundness, the quality or condition of being whole or undivided; completeness.

What do these three terms mean? In plain English, ethics is when a person makes the right choices instead of wrong ones, when they stand up for what is right even if they stand alone. Let’s say that the clerk in a store gives back more money than they should have or a person finds a great deal of money. The first reaction is to say, “Hey, they made the mistake not me, so I’ll keep it,” but a person with ethics will give it back or attempt to find who it belongs to because of their inner moral conduct. Honesty is nearly the same thing and giving the money back would be the ethical and honest thing to do. Integrity follows close on the heels of these because it also involves moral decisions.

These standards may seem old fashioned and of no use in this day and age or in life experiences, but they are so very important. Even though there are many dishonest people in this world, there are many who practice these things each and every day. There are people who are not Christians or even believe in God, but who follow the codes of ethics, honesty, and integrity due to their own personal convictions. Our world could not survive were there not such people. I am not talking about perfect people because all people make mistakes. It’s what you do with mistakes once made that make the difference between an ethical and unethical person.

Fortitude is something the world is short on and in dire need of. I think I can safely say it is an old-fashioned word and many would say an old-fashioned idea in a world where people want instant gratification and are full of selfishness and self-indulgence, but I will attempt to explain.

Fortitude is strength of mind that allows one to endure pain or adversity with courage. Fortitude stops you from throwing fits when you don’t get what you want or life tosses you a raw deal. Fortitude gets you back up on your feet and takes responsibility for your own circumstances dealing with what you must. It is not lying down and giving up or being mean to someone else because things aren’t as you wish. And, it’s not something you’re born with. It’s a choice just as integrity, honesty, and ethics are.

People without fortitude acquire sour attitudes and sculpt themselves into helpless victims. They believe other people owe then for what they feel life has dealt them. They want someone else to be responsible for them, to pay their way as if they were owed. Their hand is always out for what can be given to them, but seldom do they give to others. In general, they are lazy and unfulfilled. They have no backbone and when the going gets rough; they give up, become a martyr and quit life as if to say, “It’s not fair, so I quit.” They allow life. Each person makes choices every day that will have consequences attached to them. A person with integrity, honor, ethics, and fortitude will put the blame where it is due, most usually, upon themselves and then do something about it. That’s fortitude!

Our government lacks these characteristics and we, as the people of the United States, need to vote in men and women who are immersed in this type of behavior. We need people in office to do what we voted them in to do and if they don't, GET THEM OUT!!! One way to know if our officials are carrying out our wishes is to follow their voting record. Are they doing what they said they would do? If not, GET THEM OUT.

This is what I believe and strive to achieve each day. Join me in putting back into practice the values America was based upon and to also get back to God. But...that's another blog.

2008-06-25T17:44:00.002-05:00

It's been a long time since I last wrote, in fact I debated on whether to delete this blog or not. As you can see, I decided to keep it after having had it for five years.

Following is a little blabbering from me on what I'd do if...

If I Ran For Office

No secrets. There would be no skeletons in my closet because if anyone wanted to know, I would telI.

I wouldn’t lie about what I could or would do.

I wouldn’t lie, or cheat, or steal.

I would practice ethics, honor, respect, and fortitude and would expect those who worked for me to as well—if not, then hit the road. You won’t be working for me.

I ‘d do my best to work for the people and if I found I couldn't do something I'd said I could, I be upfront about it and apologize.

I don’t believe in abortion and if people would stop being selfish and have some self control, they wouldn’t have to abort a baby just because they couldn’t be bothered.

I would do my best to help the down and out and truly needy and tell the ones that operate the system to get over it—we all have tough times about something, it’s how you behave in those times that matter.

I wouldn’t let anyone play me by threats of being thrown out of office—so what. Life would go on in or out of office.

I believe in helping someone, but not carrying them. I would inform those who sit around waiting to be taken care of to get up and get going just like those before them did.

I’d give schools back the authority they once had and students’ would be taught how to behave in life and in public. They would be taught social skills and respect for their elders. Go ahead and sue if you want, but you’re not running the schools any longer.

And yes, I believe in God and Jesus and I would not change what I said because someone didn’t like it. I might lose the votes of those who don’t like it, but there are plenty who still believe in “One Nation Under God.”

2006-10-09T17:31:00.000-05:00

Sherri and twins.

2005-08-01T16:06:00.000-05:00

BACK
I'm back from 2 weeks in Pennsylvania!

SEEMS TO ME by s. streight

It seems to me, there should to be a time in life
when eyes open to things that ought to be
like faith and hope and love
the passing of knowledge
from old, to new
snowflakes
and
a kittens warm tongue
good friends and neighbors
things that are fun.
And, it seems to me, there ought to be
close knit families
old, homey places
ones that have stood, for decades at least
neighbors on porches and fun at the show
homemade ice cream, sleddin’ in the snow
and often I wonder, just where did it go?
We’re all so tired and dispersed far and wide
and the world just keeps spinning
and passing us by
as we tumble and stumble
and urgency laughs
every things going, simply too fast.

I need a moment, to catch my breath.

Life will go on, whether we’re here or we’re not
The in basket will stay, more fuller than not
An aged one will die, while a new one is born
And the children will age, as the parents grow old.

Do I make myself clear?

It seems to me, there should be a time in life
when we acknowledge what should be in life
slow down a bit, step back from the money pit
shove greed aside and acquire some peace.

URGENCY!!! by s. streight

Urgency rears its ugly head
and most of us run, to answer the call
and just like the insistent clamor of a phone
urgency amounts
to a salesman on the telephone.
Your urgency
His urgency
Her urgency
Their urgency
Not mine.
But…
still, we answer.
Something’s wrong with that.
So…
You can take your urgency
and shove it
where the sun don’t shine!
From this point forward
any urgency…
will be mine!

2005-07-12T12:36:00.000-05:00

Something unusual, Something Sad

First, something unusual. While driving on Wabash the other day, my daughter and I see this guy hitch-hiking. The unusual thing, he was sitting in a green recliner in the weeds on the side of the road with his thumb up. His chair sat there for several days and then one day it was gone.

Something sad. My step-son whom I've raised the last fourteen years is in the process of being evicted from his apartment. He told me about a month ago that he wasn't staying there, but with "friends." He wouldn't say who they were and he also set his cell phone to a message that said he was not taking calls. I asked him if he took his dog with him and he said he'd left her in the apartment, but was checking on her daily. His landlord called and said that he couldn't get hold of Son and that he was evicting him and he had until July 19 to move out. We passed on the word and Son's dad told him he'd help move him out this last weekend. Son never called back so we went by the apartment July 9 and the landlord let us in. My husband went in first with me behind him and the landlord behind me. The odor that hit you when the door opened was horrible! My husband physically recoiled from it and when it reached me I automatically put my hands over my nose and said, "Oh my gosh!" Before the landlord got in, I shut the door. The dog ran down the stairs to meet us and she had pooped and peed on the stairs from top to bottom. The two bedrooms were closed off and also the bathroom, but the poop and pee covered nearly every square inch of exposed floor which was the kitchen, hallway, and stairs. The dog had shredded clothes and paper and she had no water. Son had left her food in a bag which she had ripped apart. We gave her water and she drank two bowls and wanted more. There was no place to step unless you tip-toed across the floor because of the reasons I've already stated. The dog was running rampant through all the pee and poop and trying to jump on us. We decided she could not be left in that situation and took her. The landlord thanked us.

Okay, so this guy that lives below Son, called Son and told him we were in his apartment. (Son lets this guy know how to get hold of him but not his dad or me or his mother.) Son wants to talk to his dad. Son tells dad he'd better not take his dog, it was none of his business. We took her anyway. Son comes over and is saying "F___ this and F___ that. And that's why he wouldn't tell us where he lived, he didn't want us in his business, that we had no right to go in his apartment or take his dog (Son used his key to come in our house whenever he liked since he moved and also took all the food he wanted which isn't his)." He picked up the dog by the neck and took her. His dad told him if he took the dog back to the apartment, he would turn him in to the Humane Society. It's stupid because we haven't stuck our nose in his business except when he whined for it such as not having enough money for rent, electricity, dog food etc. He's dropped out of 4 college classes and a free education and owes eveyone under the sun but keeps asking his dad and biological mom for money because he has had and quit 4 or 5 jobs and can't make payments.

I felt upset that Son turned out such a person; that he allowed that kind of filth in his home, that he left a living creature in the shape he did, that he disrespected the landlord (the landlord has put up with Son's crap for months), that he treated his own flesh like strangers and strangers like family and so on.

We changed the locks on all our doors because my husband thinks Son will try to do something to get even. Our house is alarmed too. Hubby says Son's on his own now, come what may. I've said all along Son needed to suffer the consequences of his actions, to stop babying him. And...so it goes.

