My Take on "The Secret"

How I got my degree, my job and my happiness!

Visualize

Attract

Strategize

Act

Be positive, be peaceful...
'nuff said

Thank you H!!

Calla lilies and Bocephus

Symbols of my life have been coming back to me. At least we call them symbols in literature, so why not in my life. When painting pottery with my daughter on Sunday, I quickly had to remember something I loved, so I could paint it on our fruit bowl I was making. I remembered calla lilies, remembering them was remembering me, a younger twenty-something-year-old me with barely any bad habits and really, really big dreams. Remembering those flowers allowed me to remember a girl who used to believe in love. I will marry the man who brings me 13 calla lilies; I used to say. No man ever did. Why 13 you might ask, I dunno because anyone can order a dozen and 13 would show someone who defies convention and steps beyond the norm. Additionally, I would have carried calla lilies down the aisle had I ever gotten married. Those things won’t happen, probably, and flowers aren’t love but that crazy, wonderful, outgoing artist forgot about calla lilies when she stopped believing in romantic love. Maybe. Why would I forget about something beautiful, simple, and perfect? I still think they are, I just forgot. Have I been so busy being a mom that beauty escaped me? No, I didn’t, because I taught my daughter to always stop in the supermarket to and smell the flowers, or to smell the flowers in planters, lawns and trees in the flower seasons. I remember now I used to buy myself one calla lily at a time and paint a painting of it. I painted an entire vase of calla lilies using only one flower and moving it around and around. I know I forgot that it is okay to spend money on something elegant, like a flower that makes you smile. I need to teach her that.

The same day I remembered calla lilies my dear friend made me a MySpace page. I needed a page so I could read her blog. On my page, she put a picture of Hank Williams, Jr. Bocephus, and that young woman I remembered used to love Bocephus. Everyone thought I was nuts, but he was cool, maybe cause he loves to fish like I do. “Hey man them ain’t high-heeled sneakers, and they sure don’t look like cowboy boots…” I actually bought myself a pair of high-heeled sneakers at a yard sale; they’re cool. Here’s to my friend for remembering something about me that I forgot. That is the beauty of friends that you have had for decades when they see you they see you maybe younger, closer to how you were when they met you, they remember you fabulous, unwrinkled, size 8. And that is how I remember them. I can’t believe I forgot how much I love Bocephus, my goodness, it was my vanity plate for years. He was it! I had every cassette, every album even! Wow, way, way back. Now when I go to my myspace it plays that voice that used to sing me to sleep, jam with me in the car, hold me when I cried, and make me smile. His lyrics ran through my head constantly, hearing the music again, I still remember all of the words. Thank you M for remembering me, the fun me, the young me. (Even if I have forgotten who I was.)

Calla lilies and Bocephus probably don’t mean shit to anyone else; to me they are dancing on Friday nights and being too cool to even pay attention to that guy looking my way, they are laughing with girlfriends, not caring about bills cause they always got paid, believing in dreams, racing for an unknown future, midnight rescues and coffee klatches. Calla lilies and Bocephus are dancing in the rain with Markie Cruz (RIP), driving around in a Chevy pickup watching the snow with James (RIP), and playing harmonica while Yogi (RIP) played his guitar and sang. (They are not holding his hand while he died in the ICU, and racing to get his soul out into the sun.) Calla lilies and Bocephus are Christmas Eve watching Mac (RIP) play and that one lone guitar riff he played me goodbye, stroking Shelby’s (RIP) ponytailwhile sneaking off for lunches at the river.
Dear G-d no wonder I forgot calla lilies, FTD doesn’t deliver from where the great men who have loved me live now. Perhaps I will buy myself one tomorrow and remember me and that I have been loved, very loved it’s just that no one is left to remind me and I had forgotten. Wow, thank you for the symbols…

Thirteen

I find it odd that if in six weeks I can go from 76 to 43, how come in the past six weeks I only went from 21 to 13. Grrrrrr. Perhaps it is like when you lose weight, it comes off slowly at the end… I dunno, I’m grumpy now, which is a strange state of being for me. I’m going to dance with my daughter now and try to come out of it! Whatever happened to disco?

To Bitch or Not to Bitch, That is the Question

Well, the library book has been found! The kicker, however, is the where. For a month my little reader hasn’t been allowed to take books home from the school library, or even look at the real books (she tells me) because we couldn’t find that book. Where was it? Right where it should have been. In her classroom… She was so excited that she could take books out again she is not even upset. I am. The book was at school, although it should have been in the library, she was close. It’s a hard lesson to learn, learning to suck it up. She is happy, so I'll just leave it alone. Is she learning to choose when to stand up for herself? I just don’t know. The child is six and the book was at school, I think that is close enough. It's not about her teacher at all because she is wonderful, it is about all of that time she hasn't been able to use the library when technically she did bring the book back. I don't know. I do know we had a great time snuggling up and reading the two books she brought home.

