dream in color

When you find a true friend....

2009-02-15T18:17:00.000-08:00

“I spent years running away from myself, then years trying to find myself. Then I met you and there I was.”
Steve Fulk

Wishing and Hopeing and Dreaming

2009-01-26T23:30:00.000-08:00

Deep Raspberry Red
Deep Purple
Med Turquoise
Lime Green

Deep Coral
Deep Blue Green
Milk Chocolate Brown
Black Accents

Above are colors that was on the US map on the weather tonight. Beautiful colors together. Next are colors Mandy used to draw an unknown object with her markers. This quilt thing is taking me over like clay did. I think about it, I dream about it, I see quilt ideas in everything I do or see. I think about Dian’s table in her den that she has covered with canvas and can spread out her fabric and cut it out. I imagine having a studio/place/den/room where I can work on my crafts. I have sliding doors like here in my apartment that are covered in cork to put all my ideas up on…one door to put up quilt blocks in progress. I dream about shelves and cabinets to put my fabric up in and my craft supplies. I search the net for equipment….a new sewing machine but they give no prices….a little hobby kiln…front loading… to go with my little top loading kiln I already have, work tables... I dream of quilts, collages, mosaics, baskets to weave, sculptures to make, paintings to paint, craft supplies, art supplies, photography to manipulate, all my old idea notebooks, technique notebooks, fabric to dye, yo yos to make, art dols to sculpt, polymer clay things to make along with detailed methods I want to try, wire wrapping, tatting and lucette cording to make, textures to explore, venetian plaster to play with, molds to make, gold leafing to play with, thermography ideas, jewelry and earrings to make, beads to buy or make, silk to paint/dye and of course, still…pots to make, color wheels to contemplate. I sit and draw quilts, plan out quilts and calculate sizes and amounts of fabrics I will need of each color. I think about quilts and crafts I’d like to make for particular people. Every time I go to the store, I see books I want to buy. I have a wish list on Amazon and folders and folders of pictures of ideas and words I want to express in art. All this just to name a few things.

More dreams in the night

2009-01-25T20:23:00.000-08:00

What happens from one night to a morning that when you wake up you’re just in a really lousy mood? How does a depression just take hold of a person in the night time? All in one night. Is it depression or realization? You wake to realize that you’d been living in a fantasy world…a fantasy world that made it possible to put one foot in front of the other…keep on keeping on. Not one human being caring what goes on inside your head...not a hope or a dream or a feeling....not a smile... You feel total isolation. Saying to yourself that what you have or have had in your life wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Not that it is great…just not as bad as others have had. You hope for and want a pretty life with love and touch and cherishing. You wake to realize that you never had it and realize that there is no possible hope that you ever will. You buy into the universal idea that you have someone meant for you….that someday you will have the home and family and love of your dreams. A smile….a good morning dear…how was your night…a good evening…how was your day…come, sit with me and share a special moment. At different times in your life you ‘think’ a feeling is love only to realize it was either one sided or not love enough to sustain time…never enough…other things are more important…work…other women…drugs…power…you’re just not pretty enough or smart enough….or talented enough…or clean enough…or sexy enough… How do you face the rest of your life knowing you will never be touched again? Never be held? Never be cherished? Never know the look of love in someone’s eyes? How do you fill the days and nights alone? How do you convince yourself that none of this matters….that you can have a happy life without these things? You don’t. You pretend. And you hope that you can have days and months between the dreams in the night that wake you in the morning realizing that you have nothing. I've been asked recently, 'when was the last time you cried?'....how do you answer that you don't ever remember not crying?

Where do dreams come from?

2009-01-25T07:45:00.000-08:00

Night before last, as Mandy, Megan and I were settling down in bed to sleep, Megan started telling me about a dream she had. It was so very detailed and one thing in the dream led to another. She described everything that was happening to someone she was watching and then she began being the person she was watching. I recognized my dreaming patterns. Mandy has nightmares already and has had for at least 4 of her 6 young years. Both of these shows me more that brain patterns or whatever it is happens through DNA moreso that circumstance. My daughter Rodina and their mother has the same dream pattern as well as my brother, Oren. The girls are in for quite a dreamlife!

Below is a dream I had. A very vivid dream....the kind where it feels like a very real memory. Where do these come from? Some say a previous lifetime. Some say a psychic connection to someone else. I don't have a clue...all I know is that I have them.

My dream…was SO real!:

I got deployed to Iraq…had to ‘drop and cover’….skim the ground of the grass…lay it back….lay in the dirt and cover myself with the grass….2 ½ hours….don’t move….this earns your red socks. I was deployed with the newspaper but ended up in combat. I was trusted with a set of keys to the storage and given a plastic crate….looked like a doggie carrier.

Then I watched the enemy discover a drop and cover where they slit the soldier’s throat and marked his arm with the knife with an ‘x’. The enemy missed the two others who were laying next to him under the grass.

I wasn’t allowed my watch and couldn’t smoke while deployed. I was going to have to go for 90 days starting next Monday without smoking. My friend Paul was with me and asked me if he could have a toy to bring home while I was gone….she was a young 18 year old. I told him no but he took her and danced with her anyway.

Then I had a cell phone and Rodina had sent someone she knew to pick me up and go buy the provisions I would be needing….I got some shorts and bug spray.

I got an award for marksmanship with a bow and arrow.

The Old Cowboy

2009-01-19T06:41:00.001-08:00

A tough old cowboy counseled his grandson that if he wanted to live a long life, the secret was to sprinkle a pinch of gun powder on his oatmeal every morning.

The grandson did this religiously to the age of 103 when he died. He left behind 14 children, 30 grandchildren, 45 great grand children, 25 great great grandchildren and a 15 foot hole where the crematorium used to be.

Here's to new experiences

2009-01-16T21:54:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, I had a new experience! I had to go to the fabric store to get a piece of fabric to finish my quilt and get a few other sundry items I needed/wanted. I had to go to the restroom while there. I always go to the handicapped stalls because I hate having to straddle a damned toilet to shut the door. Well…..they have this long panel heater along the wall below the toilet paper. When I went to wipe, the toilet paper was toasty warm!! How about that! My butt had a luxurious experience!

I am one!

2009-01-16T21:48:00.000-08:00

When I was younger and in junior highschool, I had an art teacher who said either a person is born an artist or not. Because I could not reproduce paintings such as Rembrant etc, she told me that I was not an artist and never would be. This devastated me as all I ever wanted in life was to be a mother and an artist from my earliest memories. I still get angry when I think about that teacher and how she ripped my dreams and self esteem from me at an early age. It wasn't until I was in my 40s did I realize that I WAS an artist!

I recently read a posting on a blog that summed up my view of myself as an artist: My favourite artist is Rosalie Gascoigne, an Australian artist who works with found objects. When asked ‘How did you come to be an artist?’ She replied ‘I didn't ever become one, I was one. I was that sort of animal.’ I love that quote. I have always been very reticent about calling myself an artist. Even though I always felt like one, I had to be selling work to be bold enough to call myself one. I’m just starting to be able to call myself an artist now."

Sarah Plain and Tall...

2009-01-16T21:46:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm Ruth and not Sarah. I am plain but I for sure am not tall! I saw this quote and laughed:

No matter how much I try to be plain, people don’t accept me, so I might as well be fabulous.”
- Austin Scarlett

Quilting

2009-01-16T21:31:00.000-08:00

I've started quilting. Since I've sewn since I was 2 years old, it's been wonderful getting back to it after putting it aside for the past 20 years. I've finished my first quilt top and it looks like a blind person on drugs pieced it. I have not put a backing on it and quilted it or have it quilted. I did finish my second quilt and I'm more proud of it than almost everything I have done creatively in my life.

I have so many quilts in my head. I've watched others quilt. I've watched television shows on quilting. I've read books on quilting. Nothing prepared me for quilting. There are so many little steps from idea to the finished quilt if one wants a decent quilt as the finished product. I guess that is one of the reasons I'm loving quilting. If something is mastered quickly and easily by myself, I lose interest rapidly. Working in clay captured my interest as one can never stop learning and honing their skills working in clay. This is the same with quilting.

I did work this past couple of weeks on my quilting. I was working on quilt #1. Then, I didn’t know what fabric I was going to use for the sashings and borders plus the back. So, I thought, if I work on quilt #2 and I have some fabric left over, I could use it for quilt #1. Next, I had these neat scraps left over from quilt #2 and decided to make some potholders from the scraps. Well, when I got 4 potholder tops done (before I made them into potholders), they were SO NEAT that I decided to make a few more and make it into a quilt instead of potholders, thus quilt #3. Ok, I’m rocking along and find I need a piece of fabric 3”x6” to finish this quilt #3. Therefore I go to the fabric store to get the little piece of fabric and they have exactly what I need for quilt #1 and it’s on sale. But wait! They have a huge selection of fabric on sale! Not only at 50% off but an additional 20% off my total purchase. Ok, I came home with fabric to finish Quilts 1, 2, and 3 AND fabric for 4 more quilts!! (This does not include the fabric I purchased from an estate sale that gave me some absolutely beautiful fabric for approximately 30 or more quilts.) Thus goes the way I create. I'm still in the process of putting all three quilt tops together. I have to admit that I've been back to the fabric store 2 more times bringing home again, stacks and stacks of fabric. When I'm not working in the mornings or taking care of my granddaughters/housework in the afternoons, I'm planning out my next quilts in my head and drawing them on paper. I'm going to have some really beautiful quilts to pass down or give as gifts to my family. Since I already will have to be 92 to finish projects I've started.....I believe I will have to add some more years to finish these quilts.

Truely, among my friends, we have a saying: 'She who dies with the most craft crap wins!'

Inner workings of a creative mind

2009-01-16T21:28:00.000-08:00

There is a crazy quilt contest that I’m thinking about entering. I’m thinking of my family here…all the mental illness that is in my family...and have one in my head named ‘Split Personality’ with one color family on the left….probably blues in crazy quilt style….a jagged or winding black sashing down the middle and then some bright colors in crazy quilt style on the right. I’m still working on the idea.

I’m also working on some door hangers to put on the door such as the ‘do not disturb’ idea….but only saying: “The Queen is in repose. Unless you wish to awaken the ire and fury of your beautiful queen, you will quietly go about your business in awe.” Well, something like that. I’m not too sure on the wording I want from the comma on to the end. I’m tired of getting woken up.

Chronic Pain

2009-01-16T20:53:00.000-08:00

Chronic pain sure is a loose blanket for a lot of conditions. Chronic pain usually can't be seen but until a person experiences it, he/she can believe it is a bunch of bunk or at the very least, that the person who has it is faking it. When I was younger, I had a back injury. Always before, I thought others were faking it when they had a 'back injury'.

My doctor put me to bed right off when I hurt my back. Only years later did I realize that this was the worst think he could have done for me. I got 'stove up' and couldn't move....couldn't breathe normally half of the time...I would hold my breath inbetween stabs of pain. It didn't go away right away as had other illnesses I'd had in my life. It permeated my whole body....my dreams while asleep...it would wake me up in the middle of the night. I got so guarded in my movements and any activity I would attempt to 'do'.

I went to 'back injury' doctors who wanted to just give me a shot of cortizone or wanted to perform surgery. I knew people who had the cortizone shots come back on them years later with knots under their skin, usually the feet and hands that had to be cut out. I knew people who had the surgery only to either be in worse shape afterwards or had to continue more surgeries. I was going to have none of this. Therefore, I was given physical therapy. At first I thought it was torture and/or just a racket. Getting me moving was the best for me and it eventually worked.

I met all types of people taking physical therapy who admitted that they were milking the system. One of the things we were supposed to learn in this physical therapy was to 'learn to live with the pain'. In this physical therapy, a doctor I knew came and gave us a talk about chronic pain. When he described how the person with true chronic pain would actually have the pain waken them. This was a relief to know I wasn't imagining the pain. However, the one thing he did say really put things into perspective: 'When a person with chronic pain is told to learn to live with the pain, subconscously their mind is desceminating that either you live with the pain or die without pain. Having this learning to live with the pain and the pain not subsiding will throw a person into a depression thinking life with pain is hopeless.' This statement made all the difference of how I thought about my pain. I was determined to live past the pain and recover from the back injury. It took 5 years to heal but I will never forget this reasoning. For me it was true.

My back injury was when I was in my early 40s. Other than this injury, I have been lucky in my life since I had been 13 years old to lead a relatively healthy life. However, the day I turned 55 was when my body went to hell in a handbasket. Not one morning do I wake up that something doesn't hurt! One day it might be my neck. This might last for weeks or months or even just one day. Next, it would be my knee...or my foot....or an elbow....never the same place. If it did last for a long period of time, by the time I would think it was a real problem and make an appointment with my doctor, it would suddenly disappear on the day of my appointment.

This past year, along came arthritis in my life. Primarily in my left hand and wrist. Sometimes in my right hand and wrist but not to the extent is is in my left hand. Nothing in my life had begun to prepare me for this kind of deep bone permeating pain that I have. On some days I'd gladly trade this pain for childbirth. (Of course nothing prepares a person to the pain of childbirth.) I've always been a strong person, especially with my hands. Over thirty years of working in clay gave me muscles in my hands to the point that I could open any jar....grasp any task. Not with arthritis. Some days it's too painful to even hold a piece of paper. I have learned from my back injury that I must keep moving. I must keep using my hands. The pain is still here whether I keep them still or whether I continue to use my hands. I do find I limit my activities when I'm having a flareup but eventually I push on and get to moving.