2005-07-11T21:37:00.000-05:00

Latest Poem I've Written

CLIMBING STAIRS by s. streight

The climbing stairs we all must take
The thrusting forward, is no mistake
The upward climb, to maturity
The leaving behind, of childlike purity.

We all look back with longing glances
As time moves forward, as time advances
straining forward to the utmost summit
sometimes tripping, sometimes stumbling
forward we go in concentration
intense on reaching our scheduled destination.

And now in afterthought or hindsight suggested
While at the summit in the midst of dedication
Looking back with arrogant justification
We survey the gain that life has brought us
And count the cost of precious losses.

In the wink of hooded eye
And if truth stands, by our side
The door will open to life’s true meaning
And close upon, selfish reasoning.

Maturity is but a mental state
which some attain, but most refrain.
It’s not in the eye of biased beholder
But in the actions of someone bolder
Someone yes, who takes the time
To understand there’s more to life
Than getting and grabbing and selfish purpose
Maturity then, is unselfish service.

And if enlightened, comes acceptance
And if mature, a well learned lesson
But if achieved in urgent pleasure
humanity forsaken, with self-centered gesture
Maturity is lost in all its force
And self from humanity, becomes divorced.

Carefully watch where foot does tread
With each step, search well ahead
Maturity’s found within due season
Led by wisdom and upright reason.

2005-07-03T22:17:00.000-05:00

Fourth of July
Fourth of July's a big thing around here. Tomorrow morning festivities begin with a parade down Wabash. Around 3pm various bands are scheduled to play at Fairbanks park until around 9:30 when the fireworks display will begin. Fairbanks Park is down by the Wabash River here in Terre Haute and is named after one of my ancestors. Various people already have the "big guns" out however and humongous fireworks have been going off for several days. We'll either go down to watch or blow our own up.

Son is hiding from someone. He's been evicted from his apartment which for the past two weeks he hasn't been living in anyway. He won't say where he is, just that he is staying with friends. Says he's tired of where he lives and wants to "get away from everyone" meaning those around his apartment. Hmm...

Have a happy and safe 4th of July and remember why we celebrate!

2005-06-27T13:39:00.000-05:00

Soul Searching
I’ve been busy. Busy finding out what I’m made of. When I was fifteen, I looked in the mirror and said, “Who are you and what are you going to be? Why are you here?” Now, at forty-eight, I look in the mirror and ask the same question. The difference, thirty-three years, and the backside of youth. I know I’m not old, but I’m standing on the far side of fifteen and still wondering.

I have learned some things, but it’s only recently. Or, maybe I should say I learned them, but stored them in my subconscious somewhere and am just now taking them out, turning them over, really looking at them and beginning to understand. I think those of us who mature into an understanding of life, mature at different times. I’m a late bloomer. I’m only now really maturing into any kind of conscious knowledge of what life is about. I’ve spent most my life without real, inner character. I wallowed, wallowed in self-pity because life didn’t treat me the way I wanted. Or, refused to play because all things did not turn out the way I wanted. You can’t just live life expecting things to always be happy, always turn out the way you want. Sometimes when you get what you want, someone else loses out.

God finally had to take me away, away from everything and everyone and make me look at this imaginary person called me. “Look,” he said, “look and see and change. Stop looking for everyone else to do the hard work and you do it. If they never change, what’s that got to do with you?” He made me look by taking all away and by that, I mean removed me from distractions that would take my attention from the lesson he was teaching me. Removed me from my kids, mother, friends, until it was only me alone with him because I could turn nowhere else.

The hard part is, being big enough to do it. Pushing away the false layers that have built up over time through hurt and pride and anger and disillusionment and getting down to the core of the individual. It’s hard to take off the rose-colored glasses and get down to the issue of what has been covered for so long. There’s far more to life than just us, ourselves, but isn’t that how people operate, everything is about me and what I want?

When you get your eyes focused on the right things, self seems so unimportant. What’s happened to character and ethics? The worlds a harsh teacher. The world is people so maybe I should say people are harsh teachers. If we follow nature and watch the proper order of things, it all balances out, but people have upset the balance and wonder why it doesn’t spin as it should.

The balance of self and giving has been disrupted. Self wins hands-down and we push and shove for what we think is ours or our right leaving disaster in every direction and wonder what happened or why it all fell apart. To a few of us, this matters. To most of us, it doesn’t. Just give me mine and worry about your own. How foolish! Doesn’t anyone understand we’re all intertwined, that life depends on life, and we depend on nature? Where does gold and silver come from? Where do rain and sun and animals come from? Man acts as if they created these things. What man does is take and never gives back. And, why do they do it? Lack of character. Lack of honesty. Lack of ethics. Lack of anything except greed.

I stood on top of Pikes Peak once, long ago. Very small and very in awe of the knowledge that in the realm of bigger things, I didn’t count, that in the glory and all the splendor that spread out before me, I was just a tick in time that would pass on with the next sunset or sun rise, but the mountain would go on with it’s ageless wisdom forever. And I stood at the summit of a great volcano and understood that though we can claim to be all, we are nothing in the power of the earth. And again, when in the midst of a tornado with its mighty winds ripping and tearing and swirling, I survived to live another day, I knew a power much mightier than a human hand, or mind, or thought.

Yes, I’ve been learning, but only now is it all coming together because I’ve been too busy with what I perceived to be real. I know now that what is real, is life and love and soft kittens, and flowers and a dog at your feet and laughter and home and family and friends and anything beyond that is a gift of the highest order.

2005-06-26T14:47:00.000-05:00

Thoughts (portions of a letter to someone I love)
Sometimes I miss the old fashioned love letter. This is quicker and easier, but there’s just no personality that goes along with it, no personal touch. There’s no slip of the pen to hint at what the writer might be feeling, no smudge of ink where a tear drop may have fallen hinting at the writer’s state of mind. Nothing. Just cold words on a computer screen with nothing to define who the writer is or for what purpose they are writing. And, there’s nothing to leave behind. No paper or pen or perfumed scented envelopes to say that someone once lived and dreamed, that they were. Nothing much left for mankind. Just a push of a button and everything I’ve said will be gone and no one will know how I loved you or what I thought about you.

I watched those videos and life has just gone by so fast, hasn’t it? When you’re living it, you don’t seem to have time to see it or to cherish what is right then. In too big of a hurry to get to the next place or the next level or the next time and when you do stop to look, it is all gone. Life is like that I guess, the scratching and clawing for what you want and missing out on the real things then finding out maybe, just maybe you’ve lived your whole life struggling for the wrong thing, living unfulfilled, but not even knowing it until you’re all grown up and looking on the backside of youth and then you say ah, was all I chased after really what life is about or was it the struggle of motherhood, of attempting to raise kids to understand what is real and important, to teach them to understand that nature has a lesson to teach and they must learn from it, that God is real and if you’ll just let it, nature will teach you all about him.

I know, because I’ve lived it. I know what it is like to have a huge animal with mane and tail flying, hoofs pounding the earth, running just because they love you and to feel the power of that animal beneath you knowing that for thousands of years it was the only mode of transportation. I know what it is to hold furry, warm kittens close on a cold night and listen to the coyotes speak in that soul wrenching cry, nose tilted to the heavens. I know what it is to plant a seed and tend it and care for it and when the first green shoot comes up through the hard soil to know the joy of doing something with your own hands and that it will give life and nourishment to not only you, but others as well. The rabbits come and the turtles to take a nip out of the tomatoes and we don’t want them there, but really, what’s it going to hurt to share a little with them? I always had an over abundance.

Well, perhaps I’m a little, what’s that word you used to say, contemplative? Melancholy? It just seems silly to me now to run to and fro wasting time on things that don’t fulfill. My passion is nature, writing, and photography. It amazes me the way the world works together to accomplish what it needs to and few people ever understand that. They don’t understand that when you take out too much, it dies a little each time. Earth is wearing out because of man’s greed. They don’t understand that what they’re taking from nature, they’re taking from themselves; mankind. Few look at it as a whole, but only their little section, but as the world population grows, there is too many little sections. Don’t they realize that one day each section will make the whole?

I miss you. It’s stupid the years we wasted on pride and stupidity and the toll it took on everyone. Live your dreams yes, but neither one of us did. We settled because of rash decisions or because what we really wanted required much work or effort or fear of failure or just fear itself. What character or fortitude lies in that? These are my thoughts. You may not see it the way I do, but for me, this is right.

You are the love of my life. I will always see you the way I first did, the first time I walked into your office; handsome, cocky, but underneath all that vulnerable, lonely, and searching for the same thing I was; trust, loyalty, and the other half of me. I found that in you.

