just sayin'

Peace

2010-07-14T12:19:00.000-07:00

So far, knock on wood, lovely peaceful summer. Our yard is so pretty this year, flowers and trees and birds all over the place. Bill and I haven't had a knock-down, drag-out for awhile. A veritable eternity for us. Our kids are in a relatively good place; things are okay.

I'm horribly busy with work and trying to keep the house and maintain relationships with friends and kids and husband. Thank God for my Blackberry because that's my main computer these days. I can blog and chew somebody out while waiting for the dentist!

I know this will pass, this peaceful period. Because life turns on a dime. The good news is that inevitable hard time will also pass. And thank God, as I'm getting older, it passes pretty quickly.

Today is my oldest child's birthday. He would be 39---technically speaking, I could be a great-grandmother! He was the sweetest smartest child I've ever known. Too good for the likes of me. James' birthday was July 9---he'd be 37. His friends all have families, careers, and are so kind to me. I miss them so.

Which makes the quick passing of time a blessing---I cannot wait to see them again.

This Too Shall Pass

2010-06-09T07:43:00.000-07:00

I've been fighting with people on four different fronts of my life and found that it removes the spirit. I've felt anxiety, unease and despair. My daughter-in-law, true to form, did something I disapprove of and once again, brought chaos into my life. I've spent the better part of the last 8 months trying to force her to live according to my standards and it's sapped me emotionally and physically.

An old friend, who works at the bank, offended me. Bill and I argued. The downward spiral continued with an unexpected and vicious attack on facebook from a nephew who's been apparently nursing resentments from his mother's death. (I don't know why my family thinks I'm the responsible person, my sister got really mad at me when my other sister's daughter died and I didn't call her first---she's not mad at our other sister or anybody else in the family, just me.)

I used to jump right in on these types of battles, but anymore, they just wear me out. I defended myself to my nephew; disassociated myself from my daughter-in-law, first attempting to take responsibility for my part in the debacle, made an unsuccessful attempt to reconcile with my granddaughter, who got caught in the crossfire; voiced my objection in the way a bank transaction was handled, but I felt no peace.

Finally, I had a good 10 hour cry and dang, I feel a little better this morning. But let me tell you, contention is a soul killer. I'm not at peace, but I'm not in that dark place I was a couple of days ago.

I feel like a failure in life. All the things that were important to me, the goals I was committed to, have turned out wrong. I made serving others the focus of my life, but actually, I think it was about controlling others and forcing them to be what I thought they should be. I've worked for years on this tendency in Al-Anon and have made minimal progress.

But, increasingly, I'm learning that human contact is the most disagreeable thing I do every day. So, now I'm making Bill and his ex-wife deal with this daughter-in-law (Bill's already frustrated, but I do not care. It's their turn). My nephew, I just have to turn over to God. My friend at the bank? Well, lesson learned. Changing accounts as soon as it's possible.

The older I get, the less sure I am of anything. But I have learned that bad times don't last. Nor good. Might as well please myself in the meantime.

Welcome Spring

2010-06-02T09:50:00.000-07:00

It's an absolutely beautiful day today. We've had the coldest spring I can remember (although I remember it snowed once the end of June here in southern Utah). But today is perfect. Bill has planted flowers all over the place and our trees are brimming with birds--I saw a butterfly out my kitchen window yesterday!

Bill and I haven't had a screaming ugly fight in oh, months. He gets the credit more than I because he's changed. He doesn't yell at me much anymore. He doesn't get that upset. I think part of that is because we have separate checkbooks and I pay for my own excesses. So we don't fight about money. I've just noticed that when I ask him for money (boy that took a long time, I wasn't going to take anything from him at first!) he just gives it to me.

Our grandson, Maxwell, is here to help Grandpa plant the garden and they're going fishing this afternoon. Bill is a much better grandfather than he was a father. When we first married, he was obsessed with his hobbies and disinterested in the kids to a large extent. Except to yell at them and make them clean up their spilled milk. I think, too, he was exhausted, coming from the divorce a few years earlier and having to be a Mr. Mom. Wouldn't all the single moms in the world have loved a wife like I was at first, adoring, waited on him, trying to please him with my every move?

Boy, that girl is long gone :)!

I'm wondering now if a lot of what we've gone through the last 5 years, aside from my former best friend's son's conviction for sexual molestion and the devastation that caused, has been the result of an empty nest and my horrible perimenopause. You know, doctors threw lamictal, lithium, and abilify at me like M&M's and diagnosed me with a lot of major psychotic illnesses. Which the trip to that clinic in California ruled out.

Girls, before you check yourself into the psych unit, consider estrogen, the wonder drug.

I worked last night and work again today, so I'm taking it slow and easy with Bill (off today) bustling circles around me.

Long time no see

2010-05-31T23:48:00.000-07:00

I haven't been up this late on my computer since I started working customer care for ATT. That's a year and a half ago. I don't even know what possessed me. I think it's because my fellow bloggers at Mormon Mentality have started doing some interesting stuff. And I'm feeling better. Vitamin D & estrogen, the wonder drug.

Something somebody wrote at BCC referring to Banner of Heaven has made me wonder about blogging. They depended on that blog for moral support through a tough time. I pretty much stopped blogging when I left Bill. I didn't have it in me.

I'm not wondering if blogging is a tool of the devil, it's made me ponder about the good blogging can do for people. Tracy's honesty regarding her divorce has given me immense moral support---just that I'm a "normal" person. Others as well.

Just thinking about it.

Vitamin D

2010-04-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

So I've gone downhill again, weak, achy, etc. Same old, same old. This time I went to my dr. and insisted he test me for everything possible. I want to have some kind of numbers to balance against when I'm REALLY sick and times when I feel pretty good. Plus I thought I had MS, which it turns out I don't. But I do have a severe vitamin D deficiency. I've been studying up on it and it looks like a lot of people are deficient, especially in the winter, and it can cause a lot of things. Like the symptoms I'm having. So I'm gulping down the pills and today I don't feel so much pain. I guess I'm giving up cheetios, 7up & milky ways bars as my primary source of nutrition.

Reality TV

2010-04-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

I used to love American Idol, but the last two seasons the candidates have been so mediocre. This season, the only one I feel good about is Crystal Bowersox. Which, she does make the show worth watching.

Dancing With The Stars is interesting this time around. Pam Anderson is a pretty good dang dancer! But you know, Kate Gosselin, she just totally sucks. She sucks so bad that I tried to vote for her last week out of pity (forgot I don't have ATT). This week she sucked even worse and I think she deserves to be slapped really hard. She has no rhythm, no sense of humor, gag a maggot. She said she wanted to stay on the show till she learned what she needed to learn and I want to say, "honey, you need to learn to dance!"

Buzz Aldrin, well, that's just sad. I did wonder how he and his wife got all the money to afford all that really awful plastic surgery. No aging with grace there.

Snowy Day

2010-03-04T10:26:00.000-08:00

Boy, it's a blizzard out here. I might have to have Bill pick me up from work--don't know if I want to risk driving home at midnight in this weather in my car.

I have four extra minutes today. I work and sleep. In my "spare" time, I try to keep up with the laundry and eat. Life is going way too fast.

I've decided to treat Bill as if he has dementia, which I think he has. I'm reminding myself to be very patient with him and treat him like a little old man. It seems to be effective. :)

Conversation with Bill

2010-02-14T10:26:00.000-08:00

Bill: "Our dogs are barking at the neighbors' dogs."

Me: "Will you put our dogs in the house?"

Bill: "But didn't you want this to air dry?"

Me: Looking at him like he's crazy

He can't hear. He thought I said something about the dishwasher.

Best Chicken Ever

2010-02-12T12:51:00.000-08:00

Take some boneless skinless chicken breasts. Cut them up however you want for serving. Dip them in beaten egg and then in ITALIAN (this is important) seasoned bread crumbs and brown them in oil I prefer regular corn or the dangerous kind of oil, not olive oil, but olive oil works too.

After they're all browned and cooked through, take a cube of butter and melt it in a saucepan, add 1-2 cloves minced garlic, 1 can (1/2 quart jar) cooked tomatoes, 1/2 teaspoon basil, and 1 cup white cooking wine. I use the cheap kind.

Pour this over the chicken in the frying pan and just simmer it for maybe 15 minutes or however long you want. At least 15 minutes.

I've served this with potatoes or pasta and you will not believe how good the flavor is. It looks like a company dinner, but it's so easy and tastes dee-lishus!

Shock of My Life

2010-02-09T09:24:00.000-08:00

I told Bill I spent too much money because I'm helping to pay for Rowan to take dance AND I bought 3 new books (I had to, I just had to) and he didn't yell at me. I'm in treatment for severe shock.

I love TV

2010-01-28T10:18:00.000-08:00

I don't even feel guilty about it. For me, it's one of the great pleasures of life. My favorite shows this season are (in order of favoritism) 1. Men of a Certain Age---Ray Romano is really talented! I thought "Everybody Loves Raymond" was just an extension of his life and personality, but in this other show, he shows his range. Wonderful show. I hate when that hour comes to an end. 2. Modern Family--laugh out loud funny in so many ways. I think my favorite character is the ditzy dad. He's kind of me. 3. The Good Wife---I didn't care for Juliana Marguiles in "ER" but I love her in this show.

I've gotten hooked on "I Survived" and the stories of how people survive being attacked or in wrecks in gullies for days.

And now, American Idol's come around again! I love Ellen DeGeneres and I'm looking forward to watching the show with her as a judge. I will miss Simon Cowell, diva that he is, because he has the guts to tell it like it is and some of those people need to hear it like it is. I'd be harder, sometimes.

And I'm immensely grateful to Direct TV for my DVR because with my schedule, I'd miss all these great shows. Woo-hoo for TV!

Power of the Priesthood

2010-01-26T10:15:00.001-08:00

Got a blessing last night. Feel better. I'm a believer.

Family Medical Leave Act

2010-01-25T08:47:00.000-08:00

Thank God for it. And thank God for God, because I'm sure he inspired me to apply last month for intermittent FMLA. I'd had to go home a couple of times with vertigo attacks, which cost me points. Now. We don't get sick leave. If we are sick and miss work, we have to go to a dr. and get a note and bring that to avoid points.

o, you miss work, you are out the $80 for that day; AND you have to pay a dr. $50 (+ or -) so you aren't docked "points" which can lead to firing. You re allowed 11 points before they fire you. It's really unfair.

You could throw up on your computer, pass out and have to be carried out in a stretcher, be life-flighted to a major city and still be docked points if you don't have a doctor's note.

Anyway, I was inspired to file for the FMLA deal. I filed under three illnesses--the vertigo, diverticulitis, AND chronic fatigue/epstein barr/fibromyalgia. My dr. seemed to be embarrassed for me on the third thing, the epstein barr. I said, "Doc, I know for many people (including that insult to humanity, Dean Edell)this is equivalent to saying I was abducted by aliens, but there is clinical documentation for this and we both know it.").

It was approved! All of it. And, Murphy's Law being what it is, I got sick immediately. I missed a week of work. I couldn't think straight, I had terrible vertigo and pain, I was so weak in my hands I kept dropping things. I'm wondering now if I have MS, which I've long known I was at risk for, because another of my symptoms is my feet have gone to sleep.

That is all beside the point. I didn't have to go to a dr. for permission to be sick! (Although I did, of course, and have an appt with a neurologist next month--I hate neurologists, urologists, and orthopedic surgeons---oh and psychiatrists, too. they think their butts are made out of gold and I haven't met a one that was a decent human being. But necessity will force me to go to this woman for whom a smile is unprofessional. I actually wrote her a letter years ago about this, but I've heard she didn't take it to heart and is still cold as hell). No points for me! No questions asked.

And that is from God, because this can't be coincidental. Family. Medical. Leave. Act. Remember those words. It's the law.

Grateful because.....

2010-01-13T11:09:00.000-08:00

I had a bit of energy today and....I've colored my eyebrows! woo-hoo! This has been a problematic issue for me because I only do it when I get my hair colored, which I can only afford every other month and my eyebrows are growing in white and the color doesn't last that long. Now, I can do it myself. I will look like 50 instead of 70. I might even try coloring my regrowth myself. But I'm pretty sure my BFF hairdresser Amy would kill me if I botched it. She's barely speaking to me after I cut chunks that were sticking out last time because I delayed the haircut.

Also, the dog is bouncing off the walls. I saved that dog's life. The vitamin K made him throw up and we were tempting him with chamomille tea, chicken noodle soup, soft scrambled eggs, he got spoiled, actually. But he counldn't keep it down. I had the thought it was the vitamin and we took it off him, and off food for most of day, then began giving him soda crackers, which he nibbled gingerly. And kept down.

Life is good.

Counting Blessings

2010-01-11T10:57:00.000-08:00

I'm making an effort, not a resolution, to be more positive this year. Since I'm apparently not dying, I must find a way to choose life.   This is a small step.

We had a lovely Christmas and the tree's put away, thank heaven. The living room looks so much larger!

1. I applied for, and received an approval of, FMLA at my job. Which will permit me to take time off when I'm sich without penalty. The fact that it was approved on the basis of chronic fatigue, among other illnesses, is a small miracle in itself.

2. I love my job! And as of this minute, I'm still employed. Although still not the best at it, technically, I would bet most of my customers would say I'm the best agent they dealt with.

3. My husband is looking better and better to me all the time. Perhaps I'm coming out of my midlife crisis, menopause, empty nest meltdown. A bit. We are both working on giving to each other and finding those times when it's just us at home a peaceful joy. We're bending. He doesn't nag as much about my ever-present clutter; I allow him to fuss. He brings me the paper every morning; I acknowledge and provide for, to the best of my ability, his need for meat and potatoes, every single meal!

4. My dog is alive. After he ate a whole box of D Con, which was kept under the sink, behind the garbage can, surrounded by a large fire extinguisher and gallon jugs of distilled water, which had a child-proof lock! D Con must smell really really good. I was home sick from work or he'd be dead. And I got up at just the moment he finished the box. He looked so guilty because he knows he's not supposed to get in the garbage. I now know what it's like to be a vet, on a limited basis, because I, at the vet's orders, poured hydrogen peroxide down that dog's throat with a syringe and made him throw up the poison into the bathtub. I was throwing up myself. Sitting there in my nightgown, Bill gone to a scout meeting, making my Jack Russell puppy throw up.   He's traumatized (he's the only quiet, frail, sensitive Jack Russell on the planet) and sickly and looks at me with those huge sad brown eyes, but he's alive. That was a grace of God thing.

Bill so loves that sweet little dog, it would have broken his heart---and mine---if he'd died. So now we're leaving soda pop and dried potatoes on the counter for the mice, per searching the internet for alternatives.   How the hell he got that D Con just blows our minds.

And that's the good news for today.

Haitus

2009-11-24T12:49:00.001-08:00

I'm taking a holiday for the holidays :); be back next year !

Observations on Life

2009-11-12T08:40:00.000-08:00

I'm sick again, I'm assuming mono, but my dr. won't let me get tested because it always shows that I've had an infection. I don't know when he became all born again about lab tests. I had a colonoscopy on the heels of a diverticulitis attack and now I'm limping around feeling crappy. Story of my life. Discouraging to the max.

But I'm still going to work and last night, I was listening to a conversation a couple of other agents were having. This guy was telling his friend about his medical symptoms and how he manages his illness. I only heard a bit of the conversation, but it struck me how call center agents are so much alike in temperament.
\
Seriously, a lot of us are sickly and we love to talk about our symptoms. We listen to others talk about their symptoms, with interest and concern. Other ways we're alike: we're all readers. You walk into the break room at lunch time and there are a bunch of agents, eating their healthy food lunches (seriously, you wouldn't believe the salads and carefully prepared meals!) with their noses in a book.   Always, always, of course, people are on their cell phones, checking in with kids and spouses and texting busily. So, we also are great multi-taskers. I'd bet many of us are ADD.

I'm always amazed when I meet another agent and we start talking, at the similarities in our personalities. Very few dummies in our crowd, they get weeded out right away. If you can't cut it, you don't last. That being said, I'm always worried I'll walk in and be fired, but you know what I mean.

So, next time you call customer care for your cell phone, know that the person you're speaking with is probably 1. a reader with a very good awareness of the world   2. sickly in some chronic way, diabetes, chronic fatigue, heart trouble, etc., 3. doing 3 things at once, not including TALKING TO YOU! 4. concerned about others, I forgot to put that. We're givers, servers, for the most part.   Many of my co-workers volunteer in the community or give back, even when they have very little to give.

Once again, I encourage you to see the people around you, really see them. If you can make a human connection with that faceless voice when you call in upset and angry or stymied, you're going to get a lot better service.   We're always encouraged to do that with our customers and almost all of us do---of course, it's something I'm a genius at---well, not a genius, gifted from God.   But not too many of us go in to work every day with an apathetic attitude toward our fellow man.

Just think about it.

Graduation

2009-10-29T09:13:00.000-07:00

Brad will be graduating from Marine Corps boot camp tomorrow. He'll be home ten days, then leave for two months. By the time they have their one year anniversary, they'll have lived together for 6 months. It will sure be glad to see him. I'm so glad he made it :)

Scaring myself

2009-10-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

I usually get off work around midnight. Well, between 10 pm and midnight. I drive home the back way and am usually the only car on a long dark road. I turn on talk radio and at that time of the night, they're talking about aliens and satanic stuff and ghosts. And I drive down the long dark road half scared to death, waiting for something to pop out at me on the road.

The few houses are dark; like I said, no other traffic.

I can't believe I keep doing this. It's probably quicker to take the freeway. And safer.

Kindergarten

2009-10-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

I went to the school yesterday to help in my granddaughters' classrooms. Rowan is in 3rd grade. They talked about counting change; piece of cake. I could handle that.

Then I went to Rhiannon's class. I was in charge of her center, helping her and other children write numbers. You know, it's very confusing to know what is the correct way to teach a child to write "2" and "5" not to mention, the teacher instructed me so quickly, I was a bit mystified about the graph the kids were supposed to fill in using dice. And Rhiannon wasn't having my help on this day. She kept mixing up 2 and 5 and arguing with me about it. As I looked around the room, another mother helped in one corner, the teacher was at a different table and at another table, kids had on earphones and were laughing and turning pages of a book quickly as chimes rang out.

The teacher suddenly got up and turned on music and everybody seemed to know what to do except me. Rhiannon, age 5, knew where to put her things and exactly what to do. I was thinking, "what a good teacher to have taught them this routine so quickly."

And I was also thinking "even Kindergarten's too complicated for me."

Fired

2009-10-18T09:28:00.000-07:00

I worry about getting fired every day. Being fired would be one of the worst, most humiliating experiences I can imagine. Unthinkable, getting fired. I think it's my generation because a lot of the young people I work with talk about being fired in a rather blithe fashion.

I worried about being fired all last year, too, when I worked at the school. Looking back, I realize I was the stupidest person there, totally unsuited for a job like that and my worry probably was well founded, although I managed not to be fired, but still.... I'm pretty sure I was on a chopping block and missed that bullet by an inch.

At first, in this job, I worried I'd be fired for being too stupid. Totally daunting, being surrounded by young people for whom computer work was second nature and who knew so much already about cell phones.

It's so easy to make mistakes in a job like this, where things change on a daily basis and it's impossible to memorize the information about the cell phone industry, to be technically adept at everything a customer could possibly call in about.

I wish I could say I've made every mistake known to woman, but I'm sure I have millions more to make. When I do, I am filled with anxiety and it upsets my apple cart for days. The young people I work with don't worry about it at all.

Kimberly

2009-10-08T08:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I answered the door to a young black man selling some shampoo product door to door. He was kind and cheerful as I declined to purchase. I asked him "You're a member of a traveling sales crew?" When he answered positively, I commented, "It's a hard life you've chosen."

He nodded, but remarked that he enjoyed the travel and meeting new people. These traveling sales crews are popping up all over the country and remind me of the gypsies of old. It is, indeed, a hard life, if you follow the news. I can't imagine why one would choose to live that way.

My niece, Kimberly, has chosen that life. When she was 17, she disappeared for a year. We had her dead and buried, of course, it was just an awful experience. She was listing in a missing childrens' registry and her poster was up on the Wal-Mart bulletin board. Not a word from her for a year. Then she turned 18, and turned up out of the blue, with a boyfriend named Paul---or Mark---or David, last name Evans, or Piccini. We don't really know.

No one liked her boyfriend and she didn't last very long staying with family. She said she'd been all over the country selling magazines door to door with the yo-yo boyfriend, who I despised on sight. She lived with her brothers for a few months, and they were so good with her, so eager to take care of her. But they threw the boyfriend out (she worked---he didn't) and she went with him. She became pregnant and they married. My sister, Dessie, adored that little girl, Sammy (Samantha).

We couldn't find Kimberly to tell her that Dessie had died. Her husband had been arrested in Salt Lake City and while out on bail, had absconded, Kimberly and the baby in tow. She called two weeks after the funeral and Dessie's common-law husband, in a fit of bitterness, lashed out at her "your mother's dead and in the grave!" Kimberly hung up and we never found out where she was and we haven't heard from her since the end of April 2008.

I worry so about that baby girl, Samantha, with the beast of a father and an obviously incapable mother. I worry that something will happen to Kimberly and Sammy will be in foster care, not knowing there's a family out there who loves her so much. Kimberly's two brothers, my nephews, would take such good care of that child and her mother.

Kimberly's disappearance haunts me. So, when I saw that smiling young man, I asked him if he knew anyone named Kimberly with a baby girl, about two years old. No, he replied, he didn't. I asked him to wait a minute and quickly ran into my office and grabbed up a picture of myself that I'd run off to send to an old school friend---stupid, but I was in a hurry---and stapled a copy of the Irish blessing that I had on my desk and scribbled a note on the back. I gave it the salesman and asked him if he ever met her, to give him the picture and the poem and to tell him we missed her. He was kind and assented and also said he would mention her to everyone he met.

I know, it stupid to think anything could come of it. I alternate between wanting to throttle this niece of mine and praying fervently for her return. I'm mad at God because He's messed up on following through on my instructions once again. Most of the time, He's good on the follow-through, but once in awhile, I'm left extremely frustrated, screaming out to Him in my mind. I don't understand what He thinks He's accomplishing by not returning this lost sheep to us.

In the meantime, we pray. Here's a copy of the Irish blessing, one of my favorites, I had impressively printed cards, but gave them all away, so now I make my own.

Irish Blessing

May the roads rise to meet you,

May the winds

be always at your back

May the sun

shine warm upon your face;

The rains fall

Soft upon your fields,

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in

the hollow of His hand…

Rascal, the dog

2009-10-07T08:56:00.000-07:00

We got Rascal in 1996; he was the cutest puppy ever, a little white furball. We'd stopped in at a pet shop and there he was and Sarah cried the crocodile tears, and we had to buy him. The very next week the pet shop was raided and they found dead and dying dogs and very sick animals and the pet shop owner went to jail over it. As we walked out of the pet shop, Sarah carrying her new dog, she said "His name is Rascal."

