Happy Memorial Day

This is one holiday that I think is great, it has a real purpose and it hits home personally as my nephew sits in the sandy desert in 120 degree sunshine fighting for our country as we speak. I am so thankful for him and all those soldiers who are fighting in what feels like a useless battle.

Am I the only one who feels this reminds them of back in the 70's when we were fighting in the vietnam war and everyone kept feeling like we really shouldn't be there anymore? I know I was just a kid but I remember tying the yellow ribbon around the old oak tree just to show our support for the soldiers to come home. I didn't fully understand the whole thing back then, but now that I am here and a grown up, I do get it and I wish my son didn't have to see on the news who died recently or what happened overseas. I hate it!


 So anyway, here I am relaxing with my cyber  family, hubs is out fixing the neighbors car, the boy is playing with his girlfriend that he has over while her parents prepare their inground pool for opening :)  It's not raining on Memorial Day...which is a first in a very long time. It seems like every single Memorial Day it rains, so this is a nice change. Plus I get to do all this in my lawnchair outdoors. OK so I'm sneezing, my eyes are burning from the pollen and I really shouldn't be out here, B UT it's so nice out I can't help myself! I've already weeded out the beds, picked the fresh strawberries for the day (we get about a dozen a day) watered the flowers and strawberries and de-flea'ed the cats. One of the cats tried to lick himself and now he's drooling....dingus is silly enough to do that and doesn't learn his lesson. He'll be fine, but he'll be drooling for a day or two.

This week coming up should be a pretty busy one. We have the start of our Adult/Youth bowling league, the State Championship banquet, Orion's 4th grade project is due (he has a lot of work to do still) and we have the Junior League banquet as well.

I'm off of here for now, the kiddos want to go inside and have some lunch and I'm kinda hungry too. I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day holiday:)

From Blogger Pictures

It's the little things in life

Isn't it funny how the little things are what take you back the most? For me it can be something so simple as a certain smell or a sound or even the way someone looks at me. I find myself reflecting more and more these days and here are a few things I have discovered.

1) My hubby is an amazing man and he can surprise me when I least expect it. He's not normally a touchy, feely, kind of guy so when I sat in the basement and cried because the voice in my head (aka the egg donor) was so obnoxiously loud it came as a surprise to me that he practically begged me to tell him what was wrong. I told him it had to do with her, but he insisted on hearing it anyway. So I explained about how the broken dishwasher and the stupid laundry made me hear her in my head, how him giving me a hard time about unfinished laundry was making her louder, and how I would give just about anything to shut her up! He wanted to know more, he wanted to know the details of why she was so loud and why simple tasks such as laundry and dishes effected me so drastically. I found that after telling him the details, she became quieter, I didn't hear her as loudly as before. The next day as I washed dishes she was just a vague whisper in the background and as I put laundry away she was actually silent for once! I didn't hear her there behind me yelling that I wasn't doing it right, it was AMAZING to say the least! I told hubby this and his response was that if he had the power to quiet her then by all means anytime I needed to talk, to get it out, all I needed to do was tell him and he would listen! I think it makes him feel good to have that kind of power over her, it makes me feel good too! I've found something she can't win over, a way to fight her off...I can't believe how easy it was and I wish I had discovered this a long time ago!

2) My son is a very talented boy, he can bring back memories of the funniest things. Just this week he brought back some memories that simply made me laugh, really truly laugh and it made him laugh when I shared them with him as well. See this week in art class they worked on origami and they made swans. Orion made me 3 swans at school, each one better than the one before. The first was orange, but the other two he made with pink paper because he knows how much I like pink. Then he made me a sailboat as well. So today he asked me if I knew how to make anything useful, apparently he's not enjoying making swans lol so I told him all I knew how to make was paper airplanes. We grabbed a couple pieces of paper and I showed him how to make an airplane, he followed my instructions well. Then he made another, and another, and another until he had 6 paper airplanes. he proceeded to fly them across the room over my head, run to where they all landed, and fly them back again. That is what took me back to when I was in 4th grade and this boy named Danny made airplanes at school. He would whiz them around the classroom and I was always amazed with his paper airplane making skills. He would draw the windows and little people sitting there and the pilot with a little hat on and he would fly them all over. Our teacher would of course confiscate the airplanes and put them into the airplane drawer at her desk. The drawer was full of paper airplanes by the end of the year and I would bet money that at least 95% of them were made by Danny. So I shared this with my boy and told him I didn't want to hear about him making paper airplanes in school cause I am betting the teachers nowadays dislike them as much as my 4th grade teacher did 30 years ago! It's just funny how i can still picture Danny perfectly in my minds eye flying airplanes over my head just like my boy did today.