2005-06-19T22:37:00.000-05:00

OKLAHOMA by s. streight

Oklahoma sunshine, Oklahoma rain
Oklahoma wind whistlin' down the lane
Oklahoma cattle fed on Oklahoma grain
morals and values deeply ingrained.
Oklahoma crops in Oklahoma fields
Oklahoma sky, Oklahoma hills
Oklahoma people working with a will
tilled warm soil and oil drilled.
Oklahoma Indians quite aplenty.
Iron red dirt shinin' like a penny.
Cowboys, ranches, rodeos and cows,
tornado alley and powwows,
early morning grass, wet with dew
panoramic views, mountains too,
instill in the heart a closeness to the land
making life here, Oklahoma grand.

EMOTION by s. streight

Deep, deep as the sea
is my love for thee.
And swift, swift as a river
flow emotion underneath.
Then hot, hot as an ember
a red, hot cinder
the passion does stir
making all senses a spinning blur.
Now silent, very quiet, my love does grow
stronger and bolder in an never-ending flow.
Higher, ever higher, it will never end
reaching forward again and again.

MOMENTS OF LIFE by s. streight

In these moments of mortal life
amidst all the human stress and strife
it’s been my observation, that the inner situation
dictates the clarity of outer sensations.

2005-06-09T11:35:00.000-05:00

Poem

LITTLE BOX by s. streight

I climbed in and shut the lid
On my little box
Looked around, securely sound
Within my own self-trust
But as I gazed about one day
The corners shrunk right in,
the ceiling lowered, as I lay cowered
beneath my own self-whim
the little box that I called home
began to feel quite small
and I began to question then
the thoughts I’d had before
perhaps this place, within my space
was smaller than I thought
perhaps this space, my little box
was not quite adequate
then steadily, deliberately
I began to know
Conceivably, immeasurably
Something had to grow
Maybe I don’t know it all,
or maybe, just a know-it-all
But where before I lived before
Within my special box
And languished there, subjected there
To all my biased thought
The little box that fit so well
my eyes wide open shut
soon began to illustrate,
how inadequate it was
so if perchance you visit there
peeking deep inside
and if perchance you happen to see
the box all dented up
you’ll know that I have moved from there
it’s simply too corrupt
the thoughts I had while living there
were anything but just
at this point, within my life
with wrenching clarity
I’ve begun to rearrange
Everything I must
The lids askew on my box
It’s bursting at its seams
The new ideas, crammed within
To you, might seem quite strange
After all, it wasn’t long
I thought the way you do
Living safely, all confined
Within my little box.

2005-05-31T11:44:00.000-05:00

I Know...

I know, it's been a long time since I posted. I'm getting lazy I guess. Keelan and LaDonna left this morning to go back to Oklahoma. I miss them! I miss the activity they always have surrounding them. I am not talking about drama, but life! They do have a lot of drama though! HA. For instance, the guy Keelan likes went to work one day and they told him they were giving him a management position in a store and he had to leave in 10 minutes. This came after they had him look at a store in Tennessee for a management position. She only got to see him the first week she was here and never saw him again. They talked, but he had to work 2 weeks straight. She and LaDonna both have long distance relationships with guys here in Indiana while they live in Oklahoma. Kind of tough to say the least!

My daughters school lets out in 3 days. She'll be bored and I'll get bored hearing her say she's bored!

I woke up this morning and my blood pressure was 90/55. It makes me feel so tired when it's that low and also dizzy and out of breath. It seems the lower it goes, the faster my pulse goes, I'm assuming because my heart has to work harder to pump the blood. I've had it my whole life. It's weird how two of my kids have high blood pressure taking after their dad and grandmother and Keelan has low blood pressure like me. Rylee is yet to be seen. Her dad has low blood pressure too. The Dr. told me once that it can make you feel as bad as high does and I believe it.

Guess that's it for now.

2005-05-16T13:05:00.000-05:00

Better Hurry!

I'd better hurry because Blogger is going down at 2 for maintenance. It's been awhile, I know, but life goes on. Keelan and LaDonna are here for a little over 2 weeks. It's nice to see them. They're without wheels! Ha, that's almost a first for Keelan!

Rylee is still drumming and getting more teenager every day. YUCK! Thank goodness she's the last of 5.

Hubby is beginning to feel a little better about the death of his mom, but his dad is steadily growing worse for many reasons.

Later

2005-05-01T22:32:00.000-05:00

Some Stuff

Went to a playoffs game last night between the Indiana Pacers and the Boston Celtics. It's always fun, but last night was the worst loss in the Pacers history.

Hubby informed me last night that I have to take him to the Indy Airport this coming Friday because he is flying to Oklahoma. I HATE going to the airport. I HATE driving to or from the airport. Needless to say, I am not happy and I'll be driving back right at 5pm which puts me in all that traffic. I'll say it again, I AM NOT HAPPY! I'm gonna see if I can't find another way. His sister isn't too happy either because she'll have to pick him up at 10:30 in Tulsa. I told him not to do that to me anymore and to please check with the people he expected to take him and pick him up to see if the times were okay WITH THEM too! He just assumes that what he does will be okay with everyone else. It really, really stresses me because 1) I always get turned around and go the wrong way, 2) It will be getting close to dark and I have night blindness due to stigmatism, 3) I'll be leaving at 5:00 which is when everyone is leaving Indy to go home to the various cities further West.

Indiana voted to start Daylight Savings Time. We don't have it and I like it that way. There is no adjustment time that you have to go through every six months. I have certaintly enjoyed 2 years without having to mess with it.

Bye

2005-04-24T22:40:00.000-05:00

Things
It's been three weeks since my mother-in-law passed away.

My father-in-law was not being taken care of well in the Veteran's Home so he is going back to his house.

My semester is almost over and the summer off approaches.

My husband is dealing with his mother's death a little easier now.

My dad had menengitis last year which has left him brain damaged.

I am still working out with weights and really seeing the results.

I am editing my book and nearly finished with it.

I have talked to friends from Poteau for two days now. How weird that I have friends from there as bad as it was.

It got down to 28 degrees last night.

A friend of Rylee's that is also taking drum lessons wanted to challenge Rylee to a drum off and her friends teachers told her to forget it, Rylee would kick her rear all over the place.

Mother's Day approaches.

I'm getting ready to redo Rylee's bedroom.

I'm tanned.

Nothing funny has happened for a long time and I wish it would!

I bought 4 pairs of shoes and 2 dresses!

I want to dance in my lovely, new, dress with shoes to match!

That's it!

DON’T MOURN by s. streight

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.

2005-04-20T12:27:00.000-05:00

Doing Better

Hubby is doing better although it will take a long time for the grief to pass. He said he realized he had never grieved before, for anything; not even his divorce or loss of his grandmother he was very close to. Now he knows what it is to be human because even though he felt compassion for others, he had no empthay.

DEEP INSIDE by s. streight

Tears cried from deep inside
Anguish billowing outward
Tattered refrains, embellished pain
Seared with conscious effort
Memories hide within the mind
Refusing to be hidden
Outward appearance, inward perseverance
harden into one
Tortured soul no longer whole
Someone dear is missing
Tattered breath lost in death
Insanity now takes hold.

THOUGH by s. streight

Though he utters not a word
Anguish in his voice
Though he sees not a thing
Sadness in his eyes
Though he perceives not a sound
one voice bids him calling
Though he feels nothingness
Torture in his soul
Though he’s ceased to taste sweet life
Bitterness in his mouth
Though I see him, feel him, touch him
Inside, invisible
And so I bid a sad farewell
To the one I knew
uttering now, a bitter hello
to the man, that now unfolds. (still working on this one)

2005-04-11T20:16:00.000-05:00

What Do I Do?

As I stated in my last post, my husband's mother passed away unexpectedly last week. I knew he would grieve. I knew he was a mamma's boy, but he's taking it too far I think. He's treating the rest of us like we don't exist, like no one ever existed but his mom. He's saying his heart is lost forever and he won't feel love ever again, that he doesn't like anything anymore. When I jokingly said, "Not even me?" He said, "Who are you?" I've had someone very close to me die unexpectedly also. I know the shock of it, but I didn't push the ones still living away acting as if they didn't mean anything to me. I'm his wife. It hurts to hear him say those things over and over. I'm trying to understand it's just his grief, but what does his love for me have to do with her death? He's talking like he can't love anyone else, that he's incapable of loving anyone else ever again. I always knew he cared much more deeply for blood than he did marriage. It's sad I think. How could this death make him feel like he can't love the people he supposedly loved before she died? I don't get it.

Has anyone had this experience? How do you deal with it when it's nonstop?

2005-04-10T17:09:00.000-05:00

WHERE WAS I? by s. streight

I wish I could have been there by your side
close to you the day she died
and then again, on the day
the day you stood there by her grave.

I wish when reality hit you in the face
I wish, how I wish I could have taken your place
to shield you from this terrible blow
loosen the grip of life’s hurtful throes.

But I wasn’t, I was not there
the day you stood and stared, just stared
at the casket where she lay
on that fateful, fateful day.

Though in body I was not there
across the miles I felt despair
the solemn cry of one alone
the cry of one who’d lost a home.

