So there I was minding my own business, enjoying the stroll, or should I say pushing the metal grated tub that Wal-mart so eagerly desires for me to fill, through the store.  It was more of a quite night which is sort of rare, so I was grateful…

Then it happened.   A woman I know, you know the type… you know them just enough to have a small, but nice, polite conversation but never call on the phone, walked down the baking isle straight at me while I was scanning for baking powder.  Our eyes made contact, we exchanged a breezy, “Hello, how are you?”  “I’m good, how are you.”  “I’m great.”  And then we were passed one another.  Neither breaking their stride.  You could feel the relief that the encounter was over.  Which left me wondering why any of us bother with these exchanges at all?

That got me thinking about human interactions…again.  I can think about this.  Not like all the time or anything.  But I do.  Do you?

Since I was in this convenient location I started looking at people without a smile and then with.  It was difficult to get anyone to look back.  But easier if I smiled.  The ones that noticed I was smiling at first looked at me like I was holding a gun.  They had this quick stop moving, then double take.  Then they relaxed and smiled back.  Almost grateful to have someone, anyone acknowledge them with a smile.  For me this is when, at times I will say something.  Tonight I said nothing.  Just to see what they would do.   They said nothing.

You know, it really is amazing how expert we are at ignoring each other.  As if the other person wasn’t there.  And they can be a foot away.  We do it in stores, movie theaters where we’re elbow to elbow, elevators…  I watched other people to see how they were interacting and some literally looked right through other people.  Then I wondered, “Do I do that?  I bet I do.  Yeah, I do.”

It became almost odd as I looked around.  So very many wanted to not be seen.  Like at all.  They did all they could not to be.  “So strange I thought,  here I am looking at people, you know like they were actually there alive and breathing, right by me and I want to acknowledge them but they’re uncomfortable with me even seeing them.”

And yet what do we all crave?  Companionship.  Love.  Acknowledgment.  People in our lives…  This is truly dyslexic.  We’re all dyslexic.

I am one of those people that has days where I purposefully go around greeting people and talking in elevators.  Then I don’t.  I want to get in and get out.  Unnoticed.  To blend in to the surroundings.  I’m half dyslexic  <Big grin, LOL>  I think it’s the Gemini in me, it’s all I can figure.

Well, anyway all I could say was… how strange this all is.  Then I think, hummmmm….

What are all these people thinking?  Are they hurting.  Are they like this because of their pasts and their silent pains?  What’s hurting inside them?  What are they fearing.  Like I have hurts.  Fears.  Insecurities.

We’re all so much the same.  And yet different.  And then the same…
Hungry for love and acceptance.  Carrying around something that makes us do sometimes odd behaviors, or cause us to stop and ask ourselves, “Now why did I just do that?”  Unconscious acts that we do everyday, that came out of our pasts, that dictate our behavior and thoughts today.  In the effort to maintain.  To survive.  Even if we don’t really view it that way… consciously.

These are my thoughts.  What do you think?  Share, would you?
Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane

For years I’ve pretty much been doing the same thing over and over again with my parents and expecting different results.  !BLAM!ming them was doing something different.

By not ever dealing honestly, openly, and calmly with the past and being straight up with them I swept everything under the carpet.  The result was I continued to get walked on and held responsible for their guilt and pain.   This allowed them, but honestly mostly my mother to continue with a lot of her/their hurtful ways.   The most recent examples: the card and phone call to the hospital mentioned in the prior posts.

She’s been bullying me my whole life in similar and much, much harsher ways.  She’s made me responsible (and her husband and son) for her wrongs and guilt.  I finally came to a point where I felt no guilt for what she had done in her life, or to me, or what she ever would do.  I decided that I was giving the guilt and pain back.  I had been bullied long enough…So the !BLAM!

Once I did this I set myself free.
Since I’ve been experiencing freedom, more self-confidence, much more clarity.
Some of the clarity has come in the form of being able to see myself clearer.  Remember my posts on “Peering Down the Rabbit Hole” and I talked about feeling worthless most of my life?  And how now that I see it I can 1) heal it and 2) must to be on the look out for slipping that mask back on?  Well after the hospital phone call I discovered that when it comes to my mother I tend to put that mask on right away.