3) As I watch my boy become a small man, I find myself not receiving as many hugs and signs of affection as I used to receive. In general it's an embarrassment to show affection of any kind or to receive it when it comes to the parents.  I am more tolerated than say Dad...if dad attempts to show any affection (even if it's just in front of me) he gets yelled at. I feel lucky to not be there yet! However I have found that those rare moments when my boy hugs me or out of no where says "I love you mom!" it melts my heart and it melts away any bit of stress I was feeling!  I feel lucky to know that I am loved by my child and oddly enough I actually feel a little sorry for the egg donor knowing that she did not hear those words from me and that the last words she ever heard from me were me telling her how angry I was with her for hurting us and how I would never forget and that I did not feel love for her as a normal child should and that she was the reason for that. I have bitter-sweet feelings about those last words...I feel sorry for her that she knew her child was upset with her for never appologizing for hurting us and I kinda feel bad that she had to go to her death knowing that if she had appologized I might have thought about making up with her and forgiving her for her evil ways. But since she never once said she was sorry, she lost that chance. I think that happens with kidnap victims and hostages too...feeling sorry for their captors instead of outright hatred. Maybe I'm just growing up and realizing it's no use to be angry anymore...but I doubt it.

Well it's Friday night and my boy actually wants to cuddle so I think I am going to go do just that because tomorrow he might not want anything to do with me lol

From Blogger Pictures

Summer Vacation Planning part 2

The hubs and I decided to go for it and booked the Smuggs vacation! We'll be going up to Vermont to have some fun! As I picked up Orion today he was asking if we had booked the trip and if we were definitely going because he couldn't think about anything else all day long! He is actually starting to get a little excited at the concept! I was thrilled to hear him warming up to the idea and look forward to watching him enjoy the giant water trampoline in the middle of the 6 acre pond! He wants to do that and the giant swing that dangles 100 feet in the air...looks like lots of fun and I want to do it too!

Of course as usual we already have a small hitch....after hubs booked it they called him back to tell him the bank card wouldn't go through for some reason. They supposedly tried it a bunch of times but it wouldn't take...but we know we have enough money in there because that's where our tax return is sitting! So tomorrow hubs is going to call the bank and see if there is any reason it might not have gone through and then call smuggs back and go from there. Currently they have our names in there and the place is reserved for us so we're happy about that!

I also called the kennel and woohoo we got the last slot for that week so the dog will be well taken care of and we won't have to worry about him at all!

From Blogger Pictures

vacation planning

It's so not an easy task!! We're trying to figure out what to do and I am under the impression that it would be easier to rip out my teeth one by one without any pain killers!

See the hubs wants to do something fun and actually get away for 5 or 6 days, I think the idea is great, however we have this boy who simply does not deal well with the unknown! Last night hubs and I looked online and found Smuggs...as in Smugglers Notch in Vermont. They have what looks like  a great summer vacation set-up...8 heated pools, a 6 acre pond complete with a water trampoline. Each of the 8 heated pools has water slides. There's other activities as well, kids programs, parent programs, things to do as a family and all at around 300 bucks a night. Well this morning I showed Orion the small video on the website thinking it might excite him, that he might think it was something fun to do. Unfortunately about 10 seconds into the video they mention the kids programs and he flips out! He's not going to camp, he's not going to be away from us all day long, he doesn't want to have to be told what to do on his vacation! Of course I tried to explain that he wouldn't have to do the kids programs, that it was just an option that was available, he was too stuck on it to get away from it. I tried to remind him of all the times he had gone snowboarding and wanted to hang out with the other kids at the pool but I wanted to go back to the room and how this could be an opportunity for him to hang out with other kids his age without mom being a drag....not the right answer. I tried to remind him how bored he is every summer and how much he complained last summer about not being able to do anything because we couldn't afford it AND all his friends were away at camp so he had no one to play with...that didn't work either. Nothing I could say or do would deter this boy from the concept that he would be spending his week in misery....who wants to spend a couple thousand dollars for their kid to be completely miserable?? Not me!

I just don't know what to do. I do vaguely recall being a kid and having the same kinds of apprehension, and I recall getting very hostile and angry sounding. I remember being all surly and moody thinking of all the ways things could go bad and not seeing the good at all. I remember thinking the worst of everything, and I thought it was because I was so used to being disappointed that surely nothing good could come to me. I was so wrong...apparently it's something genetic and I don't know how to fix this! I don't know how to turn him around. I don't know exactly what I am doing wrong! I have always tried to encourage him at everything, I have tried to be the positive one but it's so hard! I just don't know what I should do here.

Here's my theory.....since I know that I used to be just like the boy and I can clearly remember my foster parents sending me to 4-H camp and me being determined to hate it...in the end I ended up not even wanting to go home by the end of the week. I think knowing this what I need to do is simply book the vacation, not tell the boy anything other than we are going. We ignore his pouting and fussing and know that in the end he's going to have a great time once he is actually there and sees how much fun  it can be. I am betting if we do this he will end up meeting some boy at the pool or pond that's in one of the kids programs and tell Orion all about it and how much fun it is that he'll want to join in  the next day. I am betting that no matter how determined he is to be miserable, he'll end up having fun just like I did! The problem will be getting Mr. Patience (aka the hubs) to go along with such a plan. I just don't know if he has the patience to ignore the fussing and grumbling long enough to get us up there and have the boy see for himself that it's really a fun thing to do during the summer.