My mind rejects learning to live with this pain. I want it gone! My daughter has this same arthritis and has had for over 5 years. I hope my granddaughters don't have it in their later lives. At least it will be a part of their medical history to watch out for.

Growing old just ain't for sissies!

Shattered Dreams

2009-01-02T19:19:00.000-08:00

What do you do when your dreams have been shattered? Dream a better dream.
From the movie: The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl

I'm OK, You're OK.....I think!

2009-01-02T18:29:00.000-08:00

The statistics on sanity is that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends -- if they're okay, then it's you.

Significance of a sparrow

2009-01-02T09:31:00.000-08:00

I read that sparrows were a signal to sailors that land was near and developed into a source of hope for those who had been out to sea for a long time.

It brings to mind other quotes I've read about sparrows but I can't remember the exact words. One is something about 'the eye of the sparrow'....maybe it's the song: His Eye Is On The Sparrow?

Still...the main thought here in my mind is the message of hope...

Big Shot....little shot..

2009-01-02T09:23:00.000-08:00

"A big shot is a little shot that kept shooting."
- Anonymous -

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
- Robert Frost -

More strange dreams....

2008-12-28T11:17:00.000-08:00

I had a dream that I had to write some short stories and books. One I was writing was about a man who was an astronaut. He went outside the spaceship on a mission but was some how he got disengaged from the spaceship and the rest of the crew had to come back to earth without him. His body would circle the earth daily. He was young…about 32. So his widow found him floating by using her telescope.. She would get a glass of wine and toast him as he floated by and 'talk' with him nightly.In my dream I was watching her do this while she was sitting in her kitchen. At the same time, I could see through her eyes through the telescope and hear her thoughts inside her head....what she would talk to him about. The widow was at peace.

Another Mandyism

2008-12-28T11:16:00.001-08:00

I say, Holey Moley Macaroley

Mandy says, Holey Moley Macaroni and Cheese

I can relate....

2008-12-28T11:11:00.000-08:00

A couple just got married, and when the husband went back to his house he found that his bride had disappeared. He got very worried and gathered up all his friends to search for his wife with no success. Two days after his wife disappeared the man returned home to find her in the kitchen. He asked her what she has been up to and why she hasn't been home for so long.

She replied: "These four men kidnapped me and had wild sex with me for a week."

The husband answered: "But it's only been two days what do you mean a week?"

"I am only here to get something to eat."

Aunt Nellie

2008-12-28T11:10:00.000-08:00

I’ve been sewing for 57 years! My aunt got me started when I was two. She gave me a little pink round sewing kit that was like a suitcase with the hinge side being flat, had a little doll in it and some dresses cut out where all I had to sew was the edges and the little dress was made. I remember how hard I worked learning to thread the needle and make my stitches even. I never had trouble threading a needle. My aunt worked for Singer and had a little store in Goulds, Florida. She could drape a dress form with fabric and you’d swear she had sewn a dress. She was my mom’s best friend and we called her Aunt Nellie. She always drove a Buick and we knew it was her by the holes in the fender. I used to sit on her lap begging to drink some of her coffee and she would tell me no, that coffee made your knees black. I’d get off her lap, go under the table and raise her dress up over her knees, roll down her stockings below her knees and declare that she didn’t have black knees. Aunt Nellie would laugh and I’d crawl back up into her lap and she would let me sip her coffee with her. Nellie Tolbert was her name. I last saw her in March of 1969. Good memories.

Funny....probably only to women tho...

2008-12-28T11:07:00.000-08:00

Q: How many women with MENOPAUSE does it take to change a lightBulb?

Woman's Answer: One! ONLY ONE! And do you know WHY? Because no one else in this house knows HOWto change a light bulb! They don't even know that the bulb is BURNED OUT!They would sit in the dark for THREE DAYS before they figured it out.And, once they figured it out, they wouldn't be able to find the stupidlight bulbs despite the fact that they've been in the SAME CABINET for thepast 17 YEARS! But if they did, by some miracle of God, actually find them, 2 DAYS LATER, the chair they dragged out to stand on to change the STUPID light bulb would STILL BE IN THE SAME SPOT!!!!! AND UNDERNEATH IT WOULD BE THE WRAPPER THE FREAKING LIGHT BULBS CAME IN!!! BECAUSE NO ONE EVER PICKS UP OR CARRIES OUT THE GARBAGE!!!! IT'S A WONDER WE HAVEN'T ALL SUFFOCATED FROM THE PILES OF GARBAGE THAT ARE A FOOT DEEP THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE HOUSE!! IT WOULD TAKE AN ARMY TO CLEAN THIS PLACE! AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON WHO CHANGES THE TOILET PAPER ROLL!!

I'm sorry. What was the question?

They're coming to take me away.....

2008-12-28T11:02:00.001-08:00

With a family like mine with some family members who are mentally ill, I think we all wonder if we are mentally ill. We didn’t know what mental illness was. I remember my sister changing when she hit puberty almost the 6th grade. Up until then, we were close and were typical sisters. Suddenly one day I said something teasing her and she went off on me. I didn't know what to say or do...heck, I was only about eleven. To date, I've not had a lucid conversation with her since then. A few veiled conversations but I was never for sure what she meant. It's been 48 years like this.

About 1967, my favorite paternal aunt diagnosed as catatonic schizophrenic. She 'came out of the fog for a couple of days but spent the next 30 years or so locked inside her head. The only time she could communicate was when she would sing. I tracked down depression and bipolar/manic depressive to my paternal side of the family.

When she was about 45 or so, she had an episode deluxe and was diagnosed as bipolar. She and my older brother have a rage that is unbelievable. Both live in their own worlds and their own truths. My sister prefers to sleep predominately and my brother is locked into a negative hateful world where everyone is against him. I tracked down this rage through genealogy to my mother's side of the family.

I know I certainly have the ups and downs….not extremes though. I know I certainly ‘worry’ a lot….digest and redigest something over and over and over in my head…I certainly can’t take any medication for it…all meds either leave me so drugged that I can’t function or the side effects are devastating.

I’ve wondered and thought about over the years how a parent could raise their kids to be crazy….sure, it would be mean as hell, but it could be done. Sometimes I think about the stuff mom (and daddy) did to me...mostly mom and how it has crippled my life at times. I don’t know if I will ever get over it…..when I’m down, I hate her so much but when I’m up or level, I understand how it all happened and why she did what she did and want so badly to forgive her. It all has affected my entire life, my outlook, my choice in men, my choices in life in general and my reactions. I also look back at my Aunt Ruth and see how much I’m like her in some ways....how she was a doormat and let people run over her..I get this way. Of course I’m screaming inside hating it, but I can’t or haven’t used my voice to stop the injustice. Sometimes I do find my voice. I can certainly find my voice to everyone but I never could to mom, both husbands and the men I’ve been involved deeply in. I’ve found my voice the most in the last 3 years but results are still the same…it’s like I ask for nothing and settle for less. If I ignore all of the negative and pretend everything is ok, I can function better and everyone gets along…until I start feeling used and it just all blows up inside me.

Sometimes when I’m down, I think about the things that happened to me as a child and since and think that there is NOTHING the book Sybil had on me. That I am not permanently in a mental hospital is wonderment to me. I’ve functioned mostly by learning to withdraw inside myself and live in my craft/art world… put up brick walls around myself and not let anyone in. This works very well for me until I let someone inside and every time it’s left me vulnerable and hurt. I’ve always bounced back but I’m not bouncing back as well any longer.

One thing that Rodina told me is true: I make up these rules inside my head as to how someone should treat me and I don’t tell the person the rules and of course they break the rules and I’m hurt. This throws me into a tizzy inside me. I’m getting better at this but I don’t understand why everyone can’t just have basic respect and caring to others. There are so very few people who give me this unconditionally. There are times that my best friends have given me this but even they have taken advantage of me and used me.

Mostly I overcome my moods by writing and loving. Works for me.

Things that go bump in the night...

2008-12-28T03:56:00.000-08:00

I really don’t know where to start. I remember ‘knowing’ the spirit of my brother before he was born but I didn’t have quite a language then….inside my head I did but I didn’t realize people couldn’t understand me until my daughter was the same age….no one can understand fully an 18 month old child. The next time was one visited me when I was 5 and told me about Rodina who would be my child. Things were pretty dormant till I was in my early teens when things started happening like I could see things that were going to happen. Never to other’s…only to me. Stupid stuff like knowing exactly what was going to be in my mailbox each day in the exact order that they were put in the box. These weren’t sprits per se, but they were a boding of what was to come. Oh, I had what I thought were lucid dreams but I pooh poohed them. Then, things started happening after my mother died in 1992. I would know things or see things like a photograph had gone off in my head instead of a slow process of an idea or thought developing. I went to a psychic seminar that purported to get us in touch with our guardian angels and that was probably all it took to open the door. So many things over my life became clear to me. I learned how to talk to what I thought were ‘spirits’ and if it was real, it was productive. If it wasn’t real, only I would know. No way was I going to tell anyone anything.

When I was 15, a friend of mine taught me how to travel outside of my body and float…..sometimes near….sometimes way out up in the sky. This I can do at any time. I taught my brother how to do this and we have done it together even hundreds of miles apart. I can think of him or he think of me and reach for the phone and it is the other one calling. My mom and I could do this also.

One thing that started back in about 1969 was my ability to look in someone’s eyes and know if they were going to die. I’ve been 100% on this. I don’t like this so I try to push this in the back of my mind and ignore it. Sometimes I can’t.

Then, one night it happened. All in one fell swoop so to speak. Shortly after she died, I was laying in bed trying to go to sleep. Back then I never slept! Sometimes it would take me hours to fall asleep. I was lying in bed when I heard a CRACK (like breaking a large dry stick) and then this really REALLY strong light came at me….like being on a country road with no street lights and a car is coming at you only it’s coming at you at the speed of light….then the light hit me and knocked me off my pillow….immediately my mom’s spirit was there….along with my grandmother (her mother). She came to me nightly for a year and I still have some of the writings I would do after she left. It was very comforting. We eventually had a huge disagreement and I told her to not come back. She didn’t. I’ll never forget the sound of her laughter as she was leaving.

Then I started doing genealogy and all these faces kept coming to me….wave after wave of faces…..I thought my mind was cracking. Then one night, I decided to ask them who they were and what did they want. Of course, during this time I had read and absorbed any and all books on spirits and afterlife I could find. I was starting to catch on as to what ‘MY’ spirits were. Not everyone recognizes this. I believe we all have them…just some people don’t know what to recognize.

For a long time, I’ve been able to see all these ‘sparklers’ along each side of me….sort of going along beside me and in front of me as I walk. They are about a foot off the ground. There is no getting away from them. Sort of like a pre-dust cloud… Sometimes when I go out and about, they are just in my line of vision wherever I look...like floaters in the eyes. These are just day to day.

Then my mother-in-law died and that night I got up to go to the bathroom and when I came back, she was sitting on the edge of the bed waiting on me. She looked at me and smiled and then poof she was a twinkling light and there were 3-5 other sparkling lights with her and telling me she was new at being a spirit and that they were going to teach her….they swirled around the room a bit and left.

Then the faces started coming more and more the second I would close my eyes. I don’t go to sleep but I can’t say I’m in a ‘trance’…I’m just lying down resting. Face upon face come at me….all sorts of faces….all sorts of dress….from now to hundreds of years ago…..one time I saw this line of hundreds and hundreds of people in front of me that I was supposed to meet….it went around a bunch of bends in a valley of huge hills and at the end of the line was a horse drawn cart with a white horse and a white coffin and I immediately recognized that it was my funeral. At first I panicked but then the people in front of me said I had to find all these people and know them before I can die. Sometimes when I panic, everything and everyone is gone immediately not to come back. I might as well give up at this point.

Then I had another experience where I saw my ‘pod’. You know how you instantly feel like you know someone you just met? Do you ever wonder why you know who you know? Well, I believe we are all in a ‘group’ of spirits that belong together. Ok, this said….one night I went to a place way on the other side of the moon….somewere in space I believe and saw a ‘pod’ is all I can describe it by. It’s like a swarm of bees only WAY enormous. There were all these sparkly lights swarming on this pod….and I recognized as it was where we all gather or come from when we aren’t in human form. I recognized that we are a definite group of people that our lives are intertwined for whatever reason, I don’t know. I don’t know how or why we are chosen for this particular ‘pod’ but there are a multitude on top of multitudes of pods out there.

Spirits to me are always sparkly lights…..moving and sparkling all the time….sometimes just barely twinkling…sometimes like a kajillion watts of light.

Well, I’ve had lots and lots of other things that have happened….even had one spirit attatch a message to an email several times and have a witness to this. It told me to go look at a particular microfilm of census records and lo and behold….I found that particular record of them which had illuded me for over a year. I have this one old lady who talks to me….her hands on her him and she talks so fast that I can’t understand her…..I have lights still that come at me…they always do before I start ‘talking’ to these spiritis….I can’t control when or what is going to happen and I can’t always control when they are going to come. A lot of times I can control being open to them….and I certainly can control telling them to leave. I’ve only had two evil spirits come and enter my being and that’s a whole other story. I’ve had spirits of a few dead friends lie down beside me and talk to me but these I see in human forms. I can’t control this but I wish I could. One was just wanting comfort and I didn’t listen and sent him packing. I regret this….it would have been nice to talk to him.