That was pretty psychic because he was a rascal if ever there was one. He never comes when called, to this day. He ran away from me, he chewed up the house, he barks if a car drives down the street. Well, he used to, now he can't hear worth a darn, which has made our life quieter. He sure was a good watch dog, though.

For all that, Rascal is a gentle soul. He's never aggressive with other dogs, he's very mentally healthy that way. He never bothered the cats and for all his barking, has never hinted at hurting a human. He's good with kids. My little granddaughter just loves to put the leash on him and he will gently follow her around, putting up with it. Once, when she was little and he'd had enough, he put his teeth on her arm. I saw it. He didn't bite, he didn't hurt her in any way. It was a slow, gentle act of discipline. It was like "My dear, I've had quite enough. Cease and desist." She screamed her head off, but her feelings were hurt, not her arm.

Now, in his old age, he's my buddy. He follows me everywhere I go and sits with me till I go to the next room. When I'm really upset and crying----I cry very quietly, which may come as a surprise---he seems to know it and he stays glued to my side.

He's a lot slower now. We surprise him often; I've learned to touch him softly on his head when he's sleeping or he jumps all over the place. We have a Jack Russell puppy and sometimes Rascal has a hard time keeping up. He'll still "man up" though and they play tug of war and tag all over the house. Rascal just tires out quicker. He's on a special old dog diet.

It saddens us a bit, to see this spitfire dog who once ran circles around the kids in the neighborhood (so funny to watch them try to catch him---he can still cut a rug that way if he feels like it). We coddle him. We let him lie on the front porch in the sun---the other dogs are never allowed out of the fence. He's the grandpa we're taking care of in his old age.

He was always Sarah's dog, although he bonded well with me because he had Parvoe when we got him and I nursed him with total loving care. His life has been a gift in our lives. Nothing like a good dog.

They were all blissfully nappng. It didn't look very comfortable to me.

Hmmmm.....

2009-10-05T14:26:00.000-07:00

Is it possible for a person with MS and Lupus to live through an attack of Swine Flu and Whooping Cough? Wouldn't they be dead? Or in Intensive Care?

Stranger in a Strange Land

2009-10-05T14:17:00.000-07:00

I often feel like the character in Heinlein's novel (he was a human raised by Martians on Mars, who came to live on earth---I've read the book, but can't remember much about it except for his rather lost feeling); a stranger in an even stranger land. As I recall the book, he seemed more confused than rejected, but the title alone tells many stories. For many people.

I relate to that feeling of not belonging. I never felt like I belonged in my father's family; because I didn't meet most of them until I was 16. My mother's status as black sheep in her own family created a feeling of other-ness from my aunt and uncles and grandparents, although still, they were family.

Luckily, I had three little sisters and we formed a rather cohesive group---to this day. We went hungry and cold together, but we always had each other. For better or for worse, that is, because we bicker amongst ourselves with the best of them. That sister-hood, though, has been a source of strength and family to us and to our children to this day.

There was a fifth sister. Born third of us (actually the fourth of our mother's children, she'd been raped and impregnanted with a child when she was 18---the child, our brother, Larry, died 3 days after he was born from the pneumonia my mother developed during the pregnancy), our sister was born with the same birth defect that our mother had---a cleft palate sans the harelip. My mother had a sister who'd died as an infant from the same problem. My research leads me to believe this was the product of malnutrition in our mother and grandmother.

My mother had me in September 1952; another sister in May 1954; our middle child born July 1955; another sister was born August 1956 and the baby was born September 1958. Two later babies died. My father, as I have written, was a beast, and I can't imagine what my mother went through with three babies in three years, one with a birth defect necessitating hospital stays and time away from her other children. We were shuffled around quite a bit during that time.

This third sister lived with an older couple who had older children, the in-laws of our uncle, during a hospital stay and they fell in love with her. They begged my mother to give my sister to them and she did. Not without misgivings. I was adamantly opposed, but since I was 5, my vote didn't count for much.

It would seem like a Cinderella tale. Comfortable, stable, mature couple adopts child from poverty-stricken home of ignorance. It certainly seemed like that to me when we visited her. She had a bike! and her own room with Barbies!   I wished they would adopt me, too.

But at the time, only she and the people adopting her were happy. This picture tells the tale, I think. Her new parents brought us pencil boxes. They were lovely, kind, generous people, decent to my mother till their deaths. But you know, I felt like I was being bought off with that pencil box. I was not a happy camper. Look hard at my face.

Ultimately, there was no happier ever after for this little sister of mine. Ultimately, she didn't belong anywhere. I know she loved and was loved by the people who adopted her. But it seemed like she was alone.   I think she was alone at school. Kids are mean to those who are different.

Had she stayed with us, certainly she would have suffered hunger and cold and that awful white trash stamp put on us wherever we happened to land. She would have never had a bike. She would have never had that cute little room at the top of the stairs----she would have had a spot in the double bed where we all slept in home after home after dumpy home---often with outdoor toilets and no electricity. The kids would have still been mean. They were mean to us just because we existed. She would have had it worse.

But----she would have had us. I held on to my sisters tighter than any mother held her children. We would have fought for---and with her. She would have had best friends. No doubt Chris probably would have beat her up a time or two and I would have bossed her unbearably and drug her sorry little butt to whatever church was around. We would have curled up together in the closet when we were afraid and told each other stories and played with each other at recess.

Now, there is no relationship. She is bitter and angry. Through the years, I tried to make a relationship with her, but my other sisters weren't very interested. Mistakes were made on both sides. She has chosen to distance herself from her adoptive family, to a large extent and there are frequent temper tantrums and constant blaming and re-hashing of old wounds.

She posted some ugly comments here last week.   Her hatred and vitriole are coming from a place of deep pain and that feeling of not belonging. She has chosen to turn her children against me as well. Truly, I feel this is unwarranted. My sin? I forgot to call her immediately when my niece died. Had there been a relationship between her and my other sister, of course, there would have been no oversight. But she hadn't seen this niece since she was a baby---25 years at least.  She'd never made an attempt to have a relationship with this girl. I would bet before she got the call that she'd died, she didn't even remember her name, nor can she name any of my sisters' children now.  Her last interaction with Annie was when she called Annie out of the blue 8 years ago to yell at her for not taking care of our mother. Our mother, who she despised and never wanted anything to do with. She never forgave our mother for giving her up for adoption.

I did forget to call her. Totally. I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of that kind of oversight. It happens all the time with my father's family. It stings, but I don't lash out. I never have. I send flowers when I hear of a death and celebrate and we will talk every few years, long, loud "catch-ups" with cousins I didn't know existed until my father died. It's okay really. It's life.

On the other hand, I've called her other times. When Dessie died, I called. She called me, too, a couple of times, but Dessie's death meant nothing to her. Our mother, the same.  Why would I think she would mourn---grieve the death of a girl she never knew?

Which is rhetorical, because she's not mourning. She's been yet again left alone, forgotten and reminded that she doesn't feel like she belongs anywhere. And she's lashing out at the person, perhaps, she feels safest doing so with---is that a dangling participle?

I have Chris, and Dessie, and Annie. My other sister, she doesn't have them. And I will mourn that till the day I die. I couldn't make them care about her and I couldn't make her care about them. I could never get past the walls to establish a real relationship with her kids. So they won't know that their other aunts are dames---broads--in the truest sense of the words. They will knock you down and then pick you up and give your kids a bath and feed them all the while telling the funniest jokes.

She won't be allowed to post here again.   It's funny how people drop you and won't leave you alone. I've gotten a vicious note on Facebook from her daughter.   I haven't responded till now . I don't think anyone else in the family has received this treatment, but then again, who knows?

Just a heads up if you see anybody bashing me elsewhere. It will be poorly written and spelled, and filled with hatred. That's how you'll know.

I was thinking the other day that it's not the people with high self esteem---even hubris, or conceit----who do the most damage. It's those who are convinced somewhere inside themselves that they're worthless. Because they think what they do doesn't matter. Doesn't have an effect.   I know I do myself and others the most harm when I'm feeling the worst about myself. Really sad situation.

What did I just say?

2009-10-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

True story. Our little Jack Russell got scratched by the cat or something and it got infected and we've had the drama of the dog looking like he has the mumps and it's really quite sad. I took him to the vet to have it cleaned out and when I brought him home, attempted to clean up the clean out.

Later when Bill came home, I was telling him about it and I said, "I put him in the tub and washed it out with salt and pepper." Luckily Bill can't hear very well, or I would have won the "which one of us is more senile" contest.

Conversation with Bill

2009-09-21T07:02:00.000-07:00

I usually get off work by 11:30 pm; sometimes later, sometimes a little earlier. By the time I get home, take some time to gather myself and adjust, it's pretty late when I get to bed. I always have a hard time falling asleep, so maybe I'll fall asleep by 2 am. But Bill leaves for work around 8:30 am and since I leave for work at 4 pm, we don't see each other much.

I've been getting up in the mornings so we can spend the mornings together before he leaves for work, but sometimes it's really hard. If I sleep in, it bothers him. But this isn't working at all; last week I was just running on fumes all week. I will doze a bit during the day, but I can't go back to sleep proper, so I'm always sleep deprived. And there's always laundry, etc., to be done.

So yesterday, I sat him down and I said, "This isn't working. I'm so tired. How about if we switch off for a week. You stay up till I get home and we visit then."

He looked aghast. "I can't do that! I'd be exhausted."

I just looked at him.

He said, "But you can go back to bed." We've been married 27 years and he's never figured out that sleep interrupted is sleep destroyed.

I said, "So can you. You just get up at your regular time and go to work and then when you get home, you can nap till I get home." See, he figures I can just sleep when he's not around and then I'm here for him.

"But...but..." He sputtered.

"It's only for this week. Then next week, I'll get up early."

"No. I just can't do that. You can sleep in."

Well, we'll see if that happens.

I truly believe at least 50% of my resentment and discontent with my marriage is I haven't had any sleep since 1981. I haven't been permitted to sleep past 7 am in 27 1/2 years. This is a man who will wake me up to tell me good night. And then get mad and tell me to go back to sleep.

I have learned that the only way I can make him understand my point of view is object lessons. Hence, my suggestion that he stay up till 2 am every night for a week, get up at 7 am and see just how bright eyed and bushy tailed he is. See if he wants to go to the movies on his day off.

Mormon Businessmen

2009-09-14T11:16:00.000-07:00

We had a general authority speak here yesterday. I can't remember his name right off, but it's not really important. I was just thinking how many general authorities are rich businessmen. At least, in our community, almost all the stake presidents, etc. are businessmen! Successful ones.

And a lot of them are jerks. Everyone has a story about being cheated by a businessman. Two of my best friends come from very wealthy families. I mean millions. One friend has a brother who was a mission president and is now the temple president, I won't say where. But I know for a fact that this guy has cheated his own family out of big bucks. He and his high councilman brother have stolen tons of money from his sisters.

My other friend's brother-in-law, recently released as a bishop, tried to develop and sell some property left to the family when his parents died; he actually sold some of it, without ever having the title because it was in the family trust and belonged to everyone. His siblings took him to court and forced him to back out of the deal, much to his chagrin, but he feels no remorse whatsoever.

You hear about this stuff in Utah all the time. Rich guys being put in high callings and stories, folk tales, or fables about the legendary asshole-ness of said person.

You guys ever experience any of that and what's up with that?

Letters

2009-08-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

We are all waiting for our first letter from Brad. He's been gone three weeks and Sarah is getting to know the mailman intimately. No letters yet.

Attempting to comfort her, I got out James' old letters from boot camp. He really was an excellent letter writer for a kid. Only 17 and he wrote me almost every day, really descriptive letters. I haven't read them in years, and it was hard at first. I only read a couple and set them aside.

But now I find them incredibly comforting. He was happy and enjoying the challenge of boot camp. He describes his drill instructers and the daily routine quite well, actually.

While looking for them, I found a bunch of letters my grandmother, who died, oh maybe 20 years ago. I only met her after my father died, but she wrote faithfully until her death.

Grandma shares her love over and over. How did I not notice that?

Reading them now gives me a whole fresh perspective into these two people. I recommend saving letters from important people, even more now. I'm going to put pink ribbon around Grandma's and do a better job of preserving the letters from loved ones in the future.

And you know, although I probably write more letters than most people, I'm going to write more letters as well. Letter writing is becoming a lost art, so much so that receiving a letter in the mail is pretty darn exciting.

My goal: write more letters and find a better way to preserve the ones I've saved!

And another funeral.....

2009-08-16T08:22:00.000-07:00

Bill and I went away last Saturday to Beaver Mountain...a favorite place when the kids were little. I haven't been camping in years, no idea the last time. After two weeks of working, answering the phone for ATT customers with myriads of problems, large and small, and helping to plan the compassionate service and funeral luncheons for the families of the two children who'd died, I needed serious peace and quiet.

It was sad how happy Bill was about our little camping trip. We left Saturday at about 9 am and planned to get back around 2 pm Sunday and he planned for us to go fishing and hiking and riding the ATV around and wonderful lunches and dinner and breakfasts. He did everything, except pack my small bag. He was off Friday, so he got us all ready.

It was wonderful, manna to my soul. The lunch was wonderful---I made the burgers while he set up the tent and they were so good!

Our place on Beaver Mountain can only be accessed if you know it's there, you have to know the road is there because you can't see it from the turn-off point. It's a little valley, with a small stream and the most perfect camping spot. Our kids used to love to go there and of all the times we went there, Bill and I only fought once. Just like our usual messy fights that are actually fairly hilarious. I'll share later on that.

Besides cooking the burgers, all I did was lay on the folding lounge chair and read Jane Eyre. I wasn't up to fishing or hiking or ATV-ing the first day. He left me there and hiked up and caught five little fish that I cooked up crispy for our huge breakfast---bacon and fish and potatoes and eggs and pancakes and cantalope and hot chocolate! It had been very cold high up on Beaver Mountain. Bill froze for some reason and I made him go sit in the truck with the heater on before breakfast. We just sat in the truck and went back to sleep for an hour and got all warm before that wonderful breakfast.

We ended up just packing up and heading home. Not disappointed that we hadn't done all the things he planned. It was a perfect time for us and we don't have many of those.

We were heading out on the freeway and I checked my messages. There was one from my sister, Chris, telling me my niece, Stephanie, had been in an accident. That was all. I called her as soon as we had service and she broke the news that Stephanie had been killed.

She was 28, fresh out of rehab, in a halfway house, clean and sober for the longest period of her life when she died. My sister, Annie, has been---and will continue---to raise Stephanie's children. They had high hopes that Stephanie had finally overcome her demons and would someday be a real mother to the kids. They were reconciling as a family. She was dedicating herself to a Christ-like life, trying hard.

And she got on an ATV, rode around a curve, lost control and landed in such a way on a barbed wire fence that she bled to death in seconds. The surgical precision of the cut (she was wearing a helmet, we learned) convinces me that God had a hand in this death, which is such a comfort.

Bill and I just unpacked the camping stuff, got our ducks in a row with our jobs, visited the bank and left again for Casper, Wyoming, where the family lived. We drove it all in one day, the last hour, Bill kept nodding and so I drove. It's a long desolate drive.

My tiny little beautiful sister was the epitome of strength. I could feel her bones. She's maybe two inches shorter than I, and small anyway, but she felt even smaller. She kept saying, "I didn't know this is how it felt. It hurts physically. I didn't know what you were going through."
I wasn't much comfort, because I knew there wasn't any comfort.

We drove out to the site where Steph died and examined the dirt and the barbed wire. There were flowers and a cross there and the family is putting a huge metal cross there, as well. It's mind boggling to me how she died because only an inch one way or the other and she would have just learned a valuable lesson. God had to have meant this to happen.

She followed my example and wrote an honest obituary. She gathered her family and with dignity and grace, arranged a wonderful tribute to her daughter. She included her former husband and his wife---she calls her "wife-in-law---in everything. Her house was the gathering place. Annie's been active in AA for many years and her AA friends just smothered the house in food. She has three little grandbabies (I'm green with envy) and we all loved the soft little bodies. I make babies cry because I can't help just hugging them. Well, they cry, then they love my guts. I think I just imprint my smell on them.

They are all born again Christians and the funeral, with a huge attendance, was in a born again church, but was very quiet and respectful.

Bill and I got tired and snippy with each other, but we made it home in one piece. We are loving the peace of our home, which is a new thing for me.

I'm blown away at the death around me. I don't have any wise conclusion to make here. I'm incredibly proud of my sister and her strength and beauty.

Two Funerals

2009-08-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

Our ward has experienced the deaths of two children in the last ten days. The first, a 14 year old boy who hung himself; and the day of his funeral, a 3 year old drowned in Lake Powell.

We feel pretty shell shocked. The teenager didn't actually live in our ward, his father did; he lived with his mother, but visited the neighborhood often enough that he was a fixture. Both wards participated in the funeral arrangements and the luncheon. We inundated the family with food and service.

The little Sunbeam's funeral will probably be Monday. Boy. I can't believe I'm helping to arrange service for families who've lost their children as I did. Sarah said she thinks God put me in this position for that reason. I've never thought of myself as a "who knows but you are come for such a time as this" kind of person, but maybe. I didn't know either child; I knew the parents, but because I was gone last year, I don't know the families as well as I used to.

Our ward is wonderful to step up in times like this; and it is a privilege to serve in this way. It feeds my soul even as I feel such a heavy burden of grief for the family. I think we're all like that in a way; I remember hearing about something awful that happened to a family in Japan once and feeling so very sad for them. We are part of the family of man, to be sure.

On a practical note, I'd like to suggest something we did for both families. In conversation with a woman, she mentioned that her brother owns a grocery store in a small Utah town and every time there's a death, he takes groceries to the family and he always puts in toilet paper.

So I called another young woman (who I knew could afford it) and she enthusiastically agreed to shop for essentials for the family. She bought paper towels, toilet paper, kleenex, paper plates & cups and milk, bread and eggs. Another woman took the family cold cereal and milk.

I asked another woman in our ward to do the same thing for this family. I think I'll make it a part of the service for the bereaved. Another thing we've done, twice, in cases where the young person was very well known and the family had many, many visitors, is to get a large ice chest and fill it with canned pop and ice.

There isn't one person in our ward who would take some of these families' pain. We wouldn't trade places, but we so wish we could comfort them and ease their suffering. Food and toilet paper are pretty much the best you can do in these instances.

I did take the teenager's family a copy of our book on suicide for Mormons. I'm so glad I did that. I didn't write it, but it would have never been done if not for my efforts. I'm not proud, I'm just so, so glad.

Peace and quiet at last

2009-07-27T08:45:00.000-07:00

What a whirlwind week of kids and parties! Alex, our 13 year old, is seldom around other kids. Max, Rowan, and Bean are used to that hard scrabble life and so it was good for all of them. Max, who is 10, was properly respectful to a big kid and they got along and did stuff together and hung out.

Rowan, who is an 8, with tons of attitude, pretty much ran circles around Alex. One day, they argued about something and she danced around in the hallway yelling, "Make me, Make me! Come on!" She lectured him and argued with him and drove him crazy. Finally one day, while they were eating he yelled, "Rowan! Shut up! I'm trying to eat!"

She never shuts up. She's the only child I've told to shut up. Actually said the words. Not that it had any impact on her.

Bean, he ignored, and she him. Each kid got to sleep over (Max, two nights, they slept out on the tramp) and spend time with their cousin.

We went to a family picnic with Brad's family, the last before he goes into the Marines next week. Then had a big dinner with bbq ribs, corn on the cob, salads and cake here in our back yard. Brad's family is the first family I've met who makes our family seem quiet and demure. They all talk at once. They are really nice and I enjoy them. Just loud.

I'm deeply saddened about Brad's decision. I think it will be good for them in many ways because it will pay their school loans and give them a step up for the future. But the odds are he will be deployed to the middle east and we will have had little chance to really get to know him. I'm sad that the kids will be apart so much so early in their marriage.

But this morning, Bill has taken Alex fishing (he asked to stay for another week, but Bill said no---he's pretty burned out on kids :)) and the house is wonderfully quiet. Although I have mountains of laundry and the downstairs is a jumble of blankets drug in from the trampoline and toys and game boys.

I need to be more grateful. Bookslinger, your agreement with that goes without saying. LOL

2009-07-22T08:14:00.000-07:00

My sister, Annie, is raising her three young grandchildren, Jonathan, age 4; Jasmine, age 6; and Mariah, age 7. I have so much admiration for her because my grandchildren would definitely be in the orphanage and I'd visit. Old age just takes the wind out of one's sails.

Annie's a good writer and these are some of the funny stuff she's written about her kids, her grandkids, and our mother:

Kids say the darndest things.

When my children were young, we prayed together every morning before they left for school.
We stood in a circle, holding hands, as each member of the family took a turn to offer a prayer. Each child got their turn to offer their thanks and requests to God.
We encouraged them to prayer from their hearts and to always say thank you for something specific. We also encouraged them to remember to pray for someone else.
“Dear God,” began my ten year old daughter’s prayer. “Please let me get an A on my math homework”.
“Dear God”, she continued, after an unusually long pause, “Please help me find my math homework.”

There is less than 13 months between Only Son and Daughter #3. (Daughter #3 – aka known as Child #4 – was a surprise present)
I left them to play with their toys in the bath-tub as I went to grab their pajamas.
“MOM!” came the blood curdling scream from 4 year old Only Son.
I dropped their pajamas and ran, expecting the worst.
Three year old, Daughter #3 was looking down, completely bewildered. Only Son was looking in the same direction at Daughter #3’s body with complete terror.
“What’s the matter!?” I demanded, not seeing anything apparently wrong.
“Jennifer’s penis is broken!” came Curtis’ anguished cry.
That was the last time I bathed them together.

Cuddling and competing with who loved the other more, was a favorite part of our four year old grand-daughter’s visit.
“I love you as big as the sun and the stars” I told her
I had to admit defeat when she exclaimed, “Well, I love you with the sun and a horse”.

As I was doing Mariah's hair, we overheard Jasmine, the 6 yr old, ask Jonathon, the 4 yr old, how to spell "I love you."

Jonathon: " A. 16."

After a long pause, Jasmine responds, "Jonathon, that's not how you spell 'I love you'".

20th

2009-07-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

Dessie died April 20, 2008, one year and 3 months ago. I cannot believe it.

These are pictures from the last time I saw her, when she showed up unexpectedly (and drunk) at my house. Six month later, she was dead. 14 months later, Mom was dead.

Dessie was four years younger than I, and always, until the end, more beautiful and vibrant and alive. She lost herself. I think she's found herself again now. I feel her sometimes. I might feel my mother, but since I never really knew her, except as a childish and selfish person; childlike and sweet at the end, I don't know what she would feel like. I don't feel any great maternal loving spirit around me, though, to my great disappointment and disgust.

I think, "I can't believe she isn't there for us now any more than she was there for us when she was alive. You'd think seeing Jesus would have changed her somehow. No, she's still feeling sorry for herself somewhere in the ethernet of the spirit world."