Me personally...I would give just about anything to go back to Vermont and breath the fresh mountain air of my youth! Maybe I could get Big Sis to come up and visit while we're there. I think it would be great to see her again since I haven't actually seen her (other than in photos) in about 20 years. I am sure if we vacationed up there she would make the trip to come see us and it would be nice to chat with her again face to face. Even if she couldn't make it, it would be nice to build some happy memories with the family and have them happen in Vermont.  I'm goi g to have to do a lot of talking, thinking and planning before making the final decisions, but we're gonna have to do it soon since the week hubs has vacation is 4th of July week so it'll probably be more crowded and book up faster than usual.

I gotta get this wild child ready for school...which means getting him off the PS3, so I'm out.

From Blogger Pictures

A poem a day

That's what I'm doing for Big Sis. Every single day I have either found a really nice poem to post on her facebook wall or made one up to post. I have decided that if she is determined to stay with her guy regardless of the battles and arguments they have then the least I can do is ensure she has at least one moment out of every day where she smiles and knows she is loved! I never want her to go a single day without knowing that she is loved by someone! She has already been through enough crap in her life, she surely needs to feel some love. Ad so I have taken it upon myself to post on her wall every day in the hopes that she will smile and know deep down inside that somebody loves her and that she is special! Am I crazy??

From Blogger Pictures

Enjoying my new toy and other thoughts

Spent most of the afternoon yesterday listening to Orion and the twin boys he invited over fighting and arguing something awful! These two boys were the best display of sibling rivalry I've seen since my sister and I were their age lol. At one point they were fist fighting in the backyard, that was the point I decided it was time for them to go home. The only good that came out of that playdate was the moment I heard my son say

"You two are making me wish I never invited you over here! You fight so much that I am never inviting the two of you together again! From now on you can only come over here one at a time!"

I did tell their mother what had happened, although some might say that was wrong, I feel if my son were a rotten little snot I would want their mother to tell me so I will do the same thing. It's that theory of treat others the way you want to be treated. I want to know what my kid does so I will tell others what their kids do too. Besides if my kid behaved like those two boys I would have been horribly embarrassed!

Also, I am truly enjoying my new netbook hubby bought for me. Orion begged me to play on it this morning and I let him for awhile before school. He really wants a laptop of his own...he wanted one before, but now he REALLY wants one!  He wants a big one like dads, but he will probably end up with one like mine. Personally I like this one better than the big one, the only thing that made me wonder if I would like it or not was the fact that there is no cd player in it so I would have to buy an external one if I were to want to download cd's into this thing. Of course that's not really a huge deal, so I'm not too worried about that. I have grown to love it already and am finding reasons to play on it regularly.

From Blogger Pictures

Late mothers Day present

On Sunday mornings I usually work while hubby takes the wild child out to breakfast and then they come home and watch a movie quietly in the living room while I finish up...today was an ordinary Sunday except they didn't get back until I was almost finished up work. When I finished up hubby told me how he had taken the wild child out and bought him new shoes and he even got himself a matching pair (too cute) Then they told me to sit on the couch because they had a surprise for me.

While Orion ensured that I did not peek hubby went out to the kitchen and brought back a small box which he placed in my lap. The box contained a brand new Asus PC netbook! Apparently my recent meltdown got him to thinking that maybe I needed a little something to make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside and make it so that I didn't have to be on the desktop computer while posting on FB or here or just checking e-mails.

I have to say, I have a couple of great guys! They are totally awesome!

From Blogger Pictures

Crazy Weekend...

Yesterday Orion had the Prince and Princess Tournament for bowling. The kids compete to see who can get the most points over their average in a total of 3 games. Orion had a rough day to say the least and only took 5th place. His allergies were killing him, his eyes were all red and swollen like he had been crying and his sinus' were all buggy! Poor kid was so mad to only take 5th place...I told him 5th was better than 7th like I took earlier in the week in the King and Queen which was basically the same thing just people my age instead. That made him feel a little better LOL

After coming home from the tournament, Orion asked if he could have a friend over so I gave him the phone and he started calling people up to see if he could find a friend...he ended up with his girlfriend Jesse as usual and she came over for a couple of hours. Her mother was ever so grateful since she had things to do and needed to get Jesse out of her hair for awhile. It worked out great for both of us. Orion and Jesse went out for a bike ride around the school next door and  I got to try to maintain my computer...which is no easy feat these days. For some reason Internet Explorer is being a pain in my hiney! Recently it started loading exceptionally slow and then when I would click a link and have it open in a new window, that new window would be even slower. To top it off, when I finally got frustrated enough to close out that new window, not only would it close that window but it would close all the windows on the page. Then IE (when reopened) would give me some message about unexpectantly closing down and do I want to start on my homepage or where I left off.  I ran virus scans, registry scans, malware and spyware scans, everything I could think of to no avail! I finally gave up and resulted to using Firefox which works like a charm! I am running smoothly and quickly with firefox, but it does take some getting used to....for instance figuring out how to transfer my bookmarks from IE to FF...ok I have blond roots and they sometimes come through screaming loud!