She hung up on me and I felt worthless.  Unvalidated.  Wrong. Wrong for telling her she hurt me.  That it was wrong what she/they had done to me…  Typically in the past I would have gotten angry and spewed it out.  This time however, when I felt these feelings rise up I stopped.  I began to observe…calmly.  And that’s when I got in touch with “something different…”  I saw the little girl inside me.  She had backed into a corner, drew her knees up to her chest, put her face between her legs, and hid. 

I continued to watch.  She didn’t know how to come out.
I’m 45 for heaven’s sake and I’m reacting as if I’m a child.  Good God who knew?
…Later, the little girl was still in charge and was nervous on the phone with the man in her life that’s showing her love, kindness, and acceptance and hasn’t a problem in the world with her, yet she felt he did and she began to say things that questioned this.  But this time I/the adult saw what I/the little girl was doing.  I/the little girl was creating a situation where he would get upset with her/me, thereby proving to her/myself that I was indeed worthless.  Worthy of the worthless mask.

Once I saw it I countered it by being honest and admitting exactly what was going on, that I was going to do all I could to overcome this illusion, and I needed help.  And I received it    I received love.

Since I have wobbled around coming out of the corner.  But I’ve been observing. Learning things about myself.  Healing and growing and creating new realities.  Happily I haven’t created a mess with him, my children, or my ex as I would have in the past and wondered how it happened.  Instead I have dealt lovingly with myself and strove to not let the past effect my present.  I’m an adult, my mother can’t hurt me this way anymore.  I have value.  I have worth…

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-whose finally leaving the past behind and beginning to really live in the present    because I did something different… I !BLAM!med…

Overcoming worthlessness is a journey.
I’m on it, with my eye on the prize.
I want to heal me.
I want to do what I can to assist healing for what I’ve caused in my children’s lives…

So here goes… a story of when I sort of won in the battle against worthlessness and really almost not at all…

My adult child that wants little to nothing to do with me, much to my complete surprise, showed up in the same small shop that I was in.  I was ignored.  Others, that we both knew, were spoken to with niceness– with me a few feet away.  Then I was approached and asked, “What are you doing here?”  With a slight edge that implied I was purposefully intruding and had no right to be there.  Startled I said, “I have things I need to do.”  Then, feeling rather blank I reached for all I could think of and tried to be chipper/silly and said, “What are you doing here?”  I was given a look of puzzled disgust and a very short mumbled sentence I couldn’t make out.  Then I was left, for the “other” people, in another area.

I began to slip that mask on the moment she walked in and ignored me.
Shame.
Humiliation swept in with WORTHLESS on their heels.
I felt the age old feeling, that until recently couldn’t have formed into words: worthless.
Followed by: Worthless people don’t have their children love them…
Tears sprung to my eyes.  I blinked them back.  I tried everything I could to balance myself.  To distract myself.  Tell myself that I caused this.  That I need to be loving.  Keep my distance.  This may aid the situation.  It may create some healing… Just take care of my business and not let this get to me.  But that mask settled on all the more in spite of my efforts.  I was looking down, unable to hold my head up.  I felt anger at myself.  Anger that I created this.  That I did things to deserve this.  The very thing I swore I would never, ever do to any of my children.  The tears threatened to overflow my eye lids and the breath in my body ceased.

After “they” left through the heavy glassed door and disappeared into the night all I could think was: the worst part is that one of the things this child can’t stand the most about me is that I’ve functioned from the place of worthlessness and messed my life up.  They don’t want me poisoning them with my mentality.  And the entire time I battled that very thing…

The only reason I can say that I sort of won was I really applied myself to coming out of the depression that worthlessness sweeps over the person it torments.  I made myself smile.  I talked to my friend rather than just leaving.  I called my friend after I left to continue in conversation in order to not sink any lower.  After I kept reminding myself I created this, I can uncreate it.  All is not lost we have good days.  This is just a bad one.  It’ll pass.  Maybe the next will be good.  I have value.  I have worth…  Maybe this one will get to where they can really let me know what has hurt them and do what John and I are calling Blamming.  Now that I know will help.