But Dessie, she's dancing around all of us.

Got the recommend

2009-07-20T09:20:00.000-07:00

The stake president (counselor, who was my former bishop) signed my recommend yesterday. He asked me how I was and I said, "I'm being good." and we both laughed. I told him about leaving because Bill yelled at me a lot (among other things) and he hasn't seen that side of Bill, but everybody and their dog has seen that side of me, so he looked a bit askance.

(my little sun porch in my little trailer)

The truth is I'm really pretty nice to Bill and always have been. I objected to his being gone every spare minute he had fishing and hunting instead of family, but mostly he's been free to pursue his dreams, I never nag him to do stuff, he spends whatever he wants and never gets in trouble if he makes a mistake in the checkbook.

I've had to fight for every inch of personal freedom I've gained in the last 27 years, if he asks me to sew on a button, he'll remind me hourly till it's done, he criticizes my cooking (and I'm a damn good cook), my cleaning---he can't stand any clutter, I can't even have anything extra on my dresser, and if I make a mistake in the checkbook, I'm in deep deep shit and not forgiven until I give a pint of blood and pay back the mistake with interest. My interests, including church callings, have been resented and supported grudgingly even to "babysitting" his own kids. He never asked me to babysit the kids while he went fishing.

It's been a hard way to live. Nerve-wracking.

But...crap, I digressed. The bishop asked me the garment question, which I took to be his assumption I'd taken my garments off. I corrected him and he said that's a standard question.
I shared that with the stake president guy and he said, "yeah, that's a standard question" but then he congratulated me because I'd been tempted and looked at the dark side and didn't go there. "You know what I mean," he said.

"No, actually, I don't." I said. "what are you talking about? I never looked at any dark side. I lived quietly and peacefully in a little retirement trailer park in Parowan."

And he stammered a bit and extrapolated to the extent that I realized people thought I'd left Bill in a fit of rebellion and I was expected to take up drinking and whoring. (my office)
(my kitchen/living room)
I told him clearly, "I never was like that. It isn't in my nature, although that might be hard to believe. It never occurred to me to do any of that stuff. I was tired and spiritually exhausted and in a lot of personal pain. My husband betrayed me in many ways and I would never have come back except to save our family. I didn't want to hurt my kids and grandkids."

Geez Louise, it wasn't about me partying.

This all goes to show that people look at appearances. My iconoclastic big mouth nature makes people think I could easily sink into serious sin and Bill's on-the-face-of-it orthodoxy makes them think he's solid as a rock.

Really unfair. But I got the recommend.

I love my son-in-law but I'm mad at Bill

2009-07-19T08:55:00.000-07:00

Brad is without conceit. This is what he did last time he visited us: he forgot his church clothes and shoes. So he wore Bill's white shirt and pants and tie and his keds. He and Bill are pretty tall, but Bill is a lot bigger than he. He looked kind of funny with this big old clothes, pants cinched up tight in a belt, with his keds. He didn't care, he just went to church. I just think that's so cool.

(Brad and his grandma--he's that kind of guy)

...because Bill is so conceited about his looks he would never do that. He has nicer clothes than I and spends more time in the bathroom than I do. I find it tremendously annoying, I can tell you, to be married to a handsome man who knows it.

And now I'm ticked because I want to go to San Antonio to visit our grandchildren and he's sort of dragging his feet. He doesn't want to spend the money. He's telling me we are poor. But, I know he's really trying to save $$ and vacation time so he can go on the week long hunt with his friends in September. He has never once in all these years (27) put a family event above his fishing and hunting plans. And even if I gripe about this, he will just suddenly magically find the money to go to San Antonio AND hunting.

Last week, he said he had this great idea. We are getting our grandson Alex for a few days and I wanted him to stay for a week and spend time with the his cousins. Bill said, "hey you know I could take Alex back and take him fishing with my sister and her family for a few days." This has nothing to do with taking the grandson fishing. It has everything to do with fishing. I put the kabosh on that because hell, if he's going to spend time with them fishing, why go get him at all?

But I bet you $10 he will still go fishing with his sister's family.

(the fashion plate at the wedding)

I'm ticked. Thank you for listening.

Kids Coming Home

2009-07-18T09:36:00.000-07:00

I used to envy my neighbors whose kids came home to visit. It seemed like our kids didn't come very often--or want to. We had the grandkids a lot, but in my hermit stage, it was nice not to have company.

Sarah's been coming back regularly, though. I've treated her as a kid and not prepared at all. But last week, I realized that we don't know Brad very well and he's going in the Marines, so I got up out of bed and killed the fatted calf.

This weekend, we have my granddaughter, Madison age 14 and Beannie, age 5 (so cute) (I'll try to post pictures) and now Sarah and Brad are coming up for overnight again. And next week, our grandson Alex, age 11, who will be joined by Max, age 10 (he and Alex bicker endlessly) and Rowan , age 8, (Alex adores her and calls her Rose and they get along, probably planning on abducting somebody for ransom or some other crime). Then we're having a bon voyage party for Brad, who's leaving for boot camp August 3---and a big family birthday party for Jared, who turns 32 on July 24.

Well, the kids are coming home. I'm tired already. Today, instead of killing the fatted calf, I'm getting the fatted frozen lasagna out. :)

Finding Myself, not poaching Seraphine

2009-07-17T09:50:00.000-07:00

Seraphine on Zelophehad's Daughters wrote a wonderful post about finding herself that expressed so much of my struggle the last few years---I think this is the link, I can't figure out how to do that anymore. http://zelophehadsdaughters.com/

I get people mixed up all the time and thought she was an older woman I'd corresponded with but you know, the sentiments are much the same.

I believe my dark night of the soul came from many sources including my unhappiness in my marriage, my health problems exacerbated by menopause, midlife and depression crashing in, as well as the terrible problems in my ward and neighborhood. I also believe I'm seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.

I told Cathy & Bridgette (sorry if I misspelled it hon) that I wish I was dead every day. And that's true. I honestly wish all the time I'd succeeded in my suicide attempt. I just think about all the screwups since then and think "I could have avoided that...or that...or that."

I read something the other day in the Book of Mormon, I think about people who get discouraged and "curse God and wish to die" and boy did that hit me. I also read something about people who are more afraid of life than death. And that also hit me. Because truly I am. I'm ashamed of that but cannot find enough shame to change my mind.

I'm not sure if it's because I'm tired or sick or discouraged, probably a combination of all three; but I struggle every single day.

However, I'm getting better. I can feel it. I do not feel that awful blackness I used to feel. Healthwise, I totally struggle and probably always will, but I feel half decent more often than not nowadays.

Sometimes I see glimpses of my old self. Sometimes I have hope. Sometimes I look at Bill and delight in him and his goodness and don't think of all the awful times and feel hatred.

Sometimes I feel hope that we aren't such a failed family after all. Sometimes I get enthusiastic...about music or blogging or a new book or a project.

I believe intellectually that God is going to bless me if I can endure, if I can hold on, if only by my fingernails. And sometimes I feel like I'm finding myself.

Sick Today

2009-07-13T10:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I said I was going to get a migraine today because I thought this funeral today was going to be an unorganized mess (it's going to be just fine actually) and I guess God didn't want to make a liar out of me.

I feel just awful. My ears hurt, I'm coughing, my whole body aches and I spike a fever every time I get up and walk around.

This is nothing new to me. I hate it. This Epstein-Barr, Chronic Fatigue, Fibromyalgia, whatever is actually behind this decades long illness (I'm hearing that Herpes might be the culprit, for people who have had bad cases of chicken pox as children seem vulnerable---and I had a memorable case of chicken pox) kicks my butt over and over again. My younger sister was just diagnosed with MS & Lupus, which are factored into the illness as well.

I bitch and moan and complain and whine and am not suffering with great dignity, I must say.

It would be easier if I had an illness that Dean Edell says doesn't exist except in my imagination, if there were something more conclusive than vague "I just don't feel good" symptoms. If I were in a wheelchair.

I've been telling myself lately to pretend I have some terrible illness and try to be like somebody in the movies, gallant and smiling.

Yeah.

I wish I were normal.

On Napping

2009-07-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure, but I think I fell asleep during a call the other day. It was rather embarrassing, but it was 11:30 at night and who cared if that guy couldn't get his voicemail. It was about a half second doze, but all kinds of things went wrong. He was very nice about it :).

Working until nearly midnight and having other obligations during the day are seriously cramping my style. I do take quick naps in my car during lunch (I'm waiting for the day I fall asleep and come back after a couple of hours....at least I'll be refreshed).

Jared is here and he and Bill are putting in a walkway, they'll bring the grandkids over in a little while. I'm giving them strict instructions that Grandma is napping and they have to play outside or play stealthily in the house. Hmmm.....we'll see how that goes.

Yesterday I met Cathy Can & Bridgitte of Life in Red Shoes fame for lunch. I was hungry, and they were late, so I ordered appetizers---potstickers, brie in phyllo, and stuffed mushrooms. Then, while they had salads, I had soup and a french dip sandwich. Then I had dessert. Well, they were paying, so I had a good old time.

Awesome women, both of them. I felt so comfortable, you know how you feel when you feel you've known someone forever? Old friends.

Then I went home and had to lay flat for two hours before work because I was so full and sleepy.

Bill waited up for me last night, usually, he's sound asleep when I get home (I often wonder how soon it would occur to him to look for me if I was abducted after work...I think maybe two days) and it was nice to touch base. I usually just see him for a brief moment in the morning when I'm still half asleep and then we talk during the day, but we never see each other, really, until my days off. He objects, but it may be one of the reasons we don't fight anymore.

I have had sleep at the forefront of my mind since July 14, 1971, when my first child was born. I've been sleepy ever since. I count the hours till I can go back to bed again. It's not the greatest way to live and it occurred to me the other day that maybe everybody doesn't go around sleepy all day. I drink coke, I drink lots of water, I eat, I take drugs and I cannot wake up.

Amazing what you can accomplish in your sleep.

Angry People

2009-06-23T09:57:00.000-07:00

I have been an angry person---one of those people who got mad at sales people and spoke rudely and yelled and cussed (once, before I turned 20) over the phone to a customer service rep for Columbia House records. I'm embarrassed to think about my lack of class now, but it's true, I did it.

I have learned from my job that it gets people nowhere to act that way. I have learned that anger accomplishes nothing. I'm chagrined to learn it this way, this late in life, but I'm grateful for the lesson.

For instance, a man called me last week and asked to speak to a rep in another center, California. Now the man called at 10:59 pm, one minute before we closed down for the night. Plus, I have no way of calling a rep in another center and we didn't have anybody in our center that late who had that kind of authority plus that rep's center was also closed.

He yelled at me and lectured me and tried to bully me for quite awhile about that. Then he got even madder when I told him the credit that rep had made a mistake and he wasn't owed a $550 credit for text messaging. Now, his bill was two months late and he hadn't paid that much for text messaging in six months!

He started using the "f" word and taking God's name in vain. "You don't care if I can take care of my children! You're taking food out of my children's mouths!"

I finally called a manager, who backed me up in the decision not to give him the credit and very calmly refused to indulge the man's nonsense. Although, the guy, obviously a mysogynist, stopped yelling and cussing as soon as a man came on the line. He never got his way. His distrust of the world and hostility got him nowhere. I felt sad for his family.

Yesterday, a guy called in yelling from the start. He was concerned about the radiation and frequency in phones. I just couldn't take him seriously and I was totally calm with him. We couldn't help him, either. He's going to sue.

Both these men are angry at the world; they had no reason to be uncivil with me and they didn't help themselves with their anger. I know I'll be mad again and probably make a fool of myself again, but I'm pretty sure this is a lesson for a lifetime. Acting like an idiot is counter-productive.

In Defense of Kate Gosselin

2009-06-22T06:49:00.000-07:00

Continuing my obsession with reality TV: I've recently started watching the Gosselins---first just to see what the hype was all about then getting caught up watching the train wreck their marriage has become.

At first I totally related to John---to his obvious desire to escape his marriage. When he gave those dirty looks behind her back, I knew exactly what he was thinking. I didn't condemn, in my heart, his infidelity. When you feel trapped and unappreciated and doomed in a marriage, it's easy to look elsewhere.

She treats him very badly. I mean, honestly, he should have smacked her back a few times. When she smacked Emeril in a recent show, boy, you could tell it was hard for Emeril not to smack her back. She has to quit that stuff.

And again obviously, she's gotten full of herself. She's cuter than she was and she's famous and she's taken with all the fame of her self. She's easy to dislike.

But...lately, I've begun to feel very sorry for her. One of the hardest things in life is to face yourself. Maybe the cameramen and producers and writers are editing things to make her look the villain, but she sure comes off the villainess in all this. She seems conceited and self-absorbed and mean and insensitive to her husband and her kids.

I imagine her watching the show, though, and coming to the realization that even the camera people don't care much for her....as she realizes what's been done to her reputation; admittedly she did a lot of it to herself. But that's going to be a hard realization.

And at the bottom of her heart, she has to come to realize that her efforts to support her family have boomeranged on her and she's lost herself. Maybe her marriage.

Tonight, we'll find out, I guess, if this couple has decided to divorce or work things out. Maybe they've banked enough to live comfortably for the rest of their lives, but still, Kate has embarked on this rather desperate endeavor to give her kids everything she never had which has erupted into something she couldn't have wanted and she has to be scared to death.

Because what if they don't have the money? She can still be a nurse, but Jon has no career, he won't be contributing to the family if they bust up and the show ends. She still has 8 kids and no apparent ability to live with less. Many families have that many kids and don't have to put them on TV to feed and clothe them, but they don't have all tne "things" either.

So, she screwed up. She pushed Jon, who doesn't seem to have much of a backbone or ambition, into this to support them and provide for the kids. I feel a bit of admiration for the way she's soldiered on in all this, despite the public censure, she keeps trying. More than I can say for Jon.

I love Kathy Griffin...and other guilty pleasures

2009-06-02T08:38:00.001-07:00

I love Kathy Griffin; I'd be her best friend, if she'd let me. She cracks me up. I think she's honest and smart. She cusses a lot, but they bleep that out and I fast forward the descriptions of gay sex that pop up. I don't like her TV show as much as her stand up monologues. I tape them.

But I love reality TV, in general, and I read at the plot level, so I suppose it's the low life in me that I'm glued to a lot of reality shows.

I love--LOVE--Punk'd! I think Ashton Kutcher is an absolute hoot. I can do practical jokes on people like that because I'm so serious. I can't keep a straight face, but I can pull stuff on people and it's fun for a minute. Although my friend Dawn has never forgiven me for telling her our friend, Laurie, age 38, had Alzheimer's. She cried for days and refused to believe me when I told her I was just kidding. And then she hated me for lying. "Well," I said, "It's not a lie, it's a joke."

Someday my friends are going to get me for all those "jokes." I told Bill a lady in our ward was polygamous and he believed it for the longest time.

I love Cribs; of course, American Idol (Danny gokey started out my favorite, but something drew me to Adam, he's sort of so wonderful, he's Satanic); I like the first shows on Dancing With the Stars before they eliminate the morons.

Lately I'm into the Gosselins. I feel sorry for both of them, but more for the kids. Sarah has the same condition that Kate has and drs. have told her she'll have to use fertility drugs to get pregnant, so we might end up on TLC. It would be "parenting from the nuthouse" because Sarah pregnant with 6 kids would be that kind of situation and the rest of us would have to commit ourselves to get a rest.

I suppose that I'm going to have to repent of all this voyeurism, like I need to repent of drinking Coke, or the occasional R rated movie. Someday.....

This week on the call floor.....

2009-05-28T09:55:00.001-07:00

My last call last night, at 11 pm (10 pm, California time) was from a woman who wanted the texting block on her two sons, age 9 & 12, phones. So she could download some songs onto their phones and then she wanted the block back up. Now. I was supposed to get off at 11:15 and at 11 pm, for some stupid reason, some of our programs shut down or start working so slow that it takes 5 minutes just to remove a feature.

I was on the phone with that woman for 30 minutes. I got the texting set up the way she wanted and clicked out of her account and then she added, "oh, I need the internet block removed, as well." I hated her by the time I got off, 15 minutes late...people have no consideration.

I had call from a Russian lady about her bill and when she realized that I was nice and accomodating, she had a bunch of questions. Throw in that I could speak a little Russian AND was a Mormon in Utah and her husband insisted on speaking to me with his own questions. He told me how he wanted to be a Mormon so he could have multiple wives. His wife was yelling in the background "She's a grandmother, Grisha! She has grown grandchildren."

Another call came in from a guy who used to be the voice of one of the characters on the old Yogi Bear cartoon, Boo-boo, I think. He was delightful, in his 80's, getting a cell phone for the first ime and needing all kinds of help (grammar junkies, ignore this) and talking in the cartoon characters' voice. He had a really cool voice and personna. Jimmy Weldon. I enjoyed him. Until he accidentally hung up on me and another call came in.

I get yelled at every day. Most of the time, it doesn't bother me. Getting whined at makes me want to go to peoples' houses and slap them. But yesterday, I got chewed out royal by a lady who sounded just like Roseanne Barr. She had an extra $40 on her bill and she wanted it off! "And hurry up about it, I don't have a lot of time." Turns out she had plenty of time to tell me off about all her life problems. Her stepfather has a bad heart and he and her mother live in the mountains and need an expensive phone and ATT wouldn't give it to them. Give being the operative word.

She was skeptical when I told her I'd adjusted the amount off her bill. She kept saying, "Are you sure? If I call in tomorrow, will that be on my account?" Finally, I said, "If you call in tomorrow and that $40 is back on your bill, I will send you my oldest child and his dog."

Silence....then she said, "I hate kids. And I hate dogs, too."

Finally, I told her my name and said, "that's my real name, you can call me at home and yell at me."

She softened just a touch and said, "Well, I know all this isn't your fault..."

And I said, "Oh, it's okay. I've enjoyed talking to you. You sound just like Roseanne Barr."

After a moment of silence, she said, "I hate Roseanne Barr." And slammed the phone down.

All in a day's work.

Chinese Guy Pushes Other Chinese Guy Off Bridge...

2009-05-25T09:28:00.000-07:00

In a gesture of ultimate practicality, Lai Jinshang pushed Chen Fuchao to his death off a bridge in southern China. He'd had it with people climbing up on the bridge and threatening to jump.

Fuchao was up to his ears in debt and like many before him, climbed on the bridge and threatened to jump, as people and police gathered around him trying to talk him down.

As I said, this had happened before on this bridge. Many Chinese are deeply in debt and suicide seems an option.

But Lai had had enough with the drama. He bypassed police, walked up to Fuchao, and stuck his hand out as if to shake Fuchao's hand. When Fuchao put his hand out, Lai pushed him off the bridge, and turned to salute the crowd. Problem solved.

http://cbs5.com/national/china.suicide.jumper.2.1017569.html

I have a sick sense of humor. I thought this was funny.

I also thought "well, Lai made that bridge safe again. Nobody's going to climb up there for a long time unless they really really mean to jump."

Good on you, Lai.

The Joke's on Me....and other updates

2009-05-22T08:25:00.000-07:00

My friends all hate me on their birthdays. Because I am the "baby" of our group. And I give them a really, really hard time about how old they are. Well, it is disconcerting to have friends in their 60's. How the hell did that happen? 30 used to be old!
My friend, John, for instance, is ten years older than I am and boy it's really bone chilling to have a peer who is almost 70. I look at him and think, "you don't seem ancient."
I gave them such a hard time that, for my 40th birthday, they got up at the crack of dawn and put a big sign covering the whole side of my house and put balloons and flyers on everybody's mail box to announce my age. I didn't care, because, as I reminded them, they were still older than I.
This year, Bill's ex-wife, Julie turned 60. We are friends and she's three years older than I am and that's how I keep track of her age. So, I alerted her co-workers and they planned to roast her and I sent her flowers with black balloons and I had her name put up at the marquee in a motel downtown. I knew she'd hate it and that was the fun part.
She called me later that day and said sweetly, "Thank you for the flowers, Arlene, but I'm not 60."
"Yes, you are! You can't fool me. I know exactly how old you are! You're three years older than I am and I'm 57." Laughing.
"Arlene..." (quietly and still sweetly)"You're not 57. You're 56. I'm 59. I'll be 60 next year."
Damn. She was right. I got my age mixed up.
Oh, well, it was fun and funny for various reasons and I'll get her next year. At least now I know for sure how old I am. That happened the year I was 52. I gave my sister a bad time about turning 50, but she reminded me I was 51. Making her only 49.
Well...you really can get confused about your old age. It will happen to all of you young people as well.

I think I have a church calling. It's been niggling at the back of my mind, anyway, and I almost volunteered for it because I thought our ward needed better compassionate service, but it always comes back to bite me when I volunteer for something thinking I could do a better job. But I was talking to my stalker visiting teacher, who is a doll, and also the new RS president and she told me who they were calling as compassionate service leader. I told her how I rocked that calling years ago and she asked me if I would consider being the assistant, because the other person also works and it is a big calling and I said okay. Maybe I'm getting active again. We'll see. I haven't been called yet, but if I do, I'm going to accept. I could do compassionate service with one hand tied behind my back. It's easy and fun for me and since it does sound sort of fun, maybe I'm coming out of my 5 year slump.

I'm resenting Bill today. I asked him to stay home for Memorial Day weekend, although I have to work Saturday and Monday. My sister's boyfriend is coming up and he's difficult. He's an alcoholic and angry at the world. We have fixed up Dessie's grave and it will have a nice new stone on it. He wants to visit her grave and I totally understand. However, with my work schedule, there will be little time for socializing. He probably won't even want to socialize anyway. But, because of the possibility for problems, I felt I needed Bill to stay home, especially for Sunday. Just in case.

But he came to me and said, "I will if you really want me to, but I think I should go to Ely. I haven't seen Alex (his grandson) in a long time and I feel I need to take care of the graves (his parents and my first husband and son) up there." He's throwing in Alex and the graves because he knows those are also my priorities.

But it's really about fishing. He's got his boat all ready to go and parked in the driveway to pack up, etc. He's going fishing. Alex is the shill he's using to get me to say okay. Which normally I never say a word. He's very lucky that way, he can go and do whatever he wants without a peep from me. I very seldom ask him not to. It's been years since I asked him to stay home with me from anything.

But. "If you really, really need me, I'll stay, but....." And I said, "whatever, you're right, I'll be working."

The other part I resent is that he fishes in the lake where my husband and son were killed. I just find that so disrespectful to my experience of giving my son CPR on the side of that lake and knowing my husband was already dead.

It used to really hurt my feelings, but now, whatever. At least I'll be rid of him for the weekend. It's relaxing to be home alone in my slobhood.