Ok, this is a smidgin of some of the things….believe it or don’t believe it. Really, there isn’t anything in this that I would believe if someone was telling me but then again, I’m speaking of what happens to me.

Men....can't live without them....can't shoot them...

2008-12-28T03:53:00.000-08:00

I’m not being crass and issuing a blanket statement concerning men, but most men, in my personal experience do one of two things: 1. they pretend to want to know what’s in my head just go get to have sex with me…then if I have sex with them, they forget that I am more than just sex and treat me like an ignorant unobtrusive person who is only good for sex, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and such…oh yes, let’s add money. Or 2. they could care less what’s in my head, they only want in my bed. I haven't had much, but they certainly knew how to get what little I did have.

I have had some really good friends with some men. Some respected me and never made any sexual overtones towards or with me. I could/can count on their help at any time or any place. However, the relationships are on a surface level and we would never share personal information. The other male friends who have finally realized that I am not about to enter into a sexual relationship with them, have stayed true to our friendship. Oh, it's there...they would jump at a chance for sex...but they have kept up the facade of friendship with me and we don't enter into that part of a relationship. I can count on them when needed and they know me a bit more than the average friendship. The maintenance of these friendships go fine as long as I give them at least 75% attention to their issues. It's all about them.

A friend of mine told me years and years ago that we women don't have any right to complain about men and how they treat us as we women are the very ones who raised the men in the first place. Some truth rings true to this statement.

Touch

2008-12-28T03:25:00.000-08:00

I think the human touch is probably the most important thing in a person’s life from birth to death. It’s also the one subject that I’ve struggled with my entire life. I have only been touched….really touched once in my life and that was back in 2001 and for only a total of about a few hours…..it happened over a 4 day period. Until then, I only let my brother hug me or touch me. Oh, I could have sex but even with that….there was no real touching. I’ve only known maybe three people who I have felt comfortable with to let touch me that weren't my family. Even with my best friends I'm too damned afraid of being touched without feeling panic and sick at my stomach. I’m afraid if I let someone touch me, that I couldn’t stop crying.

Doubletake

2008-12-28T03:15:00.001-08:00

About 5 years ago, my brain started seeing words that aren’t there….on billboards…in books…on signs….then I would be confused and couldn’t figure out what the heck it was that I read. The first time, I saw the word ‘scissors’ on a billboard and it just struck me wrong….then I looked again and the word was ‘silver’. How I got ‘scissors’ is beyond me. Ok, now then, I’m creative and I ‘see’ things in words…sort of like hearing a song and I can see the actual words floating by me. All this thought comes in about three seconds and then I focus on what saw.

Ok, yes, I’m certified to be in a rubber room at times. However, if I keep my mouth shut, then others won’t know what goes on inside my head! In any case, my thoughts are entertaining inside my head.

If I Were To Die Tomorrow

2008-12-28T03:00:00.000-08:00

If I were to die tomorrow
What would you say to me today?

That you’d have loved me more
Or that you’d have more part of my life
Maybe that you’d have paid attention to me
Or that you’d have held me close wiping away my tears
That you’d have laughed with me
Or you’d have looked into my heart
And cherished me all the more.

If I were to die tomorrow
What would you do with me today?

That you’d play with me
Or do all the little things I’d asked of you
Perhaps hold my hand and listen to my dreams
Or made my life easier
Maybe just sit with me in quiet
Or touch me and kiss me in your special way.

If I were to die tomorrow
What would you to the day after?

That you’d tell how wonderful I was
Or how good you were to me
How saintly you treated me
Or tell all the little lies to make you seem the perfect one
That you’d be safe in your world
Or shed a tear or two.

If I were to die tomorrow
What would you whisper to me over my grave?
What would you have to say?

rlp 12/28/08

Fabrications Inc.

2008-11-16T05:27:00.000-08:00

Megan is a master fabricator just like her grandmother and my daddy and aunt. She sure comes up with some whoppers! We are all so good at telling a story or fact with straight faces and making everyone believe. If I hadn't believed some of the family history stories my daddy and aunt told, I wouldn't have wasted years of research.

About 2 years ago, I had to go to a meeting in Austin for work with my boss. We had one session….I don’t remember what the subject was but I was chosen with two other ladies to get up in front of the rest of the group…..about 100-125 others to tell something about ourselves….a short bio…..what the group didn’t know was it had to be a totally stange occupation that we had in our earlier years and it was to be voted on as to whether it was true or made up. Of course there was a question and answer period from the audience. After the voting, we had to tell whether the story was true or made up. I took off on it and told about how I had been a stripper in my younger days. I’m here to tell you that I got one shocked audience. I really had them going and it was funny. All but 4 people believed me was the result of the voting. At the end, I did have to tell them that my story was true……I had been a furniture stripper for my brother in the late 70’s.

Megan's imagination

2008-10-26T19:45:00.001-07:00

Rodina sent this to me last March 2007. Maybe this will be a memory for her or a window as how she thought when she was six:

Meg and I have been telling pretend stories to use our imaginations. I started this because when she would tell a real story, she would start embellishing to the point that the whole thing was a lie and her friend was starting to call her on it.....saying 'you made that up' and Meg would get really upset and say it was all the truth. I told Meg that it is ok to make up stories and pretend they are real as long as she understands the difference between real things that happen and made up things. so tonight's story were full of blow-up buildings (like your blow-up bed only as a building) and buildings and people made of legos. Then we moved to Venus because all the buildings on earth were turning into legos and were filled with horse poop. After all, everyone knows there is no pee or poop on Venus!

Everyone needs this sort of friend

2008-10-26T19:36:00.001-07:00

Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.

The winner was a four-year-old child, whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman, who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy just said, 'Nothing, I just helped him cry.'

This says it all.

Those things that go bump in the night

2008-10-26T04:50:00.001-07:00

I've touched here earlier of some of what my personal 'reality' is as to what I think are 'sprits'. I was recently asked about it all and below is what I wrote my friend. It's not all the facts on this subject and me/my experiences but a good start. Heck, sometimes I can't remember some things from yesterday so I'm supposed to remember everything? Ha! Good luck on that one. Here goes....

I remember ‘knowing’ the spirit of my brother Oren before he was born but I didn’t have quite a language then….inside my head I did but I didn’t realize people couldn’t understand me until my daughter was the same age….no one can understand fully an 18 month old child. I remember waking up from a nap and there Oren was in his crib. I was enthralled but at the same time unbelievably angry. I went to scold my daddy and did so quite vehemently. I remember him looking at me...patting my head and saying to me, 'There there..." All of this is so real to my core. I can close my eyes and see/touch/taste/feel the moment. I held this against him all the years until I had my own daughter. When she was 18 months old, she was upset about something and proceeded to scold me. I have a photo of her doing so. I couldn't understand a word she said. That was an epiphany moment and I understood Daddy patting my head.

The next time was one visited me when I was 5 and told me about Rodina who would be my child. Things were pretty dormant till I was in my early teens when things started happening like I could see things that were going to happen. Never to other’s…only to me. Stupid stuff like knowing exactly what was going to be in my mailbox each day in the exact order that they were put in the box. These weren’t sprits per se, but they were a boding of what was to come. Oh, I had what I thought were lucid dreams but I pooh poohed them.

When I was 15, I was in Lubbock and at a friend's home in his basement. He and his twin brother were geniuses and had rigged up their stereo to some colored lights that would go on and off to the music. He was telling me about astral projection but I don't remember him using those particular words. No, we weren't on any drugs. The strongest 'drug' at that time of my life was a cherry coke. That night was my first experience as to what I came to believe to be an out of body experience. We did this often over the next 2 years when I would be in Lubbock.

Then, things started happening after my mother died in 1992. Then, one night it happened. All in one fell swoop so to speak. Shortly after she died, I was laying in bed trying to go to sleep. Back then I never slept! Sometimes it would take me hours to fall asleep. I was lying in bed when I heard a CRACK (like breaking a large dry stick) and then this really REALLY strong light came at me….like being on a country road with no street lights and a car is coming at you only it’s coming at you at the speed of light….then the light hit me and knocked me off my pillow….immediately my mom’s spirit was there….along with my grandmother (her mother). She came to me nightly for a year and I still have some of the writings I would do after she left. It was very comforting. We eventually had a huge disagreement over her trying to take over my body which she did. She just slipped in and took over. I didn't know it happened until she left laughing. I was pretty upset and I told her to not come back. She didn’t. I’ll never forget the sound of her laughter as she was leaving.

From then on, I would know things or see things like a photograph had gone off in my head instead of a slow process of an idea or thought developing the way it had always been in the artistic process for me. I went to a psychic seminar that purported to get us in touch with our guardian angels and that was probably all it took to open the door. So many things over my life became clear to me. I learned how to talk to what I thought were ‘spirits’ and if it was real, it was productive. If it wasn’t real, only I would know. No way was I going to tell anyone anything.

As a side note, this next summer after Mom died was when I started basket weaving. I was making my first basket (took me exactly 40 hours to make) and I was fighting it. I had in my head what I thought I wanted it to be. I was weaving per my teacher's instructions. All the while, I felt like there was this little imp on my shoulder telling me to just let it happen and trust my instincts and 'let the basket' tell me how it wanted to be. I started having a battle inside my head over this. Did I trust my instincts? Who was making this basket...me or that little imp? Could I let myself go and just make it on instinct? I remember thinking 'well, it's now or never...either just trust what my hands are doing or just quit trying to be an artist'. I gave in. I just let my hands to the weaving and letting it become and it did and it is beautiful and this was a turning point in my life. I started believing in myself as an artist and it was wonderful.

One thing that started back in about 1969 was my ability to look in someone’s eyes and know if they were going to die. I’ve been 100% on this. I don’t like this so I try to push this in the back of my mind and ignore it. Sometimes I can’t.

I started doing genealogy in 1997 and all these faces kept coming to me….wave after wave of faces…..I thought my mind was cracking. Then one night, I decided to ask them who they were and what did they want. Of course, during this time I had read and absorbed any and all books on spirits and afterlife I could find. I was starting to catch on as to what ‘MY’ spirits were. Not everyone recognizes this. I believe we all have them…just some people don’t know what to recognize.

Somewhere during this, my mother-in-law died and that night I got up to go to the bathroom and when I came back, she was sitting on the edge of the bed waiting on me. She looked at me and smiled and then poof she was a twinkling light and there were 3-5 other sparkling lights with her and telling me she was new at being a spirit and that they were going to teach her….they swirled around the room a bit and left.

Then the faces started coming more and more the second I would close my eyes. I don’t go to sleep but I can’t say I’m in a ‘trance’…I’m just lying down resting. Face upon face come at me….all sorts of faces….all sorts of dress….from now to hundreds of years ago…..one time I saw this line of hundreds and hundreds of people in front of me that I was supposed to meet….it went around a bunch of bends in a valley of huge hills and at the end of the line was a horse drawn cart with a white horse and a white coffin and I immediately recognized that it was my funeral. At first I panicked but then the people in front of me said I had to find all these people and know them before I can die. Sometimes when I panic, everything and everyone is gone immediately not to come back. I might as well give up at this point.

About 2000, I had another experience where I saw my ‘pod’. You know how you instantly feel like you know someone you just met? Does anyone ever wonder why you know who you know? Well, I believe we are all in a ‘group’ of spirits that belong together. Ok, this said….one night I went to a place way on the other side of the moon….somewere in space I believe and saw a ‘pod’ is all I can describe it by. It’s like a swarm of bees only WAY enormous. There were all these sparkly lights swarming on this pod….and I recognized as it was where we all gather or come from when we aren’t in human form. I recognized that we are a definite group of people that our lives are intertwined for whatever reason, I don’t know. I don’t know how or why we are chosen for this particular ‘pod’ but there are a multitude on top of multitudes of pods out there.

Spirits to me are always sparkly lights…..moving and sparkling all the time….sometimes just barely twinkling…sometimes like a kajillion watts of light. Sometimes out of the blue, they are like in my field of vision like rain coming down on a windshield. This lasts for several minutes when this happens.

Well, I’ve had lots and lots of other things that have happened….even had one spirit attatch a message to an email several times and have a witness to this. It told me to go look at a particular microfilm of census records and lo and behold….I found that particular record of them which had illuded me for over a year. I have this one old lady who talks to me….her hands on her him and she talks so fast that I can’t understand her…..I have lights still that come at me…they always do before I start ‘talking’ to these spiritis….I can’t control when or what is going to happen and I can’t always control when they are going to come. A lot of times I can control being open to them….and I certainly can control telling them to leave. I’ve only had two evil spirits come and enter my being and that’s a whole other story.

Ok, this is a smidgin of some of the things….believe it or don’t believe it. Really, there isn’t anything in this that I would believe if someone was telling me but then again, I’m speaking of what happens to me.

Dream or Past Life?

2008-10-04T17:43:00.000-07:00

Below is the dream I've had. It was so real..you could touch/taste/feel everything that was going on. I always wonder if these dreams are memories of previous lives.

