I was standing next to a pile of small rocks stacked in the shape of a pyramid that came to the height of my waist and I knew that they represented my need to argue and be angry.

A voice said to me, “Of what worth are those rocks?”

I looked down at them, contemplated the question and said, “They could be used in laying a foundation but I would never want anger and arguing to be at the foundation of something I would build.”

“And yet they are.  Within you you carry them as a foundational energy.  They create blocks in your energy keeping you from free flowing peace.  Rocks in a stream bed cause the water to bubble and churn.  At this time this is how your peace flows through you, random moments frequently disturbed by the rocks.  Tell me,

“What do rocks become?”
“They break down into sand.”
“What can be made from sand?”
“Glass.”
“Glass is clear.  Become clear with peace.  Transform your rocks into glass. ”

“What else do rocks become?”
“They eventually become soil.”
“What grows from soil?”
“Plants.”
“Plants have life and in turn give life.  Become the life of peace.   Transform your rocks into soil . . .
“Become peace.”

Love ya,
Theresa

At 5 I was driving with my daughters, Daughter 2 (younger) and Daughter 1 (Older).  The conversation went something like this with the names changed to protect the innocent and me from hearing how I talked about them on my blog in a “negative” way )

Daughter 1: “I’ll pick you up from school on Monday so we can go to the Chiropractor so don’t get on the bus wait for me in the lobby.” (their schools get out 15 minutes apart)
Daughter 2: “I can’t, we aren’t allowed to be in the lobby after school.”
Daughter 1: “You’re not?  Why”
Daughter 2: “I don’t know we just aren’t”
Daughter 1: “Okay then wait in the bathroom.  When I get there I’ll text you so you know I’m there.”
Daughter 2: “I can’t do that.”
Daughter 1: “Why not?”
Daughter2: “I don’t think we’re allowed to do that.”
Daughter 1: “Who is going to know?  There’s lots of after school activities there will be kids everywhere.”
Daughter2: “I don’t think I should do that.”
Me: “Tell them you missed the bus and you have to wait for your sister in the lobby.”
Daughter 2: “They’ll get upset with me for missing the bus.”
Me: “It happens, what are they going to do tell you not to wait in the lobby or the office or anything. I mean where are you going to wait if you happen to miss the bus on the ceiling or dissipate into thin air?  They’ve got to let you wait.
Daughter 1 and Daughter 2: Laughter….
Me: “Okay then just walk to your sister’s car then. (their schools are right next to each other)
Daughter 2: “Can’t.  It’s not allowed.”
Me: “What is allowed in schools anymore??  I mean my word this is ridiculous.  How do you even know that, its not in the handbook?”
Daughter 2: “The principal was out front the other day and one of the kids tried to walk over to her brother’s car and he stopped her.”
“Me: “Then wait till he’s gone before you leave the building and leave on the opposite end, go out the car pool side.  No one is going to see you.”  (Of course this answer made me think to myself, “Oh God what kind of a mother am I I’m teaching my kid to break rules…”)
Daughter 1: “Yeah sister that’ll work.”
Daughter 2: “If someone sees me I’ll get into trouble.”
Me: “Then go see a teacher for extra help, you must need help with something.”
Daughter 2: “I’m really doing ok with everything right now so that wouldn’t work.”

Daughter 2 and I came up with a few more scenarios and all were met with some type of no and then I got annoyed.  Nerve scarping annoyed.  This is my child who doesn’t look for solutions to anything almost ever so its already something that gets to me.  But before I could say anything Daughter 1 did.

Daughter 1: “Sister! You’ve got to have some solution that you can do.  Look for solutions Sister.  Look for solutions,”  she said with a laugh and I chimed in and repeated the need to seek some kind of a solution, however my chime had a bit of an edge to it, a little forcefulness with the underlying insistence that said without saying, “For heaven sake stop making this so difficult, pick one of the ideas we gave you we gave you up-teem.”

Then, at the same time I realized I was getting less then peaceful, Daughter 2 said, “Mom you don’t have to get upset about it.”

BAM nailed lack of peace and love.  I’m just glad I haven’t made the grand pronouncement to my kids what my resolution for this year is otherwise her response would have been laced with a lot of comments about my resolution and how I’m not working very hard at it at the moment. . .  because if any of my kids are good at zinging someone with directness it’s Daughter 2 for sure.  So I got through that one with just me to contemplate my loss of peace and thenI reeled myself back in, did some deep breathing to bring myself to center and asked her, nicely, to just think about which option she wanted to go with and then let me know.