I just hope my sister's boyfriend doesn't show up. I doubt it. But this is an argument Bill already lost. He just doesn't know it yet. His mother did the same thing to me when James died. I asked her specifically to come be with me. I honestly needed her. She was going hunting. Asking me over and over again, "do you really need me?" until I said, "no, it's okay." She and Bill's sister drove from the hunting camp to the funeral and then went right back to hunting. They were the only members of Bill's family to come to the funeral. And they never spoke of James again in Bill's family.

I've given up expecting him to consider my feelings. I asked nice, too. One more nail in the coffin.

GM's List

2009-05-15T09:20:00.001-07:00

GM is supposed to notify its dealerships about closings today. Bill has worked for a small dealership in southern Utah since 1986; before that he worked for another dealership for 8 years. That dealership also sells Pontiacs, so they're probably suffering right now. Boy, those old Trans Ams will be worth a mint!

Bill has been quiet and concerned, but oddly, not mentally ill at the prospect, which is new for him. He usually is a nervous wreck. He's the senior salesman, if GM does end its contract with the dealership, he will probably still have a job, unless the business closes altogether. That's not really a realistic assumption, though. They do sell a lot of used cars and have a body shop and mechanics. A lot of people would be out of work.

I guess it would be quite disastrous. Bill's 62 and we still have a small savings (I have no idea how much or where, I do know we lost a lot in the stock market debacle, but with our marital problems, I have no clue about the IRA or 401K funds), so we might be okay for awhile.

I feel very badly for the young families who depended on GM for their future. I'm not making any judgements about economic realities; I'm fairly ignorant about that stuff. I just feel badly for people.

Not so much for us, though. I think if we lost everything and had to sell our house and get into a smaller one, it might be the beginning for us. We never got to have "our" house. It was all about practicalities based on the fact that we had three kids when we started our marriage. We just jumped into it running. If that's even remotely grammatical.

General Motors has been good to us. Bill complains about his job all the time---the insecurity of it. It's really up and down at the best of times. Because he is a good salesman---and by that, I mean, he cares about his customers and takes care that they buy a good product for their needs---he has a lot of repeat customers who are older and secure financially. We've been able to tread water the last few years.
But all the economic stuff will surely catch up to us as well.

If the worst happened and the dealership closed, we would survive. The other families who depend on it for a living, not so much. It's really easy for people to toss off condemnation of GM and the other big car companies, but if you look at the small picture, peoples' lives are affected.

For us, for today, things are okay.

Korey

2009-05-13T07:38:00.000-07:00

I dated a Hopi Indian guy when I worked for the university, oh, let's see, that was more than 30 years ago. I loved him, he loved me, he had a drinking problem and wasn't interested in Mormonism. We broke up and it was really hard and sad and I will always love him.

I typed one of his papers once for a class he was taking on child development. He wrote about a kid he worked with in glowing terms. "Korey is a bright and wonderful kid, etc..."

The next year, after the breakup, in a weird coincidence, I moved, with my small son, into a subdivision. Korey's family was our neighbors! What a cute little boy he was, brown and sturdy, big eyes and shy smile. Korey had been adopted by the family, he was a Shoshone child from northern Utah. The family eventually adopted 7 children: two Caucasian children, Korey, a boy from Ecuador, and three children who had the same black father and white mother. My children were fortunate that they grew up color blind in our racially diverse neighborhood (the family across the street was Tongan!).

Korey and my James became best friends. There were five boys who were glued at the hip; all building tree huts, digging underground forts, racing their bikes, going to boy scouts and the swimming pool. These five boys seldom quarrelled, just great kids growing up together. Korey and the others were a constant fixture at our house, eating popsicles, playing Star Wars, and planning intrigues as only boys can.

My Sarah adored Korey of all James' friends.

Korey, and the other three boys, Cory, John, and George, was a pall bearer at James' funeral. This kid was as close to my family as if he was family.

A small glitch occurred when James was 15, Korey, 14, I may have mixed up the ages a bit, but not much. James came storming into the house, "Mom, don't let Korey around Jessie any more! He's a pervert! I just caught him on top of her on the trampoline! I punched him and threw him off our property!"

I thought James was overreacting and in those days, of course, we didn't know as much about sexual molestation. Frankly, I was embarrassed for Korey. I talked to Jessie, who was 8 and told her if Korey bothered her any more to come tell me. No big deal. Korey and James avoided each other for a couple of weeks, then went on as nothing. The other friends tell me they remember a fight between the boys, but James never told them what it was about.

However, about two weeks later, Jessie came sobbing into the house and said Korey had come out into the back yard of his home where she was playing and held her down and pulled her underwear off.

At that point, we took it a bit more seriously, and Bill made an appointment to talk to Korey's father, who was our bishop, to give him a heads up. No more was said or done. We never mentioned it again. I never discussed it with Korey's mother. I wondered, at times, if she knew about the problem, because she frequently left Korey to babysit his four younger sisters. But I trusted them and figured they had it under control.

2006, early Spring. Cory's mother called me to tell me that her daughters had revealed that Korey had molested them for years, beginning when the youngest one was 5 and Korey 14. The younger girl was messed up big time and needing serious psychological care. The situation dominoed from there, seven victims in all came forward, at least four of the girls had reported the behavior to Korey's father, the bishop, who called them liars.

One 5 year old had been molested while Dayna tended her. Dayna was upstairs while Korey molested this girl in the basement. When her mother took her out to the car, she told her mother, and they went right back into the house and confronted Korey in front of his parents. Korey didn't admit to everything he did, but he was forced to concede he'd molested her. His father called the parents of the victim into his office and had Korey apologize.

I knew nothing about the others all those years. Many of you know what happened next. Korey was charged as an adult and convicted of sexual abuse. He's now a registered sex offender, although there's little risk he'll re-offend, according to the extensive and invasive testing he had. The families involved are alienated, it traumatized our ward, and residual bitterness lingers (is that redundant) among us all. Korey's father died, unable to answer why he hid and protected his son all those years. Were we suing people, the church would have a lawsuit on its hands. The bishop's failure to act and believe the girls led to a great deal of pain on all sides.

I had a meltdown, yada yada yada. It's been rough.

I feel such melancholy for those days when the kids were running and playing and best friends. I hadn't seen Korey since June 2006, the sentencing trial. But last week, when I took Bill's shirts in to be cleaned, he entered the cleaner's and stood in back of me as I gave them the shirts and paid. I saw him walking in and just pretended like I didn't know it was him. I kept my back to him. It was incredibly awkward.

I glanced at him as I walked out, without speaking. He looked sheepish, embarrassed, a small smile on his face. This is so so sad. I loved that kid. But he did this awful thing, his family behaved abominably towards the victims during the trial phase of this saga and what once was is no more. Korey, I believe, never told his mother the full truth of what he did and she feels attacked and victimized herself, as do the other family members. No apologies. Korey scored very low to re-offend, but also very low on victim empathy and remorse. I feel his lack of true repentance and honesty made the whole situation ten times worse. I wish I could hate him, but I don't.

I can't believe it. I just can't believe it's come to this. Korey. Korey.

Tulips, Lilacs, Honeysuckle & Apple Blossoms

2009-05-08T07:56:00.000-07:00

My yard is like a park....not a perfectly maintained park, although Bill keeps it looking pretty spiffy. It's got quirks that make it interesting, though, the weird triangle shape of our lot, for one thing.

I do not have a green thumb. I've been able to grow things, but not the way Bill or other expert gardners do; I don't like the feel of digging in the dirt, either. But I love the plants when they grow. Every tree and bush in our yard has been planted at my direction. I love shade and the trees have been planted skeewampus because I will decide an area needs shade. We have a big blue spruce in the front yard that was--no lie--two feet tall when we planted it in 1982.

Dayna and I dug up some starts from my aunt Cora's lilac bushes--her house in town had been sold to build a motel. They're about 8 feet high now. They don't always bloom, though, because the weather here is so unpredictable and usually there's a freeze in late April that kills the blooms. They sure provide a lot of shade, though.

We have a honeysuckle bush just outside our bedroom window that blooms gloriously in pink for a few weeks in late May; likewise the snowball bush in the front corner of the yard. We planted an apple tree the year James died---1991. It's still small; the apples have never been much to write home about, but the blossoms are so pretty and it's big enough for small children to climb the limbs.

My neighbor, Cathy, always has the prettiest tulips and daffodils in her yard. Mine never do well. I have a theory that this is because her yard faces north and mine faces south and tulips and daffodils like it a little cooler.

I have rose bushes: yellow, yellow-green (absolutely stunning), pink, purple, and my aura rose, a wild orange red color. They always do well.

Our yard attracts birds of all sorts; robins always build their nests in our trees, which our cat loves. This year, a really smart robin has built a nest right outside the kitchen window on top of the electrical box---the cat can't reach it. It's a nice sunny place for her eggs. And there are eggs--we looked. She's always there, watching over her babies. Bill puts up hummingbird feeders and the little buggers come in hoards, viciously fighting each other for the nectar.

We have a bird feeder in the garden and when Bill plants the seedllings, he always plants flowers, as well. This year, I'm going to persuade him to plant morning glories all around the perimiter to climb the wire fence blocking off the garden area. That will attract bees and provide lovely vines as well as flowers. I love morning glories. They grow so easily.

This is the prettiest spring we've had in a long time, although I fear the warm weather is a harbinger of a miserably hot summer. Sometimes I get up really early and I love the smell as I peek out; the birds are happy--you can tell because they're making quite a racket, and I think my heart is healing.

Chronicles

2009-05-02T09:37:00.000-07:00

Four months since Mom died. I feel a presence near, only lately. I don't recognize this person, but truly I never knew my mother. I knew a lazy, selfish drunk most of my life and a tiny gentle little person who was a child in every way towards the end of hers. I've missed the peace of the rest home and I've missed that little soul. But that is not my mother. I feel this presence and my sister Dessie at times and it's nice. No big deal. Just nice.

I've ordered stones for Mom and Dessie's graves---heart-shaped and matching. Modest, but lovely. They are buried on either side of James. Bill and I were at the cemetery a couple of weeks ago, tending the graves and Bill asked, "I thought Dessie buried over there (pointing to Mom's grave), who's in that grave?" He's losing it, you guys. Old age is right around the corner for some of you, brace yourself.

Bookslinger, you asked me to post about holidays. Well, I hate all holidays and the necessity of properly celebrating them and I'm a total moron about celebrating holidays. We had a nice New Years Eve; I made a candlelight dinner with steak and shrimp and salad and dessert. Wait, maybe that was last year. Anyway, one year, I did that. LOL.

Valentines comes two days after Bill's birthday--he's 62 now. I hate both holidays. Because he has everything it's impossible to buy for him. It hits right when we're paying the piper for christmas, although this year, not so much. I wanted to take our grown up kids out to dinner at Outback, but he nixed that idea---too expensive. We ended up having friends over for dinner and cake. No, maybe that was our anniversary.

Valentines---what an excuse to spend money! I got him a box of chocolate covered cherries and he got me a stuffed dog that sings "I Feel Good." He always gives me sentimental cards and I always give him funny ones. I used to give him sentimental ones, but now I can't find ones that say, "Remember when I used to worship the ground you walked on? You're still okay, but I no longer feel that way. Maybe I will again, but for now, Happy Birthday." so I try to find funny ones that show the affection I feel without waxing poetic. I think---I hope---sometime I'll feel differently.

For now, our relationship is sweet and peaceful. I'm afraid to trust that, though. Bill is going to counseling and trying so hard. But we're avoiding difficult subjects, like money. I get pretty tired working full time, but it's worth it because it pays for my health insurance and buys me personal freedom. I also, of course, am going to counseling and working on my own negativity and pessimism.

I'm struggling with my testimony, but I feel part of this is the lack of attendance due to my job and part is due to the residual bitterness from the terrible sexual abuse situation in my ward. They changed our ward boundaries and we have a lot of new strong members who aren't in any way a part of the situation, but the pall remains. Our leadership, in what I think is a tribute to stupidity, put the former Relief Society president, and mother of a victim, in as primary pianist and the former Young Womens president and mother of the perpetrator, in as primary chorister.

The chorister has a strong and vibrant personality; she's full of hubris. The pianist is quiet and strong. She's also seething. I'm sure it bothers her to hear her "enemy" telling the little girls how special they are. The thought bothers me. The hypocrisy in the way her actions contradicts her words is mind blowing. Another friend said awhile back, " 'chorister' " said, 'I don't think 'pianist' likes me.' " I think she and her family, because the other woman is so quiet and I'm so loud, though I was the organizer and the one with the strongest feelings about the issue. Neither was true. I was the most conflicted, loving them both.

Now, I'm sick of the both of them. Both thought their butts were made out of gold and were seriously offended by the situation and the way it impinged on their elite status. The rest of us just got hurt---the girls got hurt twice. The former RS president told me strongly to stay neutral and stay out of two sexual abuse---actual rape cases--in our ward. I refused. She sure wanted me to take a side when it involved her, but she never stood up for the others. If her child wasn't affected, she'd not have had an opinion in this either. If the womens' situations were reversed, I think they'd both still be equally offended. It's not about the issue, it's about their ego and pride.

So, obviously, I've got some residual resentment. And some of it is toward my husband. He said last night that he feels attending Sunday School where the perpetrators stepfather teaches is a betrayal of me. Three years later and all that bad treatment, he thinks THIS is a betrayal? I didn't say a word, though, I simmered. Hell, I could give him his betrayals, line item.

Well, holidays. I like St. Patrick's Day. You don't have to buy anybody a card. I made corned beef and cabbage, which we both love.

Easter, I cooked a ham. No Bill cooked it. He overcooked it, actually. I bought my grandchildren some new clothes and actually went to church. Not because it was Easter, I didn't realize it was that sunday, but because I'd promised a friend we'd go together. We're both trying to re-enter the church LOL. She didn't make it, but I did.

Bill asked Friday morning, "do you need me to get eggs to color?" I said, "No, I don't do stuff anymore." Last year, I'd just left him and he bought eggs and dye and had the grandkids over. this year, they did it at their mom's house.

One year since Dessie's death. It seems like yesterday and I miss her so. I can't believe she's gone. I have reconciled with my baby sister, though, as a result of the events of last year. We've found a new respect for each other and I am enjoying her immensely.

Sarah's wedding brought out all the problems in my marriage, but I handled it differently. The moment he started objecting to giving Sarah money---he'd told me he'd give her $1000, a goodly sum, for her next wedding, I said, "okay, I'm out of this. You work it out with Sarah." And boy did he sputter. I kid you not. I said, "If you don't have any money, tell her, don't tell me to tell her." Of course, he's always broke, according to him. At that point, he made the decision to just write her a check and let her handle it herself. He said, "I'm not going to make her come to me for money." I just stared at him.

Then Sarah was going to have a garden wedding in the backyard and have her dad grill pork ribs. Well in April we have snow in the backyard in Cedar City. I was trying to tell her this and she got mad and started telling me how I wasn't supporting her and I said, "I will support you in whatever you want to do. But you have to do it. I work, too, and I don't have the energy to put on a wedding. You will have to plan it and put it together." And she, like her dad, sputtered. Suddenly the wedding got simpler. I ended up "only" making potato salad for 200 people. I never want to look at potato salad again as long as I live.

But I didn't do much, she budgeted, and his family pitched in and it was a beautiful wedding.

In AA we have a saying, "If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always got." It's true. I'm sick of being the go-between and whipping boy for my husband and my kids. Bill doesn't want to be seen as cheap, he wants me to do it for him.

We haven't had a real major fight since I've been back though. We hardly even speak meanly to each other.

I can get on a roll and blame this on the fact that Bill pays for very few of my expenses and is saving a bundle on my health insurance; I get caught up in resentment then. But I'm making an effort to look for the silver lining. Maybe Pollyanna wasn't so far off. I'm only beginning to realize how very negative and sad I've been. I'm also starting to look at the bad spending habits I've developed in the last five years and hope to make some positive changes in that vein, as well.

I'm on DHEA and a health food store supplement that stimulates HGH. My research shows that stress depletes this and that this is becoming a standard treatment for fibromyalgia/CFIDS. I feel better. I love my job. I'm content, for the moment, in my home and in my marriage. My kids are stable. I think I'm finding a new authenticity as I'm not the caretaker I was in my friendships and in my ward. I am who I am and I don't have the energy or physical stamina to be anything else. I'm leaning on God in a way I never did before.

Perhaps I'm coming out of the dark. Knock on wood.

Epilogue (Life in Red shoes, this is for you :))

2009-01-12T06:55:00.000-08:00

Mom died December 19, quietly. My baby sister was sitting by her, holding her hand and telling the CNA funny stories about Mom when another visitor said, "I think she's gone." Annie fell apart because Mom had died and she didn't notice. I wasn't there---it was around 8:30 or 9 am and I was getting ready to head back over to Parowan when the call came.

At the time, it seemed to go on forever, her dying. I kept questioning myself, wondering if I'd done the right thing. And I still do, a month later. Maybe she'd still be alive, feeble, but happy. Maybe the pnuenomia would be gone and her back would be healing. Guess I'll never know. Intellectually, I believe had we not called in hospice, her death would have been a slow agony for everyone.

I haven't felt her spirit at all. Chris, the sister just younger than I, feels much the same as I do---a little peeved about that. She was never there for us in life, we thought she'd be some comfort after her death. No such luck.

We didn't have a funeral for her because the weather was awful and my aged aunt and uncles couldn't come; many grandchildren couldn't come just before the holiday. So we quietly buried her and plan to have a memorial service in May when we place the headstone.

We picked out a beautiful casket with pink inside---cushions and silk and a crocheted "Mother." I bought her all new clothes---from the lacy white bra up (I ran into a friend at Wal-Mart while shopping and she said "You're not going to put underwear on your dead mother, are you, Arlene?" and I said, "Of course!")and put pretty earrings and pearls on her, as well. She was the prettiest dead person I've ever seen, to tell the truth. All the wrinkles and strain on her face were totally gone and she looked lovely. Annie did her hair beautifully and we placed a new lacy hanky in her hand, with a pink rose.

We buried her next to Dessie, and James.

Since then, I've been exhausted. Well, what else is new with me? But with Christmas, the last weeks of training for my new job, and Mom's death, I'm running on fumes. All I want to do is sleep.

It's been a hard year altogether, the marital problems, the separation, two moves, two jobs and the deaths. I'm asking the Lord for a quiet one in 2009. We all need it.

My Mother is Dying

2008-12-14T18:23:00.000-08:00

Well, we're all dying, really. But Mom is a little nearer to it than some of us. She's been in the ER twice in two months and last month she did actually die and they rescessitated her, how the hell do you spell that?

They did x-rays and CT scans and found that she has broken all but four of the bones in her spine and she's in a bucket of trouble. She's in so much pain. There's nothing they can do for her, but drug her to the gills.

So I took her back to the rest home with instructions not to let her get up without help, and give her any good drugs she wants. Perhaps she'll just sleep until she dies. There's a chance her back will heal enough for her to get up again, but her bones are made of china and she will certainly just fall again. The doctor said she's at least 6 inches than she was when she was in her prime. She's 4'8" and she's lost so much weight it's painful beyond belief just to get a shot.

I told the rest home that no matter what, I don't want her to suffer. I know what I'm talking about. I know I'm talking about snowing her. But the pain the doctor described to me just really beat me up, let alone my mom and she was in major pain yesterday. They could barely get on top of it with Dilaudid.

I'm praying she will go quietly in her sleep after Christmas. I know I sound cold as hell, but I will just die myself if I end up having to do a funeral before Christmas.

However, I'll take any option that gets her out of this pain. You guys, I'm the last person you want around if you're in deep pain or if you're bleeding. I simply completely panic. I was frantic yesterday as I drove her to the hospital (they should have sent her in an ambulance)---so frantic I was calling her "Mommy" "Oh, Mommy, I'm hurrying."

And she won't go into a hospital again. There's nothing they can do for her. Nothing, except traumatize her and scare her. That's something I never expected---that they could do nothing. I wasn't prepared for this. But I'm getting with her doctor and making sure she dies free of discomfort. Utah is good that way.

The Good Life

2008-12-01T08:28:00.000-08:00

Before Bill and I went belly up, we'd have a really good day occasionally. Maybe it would be late summer, when we had our little granddaughters and they'd be playing in the back yard and the light would be golden and we'd be looking at all our tomatoes and enjoying the day---and we'd look at each other and say, "we have a good life."

I was thinking the other day what an awful life I had, what with the alcoholism and poverty and abuse and deaths, etc. It really reads like something out of a Catherine Cookson novel. And I was feeling sorry for myself that I had this awful life and truly I'm so unique and special because I've suffered so.

Then the thought came to me, just as I was shaking the 400 count snow white sheets onto my comfy bed in my pretty blue room that's all shabby chic and also has my own private satellite hookup, DVD player, a jewelry box full of pretties, the small air conditioning unit which cools me and helps me sleep and a closet full of great clothes, shoes, and purses and God smacked me up the side of the head.

I'm blessed. I have healthy kids and grandkids who are all such persons, such personality, wit and charm, and beauty. My good-looking, hard-working husband loves me, despite all I've put him through, I still have my looks---not to brag, but I think I probably look about ten years younger than I am (thanks to not smoking, avoiding the sun, and a truly Oscar-worthy hairdresser, oh---not to mention expensive skin products and makeup), if not my health and my brain is starting to return. I have a warm comfortable home and a million friends (who I've been begging to go away); a safe life in one of the safest parts of the world, let alone the US!

I have a really good extra large washer and dryer---my mother only had a wringer washer once and the rest of the time, we trucked to the laundromat or often washed in a tin tub on a washboard with water heated on the coal stove. I have all the conveniences---oh! I have a Dyson!

I have a Dell LOL---and a Blackberry and a digital camera---and a printer that copies in color and makes photos, geez, that used to be only a dream! I have a really good car, a 2003 Buick with only 50,000 miles on it, that gets 30 mpg highway! I have good credit and a mostly good name (although I'm pretty famous for being a troublemaker); Bill and I are respected and liked in our community. I have an interesting job with benefits for a company that values its employees.

I have so much materially and spiritually and substantively. What am I thinking, I'm deprived???

Mustang Sally

2008-11-25T08:17:00.000-08:00

Chapter 1: We party!

So me and my sister, Chris, went down to Newport Beach to get my head examined :). Chris is a bit more staid than I in many ways, although she will get out and play softball and Indian wrestle and call people out at her grandkids' soccor games while I will sit quietly immersed in a book. Physical stuff I do not do.

She's my best friend and the person I enjoy being with more than anyone, although Bill's starting to grow back on me.

I'll talk about that later in another chapter.

I was fine to go down there by myself, I didn't expect it to be traumatic, but Bill didn't want me to be alone, so I drug Chris down there. We stayed at the Radisson --I go first class these days now that I am old and my butt is gold. It was just lovely, and they had in-room movies! We watched Get Smart (it was okay, Chris laughed all the way through it and it was her second time--you have to be really funny to get a laugh out me, I'm African-American that way) and Tropic Thunder (really, a waste of time, it wasn't the vulgarity, I just didn't enjoy it and never saw the humor, except for Tom Cruise, he was hilarious) and what was that other one? Oh, well.

