Sunday, August 31, 2008

I Enjoy Doing For Others More

Even though I have been trying to do more things for myself, I have also been making a big effort to do more things for others. My friend "J" has given me a huge opportunity to help her help others and I appreciate it very much.

"J"'s son is in the army and was injured in Afghanistan and still recovering. He is only 18 and "J" has been learning all kinds of things to do to help our soldiers. One of the organizations she has affiliated herself with is "Soldiers' Angels." www.soldiersangels.com Through reading about their work, and knowing what her own son went through, she decided to make "no sew" blankets for the wounded soldiers. She asked me to help since she had never actually tried to make anything like that before.

Since "J" and I started working on the blankets, 4 have been completed, and we have material to make 3 more, thanks to a generous contribution from another one of my friends. We have fun making them together. We make them at my house, and usually have a break for a brownie or two between during the making of a blanket.

Today we took the finished blankets to Church and the Pastor blessed them before we mail them off for the soldiers.

The finished blankets look like this:





As much fun as it was to do a few things just for myself this past week, helping "J" with these blankets helped me feel as if I was doing what I was meant to do in life, helping others.


Wednesday, August 27, 2008

I Need to Do Something For Myself


I have been feeling abandoned by my oldest since he left for college. Even though he is not nearly as far away as he has been for the past two years, I hardly ever hear from him. I am used to him contacting me by IM, or text every single day. Yesterday, he finally called me after four days.

I fully understand that he is no longer restricted as he was in the other school. I understand he has a new girl in his life, and lots and lots of new friends, but a text saying "I OK" would be sufficient.

We were so close over the summer, that it is hard to go cold turkey.

I have also been lying in bed and thinking about what it will be like when my youngest goes away next year. I will be on my own for the first time in my whole life. Very scary, and not something I think I will enjoy at all.

This week as I have been thinking about the future and it seems very bleak to me without my children. I have thought about fostering, but my youngest is dead set against that idea. He says I need to get out and enjoy my friends. He forgets they will still have their families.

Since thinking about my future is making me unhappy, I have decided that I needed to do something for myself now, after all I may not even have a future. So here is a list of what I have done for myself this week:
  1. Bought and exercised to some exercise tapes I have enjoyed in the past.
  2. Boiled some eggs before work one morning and came home and made myself a large green leaf salad with hard boiled eggs for dinner.
  3. Walked 3 miles today.
  4. Have been working on my quilt again.
  5. Looked at some specialty soaps online that I think I would enjoy using
  6. Wrote some very overdue thank yous that have been weighing on my mind
  7. Worked up a new routine with my youngest that gives us some excellent quality time together right before bedtime.
  8. Have started going to bed around 10 p.m. whether I am sleepy or not.
  9. Made a date with my friend to purchase material to make more blankets for our soldiers.
  10. Stood up for myself when I felt slammed by someone that has put their nose in where it did not belong.
If I am going to survive being alone, then I need to begin setting myself up with some activities now to keep me occupied in the future. Whereas in reading this list it does not seem like I am really going all out, it is a start, and for me that is really something.




Thursday, August 21, 2008

Another Snake in the House


Tuesday afternoon, just as I was getting ready to leave work, my youngest called to tell me that there was a snake in my oldest's bedroom. He said he would keep an eye on it and I could help him catch it. I rushed home, and after some lifting of some furniture, we were able to get the snake out in the open. My youngest was not making a lot of progress in the "catching" of the snake. I got mad grabbed the "handicap grabbers" and snatched the snake up and threw it into a bucket. The youngest covered the bucket and took the snake to the barn.

He swears it was the same snake as before, but I truly believe that snake would be bigger by now. This one was about the same size as the last one.

I have been looking on the internet about how to keep snakes out of your house, but none of the ideas thrill me.


What is Flitting Around in My Mind Today?



Oldest has his first radio show at midnight. It will last until 2. How long will I last?

Met a new friend of the oldest last night, a girl, she was very nice. I think I made her nervous. I tried not to. I just wanted to get to know her a little. She cannot eat dairy, legumes, or ... CHOCOLATE!!!! All day I have been trying to decide if I had to give one or the other up would I give up cheese or chocolate. I eat a lot more cheese than I do chocolate. I enjoy a really good hard licorice as much as a good piece of chocolate, but I like cheese in casseroles, Mexican food, baked ziti. It would be hardest to give up the dairy.

