Tresa's Blog

Warning Pure Venting….pure and holy venting……..

If someone waits till 4:41 pm to send an email that HAS to be printed off (they’ve had all day to send it, they just put it off and they wait till after 10 pm to text important numbers you will need before morning too, they just generally wait till the last minute sometimes) and you are in a moving truck and just hate to hook up the printer while moving (not to mention like illegal to be moving around in the truck and just sort of stupid, and more difficult than doing hard yoga while water skiing, I have a scar on my back from a bolt on the bottom of the bunk to prove it)…then the printer nozzles are dirty and won’t print in the printer that is in the extreme heat under the bunk …..my question is…..is it your fault?

When you call said person up and tell them about it and you say if you had had the email earlier you MIGHT have had a chance to get the printer fixed or figure out you NEED to get to a fax machine, and they say oh it’s my fault now?  Then you reply no I could have tried to print it off while moving.  Then you tell them you don’t have a fax number yet for them to fax to and they ask if you would like for them to send the phone company down to give me a fax number and you say yes and the line goes dead…….do you think they hung up?

They did call back, we found a fax machine, they faxed the paperwork, I got the printer fixed within half an hour, long before we actually  needed it but still……I’m thinking maybe my blood pressure is up a tad.  Am I wrong for being peeved?  I have to email and text and remind him of what we don’t have but if I bug him too much he’s like I’ll get it to you I’ll get it to you….. it’s often after 10 pm when he gets it to us though.   BTW this person has taken emergency phone calls and helped beyond the call of duty in the middle of the night, if it’s easy and only involves money he is a peach.

Part of my technology frustration may be from putting an AT&T sim card for a regular account into a prepaid phone so my husband would have a phone….(his phone just quit, this isn’t the only thing that happened this week, two blog posts here and here.) so I was on the phone with at&t for awhile arguing that this COULD be done this morning (they are not going to let you put a regular sim card in a prepaid phone soon!!!)  Then I paid a bill with a newly activated credit card which I had to activate going down the road, that just added to the joy of dealing with people who knew what they were doing……..

Then we haven’t been home for a month and my husband wants to go to a steam engine show away from home this weekend.  Blowing a gasket now…….

I was talking about my hawt relatives the other day……Said hawt relatives shall remain unnamed, maybe if you are related you are one?  I will never tell.  NEVER so forget it.  I love the word Hawt…hot for the uninformed.  It conveys so much.  Anyway I was talking about my hawt relatives to someone and then…..

This is where I”m probably going to get into trouble, want to come watch?

I realized while mowing (I do some of my best thinking while mowing) that not only do and did both my husbands have long arms (a fact that I was oblivious to until a year or so ago) they both have the squinty type eyes.  Not to say this ones eyes aren’t like normal.  They are.  They just have that faint exotic slant to them or they used to.  Not oriental, but almost although he is not asian in any way shape or form unless you count the American Indian/land bridge/ Asian Thing.  Neither was the first one.  Actually the first one was like German and Creole/Evangeline type people with a bit of Irish and the squint came from the GERMAN side?
This is where I get into trouble,  are you ready?  I told my second husband that he wasn’t my type when we first met.  I mean he is completely normal and HAWT.  OK, he is a tad older (and he is older than me) we aren’t talking movie star HAWT but take Mel Gibson?  Bruce Willis NOW without any airbrushing OK, are we talking the former HAWT levels there either?  I used to like skinny guys or so tall they looked skinny.  Biker types.  Leader of the Rock Band types.  I know, I know….wasn’t a good life choice on my part, and I really never ACTED on that I liked this type.  But that’s how I was.  But husband was not skinny when I met him, all macho and nice to look @ but he was more like the normal Bruce Willis Mel Gibson type…not David Bowie or anyone from the Eagles whom I was waiting to come swoop me off my feet?

I’m probably WAY in trouble so I had better quit….

Although I can’t think of ANY resemblance between myself and husbands first wife, she is tall and blonde and was a knockout without makeup, I’m short and dark and I look sort of sick without a bit of eye makeup.  Come to think of it first husband married sort of someone who resembles second husbands first wife…HEY!

To all involved, apologies if you read…….

Kids on patio

We all know the horror stories of step families, I’ve seen some and experienced a few with other step families.  I’m not saying this because I ever really didn’t like the kids (OK there were times but my own have given me some grief too) but because I just wanted to thank them for being what they are and who they are.