I found myself the hull of a ship of old with perhaps one hundred other people...it was a steam ship...we had been captured the whole lot of us. We were heading for cold waters. All of the men were pressed into servitude until we reached the cold waters. The men were going to be dumped into the cold waters like a shovelful of leftover waste.

Whoever the captors were, they weren't even going to bother killing the men but rather let the icy waters do the chore. The women, we were spared. We were to 'move upstairs' and be 'gifts' to the captain and his men for as long as they didn't tire of us.

I was being told by the man I was with to use all my talents to survive in order to eventually escape. This man I was with was my husband. He was tall, slender, sandy hair and very muscular. He had kind eyes. We both clung to each other knowing this was our last times together. He was trying to be cheerful and him telling me to have a full life. He had accepted his fate. He held me and touched me and in his eyes, he cherished me. His love was an abiding love. We had had a good fulfilling life together but at the same time, this time we had had together was being cut short. We talked of trivial things interspersed between the important things he wanted me to remember. I tried to listen but all I could think of was trying to remember his voice, his eyes, his touch, his smell, the texture of his skin. We both put on a brave face. I was determined that the last memory of me was going to be that of a strong loving woman. I looked around and there were so many other couples having their 'last rites' with each other. There was a group of men who were in a bunch, watching all of the couples. You could see in the men's faces...all of the men's faces the acceptance. I looked around at everyone and we were a different lot. We had clothing from the days of old, perhaps late 1700's or 1800s. We were dirty and unkempt but instantly I knew that the traveling conditions we were in left us no choice.

And that's the dream. It changed after this part into other things and other people...it always does. It could have been an hour long dream or a 10 second dream. I don't know. Sometimes I have dreams in detail like this where it's a complete memory in the first second of the dream...an all knowing kind of thing.

Toooooo much animal planet for that kid....

2008-08-20T16:50:00.000-07:00

Megan was watching the beginning of the new hospital show called Hopkins. There was a sick baby whose doctor was running some tests. Meg asked what was wrong with the baby. I told her that it sounded like they were saying there is something wrong with his heart. Meg asked me, in all seriousness, "so does that mean they are going to euthanize him?'

Attitude

2008-08-20T16:36:00.000-07:00

I was sent this...author unknown....

ATTITUDE There once was a woman who woke up one morning,looked in the mirror, and noticed she had only three hairs on her head.

'Well,' she said, 'I think I'll braid my hair today.' So she did and had a wonderful day.

The next day she woke up,looked in the mirror and saw that she had only two hairs on her head. 'Hm m,' she said, 'I think I'll part my hair down the middle today.' So she did and had a grand day.

The next day she woke up,looked in the mirror and noticed that she had only one hair on her head. 'Well,' she said, 'today I'm going to wear my hair in a pony tail. 'So she did and had a fun, fun day. The next day she woke up,looked in the mirror and noticed that there wasn't a single hair on her head. 'YAY!' she exclaimed. 'I don't have to fix my hair today!'

Attitude is everything. Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle. Live simply, Love generously, Care deeply, Speak kindly.... Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass.... It's about learning to dance in the rain.

The need to be touched

2008-08-17T19:45:00.001-07:00

An elderly nursing home patient wears a button stating:

"Touch me. Wrinkles aren't catching!"

Bad Obituary Gone Wrong

2008-08-17T19:18:00.000-07:00

I had to give an example to a friend of an obituary and how I wanted it laid out and came up with the following one. Once I got started, I couldn't stop. It's funny to me...may not be funny to anyone else in the world.

When I visit our cemetery that I'm helping to photo enumerate, I am struck by all the perfect people. Not one headstone says anything differently. All the deceased were angels incarnate, loving husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, children. All will be missed. Some of them were so saintly in their lives, the headstones purport the deceased to be sitting up in heaven at the right hand of Jesus. It's sort of like the phenomenon of little old ladies who were bitches in life and become saintly little old ladies in their elder years.

City Daily News
6 Nov 1945

Joe Blow, 79 Died Thursday

Joe Blow, 79 died Thursday at home. He was not a saint or a perfect man. He didn't make it as a husband, father, brother, friend but was a success as an enemy and all around jerk. The world seldom sees perfect jerks, but Joe Blow was one.

He worked for 45 years for Jerks Unlimited in their public relations department. He was successful in training 544 additional Jerks for his company and excelled in 'Speed Training for Jerks'. He will be remembered for many years as the man who could give a boot suppository faster than anyone of the company in history. Upon speaking with a spokesperson with the company, a little history was given.

He was notorious for being rude, crude and ill-mannered. One of his most prized possessions was a gigantic bucket of screws he so readily and happily put to each and everyone he met. He didn't discriminate who he put the screws to, he joyfully put them to all that knew him and a plethora of people he never met. His motto was 'a day without a screw was a day without sunshine'. He was honored by his peers at the time for his books he wrote, 'Shafts-R-Us' and 'Make Em Squirm' that sold exactly 544 copies each. He was in the final writings of his soon to be released book, 'Up Yours' will be released in the fall.

Surviving are his three ex-wives, his estranged children and many, many ex-acquaintences and former colleagues, all who do not want to be mentioned by name. He will not be missed by all.

He will be buried in City Cemetery with a 16 Boot Salute if eight people can be found to do this tribute. His headstone will be in the shape of a boot with an eternal torch burning out of the toe so that everyone will know and understand true meaning of 'jerkhoodism'.

My comment on naked men photos in general

2008-08-16T08:29:00.000-07:00

We women get them all the time if she is corresponding with a man who is interested in dating/laying/getting blown by that woman. We call them ‘dickpics’. The funny thing about it is that for some reason, men are so proud of their penises. You wouldn’t believe how many we receive….how many poses….how many variations. Anyway, of course these particular dickpics usually are taken to maximize the size of the man’s penis. Now, we women believe that the man is wanting us to admire their appendage and drool and thereby jump at the chance to have a more personal or should I say ‘in person’ experience with said penis. Sometimes it all depends on how the photo was sent to us….if sent unannounced and unwanted, it’s pretty much a turnoff. Sometimes it’s just plain laughable. Sort of like ‘look Mommie what I did/have’. I don’t know if men get photos of women in this same manner or not.

Ok, now to our reactions: There is a part of us who have been raised to be ‘good girls’ that feel like we shouldn’t be looking at the photos. There’s a part of us who also think most generally all dickpics look alike….(you’ve seen one…you’ve seen them all type of thing). However, I would argue profusely that women DO like looking at penises. I don’t care what kind of ‘prude’ she is…we are just curious at the ‘forbidden’. I have friends who are about as prude as they can get but I KNOW they will look…..I’ve sent them some in the past and they look…..several times at least. The photos generally are tantalizing. ( I did have one man send me a photo of his and it was obviously diseased with all kinds of lesions on it and it absolutely grossed me out….NO WAY was I going to meet THAT man! Whew!) I can’t say exactly where the tantalizing feelings begin. For a woman who likes oral sex, I’d have to say it starts the mouth drooling and tingling. Then next would be deep inside her itching to have it inside. Then and only then does the woman contemplate the rest of the whole sexual experience….kissing….fondling…feeling skin against skin. Odd huh? I would suppose that it’s all an animal instinct. The brain is saying ‘let the arousal begin’!

With the internet and digital photos, the sheer number of dickpics are enormous yet I (or any of my friends) have never found a website just for women….photos of naked men and all their glory. I personally would have a webpage just for this if I knew of a website that I could have for free and these photos would be accepted. The issue of having the man’s face in the photo comes into play. Even with millions of people on the internet daily, having such a website still doesn’t seem anonymous. Cunundrum.

Of course the first reaction to these photos sent us is a bit shocking. That’s part of the thrill I guess. If the photos are of a lover or friend, I would say they are more precious to us. If we were the photographer, these photos are just plain over the top as to desirablility. We just like them. I’ve never seen a ‘perfect’ dickpic but then I haven’t seen them all to date. What makes a ‘perfect dickpic’? I won’t know until I see it. I would say that photos that show all the man along with the eyes and seeing desire in those eyes are more powerful than just his penis. However, even a photo of a man without his penis showing who is in a sexy pose is just as arousing to us as the above. Maybe these latter photos make us wonder and stirs our minds into overdrive.

Well, this is my take on the subject. Just my observation from my personal thoughts on the subject. May or may not be the opinion of women as a whole, but I’d bet it’s more accurate than not.

Going Back In Time

2008-06-19T09:15:00.000-07:00

Below is the dream I had. It was so real….you could touch/taste/feel everything that was going on. I always wonder if these dreams are memories of previous lives.

I found myself the hull of a ship of old with perhaps one hundred other people…it was a steam ship…we had been captured the whole lot of us. We were heading for cold waters. All of the men were pressed into servitude until we reached the cold waters. The men were going to be dumped into the cold waters like a shovelful of leftover waste. Whoever the captors were, they weren’t even going to bother killing the men but rather let the icy waters do the chore. The women, we were spared. We were to ‘move upstairs’ and be ‘gifts’ to the captain and his men for as long as they didn’t tire of us. I was being told by the man I was with to use all my talents to survive in order to eventually escape. This man I was with was my husband. He was tall, slender, sandy hair and very muscular. He had kind eyes. We both clung to each other knowing this was our last time together. He was trying to be cheerful and him telling me to have a full life. He had accepted his fate. He held me and touched me and in his eyes, he cherished me. His love was an abiding love. We had had a good fulfilling life together but at the same time, this time we had had together was being cut short. We talked of trivial things interspersed between the important things he wanted me to remember. I tried to listen but all I could think of was trying to remember his voice, his eyes, his touch, his smell…the texture of his skin. We both put on a brave face. I was determined that the last memory of me was going to be that of a strong loving woman. I looked around and there were so many other couples having their ‘last rites’ with each other. There was a group of men who were in a bunch, watching all of the couples. You could see in the men’s faces…all of the men’s faces the acceptance. I looked around at everyone and we were a different lot. We had clothing from the days of old, perhaps late 1700’s or 1800s. We were dirty and unkempt but instantly I knew that the travelling conditions we were in left us no choice.

And that’s the dream…it changed after this part into other things and other people….it always does. It could have been an hour long dream or a 10 second dream. I don’t know. Sometimes I have dreams in detail like this where it’s a complete memory in the first second of the dream…an all knowing kind of thing.

My love for genealogy

2008-03-22T05:29:00.000-07:00

I started 'doing genealogy' in September of 1997. It took me 5 years to get up enough nerve to go through my mother’s personal papers after her death in 1992.

Two of my best friends had urged me to get into genealogy (they had been in it for over 20 years themselves) and I had always just turned a deaf ear. What did I care about people I had never met, would never meet and certainly I was not ‘smart’ enough to do research? In my mom’s papers was a letter from my daddy’s youngest brother giving information about their parents and all the siblings researched by a grand daughter of my grandfather’s oldest sister. Names, dates of birth and death and spouses. Ok, I thought, I’ll go to the website (the internet had just been unfolding about this time) and see if I could find one person’s information. I went to the site, typed in my great grand mother’s father’s name since, to me, it was an odd name and up on my screen came not only his name, but the whole family! This was MY family! My DNA! I was hooked!

2. Besides the above, I have to say just about every connection I find is the most exciting event/find for me. I have two main ladies who are my main interest: Two of my great great grandmother’s, Nancy Malinda Nichols and Louise Remshart.

a. Nancy Malinda Nichols who married Jacob B. Ivester. I was the first person in my branch of the family since Jacob was captured at Gettysburg to know what happened to him and where the rest of the family that was lost was….HERE in the panhandle of Texas. Eventually through this, I ‘met’ RaNelle who is a descendant of Nancy Malinda’s brother and she sent me photos of our Nichols family. The photo of Nancy’s uncle, Andrew J. Nichols, the merchant was almost exactly what a photo of my daddy looked like! THIS is the family who some of us looked like! I belonged.

Finding out through research that my great great grandmother, Nancy Malinda Nichols was NOT a floozie who abandoned her children as previously been thought. She did NOT abandon her children as ‘babies’ and run off to Texas. She didn’t leave Habersham County until about 1885, which made her children all about grown by then. Grandma Nix, as she has been to our family, was a much loved and respected woman by this family here in Texas. I’ve yet to find a photo of her, but I’m still looking for one.

b. Louise Remshart who married Thomas Oscar Watkins. My mother inherited three oil paintings that her maternal grandmother, Louise Remshart had painted before her early death. I inherited one of these paintings. Through this painting, I felt a connection to an artistic side of me...that my artistic abilities were passed down to me through her. Finding that as far back as I can find, and in my currently living family, we are all artists/craftperson’s of some sort. Our brains are connected to our hands.

Meeting and corresponding with other family members and seeing how we have common traits is such a joy to me. I’d have to say there are over 100 people I’ve corresponded with over the years who each one has something in common with me at the very least.

In every family I research, it absolutely excites and blows me away that MY family have had almost every generation have had men in the military and in service to our country! All that history that I thought was boring when I was a child was MY family! MY family played a part in the forming of this country.

If we ever can go back in time….I want to slap some of the enumerators of census records.

I hope you grow up and have two just like yourself!

