it has been a while

My last post to my blog was full of anger.  I was shocked to read it again, boy when I get angry I really do have quite a temper.  Today is Friday the 13th an ordinary day with a slightly unusual date.  I finished Christmas shopping today with the exception of my hubby when I will get his done I do not know.  So a quiet day, and suddenly there on the Facebook feed another school shooting, again in Colorado.  This has happened so often now that it almost seems routine.  All the normal afternoon talk shows are not interrupted, we hardly look up.  It is hard to know what to think anymore.  I lost my aunt a few days ago to a house fire of all things.  I never in my wildest dreams, imagined a house fire would take away anybody I knew and loved.  I know they happen, but it was always someone else, somewhere else.  This world is a scary place.  In my normal day to day I look forward to the next day, the next event, the next thing, grand-kids, marriages, happily ever after.  When stuff like school shootings or house fires happen that take away loved ones I wonder to myself "God, are we done?  Would you send Jesus down?  Make this all disappear.
  Madela, was he a good saintly guy or a reformed bad guy?  The media which a rarely believe these days would have you believe he was a Saint.  Frankly from what little I do know I think he was a decent leader, not perfect.  If he was a bad guy resulting in his imprisonment he would have been entitled to become a  really bitter old man after prison what made him admirable is he didn't he became a leader, and fought for change in his country.  An inspiration really, how does one become an inspiring leader of change?  So when Mararet Thatcher passed away earlier this year another person who changed their country forever we did not send one single delegate to our most loyal ally.  We didn't even blink, no hour long specials on what she did and why.  No movies about her role in world events with world leaders, nothing really.  Her memorial if you call it that was played out on Facebook.  I remember her from my time in England, I admired her.  Nelson Mandela on the other hand was old and sick we knew he was going to die.  He was an inspirational leader and deserving of the spectacle that was his memorial service.  All the delegates and ex-presidents who attended.  Our current president made another speech and took a selfie.  There is a movie based on Nelson Madela's book to be released on Christmas Day.  Why do we make a huge deal and spectacle of some leaders and not of others.  Both leaders broke barriers, both did amazing things, why one is celebrated and one not is strange to me.
   Over the past week I have had a horrible cold.  I was not able to work out, way to exhausted, it was hard being sick. I am not completely over it yet so while I had great plans to restart my workout program I think I will start on a Monday fresh as a daisy.  I have a ailment, I can't really call it a disease, it is a chronic condition that affects so many systems of my body.  It is called PCOS or Poly-cystic Ovarian Syndrome,  basically I have cysts on  my ovaries, it can cause , excess weight gain, excess hair or sometimes hair loss, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, insulin resistance, sometimes infertility, at the least trouble conceiving, acne, depression there is more.  It is a very difficult condition and widely misunderstood, usually when we see a woman with bad skin who is overweight we make assumptions about her, she has no will power, she is lazy, she is unclean.  The problem is she may suffer from this condition.  While most people can simply work out harder and cut back a woman with PCOS has extreme difficulty.  We just can't lose the excess weight as easily.  There is usually a lot more going on then just eating out more often then we should.  If all the things that PCOS causes were as easy to control as just cutting back on soda and french fries.  I have had PCOS my entire life and it is hereditary.  I was simply unlucky.  There was a woman on my side of the family who had it, and I was unlucky enough to pull that card.  My boys are a blessing and my daughter a joy.  The reason I am explaining this is so people will be a little kinder and more understanding.  I have a friend with this condition, and she can run circles around the cute skinny girls at the gym, she can work out for hours and remains the same.  Doctors who are supposed to help  belittle and ignore her pleas for help.  It is a shame and doctors are of little help at all.  I have a lot of the same issues and it is very hard.
  This is what is on my heart today.  Go out, be encouraging, smile and remember the reasons for the season.  For me it is Jesus, whatever your reasons are, celebrate the joy and try to make your piece of the world a better place.

Warning: This is how I really feel.