So now that I am up and running, I get to work BUT work is soooooo slow these days it's painful to sit here! I can't stand how slow it is, so I blog, go on facebook, write poems for my Big Sis (a new hobby of mine) and post those poems on facebook for her.  I am also studying hard, hoping that maybe I can finish this easier stuff faster so that I can get down to the hard stuff that will work my brain more. Right now it's all basic office stuff that I pretty much already know....stuff like how to properly format a letter, or how to properly word an e-mail, how to work a multi-line phone system etc. Like I said, basic stuff that I learned back in high school when I was an office aide.  I am breezing through this stuff, but soon it'll be more detailed stuff and medical terminology so I know I have my work cut out for me. If I can build good study habits now with the easy stuff I'll be ready to study the harder stuff. Plus, I'm setting a good example for my boy as he sees me studying when I have a free moment.

Finally...my egg donor has been louder than usual in my head these days. I hear her voice a lot and it's unnerving. I know it's partly due to the fact that my prescription for my PMDD meds is running out and I need a refill, and partly because the dishwasher hasn't been replaced and hubby wants me doing laundry everyday instead of once a week. Last night I had a meltdown, broke into tears and bawled like a little baby. Hubby was upset the laundry hadn't been put away, and I was struggling with her in my head after doing dishes so I hadn't gotten to putting it away. Hubby generally doesn't like to hear about my past, he usually just says something along the lines of "It's over, that's in the past. This is your here and now so just get over it" He believes that talking about it makes it stay, he doesn't understand how talking helps the healing process. I broke down, told him why I was struggling so much, explained how I literally hear her in my head screaming at me and how it's been worse since the dishwasher broke and I just can't deal with it right now. I want to throw all the dishes out and order takeout every night just so I don't have to hear her in my head, I want disposable clothing so I don't have to listen to her anymore. I want to go pay a hypnotist to take her out of my head LITERALLY! I just want her to stop but I can't seem to make her stop and the harder time he gives me about not getting that laundry put away the louder she becomes and it's killing me. It's making me feel mentally unstable and emotionally drained! He decided it would be better for me to just do laundry once a week until the dishwasher  can be replaced and I can get my prescription filled. I feel like such a loser letting her win, but I don't know how to fight a ghost!

From Blogger Pictures

Photo Friday

I thought the title sounded good...Photo Friday...I know I haven't done it before and knowing me it might take awhile for me to ever do it again BUT for this week, this will be my Friday post...it'll be about a photo.

This isn't just any photo, it's a photo I took with my camera just yesterday

I love that photo, my boy has what I believe are the most amazing eyes in the world! Since I love the photo so much I decided to try to play with it a little, I used to do this a lot and even did a few digital enhancements for money before, but since I never really liked to put make-up on kids I didn't do well in the business. I was completely self-tought and so I don't know the software as well as the professionals and I don't know how to take a ho-hum photo and turn it into something amazing...what I can do is touch the good photos up a little...brighten the right areas, fix minor flaws like little bits of food or a fly away piece of hair. And I can turn it b&w which is something I just love. I love the look of a b&w photo. So I used my corel paint shop pro and did this

It's not a huge difference I know, but it's a change. I made the color deeper, brought out his eyes more. I like this, it's still natural but a little better than the raw camera can do. Then I did this

Voila..a gorgeous b&w photo! I think I'll probably go down to CVS ad have these printed out for me, I'll probably get copies for my mother in law since I know she would love to have one as well.

Well that's my photo and this is Friday so I guess this post is done lol I hope you enjoyed looking at my handsome boy!

From Blogger Pictures

Thoughtful Thursday Wednesday

I know it's not Thursday yet, it will be tomorrow and I will probably still write  a Thoughtful Thursday post tomorrow, but today I need to get more off my chest so that I can bowl in my competition tonight free of this dead weight.

See I have been talking with Big Sis a lot lately...my number of texts sent and received has quadrupled this month, not to mention the hours spent on the phone talking to her, laughing with her, and remembering with her. She has been such a wonderful help in putting all these thoughts into place and I feel my emotional health has improved drastically since talking to her on a daily hourly basis...ok so we have a texting habit but it never interferes with either of our jobs so it's not that big of a deal IMO.

Anyway, back to the reason for my post today...recently we have been talking about when the egg donor was  in her last days. Big Sis was there as she lay on her death bed, even though she really didn't want to be. Her oldest daughter told her she should go visit just so that she would have made her peace. Her next to oldest daughter told her to go for a different reason...this girl is one smart cookie! She told Big Sis to go visit for one reason only...to see if she was truly a decent human being and would realize what a rotten human being she really was. If she was not a selfish scumbag she would lay on her deathbed and apologize for her evil ways. She would recognize how wrong she was to treat her children the way she did, apologize for beating us daily and beg for forgiveness.....this is why Big Sis went, just to see if she would apologize. If she did and if she begged for forgiveness then she would know that the egg donor was not evil to the core and that maybe there was some good deep down inside. What she found was the egg donor talking like Big Sis was her favorite daughter, going on and on about how wonderful big brother #3 was and then telling Big Sis she needed to go mow her lawn so that when she died her house would be presentable to be cleaned out and sold. There was no apologizing, there was no recognition of the daily beatings, nothing at all!! Big Sis walked away knowing that we truly have an evil egg donor and it was really painful for her to realize that. Sadly, I felt nothing at hearing about her last days. I felt absolutely nothing! I knew deep down that she had a demented view of herself and our life. Perhaps when she went into her rages she didn't know who she was or what she was doing, perhaps she had some kind of mental illness that caused her to not know reality...or perhaps I just want to believe that because she was my egg donor and I have a small piece of her inside me whether or not I like it! If she was evil to the core, if her heart was black all the way through, then that means I have evil genes...something I just don't want to admit.  I'm a good person, at least I like to think I am. I try to be nice to everyone, smile at the right times, be pleasant and helpful. I never hit my child, I teach him right from wrong without violence. I aim to please my husband and those around me because it makes me happy to see those I love happy. But is there an evil gene sitting there dormant waiting to rise to the surface? Have I maybe passed that evil gene on to my son? I pray to whatever god might be out there that the answer is NO!