2008-03-22T05:19:00.000-07:00

A parent's revenge is sweet when their child grows up and has a child/children. Truly my daughter Rodina is exacting her upbringing as the following is her interpretation of a normal school morning:

(Rodina's responses are in parenthesis)

1. The girls won’t get up (get UP!!)

2. Mandy throws fit because Meg gets pink/white socks while hers are yellow (here, wear blue ones to match your shirt)

3. Meg doesn’t know what to do after she gets dressed (put your shoes on kid)
***alarm has gone off signaling it is time to be walking out the door***

4. Mandy bawling because Meg went into the living room already (put your pants on so you can go into the living room too)

5. Mandy can’t find her shoes (they are right in front of you)

6. Meg doesn’t know what to do after putting on shoes (put your coat on……this is the same routine we’ve had for a month, how did you suddenly forget?)

7. Mandy doesn’t want to wear THOSE shoes (you already wasted enough time, put them on)

8. Meg is ready

9. Mandy isn’t sure what to do now (coat….i’m now down to 1 word answers)

10. Mandy: how do I put my coat on? (grrrr)

11. (let’s go now!!)

12. Mandy wants to know where her homework is (in your backpack)

13. Mandy: 'but how will Mrs. Mitchell know it is in there?' (tell her where it is)

14. Mandy: 'but she won’t find it' (she will if you tell her)

15 Mandy: 'are you sure?' (that is how ALL the kids at school take their homework to school…in their backpack)

16. Mandy: 'but not in my class. In my class, all the kids carry it in their hands.' (so when you get there, take your homework out of your backpack, put your backpack away, carry your homework in your hand to class)

17. Mandy: 'but how will Mrs. Mitchell know where my homework is?' (grrrrr)

Well, Rodina had two precious daughters just like herself! I guess she will end up with four grand daughters to become the joys of her life. She will be blessed.

Sometimes Grand Daughters can be so sweet...

2008-03-22T05:15:00.001-07:00

Megan was so damned sweet a few weeks ago when she spent the night with me. She crawled up on my lap and held me tight. She told me that she loved me and she wanted to hold me and even wanted to hold me when I die. She then asked me if I had made up my mind whether I wanted to be burned, planted or made into a statue I told her I had not made up my mind yet but that was ok since it would be a long time from now. She said she thought she might like me just stuffed so that she could keep me around so that she could dress me up.

Megan then said she wanted to grow up to be JUST like me. I asked her if she realized I was crazy and that people thought I was weird and she said yes, that’s why she wanted to be like me. I told her that I sometimes pretended to be crazy and she asked if I did that to make people laugh and I told her yes. She said that was good and she still wanted to grow up to be EXACTLY like me.

We ended up going to bed instead of getting her to sleep on the sofa. When we got comfortable and she was curled up right next to me, she said that ‘now you can hold me instead of a pillow.’

The 'Real' Religion

2008-03-22T05:09:00.000-07:00

There are so many denominations of Christian religion. Athiests will continually profess that there is no God. Even Athiests will pray when it comes down to the nitty-gritty. Athiests will pray when they are at the end of their ropes and there is no help in sight.

When books, tv shows and movies want to portray Christianity, invariably they will bring in a Catholic priest, a Catholic prayer or rite. I don't think even the Baptists have an exorcism in their handy dandy Baptist book.

Is that all there is?

2008-03-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

When you're young and a virgin, sex is this mysterious 'deed'. We girls are inundated by music, books, stories from other girls about how sex is this all-inclusive act that will change our lives. We will officially become a woman. We will find ourselves in the throes of orgasmic bliss. We are told that in 'olden times', girls were told to just 'Think of England' or to be properly surprised/amazed/chaste so as not to give off the aura of knowing what is going on. Heaven forbid that we like it because then we wouldn't be believed that we are virgins. Of course, how in the world would we know what to expect or how our bodies will react? It's not like we've got past experiences in this particular situation to fall back on. We're young...we have no idea. The males are young...they have no idea.

I remember my very first two thoughts after my first time: 1. Geeze no one told me it was going to be this messy! and 2. I could hear Peggy Lee singing 'Is That All There Is?'.

I want to be Goldilocks!

2008-03-22T04:58:00.000-07:00

I want to be Goldilocks! I want my world where everything is 'Just Right'!

Riffraff

2008-03-22T04:56:00.000-07:00

Earlier this winter, I decided to take Megan and Mandy on a city bus ride. I figured they would enjoy riding in one and seeing what it was like. I thought we'd get on the bus and just ride it till we came back to where we started..probably about an hour. HA! That's what I get for thinking.

They liked the bus ride..it was sure cold outside. That dang bus drove all over town and after about 2 hours, we got about a block from my apartment complex and I just got the girls off the bus and we finished walking home.

When I told Rodina about it, she was upset that I had her daughters NEAR skuzzy riffraff...welllllll...there were three young women on the bus who you could call pretty skuzzy..and they got off the bus when we did and live in my SAME apartments! So much for keeping the girls around a higher class of people.

They liked the ride anyway.

Communications and Procrastination

2008-03-22T04:54:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I don’t communicate by email with people because I’ve noticed that I end up ‘talking’ too. I tend to get carried away ‘talking’.

Sometimes I don’t communicate by email because of things happening in my life that make me pretty well hate a lot of people and I get carried away inside my head. I don’t want to always be complaining and there’s not a damned thing anyone can do anything about it all except me and I’d just rather fantasize about flaming 2x4s shoved up a lot of people’s butts. Usually I just sit and work on my genealogy or play games till it passes.

Sometimes I don’t communicate by email because my hands hurt too much to type. This goes in spurts and sometimes weather related. It’s more constant this winter than ever.

Sometimes I don’t communicate by email because I’m just involved with some craft and I get so involved with it that it consumes me. This is GOOD. I don’t fantasize about 2x4s as much.

Sometimes, I don’t communicate by email because I just plain forget. I might receive an email from someone that I want to respond but don’t have time at the moment or I want to think about what I’m going to say. I start thinking about my response. Sometimes I think about my response that I start thinking I’ve already told that person. Sometimes I tell myself that I will respond this coming weekend when I have spare quiet time. Ha! Kiss that one goodbye. Then the weekend goes by and I tell myself that I will respond sometime during the week in the evening when it’s quiet. Again, Ha! A week turns into a month and a month turns into months. I just forget.

Mostly, my lack of communication is a combination of all of them and none of them. I’m just a lazyass.

Mandyisms

2008-03-22T04:30:00.000-07:00

As my youngest grand daughter, Amanda grows, she comes up with what we lovingly call 'Mandyisms'. Some of the stuff that comes out of her mouth are either absolutely funny or very profound. I'm going to try to post some of her 'Mandyisims'.

Her first Mandyism was Christmas before last. I had bought the girls new princess costumes. Mandy had to put her's on at once. Dress, tiara, boa and plastic high heels. She pranced around and came over to me and said, 'Oh Bees....I look so prettyful!'

Amanda has combined the words midnight, bedtime, and night-night to form: bednight. As in, "Is it time for bednight?" or "Can I have a bednight snack?"

Megan and Mandy were watching Meerkat Manor one evening. Mandy decided that she was a Meerkat with 3 babies. She dug a burrow (piled up blankets and pillows) and was tending her babies until an apparent problem arose. The first her mother, Rodina heard of this problem was when she came to her and asked, "Mama, can you get me some milk? Cause my nipples ran out and my babies are hungry. Oh, and Meerkats drink chocolate milk."

Mandy and I had been to the library where she charmed the librarian with requests for books that had lizards, dinosaurs, horses and snakes to look at. She took her books to a window and curled up and started looking at the books. She can't read yet. However, that didn't stop her.
She made up what she thought the books said and proceeded to sing her stories to the other children. A few children curled up beside her. She was in guru mode.

After I finished with what I was doing and she had read her books, we left to go pick up her sister at school. Along the way, she told me that she was disappointed that she didn't get to bring the books home. I told her we would go back with her sister and get some books. Knowing both girls would want to check out all the books they could carry, I told her that they could check out four books each. She was quiet. After about 10 blocks, she said, "Bees, I should be able to pick out five books for herself because she was five years old."

Heaven forbid that she should find out that our library has a 200 maximum book checkout policy.

Feng Shui?

2008-03-22T04:24:00.000-07:00

Years ago, I heard a saying: “As through life you go along and find sex a pain in the neck, perhaps you’re doing it wrong.”

Have you ever been in the middle of some enjoyable sex and think, maybe all these positions are ridiculous? You do have to admit, some positions we get ourselves in are pretty funny.

I got to thinking about all this Feng Shui craze. I wondered if there was something like Sexual Feng Shui….then I got to laughing thinking maybe there might be a Feng Shui of Sexual Positions….

Soooo….I did a search on the net and sure enough, there are websites that deal with this problem. Here are my findings:

1. One website told of how your bedroom should be arranged for better sexual receptiveness. One thing it said was to have a garnet or something red hanging over your nightstand. Hmmmm…..guess they had it right all these years. Can you say ‘red light district’??

2. One website told to pull your bed away from the wall. Guess a hanging bed with a harness is in store?

3. One website told not to have any plants or anything that grows in the bedroom. Hmmm….There’s one thing I want to grow!!! Guess I won’t paint my lovers 'plant' green for St. Patrick’s day anymore. Bummer

I never did find a website for Feng Shui Positions….so I guess I can feel safe. My mom once commented to me that ‘there is only ONE proper sex position’. She almost choked when I replied, ‘yeah, and I’m still trying to find that one!’.

Becoming my mother's mother

2008-03-16T14:44:00.000-07:00

I became my mother's mother back when I was 15 as far as taking care of her health. It took me almost 30 years to realize that 'her health' was what she held over me to control me. I was sitting in the hospital, September 1992 waiting room counting back from my age when I started taking care of her to 1992 and it was a revelation that it had been 30 years. YEARS!

I remember her slapping me in the face for something I said back to her, sometimes on a daily basis. Mom could be very cruel. She was very skilled at saying hurtful things. She continually said my older brother Alfred would never be anything because of his temper, my older sister Helen would never be anything because she was not intelligent, my younger brother Oren would never be anything because he was a dreamer 'just like your daddy' and of course I would never be anything because I was ugly. Mom had a sharp tongue and never let an opportunity go by to let Oren and I know that we were unwanted births and in fact, her health was ruined because of our difficult births. (It was after she died that it finally dawned on me that Oren and I had nothing to do with her getting pregnant with us! Sometimes it takes awhile to realize things.) Her biggest trump card was that all our financial difficulties were because of my birth in that I was such a sick baby that they had to sell everything to move to Florida to regain my health. She was a proud owner of an O'Keefe and Merrit stove and every time she saw one, I was reminded that she lost hers because of me.

Every time she got sick, somehow it always turned into being my fault. I remember how demeaning it felt to have her slap me. I remember the day I turned into her caregiver. She and I had been arguing over something and our arguments were usually about Daddy...something he had promised and not done. I don't know why I took it out on Mom when he did this but I did. We were in the dining room and she went off on me and slapped me as usual. I snapped and slapped her back. I guess it got pretty bad because I remember us both being on the floor and I won. Also, she 'got sick' over it. I didn't know what it was but it was bad. She was bedridden for quite a time after that and later she told me she had had a stroke. I didn't know at that time what a stroke was but I knew it was bad. From then on, every time she would lose her temper, which was often, somehow it always got to be my fault. As a result, I have never let anyone hit me again. Ever. In Mom's defense, she had a really rotten marriage in some aspects and had a rough time of it. We were two personalities that aggravated the heck out of each other. (Note: there were some wonderful loving qualities about Mom and I loved her. She eventually learned to love me but it was in the later years of her life.

When does it start? When does it end?

2008-03-01T20:06:00.000-08:00

When and how do we as females start to be insecure and feel badly about ourselves? When and how do we start our journey of low selfesteem? I see it in my grandchildren…their self doubt. Mandy when she started understanding the concept of ‘being bad’ and thinking she was a bad person because she had done something bad. Megan when she understands the struggle her mom is going through financially and that there just isn’t enough money at times. I can relate to both of these. For me, my journey started in the second grade so I had to have been about 8 years old. I had been given a hand-me-down red and white striped sailor suit from my aunt in New York City. The top was red and white striped with a red collar and tie. The pants were pedal pushers and in a matching solid red. How I loved wearing that outfit! I remember being on the playground one day wearing my outfit and it was tight on me. I remember automatically thinking and feeling I was ‘fat’. I remember shutting down and feeling not pretty or good enough or attractive as I was the only ‘fat’ girl in my school. Not once did it occur to me that I had simply outgrown the outfit. I’ve looked back at the school photo of it and of other photos of me at that age and I was a scrawny gangly kid. Not one ounce of fat was on my bones. Nonetheless, I’ve never shaken feeling insecure and unattractive from that day since.

My future opera singer...

2008-03-01T20:03:00.000-08:00

Megan and Mandy were riding home with their mother, Rodina singing. Megan has been learning about different types of music and singing. She turned to Mandy and said, "I know what Mandy! Let's sing opera!' Mandy eagerly said 'Ok!' and began singing, 'Opera, opera, opera!' Megan was ticked!