I feel! I know! I let you down
the day they placed her in the ground
the day they lay her soul to rest
the day I failed to give my best.

We just got back from Oklahoma. My husbands mother died unexpectedly a week ago today. She was just short of turning 77 in May. It was a sad time for all involved, especially her children. The time of grieving will go on for a time and hopefully, healing will follow close on the heels of grief; until then, it will be hard for them.

A nice aspect of the whole situation was the coming together of family members from both sides that had not seen each other in a long time. Too bad it takes something this dire to bring all back for a reunion. I also got to see my kids, a little treat on the side in such a situation as this.

I guess that's it. Hopefully the next post will be on a happier note.

2005-03-27T13:22:00.000-06:00

For Brandy, Keelan, and LaDonna

SHOES by s. streight

Shoes, shoes, what would I do
without my lovely shoes!
They keep my little tootsies warm
They keep my feet real clean
They take me places I want to go
And don’t you dare be mean
Cause if you do, my good old shoes
will go right after you
you haven’t a chance, they’ll kick your pants
they really are a dream!

My shoes! How I love them,
I’m hoping you do too
My shoes how I love them
I have more than a few
My shiny black, teach me to dance
The Nikes, for fast running
My stiletto heels give guys a thrill
They’re more than they can stand
And lest I forget, my Sunday best
The pumps go with, my purple dress.

But alas, my favorite pair
Will walk right over you
I guess you know, my boots kick ass
Don’t say you didn’t know.

And so goodbye, the time is right
It’s time for me to go
The next shoe trend is calling me
I’m off to look again
For the shoes that catch my eye
I fear there’ll be no end
But what the heck, I love the effect
I'm sure I won't regret!

CHORUS TEN by s. streight

I never thought this would happen to us
How many times has that thought been put down
on paper or song to find it was wrong

I never thought these tears I would cry
or leaving you or saying goodbye
would cause such pain,
clinging to a tattered refrain of our love

Years have passed while our song played
chorus 10 won’t play again
These tears that drop splinter like glass
in the reverberating sound of our last dance

Lingering in the quiet halls of hope,
the radio plays, I turn down the volume
holding memories close to my heart
and brace myself for one last dance

How can it be, in this time of our lives
that one of us could leave the other
crying in the rain

No, don’t try to explain, your eyes say it all
so one last kiss and one last dance
will close this life-long romance
the ending of a sweet love song.

2005-03-24T11:00:00.000-06:00

CRUCIFIED by s. streight

The twirling leaves
swirled around
reminding me
of thoughts I'd found
within myself; questions asked
of who I am; and what I'm about
If truth be known; and I hope it will
a conglomeration is where I’m bound
the best parts from everyone
all mixed together is what I've become
and as this thought
within me grows
the ugly things I'd come to know
I thought about
And sacrificed
layed down to rest
and crucified
till all the bitterness within my soul
disintegrated
and I let go
free at last to be just me
no longer concerned about my glass house.
Let the rocks come smashing in
I’m shatter proof, from within
Stronger now because of you
Crucified to what has been.

POOH!!!! I had a lot more written, but blogger ate it and I'm not going to do it all again except to say, "Keelan!!!! I've looked for Lucas' beat up piece of truck every time I go by there and haven't seen it parked where it was that day."

M-Kay Maybe next time blogger will cooperate and you'll get more info.

2005-03-21T10:52:00.000-06:00

My Latest Poem by s. streight

NO DISCERNMENT

The man lived life with no discernment
Never marking the path he trod
Seemingly stupid to life’s consequences
Noncommittal to any senses.

Walking as if he had no eyes
Stepping where he ought to not
Closing his ears to what goes through mind
Falling into cracks along life’s road.

And not only that
But…

Acting as if things won’t befall him
Brainlessly trudging along
Molecules of strife scattered behind
Trailing in discontentment.

Stubbing his toe on what’s in plain view
Eyes looking ahead, but seeing nothing
Fast-forward run toward idiocracy
Insulated in his own superiority.

What he refuses can harm him plenty
But ignorance is bliss in a case like his
If unawareness were all it was, acceptance could be given
But alas, total abandonment, seems to be the cause.

And so he goes in this haphazard fashion
Daring discipline to come
Tossing aside all sane reason
Defying rational wisdom.

Happy belated St. Patrick's Day birthday to my daughter!

Two of my daughters, Brandy and Keelan came up last week and Keelan's friend LaDonna. I had a great time! I don't get to see them often so them being here was a lot of fun.

I'm comitted to going to the gym now. I have on and off for always, but have been off more than on lately. However, I am seeing great results in my body. I feel so much better too so it is something I will not give up again.

Guess that's it for now.

2005-03-14T14:53:00.000-06:00

<>I blogged using netscape and it's all out of whack!

Poetry by s. streight

MEMORIES <>
Time and space have no meaning
when in memories a person lingers
a simple touch, an aromatic fragrance
a fleeting smile make simple pleasure.
Lost in time, in memories gone
<>passing feelings wander by
echoing thoughts of long ago
of songs and feelings

I used to know.

<>IN PURSUIT OF MAN

Evil lurks in the guise of man

waiting

always in pursuit

Scared little men in their

starched suits

afraid to do what’s right

living life in

disrepair

while their souls tag along

disintegrating …..

out of sight.

IMPATIENCE

Time stands still

when impatience abounds

an ungrounded feeling ensues

stress engulfs

with its stifling touch

solidly welding the two.

2005-03-11T11:15:00.000-06:00

ONCE by s. streight

I read some writings
Once…
from a long time ago and
I heard a voice
Once…
spoken back when
and was surprised to discover
I recognized both
writer and speaker
the way he was then.

The inward out style
the attitude of voice
have all been traded
for an outward bound silence
the traces of passion
that peppered his speech
now lay on his tongue
in hushed retreat.

I wish I’d known
his free-flowing verse
what flowed from the inside
he crammed in reverse
now inward it goes
emotions ice-capped
reflections of youth
disassembled by wrath.

Willingness to expose
emotions no more
veiling from himself
the truth that he seeks
prisoned there
in the adult he’s become
the silence that slumbered
awakens from sleep.

Still working on the last two lines. I'm not sure they say what I want them to say.

2005-03-08T18:29:00.000-06:00

AAhh...

So...I've had a couple of glasses of wine, a bowl of ice cream and I'm feelin' mighty fine! My mom told me today, I talk northern. I'd rather keep my southern roots. I like sayin' fixin' and y'all. I need to get back to my Okie roots! I wanna go home! But, I like Indiana. I'm in a fix, ya know?

I bought the book, "Second Sight". It's the book that The Two Lives of Jenny Logan was based on. Much of the movie was taken from the book, but there is a difference. The book merges the past with another element such as another dimension. In the book, Jenny dies and goes to another dimension to live with whatshisname. He dies in her world, but she and he live in another dimension. Ok...so it is weird, but I like the book and the movie.

I also bought some other books I enjoy. Write about them later.

2005-03-04T19:33:00.000-06:00

DAYS AHEAD

I look forward to days ahead
when time will heal all wounds
a bright new dawning of sights and sounds
music to my weary soul.
Until then I keep the thought
of brighter days approaching
and mark my calendar with a hopeful check
looking toward that far off goal.

HOMESICK

Homesickness is stuck to me
like molasses syrup hidden in a tree
waiting there, just to be tapped
slowly oozing like punctured tree sap
clinging to me in a sticky mass
until in heartache I collapse at last
all at once I’m homesick bound
feeling depressed and very down
longing for familiar faces
yearning for my homey places.

WILL OUR LIVES

Will our lives return to normal
If they ever were
Or will our lives continue to spiral
Always in a stir
Will a time come when all is quiet
If it ever was
Will our lives be full of joy
Instead of in a fuzz
Will the burdens of this time
Evaporate like dew
Or will we always live in strife
That fits us like a shoe
It seems of late, that’s all I’ve known
Perhaps it always was
Turmoil falling down on us
cascading from above.

2005-02-24T09:42:00.000-06:00

HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY KEELAN!
THIS WILL BE THE FIRST BIRTHDAY CELEBRATED APART. WISH I COULD BE THERE, BUT NOT POSSIBLE.
WHEN YOU TURN 21 NEXT YEAR, WE'LL GO TO LAS VEGAS!
LOVE MOM, DAD, AND SIS

2005-02-20T17:20:00.000-06:00

Drummer Girl

Rylee is doing great with her drum lessons! On her second lesson she got to skip the whole first book. They were astounded at what she did. She seemed to catch on well to what they told her to practice on, so I had her go beyond that. After she played, her teacher ran out and said she had never seen anyone do that without making a mistake. She told the main teacher who came in and listened and said to start her in the second book. Looks like we have a drummer on our hands and a proud mom too!