So I press onward and upward as I march forward with this resolution, ever determined that I’m going to make it!
Love ya,
Theresa

I had grown up in anger, used anger to cover pain and hurt, responded with its sharp edge to send a strong message to whoever might be coming across like they were attacking or hurting me in any way to let them know that they couldn’t hurt me.   It was my defense and boy was I defensive.

With over forty years of reinforcement this area of my life has presented me with nothing but a struggle to overcome. To some degree, in spite of the work I have done in and outside of sessions, I lacked sincerity in practicing the techniques I was being taught.   My sincerity went sorely lacking when I would get annoyed, upset, or felt threatened. Then I would throw my teaching straight out the window in a fervor of irritation proclaiming that I was ticked and that was that and I was going to be ticked.   I had every reason to be ticked/angry.  Afterward I would always regret it of course but then it was too late.

I’m far worse with some people than others.  My children and most outside people not so much.   Unfortunately the one I’m far worse with is my ex.   My couch told him he has the same problem, he’s addicted to arguing and with me.  So once we push each other’s buttons it’s like the bell at a boxing match, we’re both in the center of the ring, gloves up, dancing around waiting to see who takes the first swing so we can get our fix.

Through the years my couch would ask me how things were going with my fighting, arguing, and anger especially when it came to my ex and I would want to disappear into the seat.  I felt like a broken record.  Seriously you could press play on the recording, the answer was the same.  Over the years we’ve talked about it so much I’m just going to go ahead and say it, I got sick and tired of talking about it.  Even though we did talk about other things with the frequency that this came up it felt like there wasn’t anything else.  At times I would think, “Can’t we talk about something else for crying out loud?”

Then in this last year, to my surprise, I reached a point where I feared that I was never going to have real transformation to this problem.  Even though I had been able to overcome my addiction to smoking pot literally overnight I was finding this addiction to be like quitting cigarettes is to most people, impossible.  I became totally fearful that I was going to stay stuck in this mire forever.  But I didn’t say it out loud.  However one day to my surprise someone else did, someone I respect highly, in irritation they said, “I didn’t think you’re ever going to overcome your anger, this is going be an issue for you the rest of my life.”  Ouch. Sting. Burn. Not that they knew it but I cried over that and felt like a complete miserable failure in life and wanted to hide.

Even though I had been going around afraid that I was a hopeless case it took an outsider to speak the same thought to push me out of my self-pitying “stuckness”.  I squared my shoulders and decided that I didn’t have to accept that prediction for my life from anyone.  I have overcome so many things I can overcome this.  I can transform my anger into peace and love.

So began the challenge and that’s when little things started to happen.

More about that next time,
Love ya,
Theresa

The Beetles sang about starting a revolution to change the world in their song Revolution.  Once upon its day I learned to really like that song and its dum ditty, dum ditty beat but today I view revolution for world change through a different lense.  Back in the day I was all about world peace and radical liberal thinking, but I had no clue how to access that possibility and I didn’t give it any thought either.  I guess I assumed the world would start talking about it and we’d all jump on board because everyone would see the absolute need to stop the killing and the evil that lurked through every crack around the world.  But I had no plan.  I didn’t really know anyone who did.

Today I see the near lunacy of that approach.  I realize that if there is to be world peace it must begin in me and within each individual on the planet.  As Ghandi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”  If I can’t even get along with those in my own family how on this earth am I to do it with others down the street let alone those that are around the world??

World peace begins within, one person at a time.

As I mentioned in my last blog I am all about changing the world that is within me; peace and love are my focus for this year.   To quell my anger that can all too easily ooze out onto others.  This is the year that Theresa/me starts a revolution within herself/me, the year she lays her “guns” down and waves the white flag of surrender.  Surrender to peace and love.  Surrender to the words of Christ that says to have peace with all men, to have it beyond all understanding, and to love one another always.  Surrender to the love and peace that are already within me.

When I was created, when we were all created, I/we were instilled with love and peace from the Creator of our life and flesh.  Throughout every cell and corpuscle there already exists these two qualities, however time and suffering have caused me/us to shovel mountains of suffocating dirt on top of them and create a block within that stifles love and peace.  So my plan is to get in touch with the anger.  To shovel till the blade scraps love and peace and I can loosen and lift it out from the grave it has been buried in so it can blossom and release its fragrance for the world to enjoy.