The kids call me old witch (all of them) but I don’t mind as other words which rhyme are MUCH worse and I do have dark hair and a big nose….

We had my two girls who were in their teens and husbands two sons that were 8 and 11 when we first got married living with us most or @ least part of the time.  He had two older girls and a girl who was 5 when we got married, she stayed with us every other weekend.  Yes that adds up to 7 children.  There were already grandkids in the equation….

Freezing stuff from the garden 15 years ago.....

I love my biological children.  I expect them to think like I do in certain ways.   It’s just programmed into  every mother.  The last few years I have been able to appreciate fully what we have all accomplished though.   It hasn’t always been pretty but now family gatherings are my most precious moments.  It’s a gentle roar with 7 kids, assorted kids and grandkids?  Plus spouses, spouses to be etc.    I don’t know how long it’s been since we all tried to sit down @ a table, usually we fill a room up with folding tables.

Christmas Two years ago....

My husband and I have only been married 18+ years but these people are my family and always will be through thick and thin.  I didn’t have anything to do with raising the two oldest girls but I’m not exactly a mother figure to them, more like an aunt.   I’ve come to realize what a precious gift I’ve been given lately.  The reason for all of this?  A gradutation, a wedding shower,  a visit from the new mother (youngest step daughter) and 4 calls later in the week one from each step child checking on how I was or inviting me to a family function.  My daughters are on facebook and we talk almost every day on there but  not all of the steps are but they ALL took the time out to call ME, their father wasn’t home this week.  It wasn’t even mothers day!!

I’m not given to extreme emotions (except for occasional anger which we won’t discuss now) and I’m usually way too COOL trying to be snide and dry to say these things but I just had to say them now.  I am so very proud, I’ve always said we somehow got the perfect step family (there is not such a thing but ours is VERY good).  I am so proud of each and every one of them.

There is no sure  formula for step families as far as I can tell.  Tolerance, time, humor and shared experiences and love for the same people are the key I believe.  OK, lots of laughter and good food and kids playing, movies stories, campfires….. and now a wedding…

God has truly blessed me, all of it may not have been what I envisioned when I was 19  but  he has filled my heart.

Me and second oldest Grandson.

They announced it this afternoon, I just found out and found another blog reference to it….divorce blog. This strikes me as rather strange, sort of like Ronnie divorcing Nancy like right before he REALLY got Alzheimers….

I know the Gores aren’t quite that old but….anyway it all sounds like it’s quite amicable which probably means neither one cares whether the other screwed around or not?

Just my 2 cents worth, now I know Tipper played drums and sang backup for Diva Zappa’s album…..strange but true…..

What is Tiger Woods famous for?  Playing Golf.  Is he famous for being a moral compass for America or the world?  Is he famous for sharing his life philosophy for others to share (you could argue that one but the guy is a golfer).  Does Tiger play golf well now.  We suppose since no harm has came to his coordination and he didn’t have any broken bones.   How many people did he seriously hurt?  his family and the women he had affairs with.  His public perhaps but if you were truly hurt by his affair you are BEYOND needing to get a life.  He didn’t steal, he didn’t murder, he didn’t drive drunk and hurt someone, and he didn’t drive texting which is next to driving drunk in my book.  What is Tigers role in sports?  To play golf.  Did we idolize him for his family life and the shining example he provided.  Nope, we idolized him before he got married, the supposedly happy marriage added to his charisma but was not his whole identity.

I know the guy is a dog.  Many men are dogs.  Many men are dogs that you wouldn’t guess are dogs.  Take it from a woman who was sometimes propositioned by them.  Now I’m going to really confuse you and tell you I’m Polyanna.  I really didn’t take any man up on a proposition that was his idea.  Get the drift?  AND I’ve been more chaste than MANY women my age.  So I’m not saying this as the other woman or the harlot.  I’m saying this as a realist.

And here we go…… men can change…it’s not likely and they have to be led by the nose sometimes kicking and screaming but it is possible.  I can swear to that fact without going into details.   I’ve also known many men who were dogs.  Thank goodness I wasn’t married to them but were they charming and great guys?  Yes but they were still dogs.

I feel for Tigers wife.  Her shame was broadcast around the world.  You say she should have no shame?  Take it from one who was the cheated on wife many many times, you feel shame and anger and disgust and horror in the pit of your stomach.  I didn’t get a divorce because of the cheating but that provided me ample ammunition, it was the lying about other things, the continuous not knowing where you stood.  We won’t go into all of that, it’s water under the bridge but you can overcome being cheated on.  I’m not saying Tigers wife should overcome it but you CAN overcome it.