Three In One Person...Blessed Trinity

2008-03-01T20:02:00.000-08:00

My mind won’t shut down and so many thoughts and memories come flooding in. One thing I think about a lot is my relationship to God. Most times it just feels like an empty vast wasteland and I’m the only one there. Like I’m talking to someone on the other side of a wall and they can’t hear me. I keep hearing how someone has a personal relationship with their Lord and Savior….have accepted Jesus or Christ as their savior, etc, etc. etc. I have such a difficult time with this. I see the higher powers that be as three separate entities. There’s God the Father. Then there is his son Jesus and then there is the Holy Spirit. To me, God has the higher power. Jesus is his son and therefore like a prince waiting or learning to be king someday. As to the Holy Spirit, I have never figured out what his job is. I know I question the whole theory and sometimes feel guilty for questioning. But, at the same time, I figure God gave me a questioning mind and I’m just using it as he made it. I have no doubt as to that there is a God. I just don’t understand it.

Jerkoholic

2007-12-31T07:18:00.000-08:00

Back in the early 80’s, I had neighbors, S and K….Sandy was not only a beautiful woman, but she also was absolutely one of the best cooks I’d ever had the pleasure to eat her food. I never once saw even a mix at her house….everything was from scratch. K left S for another woman citing the reason was because S had wrinkles on the bottom of her biscuits! TRUE STORY! What a bum!

Such is the life of a woman...

2007-12-30T11:07:00.000-08:00

Husband and wife in bed together. She feels his hand rubbing her shoulder.
She: "Oh, that feels good."

His hand moves to her breast.
She: "Gee, honey, that feels wonderful."

His hand moves to her leg.
She: "Oh, honey, don't stop."

But he stops.
She: "Why did you stop?"
He: "I found the remote.

More Important Quotes I Want My Girls To Know...

2007-12-30T10:43:00.000-08:00

Profound is Profound. Some quotes speak to us profoundly. Some profound quotes apply for the particular stage in life we are in. I've been saving quotes since about the age of 15. Some, when I go back and read them, I wonder what idiot stage was I in at the time. Some, however, become more profound to me with the passage of time.

Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, "I'll try again tomorrow." - Mary Anne Radmacher

Before you go into battle, you have to decide how much you're willing to lose. - Unknown

Just when you think that your own life has been turned upside-down, as if you are staring through a window of a different colored glass out into a world of unknowns...you realize how blessed you are for what you have. - Unknown

It's a shame that some people have a thing about how people look, instead of what's on the inside. They get hung up on that and never see the real person. - Craig Fritz

Nothing or no one can bring you peace but yourself. - Unknown

Gun Control?

2007-12-30T09:56:00.001-08:00

A good quote I saw:

Guns don't kill people...
Husbands who come home early do...

Give ‘em head till they’re dead…

2007-12-30T09:55:00.001-08:00

My chiropractor says it's good for a woman to give head and will help her to sleep better. He says it creates melatonin by massaging the Pineal Gland located in the roof of her mouth. By massaging the roof of your mouth, the Pineal Gland releases Melatonin. While not put in these exact words, I found many places on the internet that agreed with this theory. One can reach into their own mouth with their thumbs and massage the Pineal Gland sufficiently and with enough force to release Melatonin. However, the thumb method doesn’t sound like near enough fun.

Put the welcome mat out...

2007-12-30T09:43:00.000-08:00

Wise words to me from a friend...

Happiness and contentment do not come to our door often enough. Make them welcome when they do.

What A Woman Needs or ‘I Want A Man With A Slow Hand….’

2007-12-30T09:39:00.001-08:00

A woman needs to be touched, kissed, cuddled, teased, held tightly, spoiled, desired, and valued to keep her interest. She needs to know that she is welcome in her man’s arms and know that her man wants her in his arms. When he learns to give this all to a woman, she will return the favor ten-fold. The security of knowing she is desired and of knowing he desires her in return is very important. A woman can feel a man’s desire and need, and when she feels this need, her body and mind respond delightfully. A good lover is gentle when gentleness is in order, passionate when passion is in order and forceful when the passion is overwhelmingly in order. An excellent lover can help open a woman’s full passion if he is unselfish enough to put her needs first. An excellent lover will learn that by putting her needs first, he will seldom have the unfortunate premature ejaculation happen as it is when he is selfish to his own needs, premature ejaculation occurs.

Fake it till you make it...

2007-12-19T17:29:00.000-08:00

I know others are doing the best they can under the circumstances...however....there is ALWAYS room to be better...reach out and become the hero to someone who needs it....become the hero that we can only wish we were...till we turn around and find out that it's so damned easy to reach out with love where it's natural to hold back and hide. Love begets love. Compassion inspires compassion. Understanding leads to better understanding of all things/people/situations. Forgiveness is actually a very selfish deed. Oren always tells me that 'hate' binds you to that person. Sure, it might be easy to 'hate' someone...or so we think we hate them....but the actuality of it is that we hate the actions because it brings up a shortcoming we feel in ourselves. When we forgive, we are really letting ourselves off the hook. We are told to love our neighbor as we love ourselves but seldom do we ever understand loving ourselves. Truly loving ourselves. Only in the freedom of loving ourselves can we love others. How I wish that others could see what I see in the mirror when I see their reflections in it. I feel like one of the luckiest women in the world to have had all the wonderful people in it. Again, however, I can understand as even I have difficulties in loving myself or feeling worthy of someone loving me. It's just human nature I guess. It's not going to stop me trying tho! Fake it till you make it, eh?

Plan ahead

2007-12-19T08:38:00.000-08:00

Megan called me last night telling me that she found a place for me for when I get old. Of course she thinks I should move soon. It’s the nursing home a block from Ben. She said she and Mandy and her mom would come visit me twice a week and bring me presents. She said she knows that place is good for old people because they mop the floors at night while the people are asleep so that they don’t slip and fall. Rodina asked her why they couldn’t simply let me move in with them and Megan said that the home would take care of me better. Rodina then asked why John couldn’t take care of me since he was younger. Megan agreed that John could take care of me till I got old since he is taller than I am.

The Birds and The Bees Explained

2007-08-12T04:48:00.000-07:00

Mandy asked Meg today: "Megan, when do adults have babies?"

My daughter, Rodina waited patiently, concerned she might hear something she's not ready for her girls to know about........when Meg replied: "ummm, March 26th I think."

Grossestyukkiestfunniest Time of Your Life...

2007-07-03T22:46:00.000-07:00

Here you are, bathroom door shut, sitting down to pee when a hot flash comes across you so badly that your nose starts running like a faucet and you go to blow your nose and you start coughing so hard that you're throwing up and you poop and pee at the same time and then all you can feel is that your ear itches so urgently inside while you hear your grand daughters on the other side of the door asking if you are ok and you look and see their little fingers under the door and you can't answer them because you're a bit busy at the time and you get distracted by those precious little fingers that you miss the tissue and end up what should have been caught by the tissue while you're blowing your nose that it misses and hits your foot and lands between your toes...right where you've got three mosquitoe bites that itch like hell. Who said getting old is beautiful???

Megan....the genius...

2007-05-23T09:03:00.000-07:00

Megan has announced that she is finished with all her schooling...she has learned everything she needs to learn for the rest of her life and 1st grade will not be necessary. Whew! I guess her mother and I are slow....it took her mother, Rodina till age 15 to realize she knew everything...me...I never did figure I could get out of going to school!

What makes us afraid...

2007-05-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

Sent to me by my friend PB when I was encouraging him to 'write his story'...this is all I got him to write but I will keep asking:

What Makes Us Afraid?
It is the same for each of us, although what makes us afraid – what makes us forget whom and what we are – may be different. There are many ways to describe the factors that shape our fear and influence our behavior: past trauma and conditioning, inherited tendencies and learned responses, past-life karma, and current pressures, human biology, psychology and spirituality. We can develop some useful self-understanding by considering any or all of these, but I do not believe we can ever claim to have a definitive explanation of all of our behavior. We remain, like so much of the universe, something of a mystery to ourselves… the useful question if we want to live our soul’s longing is, How can we expand the opportunities and increase the probabilities of living consistent with this nature?
If I want to live my ability to be fully present and compassionate, my ability to be with it all -- the joy and the sorrow -- I must find the ways, the people, the places, the practices that support me in being all I truly am. I must cultivate ways of being that let me feel the warmth of encouragement against my heart when it is weary. I must be fiercely and compassionately honest with myself about those choices and actions that are inconsistent with my deepest nature and soul’s desires. I must find the song lines that run though my life, the melodies that remind me of what I really am and call me gently back to acting on this knowing. For me….that song is..."The Dance", by Garth Brooks........I cannot help but cry every time I hear it for reasons I shall not elaborate on here, it touches my very soul like no other song, except maybe "Unchained Melody" by the Righteous Brothers. Crying heals wounds and opens new ones for me, and I believe makes me a better person....Never be afraid to love or tell someone you love them. There is another song, also by Garth, that touches my soul..........."If Tomorrow Never Comes".........please friends......always tell that special person you love them.......because, life is short, and you never know when you may reach your end. As for me.....I am very tired of wrestling with my own mortality, my life in general the past three years has been for the most part, unenriched. There is an exception here, known but to a few....I have a light in my life, one that burns brightly and sustains me on a daily basis. Were it not for that loving, caring, giving light, I fear that one of my alter egos would have done away with my existence by now. I shall evermore remain your friend..........Kodiak

Your Song

2007-05-02T06:30:00.000-07:00

A friend sent this to me. I think it's absolutely beautiful.

YOUR SONG

When a woman in a certain African tribe knows she is pregnant, she goes into the wilderness with a few friends and together they pray and meditate until they hear the song of the child.
They recognize that every soul has its own vibration that expresses its unique flavor and purpose. When the women attune to the song, they sing it out loud. Then they return to the tribe and teach it to everyone else.

When the child is born, the community gathers and sings the child's song to him or her. Later, when the child enters education, the village gathers and chants the child's song. When the child passes through the initiation to adulthood, the people again come together and sing. At the time of marriage, the person hears his or her song.

Finally, when the soul is about to pass from this world, the family and friends gather at the person's bed, just as they did at their birth, and they sing the person to the next life.

In the African tribe there is one other occasion upon which the villagers sing to the child. If at any time during his or her life, the person commits a crime or aberrant social act, the individual is called to the center of the village and the people in the community form a circle around them. Then they sing their song to them.

The tribe recognizes that the correction for antisocial behavior is not punishment; it is love and the remembrance of identity.

When you recognize your own song, you have no desire or need to do anything that would hurt another.

A friend is someone who knows your song and sings it to you when you have forgotten it. Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused.

You may not have grown up in an African tribe that sings your song to you at crucial life transitions, but life is always reminding you when you are in tune with yourself and when you are not.

When you feel good, what you are doing matches your song, and when you feel awful, it doesn't. In the end, we shall all recognize our song and sing it well.

You may feel a little wobbly sometimes, but so have all the great singers. Just keep singing and you'll find your way home.
Unknown

Hyperactive Brain

2007-04-30T03:11:00.000-07:00

No, it’s not insomnia. It’s not ADHD or whatever. One of the things my genealogy has taught me is that it’s inherent amongst particular family members….mainly those of us who have predominantly physical features of our Nichols line. Not only do our brains just don’t shut off , but there are seven thoughts (at least) running at one time. Sometimes a sentence or two and then the next subject and the next and then the next back to the second thought bounce over to the sixth thought and start all over again then write the stuff down so you can get it out of your head because it’s a good thought and you don’t want to lose it and this makes room for new thoughts. It makes sleeping not so easy. Sleeping pills don’t help because there you are stuck in all those oh so vivid dreams but too dang drugged to write the stuff down. We tend to be overly creative artistically speaking and for me, it’s not limited to one medium. Mine might be one thought clay then the next might be glass and then the next some metal sculpture and then the next paper or paint or fabric or basketry or a poem or cooking or genealogy or wood or polymer clay or paint or why something is the way it is or an epiphany. Sometimes the only way to describe it is etc, etc, etc, etc….and some more etc. Don’t get me wrong…most times I enjoy all this activity but it becomes exhausting.

Another thing that’s a scream is that those of us who have it, there is a special closeness or bond if you will…a sort of knowing. We can just barely describe something and the other person can totally visualize what we are saying and run with it…come back with 10 ways to do what we are describing and then the first person thinking of 10 ways to do the 10 ways. If on occasion we happen to be visiting each other for the night (heaven forbid a week….we become zombies), all this process becomes more rapid, vivid and unbelievably creative. If anyone listened in on our conversations, they couldn’t keep up with the lightening fast way we jump from one subject to the next…all the while being so easy for us to keep up with each other. It gets really bad when we get interrupted in the middle of interrupting the other person. One will find notebooks and notebooks and stacks of papers and files of all our writings and drawings.

We tend to be overly critical in our own artwork. We might come across as nitpicking but for us, it's only our own creations we're critical of. We see all the mistakes or the ways we would do it again if we were to make another. Helpful is to make about 10 things of each idea and let the process evolve. Series of creations are a good thing.

There are some things that will still the beast. Music for one running in the background helps….sometimes it has to be just a soft easy melody but sometimes it has to be fast and loud. Actually working on a project helps. Some describe it as ‘being in the zone’ and perhaps it is. I can put a two inch ball of clay in my hands and start pinching a pot and I’m gone. The whole world is gone and I’m at peace.