We ate our way through the days--every place had the best food! I felt like I was Albert Brooks in "Defending Your Life" where "everything is good." The hotel had the most marvelous chef and I had a lobster quesadilla that was to die for and oh, we had room service every day and even the continental breakfast was enough for four people, I am not kidding! We ate at a great steak place and another French place and Chris was sick of food and wondering who'd taken over my brain since I never eat.

We got Thai massages. You guys, you have to do this before you die, put it on your bucket list. This little Asian girl crawled all over my back and bent my legs all over the place and gave me the best massage I've ever had. Then we got our toenails painted on Balboa Island where I had a good old time in all the small shops and then we went to the worst psychic ever, I am so much better than she will ever be, but it was all part of the experience.

We rested and we ate and we shopped. We argued a bit over each other's driving (think Oprah and Gayle--I am Gayle). The first day the only car rental available was a little tiny two seater convertible, some Dodge or something. But it was like riding a skateboard down the street so we went back the next day and just as we pulled in, this guy pulled in with a Mustang convertible! I sat in it and was in heaven and they let us take it. We drove out with the top down and put on the CD I'd made for our trip. The first song was "Mony, Mony." We turned it up full blast and drove out slowly doing the Miss America wave for people. Then we got up to the stop sign and "Mustang Sally" came on, no lie. We laughed and we sang and we drove out to Balboa Island and had a good time. That was fun.

The scans, the tests, well, that was no big deal. They said my brain is fairly normal, you can all pick yourself up off the floor now, although I have ADD and there was, of course, signs of the depression that has plagued me these last few years.

All in all, we had a good time. I did, anyway, Chris was probably sick of me and eating.

Chapter 2: Brain damage

The scans did show some residual brain trauma, but I was knocked around a bit as a kid, so that's not news. The big surprise in the scans was how normal my brain was, to Bill's chagrin. He was hoping that would explain my leaving.

The tests did indicate significant ADD. I've wondered about that because I can't do one thing, I have to have the TV on in the kitchen or I have to play a video game or read a book while I watch TV, or I have the TV on while I'm doing the computer. I hate to hear speakers, unless I can play a game or read a book. If someone talks too long, I get really irritated. Just knowing the problem is real makes me feel empowered in a way. I can punt.

I've had a couple of other revelations about myself and my flaws. I've realized what a problem I have with spending. I'm incredibly honest, I would never not pay my bills or try to put them off on others, but I can't control myself when I spend. Well, that's not true, I haven't bought a Ferrari and my credit's good enough to do so. But I'm extravagant and generous and I like nice hotels and good food and the luxuries. Plus when I'm down, I go buy something new and I feel a bit better. I suppose it all has to do with a deprived childhood and a problem with delayed gratification. I'll wax poetic on this in Chapter 3.

Also, I realized I'm sort of obnoxious. I always think I'm friendly and charming, but sometimes it doesn't come off that way with others. I'm going to work on that in myself. I insulted the psychiatrist by asking her where she was from (her last name is Akeshi and she looked middle eastern), and she took it badly when I offered to read her palm (it seemed okay to me at the time).

Chapter 3: Falling in Love again, I hope....

Things are much better between Bill and me. Knock on wood, I think he's truly changed. One way he's different is that he wants the grandkids around all the time now. He used to resent it when I wanted them and be mean, but he's changed now. He wants them now! He goes to get them! While I was gone, he realized how empty his life was without us messy people in it. He's made a geniune change there.

He's been pretty patient with me the last two montsh since I moved back. I've been an emotional high-strung basket case, given to spending days in bed sobbing and taking offense over every little thing. But after going to the clinic and adjusting medication and adding vitamin supplements that have been helpful, I'm doing ever so much better. Knock on wood.

I've had a personal epiphany about the things that motivate me (see above)and how I've substituted anger for sadness in so many situations. I'm learning to name the feeling and what happens and to handle things in life. I have hope.

I'm making myself my priority and Bill is next. Everything else comes after. We're learning a rhythm, he usually does the dishes and I cook, making sure he always comes home to a warm meal. I do the laundry and make sure the sheets and towels are clean and he does the shopping. I pay my own credit card bills and we are in a better place for that conflict being avoided.

Perhaps, please God, we are learning how to live with each other at last.

Chapter 4 - Old lady in class

The school I was working graduated a bunch of students and some were pulled and they started to cut hours so I had to find a new job. The best one available was at Convergys, a calling center for various businesses in the country. I know, I know, calling center. It's not sales, though, I couldn't do that. I'll be doing customer service for a cell phone company, checking people's bills and calling plans, etc.
I'm the oldest in the class at 57; there's a couple in their late forties and the rest are in their 20's or even teens. Boy, you can tell the generation gap! These kids run circles around me in their knowledge of phones and features and computers and they drive me crazy with their irresponsible behavior---they talk and play games while our "boss" (our instructor) is talking. I get so irritated with that rude behavior and think "Children, you are being paid to do this! Knock it off!"

On the other hand, they're cute and loveable and hungry and I take them food all the time because I can't stand to eat in front of them. Starving students working at a call center to pay their way through college, you know that drill.

I think I have it over them in staying power and maturity and responsibility. Well in staying power and responsibility. We're probably at the same level maturity wise. They haven't made me really mad yet, so I haven't lost it.

They are starting to call me Grandma. Besides the food, I'm prepared. Yesterday, a young kid said, "Anybody have any eyedrops?" And I pulled my eyedrops out of my backpack. Later, a girl asked, "Arlene, do you have tylenol?" Yup. And tape and scissors and pens and paper and gum and....you get the drill. Oh, and good tissue for the newly pregnant unwed girls and those struggling to pay bills. I'm always down with the Puffs Plus.

Life is looking up. I will have Sundays off so no excuse to miss church anymore! Perhaps I will become a spiritual giant. Hmmmm....perhaps I'll become a bit less abnormal :).

Nick's Bride

2008-10-29T09:40:00.000-07:00

Oh, what a darling girl she is---I wish I could show you her picture! She doesn't look a thing like Sarah, she's blond and blue-eyed, I think an inch or two taller, beautiful in a different way than Sarah's green eyes and darker skin. She's smart and funny and kind, obviously since she was so geniune and welcoming to Bill and me as we attended the open house. We were nervous and wondering how we'd be treated but felt it was imperative to show Nick how much we loved him and to welcome this new girl into our lives.

She wasn't wearing her wedding gown at the open house, just a nice dress and it was quite informal, probably a nod to Nick's second marriage status in his hometown. I hope she did it up royal at her own home. Nick gave us big hugs and because there was no line, we spent a good deal of time visiting. He laughed out loud when we told him how ditzy Sarah was and how she'd confused a combined choir performance with a performance with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and she'd confused the dates. (She texted me on the wrong day asking, "so are you guys coming down tonight?" I almost wet my pants while I figured out she was mixed up, it was only 45 minutes before we were supposed to be there!)

He seemed a bit disappointed when I told him I'd advised Sarah not to go. I'm glad, though, that I did. There's no way Sarah could have stopped herself from looking beautiful and I felt that night was Stephanie's night.

I can tell that she'll be good for Nick, she seems to have a good head on her shoulders. She has a teaching degree and is teaching school up in Provo; she's more of a caretaker than Sarah ever could be, and she's a lovely person. She's accepted by his family and I think she embraces that home school, home birth, herb-oriented lifestyle as well. There will be less conflict in their home as a result.

Plus she said that if Nick goes to Chiropractic School in Seneca Falls, I could visit them. I so would, too.

I'm very very happy for Nicolas.

Church

2008-10-29T09:28:00.000-07:00

I've been to church exactly five times since uh, March 10th or something like that. I haven't been to Relief Society or Sunday School, just sacrament the five times. Three times were at my new ward in Parowan, which is a lovely, lovely ward. Twice were with Bill at my "old" ward in Enoch. The first time was scary and awkward and embarrassing. I got lots of hugs and people were nice to me, but still, I didn't really want to be there. I was humoring Bill.

Same with last week. I've been back home for six weeks now and finally felt okay on a Sunday morning, enough to go through the shower and hair ritual and drag myself to church.

I wasn't glad about it. I felt defiant and rebellious. I kept thinking, to all those kind loving faces, "yeah, I'm here, but I'm not enjoying it. It's not where I want to be." Again, I was overwhelmed with love and hugs and welcome backs. The husband of my former best friend almost tripped over himself to come over and grab my arm and tell me, with tears in his eyes, "It's good to see you!" What kind of bitch am I not to let that kind of love in? A pretty big one, I suppose.

I felt people were watching us, our body language. A single friend sat on the other side of us, by Bill and asked me how I was. I knew, because people had told me, that she'd said she'd be glad to take Bill off my hands if I didn't want him. I was nice, but we're no longer friends, as far as I'm concerned.

The spirit. Did I feel it? Sort of. I can't remember the opening song, but the sacrament hymn was "I Stand All Amazed" which of course if my favorite hymn, or one of :). The closing hymn was "God Be With You Till We Meet Again." We sang that at James' funeral. I took the sacrament with the words of the prayer in my head as well as the words of Christ, which I'm currently studying in the New Testament. He's been with me the last six months. Well, probably forever, but I have felt the Lord's strength carrying me so many times, truly the footprints in the sand.

One thing I did while I was away was to turn my day over to God, truly, because I knew I was too weak emotionally to carry myself. And He did, every time. He blessed me in countless ways. But since I've been home, I've found it harder to find that quiet time for deep meditation and prayer, to open that conduit to heaven. I've found that puzzling and upsetting. Because the priesthood's here and Bill honors his priesthood. The spirit should be here. Am I too busy now? I don't know.

I'm off work again next Sunday and am thinking of changing jobs to one where I'll have Sundays off. Perhaps attending will become more comfortable as I am more consistent and my attitude will change.

I know this: I've learned how others feel who have been in my position and I regret my insensitivity, even to my own child. I didn't know, I just didn't know how it felt and I thought I had all the answers. I hope I'll be kinder in the future.

Deficient

2008-10-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

"Garbage gut" that's what my first husband used to call me because I would just eat anything. I'm still that way. I guess the way I eat, you'd consider junk food a basic food group. A lot of the time, truly, I'm too tired to fix myself a nutritious meal. What a destructive cycle that can be. I remember once, I just lost my appetite for three weeks, stopped eating almost altogether and then I got really sick and weak. I still couldn't choke down food, but I drank Ensure for awhile and got feeling better. I don't know why that anorexia thing happens, but it does. And it's not fun at all and I cook awful when I feel that way. I loved the first couple of months on Cymbalta (although I gained ten pounds) because I had an appetite and cooked up a storm!

I had a bunch of lab tests in preparation for an appointment at a clinic in Newport Beach which treats people with depression, etc. and found that there is no Vitamin D in my body and that my thyroid is low. Personally, I think they're related to that tumor on my thyroid which they've never been able to definitively say is benign or malignant (my surgeon said, "If it's cancer, you'll die of old age before it gets you." What he didn't say is it could mess me up health-wise). I'm a down-winder and at risk for thyroid cancer.

However, I'm feeling a bit better since I've been taking my thyroid medicine regularly (I'm lazy about it for some reason) and Vitamin D. It's entirely possible that I'm mal-nourished despite the fact that I'm slightly overweight. I suppose malnourishment could cause weakness.

Anyway, girls, if you're feeling like me, check Vitamin D, B12, and Thyroid.

I think I'm crazy

2008-10-15T07:03:00.001-07:00

Because I've been having nightmares and yelling in the middle of the night. I remember yelling, sometimes, but never the dreams. I usually sleep in the other bedroom, with the fan on, because of my work. Bill hears me, he says, so I must be yelling pretty loud because not only is the fan on, the door is shut and he sleeps with a breathing machine and with his hearing aid off.

My doctor has moved to northern Utah to oversee the state hospital, but I think I probably should see someone. I feel pretty depressed.

I am at the stage in my life where being crazy isn't cool or interesting---I'm over Oprah's "I was abused as a child and I'm nuts" shows. I'm over feeling unique because I'm crazier than other people.

And I feel a bit lost.

Last night, I yelled in my sleep and woke myself up. This morning, Bill casually mentioned it, as if I'd stubbed my toe or something. I just said calmly, "yeah, I don't know why." And, "Have a nice day" as he left for work.

Which goes to show a person can go crazy and act completely sane.

Re-United......and it feels so......

2008-10-14T07:37:00.000-07:00

I started writing again here as a way of describing life as a middle aged Mormon woman who'd separated from her husband and dealt with menopause, empty nest, etc. I chose my private blog because of the personal nature of my discussions. There are, of course, things that are so private that I'll never discuss them, but if there are other women out there like me, I want them to know they are not alone.

I've been back a month now, today is an anniversary of sorts. I still have a bunch of boxes in the basement to unpack, but things upstairs are sort of together, back the way I had them and then some. I realized that the house was sort of empty. I tend to clutter things, even when the rooms are spotless. I like the bright vase, little meaningful things set around. The rooms are rounded out, they look like someone lives there.

This clutter mentality is one thing that has been a bone of contention between us. Bill likes things totally neat. I'll set a cute miniature (and vintage, I discovered) pitcher off center on a small doily in the kitchen window and he'll come in and put it dead center. I'll fix it and he'll come along and set it dead center again. I honestly think this would drive a lot of women crazy.

He's changed in that way. He's not saying much about my clutter-y, decorative ways. I think I'm ADD because I like to do two things at once. I'll balance the checkbook in the living room while I watch my taped episode of "America's Next Top Model" papers and checks scattered all over. He hasn't complained once.

He's eating a lot better. Food was a big bone of contention also. He'd butt in the kitchen and tell me how to cook stuff and we'd end up competing. When I was alone, I ate like a batchelor, a lot of frozen stuff, or sandwiches, or I'd have a steak--whatever I felt like! I actually ate less, but probably a lot of junk food.

He set out meat every day and tried to keep up with his meals, but he also resorted to frozen pizza and meat pies. He lost a lot of weight. Since I've been home, I've made lots of good food and enjoyed his enjoyment. He cooks some, too, but he's left the kitchen to me for the most part. He's bulking up and that's a source of pleasure for me.

The house, while cluttered and somewhat dusty, is cleaner. I wash every day and change sheets and towels (I'm mental about that stuff) and the house smells fresher. It had started to smell like my great-grandma's house, sort of a homey musty smell, not unclean, just old.

You know that song by Peaches and Herb "Reunited and it feels so good?" This doesn't feel like that. I'm still adjusting to this larger house, my little cottage felt so cozy and safe, and to having someone around. I'm a hermit to the max which has perplexed my ward members, I think, but I'm determined not to over do the social, serving scene like I did for so many years. I've taken a meal and visited a friend in the hospital, I'm not sucking my thumb here, but I'm not trying to save the world. I can't even save myself.

Bill and I are very careful with one another. One month and no screaming fights---a miracle! I still feel like this is his house, no entitlement here. I buy everything I need for myself and have insisted on repaying him when he's picked up things at the store. I've bought groceries, which evens out what I eat, and pay my own bills. It's not natural or comfortable for either of us. I'm still filled with resentment and he's still traumatized and sad, nervous that I'll leave again. (I tell him "listen, I'm so not packing up and moving again, I'm still tired from the last time").

He goes to church alone. I keep thinking I'll go with him, but the one Sunday I could, I got conveniently ill and was so tired I couldn't crawl out of bed, which I realize is probably so Freudian I qualify for medical books. Sometimes we pray together. He's started reading, a lot--just finished The Last Lecture, and we talk about stuff. Sometimes I tell him about my day at work. And he listens.

My daughters call me---and my best friend. I talk to my next door neighbor, the Relief Society president, who made sure I had good visiting teachers, and that's about it. I work. I'm still trying to dig myself out of the depths of depression. I wonder now if maybe I was still depressed when I was alone, but I didn't have all the other stuff to deal with, so I felt better. I don't know.

I've certainly had some dark, dark days and that old desperate feeling returns. However, I realize that my life alone was also very empty. I needed that rest and I'll never regret that, but I've talked to single women my age, divorced or widowed and they say they feel empty.

For the moment, this is reunited, an uneasy peace, and restoration. And God will take care of tomorrow.

Nicolas is getting re-married

2008-10-08T08:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, it came in the mail. I've been expecting it, I couldn't quite remember the date of the wedding, but I knew it was soon. I ran into Nick's dad yesterday at the grocery store and he said it was in a couple of weeks. I thought maybe Nick had decided not to invite us and I didn't blame him, his fiance's feelings are paramount right now. I urged Sarah not to attend the open house. Nick's bride is a beautiful girl and I didn't think anything should take away from her day, especially not Nick's beautiful ex-wife coming.

I'm not sure that's the right thing, but if it's wrong, it will do less damage than the reverse.

Bill handed me the mail and I immediately spotted the envelope (isn't it funny how I ran into his dad the day I got the invite). I opened it, studied it, and put it on my desk. I didn't say anything to Bill about it. I felt so incredibly sad. I studied the picture, trying to figure out---let's call her Jennifer--her personality. Would she be steady and loyal, as Sarah was not? Does she adore him? Looks like it. There's a lot to adore about Nick.

He looks relaxed and happy.

Oh, how I will miss him!

I will regret to the day I die the unhappiness our family brought into his life. I think if we hadn't pushed for the marriage, it wouldn't have happened and his heart wouldn't have been broken.

Jennifer looks like Sarah's polar opposite. She is blond and blue-eyed, to Sarah's dark hair and green eyes. She and Nick seem to fit together.

She's strong, I think, also. Strong enough to accompany Nick to our home when Sarah wigged out because a former boyfriend (who'd treated her very shabbily)--a guy she dated when she left Nick, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Sarah, true to her emotional high-strung nature, called on Nick for comfort. He came to our house, with Jennifer, and went down to Sarah's room to talk to her and calm her, leaving Jennifer in the front room with Bill, who was utterly confused.

Bill was totally won over and impressed by Jennifer, her calm demeanor and kindness. Now that Nick and Sarah are divorced, I think Bill can see more clearly how ditzy Sarah is, her flaws. That's not an awful thing, since he mostly sided with her against me when I got irritated and called on her to grow up. He called me mean and insensitive.

All that aside, I was in favor of the divorce. I believe----and I still believe----that the marriage was headed for disaster. Sarah needs a strong hand, someone kind and gentle, yes, but someone who will take care of her and set strong boundaries. Both she and Nick needed caretakers. I think they both tried, but they were going against their natures and sooner or later, the marriage would have ended. Thank God it ended sooner and with no children added to the mix.

I knew without a shadow of a doubt there was a girl out there for Nick who would make him happy without the baggage of emotional ups and downs. I knew it and I promised him over and over. I knew the pain he was feeling would end. And it looks like it has.

How I will miss him!

I recall a time, in the beginning, when I jokingly said, "If you and Nick ever split up, I get Nick." Sarah was terribly upset by that and at the time I was joking. She's my darling girl and I'll stick with her always. But Nick is smart and sweet and funny and I enjoyed him immensely.

But, come October 25, Bill and I will go to Nick's parents' home and hug him and Jennifer and tell them how happy we are and wish them the best and give them money to help out their new start and behave in a classy and generous manner. It won't be easy, we'll have to swallow our pride and risk feeling outsiders, as surely we will be.

And Sarah will stay home and cry. Hard day for everyone.

Hello, Exhaustion, My Old Friend

2008-10-04T07:59:00.001-07:00

Several things happened to me, healthwise, in the six months Bill and I were separated. I was able to rest, truly rest, for the first time in a long time. I remember sleeping a lot of the time during the first couple of weeks before I went to work--and I only worked a few days a week during that initial month.

I would take naps, long ones, any time I got tired. I could stop and leave dishes undone, boxes unpacked, blogs unread and sleep. I loved that part of living alone. The little trailer park where I lived was shady and quiet, so nothing woke me. No loud cars, motorcycles, kids yelling, or dogs barking. No one knew where I was, save a few close friends and family members, so my phone rarely rang. Bliss.

I took long hot bubble baths, read and slept. I ate what I wanted when I wanted.

I also lost twenty pounds, ten of it from the stress of the separation, and ten when my sister died and I got food poisoning. Just dropped the weight. I had to buy new pants because my others were falling off me. Can't complain about that, although I've gained ten back.

I felt so much better physically during that time that my friends commented on it. I seemed like a different person, relaxed, without that constant frown of worry and resentment on my face.

Now that I'm back, I've bottled tomatoes, unpacked, cleaned, and cooked to beat the band. Poor Bill also lost twenty pounds, which he didn't have to lose, and I'm trying to fatten him up. I've made huge pots of soup and stew, casseroles, and even a wonderful dutch oven full of Beef Bourguignon. He doesn't have to do laundry, cook or clean. I want him to rest, also, to fatten up. Despite his insistence on neatness, his clothes started to smell old. He did laundry, but he just didn't keep up on things. He didn't take care of himself well. I want to do that.

We had a whole gardenful of wonderful tomatoes I just couldn't let go to waste, so I put up some for the coming winter. There have been no unplanned naps, leaving dishes in the sink. I've had my grandchildren overnight, delighting in their delight at new neighbors--with kids!--and grandma and grandpa living again in the house they all feel is home. Little chattering voices coming in and out for cookies and toys and bandaids.

And I've worked at my job.

I'm paying for all that today. Yesterday, after a day canning, cleaning, and cooking, I woke up literally unable to move from all the achy muscles and the dizziness. I limped around till I had to go to work, came home and collapsed till this morning. Today, a little less pain, but it's there.

This isn't Bill's fault. He's so happy to have me home he's made no demands, no nagging to do all the stuff he's been known to nag me about. This is all on me. I don't regret the things I've done, but I realize I am going to have to learn how to rest while being among people LOL.

I'm going to go to church, I've worked my schedule out that much, but I'm not going to go all hog wild engaging people and helping people and I've got to learn how to ration my time and energy so that I have something to give and don't end up flat on my back, literally and figuratively (in the emotional and spiritual sense) again.

You young mothers and wives, there's a reason you're tired and it's not because you're lazy. You do alot. We all nod in agreement when we hear lessons on not over-doing, taking care of yourself so that we can take care of others, then we drive ourselves to do more.

The trick to living Christ-like lives is not to do more (genealogy, bottling, scripture reading, etc.); it's to do less.

There Will Be No Honeymoon

2008-09-30T08:26:00.000-07:00

When Bill and I were first married and fought, there was that blissful honeymoon period when we made up. We'd be relieved and resolve to try harder and feel more in love than ever.

The last few years, not so much. Bill felt that more than I, but we both would resolve and feel we'd learned about that foxhole and try to avoid it. Things would be better until they weren't.

This time, though, I came back home with no expectations at all. I came home to do the right thing by God, Bill, and the kids. I didn't have any resolve except to take each day as it comes and lean on God with everything I've got.

Bill had some expectations and voiced some sadness and disappointment. There wasn't an explosion, just a little wistfulness, maybe some resentment when I insisted on being authentic.