I feel that enough attention has been given to the whole thing, it should die down.  They will get divorced or not and find other partners whom they will treat differently or not.  I don’t think either one of them are horrible people.  He really didn’t have any reason to cheat except he COULD and he could in so many ways with so many women.  How many men could resist that tempation? I know if men are honest probably 75% would say the thought has seriously crossed their minds.

In closing I’m all for monogamy.  I practice it daily.  I also allow my husband to look @ other women, he’s going to anyway so….he can’t touch and he really shouldn’t talk to them either if he wants to remain whole but he is going to look.  Sometimes this is really funny as he will go on and on about a girl and I will be talking to someone else and eventually I will tell him, you can shut up about her already, I heard you.  Now just look in quiet, I don’t want to share the moment with you.

Just look into your own heart and he who has not sinned can cast the first stone.  Sorry for whom disagree and I have offended but it’s the truth as I see it.

I am sorry I didn’t visit blogs or write while I was gone.  I had internet service.  I am lazy.  lazy lazy.  But I did think while going down the road.

I was thinking about how this is my blog and I write what I want and how because it’s MY BLOG.  Sometimes people don’t understand I use sentences that run together and And @ the beginning of a sentence or aint because it suits my purposes.  (OK sometimes I don’t know any better but we can pretend I catch all my mistakes can’t we?)

I also use hyperbole, rhetorical questions, allusion, illusion, preparation h, simile, and ky jelly if necessary to get my point slid across.

I also tilt @ windmills, the rebel without a cause, I spawned two conservative children and I have NO idea how but they think I am nuts.  BUT I play Don Quixote sometimes here BECAUSE I CAN, because it’s MY BLOG!!  And yes I had to look up how to spell Quixote.

I know the last 3 paragraphs have nothing to do with thanksgiving but I thought of the ky jelly line and it seemed too good not to share? I also thought of a blog post about how I lack the farming gene and my families ability to tell the crop and planting date of any field while I’m doing good to even notice them much less identify them but we will save that for another day.

What I’m grateful  for Thanksgiving day 2009:

The ability to blog and to read others blogs and my dear friends I’ve “met” blogging.

The free internet, news services, and press we have in this country.

Of course family and friends, I do have friends, I was just having trouble remembering some of their names because I hadn’t seen them since July?  LOL

Our family having survived the ups and downs of the previous year.  It’s been triumph and tragedy.  Some lost companies because of lost contracts through no fault of their own.  Some lost jobs because they were too temperamental.  (sorry if I scoff @ that one, they spoke up and told the truth and it hurt so they lost their job, imagine my relative having a big mouth? Moi?)  It was over a year ago that I started but I worked outside the home @ a job for the first time in 19 years.   Anyway I did a “real” job and I took orders from people and was a good employee which is not easy after years of “self” employment.  My husband also got a “job” for the first time in 20+ years when he leased his truck onto construction.  From what I hear he was a model employee (except for the time he asked permission to knock somone’s block off from the foreman, foreman said OK?) and was always ahead of everyone else even though he was the oldest one doing what he did. We are back to self employed but you always “work” for someone, if you are boss you “work” for the employees sometimes I think.   Also my brother is shall we say a senior citizen, I don’t know if he’s in like in his second childhood or what (I have doubts he ever left the first) but for an old man he’s not old.  Maybe it’s the race car he has?  He doesn’t drive it anymore but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.  My husband is of an age where I remember my parents well and I was going through my teenage rebellion.  He’s not old.  I’m thinking we are oblivious or just not aging like previous generations did (due to superior health care or the bilssful oblivion of many drug trips, JUST KIDDING)

Basically we have triumphed over adversity and turned around and made life better and realized what was important and what wasn’t  because of it and I’m thankful for the opportunity and the ability and the health to do it, especially during this time of financial difficulty.  (this is starting to sound like one of those bragging Christmas letters, little Johnnie is now the president of the cub scouts in North America and little Sally has been voted high school prom queen while in kindergarten and they will both attend Yale next year on a full ride scholarship, those kind of letters)

I’m grateful for my home and the ability to not live too close to people most of the time.  I’m grateful for all the “luck” and blessings that have enabled me to enjoy some(most) of lifes riches.