2005-02-13T16:17:00.000-06:00

Stuff

I got all the wall paper taken down from the hall and painted the hall sort of a french vanilla color, and now have the main bathroom done. I cannot describe the difference in that bathroom. Two sides of the walls were mirrowed. I took one side down and papered it. I wanted to just paint, but the wall was in terrible condition so I opted to paper it. A cosmetic patch I know, but oh well, it certaintly looks great! I painted the ceilings, put up new shower curtains, wall papered, put new throw rugs on the floor, and accesorized the area. It is really cute and looks like a girls bathroom.

Rylee's drum lessons are going well. She's doing great and catching on really well. I guess that's it for now.

GOT THE BEAT

I can hardly wait
Crisp air stirs the senses
Making the colors brighter, more vivid
As I travel along, on life’s shaky road
It’s taken much time, but I think I’ve got the beat
No retreat
Shuffle the feet
Find the rhythm
And bow to the dance
Of life’s….
circumstance.

ALL MY LIFE

All my life…
I've searched…
and wondered…
who I was
and what to do
with my time upon this earth.

Now, time is running away
and I’m no closer to the answer
than I was yesterday.

What a pity
To have life laid out before you
And to choose
mediocrity.

Many longings I contain within
for what my life
might have been

And yet…
I see…
What my Life…
still
could be

So…
with eyes wide shut
I begin…
again…
Just a shadow of what was
But…
Looking toward
what will be.

2005-02-04T19:25:00.000-06:00

Drummer Girl

My youngest daughter started her drum lesson yesterday. She got to skip the first two lessons. The teacher said that usually, if they were good enough to skip the first two, they had unusual potential for playing. Her main teacher is a guy, his aide is a Sr. at North Terre Haute who has played for ten years. She gave Rylee her first lesson. I'm excited for her. She's getting to do what I wanted to do, at least she's getting lessons. So did Keelan in dance for three years. I'm making her practice for an hour a day. I meant business when I started her in the lessons and told her she would have to practice. It's cool. She'll be a cool mom someday. Hooray for her!

I painted my hall today. It was a dark gray when we bought the house, now it is the color of melted french vanilla ice cream. I like it. I'll post the color soon.

Have a great weekend!

2005-01-31T10:40:00.000-06:00

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.

2005-01-24T14:41:00.000-06:00

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.

2005-01-11T10:58:00.000-06:00

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!

2005-01-04T15:38:00.000-06:00

One Woman’s Journey

Written by Me

I’m not at the end of the journey. I’ve only just begun. I have been traveling the path my mother started for me. The one she set me on at the beginning of life. My values were hers. My reasoning hers. The very air I breathed, hers. She wasn’t a bad mother, but a woman with strong constitution. One who believed strongly in her vision and the road that should be traveled. So, here I am at forty-five wobbling along with one foot still on my mother’s path and the other straining to take another direction.

Mother always said I was a difficult child, strong-willed and rebellious. Perhaps then, that is why I have survived. Survived to tell the tale of one woman’s journey.

I was born the first of two children, the oldest by birth. With this station came certain responsibilities and certain disappointments. I learned early that things did not always happen the way you dreamed and things could be taken from you without your consent. I learned that sometimes, the child takes care of the adult and that marriages don’t always work. I learned that women often stay in bad marriages so they won’t be alone or to achieve financial security. I learned long-suffering and endurance in the face of adversity. Above all, I learned not to displease my mother.

In time, these values were passed to me without my consent and without my knowledge. Perhaps it was for the good of me. Whatever it may have been I have set forth on the journey and cannot turn back. As time goes forward, I learn who this woman is and who she will become, what her beliefs and values are and whether her relationship will ever return to what it once was with her mother.

Perhaps this is not a story of her journey, but of her mother’s. Time will tell and perhaps it will tell the story well.

2005-01-03T16:19:00.000-06:00

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.

2004-12-30T21:54:00.000-06:00

Sad

Well, I'm back in Terre Haute. I miss my kids, family, and friends very badly and I've only been back since 7pm! They are all together now. It is hard living away from nearly everyone you love and very hard to walk back into a house that is so quiet without Keelan's presence. She always made me laugh and cheered me up. I miss her car in the driveway and keep thinking she's just working and I need to leave the porch light on for her. I suppose I'll have to meet people to hang out with now because she was the one I did things with; ate out with, went to the mall, and numerous other things. We leaned on each other through all the moves the past five years and were each other's friend when we knew no one.

I miss Brandy and Rantz and being involved in their lives and my mother is getting old and needs help in many ways. There's my brother and niece and numerous friends.

Enough! I'm making myself sad.

2004-12-20T12:27:00.000-06:00

All poems written by Sherri Hilton Streight

OKLAHOMA
Oklahoma sunshine, Oklahoma rain
Oklahoma wind whistlin' down the lane
Oklahoma cattle fed on Oklahoma grain
morals and values deeply ingrained.
Oklahoma crops in Oklahoma fields
Oklahoma sky, Oklahoma hills
Oklahoma people working with a will
tilled warm soil and oil drilled.
Oklahoma Indians quite aplenty.
Iron red dirt shinin' like a penny.
Cowboys, ranches, rodeos and cows,
tornado alley and powwows,
early morning grass wet with dew,
panoramic views, mountains too,
instill in the heart a closeness to the land,
making life here Oklahoma grand.

AS THE WORLD SPINS BY
The clock ticks
as the world spins by
silent hands collecting time
measuring space from now till then
a new one born,
an old one dies
and me
somewhere in-between.

LIFE
Life revolves
as the world spins along
serendipitly
exit one
as another enters
and the tape plays on.

FULL SAILS AHEAD
She’s leaving, going away
Growing up, in the middle of today
On wobbling legs she’s setting out
Pushing forward, to a new found route
Looking onward, let her have her head
The wind behind her, it’s full sails ahead
While I watch as the sun sets low
Missing her, but letting go
Likening her to a new born roan
Allowing her to stand, all on her own
Mother instincts, a watchful eye
Letting her loose, alone to fly
The last to go, of those three
Head held high, spirit free
Joining the rest, she’ll pass the test
In this venture she’ll do her best.

SANDS OF TIME
The sands of time
quickly trickle by
disintegrating the past while structuring the future
And with each particle that is displaced
another comes to takes its place
Circling round in an ethereal state
finding no restraint
assembling the future from fragments encountered
then tiptoeing through the ages.

CHANGING TIDES
Changing tides are coming my way
As time moves forward, what was decays
Fog up ahead, hinders my view
What lies in front is all brand new.

TIME FRAME OF LIFE
Poems are prose in the time frame of life
Adhered together with molecules of existence
Stanza’s added with each passing moment
building into full blown rhythm
verses lingering long after death
in tidbits of poetry and rhyme long left
each verse exposed and explored by men
to judgment or glory of poetry now spent.

INSIDE OF LIFE
Poems are the interior of life
A glimpse of what makes me
And I decide how much to expose
How much to let you see
And as I sit and type the words
The ones I will allow
It’s up to you to decipher the code
I cannot tell you how
I simply offer a key to hold
A chance to peep inside
A moment to look within the soul
Of a person you'll never know.

Homeward Bound!

Hooray! Tomorrow we leave the Hoosier state for the Sooner state, a week at home; that is, two of us will stay a week. One of us will not be coming back.

Wish us a safe trip!

2004-12-17T18:51:00.000-06:00

Tribute to Keelan

KEELAN

Tosseled hair, without care
tomboy through and through
a mixture of feelings
hidden from view
growing into a woman.
Singing songs, loud of voice
off key, but what a joy!
Little girl lost, forlorn and blue
tears inside hidden from view.
Transformation in the making
Space around her constantly shaking
Girl merging into woman
The final product will be something.

The time grows closer when I must let go of my "baby". It is hard to do. Keelan is the last of those three, those children from another life and time. Six hundred and fifty miles separate me from my kids; a long way away from me. It is hard. If she were just moving down the road or across town, how much easier would it be to bear, but she isn't. She's going back home. And, I must let go. It's been Keelan and me for thirteen years. She and I were the last of what once was. I know it sounds sad and I love my husband dearly, but she and I stuck together through the initiation into the foreign world of my husband. When times got rough, we stuck together and bolstered each other up.

Now she has her wings and must fly into her own, becoming who she is meant to be.

She and I share a different time, a different space. We know what it's like to feel the warm breath of a horse on a cold day, to have loads of baby kittens running after you, a huge dog that jumps in the pond to chase horse poop that dissolves before his eyes and then watch him go under the water to try to find it, to see a goats horns glow in the barn on a dark night and have the crap scared out of you by the sight of it. Keelan and I have a special bond because it's been she and me fumbling through the Streight world for a long, long time.

My kids are far away and it's hard for them and me. I can't be there for anything and I am sorry for that.

In a few more days, my life will change forevermore. Keelan has taught me many things. I am proud to call her not only my daughter, but my friend.