So, now, what we have is a commitment (not without fear or trepidation) to the institution of the family; love that is so not blind, we could probably light up half of America with my clear eyed look at who we are and how we affect each other; and a devotion to God and the gospel.

Perhaps that's better.

Meathead fixes my computer

2008-09-26T07:04:00.000-07:00

I am a total computer slut. I will suck up to anybody who can help me with my computer. My neighbor stopped in the other day while I was working on a form for work, to thank me for some clothes I'd given her. (I gave away five boxes of clothes---I gave her the best ones). I said, "Yes, yes, you're welcome, do you know how to work Excel?" And she did and she was a genius and I figured out how to make the columns smaller and it's a cherry form that I can take to work so the girls can say, "I don't want potatoes." (They are allowed to refuse one food item from each meal, in case they don't like something. But they have to eat a good diet).

And I made it pink and blue and purple because they are girls after all and we need that bit of color in our lives.

So, Sarah, aka Princess Buttgold, has a new boyfriend. Did I mention that she has turned over a new leaf? She has gone back to church, sat before a church court, been put on probation (they were gloriously merciful to her), is wearing her garments again and she is running with a total new crowd. I'm quite proud of her for that.

She just one day up and dumped all her bar friends and spent a couple of months buried in books and staying home except for work and church. She purged herself, in a way. The Lord sent some great kids into her life and she moved out of the home she was renting with 5 male roommates into a great apartment complex where she shares an apartment with students and kids with different goals than she'd previously had.

I hadn't met this boyfriend. Bill had and wasn't too impressed. Sarah wants my opinion. Well, my opinion is that she and this boy don't seem to go together in any conceivable way. I would never have picked him out of a lineup to go out with my daughter.

He is a returned missionary, with avowed faith in the gospel. He has a job and is attending college to get his MBA. But...nope, I can't see him with Sarah. They showed up yesterday on his Harley---he did have her wear a helmet. His hair is curly and long around the nape of his neck, but not long like, uh, Jesus. He has a beard which has a lot of red in it (I looked at that and thought, "I always thought Sarah's children would be redheads)and he's quite handsome in a sort of goofy way.

I was supposed to interrogate him, but when I found out he could figure out my speakers and fix my computer so I could get YouTube, I lost interest. I did ask him, "So, young man, what are your intentions toward my daughter?"

And he laughed and said, "I knew that was coming."

And I said, "Oh, I don't care, how come you can't get that adobe thing to work?" and we forgot to discuss his intentions.

They left, with Sarah hanging on the back of the motorcycle, and as they drove off, I thought, "Isn't that just every mother's dream?"

He kind of reminds me of the guy in "Say Anything" except not so deep. I also couldn't help but think of "All in the Family" and Archie, Edith, and Meathead.

He does like Mo-town and the old 60's music and he knew who B.B. King was, though. I'm too engrossed in my own problems to handle Sarah's--God is on this one, I'm sure, anyway.

How in hell old am I anyway?

2008-09-25T07:41:00.000-07:00

That reminded me of a story I read in the Reader's Digest. A true story. A publicist needed to know how old Cary Grant was, so he sent him a telegram saying: "How old Cary Grant?" Grant responded: "Old Cary Grant fine."

I have a habit of going to the next year the second I turn a certain age, because of my death wish. I want to hurry up and get old and die. For instance, when I turned 43, I started telling people I was 44. (I thought I was 52 for a whole year till my birthday and someone asked how old I was and I said "53" and my sister snorted and said, "Arlene, you are not 53, you're 52!" and I did the math and said, "Oh, yeah, right."

Well, last year, I got particularly confused. I turned 55, then told people I was 56then thought I really was 56, which meant 57, and thought I was going to be 58 today.

I did the math last week, and thought, oh crap, I lost two years. And I was kind of excited about being that close to 60. But I'm only 56. Well, 57, starting tomorrow.
Still.

For my birthday, Bill is giving me not mowing the lawn. He drives me crazy with how excited he gets about mowing the lawn. He gets up early, has a quick breakfast instead of the usual rigamarole five course meal, and goes out busily to prepare. He prepares to mow the lawn like some people plan a wedding. And he's very noisy about it and it takes all day. Then he waters and the noise just drives me nuts.

Luckily the neighbor lady's battery died, so he'll go out and mess with that in his shop. Quietly. We are also having crab legs for dinner and no cake, although I may ask him to make pie crust (I LOVE pie crust! which is basically flour and lard, gross, huh? I put sugar and cinnamon on it. It's the only thing I'll eat totally until it's gone. You'd think it would make me sick, but it doesn't. Nor do I gain weight from it.). Yeah, pie crust will be my cake.

Sarah and her new boyfriend, who is afraid of Bill because his debit card got rejected (a real oversight on his part) and Bill had to pay for the gas the last time they came and he's the cheapest guy on the planet. Then Sarah was dumb enough to tell him her dad was mad, so the poor kid is afraid of her dad. Oh! Where was I?

Sarah and her new boyfriend are coming up (from St. George) to bring me Olive Garden's potato sausage soup. My friend brought me a pedicure coupon, which I dearly need.

Traditionally, my birthday is punctuated by visits and phone calls and cards from friends all day long. I tried one year to have Bill and Sarah ignore my birthday but nobody else did and they felt bad. I hate this week because it's when James died and he called me a lot and sent me diamond and pearl jewelry and then he shot himself. Anyway, now I just grin and bear it and get through it. I was thinking I wish, if he had to commit suicide, he'd done it in a month I hate, like August, which is when David and Davey died, instead of this time of year which I love most of all.

So I go through this total conflicted emotion cycle of smelling the fresh crisp air and thanking God summer is over to the warm feeling of being loved to the terrible horror of my son's suicide.

I guess that's life in general. Anyway, today I'm 56. But in real body age, I'm 76 because I took a test on-line and I'm in terrible shape. A psychic who read my palm said I'd live until I'm 80, so I think I have four more years to endure. Woo-hoo!

Back in the High Life Again

2008-09-24T09:25:00.000-07:00

I can't tell you how chagrined and mystified I am about all the stuff I've brought back into the house. Like I wrote before, the house didn't seem empty to me (although, it did to Bill, he seems to have missed my cluttery ways).

Moving sucks, although we did it fairly efficiently, I believe, in only two days and two truck-loads, plus two trailer fulls. Hmm...is that grammatically correct?

I made him get the twenty boxes of "Christmas Items" still unorganized from last Christmas which he hastily threw into boxes after I left and put into the storage unit. I want to organize them, although it may take till next Christmas.

I also have about 40 boxes down in the basement, many are books, still to be unpacked and five boxes marked "fragile" in the dining room, which I shall unpack today. I suppose newspaper accounts for half the heft in the boxes because my visiting teacher carefully wrapped all my delicate stuff.

Now, I have satellite TV. Now, I have a washer and dryer readily available (and I wash every day--I no longer have to make my work shirts last two days).

I have two freezers-full of food and immense storage for when I get hungry and all the amenities of home. Our arrangement is odd, I guess; for the moment, we haven't arranged anything at all. Bill buys the groceries, sometimes I shop and pay for stuff out of my account. He hasn't incurred any extra debt by me moving back, so far. We just don't talk about it. I borrowed $20 for gas, but didn't need to use it so I just gave it back.

I have no idea how he feels about all that, but since money was an issue with us, I assume he's relieved.

Things here are tenuously peaceful, we are probably too careful around one another. I find that I'm still unable to forgive him for many things and so haven't settled in as I would if I were truly "at home." I feel like a guest.

How sad, huh?

I'm maintaining my separate checking account, paying my own bills, except for living expenses and insurance (and you know, I don't eat much, so I don't think that takes too much money)keeping my own mailing address in Parowan, and hanging on to my job with everything I've got. I'm keeping all the stuff I bought for my home which are now extra (canisters with sugar and flour, a mixer, the ironing board and iron, the small kitchen table, etc.) "Just in case." I'm saving money in case I need it for rent.

I realize that may not be the best course, but perhaps I need that safety net. I've always been commitment-phobic---I wanted to date other guys, but I didn't want the guy I liked best to date anybody else---and maybe Bill and I would never have married if he hadn't set a line in the sand. I cared enough about him not to play around and to marry him, you see.

My neighbors are being kind and giving me space, greeting me carefully. Some, I think, are angry with me. So be it. I haven't been to church and have no plans to do so. Bill is now one of those sad guys married to an inactive woman.

There is so much to work out. And I'm depressing myself. But---dang! I do have that DVR and the washer! Woo-hoo!

The Cheap Thrill of Moving

2008-09-10T08:13:00.000-07:00

When I left Bill, back in March, I threw some stuff into an overnight bag and stomped out over to my sister's spare room. When I decided to stay gone, my daughter, Jessie, went to the house and packed up my computer, clothes, and a lot of furniture, piling it into her red Chevy truck.

My sister, Sarah and Jessie, and I completed the move the next day via a small wood trailer we own and two trucks and two cars. I can't believe I had that much stuff. And it hardly made a dent in the house. You could hardly tell I was gone.

I packed up my bedroom, clothes, etc. Monday. I've got boxes piled down the hallway of this small trailer---eleven in all, plus three laundry baskets and two garbage bags full of clothes and bedding.

I was thinking how I'd come to live with less LOL. I even took a bunch of stuff to DI and a huge heavy box of really cool books to the public library, trying to simplify.

I've heard people who move a lot don't have a lot of stuff. Well, maybe 20 more moves and I'll eliminate a box. Stuff multiplies exponentially!

Bill's bringing over the truck today and we'll see how much we can fit and move. It's weird to think of moving back into one's own house and I wonder how the neighbors will take it. I wonder if Bill will feel lessened for having to move his wife back into their home.

As I said, we're fairly well known in the community, mostly out of longevity, not out of riches or accomplishment or stature, and it's been embarrassing to have our problems made so blatantly public. Actually, I've been uncustomarily reticent on the subject (except here LOL). I usually blab to anybody about anything but this time, even when people pry (and hell, yes, they do) I will not discuss my marriage with just anyone.

I've written already about the hungry look in the eyes of some single women (and you know, my heart goes out, I was single and lonely once and I understand that Bill seems like Gregory Peck reincarnate to some)---and the men who've flirted (I'm fairly certain that the cute(sort-of, in a scruffy, convenience store worker who's trying to get sober kind of way)guy who works at the local small hardware/toy/dishes/little bit of everything store has a crush. Well, he did call me "Baby" the other day. To which I said, "I bet you call all the little old ladies who come in here "baby."

I've had people be extra kind and cheerful without mentioning my problems, but I can tell they've heard. They give me a little hug or squeeze on the arm as we pass in Wal-Mart. Others give me dirty looks and shun me. Really. Sometimes I feel like a celebrity with the furtive stares. I feel sorry for those who are trying to work out these most painfully intimate and sensitive problems with me staring at them via the People magazine.

We haven't been out in public together since March. Not once. I wonder what that will be like. I wonder what it will be like to have someone around all the time instead of this delicious silence, this delicious freedom of leaving a half eaten sandwich on the nightstand alongside the glass of milk when I turn over and go to sleep.

I'm afraid. I haven't changed much, nor, I suppose, has he.

I'm scaring the crap out of myself (catastrophizing, my AA sponsor calls it). So I'll go back to what's gotten me through the last six months: doing what's in front of me and leaving the rest to the Lord.

Crap. The sink is full and here I am blogging. Off to the real world. Anybody got any good boxes they can drop by?

Just Another Manic Monday

2008-09-08T06:30:00.001-07:00

I'm not even sure that's the line in the song, but that's how it feels.

I work, usually, Thursday-Sunday, 3-11 pm, give or take adjustments for the schedules of others. I find it disconserting and often have no idea what day it is. The day I go back to work seems like Monday and my first day seems like Saturday.

So, Thursday feels like Monday and Monday feels like Saturday and others get incredibly confused when speaking with me as we sort out where are and what day it is.

Today, though, it's Monday. I'll be moving back in with Bill in our home in Enoch on Wednesday. I've asked my visiting teachers---who've never been to my home---to come help me pack up my kitchen and front room. I've never even met one of them and only spoke to her when I called to ask for her help! I figured that would count for the last six months.

They've tried, we've just never been able to jive with our schedules. I'm going to ask that I get letters when I move home, I don't want visits. I feel a vague sense of unease at my reluctance to interact with others and wonder if I'm truly getting agoraphobic. This is so unlike me not to reach out and have multitudes of friends that I'm sure my old pals "back in the hood" will have some adjusting to do. Maybe not.

(Parenthetically, I've realized, not unhappily, how quickly people get over you when you're gone! We are all expendable and I find that comforting.)

Today, I have to sort out our storage unit to contain my furniture, bought or borrowed in the separation (I have the cutest little round kitchen table, with two chairs, bought from Wal-Mart for $139!---I put it together myself), begin to take some stuff home, small boxes that will fit in my car. Maybe all my nice dresses and blouses, which I seldom wear.

'm going to be very careful with the stuff from my sister's funeral, which is still stacked in my spare room. There are dried flowers from the wreaths, which I intend to put into frames for my niece and nephews, CD's of the funeral, which I intend to copy, letters and pictures which I intend to sort out. All are not for myself, they are for her children, especially for her daughter, who only found out about her mother's death two weeks after the fact and who hasn't been heard from since.

I've bought some stuff for my grandchildren to play with over here. They'll be added to the piles of toys especially for those beloved little bodies. I'll be taking only my computer, my dishes, and my clothes back home. Oh, and of course, my books. (You know, I bought a set of encyclopedias back in 1978 and I use them all the time---especially when I read, looking up facts for context. I bought them on time, making payments for three years. I consider them to be one of my best purchases, because they're pretty good for being so old and out of date).

Bill and I are both pretty uptight about this move. It's sort of make or break. I can't bring myself to commit, but I feel that for my famiy's sake, I must attempt to reconcile and that can't be done while we're living apart. My home doesn't seem like home. It's a scary place.

But, I'm taking it one day at a time these days. So, I'll pile stuff in my car and run over to Cedar and pile that stuff around the house and come home and vegetate till tomorrow and hope the spirit hits me and all somehow becomes well.

Just Another Working Day

2008-08-31T08:43:00.000-07:00

I've only been to church four times since March 16. Most of those Sundays, I've worked, usually from 1-11 pm. I work a couple of extra hours because I'm in charge of the Arts & Crafts program at the school. (I'm not crafty, but I'm organized).

I'm now the inactive woman in my ward. It's been kind of nice not to have the phone ring with requests and notices of meetings.

I still pay my tithing and study the scriptures and read the Ensign and abstain from alcohol. I just don't go to church. I don't keep the Sabbath sacred, which bothers me, but I haven't entirely left the fold.

On the other hand, my life is more peaceful and I feel more spiritual overall.

I think I'll stay inactive when I move back home.

Middle aged Mormon women running away from home in droves

2008-08-30T07:02:00.000-07:00

I'm puttering around slowly organizing things to pack up for the move back home. One of the girls at the school is getting ready to graduate and go home and she's so nervous about it. I can relate to her. What if it doesn't work out?
Since I left Bill in March, many of my friends (and some perfect strangers) are telling me of their envy. Not the men---the women.
I'm coming to the opinion that the middle aged Mormon woman is tired. We've raised our kids, tried to follow the prophet and support our husbands and now we're bone dog tired.
So many friends have said they envy me in this quiet little trailer. So many have voiced their dissatisfaction with their marriage and their lives. Many, like me, are having rebellious thoughts about the devotion to church and family which seems to have sapped them physically, emotionally, and even spiritually.
Leaving Bill, getting set up here, getting this scary, scary job and going out into the world alone, is one of the bravest things I've ever done. Going back to him will probably top that in demanding even greater courage on my part.
I have no answers. I'm leaning on the Lord, one day at a time, and hoping I'm doing the right thing.

Friday, August 29 um, life in the fast lane

2008-08-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

I decided to write this as truly a journal of sorts. So, I will provide background.

So, Bill and I got in another big fight and I left and moved to a little cottage in an RV trailer park in Parowan. My cottage (aka glorified trailer) and the park are very clean and well kept. The park is quiet. I have no neighbors on either side and just got a few across the "street." Two quiet old guys in camp trailers.

As I said in my previous post, I'm working at a private girls' school which is a totally new experience out of my comfort zone big time!! But I love it and enjoy the challenge and maybe someday I'll write about it at length. I'm learning so much about life and people (they really do lie) and myself and what makes me tick.

My little sister died suddenly of MRSA a month after I left Bill and that blew me away. I still can't believe she's gone and I can't feel her spirit and a part of me died with her. Not many people can relate to how close I was to my sisters. I did my best to take care of them when I was a child and I love them so much. Only my children and Bill are more important to me.

I started out working five days a week; now I'm down to 3 1/2. Which is nice.

My day at work begins at 3 pm. On weekdays, I get an hour to clock in, get a radio (we have to have one, although some are broken and there's always a rush to get a radio) and go to each unit and check out what I might be dealing with that day---an upset girl or a sprained ankle, that sort of thing.

On a quiet day, we get the girls through study hall and tuck them in. I love that time of day when they're all showered and safely in bed. I used to love it when my kids were safely in bed, also.

I get off at 11 pm, go home and watch TV, eat a snack and wind down. My days off are usually spent in "Bill's house" doing laundry, shopping, and hopefully winding down.

I spend much of my time alone, which I love.

The thing I've realized is that I am a solitary person. I've forced myself to be artificially involved with tons of people because I felt they needed me---perhaps they did. But I'm learning I must feed my own soul first.

So, when I move back, and I'm planning to on September 10, I intend to stay in this mode. Quiet, alone, focusing on myself and my relationship with God and putting first things first. That would be my health--physical and emotional and spiritual---and my marriage and my family. Really, that's a lot.

Today, I'm doing the dishes (aka doing what's in front of me) (I don't have any clean ones LOL), making my bed, blogging, and visiting my mother. Then I'll go to work, which provides endless variety and opportunities for stress. It's different stress, though, stress I can leave behind.

This is skeewampus. Hopefully, it'll smooth out as I go along. My main goal is to write about mid-life crises, menopause, empty nest, and accompany mental illness and marital problems. For those women who might be experiencing the same thing. God bless us, every one.

Life today AKA "Anne's Midlife Crisis"

2008-08-28T07:11:00.000-07:00

This isn't for comments. I've blogged about my new life on Mormon Mentality, but have tried (for me LOL) not to get too personal due to the nature and purpose of that blog.

I need an outlet, though and I wonder if there are other women out there experiencing the same thing.

I always rise early, habit, maybe. I hate it, I wish I could sleep till noon. I work at a school for troubled girls---I don't know the PC phrase. It's called an academy and it's an accredited high school with four/five teachers and a principal, a computer lab, a pretty good library, etc. It's a home where we practice behavior modification in the form of firmness, consistency, structure, etc. Basically, I think we do what parents of troubled (think drugs, that sort of stuff, not homocidal maniacs) teens would do if they had the stamina and/or the money.

The girls are never, never unsupervised and we are pretty strict, although not mean. No one is abused here, although you forget their snack and they willl scream bloody murder.

I'm prohibited from writing about individual girls because I signed a confidentiality agreement, but maybe I'll write about the experience later.

Back to my day: I rise early, although it's perfectly quiet around here. Trailers on both sides of me and across from me are vacant, except when their owners pop in and out for an occasional visit. I can hear birds and traffic---we're near the freeway. I stumble out and get the paper, drink a cup of herbal tea and take my morning medications. Slowly I wake up.

I live a bachelor life. Sometimes I eat a frozen waffle, sometimes an Klondike bar, sometimes nothing. Once in awhile, I make bacon and eggs for breakfast. I seem to feel better those days. Wonder why, LOL.

Sometimes I eat nothing until dinner at the school, which is pretty much institution food and usually grosses me out. I've gotten onto these cherry chocolate candy bars that we called "Cherry-A-Let" when I was a kid. I need that belly fat drug now.

I run the dishwasher about once a week, go to the laundromat once a week, or wash at what everyone calls "Bill's house" now.

I can hardly believe things have happened like this so quickly. I suppose readers have said, "could've predicted that." I know friends and neighbors are alternately stunned or well, not stunned. Widows, divorcees, and single friends are coming out of the woodwork. People look at me a bit strangely at the grocery store, some saying, "how you doing? It's good to see you!" others hintingly asking questions, to which I, uncustomarily reticent, dodge the issue they want to hear about most. A really cool friend the other day said, "Arlene, how are you? Somebody said you and Bill are divorced---is that true?" I appreciated and respected her honesty and because I know her well, didn't attribute her questions to nosiness.

I'm moving back in with Bill in a few weeks, terrified, unsure of anything. I feel I have to give it a try and I must live with him to see if I CAN live with him.

One aspect of this life I think I'll keep it my hermit-ism. If that's a word. I think I'll be anonymous for awhile longer.

2008-05-09T08:36:00.000-07:00

Putting this blog on Pause!

2008-01-04T09:01:00.000-08:00

I’m now posting at http://www.mormonmentality.org/
Come visit me there :)

Mormon Mentality is having stress

2008-01-01T07:27:00.001-08:00

DKL misplaced the bill for our URL and is working on fixing the problems with our blog. I'm pretty sick of that pretty young girl staring at me when I try to log on to our site. I'm pretty sure he's frantically typing away renewing our contract and restoring the blog. I find I miss it more than I thought I would. Blogs are like old friends, even more because I only talk to my best friends sporadically.

I will be discontinuing this blog and posting solely at MM when it's fixed, but for now, here are some pictures from our Christmas. We had such a nice holiday. I'm exhausted, but I always am.

The first is Bill on his baby. He plows the whole neighborhood. The second picture is of the girls laughing when I made the comment that light was reflecting off Bill's head when I took pictures. This is the new dining room!

The third is our tree. I was so tired I just bought a bunch of plastic snowflakes at Wal-Mart and red balls and it turned out really pretty. The fourth is a big box Jessie and her fiance brought in--the fifth shows the excitement of the little girls! The box was so big they got inside as we were unwrapping and threw the tissue paper all over the place. The sixth is the mailbox her fiance made for us. Pretty cool, huh? Although, we got a lot of fishing presents for both of us and I started to think, "where am I in this picture?" It was a nice time all the way around.

Always Need God-- last guest post by Barb

2007-12-26T17:42:00.001-08:00

I have heard it said that some people only call upon God when life gets tough. What would that be like? My infirmities constantly remind me that I need God. And with God, I have done more than I ever imagioned. It was not congruent with my former painfully shy self to conceive of going on a mission. During the days prior to my mission, I felt that I was being prepared very much for a mission. I felt God's love so strongly that I felt there is no way that I could ever repay Him. And the Holy Spirit helped me press forward when my nonmember family was very opposed to going at the onset. I still marvel how a young woman who likes to avoid risk would embark on such a journey. And this decision felt more right than anything that I had ever done. But it was still going against my grain though I may not have focused on that as much as my desire to go. I was so shy and so afraid of a mistep that I whispered responses to the temple recommend questions. There was a lot more to my life that I will not go into now though I have in the past. I needed to draw upon God. And I look with such fondness to those days.