I’m grateful our relatives are still with us this year that were with us last year for the most part. I will miss Lester and Louella (my moms first cousin who married the widow of my dads best friend, got that?) because they were one of the links to my past.  I’m grateful that I was here when one of the closest family friends died.  I’m glad I got the opportunity to know our dog Mugsey.

I’m grateful I’ve sort of beat the fat genes that run in our family and have never seriously been over 160.  I shouldn’t say that because I will blossom (my brother has called me squatty body (say it it rhymes, he’s sometimes amusing, this isn’t one of those times) for years, we cant all be 6′4″ BRO!).  The last time I had a skinny woman ancestor was my great grandmother and her having no teeth may have had something to do with that?

I’m grateful for the man who is sleeping in my bed, (it’s my husband silly) and the dog who is sleeping in the chair, the dog sleeping on the porch, and the cat sleeping in the log cabin.

I’m grateful for the ability to overcome the health problems we have faced over the past year and the ability to “get healthy” disgusting and boring but we are doing it.  No drink, no smoke, no fatty foods, vegetables, very few sweets, sleep regularly, walk, drink water, blaaaahhhh.   BTW I never said I ever quit drinking, I’m the type of person who can have one and quit, or one potato chip.  I’m a sick sick puppy I know.  My husband will tell you how healthy he is and now he’s losing weight.  Did I mention the term ad nauseum?  I would never say those words? 

I’m grateful for the ability to go and stuff ourselves silly tomorrow with many of our close relatives and talk to the others. I am also grateful I can now distinguish most of  my grand-children’s voices over the phone and not call the boys by their mothers names which makes me NOT favorite grandma.  I’m also thankful we all have a way of making a living and/or our driving privledges left.  You know who I’m talking to.

Donnie Osmond won Dancing With The Stars and we missed it!  Sorry but I just couldn’t get behind Mya, I even sent a text vote for Kelley, first time I’ve ever done that and Johanna was GOOD and I think Derek is my nephew, that’s good and clean isn’t it?  When the show came on I thought it was the stupidest thing ever.  Now I’m usually pretty close with guessing how the judges are going to score the couples and how they will criticize them.  I know NOTHING about ballroom dancing or didn’t.  Just thought I”d throw that in there.

I’m grateful I learned how to spell quixote.

I’m on an angels on twitter list! Thanks Starlingpoet!  My family would say if she only knew me……..

I’d better quit.

Happy TURKEY DAY amigos!!

I wrote about Dispatches truck trip on animals that give pause.

Oct 3, 2009

Interesting first lines of blog descriptions I found while looking for blog listing services.

We provides info about

How to shoose

Photos of place I have been

If you need to make younger,

This blog will present you how to

help you to make your finance more better

We helping Blogger in many part

Do you see anything wrong with them?

The dog just crawled up in my lap because it’s thundering, he’s not too skittish during storms but out Golden Lab was terrified so the bichon is a little leery of them. He’s not normally a cuddly dog unless he’s tired or afraid. I just realized how much he was like a child wanting comfort and wondering if I would need the feeling of the warm small thing needing me for the rest of my life. I was even the teenager who took the babies out of church so their mothers could enjoy the service, and I could get out of church to talk to one of my friends who invariably went out to help me. To see more of the dog go to Animals that give pause of course.

I just had to look up how to spell intubation. I intubated a man once who was in a coma. Just thought I’d throw that in there.  For some reason I just remembered it.

My grandson (I can write about him here because I am like 99% sure his friends don’t read this blog) sent me a text  earlier today about guns and trucks and wild pigs, fun things. We text quite a bit, he was being facetious and he is quite popular but once he said he was so cool he just text his mom, his grandma, and one friend?  He’s 15.  Remember I was a child bride and I do mean child so I can have a 15 year old grandson.

I took a walk with the dog earlier.  Evidently the walk improved the dogs digestion and he passed gas. He is a little white puffball but his gas smells like a chemical plant, probably hair dye mixed with a bit of sewer gas and smelling salts mixed in.  Hard to believe he can make an odor like that.

Dog and I just reached an important agreement after long negotiations. He can lay flat on my lap without being supported and held close to my body with my left arm, I mean it’s possible in his world, probably only temporarily though.