I am proud of all my kids; Brandy for what she has accomplished and who she has become.
Rantz for the man he is and the child he was.

May God watch over them all until I can come home once more.

2004-12-16T09:05:00.000-06:00

Done!

Whew, I'm done! Hooray... Done with grading and done with the finale and done with students who want something for nothing. I prefer working with the more mature student teacher than the partying pre-service teacher. There is a vast difference in maturity level for the most part and it tells in the commitment to the work turned in.

I don't know how many teachers I'll have this go round. I had 5 the semester before and made the same amount visiting 5 student teachers once a week (also paid mileage) as I did 3 student teachers this semester and 16 in the 250 class. With the class I still drove to the schools I had them in, but didn't get mileage. In short, I make the same with the student teachers and have a lot less headaches.

Son has not shown his face since he left. His dad has talked to him and seen him once and both times he has asked for money. He's supposed to come Sunday for Christmas because the rest of us are heading home a day or two before Christmas and he's decided not to go. He told me several times the last year that his plan was to leave after he graduated high school without telling us and never see us again. He's working on that now because he doesn't come around at all and when we go over there, he is never home. It's sad, but boy, has the stress lifted around this house! No more locking bedroom doors, or waking up in the middle of the night with strangers in the house.

I guess that's it for now. Merry Christmas!

2004-12-12T12:07:00.000-06:00

Semester's End

The end of the semester is upon me and the end of my class! My student teaching supervision is finished except for the last seminar tomorrow and my 250 class ends Wednesday with the final. Sometimes, all ends well that didn't start well, thank goodness! I elected not to teach the 250 class this semester due to some things that the MWF schedule would interfere with, but will keep the student teachers. They gave the 250 class I taught this semester to the girl that taught the other 2 sections of the same class. She didn't want it so she asked me if I wanted to keep it. I said I would, but never heard from the division chair as to whether that was okay or not. In the mean time, things came up that caused me to tell the chair that I wouldn't be able to take it. So it goes.

That's it for now.

2004-12-07T17:52:00.000-06:00

A Poem I Wrote

THE NEW MINORITY

The new minority that is becoming oppressed
are those who claim Christ, it’s surely a test
along with them are the Jews that God blessed
and anyone else, ignorant people detest.

Because we believe in God and his Son
The whole stinkin’ world is coming undone!
Don’t talk about God or speak of his Son
This ain’t the way, the government should be run

Take his name up off of our money
to believe in God, sure makes you funny.
What proof do you have, that he even exists
Why worship something, that everyone can diss?

And I sit and think of how America started
with those brave men, now long departed
sailing the ocean, to a foreign land
religious freedom, the thing in demand.

Now I stare in horror, at America’s unfolding
religious freedoms, they now are withholding
One Nation Under God, we no longer stand
our forefather’s I know, would not understand.

I am a minority and demand my true rights
to create a Holy nation, our predecessors did fight
and I’ll go down too, fulfilling that right
Long Live The Lord, the only true light!

2004-12-06T09:02:00.000-06:00

A Poem I Wrote

ANCIENT

I watched you sleep in your quiet way
as the night wore on
and …
the moon beams danced across the darkness promising another day.
Now the dew falls upon the ground
the sleepy breezes blow
your breathing comes slow and easy
outside, there is no sound
My love for you is stirring
it seems to know no bounds
My love for you, an old, old yearning
lived long before this earth.
An ancient love I have for you
older than the seas
primordial love that will not flee
echoing through the ages.

2004-12-05T18:27:00.000-06:00

Just Wonderin'

I was just wonderin', does anyone read this blog except my relatives? It is life, mundane as it is; my life at any rate. Are blogs worth it? The time, the effort to put your thoughts out into cyber space. Hmmm thought provoking, isn't it? I really don't put it all out there, you know. If I put what I really thought, or what really goes on, the world might explode! And, I couldn't' be responsible for such a thing as the world exploding!

2004-12-04T12:56:00.000-06:00

Wondered

I wondered how long it would take Hubby to freak out over Son. It took longer than I expected, but today was the beginning and probably not the end. I let my daughter move into Son's previous room until she moves out for good in two weeks and five days. It was silly to have the vacant room and two girls in one bedroom when it didn't have to be that way. One is nearly 20 and the other 12. They have vastly different lifestyles and argued constantly because the older one would wait to do her college work and the younger had to be in bed by 10:30 and blah, blah, blah... Needless to say, they got in each other's space.

Today, Keelan is coming out of the sacred Son room and Hubby first attacks her personally, "What happened to you? Did you get drunk last night?" (She didn't.) Then he says she messed the room up worse than Son ever could (a huge lie). Then he comes into where I am and tells me she's messed it up and calls her Princess several times. Well, we're on our way out and I open her door to tell her something to tell our other daughter and Hubby barges in and sees she has an empty plate and starts flipping out saying I thought we said they weren't going to eat in the rooms and starts in on her until finally he says, "Say ok or I'm going to move you out. Say whatever one more time and your out." Then he runs into her room and starts dismantling her computer. I told him he gave Son a lot more time than that. He got mad at me and left me (we were supposed to go Christmas shopping). He'd already been on me earlier about various things and I was trying to ignore him. My opinion is he's just trying to get even with me and taking it out on Keelan. He's always done that.

He's very emotional; worse than any woman could possibly be.

2004-11-29T10:30:00.000-06:00

Saga of Son

Son is doing well. He has an apartment now and will have a roommate in December. He and three of his friends came last night and moved his furniture out of his room. There's just a few things left. I still believe it was the right thing to do. His dad's been okay with it so far which surprises me, but the test will come if Son doesn't fair well or something happens. Son has to learn the boundaries of many things. He didn't want to do that at home, so maybe the world can teach him. His dad's having empty nest syndrome. This will be my third departure with the fourth following in December when my daughter moves back to Oklahoma. You always feel an emptiness, but time helps and also the knowledge that your kids will move out someday and make a life of their own.

2004-11-26T18:13:00.000-06:00

Son

Son is gone, but most of his stuff is still here. He is staying with a friend until he gets a place or whatever. It's too bad, but he chose it. I picked up all his cigarette butts on my table and blown across the patio. He's moved out all of his 'good' stuff in his room such as his stereo and things like that. I'm giving him a week or so to move the rest and then I am going to box up what's left and store it in the garage. That way he can get it as he pleases. I am re-keying the locks before we leave to go home for Christmas if he doesn't go with us. I don't trust him to not come in the house with his friends and do whatever while we're gone. Hubby and I had talked about that way before this whole thing came up and I am just going to do it and not discuss with Hubby again. He's taken all this well and in fact, I think he's kind of relieved. In the long run it will be good for Son to know what it is really like out there and if he has to come back, well, it won't be the same. He'll only come back if he does what is expected of him. I plan on making his room into a study so he'll have to stay on the sleeper sofa if he comes back at some point and won't have the opportunity to mess that all up.

Time moves on doesn't it?

2004-11-24T20:17:00.000-06:00

It's My Birthday But...

It's my birthday but, today I had to tell my step-son of 13 years to leave. Not a happy birthday! His dad and I had some rules he was going to have to adhere to if he wanted to to continue to live here. He's 18 1/2, old enough to have some common sense. Two weeks ago we told him there were some things we needed to talk with him about, his behavior and such or he might have to move or pay rent. I told him last week we needed to finish the conversation and he avoided it for another week. Today, I decided he would have to listen. I started the conversation and he said Fuck, I don't have to listen to this stuff. I'm leaving. He went to his bedroom and I told him he did have to listen, that the game was over, that my name was on the mortgage, I paid money on this house, and my name was on the marriage certificate. To make a long story short, he kept cussing at me and trying to tell me how it was going to be. He said he would leave, he would not do what we asked, and the last time he started cussing at me, telling me fucking this and fucking that and you're crazy and all this stuff, I told him to go on, enough was enough. Leave. He asked me how I was going to make him, call the police and I told him yes, I would, to take his stuff and go on. Everyone is telling me to watch out, he might try to hurt me because he takes drugs. I feel I have to change the locks and turn on the alarm to protect myself. His own dad locked our bedroom door the other night because he said the kid was on drugs and might try to hurt him. Anyway, he left tonight. I figure it will be a long drawn out thing, but before we go home to Oklahoma for Christmas, the locks will be changed!

2004-11-17T09:00:00.000-06:00

If It's Not One Thing...It's Another!

I know, it's been awhile. Several things have been going on and blogger has been really hard to get into lately, those are my excuses for not posting for a time. So here's what's been going on.

My step-son is still driving me nuts! As I sit here typing I look out on the inspiring sight of his cigarette butts spilling out of the ashtray onto my patio table, the one I paid for, and scattered across the patio. He is bringing people into the house after we are all in bed asleep to play pool. He has opened condom wrappers and unopened condoms laying out on his floor. He has taken a girl into his room several times and is comfortable enough with her to change clothes in front of her. He's skipping most of his college classes. He has his little flask out on his floor and it seems he paid for some type of pill that I found in his room incased in cellophane that is nothing but a blood pressure pill.