Soon there would be days of despair that I can recall now though it almost seems a vague recollection as I try to conjure up the emotional pain. That is when obessive compulsive disorder came into my being. And a weeks time was a painful time to wait for a meeting with a Mental Health Professional. I looked proufoundly sad at times and was. Ocd is still there in so many ways in my life though some of which plagued me know has shifted and I have improved in so many ways. I have tools to function. God helps me in ways that those of faith may understand. And I am so thankful for the love I have felt at times when I feel so unworthy. I don't know if I will ever be completely without ocd on this side of the veil. There are times when it hurts so much when I am not able to reason as well or fit it into a box where others have told me things are okay. And some things seem too vivid even after all this time and all the assurances. Yes, I am so aware of others trials that seem more than I would be able to bear. I am aware through my constant and probably morbid dwelling on death through ocd of the miracle of life.

This Fall, I had a great desire to go on a day trip to the town where I have relation and my grandma was raised. I felt prepared by God in a special way and the opportunity was there. I did things to minimize anxiety that a normal person would not do in limiting places that I went on the way to my destination three hours away. And I was blessed to do okay in the process. I also had my security person with me who is my mom and if there was a concern, she could tell me it was okay. She does not really like the role of caregiver to a grown daughter and would love me to be independent. This trip makes me think that if God really wants me to do something and I will be open to the task that I can do it.

With my anxiety, I do not feel the Holy Spirit as frequently as I once did. I do think I felt the Holy Spirit more during my darkest days of ocd. Therefore, it may be more than anxiety alone. The most spiritual times for me at one time was before I got out of bed. My Bishop said that sounded reasonable as that was before I actually started my stressful day. I do feel so blessed to generally go to sleep and sleep well as I resolve most of my fears before retiring. I remember the pain of a few occassions when that was not the case. I think I awoke a friend once after visiting his house with the anxieties that maybe something bad would happen from my visit. I wonder if not feeling the Holy Spirit as often is because I have not made it to Church for a long time. I had a lapse of going before where I still felt the Holy Spirit often. When I stopped feeling the Holy Spirit very often, that was one of the reaons that I decided to meet with my Bishop who had wanted to meet with me for over a year. That was several years ago and his kindness and counsel helped so much in my functioning. However, going to Church even to meet with him was too much for my ocd as there were often babies around or small children and I worry most about being a risk to them. I have so often felt on the brink of being well. And that is so much better than the alternative! But it is guilt-ridden as I do not take the doors that may open to me. I felt the Holy Spirit so much around the time that they had the special ceremony for Jospeh Smith in December a few years ago and so many were reading the Book of Mormon to finish by the end of the year. Maybe I was a failure in not making it to Church during that time frame. Or it feels that way. But things happen that push me back so I don't quite get there. Yet, I feel sustained. I have faith in God. I don't have a lot of faith in myself though. I know that I do pretty well most days. But there are moments when I know how very, very vulnerable I am and how close I feel to losing it all.

I worry that people may marginalize me due to my mental illness. I have been blessed to have witnesses by the Holy Spirit at times that are so separate from depression or obsession compulsive disorder or other mental issues. A Bishop shared with me what I think is a good explanation. He said that my spirit is whole and not afflicted in the same way as my temporal body and as such the Holy Spirit can speak to my Spirit. I feel a peace just writing this.

I don't take for granted anything that I can do. And while I know how dependent I am on God, I do think there was a window after being a convert and before ocd that I may have started to think that I was special and not in the debt that I was to God.

I also have come to feel that I have some gifts intellectually that I had not supposed when I was in high school or even in my early twenties though I did very well in school and had encouragement from teachers. I had so much self-doubt that failure was around the corner because of my limitiations. As I took classes that required some abstract thought more than the run of the mill courses and also as I have matured, I have realized that I may actually in a qualititive way have my moments of brilliance. Without my many weaknesses and my problems in taking care of myself and the many things that humble me and what I think are learning disabilities, I may be very arrogant. I still have too much pride in that frame where my abilities lie for someone who probably should consider myself much more stigmatized than brilliant.

I know this may not all tie together as I have expressed a lot. I just want to share how I have felt. I could have had an ocd free world at the computer as well as free from other baggage. That is how I was at my earliest days on a forum. It was nice as I thought I came across pretty normal and also well-spoken at times. It felt good to belong. When I am open, then I worry if I belong a lot of places. Then, I retract what I say also as I feel I may be out of place. I have learned that people are very open on blogs even when it is not relevant. I hope that I have improved.

If you were to see me in my normal day, you may have no idea all the crazy ocd ideas that are running through my head. You may also have no idea how close I feel to God as he helps me function and go forward in those moments. I will likely run my concerns by my parents when I see them all the same. Yet, I would not want to go a day without the strength of God to help me through. Were it not for God and also the kindness I have found from many people, I would feel shame. There have been times when I have felt shame, but I am usually blessed to have a better view of my worth. I often feel very good about myself in ways that may not come across online. I worry about being so public as I know everybody has trials and many far worse than me. And I know ocd is common and many are not so public like me. It is so apart of my identity. And yet, I feel that I am so much more than ocd. And I thank God for all the ways in which he directs me to have a life despite my OCD. And I feel blessed in so many ways ever aware that I am so dependent on God for all these blessings. I can't go it alone. And I am glad to know that.

Conversation with Bill about Bacon

2007-12-21T09:29:00.000-08:00

(all in a cordial tone)

Bill: "You know how you've been cutting the bacon in half?"

Me: (reclining on the couch trying to wake up) "Yeah."

Bill: "Don't do it anymore."

Me: "I like it cut in half. It fits the pan."

Bill: "I don't like it cut in half. I don't care how it fits."

Me: "I like it cut in half."

Bill: "I don't like it cut in half."

Me: "I like it."

Bill: "I don't like it."

Me: "I do."

Bill: "I don't.

Me: "I do."

Bill: "I don't. Don't do it anymore."

Me: silence

That was over the one time in the last 6 months I've made breakfast. He wins the argument because I rarely cook breakfast anyway. I make good dinners, though.

Me and Bill are so screwed

2007-12-19T09:22:00.000-08:00

That's what we say to each other a lot these days: "We are so screwed." Because we're both going senile, but in different ways (so they're all covered, you know) and we're losing our health.

Bill can't work the remotes for the TV and I have to do it all for him and he will mess it up and I'll have to fix it for him. I lose stuff all the time now and literally, within seconds, forget important things and friends. I have that face recognition problem(I read about it in People magazine and instantly diagnosed myself) where people with similar features look the same to me and that's disconcerting. I've been faking it a lot, I tell you, a lot.

The other day at Wal-Mart, I saw a woman I recognized and said "hello." And she greeted me in return. And it bugged me to death because I had no clue who she was or how I knew her. Finally, I went up to her and asked her and she laughed and said, "I was thinking the same thing."

It bugged both of us (she looked about 15 years older than I, but really really hot for an old broad) and we stood there for five minutes trying to figure it out.

Yesterday, while dusting, I found a $20 bill I'd stuck under a doily. I have no idea why I did that or where the money came from. Now THAT is senility because we are not rich and I so wouldn't lose track of $20 in my right mind.

Last night Bill and I were watching The Waitress (a really sweet show) together and I was thinking about all the pies and I said, "You know, maybe I should make the pies from scratch this year. Pecan would be nice. I haven't made a scratch pie in years."

And he looked at me and asked, "You used to make scratch pies?"

I sat up and stared at him in amazement because my crust is really a thing of wonder and he loved my pies! I just stared at him, didn't say a word. And he said, "well I know you make the crust, I meant the filling."

And I can't tell you how relieved I was. Because I don't know who's going to take care of us. Although I have a death wish, I would so worry about him if I die first because I wouldn't want anybody to be mean to him. I can see that happening.

I know if I out-live him and become old, nobody will still mess with me. Hell, I'll hide some pepper spray somewhere. Might forget where I put it, but I would so not tolerate mistreatment. I can see my poor sweet befuddled husband just being bullied all over the place.

These are the things one thinks about just before retirement.

"I deleted my guest post" Guest Post by Barb

2007-12-14T17:12:00.000-08:00

I deleted my last guest post. I really hate to reveal how human I can be sometimes.

I like to think I am above all that. At any rate, I am so thankful to have counted many as my friends online. And thank you, Annegb, for all the support again and again. I know you hate it when I delete guest posts. I don't know if you even saw the post yet. The guest post was titled "On being Hurt."

Without giving details to what ancient history hurts I spoke of, I want to review a few things that I have learned in all these months.

First, I cannot expect a person to be responsible for the level of hurt that they caused when an ordinary person would not have been so sensitive. I know we are always to forgive, but I make it a harder offense to forgive because I am so sensitive. In addition, if a person really fell short and hurt me on purpose, then they are human and have not mastered that part of themselves yet. I need to allow them that without overlooking all the many ways that they have done good.

I have not mastered all areas of myself. And we may never fully master even the areas that are our strengths in this life. Also, I have hurt others myself and do recognize this. I try not to be a petty person. My weakness is thinking that people may not like me because I am unbalanced. In truth, I am surprised how very normal so many people treat me. Thank you all!

Since I Got a Computer Guest Post by Barb

2007-12-12T21:10:00.000-08:00

Surfing the web seemed so inefficient to me when I used it to research a paper on campus. No, I don't need to be "online," if that is what is all about. You put in key words and got list upon list of things that could be far from what you were searching for. I had never had a modem at my home. Using a search engine at the library was entirely different as it could point you towards actual research.

I don't remember when I first discovered the joys that could be mine by surfing the web. I know that I had longed for a computer for quite a time. I think one of my main objectives would be to email relatives. But what made me so pumped up when I learned that I would receive a used computer was the thought of all that information at my finger tips. I don't know if I am a paradox or such, but I love to learn and yet I get information overload. Just the thought of all that knowledge was giving me so much excitement coupled with information overload sensations.

I would think of words to try tread articles that interested me. As a Speech Pathology major, I like to put in words regarding that field of study. I learned that one of their major journals required official membership. I wanted to beat the system. Cognitive psychology is related to all this and I would put in a lot of key words in that regard.

Then, I went to desertbook just to browse and found this thing called a message board. I was shy to post. A person asked a question that seemed like it needed a pretty fast answer so I dived in feet first. That forum closed and around that time, one of the regulars there gave information about an LDS Blog. I had never seen a blog and didn't know what it was. Also, there was an Exodus of a lot of us to Nauvoo. Before it closed, I had already joined another beloved forum Helamans-Army that recently reopened its forum doors much to my delight.

And instead of doing all this surfing, I was reading desertbook much of the time and later my other forums. Blog upon blog was added. I think the first individual blogger that I knew was Mary A of bystudyandalsobyfaith. I count her as one of my treasured friends. As I do not have a blogger account of my own or google, I haven't been able to post comments on blogspot as I would feel funny using annegb's so hi to all of you friends!

And the fellowship of all this blogging and forums means so much to me. You get to know people online past the surface so much quicker than you do those you see day to day. I remember when I used to have a mind whirling with thoughts that I wanted to share. I used to slip an idea in here or there. Now I can write essays or poems and share what I feel. It means so much to share sides of myself online. I look forward to it as I go about the course of my day at work where I do not have access to all this fun.

I can feel rather inefficient though as I often recheck places for new posts that can be slow moving. I don't read a lot of blogs by most people's standards. I have made some good friends though and those are the ones that I read the most including Lisa M, Mary A, Téa, and I cannot forget Sarebear!!! My life would be so much less without Sarebear!!! It is such a cool experience when somebody has posted on something that I have wrapped my mind around once upon a time. I need to try to hold back on sharing my every racing thought though on a given subject lest I come across strange. Ah, that doesn't stop me much, most of the time!

I do share my online time efforts with an online library that I signed up for some months ago. And I am reading so much about reading. I took Intro to Reading years ago and want to learn all that I can on the subject. And someday I want to get a program that costs 1,000 dollars that teaches reading. Who knows for sure what I will do with this knowledge, but I am rather drawn to it all. I am wired pretty good for phonics. I kind of laugh at the fact that I can now have my hearts content of the coveted field of Speech Pathology at my online library now, but have only scratched the surface there. I keep adding so many books to my book shelf from introduction to philosophy that I find interesting though I wish I had a guide to explain things that are beyond me. I found a book on physics that said that there was no math prerequistes and decided that was too good to be true.

A lot of my online friends are writers and I have been able to read a couple of excerpts from them. And I want to get the books of those that have been published or may soon be published!
Well, I wanted to post something, but didn't know just where to start. But I can talk a lot about being online. I don't know if this was navel gazing though. :)

Bushisms I hadn't heard before (or totally forgot)

2007-11-30T09:14:00.000-08:00

I love George Bush. I know a lot of people don't and I sure don't agree with him on lots of stuff, but I think he's human and cool, also kind of cute. He reminds me of Harry Truman.

But he says some really stupid things. (which I would, too, if I knew millions of people were listening).

I got this calendar yesterday (for next year) and want to share a few of the quotes in it. I honestly don't think he's this stupid, just challenged in public speaking.

"The best way to defeat the totalitarian of hatge is with an ideology of hope---an ideology of hate---excuse me---with an ideology of hope."

"Rarely is the question asked, 'Is our children learning?'"

"We thought long and hard about what to propose. We proposed a bold initiativ, an initiative that takes equities out of the system, so people are treated fairly."

"Then I went for a run with the other dog and just walked. And I started thinking about a lot of things. I was able to---I can't remember what it was. Oh, the inaugural speech, started thinking throught that." (US News & World Report, January 22, 2001)

"You work three jobs?. . .Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that!" (to a single mother of three)

"We had a good Cabinet meeting, talked about a lot of issues. Secretary of State and Defense brought us up to date about our desires to spread freedom and peace around the world."

"September the fourth, 2001, I stood in the ruins of the Twin Towers. It's a day I will never forget."

"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror." (Interview with Katie Couric)

His advisors probably drink their mylanta straight from the bottle.

-

Some wonderful poetry

2007-11-26T14:29:00.000-08:00

Who doesn't love Emily Dickinson? What I love is that she says these things in as few words as possible. She doesn't get as flowery as Neal A. Maxwell, but he also had a way with the pithy phrase that made one sit up and think.

I was looking for something to put on a little note to my visiting teaching ladies and I came across this:

"Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye:
Muche sense the starkest madness.
'Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,--you're straightwayd dangerous,
And handled with a chain."

My sentiments exactly. Although I tend to take it to an extreme.

I'm sure she wrote a poem for that, as well :)

I'm Thankful that Bill has gone back to work

2007-11-26T13:10:00.001-08:00

My husband is a force of nature. He bounces out of bed and never stops moving until he sits down to watch the news at night.

We had 16 people for Thanksgiving dinner and it was lovely. We had our grandkids and just had a nice time all the way around.

But by Saturday I was ready for everyone to go home (only Maxwell was left) and for Bill to stop moving. I cannot function with him in the house. He's in and out and noisy. He drives me crazy. He's obsessive about the dishes and before you say you wish your husband was like him, be careful what you wish for.

Finally yesterday morning (Sunday) he was cleaning up the kitchen AGAIN and I lost it. I made him stop and come in and sit down with me and be very quiet. And he did. We watched something about the Kennedy's together while I regained my composure.

I asked him to eat lunch uptown today (he usually comes home every day--THAT'S a treat). And finally I'm getting on top of my house.

I guess I'm crazy, too, because I can't work with people in my house.

If he gets any time off at Christmas, he's going fishing. That's all there is to it. I need silence.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2007-11-19T07:36:00.000-08:00

I have always hated Thanksgiving. It's the lonliest holiday (except maybe New Years) when you are single or struggling as a family. I enjoyed Thanksgiving with my first husband's family when we all got together and ate in the front room. I loved them so much.

Bill's family, not so much. They don't visit, they are sort of cold in their gatherings, although they love and enjoy each other.

But the last four years, we've had housefuls. Because Bill's daughter, Joy, from his first marriage started to come, she likes us now. And with our kids with spouses, significant others, and the grandkids, we've had a crew.

Now a lot of people is good at Thanksgiving. I don't mind the work and I enjoy the company.

And now we have the new dining room. Woo-hoo! We're having at least 20 people this year, 23 if my nephews come. We can fit 12 in the dining room, so we'll be all over the house again. The new dining room (the first second I get, I'm going to post pictures) has an old fashioned screen door that opens onto a little porch and the weather's been good, so we open that door and the kids run in and out and I love the sound of them screaming and laughing.

This is what we're having for dinner:

Vegetable Tray with hidden valley (I always put sweet pickles on it and they make me choke but I love them)
Lion House's ribbon jello salad
Cranberry-Pineapple Nut jello (I'm the only one that eats it LOL)
A big green salad, with shrimp on the side (My first husband's family always had shrimp in their salad)

Turkey, regular and cornbread stuffing
Ham

Candied Yams
The Green Bean Casserole!
Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

Rolls (I'm going with store bought crescent rolls this year, the kind you pound the package and it bursts and scares you, you know)

Pie

My friend Shanna is bringing pops and drinks and appetizers (she's rich and she brings stuff like baked brie, well this year she is now that I've discovered it) and good cheeses and crackers.

I'll make a big breakfast and then we'll piece until dinner.

And I should be cleaning as we speak because the house is a mess and I have bills to pay and laundry to do and shirts to iron. But here I sit blogging :)

Just start planning my funeral now

2007-11-17T07:16:00.000-08:00

Well, I've alluded to my suicide attempt last year and it was awful in a million ways and I almost died and you guys would have missed me so much, I know. And I'm sort of sorry, although sometimes I think of the term "failed suicide attempt" and "failed" is the operative word. I know this is crazy, but I feel like a failure at suicide because at the last minute, I apparently changed my mind and got up. I collapsed and woke Bill up (I was sleeping the other room because we'd had a terrible fight and it was all his fault, as you can imagine)when I fell and he came in and somehow got me to the hospital. By the time I got to the hospital I wasn't breathing and it was hairy for everybody, except me, because I was blissfully unconscious. And I think they gave me versed because I don't remember a thing after laying down in bed, wondering if God would be so mad at me He wouldn't let me see my children.
I can see how guys succeed more because they use means that prohibit the changing of the mind. Although I found out first hand what a drug overdose can do to one's system. Hell, I could hardly walk for a month and I surely deserved it. I'm not complaining. Although I've thought more than once after I've done something I regret "if I'd died in July, I wouldn't have done this bad thing" or "I wouldn't have hurt this person" or "Bill would be getting over it by now and he'd have less stress in his life from his crazy wife and the house would always be clean and he'd have more money because I'm insured plus I wouldn't be spending all his money."
Well. You can see how irrational the thought processes of the truly depressed can get. Bill and I have reached a new place of commitment and closeness in our relationship, not because of what happened, but because I had to get concrete help to stay out the state hospital (you better believe I would have blogged about that experience) and I'm in a better frame of mind and body.
Well. Until Bill finds out (which I'm going to try to make sure he doesn't) that I spent a veritable fortune yesterday. I didn't mean to. I was just sort of wandering after a solid week at home resting and taking care of things here. And I wandered into the depot mall, a craft consignment store that has the cutest stuff and bought some cute stuff for the holidays (we're having tons of company) and then I wandered into Wal-Mart, where I bought this buffet thing and a small wood pantry that Bill will have to put together. Me and two girls and a guy put them into the backseat of my car. They're not gaudy or expensive---I always go for cheap stuff, but they're the perfect size for what I needed for my kitchen.
Well. That isn't the bad part. As I was wandering, it was a free day, I wandered into this new cloths store in town called Bealls. And fell in love. Because they have cute clothes, better than Wal-Mart, a little more expensive, but quality clothes. And here's the good part---they have petite!
If I told you how much I weighed, I'd have to hunt you down and kill you because nobody knows that, only the doctors nurse. Not the doctor, we are so not having that discussion. But my waist is about 35 " and my inseam is 31" on a good day. It's really hard to find pants that fit. But I tried on two really cute pairs of levis and they fit. Perfectly! And I don't look fat in them, either. Plus they were marked down from $40 to $28.
And cute jackets and suit pants that fit.
Well, I got carried away and then someone didn't show up to work and they only had two people in the whole store and long lines of people and I just kept buying more stuff.
My psychiatrist keeps asking about my spending, which isn't all that bad, usually. I don't go buy thousands of dollars of stuff or anything like that. I'm not even a clothes horse type of girl. Oh, maybe I should change that. I didn't used to be a clothes horse type of girl.
But I'm pretty sure I'm a dead man when Bill finds out. IF he finds out. You guys, keep your mouth shut. Or start practicing "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" which all my friends will be singing at my funeral. Except my friend, Cathy, who will be playing the flute. It will be a nice and entertaining funeral.

Visiting Sedona

2007-11-14T09:19:00.000-08:00

Here's my goal to posting more regularly. First, I think they should change the name of Mormon Mentality to Annegb's stupid neurotic blog because it seems like I'm the only one posting or commenting. I don't know where everybody is. And it just takes the class level down a notch when I threaten and use bad words to people.

I suppose it's like a blog train wreck.

My friend, Lauri, lives in Prescott, Arizona. She moved there several years ago and loves it. She's the Relief Society president in her ward, which when I heard, the first thing I did was laugh out loud. Then I said, "Oh, that's not appropriate....let me see...oh, Lauri, I'm sorry....oh, that's not appropriate either. Congratulations, I'm sure you'll do a wonderful job."

Then I had to say, "Crap, Lauri, I am so sorry. I'll pray for you."

I honestly had that reaction, first how funny was that? Then, oh boy, girlfriend, your life is about to change dramatically.

There are a lot of psychics around there, she's close to Sedona. And I have frequent flier miles and I think I'm going to have to go see her.

Unless in a few hours I poop out and change my mind and go lie on the couch.

My writing career and personal laziness problem

2007-11-13T07:46:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm not a lazy as I once thought I was. I am ill, chronically, and I've learned to be kinder to myself and appreciate the moments when I must rest as much as the moments when I'm feeling better and bouncing off the walls with fun projects.

However, I often take on projects that seem exciting, only to burn out after a few weeks and quit. Or spend the next years complaining until I'm released. I'm a true idiot. I never think ahead to "this will involve some effort" I think "oh, that sounds fun." or "what a good idea, you're right, I would be perfect for that."

I'm not vain, it's usually something I can do, like oh, make great cinnamon rolls. I wouldn't say "I'm perfect" for most of the stuff I'm not talented at, which I'm not talented at much.

But I can write a damn good nasty letter and I write a column for the paper which, when some of my fellow bloggers have read, doesn't "sound like me at all." For the paper, I write with a more reasonable tone and I have a bit of dignity. I do not cuss or go off on people. You would be proud of me, also surprised.

I write a column once a month as part of a writers group. We don't get paid, although I think we should be, but there is a certain amount of glory that goes with it and I have to think most writers love the glory more than the compensation.

