Personal

I want to thank all of you who commented on which avenue I should take with my gown choice. All your kind comments boosted my confidence to try a new color, and step just a tad outside what I would normally consider my comfort zone. Saturday Kevin and I shopped all day, and had two certain dresses in mind to check out and choose from. I didn’t end up trying on my second choice, due to my husband’s enthusiastic response to the first. He also found the perfect accessories to wear with it! It is a challenge completed from head to toe. So I offer up my two choices, the first one I went with, the second never made it on my back. (I went with the dark champagne, with a light champagne color in shoes, handbag and wrap. The necklace that Kevin found pulled the shoes, handbag, wrap and dress together elegantly. (IMHO)

A special thank-you to Tracy at Just for Future Reference for her generous offer of lending me her favorite dress! I’m hoping she left the pictures up, so all of you can check her out in it! She’s a gorgeous lady with two wonderful (gorgeous) children. Thank-you Tracy, hugs to you girlfriend! And to Steve at Bent Collective, who has an abundance of experience with AIDS benefits and who gave me a complete picture of what to expect at this event. Steve is a champion of the cause of HIV/AIDS prevention, in his career and on his blog. For the latest on the HIV/AIDS pandemic, check out Bent Collective.

So here is the winner and the runner-up! Hope everyone is having a relaxing and fun week-end!
Love,
3T

Go from writing whatever popped into my head, to censoring my posts for offendablility? (For the record, if that isn’t a word, tough-shit!) Ok, first I want to thank all of my blog friends for the Anniversary wishes. Thank-you. I really do love getting to know each of you!

What I have a problem with is me. Funny how what this Bloggiversary did was have me over analyzing shit again, although I see this as not necessarily a bad thing. But I did go back, and read some of my first few months of posts. What I saw, was someone unconcerned and who wrote whatever I felt like. Now? Now, I find myself censoring myself for an offendability scale. “No, I can’t post that, it might offend someone. When did I start caring what the Hell anyone thought of my personal journal?

This was set up as a personal diary, a place for me to dump whatever was on my mind, to re-tell a few stories from my past. This more so, in case I got Alzheimer’s and could no longer remember.(Yes this sounds a little neurotic and morbid, but it still is the truth.) I wanted kids to have a few tales from their mother’s past. And then. Something happened, that probably tells me a lot about myself in REAL LIFE. I censor myself, like I think we may all do at times in life. It’s part of polite society after all. You don’t go to a formal occasion and swear like a sailor. Business dinners or my husbands work socializing, you don’t bring up politics or religion.

In reality, on the whole I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about politics, except to say I think the current administration is slowly eating away at citizens’ rights. And most politicians, in my estimation, have been bought and sold more then a 50-year-old life long hooker! Religion? I have no use for it! It is a collection of tiny little governments. I have often said to my father I saw churches as the pastors’, fathers’ ministers’ (Whatever you chose to call them) little kingdoms. What was preached from a lot of the pulpits is whatever would mass manipulate the crowd into whatever the church leaders’ agenda was. A polluted version of the Gospel.

I found myself sitting here today, irritated with myself, and with my blog.I used to feel revived or satisfied after dumping some shit here. Now I am back to feeling pent up, with nowhere to just let go, when this is the place that was intended for it. I have set myself up again. Usually when I paint myself into a corner, I jump and run! Friendships, relationships, jobs. If I felt the need to censor my words, for my own unhealthy “need to please” eventually I would bail out.

The fact is, this is my personal journal. Where I planned on dumping my bad days, my bullshit, even my overly melodramatic emotions, of which there are tons! My grammar, sentence structure and spelling are NOT that of a journalist, writer or intellectual. Somewhere along the line here, I attempted to “measure up.” And I am angry at myself for falling into that all too familiar trap!

One of the comments congratulating me on my Bloggiversary said something at just the right moment that set me off. He said, “Congratulations to the blog you and the real you.” Well shit! And here I thought it was one and the same. Unwittingly he spoke the truth. My feelings, my concern, my love for so many I have gotten to know are sincere. But I can’t help but feel I have put myself out there as Betty Homemaker, campaigning for Mother of the Year. And that just couldn’t be further from the truth.