When Christ suggested that we love one another He didn’t mean when I felt like it, He meant always, even when someone is  ticking me off.  LOL.

It is now time to look past my ticked and what they‘re doing and to the underlying reason for my anger which lies within me and completely outside of what they are doing.  No one can make me angry, I choose anger in response to some issue that I have.  Whatever they are doing is simply pushing a well worn button somewhere within me, and when that occurs I can do one of two things, get angry or allow it to give me the opportunity to discover one of my hidden issues and heal it.  Transform the button/anger into something beautiful like love and peace.

This will be my year and I have a plan.  8-) 

After being gone so long from blogging I find myself a bit at a loss of where to begin and for some odd reason what keeps running through my head is what my cousin used to say when he arrived someplace back in the 80′s he’d arrange his fingers in the peace sign and with a smirk say, “Peace, love, dove.”

I guess this is possibly some unconscious reaction rising from within me since my resolution for 2011 is to have peace that transcends a zen master, or at least that would bring a smile to his face in approval, and to have love that oozes out of me like warm honey from one of those cute plastic bear squeezey bottles.  Where the dove fits in all of this beats me, but it does give it a zippy rhythm sound.

At any rate this does give me a starting place so, “Peace, love, dove, everyone I’ve missed you all so much.”

I haven’t posted since June I think, the month that Zac’s pressure sore, “took on a life of it’s own and escalated”, to quote the doctor.  There is no way that I can ever catch you up on all that has happened over the months, however I will give you the highlights.  He had two surgeries.  After the first he was with me for 10 days.  I have never cared for someone so sick in all my life he vomited frequently, he slept for what seemed too long, and he didn’t eat enough to keep a bird alive.  I slept on the end of his twin bed the first few nights because he was afarid to be alone and I was afraid to leave and go to my room, and I lost so much weight my pants hung on me.

Three times a day I packed the sore with 8 feet of gauze, covered, and taped it off with thick white8″x8″ bandaging and I kept everything so clean his father told me I was maybe I was obsessing too much, I was more sterile then the hospital.  Maybe I was, my hands were cracked and bleeding from all the washing, but I couldn’t help it, after the doctor’s first surgery he cut away the dead skin the sore was the size and depth that would challenge a Marine’s stomach, I saw 4 inches of his bone and it was larger than his father’s hand.  Every time I went to remove the bandage I knealt beside the bed, took many slow deep breaths, and began to sing him a lullaby I made up and sang to all my kids when they were babies, it steadied me and gave me the strength to get through the process, “I love you Zachary, you know I do, I love you Zachary you know it’s true, I love you Zachary you know I do, I loooveee you.”  I sang it over and over while my hands trembled and my head had just the tiniest floaty.

After the 10 days with me he was re-admitted to the hospital.  For a week they got him ready for the second surgery, to remove the 4 inches of bone I had packed gauze around.  For the three weeks that followed the surgery, his father and I rotated staying with him and he was released with a pic line in his arm so I could administer IV anti-boitic meds four times a day, 8, 4, 8, midnight, and nurse visits commenced three times a week, they changed the Wound Vac bandaging.  A nifty gadget to say the least.  There was a package that contained a 2 inch black sponge to be cut to fit the wound, a thin transparent bandage material to spread over the top, the nurses cut a hole at it’s center and inserted a tube that ran to the vac machine.  Once the machine was turned on, there was a quick sucking sound and the sponge was sucked flat like the clothes in the plastic bags that are vac packed on the TV commercials, everything collapsed under the clear bandage.  All I can say is thank God he has zero feeling from mid-waist down.  This machine ran day and night continuously sucking away the debris from the wound, through the tube, into a canister.  This is a great machine but let me just say that it can have it’s tricky moments that caused the alarm to sound and demand attention to fix it and always between the hours of midnight and five am.

Zac has had to remain in his bed all this time and on his side only, there was to be no weight applied to the sore.  He only got out to go to the hospital once a month, and what a process that was, my son John had is shoulders, his father his legs, me his bottom as we walked him to the car.  We laid him across the seat, buckled him in, and once we got to the  hospital we had to find someone to bring a stretcher to lay him on.