Youngest got his schedule for his freshman year of high school. He received all the classes he signed up for, so I guess that is good. Only a class or two with friends.

I am redecorating the room my Mom was living in here. I have bagged up all the bedding she had bought for the room. Just made me sad. It will be my oldest's room now and a guest room. I am doing the bed in blue plaid and covering the couch with blue denim. We have the brass rubbing in there and the framed etched glass on mirror (which freaks out my youngest when he walks down the hall). I have taken down all the old fashioned pictures. So my mine keeps flitting on that room and all the changes to it in the last week. It is like I am completely erasing Mom's presence from the house. Sadness weeps into my brain.

I keep thinking about how much I hate that school is starting. I like having my kids with me.

Will my oldest ever come home again now that he has a new lady?

How many weeks can I go without doing laundry?

Why is it that when I tell anyone bagging my groceries or Target purchases that I do not want any of my purchases bagged, do the continue to ask me if I am sure that I don't want a bag. I have canvas bags in my van, but I often forget to take them in, I also have laundry baskets in my van. I just take the purchases out and put them in the the bags and baskets. It works great. Only one store today did not give me a hard time about it.

If I grill a hot dog this late at night will I be up all night? Well that would be a good thing in a way because then I could listen to the oldest's radio show.

Will I ever be able to find the right combination to clear up my youngest's face? Is he allergic to his hair. He breaks out in his eyebrows, mustache, hairline, and sideburns? What in the heck would you do about that?

Too many books are piling up around me. I need to read. When will I actually do that? Two great library books are in, and another favorite author's newest arrives at my house tomorrow. I would love to be just rich enough to be able to read any time I wanted and never have to do housework, laundry, or take care of the pool again. Then I could just read, quilt, watch my shows, watch movies, play board games, and definitely fish.

Why am I typing this stuff when I could be reading? I think that is what I will do and ignore the brain flits until the oldest gets on the radio.


Ran Across This - Thought I'd Share


Harrison Bergeron
by Kurt Vonnegut (1961)

Some things about living still weren’t quite right, though. April, for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.I'd like you to read this famous story and think about whether Nietzsche wasn't on to something when he criticized the naive idea of human equality.


THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.

George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel’s cheeks, but she’d forgotten for the moment what they were about.

On the television screen were ballerinas.

A buzzer sounded in George’s head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.

“That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did,” said Hazel.

“Huh?” said George.

“That dance – it was nice,” said Hazel.

“Yup,” said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren’t really very good – no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn’t be handicapped. But he didn’t get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.

George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.

Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself she had to ask George what the latest sound had been.

“Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer,” said George.

“I’d think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds,” said Hazel, a little envious. “All the things they think up.”

“Um,” said George.

“Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know what I would do?” said Hazel. Hazel, as a matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance to the Handicapper General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. “If I was Diana Moon Glampers,” said Hazel, “I’d have chimes on Sunday – just chimes. Kind of in honor of religion.”

“I could think, if it was just chimes,” said George.

“Well – maybe make ‘em real loud,” said Hazel. “I think I’d make a good Handicapper General.”

“Good as anybody else,” said George.

“Who knows better’n I do what normal is?” said Hazel.

“Right,” said George. He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his head stopped that.

“Boy!” said Hazel, “that was a doozy, wasn’t it?”

It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor, were holding their temples.

“All of a sudden you look so tired,” said Hazel. “Why don’t you stretch out on the sofa, so’s you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch.” She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in canvas bag, which was padlocked around George’s neck. “Go on and rest the bag for a little while,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re not equal to me for a while.”

George weighed the bag with his hands. “I don’t mind it,” he said. “I don’t notice it any more. It’s just a part of me.

“You been so tired lately – kind of wore out,” said Hazel. “If there was just some way we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them lead balls. Just a few.”

“Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out,” said George. “I don’t call that a bargain.”

“If you could just take a few out when you came home from work,” said Hazel. “I mean – you don’t compete with anybody around here. You just set around.”

“If I tried to get away with it,” said George, “then other people’d get away with it and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

“I’d hate it,” said Hazel.

“There you are,” said George. “The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?”

If Hazel hadn’t been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldn’t have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head.

“Reckon it’d fall all apart,” said Hazel.

“What would?” said George blankly.