The thing that amazes me most is my lack of shock or surprise or even hurt feelings when I heard how the egg donor lay there acting like nothing bad ever happened in our family. Big Sis said it was weird because she talked like we were the freaking Brady Bunch or something. As Big Sis sat there all she wanted to ask was "if you loved us so much why did you beat us every single day?" but instead she puked on the floor (yes I did LOL when I heard that) and walked out of the room. She never saw our egg donor again. I felt horrible for Big Sis, she and I have always been so close and I wish I could have been there because I would not have let that old bag get away with that! I would have tore her a new one verbally! I am still full of anger and resentment and it would have been nice to vent that. Thus my Thoughtful Thursday posts...this is my vent, my ability to say the things I never could say before.

My final words will be a letter to the egg donor, words she'll never read but I should have said!

Dear Evil Egg Donor,

I sit here today as a grown woman, someone I feel has survived amazing feats and if I  were my daughter I would be so proud of me! I am a mother, I am a sister, I am a loyal wife, but most of all I am NOTHING like you!

I still remember the day you tried to kill my sister, holding the pillow over her face screaming at her that she was an evil devil spawn, I remember you holding that same pillow over my face screaming that I never should have been born! Because you did that, I can't have anything over my face EVER! I panic and feel my heart beat 100mph, I feel my breath stop in my throat and I cry out with soundless screams...just like I did that day you tried to kill me! Even a single layer sheet that I can practically see through throws me into a full panic attack! I also remember how you threw me into that closet and locked the door as a form of punishment, or how you made me go get the leather belt, metal yardstick or grampy's leather glove just so you could beat me with them. I remember so much terror and fear when I should remember nothing but love, laughter and fun when I think of my childhood days.

You hurt me beyond belief, you hurt us all so badly that the state had to come take us away from you. they had to pick us up at school because my big sister feared what you would do to us if the social worker showed up on your doorstep to take us when you were there. You probably would have locked the doors and killed us all rather than let someone let your dirty little secret out. That's one thing that makes me smile you know...the thought of you realizing that your children had been taken away from you and wouldn't be coming back. Oh I hope your heart ached, I hope for once you felt fear like I felt! I relish the thought of your suffering...I'm sure you were more worried about what we would tell them than you were about us in general. You claimed to have loved us, but honestly if that is love boy I would hate to see your expression of hatred!  I hope you spent your last few moments here on earth suffering and in pain, I hope your death was horrible and caused you 7 lifetimes of agony....in exchange for the 7 children you hurt every single day! Yes we still suffer deeply because of what you did!

I know that some of my siblings have turned to religion and claim that god has set them free from their pain and that they forgive you...I call that denial. If there truly was a god that could have removed that pain and suffering then he would have done it a hell of a lot sooner because I recall begging and pleading in prayer asking him to save us from that nightmare we were in. Instead of being released I just got another beating. So religion is not the answer for me because I find it hard to believe any merciful god would allow an evil person like you to have children in the first place! If he knows all and sees all then he knew, he saw and he did nothing! My therapy, my way of moving on is bonding with my big sister, being a better mother than you could ever dream of being. Basically when I don't know what to do, I just ask myself "what would the egg donor do?" then I do the opposite....so if anything gives you comfort let it be the fact that at least you taught me what NOT to do!

I will close with this....I will forever be bitter and resentful for the life you stole from me. The childhood I had was nothing better than a living nightmare. I hope you know that it was you who made me this way! I sit here as a woman who has succeeded in life and you had nothing to do with it! You don't even get the right to be titled mother because you were no mother, you were just the egg donor!