Life for Zac has been in the bed.  He ate there, did his school work there, was bathed there, his teacher’s twice weekly visits took place there, and his bowels had to have their treatment that he needs to do every night as a normal process for his wheelchair bound life, were done from there.  The bowels were what his father has done everyday throughout the process except when he was with me and he was in the hospital then we rotated.

I have barely worked till 2 weeks ago and until the beginning of December I lived at the children’s/ex-husband’s house and my ex stayed in my apartment. There was too much to be done with Zach on a daily basis to reasonably do anything else and his father had to keep working, he gets the big money, he can’t just stop going to work.  Since I work for myself I could stop.

The financial hit to my life has cost me a great deal the end of November I transferred to a one bedroom apartment and killed cable TV.  The kids got me a RoKu box for Christmas so they could watch Netflix’s when at my place.  Personally my first pick for Christmas was a Color Nook, that would have been a choice ”for me”, but at the very least I don’t have to pay for a RoKu now and I would have to, I mean, picture three-four of my kids at my small apartment and no TV…  So the Color Nook has been moved to my Birthday list and between you and me, if my kids want to give me an early b-day gift and get this for me before time then I am all for it.

Christmas was one of the best we have ever had in all the years of divorce.  It even snowed down here in Alabama, the trees limbs were draped in fluffy white snow reminding me how beautiful the winters of NY were and caused me to miss them, but only for a brief moment.  A trip to the snow covered deck to enjoy the wet flakes reminded me just how cold and slippery those beautiful crystals actually were.

Today, I am back in my apartment and after looking for work for over a month, it seems I have secured a position with a new family.  So far all systems are go, I meet the family on Friday evening and start next week, thank goodness.  Oh and Zac’s kidneys are doing very well, they would have likely been healed by now had it not been for the extensive anti-biotics he has had to take and he should be in school next week.  The sore has closed to the point of being the size of a small pimple, so soon the bandage changes will be over and he will be back to wheeling all over the house and school once, and will finally be able to go to the movies again, something he has dearly missed.  He never got a chance to see Inception on the big screen

I’ll talk at ya again soon,
Theresa

I was a very compliant child.  Afraid not to do as I was told.  I had little concept of what it meant not to obey most especially when I was right under my mother’s nose.  Unlike one or two of my children, who had I even attempted such a method against their will or interest would have sat there, looking around, book on table, or possibly in their hand, not reading a word, no matter how much I prodded them to read.  No, I wasn’t like that I took the book she had for me, slumped into my chair, opened the cover with a quiet sigh, marked the time when I would be done, and began to read, counting each tedious minute as it ticked by.

A few days later I had library at school, and this was where my school librarian played a heavy role in my life, I don’t remember her name, or her face.  But what I do remember that she LOVED books and she smiled a lot.  I told her my unfortunate, annoying dilemma.  I remember her eyes twinkled from the broad smile on her face.  She told me, “I have just the book for you, follow me.”  We walked along the wall of books that were in my age range and stopped at the far end. Then she reached out and hitched her finger on the binding of a hard covered, cornflower colored book, about an inch thick.  Then she place it into my hands.  I looked at the cover, it had a picture of a cute robot on the front with a planet in the back ground.  “I think you’re going to enjoy that book Theresa, I loved it.”  “Okay,” I said with a shrug, “thank you,” then turned, went to the desk, checked it out, took it to class, and shoved into my desk.

Later that night I again examined the cover,  “The picture’s cute at least”,  I sighed rolled my eyes then opened to the first page.  But this time when my 20 minutes were up I didn’t stop.  I couldn’t.  I was unashamedly hooked.  I have no idea how much longer I read or what the title was that made me fall head over heels in love with reading but I can tell you it was about a robot from space and there were three in the series.  (Thus began my passion for series.)  From that day forward I went to library hungry for another book and looked to the same Librarian to guide me to another book.