However, the last couple of months have just been overwhelming to me in terms of writing. I was researching a local judge to write an op-ed piece. He's widely perceived as soft on defendants and I wanted to get at the truth. In the course of my research, I stumbled onto facts and experiences that made it fodder for a bigger story, news. The paper asked me to continue investigating and told me as soon as they hire a new bureau chief for our town, they would put me with a reporter.

I was fine with this, excited. Maybe I could be an investigative journalist! Well. Investigative journalism sucks. You wouldn't believe how hard work it is. I've spent literally hours and days at the courthouse looking up cases. Questions beget answers that have begot more questions. And I've been obsessed at getting to the bottom of the issue.

I interviewed the judge, who was really gracious about this novice who was out to expose him. Perhaps he saw the stupidity behind my facade.

I stumbled onto another story, that I've posted about on MM, which has just depressed the heck out of me.

So now, I'm tired, I don't want to be an investigative journalist, it was fun for the first two weeks and now it's work.

And I just don't think I'm cut out to be a writer because it involves an immense amount of work. I have so much respect for anybody who writes a book because how boring is that? It's work, I tell you, work.

I'm finding a new hobby.

Bookslinger, here you go :)

2007-11-05T17:11:00.000-08:00

"You suck." That's how tired I am that I actually wrote that to people on Mormon Mentality and I'm not sorry. Although I may abjectly apologize tomorrow, but I doubt it. I think they do suck.

This was my day today.....it started Saturday.

Maxwell got baptized and we are all like one great big Anne Tyler novel. Because he got baptized the same day as this kid in our ward and that was all nice, although they were almost late for the whole thing due to the fact that this family with 5 kids (and tons of company for said baptism) had only one bathroom.

And not only that....my daughter-in-law's foster father was mad because he wasn't asked to baptize Maxwell, even though he's 60 years old, only has the Aaronic priesthood and never goes to church. So he sat out in the car during the baptism.

Then Rhiannon (age 3) decided to re-distribute the programs and song sheets I'd carefully laid out and that was a trip trying to sort them out at the last minute as people came in the door.

Then Sarah came! Hi, sweetie! even though she was sick....then I look up and in comes Jessie and Jack, her boyfriend....hi again, surprise, she said Jack wasn't coming. So we went out in the hallway so I could ask if things were okay because they were fighting (she looked just beautiful by the way, all you people except Brian who is married, you suck, too, because you didn't realize what a jewel she was when I was trying to fix you up).

And at that very moment, in walks Becky, Jared's old girlfriend, who loves the kids and is for some masochistic reason, hanging out at Jared and Jamie's a lot and is bringing half the dinner for after. Jessie froze (okay, she's in a fight with Becky and Briony, I'm not sure why, it has something to do with crystal meth and Jessie trying to get clean and Jack hates them, like I said, Anne Tyler) and I smiled and said hi, but right behind her comes Briony, and I have never in my life seen Jessie snub anybody, she is the sweetest charmingest thing in our family. Sarah is the snubber--and she hates Jack and she's back in the room sitting by Jack, not looking happy.

But Jessie snubbed Briony, her former friend, without a doubt. And I was trying to explain that I didn't invite her, and Becky invited herself and Jamie's foster mom is looking grim. But you know what, I had a good time and so did the kids who got baptized and the spirit was there and one of my best friends played the piano and she cried throughout and it was wonderful.

Then we had the drama after the baptism because Jessie and Jack wouldn't come over because Becky was there, and Jamie's dad stayed outside with the kids and Sarah said it felt so tense she was going home. But the kids and Bill and me and Jamie had a good old time, and our neighbors came over and tons of food and Becky is a sweetheart, even if she should just tell Jared to stick it.

So I slept all day yesterday and got up early today to wash in my new laundry room and I got started on the bills so Bill and I could talk about them for family home evening and I ran uptown to get some folding chairs Ace Hardware had on sale.

And Sarah called and she was crying so hard she couldn't talk, which we all just sit and listen and pretend we understand her and turn the volume on the phone down and she was really sick and the lawyer had lost the divorce papers from October 6 and Nick was mad about it. Who could blame him.

Dumb lawyer. So I called Nick and told him I'd take care of it. Then I pinned Sarah down on the details "Mom, I'm sick, I don't want to talk about this!"

Me: "grow up. this isn't going to go away."

So I gave her a hug and told her I loved her and told her to rest and I went up to that lawyer's office and I sat there while the secretary re-filled out the papers and got them right and then I went over to the courthouse where I've been doing investigative journalist stuff and they all know me and I went into the courtroom and made that lawyer sign the papers and then I went to the post office and I mailed them express mail.

And I came home and we're having good chicken corn chowder and truly, Anne Tyler writes about my family every time she writes a book.

I can't believe I had to do all that and I'm going to make that lawyer pay me for the postage. Which I'll be at the courthouse all day tomorrow and you better believe I'm going to discuss it with him.

And me and Bill are selling out and moving away from our kids.

I have become a mooch. . .

2007-10-05T08:07:00.000-07:00

My friends are starting to avoid me at the store. Store workers are starting to get to know me on a first name basis. People won't answer the phone when I call.

Because I am turning into the biggest mooch and even more Kramer-like. If I see a friend in a store, the first thing out of my mouth isn't "Hi, how are ya?" it's "do you have your cell with you? Can I use it?" I know exactly where to go to use the phone in Home Depot, Wal-Mart, the grocery stores, and the library. In the grocery store, they hand me the phone and then they dial the number. I make the call. Then I have to have them dial a couple of other numbers. So far, so good, they've been terrific, although I get some double takes. "You don't have a cell phone???"

I've taken to calling my sister at work or my neighbor down the street and having them log in and check my mail in case there's something urgent. I trust them implicitly. But my sister is no longer speaking to me LOL.

My other neighbor's kids are getting used to coming over to see her and finding me in the office.

I hate mooches. I never accept charity. I need help. I think I'll see how long I can keep this going.

Going Luddite

2007-09-28T11:11:00.000-07:00

I gave up my cell phone in June and let me tell you, my life is better for it. I haven't missed it, even one time, although I still may wish I had it if I'm abducted by a serial killer or escaped convict and need to call 911 from my car.

I use store phones if I need to check something, it's not a big deal. The best part is my phone never rings unexpectedly, or vibrates in my pocket, making me swerve the car into another lane. Nobody can find me. I love it.

I'm sorry to say, guys, I haven't missed the internet, either. My office is lost and cold and looking more like a basement storeroom, no life in it. The couch and the remote are happy and not so lonely, however. I have more time. It's more peaceful without it.

sorry, guys.

You should try it, really.

Haitus

2007-09-10T09:15:00.000-07:00

I'll be disconnecting my DSL this week in order to save some money. I've sucked at blogging all summer due to illness and so much else going on, ie, the remodel. Now the remodel is almost done and I'm having to paint because of long story, somebody bailed. And I'm still sick.

I will check in at the library occasionally, and perhaps I'll go into some kind of crazy withdrawal and have to reconnect and sell my body on the street to pay for it, but as of now, I'll be taking a break.

Just as soon as I copy this blog, so I can hard copy it to my journal for history's sake.

Take care, guys.

Now THAT's a visiting teacher!

2007-08-09T12:06:00.000-07:00

I love my visiting teachers, Jackie and Deanna. They're about 10 years older than me, and have been around the block. They're wise and funny and smart. My friend, Jackie, once told me when I was (yet again) planning my funeral "Oh, Arlene, we're not going to give you a funeral. We're just going to put you in a glad bag and haul you out to the cemetery."

A lot of people wouldn't find that funny, but I laugh every time I think about it. I'm such a pain in the ass, with my hypochondria and my melancholia.

And they come!!!

Yesterday, we were visiting and I mentioned, as I folded clothes, that I couldn't get Bill's garments to come clean, they are gray, for some reason.

They told me it was the Downy I'd been putting in them. Jackie jumped up and said, "Oh, I know how to fix that! Get your dishwasher soap."

And she went into the bathroom, and dumped the basket of garments in the tub, and poured dishwasher soap on them as she ran the hot water.

Then she picked up my plunger and mixed them around. Kneeling over the tub with my plunger as Deanna and I looked on.

Dang, you guys, you wouldn't believe the gunk that came out of those just-washed garments! I ran them through a cycle in my washer and they look darn good!

Now that's the spirit of visiting teaching. Deanna is just newly reactivated (I was her visiting teacher for quite awhile) and she plays the piano in Relief Society now and she is being a strength to me as I struggle. She lost a son to cancer and we cry together. Jackie is there for me at all times. I know I can count on them.

That's how to be a visiting teacher, you guys.

Sarah shoulda been a blond

2007-08-05T17:38:00.000-07:00

Sarah is a beautiful, willowy, green eyed brunette. She was the same age as the twins next door, who are black, and she thought she was black for the longest time. I never told her different, I don't know how she figured it out. Actually, she figured, quite accurately, that they were all "bwown."

But, you know, no offense to any blonds, she is the blondest brunette I know.

Today, she called me, very upset, from her new apartment, saying "Mom, tell dad he needs to come right away. I can't get the water off in the tub."

I said, "go get your landlord." Who is next door. She did, and called right back with the news that they weren't home.

"And it's the hot water, too, Mom!"

I said, "go over to the people across the street, they're nice, there has to be a water shutoff valve somewhere. Is it going down the drain?"

She said, "I'll go see. Yes. Oh. I was turning it the wrong way. It's off now."

I was very quiet because she gets mad at me when I laugh at stuff. Then she laughed. So of course I had to. I said, "If your dad had come all the way into town just to shut off your faucet, he'd've killed you."

And she told me she'd done that before. We all think she should have been born blond.

Me and Bill are going to retire in five years and we're moving away from our kids. Our grandkids will have to come see us once a year or something because I'm worn out. I don't want to be a mom anymore. Do any of you young girls realize you are going to have to mother those children until you die???Even if you're 85???

I'm back

2007-07-23T10:28:00.000-07:00

I thought I would probably die from this latest round of mononucleosis. It hit so hard, I couldn't sit up for long, let alone stand.

However, I am practically cured. This is the third time in the last twelve years I've had acute mono, dealing with chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia in the times between, plus the affects of aging and my deep and chronic depression.

This time, however, I knew the drill. I got into my NAET practitioner and began treatment for viruses and mono and epstein-barr. I know there's no cure, but there sure is hope and relief and the day after my first treatment, I was on my way to remission. My medical doctor told me just to live with it and take it easy.

The NAET guy put me on his machine, then he did the acupressure with exposure to the virus, sent me home with a portable stimulater (NOT a vibrator), and I kept up with it and damn if I don't feel a whole new person.

I have no illusions about a complete cure. But I know I will never be debilitated for years as I was before I started alternative medicine. That was about two years ago.

I have another witch doctor who puts glasses on me and they flash lights and once he hit my trigger points with a laser while ringing some sort of chime. And I felt better! I'm not one to pretend to feel better if I don't. This stuff works somehow.

I believe, too, there's a science behind it because this time, on Monday, I had a blood test for mono and epstein barr counts at the hospital that took four days to come back. Friday morning, I got into my NAET guy. His machine took seconds to show a high virus count, and his treatment took about 20 minutes. An hour after I got home, I got the call from my doctor saying that the blood test showed acute mono and high EB counts. Nothing they could do, they said, just rest. I said, "thanks." And thought I'd have saved a lot of time being ill, and money, if I'd just gone to the source in the first place.

No lie, you guys. This stuff works.

Eh???

2007-07-11T17:34:00.000-07:00

Bill and I are both hard of hearing. My hearing loss is recent, but it's sure been interesting. I borrowed his hearing aid for my right ear and it was amazing how much better I could hear. Do you have any idea how much hearing aids cost??? $4000. Yup. Tons. My implants are costing a little over $5000, so hearing aids are out for me for awhile. I want Bill to let me wear one and he can wear one, but he's emotionally attached to them now. I told him the doctor said my ears are very very clean, but he's keeping them hidden from me now.

Last night, after we got little Rowan to sleep and we were both exhausted and lying in bed, he said, "what's that?"

I said, "what?"

And he said, "I said, goodnight, hon."

And I laid there a minute, then I just cracked up. And we both had a laugh.

Today, after dealing with Rowan(she is such a pistol, talks and moves non-stop), the dogs, the bills, and the house, I headed uptown at noon to do some errands and take her to a craft class at the craft store. I live 5 miles out of town. I took Bill his lunch, but as I got out of the car, realized I didn't have my purse.

"Bad word."

I went into the dealership with Rowan carrying Grandpa's lunch and said, "Hi hon, I am having the worst day. I forgot my purse and I have to go back home and get it."

He said, "Before you go, I need a couple of checks for Home Depot."

I said, "I forgot my purse and I have to go back home and get it."

He said, "where's your drivers license?"

Me: Head exploded.

What a day. I also owe Rowan a million dollars when I get it because we made a bet that Max didn't have a middle name and Max didn't think he did, and guess what, he does. So I'm in hock to my granddaughter till eternity.

And me and Bill are wandering through our days failing to communicate.

"Put a Sock in it!" Grrrrrrrrr

2007-07-02T06:42:00.000-07:00

My sister says "the strangest things happen to you, Arlene." And she's right. I don't get up in the morning and think "what strange thing can I make happen today" but it seems to be a gift.

Yesterday, Bill and I went to church with Madison. She, on her own, has started going to church. We're so proud of her and disgusted with her parents. She wanted to bear her testimony, so we went with her. It was fun because it was our "home ward" both of us had lived in for awhile and we had lots of friends there. One of James' childhood friends is in the bishopric and that is always fun.

But, the strangest thing happened. We were sitting next to a woman who talked loudly to her husband throughout the whole meeting. He kept saying, "shhh...." Anyway, she bounced up to bear her testimony right at the first of the meeting and went on for 20 minutes about her daughter's move to Texas and the problem with the black movers who kept stealing things.
She actually said, "They stole her makeup. I mean, com'on. Does a black guy need makeup?"

Now. I got my problems. I'm a bigot in areas. But that just enraged me. I've known this woman for 30 years and like her. She's always been a little bit manic, but she was nutso yesterday. I leaned over to Bill and said "oh, honey, stop me if I get up and start to rip her face off."

It bothered the two black families who were sitting in back of me also. They got up and walked out during her testimony. Dang, that bothers.

She finally sat down, and others got up, but she talked even more loudly to her husband, excitedly, and leaned over to my husband and said, "Bill, why didn't you stop me, I can't believe I talked so long, why didn't you cut me off (making that hand gesture on her throat)?"

At that point, I leaned over and whispered loudly, "Helen."

She said, "What?"

I said, "Put a sock in it, I'm trying to listen to the speakers." And I made the cutting gesture. And sat back.

She jumped up and ran out. And the rest of the meeting was quiet.

At the close of the meeting, I was hugging my granddaughter and telling her how much I loved her and how proud I was and I would be back to pick her up after YW (I was going to my ward RS) when somebody grabbed my shoulder and I looked up into Helen's tear streaked face.

She started going on about how I'd ruined the meeting for her, all kinds of stuff that I didn't remember. I snapped, "GROW UP!" and turned away from her as Madison walked off, to say hi to some old friends. She gasped and was quiet for a minute.

But she wouldn't let it--or me go. She went on and on in my face. Luckily for her, I didn't lose my temper. Or she'd have two black eyes and I'd be in jail. I said, "Helen, I like you. But it was incredibly rude of you to talk out loud and I wanted to hear what that guy was saying."

She was off again. You guys, it's entirely possible she was on steroids, she was acting nuts. Finally, I said, "Helen, this isn't the time or the place to have this conversation. I'm leaving."

Now, she was babbling to Bill, also, and her husband was just traumatized, he didn't hear what I'd said to her (we're all hard of hearing LOL). He didn't know what she was bawling about. He kept asking me. And I was just leaving. He finally got that I'd hurt her feelings and when I said, "I have to leave" he said angrily, "yes, you do."

I left the room, leaving (My husband can be the sweetest guy) Bill there with her and her husband. I looked back and Bill had his arms around her patting her back as she cried.

I frankly didn't give a crap. But I was thinking, "drama follows me like a bad cold."

I'm going to send her a card with flowers apologizing for my blantant unkindness. I'm not saying I'm sorry. But I know this woman. She is not a racist, nor is she mean. (I am mean). She is a moron, obviously, but a ditzy, hyperative woman. She is kind at heart, I know.

She must be going through menopause and she is in remission for breast cancer and obviously having some mental problems. For me to have ripped her a new butthole, or to have taken her out in the back and beat the crap out of her, either with my fists or words, would have been to easy and have been my bad.

In fact, I think my unkindness was the more egregious error.

Although, I called her bishop this morning and he said he spent the rest of the day trying to reconcile the two black families and hours in the evening trying to get Helen, who did not realize what she'd said and was mortified, to calm down. He said he thought somebody needed to tell her off. Not in those words, but somebody needed to tell her, anyway.

Last night I kept thinking of all your guys crazy church stories and thought, "well, I sure have a good one now."

Elevator Conversation

2007-06-29T10:07:00.000-07:00

This conversation took place in the maybe 60 seconds it took us to get from 1st to 3rd floor of the medical building. You can say a lot in 60 seconds.

So I followed the cute little family with a hyper 5 year old (I'm guessing on the age) and a darling little girl, maybe two, cute little butt in denim shorts, pigtails. She started to grab my hand thinking I was her mom. I was charmed.

A Tom Cruise look-alike pharmacutical salesman jumped on at the last minute and we all looked at each other for a few seconds, then no one could think of anything to say. He looked down.

I spoke quietly: "you guys, just think if this elevator got stuck and we were on here for hours and we told each other all our secrets and got in huge dramatic fights and stuff."

Dead silence.

Then the salesman laughed and said, "that's the strangest thing I've ever heard on an elevator."

Me, thinking ("don't you ever watch TV?")

The young mother said, "I'm claustrophobic, I'd go nuts."

I said, "you guys, just think, she'd go nuts and the elevator would open on the third floor and we'd all be dead because she killed us in her phobic rage."

They all laughed, realizing I was harmless crazy. The young family got off on the second floor, and I traveled on with my new best friend.

I said, "has anybody ever told you you look like Tom Cruise?"

And he said, "All the time."

And I said, "Actually, you look better than Tom Cruise, because you're better dressed and not getting fat and your hairstyle is better."

He held the elevator door for me and laughed and said, "thanks, have a nice day."

And that's the story of my life, how you can get to know people really well, relatively speaking, in 60 seconds. Happens all the time. True story, every word.

Steroids, my new drug of choice

2007-06-21T04:29:00.000-07:00

I've lost three teeth in the back of my mouth and OH!

LET ME TELL YOU, THIS IS IMPORTANT, IF YOU LOSE A TOOTH, OR THREE IN THE BACK, DON'T GO FOR CHEAPER, DON'T GET DENTURES. YOU CAN'T EAT ON THEM. DENTURES SHOULD BE OUTLAWED. REALLY. AVOID DENTURES!

Anyway, so now I'm getting implants (very expensive and my insurance doesn't cover. my poor husband) and last week they moved my sinuses and put in bone grafts and I got sick, of course. Well, the first two days I felt great. Did too much.

Then I got sick, long story and the swelling won't go down and my lymph glands are all swollen and I look bruised well i don't look bruised, I AM bruised. On one side, so I look like a bearded lady and people give me weird looks at IHOP, like "that poor girl, why doesn't she leave him?"

Anyway, Dental Surgeon is now in Mexico, Ear Nose and Throat guy out of town, and I started on my second round of antiobiotics and the swelling got worse. So I go to the ER and got a stupid dr. who put me on very dangerous antibiotics--to take with others no less (Not to worry, the pharmacist gave me a heads up and I didn't take them), but he gave me Decadron.

I took two. Which is why I'm awake and mouthy.

But you guys, these make you feel good. All happy and energetic and full of optimism. I'd take those if I played baseball. Or was a movie star or and pretty rich girl who sticks her boobs out artfully and is now wasting away in jail. I would.

I had no idea steroids made you feel good. I thought they messed up your metabolism and made you have muscles or something.

My most embarrassing moment

2007-06-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

My daughter, Sarah, has an unusual voice in writing. I love to read what she writes because I know her so well and I can just hear her speaking. She has a radiant and sweet personality and is slightly goofy. Unlike me, I am totally a goofball.

She and Nick have moved to Orem to go to school and I find myself missing her more than I've missed her since she was oh, maybe 12.

I remembered a paper she wrote when she was about 15. A part of it went like "Would you like to know my most embarrassing moment, that didn't even happen to me? I'll tell you! It was in fifth grade. We were all in class and it was very quiet and my best friend, Lisa, farted very loud and everybody laughed. Lisa farting in class was my most embarrassing moment."

She wrote a couple of e-mails to her teacher, one saying: "Mr. E., Instead of passing back our papers from left to right, I would appreciate it if you would now pass them from right to left because I don't want BJ to see what my grades are. Thank you for coperation" (that's how she spelled it.)

The other said: "I have checked my grades on-line and you still haven't given me credit for that assignment I handed in. Please fix this or I will be forced to make a complaint. Thank you."

She was in eighth grade.

My most embarrassing moments are too painful to discuss. I have plenty of funny moments that others might consider humiliating, but the real embarrassments, I don't talk about.

My new addiction

2007-05-31T09:36:00.000-07:00

I have discovered Tetris. Bill and I always bicker when we travel because his driving bothers me (if I drive, we bicker, also, because my driving bothers him). So I went to Wal-Mart and got a recommendation from a kid to try Tetris.

It works like a charm. I sit with my nose glued to the game and never notice when he drives off the road. He won't play it when I drive though. Probably too hard for him.

But, you guys, I think I'm getting pretty good at it. Like I can get up to six without even trying. I've never made it past nine, but at first I never got past zero.

My grandson says he's been to 30, but I think he's fibbing. Imagine fibbing to your own grandma so she won't know she's better than you.

I take it everywhere and I'm like a snotty teenager, ignoring everyone and playing my game. It's wonderful to watch TV with because I can't just sit and watch TV.

Well, I like technology.

You cannot get a man to say another man is cute. Mostly.

2007-05-29T16:30:00.000-07:00

I had the coolest talk with Daniel Bartholomew today, it's fun to "meet" people you've met on the blog. Let me see, I've met Heather Pitts and Sarebear in real life, and talked to two Lisas on the phone. FMH Lisa and Lisa's Rambling Lisa. Awesome.

But this is funny. to me. Daniel and I discussed a mutual acquaintance on the blog, a guy, and I asked, "what did he look like?" He said, "tall."

I said, "is he cute?"

He wouldn't answer. I laughed and said "woman totally notice if another woman is beautiful. If a woman goes up and bears fervent testimony, we will notice her clothes and hair."

Bill won't tell me if another man is cute, either. He literally can't describe another man except in terms of height. Sometimes weight--skinny or chubby, that's it.

I will say, "give me a break, he was standing right in front of you. You can't tell if he's homely or good-looking?"

"My mind doesn't work that way."

That's what Daniel said, too. Yeah, right. Go, girls.