Night again, Love ya,
Theresa Jane
-tick,tick,tick goes the clock, it’s 2:39 a.m. good night I was going to get to bed early…

Becoming “you” is vital to everyone’s existence, if we’re to have a full and satisfying life.  You’d think something this vital would be taught more.  But I know I wasn’t.  My parents, most especially my mother, wanted me to bend and torque to the image she wanted from me and if I didn’t: well look out.

Being raised this way caused me to live with blinders.  Blocking out much that didn’t fit the pattern she beat into my head: submissive, obedient, don’t question, don’t feel, fear…  Keeping me from seeing the way I had become.  Let alone know that there may be another way.  A better way.  Therefore it has taken years of working with my life coach to learn certain essential things and literally seconds to understand.

For instance I worked years with my coach before he assisted me to see the mask I wore was called “worthless“.  Oh sure I “saw” it.  More or less.  Some times I caught glimpse of it.  But I didn’t understand it till last month.  That day the light went on, I understood.  I understood the far reaching implications, how it literally effected my every thought and action every single day…  I shaped my life around that word and it was riddled with hurt and disappointment and I expected nothing else: worthless people don’t deserve happiness.

Now that I “understand” I’m able to form new thoughts and remind myself:  I have value and worth, I can be loved and show emotion, I can live for me…  It’s safe.  And best of all now I can detect when I feel myself beginning to slip on the mask of worthlessness.  Enabling me to take action to negate it.  Some times I win big.  Others sort of.  Others not at all… but at least now I can evaluate it…

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane

“When the summit of life is reached,

when the bud unfolds and from the lesser the greater emerges,

then the “one” becomes two,

and the greater figure,

which one always was but which remained invisible

appears to the lesser personality with a force of revelation.”

I know that my age–45–plays into the deck.  I’ve reached mid-life.  It effects most of us one way or another.  (However I really don’t think one has to reach this mile marker for this to occur.)  But whatever the reason there’s definitely a merging taking place.  There’s an awakening mentally, psychologically, and spiritually.  I’m moving out of the one I was in the past, that was content with less.  That hide and was soaked with fears, doubts, worthlessness, and advancing steadily into the “greater“.  Merging the “two”.  This is deeply important psychologically and is very spiritual in nature.  It also encompasses me moving into the area of my personal power.  My artistic, creative side, and harnessing it.

I have to say I’m thankful.  I’m healing old hurts and issues.  I’m moving past what has held me and kept me defeated.  The results: personal growth, change, transformation, consciousness, an improved life overall and in countless areas.

With all that said it is also one of my top three greatest hopes that it assists me in healing the harm I’ve created with my children.  I would love to have a healthy, loving, excepting relationship.  My honesty is the only avenue I have to attain that.  Ergo the work I’ve been doing with my life coach and the posts here…  Honesty.  Peeling away the layers.  Looking at the yucky that stinks.  It’s only honesty that my kids will hear.  It’s what heals.  It’s what reaches the soul…

Love ya,

Theresa Jane
-it’s now 1 a.m. and the whole time I’ve sat here all slumped, fist under chin, propping myself up, but I did it  post done
-I wish I could remember where I pulled the quote from without going and scanning my books for the highlight that I know I gave it–I mark up all my books with highlighter, pen, and notes.  But I really don’t want to get up and search right now.  So without shifting my body from this space I can fairly confidently say, it was likely from Jung.  If not then it was from “Becoming Woman” a fab book for a woman who wants to come to understand herself psychologically as a woman.

I promoted family.  Family protects.  Family loves.  Family helps.  Family is always family.  Marriage is sacred.  Holy.  Pure.  Anointed by God.  Never to be broken.  You grow up, find your mate, marry, have children, and live together… forever.