The government shut down sort of.  This made me mad.  Not kind of mad, but as mad as a hornet whose nest had been disturbed.  I wasn't mad at the Republicans that the media was trying so hard to convince me were the ones responsible.  I was mad at the President and the Senate democrats who would not negotiate.  Leaders Negotiate!  It is better to get most of what you want if people will benefit and the country will benefit.  These people flat refuse to negotiate, that seems wrong.  Shutting down open air memorials and National parks is wrong.  You can't convince me it costs less to put barriers and park rangers in place.  For what purpose, to keep out some older veterans out of their memorial, they fought for it, it is theirs.  So I will say what made some people mad.  I hate you President Obama, I truly, truly, hate you.  Someday my God , will take care of you.  You hate this country, you hate people who disagree with you, you hate people like me who see you for the lying snake that you are.  I hate people who will not stand up for the benefit of this country they care about protecting you and what you want more then they care about serving their fellow man.  My rights as a Christian are being eroded every day for the rights of Muslims extremists, who would not blink if I was exterminated in the street.  Muslim Extremists hate me, that is fine, I will not shut up.  I am not polite all the time.  See I believe that Christian Conservatives like me have been sweet and polite for to long and that is why the country is here it is at.  The minority has the power.  I was quiet too, didn't want to offend people, well I am done being a good, quiet person, I am angry!  Somebody has to be strong enough to say, enough is enough.  I am sure that God gave me my strong opinions for a reason.  Paul said things that in his day made people mad.  I may be childish, but these black and white words don't harm anybody and they are mine.  In my opinion, I do this to get my frustration out.  Read it or not I simply don't care.  There will be people who disagree with me tell me I am a bad Christian, maybe so but I am a Christian, God will forgive me, I am his child with the big loud mouth.  I am absolutely sure he will put me to use one day.  My true, loyal friends, who read my blog they will understand. They love me for who I am.   For you who get it, I love you.  For you who this shutdown hurt, I am sorry, you have my full support.

I am having a rare day.

Today all my stars must be aligned because seriously I am in a terrific mood.  I do have good moods occasionally but today I am in rare form.  I went shopping yesterday, it started there.  You know when you go shopping and you try on clothes in a particular size because that is what you are used too.  I did that and nothing fit.  Everything was to big.  Not hanging off my body to big but big enough I would have had to buy a belt also.  I bought a size smaller pair of jeans.  I was so happy.  I was practically euphoric.  This morning I had my usual breakfast and after lollygagging I went to the gym and things went ok.  I am getting faster and stronger.  I came home and the mailbox had a new bracelet I ordered and some dog tags.  I have been trying all kinds of things to inspire and motivate me.  We all love getting something in the mail that doesn't contain a bill.  I took a shower.  I weigh myself before every shower.  It showed a number that I have been hoping and praying would show up 150lbs.  I never said it was supermodel weight but I have really wanted it.  10 more lbs would be fantastic but it seemed like a major victory for today.  Today bring it on kidlettes because Mommy might say yes, when she usually says no.  Today I feel like a warrior princess.

School

When you have kids other than a name the most important decision you will ever make is how and where to send them to school.  We have so many choices today, home schools, online schools, private schools, charter schools and public schools.  My eldest child graduated from a top rated charter school.  What does that mean?  He is not going to Harvard or MIT he is joining the United States Air Force.  We joke that it is the family business since both my husband and I grew up military and he retired from the Air Force.  I truly believe there is a right school for every child the tricky part is knowing what is right.  I have a typical teenage son, he loves sports and, he also happens to be a hard worker and smart.  He would be miserable in a charter school like my eldest went to.  There were no sports teams or drama clubs.  The school ratings came out for my area today, and my son's school got a C, but he is extremely happy and fulfilled.  I can only hope that all the extracurricular stuff and his 4.0 will counteract that the school is not top notch. My youngest daughter has challenges, she is bright, articulate, and artistic, but school can sometimes be very frustrating and tiring for her and as a result me.  If I could have a guarantee that the school she is in right now is going to provide for her needs without giving me a major headache all my problems would be solved.  Life doesn't work that way.  I have to hope that the choices I made are the best choices I could make and leave the rest up to God.  We bring forth children into this world full of promise and hope.  Sometimes, they bring special challenges that are apparent right from the start, and sometimes those challenges make themselves apparent much later.  Being a parent is a very tough job and we all know people who seem to do a much better job then us, and on the flip-side we know people who we believe are messing it up.  There is no perfect parent, actually there is one,  God the father.  He even left us a book of instructions.  It is a long book.  It is a great book, but in the thick of things easy answers are hard to find.  To all the parents out there, don't fret do your best and pray about the rest.