One revelation each of us has made is when we realize other people aren’t like us. From birth, it just comes so naturally that it never occurs to us that other people don’t have their brains directly in line with their hands. It never occurs to us to go buy an object…the first thought is how to make it. Making something is so much more satisfying. We don’t think of an object but rather the raw materials. We see some discarded piece of junk and instantly see it as useful. She/he who dies with the most art/craft/creative crap wins. Occasionally we will trade some of our treasures with the other but most likely not. Of course, when we see something particularly interesting that we think the other person might like, we scarf it up for them. Who in the world would want some pre-made gift when we can be given a bucket of clay or a particular piece of wood given to us? One of the nicest gifts given to me once was waking up one morning to a bucket of chickenshit on my front step. My brother Oren had been passing through and didn’t want to wake me so there’s this white plastic bucket with only the word ‘chickenshit’ on the lid. This material made some raku firings of some pots amazing! What a wonderful gift! Another time was a bucket of Arkansas clay….that made the nicest metallic brown glaze imaginable. My cousin Earl regularly gives me his scraps of fabric. Oren brings me these printer mats that are awesome for a work surface for clay. My daughter Rodina gave me all her polymer clay that she had lost interest in for my birthday a couple of years ago….I don’t think I ever want a ‘new’ present again. Being given something another person started an interest in and no longer intrigues them, recycled as a gift is of course only logical. It’s not some left over crap but rather some treasures for a springboard of an idea.

I woke up at 4:22 am to get some of my thoughts written down and out of my head this morning. And so it goes. We are the lucky ones.

Blood is thicker than water

2007-04-29T05:24:00.000-07:00

This morning I wrote a distant cousin, Bev, who I haven't written in about six years. All this time, she has written me and never gave up on me. Holiday after holiday, she's sent me a card or a hello and I never could bring myself to write her back. I've had a new cousin, Nancy, come into my life (both Bev and Nancy through genealogy) and through her, I realized the value of their friendship and yes, love that helped me to write Bev.

I've slowly cut myself off from people in the last six years and even more so in the past six months to a year. I've just been unable to give any more of myself to anyone...not even in conversation. Hopefully in time I will be able to reach out again. I eliminated those friends and family from my daily/weekly/monthly contact when they no longer contacted me and it became easier to stay inside myself. There are those friends who haven't contacted me for whatever reason and I just disappeared so to speak. These friendships sustained me over the past several years and I don't owe them this kind of treatment. However, at this time, I can't bring myself to contact anyone other than forwarding jokes and the like to them. I'll get there....but right now, I have an empty heart and need to mend it.

Is it Real or is it Memorex?

2007-04-28T21:01:00.000-07:00

Can the hurts and disappointments ever be healed to where we can truly love again? Do we always feel like the other shoe is going to fall? What does it take to let our guard down to the point of total trust in another person? Does something really die inside with each breakup or is it just a pillowcase of more baggage we carry around with us filling up our hearts that leaves no room for a new or more love? Do I even know what 'true love' is? Does another person really know what is inside our hearts? How do we know what true love is from one another instead of infatuation? If what I'm feeling towards another certain person is real, then it's evidentially the first time for me for these feelings. The peace of it all. The peace and tranquility is beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I almost had 'it' once and it didn't last but at least it gave me the window that it could happen. But even here, is it all what I'm feeling and not the reality of the person I feel these emotions for? Whatever this bus ride is about, I've never been at such peace before and I like it. It's not always perfect and there is still a huge amount of doubt for me. I could sure use a book to tell me what to do next. I'm a grown up woman and think I should know the answers by now....but I don't always.

"Ghost' Stories

2007-04-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

I was discussing 'ghosts' with my cousin and she was telling me about some who have been at a house she's lived in. All of this is pretty well the norm for me. Visitations of family members who have died recently come 'visit' me after they've died. It usually slows down but then they show up again from time to time. I have a lot of others who aren't family members and I can't say I exactly recognize them. Some nights, when I close my eyes…I see faces and faces and faces and faces….I 'know' them...watch their faces until they fade...such interesting faces... Usually, I see them as a really bright light....a rememberance of a conversation along with an image in my head. I've had them put their hands on their hips and try to tell me something and get frustrated because I don't understand them. They talk WAY too fast for me most times. Sometimes they appear as sparkly little lights...a kajillion of them that hover around my feet up to about 12 inches above the ground...like I'm walking in a garden of them...lined up on each side. Those I usually figure are guardian angels. I've only had two who were evil and luckily I was protected and they were definitely NOT relatives. J, (JED) who died a year and a half ago who had lived with me for 3 years....he's come to me twice specifically for sure...has been hanging out here with me basically ever since but more and more he's going away...adjusting. There is one spirit who comes running out of my bedroom as I'm going to the restroom before I go to bed. I've never 'seen' him but at the same time, I see out of the corner of my eye 'whooshing' by so very fast....sort of like...well, it's time for Ruth to go to bed so I better get out of here. I live in an apartment.

Now here's what's odd. She mentioned one sitting on her bed.....well....last week, J (b/f...I call him J2 if I have to talk about both of them) and I had gone to bed...of course he was instantly asleep...always is....and I was getting comfortable and turned over and there was this tall slender GENTLE man sitting between us and laid down between us on our pillows...he wasn't a light...he had form...transparent...but a form....I got the feeling he wanted comfort and the comfortness of what J2 and I are together....like he was our child from another life. I don't know if I believe in other lives or not...but that was the closest thing I could think of. At first I thought it was J1 but I knew it wasn't but not sure. J1 was short and had a cute little belly...Irish man...so it couldn't have been him...besides...when J1 comes ...he's always on my other side as if I'm in between both Js....and J1's issues are being dead and and that he is sorry that he hurt me so badly and that death's not what he expected and that he is adjusting. Well...before I could catch myself..I told the spirit to go...leave....and it was instant...I was sorry I did that...I should have asked him who he was and what it was he wanted. It still bothers me that he was wanting comfort from being between J1 and I and I sent him packing. They ALWAYS leave instantly when you tell them to.

So that's it for the night. Got LOTS of more stories...

Megan and Mandyisms

2007-04-01T07:30:00.000-07:00

Or...Other moments with Megan and Mandy to remember in my old age...

2006 conversations with their mother, Rodina:

Mandy has learned sarcasm. I just told her that she needs to move her stuff because my desk is for me to work on not for them to play on or for their pleasure and mandy said "yes your highness".

I told meg that her shirt says "spoiled" on it and asked her if she knew what that meant. She said no, so i told her that it means she is a rotten kid because someone lets her do whatever she wants. She said "that is papa. he lets me do whatever I want then I come home and act bad". I told her that she would be a good kid again in a few days. She said "good!"

Mandy knows what she wants for her cake for next birthday. She wants a white cake with white icing and 3 dinosaurs: a brachiosarus, a tyrannasaurs, and a teradactyl. She wants PRINCESS dinosaurs, so I guess that means we are going to have to sew little bitty tu-tus for the dinosaurs.

September 2006
Megan was just watching a commercial for a truck and told me that we really need that truck. I asked her why we needed a truck and she said if we need to carry something really heavy. I asked, and why would we want to do that. She said just because we need to carry heavy things sometimes. I said, how often do we actually need to do that? She said, well, we can get a trailer for the truck if we need to carry horses or cows around. I said that we don't have any horses or cows to carry around and she replied, well we will just buy a barn then we can have cows to carry around in the truck and trailor.

Sounds to me like a REALLY good night...

2007-04-01T07:22:00.000-07:00

Sexsomnia Baffles Doctors

The hottest new sleep disorder waking up the medical community is sexsomnia, a 'rare' condition in which sufferers unknowingly demand, or actually have, sex while asleep (it might not be just a really lame excuse after all). According to one expert, the sex usually happens in bed with people who are already partners. "Sometimes they hate it... Sometimes they tolerate it. On rare occasions you have stories of people liking it better than waking sex." (Read into that what you will.)

To date, there is no cure for "sexsomniacs" (imagine what that commercials will look like when they find it though) and researchers have been hampered by sufferers who are too embarrassed to bring it up. In fact, when people do learn about their behavior, the most common reaction is denial. As a result, an important first step is convincing the public that sleep-groping deserves the same sympathy and concern as sleep-walking, talking and eating.

I dreamed

2007-04-01T07:20:00.000-07:00

I dreamed I wrote a sonnet named ‘Be Sent Now My Love’. I remember writing it. I remember reading it. I just can't remember the words.

Questions

2007-04-01T07:14:00.000-07:00

What do we do when we are alone? When no one sees what we do? What would we do if we truly believed we could do anything?

Ghosts on top of angels

2007-04-01T07:10:00.000-07:00

Strange things have happened to me. But events did not flow toward a single momentous revelation, one blooming pyrotechnic end-- Enlightenment! --with chrysanthemum fireworks bursting in the night. No, it was a great jumble of facts, instead, with ghosts on top of angels, and dreams and serendipitous coincidences, intertwining with the normal everyday.
-Sophy Burnham,"A Book of Angels"

Keep what is worth keeping

2007-04-01T07:01:00.000-07:00

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort, of feeling safe with a person having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out just as they are, chaff and grain together knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keeping what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away"
Unknown

Enchantment

2007-04-01T06:55:00.000-07:00

She found a quiet place in a low meadow far from the Shee. There she knelt and closed her eyes as she waited for the spell to end. The fires inside had burnt out. Now, she felt nothing save a gentle tingling in her fingertips, a slight trembling in her limbs, the last embers of the enchantment. Since daybreak, she had grown, now standing twice as tall. Soon, she would rise and stand again twice as tall. With a shrug, she would shed her wings and walk in the world of man where no one would be the wiser.
Creating Life-Like Figures in Polymer Clay

Honey and flies and other favorite quotes

2007-04-01T06:07:00.000-07:00

They say you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar but I don't want a bunch of flies.
Ruth

They say a picture is worth a thousand words but sometimes I need to hear the words.
Ruth

Some things are 'neater than sliced bread', but they didn't want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Ruth

I want what I want when I want it and I want it now.
Ruth

Why would you want to be tickled with a feather when you can use the whole chicken?
Ruth

And in the end..the love you take..is equal to the love you make.
Unknown

Don't knock on death's door...ring the doorbell and run, he hates that.
Unknown

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.
Babe Ruth

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
Mark Twain

Happiness is good health and a bad memory.
Ingrid Bergman

I know why families were created, with all their imperfections. They
humanize you. They are made to make you forget yourself occasionally, so that the beautiful balance of life is not destroyed.
Anais Nin

I see dumb people.
Unknown

If you don't remember us daughter, who will?
Unknown

If your life is free of failures, you're not taking enough risks.
Unknown

"Just living isn't enough," said the butterfly, "one must also have freedom, sunshine, and a little flower."
Hans Christian Anderson"

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with
fervour.
Benjamin Disraeli

Live out of your imagination, not your history.
Stephen R. Covey

No one is worth your tears, and the one person who is worth them, will never make you cry.
Unknown

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
Albert Einstein

Nothin to do,but to do it.
Unknown

Show me what Thou wilt, Lord, and help me to remember and to understand.
Unknown

The nice thing about egotists is that they do not talk about everybody.
Unknown

The only questions that really matter are the ones you ask yourself.
Ursula K. LeGuin

There are a thousand yesterdays, one today and maybe a tomorrow.
Red Skelton

Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.
William Shakespeare

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it - for boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Goethe

"Why not" is a slogan for an interesting life.
Mason Cooley

You wouldn't worry so much about what people thought of you, if you realized how seldom they do.
Unknown

Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions.
Unknown

Never miss an opportunity to shut up.
Unknown

I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Unknown

You don't stop laughing because you grow old; You grow old because you stop laughing.
Unknown

It ain't pretty being easy.
Unknown

As you travel down the road of life remember...wherever you go,there you are.
Unknown

An eye for an eye eventually leaves everyone blind.
Unknown

A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song.
Maya Angelou

A man does not have to be an angel in order to be a saint.
Albert Schweitzer

A pleasure is not full grown until it is remembered.
C.S. Lewis

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Be absolutely determined to enjoy what you do.
Gerry Sikorski

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.
George Eliot

Choices are the hinges of destiny.
Edwin Markham

Courage is being scared to death--and saddling up anyway.
John Wayne

Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.
Abraham Lincoln

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for.
Epicurus

Do not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly.
St. Francis de Sales

Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.
Confucius

Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when dawn is still dark.
Unknown

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Matthew 6:21

Friendship is a promise of future loyalty, loyalty no matter what comes. Promises are the bricks of life and trust is the mortar.
Stephen Carter, "The Emperor of Ocean Park"

Growth in wisdom may be exactly measured by decrease in bitterness.
Friedrich Nietzsche

He who forgives ends the quarrel.
African proverb

Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.
Richard Bach

History never written is soon forgotten.
Unknown

Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible.
William Sloane Coffin, Jr.