I cradled, rocked, and nursed them.
Stacked books to the ceiling and read to them from before they were born.
Cooked fresh, whole food from when they took your first bites.
Stayed home for 21 years watching over and caring for them,
till divorce ended that.
I gave special attention to what made them happy, sad, fearful, excited…
I marked and separately noted each and every nuance.
Listened to what they thought and had to say.
Filled my days with what they hoped and dreamed for, wanted to learn, and looked for a way to provide it.
Encouraged and supported them to develop their skills.  To become all they could and wanted to become.
I Home Schooled for 16 years we transversed the country taking in culture, learning of other’s histories and ways.  We quietly visited museums making curious observations and tramped through zoos, state parks, natural trails, and historic places galore.  Pushing a weighed down double stroller, hauling cameras, sketch pads, and a diaper bag crammed with daily provisions: snacks, drinks, diapers and wipes, and change of clothes till the zipper threatened to burst, then ending at McDonald’s because that was their favorite.  I tucked them in every night.  Kissed their narrow brows and uttered a prayer for each.

This is what I did right.
The formula seemed full proof.
Divine.
Flawless.

However that was what blinded me to see what I did to cause pain and hurt.
There are reasons why: one of my kids has been having major issues with me for years and years before the divorce and we are only just now righting bits and pieces of our relationship, another walked out of my life and barely looked back for years before and following the divorce and only just in the last few months started coming around to having me in his life, after seven years has passed, another is stiff and awkward and struggles to deal with me, we have our good days and our bad, another stuck tight with me for a few years following the divorce and a few months ago stated they want little to nothing to do with me.

This one grabbed my attention.  This one shocked me awake.  Oh sure things have been ebbing away for awhile but still, I passed that off to so many other possibilities outside of myself.  I never expected that reaction.   This child opened my eyes to the reality that I had done some serious things somewhere, both in the distant past and in the not so distant past.  I may have been able to pass the first one off that walked out of my life to other things but not this one.  This one was so different in so many ways and yet the result was the same.

And this was yet another child…  Sure I was and had been doing things different in so many ways and esp. with the second four and things were healthier but OMG I didn’t dare close my eyes to what was happening.  What if I was still doing whatever I was doing to create this rift?  Or even parts of it???  If I didn’t discover what I had done I was bound to lose them all.

I had to face issues that were my fault with these four kids.  I have hurt my children.  That much is for sure.  And I must take responsibility for the harm I have caused if for no other reason then they deserve that much from me.

I really need to pick this up tomorrow.  I need to re-work the second half even more than I already have.  It’s already 2:19 a.m.  So, sorry about that didn’t intend to split this but it’s a lot and as I write I am working things out in my mind in new ways.  So this is goodnight.  Till tomorrow.
Love ya,
Theresa Jane
-I do not like this title, I’ll have to think about it and rename it tomorrow…

Lying is insidious.  
Someone that begins to lie for certain reasons, in specific areas over time can’t contain it.  Without noticing it slowly creeps around and sends off shoots like vines on the side of a house.  Left untended, they’ll cover the house and destroy it.  That was me.

During the first 3 years of practicing raw honesty with John1 I felt like I was climbing a greased pole.  Fear, doubt, and jangled nerves were my companions trying to convince me that this level of honesty was leaving me too vulnerable and threatened to destroy me.  Time and again I feared the honesty would produce disgust, hate, doubt, John would never trust a word I said, and worse he would stop being my friend.

But in fact what I’ve discovered is the more honest I’ve been the more: love, compassion, understanding, and acceptance I’ve received, and John1 doesn’t hang up on me.

Honesty can hurt like hell,
but it builds, it produces life.
Now I’m a honesty practicing believer,
even if I can have my minor challenges here and there.
Everything takes practice.  Practice makes perfect.
The important thing is, I practice…

So why all this?  Well, I’m going to another level of honesty here in my blog…
Show you more of who I am.
As I have stated all along this is a journey: going “from housewife to film maker”.
Coming out of “housewife” has absolutely included, for me, coming out of lying.  The first lie I had to admit to?  “I’m happily married and my husbands loves and care for me.”  I had stated it for so long it become my gospel truth.  It was tough to even see it was a lie, let alone unhitch.  That one was painful.