The VMA's

It is my blog so I am going to talk about Miley Cyrus.  I don't watch the VMA's and I have only seen the bits and pieces of the performance that have been blasted all over the news.  Not to long ago my baby girl was a Hannah Montana fan.  She was wholesome, cute, and the program the few times I could bring myself to watch it seemed harmless enough.  I took her to the movie and even I begrudgingly liked it.  Of course now Victoria is over Miley,  Hannah,and Justin Bieber. She has never liked One Direction.  I remember being a little older then she is now and having little crushes on the teen idols of my time.  It is shocking to a parent of any age and any generation when a teen idol falls from grace.  You think we would have learned by now that they quite often do fall from grace.  So many young stars are on the news not for their talent, or craft, no they make the news for the train wreck they have let their lives become.  We are just as guilty, because we watch it.  We love watching these young people make complete fools out of themselves which in turn sells, making them very rich and increasingly very troubled.  It does seem that if these stars have parents they do nothing to help their children, they defend their hideous choices.  Billy Ray Cyrus has been on the news defending his daughter's behavior.  It is sickening!  She used to be a darling girl, very pretty, but somehow, somewhere, being a hero to little girls wasn't enough and desperate to grow up she has made some horrible choices.  She dresses and acts like a tramp.  Ladies listen please if you walk around being provocative you will get lots of attention, a lot of negative attention.  You might attract men for sure, but they won't treat you like a lady they will treat you like meat.  Young girls everywhere need to know you are so much more then this.  There are good, kind, decent, men who want more then a sex kitten.  Good, decent, men want a lady they can talk to, be friends with, a partner in life.    

   Miley wasn't alone on that stage she was with a guy that should have known better, but didn't his songs are filled with sex and innuendo.  I heard he was married, I don't know if he has children yet but I sure hope they never see that performance. Ironically his dad played a dad to my teenage crush Kirk Cameron, now there is a teen idol that to this day I like.  A decent, Christian, family man.  A man who has devoted his life to Christ.  

   Men is this want you want, women who think nothing of ripping off their clothes and grinding over anybody.  If you think for a moment I think you don't.  You want a woman who treasures you and herself.  I have sons also.  I am doing my level best to teach them to respect themselves and women they might date enough to save themselves for marriage.  It is a really hard sell these days when the media glorifies everything opposite of that standard.  Pregnancy isn't seen as bringing forth a life it is portrayed as a problem, you can easily solve.  So many shows on TV bring forth the unintended pregnancy story line.  It cheapens the whole experience, even the most powerful man in the nation talks about a baby as a burden he does not want his daughters to have to bear.  But yet the act that starts a life is seen as fun, and harmless.  My boys were born out of love to a man and a woman committed to a life together in the covenant of marriage.  I know so many people  who are going to get angry about that statement but that is the truth, it is the ideal.  I want that ideal for my boys.  I want them to find a woman who will treasure my son's as I have.  I dearly hope and pray that one day someone that cares about Miley Cyrus the person will talk to her about her choices and maybe she will return to the beautiful young woman she once was and the performance at the VMA's will be a a memory made in bad judgement.  I pray that Robin Thicke will apologize for his part.  Of course it is hollyweird and they have a bad habit of just dishing out more of what sells and who cares who gets hurt in the process.  The whole mess is sad. 