All summer long I walked to the local library spent languishing time scanning the stacks and forming a deep pile int my arms.  Although my walk home was considerable I never let it detour me from bringing home every book that my heart fancied and I knew I could read in a week.   Once my eyes devoured that pile I returned to get another.   And from that day till now I have surrounded myself and my children with books.  All my children have cut their teeth on them both literally and figuratively and I’m happy to say some do love reading while some some find it tedious.  However even my soon to be 20 year old daughter, who is one who finds it tedious and why she does I’ll never understand, stills loves for me to read to her and if I could would have me read book after book while she listened with rapt attention.  If only there were time…

Love ya,
Theresa Jane
-who loves her first librarian and is thankful to her mother for making her sit at that dining room table for 20 minutes a day

With unstoppable intensity memories bombarded my mind.  Although I remember tremendous boredom being at my step-grandparents I don’t remember any negative memories.  Except when we left.  That’s when my parents would begin to bicker, even as we left the driveway.  Bickering that was a straight road to intense arguing.  My mother didn’t like going for our frequent Sunday afternoon visits.  My step-father’s parents smoked, a lot.  Drank beer.  To access. But not to access when we were there, unless there was a family party.  They played poker.  Holey decks of cards were unashamedly stacked on the counter or table and my step-grandmother often played solitaire or played/practiced with the cards at the kitchen table where they visited when we were there.  Moving them this way and then that, or fanned out in a perfect row, lifting the last, and nudging the rest so that they all flipped from front to back in perfect orchestration. 

One day when I was about 6 or 7 I was there, alone.  The one and only time I remember being there without my parents.  They were up the country road about a quarter of a mile at a site where my step-father had put a small, inexpensive, used, travel trailer on a piece of land he had purchased from his parents.  He needed a place to go, to get out of town where we lived.  Where my mother wanted them to live.  She had grown up in town and that’s where she liked it.  He had grown in the country and felt cramped, awkward, and out of place in our house, on its tiny plot.

My parents were busy clearing the land around the trailer and setting things up inside and I was totally bored.  So I asked if I might go and visit my step-grandparents (although I never referred to them as “step”).  This was when my grandmother taught me how to run a deck up my arm, nudge it and have them all flip from their backs to their faces.  She showed me repeatedly running them along here wrinkled arm and used her middle finger to nudge them with.  I watched enthralled.  Eager to learn.  No one had ever taught me such a thing.  My other grandmother, my mother’s mom taught me to clean dishes and the floors, how to crochet, and embroider but nothing nearly so spectacular as this.

Then she handed me the deck.  I took it filled with tremendous confidence that I could repeat this trick.  But it only took seconds to discover that just getting the deck to spread evenly up my small arm was a task.  But I persevered.  I remembered her warm smile and encouragement she shared by telling me it took her some time of practice to get it to work for her.  We laughed together that day.  And ate wafer cookies from a pack with a mixed variety of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, and she told me about the orange tree that stood proudly on her kitchen counter.  It had come from Joany, her daughter.  She had sent it to her all the way from California where she lived.  It had an orange about the size of an acorn and I thought it was the cutest little thing.  She told me how she loved it and wanted it to grow tall and strong so she could pick her own oranges.

This was the only time I remembered connecting with my grandmother on my step-father’s side.  The one and only.  My step-father’s trailer and the land it sat on was put up for sale and sold the next week.  I remember the arguments my parents had over it.  My mother hated it.  She didn’t want to go up there anyway into the country.  She wanted them to get their money back that they had put into it.  AND she didn’t want me up there around “those people“.

We continued with our visits on Sundays where my parents and baby brother visited with them at the kitchen table, I was rallied to the living room to watch TV or preferably outside to play.  Rarely invited to sit with the adults.

My step-grandparents died long, long ago but today wafer cookies are one of my total favorites.  They can compete equally with Oreo’s for my attention.   And the card trick?  Well today I couldn’t pick up a deck and just wing it out there with great perfection however back in the day of my youth I practiced it, out of the view of my mother, off and on for years till I got it right.  I think growing into longer arms helped 

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-my step-grandparents had two pictures in their home…one was the famous scene of the outdoors, in the country, red barn… and this pictured below, it hung in their kitchen,  I found this picture on Invisible Mikey’s blog he wrote about the artist, interestingly enough, last week, however it didn’t have the same memory evoking effect as the salt and pepper shakers . . .  I always loved that picture…my mom hated it.

Finally Cal raced out carrying a water bottle and bearing a smile.  After a hello hug we set out.  Throughout the walk Cal’s head stayed largely turned up tracking the clear water bottle as he threw it as high as he could.  Then gauging its descent, he raced to catch it again and again.  I also watched as it soared, delighting with him at how high it went and for his every catch.  I kept waiting for that bubble filled bottle to miss his grip, smash against the sizzling black top, and spew water everywhere.  I also watched, with careful concern, for it’s downward arch and stepped, with agile quickness out of its way.