October 17, 2009 (forgot to post this before)

Since husband will be home tomorrow and he only gets one day a week off I try to devote it to him.  I know—– I know— gag me with a spoon—– but he works hard.  So I write a post or two ahead and if I’m not totally brain dead from our usual breakfast out on Sunday I will post them.  Speaking of eating breakfast out we went to Golden Corral last Sunday.  I won’t go into detail because I don’t want to seriously p anyone off but I’m not skinny, I wear between a 6 and a 10 and I’m 5′4″ and there were maybe 3 people out of everyone in Golden Corral that were skinnier than me and that’s giving two of them the benefit of the doubt and the other one was a teenager!  It was weird, made me feel good but also led me to believe I could eat those 3 plates, yes I did.  Also made me wonder about the general health of America?

Train of thought:

I’m sure you all have seen the  She’s a Very Freaky Girl commercial?  That always makes me think of Little Miss Sunshine (the movie, strange but it grows on you) which makes me think of the little girls grandpa trying to “help” her ou with her dance routine by choosing Superfreak for the music for a little girls beauty contest, the song and dance routine weren’t too well received.  It reminded me of my daughter coming in the house one day (we lived by her grandpas business, my father) and proudly saying Grandpa taught me how to siphon gas.  I got a little closer to her  and asked what exactly did you do for grandpa, she said sucked on the hose to get the gas out. Of course we laughed and laughed.  Please don’t think my father was a mean man but he was a horrible practical joker.   My daughter was no worse for the wear either.  But that is why Superfreak reminds me of siphoning gas.  Grandpa did something “good”.

I’ve learned more about cell phones and bluetooth than I ever wanted to know in the past day. My husbands company gave him a bluetooth for his phone because they aren’t supposed to be distracted @ all during the day which is a great safety policy! So now he can answer the phone and talk without using his hands. Problem is he has me do all the phone and computer things and he is 700 miles away and he had to connect the bluetooth. I’m pretty good on computers but haven’t messed with them much lately, phones I can punch the numbers in and send pictures etc. connect with the web but that’s about it. I’m always afraid something is going to cost money after our first bag phone cost like $11 a minute when roaming in Utah once. Does anyone even remember bag phones?
So he gets the bluetooth and tries to connect it to his phone, trouble is I was @ a family gathering till late and he was out to dinner so he didn’t try to get this all working till almost 11pm last night, I was in bed TRYING to go to sleep. We had both been up since 5 am. He says he’s not firing up his computer so we will see if he reads this, LOL. Anyway after a couple conversations, the last one consisting of I thought we were going to get this going in the MORNING!, we said goodnight, or rather he said love you bye right after that. So I couldn’t sleep then and got up and googled how to connect a motorola to a samsung. Turns out I had the wrong samsung and the menu options were different. Neither one of us had the owners manual for his phone since it’s my old one that I got from my grandson who got it from my daughter when she got a state of the art phone from my other daughter, got that? I bought husband a new phone but he didn’t like it so I have that one and he got my old one which isn’t old, it’s a slider and actually pretty neat. I have one with a keyboard which is what I was after all along but I need a memory card now and a bigger texting plan, I can see this!
Somehow my husband who is not dumb @ all and in some ways is probably smarter than I am (read he’s a genius but I don’t like to admit it) is convinced computers and anything related to them such as cell phones and bluetooth are evil beings set upon this earth to torment him. He can figure out what’s wrong with an engine by listening to it or looking @ the exhaust quite often. I swear he’s not as computer illiterate as he says because somehow when we first got internet back in the 90s he figured out how to go to history to see what web pages I’d been on? This was like the FIRST time he was on the internet so I think he’s playing dumb quite often so I will do things for him?
So after 3 phone calls this morning and a few web pages, downloading the proper owners manual we finally figured it out.
The steps are:

1. Enable bluetooth on your phone usually under settings. (OK, for those who are truly phone illiterate you get to settings under menu usually)
2. Turn your bluetooth headset on, this might require holding the button for several seconds.
3. Go to Tools or Connectivity (the connectivity one is the one that had us stumped) look for bluetooth and click on add new device or something like that. It should find the headset, you might have to enter a pin code off of the bluetooth device or the phone or both.
4. The phone should pick up the headset and you can click on connect and voila! it should all work just fine.

So that’s a short and dirty guide for all of you who may have been putting off getting a bluetooth headset. If you have problems call BR 549.
Now I think there is a way to get my cell phone pictures off of the sim card and onto my computer but I’m not sure how, going to find out!
Postscript, duhhhh, figured it out, email them. Didn’t know I could do that, told you I was phone challenged.