Sincerely,

Me

~~~~~~~~~~
Ok, now I feel like I can go bowl in my competition tonight and not have that dead weight sitting in the pit of my stomach. I was having a hard time only because I never got to say things and when Big Sis was telling me how she had watched the egg donor on her death bed not even caring to apologize I began to wish I had said something, wished that I had been there to let her know how I felt because honestly it would have felt good to tell her how horrible I feel she was for not recognizing what she did was wrong. Even if she couldn't help it, even if she had anger issues, she didn't have to take it out on us and she could have apologized and begged for forgiveness. If she had admitted she was wrong I might have felt something other than resentment and anger, I might have found the ability to feel at least pity....now I know there is no room for that because she doesn't deserve it!

From Blogger Pictures

What's going on........

This is our 2 busiest months in our house, our regular bowling leagues wrap up for the season and all the tournaments happen in these 2 months along with the banquets for the bowling. I had my league banquet today, Orion already bowled in the State Championship, taking 1st place teams, 2nd place doubles and 3rd place for singles. We have to go to the banquet for that in a couple of weeks so he can get his trophies. I qualified for the King and Queen tournament which will happen on Wednesday night, Orion qualified for the Prince and Princess Tournament that will happen on Saturday. We also have the banquet for his regular league coming up right after the banquet for state championships and right after that he is trying out for the Bay State Games tournament....if he qualifies he'll have to compete in the finals the week after qualifying rounds.   In the middle of all that school will end, we'll start our Adult/Youth summer league and compete together on a weekly basis all summer long. Orion has also decided that next fall he wants to bowl with me in an Adult/Youth league rather than bowl in the regular junior kids league so that might make next year a little less because I won't need to attend 2 separate end of league parties like I have had to in years past. Honestly, I look forward to having one less thing to do :)

From Blogger Pictures

Thoughtful Thursday.....

The Laundry Monster

As I mentioned in my last post, I will explain why I hate laundry so much

This is a photo of an old fashioned washing machine, you fill the bucket with water, wash the clothes, and use that wringer part to piece by piece wring out the clothing. After the clothing is washed and wrung out you have to hang it up somewhere to dry...here is my story:

When I was a little girl we used a washing machine just like that one pictured above. It pretty much matched it EXACTLY except ours was green. Once a month ( because that's all the egg donor allowed for water usage) Big Sis and I had to do the laundry for everyone in the house. We had to go to each room, gather all the dirty clothes, bring it to the bathroom, sort it and wash it. We had to do the whites first because if we did the darks first they would get the water too dark and grimy and it would stain the whites....we were only allowed 1 filling of water to wash all the clothing in the house! So we would separate, Big Sis and I trying to make it fun by laughing at the egg donors big grannie panties and all our big brothers boy undies. Big Sis worked extra hard to make it fun for both of us and I appreciated that greatly.

One winter day, I was pulling a pair of jeans out of the grimy, nasty, cold water to wring out. The wringer had already been plugged in and we had wrung out some clothes already that Big Sis was preparing to take outside to hang on the clothesline. I found the last pair of jeans and pulled them out and went to feed them into the wringer when  screams rent through the air...it was not Big Sis, it was the evil egg donor. I had neglected to fold the jeans in half before feeding them into the wringer, apparently this was not correct. The egg donor grabbed my hand and as she yelled at me why the wringer needs flat items to go through it she pulled my hand to the wringer. Her words echo in my mind still "See it can't wring out big bulky things, it needs flat things! See how your hand won't go through as a fist? now flatten those fingers or I'll flatten them for you!" I had tried to fight her, tried to not have my hand fed to the wringer, I knew it would hurt me but I also knew if I did not flatten my hand she was going to break every last bone in that hand and feed it to the wringer and so I flattened my hand, tried not to cry as she pushed my fingers against the spinning wheels and my hand was sucked into the wringer all the way to my shoulder. I was screaming in pain when Big Sis pulled the plug to shut it off. She got a beating for interfering but she had probably saved my life so she still says it was worth it. Luckily the wringer could open up and I could get my arm out without having to go through it backwards, but I ended up at the doctors clinic with the egg donor telling him that I had been curious and that it was all an accident. She swore she wasn't in the room when it happened, pulled out her crocodile tears like she was worried about me and he actually believed her! I had a couple broken fingers and a dislocated elbow, skin torn up my underarm and bruising. I was also beaten because my stupidity caused her to have to spend money taking me to the doctor and embarrassment having to explain to that doctor what a stupid little girl she had. Big Sis and I STILL had to take the clothes outside to hang on the line, in the freezing cold. Our fingers were numb with cold (which was actually a good thing for me)  and as we warmed up inside afterward Big Sis held me and let me cry. She would stroke my hair and tell me it was going to be ok, that we were strong and we would survive. She always promised our survival and those are the words I clung to day and night!

So that is why I hate laundry...do you think I have a good enough reason??

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Enjoy your weekend and remember love your children like you wished you were loved when you were their age!

From Blogger Pictures

I found something I hate more than laundry

Dishes by hand!!

My dishwasher broke recently, Mothers Day morning I awoke to find the dishes I had put into the dishwasher to be just as dirty as when they went in....and the cycle had already run! Of course it's not so easy to just shell out $700 or $800 bucks at the drop of a hat, so it'll be a couple weeks before a new dishwasher can be acquired...meaning mom has to wash dishes by hand!