“Society,” said Hazel uncertainly. “Wasn’t that what you just said?”

“Who knows?” said George.

The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn’t clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, “Ladies and gentlemen – ”

He finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read.

“That’s all right –” Hazel said of the announcer, “he tried. That’s the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard.”

“Ladies and gentlemen” said the ballerina, reading the bulletin. She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous. And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred-pound men.

And she had to apologize at once for her voice, which was a very unfair voice for a woman to use. Her voice was a warm, luminous, timeless melody. “Excuse me – ” she said, and she began again, making her voice absolutely uncompetitive.

“Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen,” she said in a grackle squawk, “has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under–handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous.”

A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen – upside down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up. The picture showed the full length of Harrison against a background calibrated in feet and inches. He was exactly seven feet tall.

The rest of Harrison’s appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever worn heavier handicaps. He had outgrown hindrances faster than the H–G men could think them up. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.

Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a military neatness to the handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison looked like a walking junkyard. In the race of life, Harrison carried three hundred pounds.

And to offset his good looks, the H–G men required that he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggle–tooth random.

“If you see this boy,” said the ballerina, “do not – I repeat, do not – try to reason with him.”

There was the shriek of a door being torn from its hinges.

Screams and barking cries of consternation came from the television set. The photograph of Harrison Bergeron on the screen jumped again and again, as though dancing to the tune of an earthquake.

George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have – for many was the time his own home had danced to the same crashing tune. “My God –” said George, “that must be Harrison!”

The realization was blasted from his mind instantly by the sound of an automobile collision in his head.

When George could open his eyes again, the photograph of Harrison was gone. A living, breathing Harrison filled the screen.

Clanking, clownish, and huge, Harrison stood in the center of the studio. The knob of the uprooted studio door was still in his hand. Ballerinas, technicians, musicians, and announcers cowered on their knees before him, expecting to die.

“I am the Emperor!” cried Harrison. “Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!” He stamped his foot and the studio shook.

“Even as I stand here –” he bellowed, “crippled, hobbled, sickened – I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can become!”

Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support five thousand pounds.

Harrison’s scrap–iron handicaps crashed to the floor.

Harrison thrust his thumbs under the bar of the padlock that secured his head harness. The bar snapped like celery. Harrison smashed his headphones and spectacles against the wall.

He flung away his rubber–ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder.

“I shall now select my Empress!” he said, looking down on the cowering people. “Let the first woman who dares rise to her feet claim her mate and her throne!”

A moment passed, and then a ballerina arose, swaying like a willow.

Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy. Last of all, he removed her mask.

She was blindingly beautiful.

“Now” said Harrison, taking her hand, “shall we show the people the meaning of the word dance? Music!” he commanded.

The musicians scrambled back into their chairs, and Harrison stripped them of their handicaps, too. “Play your best,” he told them, “and I’ll make you barons and dukes and earls.”

The music began. It was normal at first – cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs.

The music began again and was much improved.

Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while – listened gravely, as though synchronizing their heartbeats with it.

They shifted their weights to their toes.

Harrison placed his big hands on the girl’s tiny waist, letting her sense the weightlessness that would soon be hers.

And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang!

Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the laws of motion as well.

They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun.

They leaped like deer on the moon.

The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but each leap brought the dancers nearer to it. It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling.

They kissed it.

And then, neutralizing gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long time.

It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.

Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on.

It was then that the Bergerons’ television tube burned out.

Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George.

But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of beer.

George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. “You been crying?” he said to Hazel.

“Yup,” she said,

“What about?” he said.

“I forget,” she said. “Something real sad on television.”

“What was it?” he said.

“It’s all kind of mixed up in my mind,” said Hazel.

“Forget sad things,” said George.

“I always do,” said Hazel.

“That’s my girl,” said George. He winced. There was the sound of a riveting gun in his head.

“Gee – I could tell that one was a doozy,” said Hazel.

“You can say that again,” said George.

“Gee –” said Hazel, “I could tell that one was a doozy.”


Sunday, August 17, 2008

YEAH!!


My oldest interviewed with the college radio and just received word that he "made the radio" and will be a DJ.

I am so thrilled that he will not be just sitting around being a computer nerd. He took journalism when he went to the local high school and radio. He is an excellent writer and enjoyed doing radio.