I don't feel safe with strange people in my house in the middle of the night, especially the people he hangs out with. He's doing these things in front of my 12 year old daughter who notices all the stuff in his room and mentioned that he changed clothes in front of that girl. He's a great roll model for a young, impressionable girl isn't he? HIS DAD thinks I shouldn't think anything of all of this, I am over-reacting, It's just normal boy stuff. Well, it may be in his neck of the woods, but I'll state up front that I am NOT for all this stuff. His dad won't do anything about it so that leaves me.

So, I am going to tell the kid that this is not his pad, his crib, his abode, his apartment...that it is my house and if he wants to live that type of life to go out on his own because he can't do those things here anymore. Now here is the rub, the minute I do this his dad will threaten me in some manner. I don't mean physically, but he will tell me I am over-reacting, I don't know how to have fun and numerous other verbal things he should never say. We'll see how it goes because I am not going to keep feeling like I am a stranger in my own home.

The other thing that has been going on is with my college class. Some of these students are wanting A's, but not producing the work. Almost half the class does not want to do their lesson plans in the manner they need to be done. They want an average lesson plan to receive an A. They don't turn in their lesson plan form that goes with it and are not writing it at an A level.

After I grade the plans, I go over with the class what needs to be done. This one kid suddenly says, "Well, can this class do anything right?" It threw me for a loop because it was just out of the blue. Previous to his statement I had gone over what had happened during their field experience and had said something like, "Two didn't turn up for field and didn't let their cooperative teacher or me know they wouldn't be there. This leaves their partner in a jam because they are supposed to video them and evaluate them. If you're not going to be there it's required that a call previous to your absence be made to all parties involved." I also told them that 6 students didn't have their form attached and 6 students didn't state what type of multiple intelligences they would be using in their lesson. Another student was whining because her partner didn't finish what she was supposed to do and their grade was cut in half. This same student didn't bring her book to class that day because she didn't think she would need it and blah, blah, blah.

Okay, well enough of that. I'm out of here.

2004-11-05T13:33:00.000-06:00

Ready To Bust....
Ok, I'm ready to get out of here; ready to bust out of the box. Ready to verbally smack a student or two, my step-son and his dad.
What if you:
could go back in time
Go ahead in time
won a million bucks
ruled the world
could alter time
relive a day in your life and then choose to stay or not and keep the knowledge you have
could be invisible
invented something new
knew what people thought
could move things
lived with a ghost
met a UFO
knew a vital piece of information
alter the present
were magic
found yourself in another time
could get people to do everything you wanted
were the richest person on earth
were famous
could change one thing anywhere
alter one event in history
correct one event in history
met the perfect person
famous artist, singer, writer, etc.
harmed someone in some way that would change both your lives
es

2004-10-29T16:00:00.000-05:00

Surprises

Our new dishwasher was installed a couple of weeks back. It was an unusual experience in that the installer had me helping him and wanted to see if he could repair our 199 degree faucet as well.

It began as a typical installation. I removed the stuff from under the sink, but the previous owners of the house had some type of utility shelf installed under there that hooked around the pipes and wiring. Mr. Serviceman had a time figuring out how to remove it. He brings this very small flashlight with him and says that it is too small, do I have a bigger one. So I quit what I'm doing to go get this guy a flashlight. He gets the shelf out and then he notices the Steaming Hot Water heater under there and comments on it. I say, "Yeah, it's neat but it leaks." This bit of info. gets his attention and he starts messing with it. Pretty soon he says, Maam, you have two choices, I can either look at this or leave it alone." I'm going to have to call a plumber anyway, so I tell him to go ahead. I'm minding my own business again and I hear, "Maam", could you turn on the faucet so I can see where it's leaking." Okay, I can do that; the problem, I end up helping him for about 30 minutes and it's uncomfortable because I have to lean across the sink to reach the faucet because he's under where it is and I couldn't stand far enough back to keep from touching his legs with mine. He says it's not leaking from any of the pipes, it must be in the faucet itself. Then he says, "You have two choices, I can leave it alone or I can take the faucet out and see if there's any pinholes." I tell him to go ahead. I'm minding my own business and he calls, "Maam, could you come and see this?" He has the whole faucet out, pipes and all and says, that there are no pinholes, it must be in the inner workings of the faucet. Then guess what he said? "You have two choices. I can either put it back in or leave it out so you can take it with you to try to find another one." I tell him to leave it out.

He's put an hour into the faucet, but finally gets around to the dishwasher. I go on about my business and he begins to install the dishwasher. Then I hear, "Maam, could you come here. Would you like to clean out where the dishwasher was?" I really don't want to, but he is standing there waiting so I get the broom and sweep. I tell him I'm not mopping, it's really not that messy. I leave and try to go on about my business and then I hear, "Maam, could you come here?" I go in there again and he say's, "Could you hand me that flashlight? I want to see if I'm seeing what I think I am." I'm thinking, "For Pete's sake! Will you just finish the dishwasher!" Mr. HelpMe says, "Yes, it's what I thought it was, a mousehole!" Then he says, "You have two choices, you can let me fill the hole up or you can leave it, but I know women don't like mice." I just let him think that's so because it's not true in my case. For my classroom pet's I had two rats. Anyway, I tell him to go ahead and fix it and he asks if I have steelwool. (Sure I do, I just keep it laying around.) I tell him no, but I do have those dish suds pads. He takes half the box and stuffsed them in the mousehole.

It only took him 30 minutes to install the dishwasher and an hour and a half to do all the other things. He didn't charge me which was nice, but he sure needed a lot of help.

I had my hair colored and cut Wednesday. The hair dresser and I had some misscommunication and how it turned out will surprise some people. Let me explain, I was born a blonde and have pretty much kept my hair blonde. My hair dresser wanted to cut my hair into a type of mohawk. It looked cute so I said ok. We talked about coloring it blonde all over and tipping the top in a lighter blonde. As we looked through the book, someone said something about a picture of a girl with dark hair and red highlights being cool. I said it was. I'm sitting there with the dye on my hair and it's getting darker and darker and I'm thinking, "That's not blonde and boy, it wasn't! When all was said and done, my hair was dark brown and tipped on the very top in a type of red! Talk about surprised! It's okay though and everyone seems to like it. Some of my students said they liked it and some just stared. I don't know how long I'll keep it this way, but it sure is different.

2004-10-29T15:59:00.000-05:00

Leaves on the ground.

2004-10-29T15:57:00.000-05:00

Fall colors in my backyard.

2004-10-26T15:35:00.000-05:00

Much Annoyed About A Lot

I'm annoyed at blogger. I blogged the other day and saved it as a draft. I left the computer a few minutes, came back and blogger was down doing "daily maintanance." Okay, I figured I would post it later; but guess what, it wasn't there! It's floating around in computer space somewhere and will never be found. The last few days, blogger has been so slow that I didn't have the patience to wait on it to open my blog. I'm finally in, but it was a slow, slow process!

Now, on to my students. I've mentioned before that Sophomores in college are no different than elementary students, they're just larger. Three different times I have had to nearly wrench papers out of their hands to get them to do them. I don't think they are serious about their education.

Now on to the next annoyance. Our renters were already 2 months behind on rent and have not paid this month which makes it 3. November's is due before the 10th which will make it 4 months. The problem, they are personal friends and have fallen on very hard times. That makes it a little different than if they were just people who didn't care. What to do?

2004-10-21T14:06:00.000-05:00

2004-10-19T10:28:00.000-05:00

Topic of the Day...Step-son & his dad...

My step-son is literally driving me crazy! I know I've ranted before about this, but there are times when I feel I just can't take it anymore! The problem...his disrespect, laziness, irresponsibility, self-interest, self-absorption, arrogance, uncaring attitude, ungratefulness, and his DAD!

I have known this kid since he was two and been personally involved in his life since he was four. It's not like I don't have a lot of years and experience behind me on what's going on and the evolution of how it all happened. He has been allowed by his dad to do and act exactly as he pleases with no type of discipline or consequences whatsoever.

There is no way I can list all the things he has done, but here's an attempt!

Began hitting me and calling me a bitch and whore when he was 11
Ran off and hid in a tree for two hours when he was going to get in trouble for stealing.
Stealing & shop-lifting
Kicked off the school bus for choking a kid
Kicked off the school bus for throwing things at the bus driver and unlatching the bus driver's seatbelt
Kicked off the school bus seven different times for various things
Skipped school and brought back by the police
Threatened and physically hit his little sister who is 6 years younger and told her he would kill her in the night if she told on him
Started smoking somewhere around 9,10 or 11
Told me his dad was having an affair (he wasn't)
Barricaded his bedroom door with his furniture
Takes drugs
Got in trouble by the MP's for doing things on post
Got into pornography
Snuck out of the house at night
Three different dad's complained about him to his dad and one dad drug him up to the house. He was bullying all of their kids.