I am always doing things I can't do, that's how I get to do them.
Pablo Picasso

I can't write a book commensurate with Shakespeare, but I can write a book by me.
Sir Walter Raleigh

I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on the way.
Carl Sandburg

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
Mother Teresa

If you yourself are at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world.
Thomas Merton

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Mark Twain

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Out of the Mouth of Babes

2007-03-14T03:49:00.000-07:00

My youngest grand daughter, Manda (as she has decided to be called) comes up with words of wisdom more and more lately. At age 4 1/2, she is blossoming into a thinker and contemplator. Only when she has digested something she has heard or seen does she share her thoughts with us. Yesterday, she came out with her latest observation:

"Some dogs don't like to be measured, but some do."
Amanda Madeline Scott, March 13, 2007

Men Rules

2007-03-03T17:09:00.000-08:00

Back in the 1980's. I wrote the following 'men rules' as how I saw my life:

Testacles I - Chapter 1, Verses 1-10

1. Women were put on earth to serve man.

2. Women shall ask before they think.

3. Women shall be seen and not heard.

4. Women shall never suppose they know anything.

5. Women shall always be submissive, thus eliminating rape.

6. Women shall only know one word: Yes.

7. Women shall know all men are correct.

8. Women shall never question a man.

9 Women were made for three reasons: Cook, clean and sex.

10. Women shall adjust their attitudes so as to not offend a man's ego.

Well, now you know how my life was for better than 50 years and especially for the last 20 of those 50 years. And.... why I became single in 2001. Enough of this crap for one woman!

Stuttering Cat

2007-02-28T05:52:00.000-08:00

Another favorite joke....

A teacher is explaining biology to her 4th grade students. "Human beings are the only animals that stutter," she says.

A little girl raised her hand. "I had a kitty-cat who stuttered," she volunteered.

The teacher, knowing how precious some of these stories could become, asked the girl to describe the incident, "Well,", she began, "I was in the back yard with my kitty, and the Rottweiler who lives next door got a running start and before we knew it, he jumped over the fence into our yard!"

"That must've been scary," said the teacher.

"It sure was," said the little girl. "My kitty went 'Fffff, Fffff, Fffff' and before he could say 'Fuck,' the Rottweiler ate him!"

Music

2007-02-19T16:08:00.000-08:00

Most of us go to our grave with our music still inside of us. Unknown

How many of us will sing our music?
How many of us will dance our music?
Will we twirl and float and let our hearts explode?
Many of us will have moments of our music.
Many of us will have moments of our life's passions.
How many passions are enough?
How many songs will we sing and love and feel and nurture in others?
rlp

Strength

2007-02-19T10:55:00.000-08:00

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the things you think you can not do! Unknown

Death is Nothing At All

2007-01-31T06:11:00.000-08:00

to Mom, Daddy, Booger and JED...I miss ya'll...

Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other, that we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference in your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Pray.
Smile.
Think of me.
Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effort,
without the trace of a shadow in it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you.
Somewhere very near.
Just around the corner.
All is well.

Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918)
Canon of St Paul's Cathedral

Patching Hearts

2007-01-06T20:49:00.000-08:00

I think people are put into my life for a purpose. I have a list and drawn a picture in my mind. I have a need to weave a basket, and pinch a pot to show all these people's souls. It would make a lovely design, all this intertwining.

For a little while you can look back and see your footprints in the sand, then the ocean of life blends those footprints into our being as we look to take the next step. I can imagine a world where we can take someone's heart in our hands, caress it, patch it, love it and fill it with our love and then put it back into that person's body. I imagine it sort of like those experiments that the teachers do for the high school kids by having them walk around with an egg or a sack of flour to make them realize what time and care it takes to nurture a baby. If we could instead imagine carrying around another person's heart. And, I can even almost imagine risking someone carrying our own heart. In this, how we would look at others so differently.

That's what I want to do for my life, I just haven't figured out totally how to yet. I'm getting there. I'm still patching my own heart.

Taking all I could give...

2007-01-06T20:45:00.000-08:00

He appeared out of nowhere... he was just there.... naked... breathing heavily... so delicious... strong shoulders... watching his cute butt... strong sure hands... his fingers dipping into the wetness... his fingers in and out... in and out... clear liquid almost foaming... rubbing round and round... flexing his muscles driving me wild... giving him more... knowing he could handle all I could give him... polishing to perfection... He washed every dish!!! How I love a man with dishpan hands!
rlp 01/06/07

Kind Hearts

2006-12-15T10:37:00.000-08:00

Kind hearts are the garden
Kind thoughts are the roots
Kind words are the blossoms
Kind deeds are the fruits
Harvest life to the fullest with KINDNESS and LOVE

Author Unknown

My Flowers

2006-12-10T11:19:00.000-08:00

I have gathered here an offering of other people's flowers, bringing to them of my own only a thread to bind them with." --Montaigne

My friends are my flowers. Each bring to me a different flower with unique petals. I put them all in my vase called my heart. The flowers intermingle and enjoy the different shapes, sizes, fragrances, and oh! all the colors. All these flowers make up the most beautiful everchanging bouquet a person could want or need...until we find another flower to join us!

Words

2006-12-05T04:04:00.000-08:00

Words are powerful! Words empower, excite, inspire, uplift, create impressions, images, expectations and ideas. Words build up or tear down self-esteem, connections or tear down enthusiasm. Words influence how we think. Well chosen words can motivate... offer hope... create vision. Words impact our thoughts, influence action and transform. Words have the power to create or destroy.

Words can take a lifetime, if ever, to heal but one little sweet word spoken at the right time can mean the world.

Your Own Spirit

2006-12-03T05:13:00.000-08:00

I saw this pendant on a necklace. There was a silver rectangle with a message on each side and then a small heart hanging from the rectangle:

Front stamped message: "How am I to be true to my own spirit"
Heart says: "Laugh"
Back stamped message: "With courage greater than your fear, she said"
Heart says: "Yes"

What I want my girls to know is to not to be afraid of anything....not to compromise.....if you don't fit in....fit in for yourself...it's ok to enjoy their uniqueness...their sexuality....enjoy life! Spend your life knowing and loving yourself first. Do not think other people are going to give you worth. Only each of us has the measuring stick of our own lives. Don't go through life asking for nothing and settling for less.

Learn to love yourself!

Changing of the Guard

2006-12-03T04:47:00.000-08:00

Do women use sex as a weapon to get what she wants? The man gets sex if he doesn't continue a particular behavior/s? He gets sex if he gives the woman attention? Geeze…..it’s a fucking fine line here. No man is going to agree to my statements here but every woman has had these thoughts and feelings here at one time of the other...no doubt about it. Communication SHOULD be the tool here but more often than not...the game is on. Men want to have 'fun' which translates into sexual satisfaction for them with no strings attached.

On one hand, sex between two loving people should be free and easy. Any man would argue that ‘women have ½ the money and all the pussy’ and that women control men with this. BUT, they don’t see what total jerks and assholes they are once we do give them sex. Men say they don’t want any games but they are the biggest game players of all. They are always attentive when they are horny….once they are satisfied, then they go back into their tunnel vision self-extracting world and don’t have a clue as to what we are about much less what we want out of life….and I can guarantee that 90% of the time, the woman has not been satisfied…make that 95% of the time. One little additional fact here is that every man will say they are always horny until they are getting it on a regular basis. Men usually hit their stride as to how much sex they want per week and it can get very predictable.

Of course this phenomenon does not exist during about the first 6 months of a relationship. Men are so damned attentive and loving during this phase. About the only solution I see here is to end the relationship and start a new one every 6 months. Of course this doesn’t work as by this time we women have fallen for the man. And truthfully....sometimes they ARE pretty dang good lovers...just reel us in like the flopping fish that we are. (No pun as to odor intended.)

Diogenes may have used his lantern looking for one honest man, but I just bet Mrs. Diogenes had that lantern already warmed up beforehand while she was looking for that one honest man herself!

Life goes on....and on...and on....from time immeasurable.

My Candle

2006-11-26T20:06:00.000-08:00

My candle burns at both ends; it will not last the night; but ah, my foes, and oh, my friends - it gives a lovely light!
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Hands

2006-11-26T08:49:00.000-08:00

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might…"
Ecclesiastes 9:10a

Secrets

2006-11-25T08:43:00.000-08:00

What do we do when we are alone? What do we do when no one sees what we do?

Do people pick their noses, fart uncontrollably, take up the whole bed instead of sleeping on one side only? What characteristics do we reveal to ourselves? Are we honorable or dishonorable? Are we Mr. Jeckle or Mr. Hyde? What could our friends or family be able to tell about us that we do when we are alone? A true friend or family would know and love us anyway.

Enlightenment

2006-11-25T08:39:00.000-08:00

Be Sent Now My Love

2006-11-25T08:38:00.000-08:00

I dreamed I wrote a sonnet named ‘Be Sent Now My Love’. I sure wish I'd read it!

"Sexsomniacs"

2006-11-25T08:36:00.000-08:00

I recently was given a website that told of a new research group/support group delving into the problems of people waking in the night and having sex. Are they frigging kidding??? This is a problem?

I once knew a woman who proudly announced that after 25 years of marriage, she had successfully never let her husband see her naked. She also said that she wore pantyhose to bed so that her husband couldn't 'get at her' in the night. Another woman I knew had a saying: 'There's nothing worse than warmed over coffee or woke up nookie.' I know a man who has never had naked sex in that his wife always has a nightie on during their lovemaking. I know a man who's wife goes to church every day for a month after they make love.

Sad. Very sad.

I firmly believe that two committed people should have total and free access to each other's body in lovemaking. No games. No 'cutting' each other off. The wonderful aspects of loving and lovemaking only makes a couple grow stronger. If it's in the middle of the night, well, just think of it as a bonus!

Parents

2006-11-25T08:26:00.000-08:00

I assume at one time or the other, everyone resents their parents and deal with them because they have to. I was thinking that when I was watching grown children bringing their visually impaired parent to our recent low vision seminar. But then I watched these 'children' and realized there are people who truly care for their parent/s.

With both my parents long dead, there are times I would relish the chance to care for each of them one more time.

To believe or not to believe

2006-11-25T08:20:00.000-08:00

In my opinion, people who don't believe in God or a higher power are just using an excuse to do the things they do without thinking of having to pay for their decisions/actions. How lonely it must be.

We're told that God has a plan for our lives. I of course, would like to not only know the plan, know times and dates, but also get to choose the outcomes.

We're told that without trials and tribulations, we wouldn't appreciate our joys. I of course wouldn't mind a few weeks of joys without trials and tribulations.

We're told to trust in God's plan for us, to question these decisions is not trusting. I of course figure God gave me a brain to question. I'm sure there are days that even I tax God's patience.

I've noticed that in times of extreme sorrow or pain, even the people who espew that they don't believe in God...they pray to God.

Existance

2006-11-25T08:11:00.000-08:00

Existance is define by minutes, hours and days; always giving, but never able to take.

Do I regret the decisions in my life? Very seldom. Do I wish for things I do not have? More than I should. Do I dream of love and the world outside my door? Yes!

Every decision I've made has made me who I am today. Would I have done things differently? Yes. I'd have liked to learn to make choices better, learned to love myself sooner and told a few people where to take a hike and kiss my ass. But, all in all, every decision seems in retrospect to have had a positive effect on my life.

Mostly, I'm learning to be content in the knowledge that my shoulders are strong enough to bear the responsibilities within my life.

My Dolls

2006-11-25T05:56:00.000-08:00

My first major was a Debbie Reynolds bride doll (with boobs...PRE-Barbie) on the top shelf at CR Anthony's. I went to look at it daily...except weekends since stores weren't open back then. It had to be about 1958 or 1959...cost $10 I remember and I was absolutely praying for it, knowing it cost too much for mom to buy for me. My birthday came...was a Saturday morning so I guess I could look on the net at old calendars and see what year it was...I got my chores done and we walked to town, mom and I. She told me she was going to buy it for me...and remember..this was getting ready for school time so I had never had a present before for my birthday. I don't remember walking...I just remember floating the two blocks to town. When we got there, there was another lady and little girl holding the doll getting ready to purchase it, but had not decided for sure. My mom pulled me aside and told me that if the little girl chose the doll, that I would have to be a big girl and let her have it since she was younger. Funny, I understood in my disappointment. We walked away to pretend not to be interested and the lady put the doll back up on the shelf. I grabbed mom and we grabbed the doll, mom paid for it and I was in heaven. I'll bet I made that doll over 100 dresses AND bras and panties...she had high heels too. When I went away to college, mom took it to her classroom and let the children play with it and they tore it up. A few years ago, after searching the net for years, I found her again....without the bride dress....and bought her. I have yet to make her bride dress again...but I remember every seam and piece of lace so I'll get to it someday.

My second favorite doll was a 'Ruthie' doll. She was a baby doll with curly hair. She had a bottle and she wet her diaper! What a novel idea! I'll bet Niagra Falls couldn't compare to quantity of water with what I put through that babydoll. I sewed clothes for this doll also. I did somehow manage to save her with only a little bit of her curly hair messed up for my daughter. I have a photo of Rodina (about age 2) when I first gave her Ruthie and she discovered that the doll wet her diaper...the look of utter amazement and surprise. Knowing Rodina now, I'm sure she was thinking 'What the heck...mom's giving me a baby to take care of? Is she sick or what? Doesn't she know that I'm a baby myself?' Still, I love that photo...it was me attempting to pass on my love of a doll and giving her that connection to 'girlhood'.

My grand daughters have many many dolls. I keep telling Rodina that she needs to wean out the dolls so that they have one or two special dolls to learn to have a special relationship with. When we were children, we got ONE gift at Christmas. This was always a doll for the girls...what self respecting girl wouldn't want only a doll? These dolls had to be a babydoll of course. Those dollbabies were our closest friend for the year. This is training to be a mommy.