The path of our walked ambled from here to there as I sought the cooling shelter of  available trees casting long, early evening shadows and Cal followed without a break in his stride or the tilt of his head, as 8 year olds are so agily capable of doing.

As we were trodding up a steady incline, the type that makes you slow your pace and breath heavier due to its continous length, he stopped throwing his bottle and asked, “What was my first word?”
I answered, a bit sadly, “You know, I don’t remember.  I was pretty sick when you were that little and some things I just don’t recall.  Remember our talking about that?”
“Oh, yeah.”  And in his effort to really get his brain more fully wrapped around “my sickness” he said, “So you must have not felt well a lot.  Like been tired and stuff.”
“Yes, that and more.  I’m only here today because of Dr. John’s skill and healing techniques.”
“I’m happy about that,” he said, I wouldn’t have wanted you to die.”  Then he paused thoughtful and added, “I’m glad I have life,”  and looked up at me and smiled.

Those five words really got to me.  They caused a question to etch across the folds of my brain, “Have I ever been glad I had life?”  I don’t recall feeling that way ever honestly.  As a child I was doing all I could to survive and endure, that pretty much consumed me and I think that that way of living continued with me even until today.  The times I felt the freest, the most at peace was on the playground that stood next door to my grandmother’s.  There I spent hours of carefree play swinging so high with my friends we all feared we might loop back over the top bar, climbing monkey bars and daring myself to stand on the top arms outstretched like the boys, teter tautering with a freind or simply running up and down it on my own or sitting at its center keeping it perfectly balanced, and sliding down what I considered the world’s highest slide.  A metal structure with about 20 stairs that had little dull claws to grab and steady the soles of the children who climbed to its full height, it had a shiny, mirror like slide that at the peak of the noon day sun would burn through our thin cotton shorts making it only for the bravest and strongest to attempt going down.  Then, when the season was right, I daily swam long hours in the “Little Pool” the round blue concrete wonder that couldn’t have been more than 2-2 1/2 feet deep at its exact center.  The spot where Robert and I would grip the metal drainage grate beneath us in order to stay submerged and compete to see who could stay under the longest.

This was where I was the happiest.  This was where I spent as many hours as I could from early morning to early evening pausing only to get lunch and then a quick dinner.  This was where there was quiet.  Peace.  A measure of safety.

I thought of that time as I examined myself and the span of my life here on this planet, asking, ”Can I say that I’ve been glad I had life?  Did I at least during my time on the playground have this feeling?”  Honestly?  No.  My time on the playground was me simply loving my time there whether with friends or alone.  At that moment.  Thankful for the freedom.  The sun warming my hair and the cool of the evening shadows as they stretched across the lawn.  It was my place of escape, for solitude away from the troubles that lay at home.

Yesterday, from the mouth of one of the most pleasent 8 year olds I know, who also happens, thankfully to be my son, came one of the most thought provoking, life and thought altering statments for me.  And I think it was so jolting due to his tender age.  To hear someone so young utter such a statement is unavoidably noteable.

So today I make it my goal to reach for the simple contentment of having life.  Not to just “put in my time” doing what I can while I’m here for the service of others, or to make a difference, or even for the need and eranest desire to be the best mom I know to be, for my children, but for me.  For the sheer pleasure of being glad that… I have life. . .

Love ya,
Theresa Jane
-Cal’s water bottle survived 50 minutes into our walk then it smashed.  And when it did it, “made the coolest pattern” rendering it worth the loss of serving as a thrist quenching fluid for Cal.  Also Dan and Grace joined us for the last 15 minutes rendering my evening a delight with my three youngest before they, with great excitment and expectation, loaded into their sisters Blessing’s car to spend the night with her at her apartment.