Perseverance

 perseverance : continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition : the action or condition or an instance of persevering:steadfastness.

 This is my favorite word, my favorite theme, and the title of my favorite painting.  The late Thomas Kincade has a painting that shows a sailboat being tossed around in the waves.  The painting speaks to me.  I have often felt like that sailboat being tossed about by life.  This week was the first week of school, and I was not ready.  I love summer, the lack of a schedule, sleeping in.  I am an insomniac and many nights I didn't get to sleep till 3 or 4 am.  This really doesn't work well when you get up at 6:15.  So everyday this week I awoke with Persevere on the brain.  Just put one foot in front of the other.  I enjoy reflecting on the many heroes in the bible.  Many of those people faced incredible odds and put their faith in God and persevered.  I do not even put myself in the same boat as them but everyone can identify to being tossed around by life.  I have had some real lows this week, and some incredible highs as well.  We can handle and rejoice the highs so easily but those little pesky lows, they really throw us for a loop.  My low this week was writing down my measurements, to make this worse I had my husband help.  There I was with nowhere to hide.  I hated those numbers they seemed to mock me even though I know I am a beast in the gym.  The truth is my diet needs some altering or nothing will change.  I am not any good at restrictive diets.  I usually don't make it one day before I messed it up and then it just doesn't seem worth the trouble to continue.  This time I have decided to try something new, no restricting, no forbidding certain foods.  I am going to eat and drink what I enjoy and know I will not give up I am just going to cut back, slowly.  Eat less, be sensible.  I am pretty sure this will make the process much longer but I am hoping it will help.
   I love the idea of this blog, I have no hopes of being discovered and don't really check to see how many times the blog has been viewed.  I don't write for anyone in particular.  The dream is that someone stumbles upon it and sees that they are not alone.  We all feel alone sometimes, and the funny thing is even with all this technology we feel like we are the only one in the entire world to feel the way we do.  Maybe there is someone in the world who shares some of my struggles.  That mysterious person is who I am trying to reach.  Maybe I have a friend who reads this out of curiosity and  they may have similar struggles that they hide within and this helps them know they are not alone.  We all must persevere everyday even if that means getting out of a warm bed, and put one foot in front of the other.

The Cabin

It was a small cabin hidden in the mountains.  It was rustic with an outhouse and no running water.  A place where someone could hide out when the pressure of the fast-paced life becomes to much to bear.  To Alexis Montgomery it was the perfect place to recover.  A friend happened to own it and had graciously offered it to her as a place where no one would bother to look.  It was perfect.  It had been a hellish few months.  Six months ago everything was different.  She married her high school boyfriend when he was home on leave from the Army.  They spent one idyllic weekend together before he returned to Afghanistan with his unit.  She found out she was pregnant a few weeks later.  She was thrilled, this is the life she dreamed of.  They talked via Skype as often as they could so bubbly with excitement.  Then the unthinkable happened his vehicle hit an IED on a mission and he wasn't coming home.  Then with the stress she lost the baby.  She felt that God had taken everything away, and she couldn't understand why.  It was bad enough to lose the love of her life but their baby too was almost more then she could bear.  Her parents and friends tried to help but there was nothing they could do to relieve her pain.  So when the cabin was presented as a retreat she accepted she wanted to be left alone for a while to grieve and hopefully regain her life and begin the next chapter of her life though she couldn't imagine what if any life that would be.
    Alexis was young and pretty with long brown hair and piercing green eyes that sparkled when she laughed.  At 22 she was to young and vibrant to give up.  It was late September when she arrived at the cabin, the leaves had started to change, and there was a chill to the evening air.  The friend had stocked the cabin with everything she would need for a couple of weeks before she would need to shop for anything.  She settled all of her belongings and had started the kettle on the stove for some tea and decided curl up with a good book in the old wooden rocking chair on the porch.  She lit a lantern so she would have good light.  She never imagined there would be anyone around now that the summer tourists had left.  That misconception vanished with the appearance of another woman.  She had no-one with her but Alexis feared that maybe she was there with a loud and rambunctious family, all she wanted was peace, not laughing and people having fun.  The stranger approached her sitting on her porch and introduced herself as Lacey.  She was here alone also at another cabin about a mile away.  She said she was a writer who came to her family cabin so she could write in peace.  She seemed so friendly and open that Alexis couldn't help but like her instantly.  They moved indoors when it started to get chilly and they shared a pot of tea together.  Alexis shared why she was here and without really intending to broke down with the whole sad saga to this stranger and afterward she felt slightly lighter.  Lacey listened, she was glad to have happened upon Alexis, she had been suffering from writers block and had the strangest feeling she was here for a reason but had no idea what that was until this moment.  Two strangers happened to upon each other by fate.  Lacey was a Christian woman with a heart of gold.  She was only 30  and she always felt she had a gift of compassion.  So before her was this lovely young woman who was so hurt and broken.  Lacey wasn't sure she would be of any help but she did understand loss, she was also a young widow and maybe the shared knowledge of loss would help both of them.