Mammogram No Biggie

Attention ladies, I had my first mammogram today (another first). I have to say I was scared to go in there after all of the horror stories I had heard. Well, I just wanted to let you all know, after childbirth and after thyroid surgery – the mammogram was nothing! It didn’t hurt at all and yes, they had to flatten it out a little, but it wasn’t as if it smashed into a vice, as I had heard. Strange but necessary, I would say. One thing I don’t get is why they leave the room so you can put on the jonnie, if they are just going to be holding your breast and moving it all around wherever they need it in five minutes anyway. After being taught/helped to breastfeed in the hospital, there is no shame left about the breast for something as simple and as important as a mammogram. Easy peasy, no worries, I’d of had it done in the lobby if they needed me too…

While I was having mammogram fun, I also had my TSH levels checked. Keep your fingers crossed for me, I am hoping for 0.5 - 4.0. After the surgery my levels were way up to 76, the next test was 43, the last test was 21. My synthroid is up to 200 mcg's, so I am hoping for normal levels. Although normal would not usually be a word to describe me! Ha Ha But perhaps after I hit the normal range I will start losing this extra 25 pounds I have put on since surgery. It's getting kinda heavy.

Cake News

(Photo from flickr.com by maverickil)
My daughter and I baked a wonderful cake the white, white cake where you only use egg whites with milk chocolate frosting, bundt cake style of course. Yummy. I am though having another piece to ward off this funky depression that has come over me, and probably half of the women in America, upon hearing the horrible news... Matthew McConaughey is having a baby with Camilla Alves!!! That's it, the one chance in a gazzilion we all wished we had of landing him just completely changed to no chance in hell. Even though we knew we didn't have a chance we hoped for a chance, but not now, not with a new dad. Well congratulations to them, and some skim milk to take the edge off that cake to me... :)

Please Remember to Click Thru

Please remember to click thru to The Hunger Site and click the box to give food each day. It works by allowing the sponsors ads to come up on the thank you page when you click. The sponsors then give money according to how many times their ad has come up. What I do each day is click thru my link - Click Once a Day for Sponsors to Give Free Food - and then hit the button on The Hunger Site and then go through each tab on the top and click the buttons on each of those like The Literacy Site, The Breast Cancer Site, The Animals Site, and The Rainforest Site.

Giving food is important, provided you are giving it to people who are still alive... I was just on The Hunger Site and clicked thru to Darfur information and looked at a picture of three beautiful girls in colorful garb and had to wonder if they are even still alive. Even the refugee camps are not safe in Darfur and the UN peacekeepers need more helicopters to make a difference. You can write to our President and ask him to send the helicopters. I added the link to www.savedarfur.org to sign a petition to the President. It seems to me that we can put a man on the moon, let me live without a thyroid, and do all of the amazing things we do that 24 helicopters is just chump change. Can't Warren Buffet, an actor or actress, Oprah or someone send them over. What's up with Bono? Let's do another national concert or something to raise money. An exerpt from the SudanTribune 1/25/08 states, "In July 2007, the UN members approved the 26,000-strong force for the Darfur peacekeeping mission. The UN is having problems to find enough troops for Darfur since the Sudanese government insists on African-only force. As in Rwanda, there is a problem in finding equipment for the mission. For months now, the UN and African Union representatives are asking the world powers to provide the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) with six attack helicopters and eighteen transport helicopters so they can start protecting civilians in Darfur. To this day, no one responded positively." 1/26/08 "The force has less than half the planned 26,000 troops and police, and lacks crucial gear to pacify a region nearly the size of France, said Jean-Marie Guehenno, the U.N. undersecretary general for peacekeeping. Guehenno was on a tour of Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have died in five years of fighting between ethnic African tribes and Sudanese government forces." They started in July, there should have been peace by August, it is now 2008 and people are still getting killed because of what they believe in. why? Why can't we stop it? Because they don't have oil? Is that really it? That can't be it...

My ex neighbor and friend, who has moved but still stops in for a visit every now and then, has a son who works for the Sudanese government on a ship on the Nile River. He does not have anything to do with the Darfur genocide, but my point is, is that they talk on the phone, like we talk to any of our family on the phone. She talks on the phone to people in the Sudan, Kenya, Egypt, etc. and it is all just not that far away anymore.

I try to help in all of the ways that I can. My Temple had a fund raiser to send solar cookers to Darfur, so the women wouldn't get shot by government troops just trying to collect firewood to cook their meals. One woman had her baby bundled on her back and was shot right through her baby. I wish I had all the money, or all the power but I don't. I do have my voice though, and I use it, I talk to my students, other teachers,neighbors, I have my car stickers and window signs, I talk to random people in line, and this is my attempt to use my voice to talk to you. Thanks for listening. Psst, pass it on.

Hmmm...

$1.5 billion – amount US government spends a year on renewable energy research.

$1 billion – amount ExxonMobil earns in a day.