All of those things happened from 11-13. From 13-present he...

Began swinging at me again and I refused to watch him
Called me a bleached, blonde bitch right in front of his dad who got mad at me and his own daughter. He took up for his son who was bullying his own daughter.
Became so out of control that his dad finally sent him to live with his real mom. He hit her also and his step-dad put him in a choke-hold and sent him back.
Got arrested by the police for pointing a bb gun that looked real
Got arrested for egging the DA's house
Curfew violation
Speeding tickets
Skipped school his 9,10, and 11th grade year numerous times
Put in the hospital for a drug overdose
5 pages of things he did at school that he was put in detention for
Picked up at K-Mart for shop-lifting
Wrecked his car once
Wrecked his car twice
Put in after-school detention numerous times for skipping school
Continued drug use on and off
We've spent $1500 for lawyers, $300 on K-Mart shop-lifting, over $1,000 a year in car insurance, over $1,000 in hospital bills for the overdose
Broke the door on the patio
Broke his bedroom door
Lied to the police about a robbery and wouldn't give the police the name of the drug dealer he called. (I took him to the police station and sat with him through all of it.)
Many, many more things to numerous to list

Now, the kicker. He has suffered no consequences for any of these things nor received any punishment. His dad makes excuses for everything he does. He graduated from high school last May and for the last two years did nothing around the house and refused to keep his room clean and his dad still gave him allowance, approximately $100 a month for all the crap he was pulling.

Just recently, when I told him to clean his room or I would be putting all the crap out in the garage, his reply was, "Don't touch my stuff. What do you want. I have a job now." What do I want? I want you to stop urinating on the stool and floor. I want you to keep your room reasonably clean. I want you to keep the bathrooms free of all your long hair. I want you to stop flipping toothpaste all over the bathroom walls and sinks. I want you to clean up the kitchen when you mess it up and mop up the spills on the floor and cabinets. I want you to wash your own dishes and keep the trash out of your room. I want you to take over your insurance. I want you to get your car repaired so I don't have to keep taking you to and from work. I want respect since you live in my home. I want you to stop living as if you have no obligation in this house-hold. I want you to stop coming in through your bedroom window after I've told you over and over again not to. But most of all, I want you to stop asking me to help you when you show total disrespect and dishonor for me. The way it stands now, you're on the verge of receiving no help from me at all. And, as I told your dad, I'm the one who has spent time taking care of you through all these years, trying to teach you ethics, honor, and respect for someone besides yourself and I am the one who will be pushing you out the door if you don't begin to turn yourself around. You're over 18 now...enough is enough!

2004-10-16T20:12:00.000-05:00

No Specific Subject, But Lots of Rambling

Indian has 4 distinct seasons. Fall is one of my favorites maybe, because I was born in November. All of my kids were born either in the fall or winter months although the youngest only made winter by 3 days. The trees are beautiful now and when the wind blows the leaves swirl down in a multitude of colors.

We saw a man wearing panty hose yesterday. He was at Ken's Garage, the place we took Keelan's car for a diagnostic test to see what is wrong with it. He also had really long, sharp fingernails. Not the most attractive man I've ever seen. Back to Keelan's car. It was making a sound that Keelan called a thump. Mechanic mom told her that the engine was misfiring and what did the little ole test say, yup the same thing. It also needs a tuneup. Good thing step-dad works at a college that has technical programs because that's where it's going to be fixed. Ken's Garage wanted over $300 to do the job and good ole Ivy Tech will do it for about $100. Maybe Ricky will be the one to fix it! Keelan would die. He might sabotage it for her for all he supposes she's done to him.

Today we bought a dish washer and 2 TV's. We really needed the TV's because all we had were 13 in. and you could hardly see them! Even the kids complained. So now we have a 27 in. in our bedroom and a 20 in. in the family room and a 19 in. in the pool room. I can see! It's so nice.

I'm slowly getting the house updated. I'm going to do the hall next. The trouble is that the whole house is either wall-papered or paneled. If you paint over wallpaper you have to use oil based paint. Latex will cause the paper to come off because of the water. If I paint over it with oil based paint, then I'll have to use turpentine to clean the brushes and YUCK, a lot of trouble. Option 3 is to take the wall paper off which is what I'll probably end up doing because in the long run, it is easier. I say that, but you have to wet the whole thing down and keep it wet and then wash the walls down and etc.... I keep putting it off because there is no easy solution.

My 250 class goes out Monday to teach their first lesson to a real class. They are excited, but I had to tell them Wednesday that it appreared that some of them didn't care about their grades so if they didn't, neither would I. Many of them have excessive absences and blah, blah , blah. I got it across to some of them, but who knows if all of them will take it seriously. We'll see. One student talked with me for a whole hour after class Friday. I like all of them and hope that they will all get it together.

So, hubby is hogging the new TV and I sit in here typing on my blog and grading papers. We have to incorporate technology into our teaching so the future teachers will be able to intergrate it into the classroom. I think it is a good idea, but few know how to do it. I am thinking of ways to incorporate it into my activities for the class. I use technology daily and have no problem with it nor would I putting it into a classroom, but it amazes me how much the younger generation doesn't know anything about tech. My students don't know what a blog is and some of them don't know how to use the computer. It blows me away.

I have a ritual. Each year about this time I begin to watch all my favorite holiday movies starting with Meet Me In St. Louis becaue there is a great Halloween scene in it. As the season progresses, so do I. Each year I watch Scrooge (the one made around 1970), Meet Me In St. Louis, White Christmas, and The Christmas Story. I enjoy watching them and am looking forward to it.

I guess I'll end it here and take the TV back from hubby. Wish me luck because he is watching OSU.

Ok, I tried to spell check, but it won't accommodate me so take what you get.

2004-10-08T19:15:00.000-05:00

Finally!

Son has a job. He's working at Bob Evans as a bus boy. It's ironic, but he's making more than my daughter is at Kirklands. He had to cut his hair too. He didn't want to, but finally did for want of pocket money. After a summer of no car and no money, it got to him. Now he's talking about moving in with 2 other guys. Hmm, we'll see if he really does.

2004-10-08T18:44:00.000-05:00

AND, NOW LOOK AT YA, 27 HAHA! HAVE A GOOD ONE BRAN. LOVE MOM

2004-10-08T18:42:00.000-05:00

WEDDING DAY; MR. & MRS.

2004-10-08T18:41:00.000-05:00

WHEW, YOU MADE IT! YOU'RE A GRADUATE NOW!

2004-10-08T18:40:00.001-05:00

DRESSED TO KILL FOR THE SR. PROM

2004-10-08T18:40:00.000-05:00

17 WITH FUTURE HUBBY!

2004-10-08T18:38:00.000-05:00

SWEET SIXTEEN!

2004-10-08T18:36:00.001-05:00

FIRST DATE AND WITH A SENIOR TOO!

2004-10-08T18:36:00.000-05:00

8TH GRADE GRADUATION AND GROWING UP!

2004-10-08T18:35:00.000-05:00

BASKETBALL PLAYER 14

2004-10-08T18:33:00.000-05:00

CHRISTMAS PLAY 10YRS OLD

2004-10-08T18:25:00.000-05:00

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

2004-10-08T18:24:00.000-05:00

FIRST BIRTHDAY

2004-10-08T18:22:00.000-05:00

HAPPY 27TH BRANDY!

2004-10-06T10:43:00.000-05:00

This and That

I'm a little homesick. I don't think I've been home since last December! We'll go home for Christmas again, but I wish I could go more. Taking on these 2 classes at the university has stopped me from going whenever I want, not that I did anyway because I didn't want to leave my youngest daughter for a long period of time. She's at the age where she needs her mom around.

The leaves are beginning to change color, but I don't think they are as pretty as they were last year which for some reason, makes me think of home and the beautiful sunsets we have there. I don't think I've seen but one sunset the whole time I"ve been in Indiana and because of all the trees and houses, I hardly ever see the moon.

When three of my kids were small, Brandy, Rantz, and Keelan, we lived on 40 acres. Around Halloween each year, we'd have a big bondfire and invite friends and family out for a wennie roast. We'd ride horses, fish, visit and have some good fun in the crisp air. Animals were always under-foot with numerous kittens, cats, dogs, and goats running about. We had a rope hung in one of the big pecan trees down on the creek and everyone would swing across the creek hoping they weouldn't fall into the water below! My brother would tell the kids stories about the "Glowing Witch" which would scare the begeebies out them! It was a good time of life, but just one of many.

Time moves on though, doesn't it? And, there's only two ways to move with it; looking back in sadness to what was or looking forward to what's coming with antipation of great things to come and keeping the good memories tucked warmly away in our hearts.