Freedom of Speech

I believe in freedom of speech. I have the right to say whatever I want to say, right here in the forum known as my personal blog. I haven't named you or specifically addressed you, so I have in no way infringed on your own rights. If you have found anything I have said on this blog offensive or if you disagree, please take the time to compose an intelligent and well thought out response to my post. If you find yourself incapable of doing so or if it has you so distraught you cannot function, then by all means, DON'T READ MY BLOG! Unlike tirades and rants that I may do within your personal hearing range which may be nearly impossible to ignore or tune out, the beauty of a blog is that you are reading my thoughts so you have the power to just not read it. I want to make this point clear as any messages sent to me in regards to said blog in which you insult my character, intelligence and overall moral character, I will then retaliate and I have no real problem replying in public and allowing everyone to see the utter ignorance to which I am subjected to on any one day. Take this as your formal warning; there will be no second warnings.

You Choose

You know the saying, you can't choose your family, well have you ever asked yourself if you could, would you choose the one you have? I am not talking about your husband and children, I am talking about the ones that came before you. We have all been there. We have had those moments where you wonder how you could possibly share the same DNA as those people. Some people may even toy with the idea that maybe they were adopted or abducted at a young age and that somewhere out there is a perfect family just waiting to find them. Well, this may be a shocker, but that picture perfect family does not exist. You may as well embrace the insanity because it is that insanity that made you who you are today. You do have a choice to make now though. You can sit around repeating all of the bad decisions and mistakes that your ancestors made or you can say, I know I am better than this and I will prove it. I will prove that your future is not predetermined by others' pasts. Maybe you came from a long line of alcoholics, but you can choose whether or not to take that first drink. Maybe you don't know who your dad is because your mom changed men more often than she changed clothes. You can choose whether you make a long term commitment to the one right man or you can choose to continue the trend, sleeping with/marrying all the wrong men and procreating every now and again. Maybe your dad was an abusive prick who either used you as a punching bag or worse, was a little too fond of you, if you know what I mean. You can choose to get the therapy to help you overcome what was done to you and hopefully not pass on those traits, or you can become the image of your father, but hopefully, someone will stop that trend. I come from a very long line of opinionated, loud-mouthed, overbearing women (and I don't care if any of them are reading this because they know it is true). I guess I could choose to end that trait too, but honestly, there are many worse things in my family history that I fight to overcome, I figure you have to prioritize things and being loud and bossy is just not at the top of my list. I am far from perfect; my family is far from perfect; however, I refuse to use the past as a crutch or excuse for decisions and choices that I make as an adult, in the present.

Am I any good?

Can you imagine being paid to give your opinions? I always knew that what I wanted to do more than anything in the world was to be paid for something I do for free already. Well, apparently my prayers may be answered. Someone who reads my blog or follows it on my Facebook has told someone else about it and they think that maybe I could blog for them. They are talking about paying me to sit down and give my OPINION on whatever subject they need. Not sure how this will work or even that it will happen, but just the idea that someone read something I wrote and said, she's not too bad. I started blogging just because I like to go off on a tangent about things and I know that neither my family nor my friends really have the time nor do they want to make the time to listen. Most of the time, I just have to get it off my chest and then I feel better. If I don't, I am like one of those pressure cookers who just cooks and cooks and eventually my top blows. BTW, I don't own a pressure cooker anymore. Those things scare me to death. I can't remember when my Grandma's house didn't have a big dent spot in her kitchen ceiling from one exploding. Anyway, I just thought that for once I would share something positive that didn't irritate me in any way. Not that later I may not return to the computer to tell you all the things that really got to me over the last week or so, but for now, I just wanted to say that someone likes me and actually noticed my rants for what they are. From what I can tell, the selection process is not going to happen overnight, but I will let you all know when you can read me somewhere other than here.