For any normal, everyday kind of person this would just be a mere inconvenience....for me it's cause for flashbacks and nightmares. As I stand over the white metal sink washing and rinsing dishes I am suddenly taken back to that dark place where I am once again in the presence of evil. Once again I hear her voice breaking through the years screaming at me because that fork is not shining enough, I missed a spot on that spatula, I left a drop of water on the flat surface and now it'll leave a watermark and cause an ugly mark to sit there. I hear her throwing the dishes back into the sink screaming how I hadn't done it right and i need to stand there and do it over until I do get it right. Every fork must shine, every spoon must give a reflection upside down, every knife must be free of watermarks when they are put away. Every bowl must be squeaky clean, every plate must glow, every pot must be perfect once it comes out. I hear her voice screaming through the years and I freeze. I can't breath, I feel my heart beating in fear and suddenly I am in a very dark place that I must escape, I step away from the sink back into my reality and cry silent tears. It's not fair that she has this hold on me still, after all these years, but life isn't fair and she holds me tightly. I remember standing in the bucket of ice water because I had to go to the bathroom but the dishes weren't done the way she wanted so I had to stay and do them again....I had to pee into the bucket because I couldn't hold it any longer. I stood in a bucket of ice water mixed with my own urine until she gave me the ok to leave and wash the bucket I was made to stand in. My feet would go numb because she would add extra ice because she thought it would make me move faster...only it made me go slower and it was painful and my feet hurt just remembering it.

And so I found the one task I hate more than laundry...I think Thursday I'll explain why I hate laundry so much but today I just had to get this off my chest. Tomorrow I will go out and buy paper plates and cups, disposable silverware. Dear sweet hubby suggested it so I don't have the panic attacks. I'll still have to wash the pots and pans if I don't cook on the grill, but something tells me the next few weeks come rain or shine I'll be cooking on the grill just to avoid the task until hubby can buy me a new dishwasher! I know I am pathetic, I know I have to face my fears, I know the past is haunting me more than it should BUT I just can't do it right now. I feel too weak, I don't feel strong enough to take this on. I have spent the past few days trying to overcome and I simply can not...for some reason it's just too much.

From Blogger Pictures

Unsure

I just don't know what to do!

Big Sis is in a relationship with a guy she loves, he's a lot older than her and has made it very clear that he will never get married again. She lives with him in his house, helps pay the bills and she does have  her youngest boy living with them but he is not the boyfriends son. Anyway, this guy treats her like crap, she tells me how he yells at her all the time for not doing things the way he wants them done, for not raising her son the way he thinks he should be raised and he often degrades her in front of his friends telling her how her opinions don't matter. She tells me he does not hit her, her never gets physical, but he is verbally harsh and cold. Personally I think emotional abuse is just as bad, if not worse, than physical abuse. I feel the emotional scars run deeper and are harder to heal from. She says she loves him and wants to make it work. Her children all tell her to leave him and she looks to me for support in her decision to stay with this man simply because she loves him and says he makes her happy (although I don't really see it)

So what do I do? Do I continue to be quiet and not say anything and just support her or do I tell her how I really feel. I worry about her because she tells me that the only way she gets on the internet for things like facebook is on her cell phone and he goes through her things when she's at work or not at home. She has had a couple of posts deleted off her facebook page without her knowing how and people "un-friended" without her knowing why.  He reads her texts over her shoulder and I feel I can't really say much without getting her in trouble. She often can't talk on the phone because she is with him, he drives an oil truck and if she isn't working her regular job apparently he makes her go with him in the truck to deliver oil and she feels she can't say no. Often I text her and her only reply is "can't talk now but I love you" I just don't know what to do. 

From Blogger Pictures

Mothers Day

Took that photo on my phone tonight just before putting my boy to bed. He's growing up so fast but I am so proud to be able to say he is mine! He has made me a mother, he has made me a successful mother, he has made me so much more than my egg donor ever was!

From Blogger Pictures

Going back to school

Right now I'm a work at home mom, I answer calls and process orders over  the phone. It used to be a great job, I used to make a fair wage working it, but over the past 1 to 2 years I have watched this profession go downhill. 2 years ago I was making over $1000 a month so I was very helpful in paying the bills and making the fun money for us to go on vacations or go to water parks on summer weekends. We were doing fairly well with this plan and so I continued doing it. Last year I dropped down bigtime and made 1/2 that, this year so far it's looking even worse. It's not so much that I'm putting in less hours, it's more that people aren't calling the number to order, they are instead turning to the internet to place their orders. I feel this is a dying profession and if I am to make any kind of living I really need a new job.
BUT I haven't been an employee in 10 years and even though I have worked from home the past 5 I am not highly desired in the workforce because of that simple fact.

As I was pondering these thoughts the other day while texting with a friend of mine, she mentioned that she was supposed to be studying and not goofing off. I asked her what she was studying and she explained it was a Medical Administrative Assistant course she was taking online. I talked to her about it and she explained that she was doing this online through Penn Foster and that I should look into it as well. They offer no interest payment plans so she could afford to do this on unemployment. I looked into it and it really seemed like a good plan and so after discussing it with hubby I paid the $400 to enroll and I am now officially a student taking a certification course to learn how to be a medical administrative assistant too. Basically I'll learn how to be a medical secretary but that's ok, I will be able to make more money than I am now in another years time. Yes, I will most likely have to get a job working outside the home once I finish the course, BUT I'll be making more money and Orion will be old enough that he'll be able to better deal with the changes and I'll feel better about putting him in camps and such during the summers and school vacation weeks.