I really am quite mulit-faceted in many ways.  I’m not one to just settle on one thing.  Some take comfort in a mundane routine in their life.  That would make me crazy.  Take food for instance.  For 23 years of marriage I cooked.  I mastered cooking before internet and cooking channels.  I dug in with a few books and learned on my own.  I was never content to have a menu resemble…Monday, meatloaf, Tuesday, Spaghetti, Wednesday, Tuna Casserole and so forth  or a rotating two week, three week, or monthly schedule.  The thought of using those methods for turning out meals would have driven me to refusing to eat.  Nay, instead I functioned from a list of recipes and choose, or create on the fly with whats on the shelves and cooling in the fridge.  Then there’s my reading and movie genres.  I’ve mentioned in the past that I love Stephen King/horror, most recent: Nightmare on Elm Street, and then I adored the Shopaholic book series, which were better then the movie, Harry Potter, Knights and Castle time periods: the newest “Robin Hood”-loved it, and certainly J.R. Tolkien, “Lord of the Rings”, a splash of romance, like “Dear John” I watched with Grace today, at her request, and a heavy emphasis of comedy, most recent view: “Birdcage” laughed till my stomach ached, drama,viewed last night with Cal and Grace: “Extraordinary Measures”, and more…  Those type of genres I find appealing in both the world of books and film.  And my work?  Well the nature of it keeps me going from one family to another.  Some I see twice in a week others once a month.  But regardless I am on the move.  Full of a variety of kids.  And my hair.  I go through periods of vast change mixed with the same thing for a couple of years.  The last six months the cuts have been about change.

I LOVE new.  I LOVE different.  I LOVE cutting edge.  Thank god I was too young to really submerge into the rebellion of the 60′s! I did enough on the outer burning off fringe of that era.

My friend once told me I was great at sensing what was going to be a new rage in room design.   She surprised me the day she said that, but then when I allowed myself the moment of stepping outside my insecurities I saw…yeah, that is or was true.  I say was because since the divorce money for such privileges sort of evaporated, so logically along with it went my “being in touch” with decorating shall we say.

To give you more of a glimpse into my tastes and variety in music I’m going to share…
When I was young, which honestly feels like yesterday, I played the violin for nearly four full years.  I was very good at the time.  Took first chair violinist from the minute I walked into the schools orchestra.  Which caused a great problem from the older girl who had to shift to the second chair.  At the time I had no idea what it meant to be 1st chair violinist, my teacher didn’t tell me.  She was a coach of the truest form.  Criticize constantly.  Praise.  Well, none.

I wanted to learn viola and cello and go on possibly to Julliard one day and would have except I had to stop learning when we moved to a school district that didn’t offer string instruments as a part of their curricula.  Since the years spun by and the separation from the instrument became a fact of life.  But I won’t say that I haven’t yearned to return to the stings and bow.  That I haven’t grown to longingly regret the day I turned my violin into my teacher.  But life took over.  Husband, children and with it time and money evaporated like smoke in the wind and that has left violin long behind.  And with it I have changed and wonder if I really have the drive to start again.  Or was that simply a part of my life.  Then.

So why the violin background info and how does it tie into my tastes in music?  Well here is where I share a couple bits that have been playing on my Youtube tonight…

Now I love most of the classical musics for stringed instruments however what these guys do is incredible.  See???  Multi-faceted.  That’s just me.  And that can make me a hard person to peg.  Figure out.  Follow.  And.  Well.  I like that about me.

Love ya, night,
Theresa Jane
-last post “Invisible Mikey” commented that that post allowed him to see me clearly.  I was startled.  But glad he told me.  Then I polled my friend Cathy and she agreed with more humph.  “Well,” I muttered to myself then let’s keep at this.  Keep trying to clear away the haze that blocks me from you.  And frankly me from… me.  And today was about that…

In case you’re wondering… the web site for our church is coming along nicely and I can’t wait to unveil it!  We are hoping to have it’s “beginnings” up by this weekend.  I say beginnings because a site of this sort is bound to grow and grow.

…You Tube update…Gateway to Heaven…

A couple weeks ago I decided I NEEDED to read.  Not anything deep, just a simple novel.  Something light, easy breezy, but with some substance, something just for pleasure, not to learn a single stinking, mind expanding, thought provoking thing whatsoever.  Well I found it.  “Bread Alone”.  And it fit me perfectly.  Did I mention that for like 12 years I made my own whole wheat bread for my family?  And not with a bread machine either.  I kneaded it with my two hands for years, then discovered the Kitchen Aid and from then on it was a love affair with a gray metal machine that whirled a paddle bar like no other and I nearly died living without after my divorce–I left it for my girls–till my kids got me one last Mother’s Day…  Anyways, the book’s main character, a woman has her husband announce that he wants a divorce and she’s getting in touch with her lost love of baking bread.  It talks some about the finer things of bread making and so forth and it made me feel so reminiscent.  Of my days when flour, water, yeast, salt and me created a bond and I learned, finally, with the aid of “Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book” how to make the perfect, golden, high raised, hollow when you tap the bottom loaf.  I enjoyed the book so much I  bought it’s squeal and now I’m blazing through it.  I read while I earn money doing child care…when I can, I’m reading before sleep takes over, and I carry it with me to appointments and anywhere I suspect there might be down time…like at the garage today.  I just needed those books.  Sometimes a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.