Snowy Days and Mondays

Most of the time, all I want to do on Monday mornings is enjoy the quiet, have my coffee and catch up on what I may have missed over the weekend. Apparently, according to Facebook, just about everyone I know is having a snow day today. First of all, I find it quite amusing that after spending 32 of my 35 years living in Mississippi, I can probably count the number of snow days we had on my fingers. This is not taking into consideration the Ice Storm in 1994 that left us without electricity for two weeks and caused my high school graduation to be rescheduled. Now I live in Idaho where that ability to have snow was on the pro side of our moving list and we are getting a light dusting of flakes. I also find much amusement in the way snow is handled in the South. I suppose I never really noticed while living there because it was just what you did or maybe I could just remember being without power for that time, so I thought over-reacting was a good idea too. I would be willing to bet that there isn't a loaf of bread, can of tuna, crackers, water, etc. left in Walmarts in the South today. I can laugh at this now because I know that when snow falls here, our days go on. If you are lucky, some jobs will have late reporting because they want you to drive safely. School is cancelled once in a blue moon and nothing actually closes. We go to the grocery store to buy food because our cupboards are bare and not because we fear the great blizzard. Snow falling means lots of wet boots and having to wear skull caps and gloves. It means that you have to go out extra early to dust off your car and scrape the windows. This in no way means that I have grown tired of it, but that I have learned to adapt. I am trying to see the positive in all things these days. The whole glass half full thing is pretty new to me. I have always figured that you anticipate the worst and pray for the best. Days like this give me plenty of time to think about my blessings. So what if my health is not perfect right now. At least I was able to wake up this morning and go about my day. There are so many who are in constant pain, have limitations on their activity and even those who know that their days are numbered. Maybe Peyton is having one of those whiny, four year old days. Whining is like nails on a chalkboard to me, but I am so fortunate to be able to listen to him whine. So many people have lost their children or weren't blessed with the ability to have them. Hopefully he will soon make a funny comment or do something wonderful and that will remind me how wonderful it is to be a parent. I know that I don't have a perfect husband or marriage (Chris knows this too, so don't freak out). He has habits that drive me insane and we are continuously adjusting to living together. Even after almost 11 years of marriage, there are plenty of trials in our marriage, but we have made the choice to make it work and to work very hard at it. Afterall, leaving and staying are both options. You have to choose. All you new(er)lyweds remember that when you say that you want what we have. In order to have it, you have to work hard and fight like hell. God doesn't hand you perfection, you have to find your own perfection. With all his faults, let me say, they are nothing like some of the men I have encountered lately. My husband trusts me (some may say this could be one of his faults) and I have never had to constantly account for my whereabouts to him. I suppose he figured once I left my parents' home, enforcing a curfew on me would be ridiculous. Yes, I have met women with curfews. I have complete access to our finances. I earn very little of our income, but he doesn't see that as a reason to put me on an allowance or for me to have to ask permission to spend normal amounts of money. Yes, I know women on allowances. After he works all day, he would love to come home to a clean home and a homecooked meal on the table. He, however, understands that my day doesn't only consist of those two things and if it happens, he appreciates it, but he doesn't expect it. I have heard men berate their wives about not having dinner ready at a certain time. I know men who come home to sit and watch TV, never picking up a hand to help with the kids or simply give their children attention. Well, Chris is not one of those men and thank God! I am very fortunate. If he were, chances are I would be in prison right now, because a man like that would drive me to abuse, assault, maybe even murder. Now I am going to have lunch with my whiny son, probably soup because that is all that I can eat these days and maybe clean up a bit, just because he doesn't ask me to.

Testing Your Love

The holidays are a wonderful thing. I have always loved this season. I love getting together with friends and family. I love decorating my house, although the de-Christmasing takes me forever to get around to. I love the music and the movies. I love the way my kids' eyes light up on Christmas morning. I always loved being out of school or work for the holidays, like Christmas made time stand still. However, now that I am a parent with kids home for the holidays, I am so ready for the madness to end. If I hear that my kids are bored one more time after they have a room full of new toys that I have yet to find room for, I may have a breakdown. If I have to yell one more time to leave your brother alone or stop fighting or just be quiet, I may commit a felony. It is so funny how the same time of year that brings so much joy to my life can also bring so much frustration and aggravation. I love my children to the depths of my being. However, school vacations can most definitely test the true depth of that love. When I was a student, I would have cringed at the idea of year-round school, but as a parent....bring on the long school year. Dear State of Idaho, first and foremost you need to get with the program and realize that all-day kindergarten is the only way to go. Parents dream of the day their kids go to school for this reason. For those of us who stay home, we dream of having the hours to actually get things done. For those that work, they are looking forward to childcare expenses disappearing (or at least lessening) and no longer being childcare poor. We would also contend that even in the poorest states, children go to kindergarten all day. Also, while you are at it, look into the benefits of a year-round school year. The benefits of not having a bunch of bored adolescents roaming the streets for two months during the summer alone should be enough to consider it. I would love for my kids to be education forcused all twelve months out of the year. If I could do this myself, I would homeschool. Let's face it, I have enough trouble getting them to put their shoes away and put the seat down on the toilet, so getting them to do math and read daily is not that easy for me. As you may can tell, I am still stuck in the last days of our holiday break. While the first few days were nice, the novelty wore off a couple of days after Christmas. While we only have one day, you may find that I actually camp out in front of the building on Tuesday night just to make sure that they are at their respective schools at the earliest possible minute that they can be. I am so looking forward to the return to school and normalcy that I can assure you that Wednesday morning I will be like a kid on Christmas. I look forward to maybe having a cup of coffee with some adult conversation, so if anyone is interested, let me know. School will be starting back and I will regain my life again. Although it may not seem like much, those few hours a day are precious and I will never again take them for granted. To all the parents that say they aren't ready for school to go back...either you need to stop lying to yourself or I need to send you my kids because you are much better at this parenting thing than I am.