Facing this lie was just the first in a long line of lies.  It freed up a lot.  It was a major start down the path of old rusty lies.  Unfortunately there had been the other lies, the new “creeping vine” lies… John1 hung up on both: old and new.

But enough of that for now, where I want to go is to this point: I’m concerned that as I write about my children today I may indirectly be propagating another lie: that I’m a super supreme mom without any kid issues.  Doing it all right.  Now what I write is real, honest, and true.  It’s not letter perfect but it’s pretty darn good.  However what you don’t see is that a big chunk of that “good” comes from my messing up with my first four.  And what I live with as a result.  Painfully learned lessons have produced the fruit the last four are enjoying with me now.  Again I’m not perfect by any means, but boy am I the new and improved model.  (But honestly I doubt they’ll reach adulthood without their complaints.  Parenting is riddled with it’s problems even in the best of circumstances.)

The relationship I shared with the first four had a lot of good.  We were tight.  But it had it’s problems.  I created issues that created rifts.  I created pain for them.  Since I was so opposite from my parents I had a very difficult time seeing the damage I had caused.  But it was there just like a car that’s been in an accident and repaired.   The car runs fine, it’s just that one door never quite shuts right anymore, and it’s getting worse . . .

That’s what tomorrow’s post will be about.  Me being honest when it comes to my first four children…
If you’re to have a complete picture of me, an honest picture, then I need to get real.  Get raw.  Get honest . . .

Night, Love ya,
Theresa Jane
-wondering why on earth since this has been a mini series I didn’t title them all the same and number them…

I have a loooooooong history with lying.  Goes back to when I was a kid.  Lying was typically preferred to slaps in the face.  The belt across my legs.  Things like that.  I tried being truthful.  But somehow it just didn’t seem to work as well.  So if I sensed, and I learned to have the razor sharp, keen sense of a lion on the hunt, one of my parents weren’t going to be happy with a truth, I found a lie real quick.  They were happier.  I was happier.  I “wore” less welt marks that’s for sure…Oddly I found I was believed more for my lies than truth.

Then came the day I needed to expand the skill.  Use it strategically.  See when I was a teen I found this guy that made my toes tingle.  We wanted to see each other.

I was 13 he was 19. (I was always very mature for my age, had to grow up quick in my home)
We asked permission.
It was granted.
Things went along super till one day, I think a month and half into it, my step-father decided, game over.  Couldn’t see him anymore.
WHAT!?
“No way, we’ve followed all the rules, he comes to our house a ton…”
He didn’t want to hear it.  “No more…” was the firm and resolute answer.

Well, “No way,” was my resolute answer.  He was the best part of my shit life.  He loved me.  So I took lying to a new level.
I continued on with “Toe Tingler” behind their always very watchful backs…

Got caught once.
The shit hit the fan.  The street.  The neighborhood.  The town.
But I learned.
I learned what not to do.
And never got caught again.
I dated him for years.
The things I got away with right under their nose…That’s some fancy lying.

Then I married.
Not him.  Another guy.
My “ex”.
That’s a loooong story.  (Goes along with my series of posts: Peering Down the Rabbit Hole.  They began here: click here and if you don’t read any other read this: click here.  It’s specifically on the worthlessness I’ve carried and it’s impact.)
This guy, my ex, holds money till it bleeds.
Had to wrangle with him over money all the time.  For basic simple things for the kids, the house… like clothes for instance.
So, viola, whip out the lying/manipulating tool and we’re off to the races.

So.  Four years ago when John1 came up with this “Total Honesty”, let’s call it an “exercise”, so we can create more consciousness, that put me at like 36 years of lying.  What had begun as something that I used for the purpose of survival, had slowly seeped into all areas of my life.   It was littered around in small and big ways.  And a lot of the time I honestly didn’t see or think was even an issue.