This is as far as I got with this story maybe I will add to it and finish it.  If anyone wants to add to it or alter it in any way feel free.

Marriage

In the beginning he was her whole world.  He was everything she ever wanted and didn't know it.  The man she found when she really wasn't looking.  Now life has provided ups and downs,and he still gives her a thrill when he kisses her before he goes anywhere.  Not to say marriage has always been rosy, it never is.  They have had some times when they floated that fine line between love and hate.  Marriage is risky, there are so many couples that started the journey with such love and  promise only to fall apart later.  To give your heart away, and in her case so young, seemed to many to be a recipe for disaster but through thick and thin here they were.  His parents had weathered storms and came through it together, hers were not so lucky, torn apart by secrets.  What makes it work?  She really didn't know.  All she knows is that today so many years and three children later, he understands what makes her tick like no other.  He is the other half that makes them whole.  She believes in soul mates.  She believes faith helps bind a couple during storms.  She believes in one true love.

Visualizations

Money, bills, jobs, school
to little time, pressure builds
conflicts, relationships, cleaning, cooking
to little time, pressure builds
Time Out!
Emerald green water
squeaky white sand under your feet
waves gently rolling onto the shore
sun caressing your skin.
Complete peace.
1,2, 3, breathe in, breathe out
return to life with new perspective.


I am no poet, just something to think about as the new school year approaches and life brings ever increasing pressure.  Before your pressure cooker explodes.  Take some time to go to your "happy place"  breathe in, breathe out.  Persevere!

In the Beginning

  When I was a girl I dreamed of becoming a writer, I started and stopped the next great American novel so many times.  I told myself stories all the time but never really got to the point of finishing all the starts.  I was young and had so much time I figured I would get to them later but never saved them and life went on and like so many childish fantasies the stories I told myself stayed just that. The wonderful thing about the internet is that now I have a place to put those musings, those thoughts.  People can choose to read them or not.  I have always been very opinionated, and not afraid to share those opinions whether asked for or not.  It gets me into trouble especially when I encounter someone whose opinions differ from my own.  Maturity and wisdom bring insight and regret.  There is so much to learn when you listen.  I may not agree with everything others say but life would be very boring if everyone agreed.  I am also very political, I am proud to say I am a Christian, Conservative, Republican.  I usually view most things through that lens.  This new blog which I have created will be chock full of lots of musings, all the thoughts in my head will be written down.  I may get political and for those that may read it who lean left may find much to disagree with me about, you are entitled to your beliefs, and I will not argue with you.  I enjoy working out and if you followed my last blog you may find more musings from the fitness quest here as well.  Finally I may write a story or poem whatever strikes my fancy at the time.  My dream in life from the time I was young until now was to make a difference.  I believe in God, I believe he guides my steps, maybe something that I write about will make a positive difference for someone somewhere.  In the beginning was Helen Melissa, this is me, welcome to the musing of my mind.