I am a high school graduate with very little college, only the minimal technical training I received for the pharmacy technicians training program. I swear like a sailor. My natural inclination is one of a lazy hedonist. I’m one of the moodiest bitches I have ever known! I HATE cleaning house! My computer desk has coffee cup ring stains and ashes all over it, with papers trailing all around me with notes, and bills and the latest 10 catalogs that I might want to order from someday. I have suffered from clinical depression MOST of my adult life that I take medication for. I spent a good deal of my second marriage running around behind my husband’s back and partying like there was no tomorrow. I am a Christian who believes in my salvation, and my need for it! I pray often, daily, for many people as well as myself, and do believe I’m saved whether I swear like a sailor, never do more with my life then what I’m doing right now, never manage to quit smoking, or quit complaining when things are not perfectly the way I want them. I am basically a shitty mother! I love my kids with all of my heart, I want to be a good mother, but my patience by the end of a day with these darling little rugrats is so shot to Hell I could easily walk out the door and not want to come back. I’m high-strung, neurotic and melodramatic. I find laughter and humor in most things others would find offensive. I’m sensitive and care deeply when those I care about are in pain. I want to fix it. I want to be liked. But I want that to be based on who I really am. Bad shitty days, foul mouthed, off-the-cuff bullshit rants and all!

If I have presented any other persona than what I just listed in this previous paragraph, then I have majorly gotten off track from my original intent. And in so doing have short changed myself. I’m not even sure if I can bring it back around to my original intent. I feel I have lost my ability to just be who I am, and vomit words all over this page if I choose to. I really would like that back. I’m just not sure if I can do it.

The crowd continues to cheer, the boring sports announcers ramble on...yesterday and today. An occasional familiar gravel voiced “Oh Yay! Yay! F*ck Yay!” emits from my SO every so often. He’s happy, Pittsburgh is winning. Kevin took half of Friday off, to complete many tasks that would have been completed this week-end. The new van is shiny and clean now, after accumulating much dust from our road trips. The dry cleaning pick up and dropped off, the bills paid, dinner for the evening set, due to leftovers from our corned beef and cabbage dinner, that HE prepared last evening.(He is one helluva a good cook)

This week-end I have sat at this computer for so many hours that trying to focus on a Newspaper or book is impossible. (I need the glare of a computer screen to see the words.) Rocking in my computer chair I’m antsy and I hesitate to use the word bored. I never realized how few of you on my favorites list blog with any regularity on the week-end! Playoffs has taught me this. You guys let me down! My brain screams to be entertained or challenged or even pissed off! For those that check your stats, I’m sure you have seen me in yours more then a couple of times this week-end, looking for new adventures, ramblings or insights. Thank you, to those who have unwittingly humored me with new posts.

Friday night was “date night” with Kevin, and we had a wonderful evening going to the movies and out for dinner at Houston’s. If you haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain yet, I highly recommend it. It gets the highest recommendation from me, being that not once did I have the urge to step outside the theater for a cig, mid-movie. And, if you have a Houston’s near you, try the grilled artichokes, I’ve never had better!

I don’t think I’m going to make it thru another football game today, truly bored out of my skull. The kids are with their father for the week-end, and I’m at a loss of what to do with myself. Knowing I can count the times I feel this way in a year on one hand, helps. The fact is I’m just too lazy and un-motivated to attempt any projects (Of which there are many) right now. Not enough motivation to write one of my Sentimental Reminiscing posts, that basically I write for my kids to read one day.

Hell! It’s almost 2:00 PM and I’m sitting in my robe and sweats with no thought of dressing for the day. We have gotten into a bad habit of staying up until 2 or 3:00 AM in the morning the last few nights, and then sleeping in until 10:00 AM. Getting up Tuesday morning at 5:00 isn’t going to be easy.

All right, my own writing is boring the f*ck out of me! Maybe I’ll go for a walk and then try this again.

3T

I’m not sure if I should apologize now, or wait until after the fact. But I have no doubt there will be an apology to make by the end of this Holiday Season, as there usually is. Thankfully we were married on January 3rd, so we go away for one of our mini-getaways following the Christmas Holiday. To celebrate our Anniversary, and to just exhale from all the work that goes by the title Christmas Holidays.