Resolution

Each year at this time, people sit around pondering what it is they can decide to do or not do that will make them better people. Most changes will only last two weeks at the most and then it is back to the same old thing that they always do. I, too, have been guilty of that in the past. Not this year. Resolutions to me seem like prohibiting myself from making choices. I don't get to rationalize what the better choice is because I have simply resolved not to do it. It is kind of like when your parents ground you. They take away your TV for a month; this will actually work to better your life, however, you didn't make the choice of your own free will to spend more time with books and less with TV, so when that month is up, you overdose on TV time. When you go on a diet, you deprive your body of things that it has become accustom to having. Yes, it may be a better thing, but instead of choosing to lessen your intake of the bad, you just say no more. Well, once you become tired of that, you over-indulge in those bad things almost to a point of gluttony. This year, I have resolved to make better choices in my life. That still leaves the choice part to me. If I make better choices, then the rest will fall into place. I will be healthier, maybe thinner, have better relationships, maybe be nicer (but I wouldn't count too much on that one). All in all, every vice that I may have are choices that I have made. I did not wake up one day as this person. Every fork I came to in the road, I made a choice as to which route to take and it got me here. Now I could backtrack and re-evaluate my life to exhaustion or I can just accept the past and make a real effort at making smarter choices. I am going to pick the later. If you like me, then chances are, you will continue to do so, whether my vices stay or go. If you don't like me, maybe you will start to, but honestly, one of my better choices is choosing to put me first and the opinions of outside entities can't and don't matter. If I died tomorrow, I just want to be remembered as a woman who lived her life to her fullest ability, with no regrets and as a friend said recently, "full of piss and vinegar". I want the idea of me to bring a smile to people's faces and if I can do that, for whatever reason, then I have been a success. Mostly, I resolve that this won't be my last year on this Earth, so don't think that you will be rid of me so fast. I still have plenty of soapbox rants left in me, plenty of opinions left to share and hopefully lots of smiles and laughs to produce. This is going to be a good year.

The Art of Giving and Receiving

Okay, so as you can imagine, I have several pet peeves. I don't have the time to, nor would I want to burden you with all the things that bother me. However, considering the time of year, I think that my pet peeve at people's lack of thought and graciousness with gift giving is an appropriate one to address. When I was younger, a teenager I think, my sister and I spent a great deal of money purchasing a Christmas gift for my mother. Now, anyone who knows Margrett, knows that she does not mix words and back then, she was younger and had very little tact. I don't remember what it looked like, but I know it was something to wear. Seeing that I shopped with Taffy, I am sure it was something nice, but definitely meant to "update" mom's wardrobe. When she opened the gift, she looked it over and then looked us straight in the face and said, "Take this back. You didn't buy this for me." I agree that that is in no way how to graciously accept a gift, but since she was our mother and her goal was to teach us, she said this with the best of intentions. The lesson we quickly learned was that when purchasing a gift, you have to keep the recipient in mind. The amount of money you spend or how nice the gift is has little to do with whether or not they will like the gift. So goes the old adage, "it's the thought that counts". That is in no way meant to mean that as long as you think about getting something, you did enough. It means that the most important part of a gift is that you take the time to really think about what a person likes or needs and spend your time getting something for that person. A gift that instantly says, I know you well. I try to always remember that lesson, as I hope all of you will remember it too this holiday season. I would rather have something that I would like and need that you bought at a dollar store than something that doesn't look like me or is useless that you spent $100 on (later in life I am sure my kids will love this). However, with that being said, if we are in a gift exchanging situation (family drawings for example) and you have to ask what to give me and actually want a detailed gift description to include where to buy it, then you really shouldn't be buying me anything anyway. I love the surprise of the holiday. I like seeing what you WANT to give me. If you are going to go out and get the exact item I wanted and then you want me to do the same thing, then we should just keep our money and purchase what we want on our own. I take time to think about every gift. I LOVE giving gifts. If you get a gift from me, that doesn't mean that I expect you to buy me something (although I do like presents). It means that I thought of you when I bought the gift and seeing you happy to get it is enough. I am the "happy" person. I buy little things on occasion and give them to people just because. This is not an invite to message me about how you can become a recipient! You will just have to wait and see :) I plan to teach my children just as my mother taught me (hopefully with more tact). Everyone tries to remember about the receiving part and sending a thank you note. That is a dying art that I want to make sure doesn't die in my family too, but take the time to teach about giving and giving without expectations. It is amazing how just a few dollars and a little time can brighten a person's day. You should try it this year.