Wish me luck :)

From Blogger Pictures

19 years.......

May 3rd 1991 my life changed, I just didn't know it at the time how much exactly it was changing! I woke up like any other day wondering and worrying about what was going to happen in my near future.  I was living in my college dorm at the time, no other place to live and summer was rapidly approaching. The school was not going to allow me to stay in the dorm over the summer and I was debating trying to stay and just sneaking in and out all summer long. I could climb in and out the window all summer long and just stay there since I had no where else to go. Having spent the previous 9 years in the foster care system, a blow out with my siblings for writing a paper on our abuse, and no other relatives or friends to speak of, I was in deep doo-doo! I had also just found a lump in my right breast and was due to go into surgery in 3 days time to see what it was and have it removed. My world was pretty bleak to say the least...the only thing I had going for me was my job as the night manager down at the local KFC where I was making a fair wage. Oh, did I mention that I had just been notified by my scholarship committee that I was losing my full 4 year scholarship because of the fact that I did not get the required grades dispite the fact that I had spent 12 weeks recovering from a ruptured appendix and emergency surgery??? Yeah life was pretty glum!

So when one of my regular customers came in and invited me to his place for a party at his place and asking if I could bring some left over chicken I was all for it. I deserved a night of forgetting my troubles and getting out. I had just had a bad break up about 6 months prior and it was time to get myself back out there. It turned out there was no party, it was just this one guy there, and I think he was trying to hook me up with his room mate. I was cool with that, he really wasn't my type anyway. Shortly after 6pm this man walked through the apartment door. He was NOT the man of my dreams by any means. He was not tall dark and handsome like I always thought I would marry, he was instead short, quirky and cute but he was rocking that leather jacket something fierce! It was zipped just half way and he had nothing on under it, just his chest muscles showing....it was man cleavage like you dream about...not flabby at all, just raw ripped muscles...YUM! I couldn't take my eyes off of him as I watched him stand there talking to him room mate like I wasn't even in the room, then he glanced over like I was some wierdo (and  must have looked like one staring at him like that) and he simply said "Hi" That was it, I was gone! He was mine, I knew it, he was the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with! I never believed in love at first sight until May 3rd 1991 when I laid eyes upon my man!

Three days later he drove me to my doctors office to have outpatient surgery on my breast, he drove me home again and helped me settle in and sleep. He had known me 3 days yet he was doing this for me...what a great guy! 2 weeks later, as we sat in his red toyota pick-up truc where  he very nervously told me he thought he was falling in love with me. One month from the day we met we moved into our very own apartment..June 3rd, 1991!

5 years later, on May 3rd 1996 we exchanged vows formally and officially became husband and wife. At the time we were already devoted to each other and we knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that we would be together forever, it took us awhile to save up the money to pay for the wedding (and it took him awhile to draw up the nerve to actually buy a ring and make that final commitment) To this day we concider our true anniversary to be the day we met, not the day we married because we knew, even then, that it was meant to be and that we would be a couple for the rest of our lives!

From Blogger Pictures

Am I a cold hearted bitch? You decide...

A couple years ago I received a phone call telling me that the egg donor was dead. She left me nothing, never appologized for her evil ways and honestly I felt she should have. I remember sitting in court meetings and DSS reviews listening to her swear up and down that she never laid a finger on us, that she would never hurt us. She would sit there and say that she never harmed a hair on our heads, she never even raised her voice....I wonder what planet she lived on because it's not the same one I was on that's for sure! I still feel no form of sadness when I think of her being dead, I feel nothing but relief and a sick sense of satisfaction thinking about her burning in hell getting whipped by the demons with metal yardsticks, leather belts and horse whips. That's what she did to me so I feel it's only justice that she would spend eternity being treated the way she treated her own flesh and blood. Just yesterday, as I was discussing this with Big Sis, her boyfriend said that she and I are cold hearted (he didn't call us bitches but cold hearted bitch is what he was implying) He feels we should feel a small sense of remorse, we should feel some kind of sadness, we should feel something other than the desire to sing like the munchkins in the Wizard Of Oz


Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She's gone where the goblins go,
Below - below - below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead!

Now if I look at this from an outsider point of view, I guess I can see how that seems cold hearted but once you realize the way she treated us, the stuff we had to endure at her hand I can see our point of view quite clearly. Does this mean I will go to hell too? Does this really make me a cold hearted bitch? As I told Big Sis' boyfriend yesterday...if I'm cold hearted then that's the one time you can say "like mother like daughter" and it fits perfectly. She was a cold hearted evil woman, so if I'm cold hearted then I guess there's one part of me that learned something from her afterall!

From Blogger Pictures

Today was day 1

For the Massachusetts Youth Bowling Championship competition. Orion bowled in the singles division today, next week Saturday he will bowl in the Doubles and Teams divisions. As of today he is in 3rd place for the singles division for boys 10 and under, BUT there are still 2 boys in his division who need to bowl so anything can happen there. He was a bit upset about the fact that he didn't get the top score like last year, but this is a good time for him to learn that you can't win every single time and no matter what he actually bowled better than last year. He was more consistant this year, bowling above his usual average and pretty close to the same score every single game. He bowled a total of 5 games with a total of 407 points.

From Blogger Pictures