Update…laundry done… waiting to hear the gentle click that signals I can now lift the lid.  It can feel like a year before that click happens.

Okay, repeat of Stairway to Heaven…again…now dancing in my chair… because I’m alone and there’s no one around….

There’s the click! Annnnd laundry in now in dryer, at least what can endure the heat without shrinking.

Back in my chair and onto Pink Floyd…Wish You Were Here…because I wish Cathy were here and not in NY…almost too slow and a bit sadder then I was prepared to deal with, may have to click past this one.  Giving it a minute while I re-read what I’ve written so far.

Well, listened to the whole song allowed my self a moment of sweet saddness.  Now…Johnny Cash, “Hurt”.  A song that makes me cry and sob.  But astonishes me.  He didn’t write this song but he made it amazing and the video he made to accompany it received six nominations at the 2003 Video Music Awards, including one for Video of the Year.  Pretty good for a 71 year old country singing man.  I defy anyone to watch that video and not at least have to brush away one tear.

That man could write songs and sing.  Do you know about his career/life of 50 years??????????  And I don’t mean that you watched the movie, “Walk The Line”.  I didn’t like that movie, there was so much more to him than that movie ever portrayed.  Do you know that he thought it was his life calling to write and sing his songs?  He was totally dedicated till the day he died.  He was amazing.  Totally.  And as Cathy, just Imed me on Facebook “He was an amazing musician. Very definitely his own person.”  Maybe that’s what attracts me to him…never considered this before.

Want a touch of his history??  Watch this…

I grew up on Johnny and other country singers.  Of course once I reached my teens I never reveled to my parents that I liked the Country they listened to.  No no.  Because I also liked Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, The Bee Gee’s, and more.  Everyone was into Rock and Roll not Country.  Well, at least the kids around me and my cousins.  So I had to reject what my parents liked…right?  Well, this is something I regret.  Wish I had had the guts to have openly liked them.  Come out of my closet so to speak. LOL  This is something I raise my kids not to do.  To not hide their likes and dislikes.  To be who they are.  Well, for the most part it has certainly worked.  So much I have to tell some that their teachers may not be ones to do that with…I have great kids.  I raised them to be able to do things I couldn’t, such as be themselves, have confidence, they can do anything… and they got it all right.  Somehow.  Now their mom works on getting what she taught.  LOL  But I’m getting there.

…You Tube…update… Hurt has been playing over and over as I construct this section Johnny Cash and me…

At any rate I cried so hard when I heard Johnny Cash had died.  It was like a part of my childhood had died.  Can’t explain it.  I’ve not felt like that before with someone outside of me.  I still remember when I heard it.  I only remember where I was for one other famous occurrence and that was when the space shuttle exploded, which was also the day my first born son took his first steps and walked back and forth to his father and me with the news in the background reporting on the explosion.  For Cash’s death announcement I was listening to NPR they were doing a segment on him as a tribute to his life, I was on my way to sign papers to refinance the mortgage on the house I lived in when I was married.  My eyes were so swollen and puffy the bank guy was like, “Are you okay?”

You know, life is funny.  We spend so much time repelling things, things that we say we don’t want, but we do, that time slips past, we lose ourselves and we don’t discover who we are till we hit mid-life or later.  What a waste.  And with that Anna Nalick’s “Shine” the song that’s been on the You Tube repeat for many times so far…

Night love ya,
Theresa Jane
-and that’s how this post was written!!!!!!!   The blankness went away, but it took time.  Like a few hours of writing and Iming and laundry and researching and…
-oh and the music choices…I really don’t go around listening to most of those choices or any music for that matter…it’s just that I have times when I do have a listen.  Were I to really listen to music as a steady thing it would be more along the lines of more current, more mellow