During the preparations for the Holidays, my husband sees his fun loving wife turn into this manic,driven, snarling demon, caught up in the activities of Holiday shopping,decorating, wrapping and cleaning. OK I’m not exactly the one who does ALL of this on my own. But it’s a lot of work bossing everyone to and fro to make sure all is complete and ready for Holiday cheer. To my hubby’s credit, he allows for me to play manager, and he takes on the role of labor. Unfortunately I’m not what you would call a diplomatic boss, which brings us back to the apology I’ll be making.

The mania that will set in like clockwork the day after Thanksgiving, can be seen in my eyes, voice and posture. It will take every ounce of my discipline to not allow it to completely fluster me leading to 1.2 emotional meltdowns. Convinced that if each chore and activity isn’t complete, it will ruin the Holiday for all. In reality, it is my meltdowns that will come the closest to upsetting the balance of Family Holiday Cheer.

This year, I strive to not let it get the best of me. When it builds, to back off and away, take some deep breaths, and relax. Unfortunately what this means to my blog, is I will dump all crazy mania and emotion here. The closet bitch will be unleashed out into cyberspace, where it can’t damage family dynamics. (I’ll make my apologies now)

This year, following Thanksgiving, possibly starting Thanksgiving evening, I will attempt the impossible. Wife, Mother and Holiday Coordinator Extraordinaire.

In my family of origin many of us worked jobs that required actually working on Christmas Day. My mother is a nurse in a hospital, my brother a State Trooper, I worked in a Hospital pharmacy. We were accustomed to changing the Holiday Celebration to another day on a fairly regular basis. Some years Christmas would be celebrated on New Years, or sometimes the week prior to Christmas, to accommodate everyone’s work schedule. This also worked out well where spouses family celebrations were concerned. My sisters husband could celebrate on the Holiday or the night before. As well as mine and my brothers respective spouses.

The hardest adjustment in moving out of state, was not being part of my family celebrations. I loved planning them, and of course bossing everyone around. (First child syndrome, don’t blame me) I missed being part of these gatherings, and I know they missed having me. OK they mainly missed my children, but I think they missed me a little. I know my parents did anyway. 

This year, mom and dad are coming to Arizona to celebrate a Christmas with the 3T family! Yes, I’m excited!! And a little nervous. The closest they could come to the Holiday (for time off work) was the first week-end in December. What I am going to attempt is to have all Christmas Prep work (i.e.; decorating, shopping, wrapping and cleaning) DONE, by the time they arrive on December 1st! I will have eight days to do what I normally will spend a full month completing. Just the thought can throw me into a full blown meltdown.

But I will do my best to take each activity as it comes, and not look at the whole picture. Even though right at this moment the nausea is setting in.

I love my folks dearly, and want this visit to be special, and serve as the Christmas Holidays that I have missed over the last four years. Lofty goal, I know. But I’m going to give it my best.

Which means my time spent writing posts and reading during this period will be greatly diminished. Thinking ahead, what I have decided, is it will be my actual updates that will suffer. I love reading blogs, and to some extent this is less time consuming. So my posts will be fewer and further in between, allowing for me to read others. (Which face it, being funloving, I enjoy reading more then writing)

If per chance, you stumble in here and see a crazed and manic post, I ask you to bear with me. The insanity will let up, when the Holidays do. With it, I’ll return to my normal melodramatic self.

In the meantime, I wish you all a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving!

3T

The beginning of October also means the pace of our life picks up, and doesn’t let up until well after Christmas. I think this last week mentally for me was gearing up to, and accepting that fact. I got the kids Bi-Annual dentist appts. out of the way and have the appts. set up for their flu vaccination this next Saturday. Our parental duties to their general healthcare now complete.

This past week I started seeing a Chiropractor, and will continue to do so on average of two times a week. So far she has provided more relief from the head aches and neck/back problems then Dr. Tall Dark and Handsome at the Pain Clinic, my General practitioner and a Neurologist put together. And has provided it without me having to be on narcotic pain relievers. And that is fantastic! Narcotics are a faulty band aid, that does nothing for the problem but mask it, and possibly leaves you vulnerable to becoming addicted. (They have their place in medicine, although dealing with chronic pain when there are other alternatives should not be one of them) In my humble opinion of course.