I would like him to explore many opportunities before deciding on one. I am afraid he has "niched" himself in his own mind because he is so good at one particular thing he has decided that is his passion, but I am not so sure.

To me when you have a passion you work at it constantly, and he does not do that. I don't want him to follow what he is good at as much as what he loves.

Raymond found out way to late in his short life that he was very good at what he did and it made us a good living, but it was not what really made him happy. I think that if he had lived we would have been making changes in how he worked and lived, especially after the boys were out of high school.

I am very proud and happy for my oldest.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Snake Slithers into Pants

I found the video on CNN about the snake that slithered into the weatherman's pants to be hilarious. I do not know why it cracked me up so much, but it did. It was one of those, better him than me situations. http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=148883

Laugh and First Cry for the Day

Thank you Jay Johnson, you provided my laugh and first cry for the day as I caught up on your blog. Therefore, you are doing your part to keep me healthy. http://hellandhayes.blogspot.com/

If I had decent health insurance I would send your name in for reimbursement as my therapist today.

My Girls




Here are my "adopted" girls, and good friends, M&L.
(No, they are not related to each other by blood.)

They had been out on the town for M's birthday and had stopped for some "Glamour Shots."

They stopped by the house later so I could see their shots and L in makeup, since I seldom see her that way. I think they are always beautiful, but they did look extra pretty last night.

They also dropped off a generous gift for their brother's (my oldest) new campus apartment.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Dr. Horrible - Replay - YEAH!!!!


They have placed Dr. Horrible's sing-a-long blog back up. So if you missed it the first time, don't miss it this time. They have it all as one now with commercials between acts so you can see it all at once.

I love it!!!!

Now my youngest can see it.

My oldest is making the music from my favorite song in Dr. Horrible my ring tone for my phone. YEAH!!!!

Don't miss Dr. Horrible this time. www.drhorrible.com




Saturday, August 2, 2008

"the ten best days of my life" by Adena Halpern

Okay, so I know it is just a little novel. I picked it up at the library because the description intrigued me. Here is a description of the book from the Amazon.com:

After Alex Dorenfield and her dog, Peaches, get smashed by a car, they wind up in heaven, where bubbly 29-year-old Alex is floored by how hip the digs are—especially Seventh Heaven, where Alex's dreams (of, for instance, designer clothes, an awesome house and eating without gaining weight) come true. The icing on the cake is her reunion with a few deceased family members and meeting a dreamy prospective soul mate. Only problem? She must pass an entrance exam to stay in Seventh Heaven and not be demoted to the fourth level, where she would have to live in a condo, wear last year's clothes and lose Peaches (all dogs stay in Seventh Heaven). So Alex gets to work on an essay to prove she led a worthwhile and fulfilling life.
So I started reading this book expecting a sappy little light read that would help me get some sleep. Only that is not what happened. As Alex started writing her exam about the "ten best days of her life," I started trying to decide what I would write if I was given the same exam. I ended up losing sleep.

Think about it. Alex only lived to be 29, and she had trouble coming up with just ten days. Here I am almost 50 and it is hard to choose just ten days.

You naturally start thinking the cliche days like wedding day, the day your children were born, etc. But really those are pretty stressful days. I can pick put moments of those days that made them extra special, but to call them one of the best days in my life, when I only get 10, well hold on, I'm not so sure about those full days now.

Maybe I would do better with a list of moments instead of days. Here are ten, in no particular order, but of course there are so many more.

  • The look on Raymond's face when he saw our oldest being born (even though they told him not to look around the screen, and then when he held him.
  • When we finally found a doctor that diagnosed Raymond after a year of agony. It did not matter how grim the diagnosis was, it just mattered that Raymond would get relief.

  • The sound of my boys laughing and goofing around as they play a game together. (This happens almost every day, but the moment of the laughter and love still gets to me.)

  • Going home to my parents after not seeing them for a year.

  • Fishing with my dad on the Horne's dock.

  • My youngest making me laugh on any given day.

  • Finding a new author that I love.

  • Getting a hug when I really need it.

  • Hiking with Raymond at Big South Fork in KY.

  • Raymond letting me use his back when the youngest was stretching my skin out so far with his kicks in the womb that I thought he would break through. Raymond would complain that it hurt, but he would still let me use his back.
I really enjoyed this book. I had fun with Alex learning about her life, and a good cry at the end. What more could you want from a book?