The above picture is of my parents the winter before they got married I believe, they were in their mid twenties. I actually do look like both of them but more like my father. Of course I never knew them like this or even remotely, when I came into the world they were 18 years older and MUCH heavier. They had one child, my brother and thought they were through because my mother couldn’t eat while pregnant and almost died. I was a mistake, an afterthought, a whoops if you will.

I couldn’t go to sleep easily last night, no particular reason but this thought came to me then. My mother watched my kids when I was working and going to college for about 2 years off and on, not every day because sometimes my husband did and I only had night classes the last 3 months of college. She would watch them sometimes after that but I stayed @ home mostly until they went to school and then I started working outside the home again. I always felt guilty about that and nothing really against my mother (I’ve come to terms with all of it I think) but she encouraged the guilt. Reminded me of all she had done etc. etc. Not only watching my daughters but other things she thought I should feel badly about.

I had a rather unique 20s and 30s, I thought I sort of paid my parents back even though I had a house partly rent free and the loan of a vehicle when I needed one, as long as the trip was OK with them. LOL. I cleaned their house every Friday, washed and set my mothers hair every Friday afternoon, they were getting older and I took them to doctors appointments (I didn’t work for awhile because of too many doctors appointments), went over paperwork, helped them grow the gardens they were so intent on growing, cleaned the basement when it flooded which was sometimes weekly (it still gets damp and we live on top of a hill?)and chauffeured my mother around a great deal of the time, and mowed the lawn and cooked quite a few BIG family dinners @ their house, I’m not complaining, we had a good life. We also cut 21 cords of wood per winter for two houses and a shop. My dad, my ex husband, the kids when they were older and I did the wood, mom went to the woods once and lost the pin to the tractor hitch and never went back, probably because we reminded her of it and she didn’t like the outdoors. My dad became crippled because of a botched knee operation, he figured out the cartilage in his knee was gone when he JUMPED down off of a big tractor @ the age of 72. All that is neither here nor there. I think I paid my ex husband back for all the work too when I let him stay on my parents farm after the divorce and I left!! So he moves his girlfriend in and she throws away 1000’s of $ worth of antiques (old spice, medicine and oil containers are worth something?) but………

So I’m thinking about the guilt I felt in specific for my mother watching the kids, they weren’t bad kids but they would get into mischief. Shall we say adventuresome? That’s a good word. Then I realized my husband is only a few years younger now than my mother was when she watched the kids. He could watch a handful of them with one hand tied behind his back and watch football and take a nap to boot, he’d probably have them cooking and getting his tea too but that’s not the point. He wouldn’t make anyone feel guilty about it. We practically raised my second oldest step grandson for the first two years of his life, he started calling about 5 people mama. But he had a single mama (divorced) and needed us and Tate was soooo cut and he was ours no questions asked. BTW one of the last memories of my mother I have is her holding Tate, she was in a wheelchair in the nursing home and he was so quiet and good on her lap. I watched my grandkids when they came along, I never really thought about it till last night but since there are 4 of them and the oldest is 14 I’m sure I’ve put in much much more time than my mother did. I didn’t work or I worked out of a home office or took them with me when I worked for my husband, no problems, and I wasn’t going to be the continual babysitter grandma. I don’t want my daughter to feel any guilt and she shouldn’t, I did what I could and should have done more probably but she had a sister to help too. Now I feel guilt if I can’t do things for them because I’m working. I must say when the grandkids are here you can hardly call it watching, other than feeding them and diapers when they needed them and a lap to cuddle in they didn’t require much entertainment, they were GOOD kids, and that isn’t just grandma talking.

So why all my guilt? I’m 51 years old and have to look @ everything from a new perspective now, a little guilt is good, I put clothes in the washer this morning and stripped the sheets from the bed because I felt I must do something even though I have a glorious 2 days off. I have to go now, need to make time because I just realized my grandchildren don’t have most of their mothers children’s books or mine, I have to go hunt them down in the old house if I can so I can take them over when I go to Easter dinner over there. I’m not contributing to the dinner, guilt again. So the problem wasn’t my mother wanting me to feel sorry for her, it’s my conditioned guilt. I know this isn’t a great psychological light bulb but most cognitive theories don’t seem to apply to your life until it just hits you one day, there is no need for these bad feelings, they are not good for you or the people around you.

I hope everyone has a HAPPY EASTER and maybe a little time for self examination. What are you carrying around that is a needless burden? Comments anyone?