I started my photography class this last Saturday, and I think I am going to enjoy going. I know I learned enough yesterday to actually pick up the camera and not be intimidated by it, which for me is a definite start. I took my first few pictures using my family as models. Professional photography is not anywhere in my near future, but I’m going to enjoy learning what I can anyway. And possibly learn how to use the computer WITH the camera. We’ll see, one step at a time.

Journey was fantastic! Mickie, Lisa, Rishel, Bill, Kevin and I all enjoyed ourselves. Getting ready for the concert at home, listening to all of Journeys greatest hits, I started feeling 21 again, excited and ready to have a little rowdy fun. As I was applying make up and doing my hair, I caught myself arranging my bangs like the 80s. You know the poofy big hair band and groupie style from the 80s? I stared at my reflection and how ridiculous I looked (Im FAR from 21!) and combed the 80s out of my hair, laughing at my nostalgia.

We met at the hotel, broke open a bottle of champagne and visited for a while. Then loading everyone into my dirty white dodge minivan, went to dinner. All of us were feeling nostalgic about the old days of concert going and getting rowdy. A slight difference though, is our bodies seem to be slowly falling apart, adding up how many bad backs and health problems we seemed to share, here in mid life.

Had a delicious dinner at Texas Roadhouse, which by the way shocked Kevin and I, at how reasonably priced they are! Want a good steak and cheap drinks? Texas Roadhouse is the place. We then headed for the concert. It was amazing seeing the wide age group at this concert. From the baby boomers, generation X and young kids all excited to see Journey!

It was a fun week-end, where we had some time to visit, listen to good music and laugh. After the concert we hit the minute mart for munchies, and headed back to mine and Kevins room to snack and visit. We had some wonderful laughter, some at my expense, but laughing until tears are rolling down your cheeks, are worth being the butt of a joke now and again. At dinner, Rishel finally had to wave her ring right in my face, before I noticed. Bill and Rishel are officially engaged, and set the Big Day for Halloween. I am thrilled for the two of them. I want to thank all of them for making this week-end so much fun! I love all of you!

Thanks also to everyone who commented, even if you didn’t care for their music, thanks for humoring me.

(A need to lighten up a little bit)

It’s only Wednesday, and I am already looking towards the week-end! Some of my Home-girls and the hubby and I are headed to Phoenix to see Journey in an outdoor concert at Cricket Pavilion, staying the night at a hotel within walking distance of the concert. Journey has long since been a favorite group of mine from the 80’s.One the hubby enjoys as well. Of course we have “a song” that is ours done by Journey as well. Don’t Stop Believing has been one of “our songs” from the days when we were just dating. And is always listened to at full volume. I am very much looking forward to breaking out of life for 24 hours to enjoy good music and fun friends!

This last week-end with the kids we took them to see March of the Penguins. Fantastic movie!  All four of us enjoyed it thoroughly, not really knowing much of anything about these strong and unique animals/birds? (Obviously didn’t listen quite close enough) They are such beautiful creatures, and have some unique traits, that make seeing this movie a “must see!” I know I am way late considering this movie has been out for some time now. As I don’t care for the crowds that accompany “new releases” I am quite content to sit back and wait for the crowds to die down before checking them out.

Took the kids out to dinner afterwards. It was a fun way to spend a kids week-end! That Sunday we took them for the annual school clothes shopping trip! Kevin took Riley once we hit the mall, and I took Tayler. Needless to say, I had far more luck with Tayler then Kevin had with Riley. It really wasn’t fair to send Kevin off with our “most challenging child” in just about anything. Splitting up based on the boys and the girls just seemed logical. By the time we hooked back up, Kevin looked a bit on the frazzled side, and Riley looked satisfied. Seems the only thing Riley was interested in was getting an ice cream cone, and to hell with clothes shopping. They came out with a minimal amount of shopping done. Tayler was completely finished by the time we were done. (Sorry Kevin)

So in honor of Journey coming to Phoenix this Saturday I wanted to dwell on it a bit! (Builds excitement and anticipation)

--What is your favorite Journey Song?
--Why?
--Is there anyone out there who does not like Journey?
--Why?
--Do you relate their music to any special memories?
--What’s the memory?

C’mon, tell me, I’m curious.