So, yeah, this challenge was tough.  Add to it that John can smell a lie like a cat can a rat a mile away.  And well, can’t tell you how many times he hung up on me because I wasn’t holding up my end and being completely honest.  Holding to a shade of a lie like a dog with a bone.  Sometimes consciously, sometimes not.  But god if he didn’t know.  He insisted I see it.  Own it.  I always did.

Eventually…

Yup.
Not good.
Surprised he’s still my friend really.
But that’s what a true friend does.  That is love.  And believe me it is.  If you only knew… I’m a tough nut to crack.  I sort of resemble granite.  But he’s committed to me getting what I say I want.  The same as he wants…  Healing.  To wake up.  To become conscious.

  Happiness.  Peace.  Clarity.  And for me I’ll add: getting a life.  And finding me.  (He did those two for himself, years and years ago, lucky duck)

So back to the show…  Sex Rehab.  Needless to say I watched those people be unbelievably honest, in pursuit of getting their healing.  And that’s the part I admire.  How they just rattled off all their gritty stuff like it was a walk in the park.  I couldn’t help but be moved…

Some say Mozart moved them or a piece of art.  Seeing the Grand Canyon moved others.  Me?  A bunch of serious sex addicts moved me.  Moved me to decide a few serious things in my life.  To really walk out into the middle of the room and get real.  Publicly.  Here in my blog.

That’s what tomorrow is about. . .

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-who’s going to bed and it won’t even be midnight

I could end here, but that would be disappointing.  But I HAVE to tell you something more meaningful.  It starts with this blog…

Becoming Jennie captured my attention straight out of the shoot:   The brutal honesty riveted me to her page.  I’ve been reading her for, what?  A couple weeks now.   It’s her honesty that amazes me.  It’s practically brutal.  She’s on the show Sex Rehab.  I’ve not watched it.  Time is an issue.  Then, well, I’d have to find the channel it’s on.  Those sort of things I put off.  But I did Google it last  night.  I watched clips from the show and was blow away by these people.  Honest to the bone.  Some just zipped the info out without a hitch.  Some were having a tough time.  But all wanted to be free.  And I think I’m remembering this right, all/most want to have a sincere relationship with one person.  But their addiction blocks them.  They destroy that for themselves.  Now I want to watch the show.  That means finding the channel…

After viewing them I sat back gob-stopped.   Marveling.  And inspired.  Why?  I’ve been practicing honesty for something like four years now with John1.  We’re both into awakening/healing/consciousness.  It’s our thing.  So we work together.  Read books and discuss them.  Watch movies, discuss them.  Dig into our issues.  Talk about them…

He’s like 20 miles ahead of me so he ultimately helps me more in some ways.  But we both benefit.  Well one day he came up with this new “thing” for us to strive for: absolute honesty with each other.  I’m talking the unveiled, all the time, sort of honesty.  Honesty that can hurt.  I saw the value and agreed…bush baby has this been tough to get to.  Harder for me than him.  Nothing like having a friend hold my feet to the fire!  There’s been tremendous growth.  But first I had to come to see how much I lied.  OUCH.  See, I have a loooonnnnnggggg history with lying…

That’s where I’ll pick up tomorrow.    I’ve always loved television mini-series…

Night, Love ya,
Theresa Jane
-who just looked at her clock and is startled, it’s 4:17 a.m.  eeeeekkkkkkk…

About a week or two ago John1 became burdened with what he was seeing reported in the news over the last few weeks and just couldn’t shake it:  the horrors being committed by parents against their own children.  Shanyia Davis being one–the five year old whose mother sold her as a sex slave.  She was raped, murdered, and her body thrown on the side of the road.  He was so troubled that he made a video for her and is working on more.

As he formulated and created the video he also created our “newset addition”.  Our new “theme” if you will: “BLAMe Your Parents”.  (You say BLAMe-blam) Shanyia is dead because of her mother.  There’s a 15 year old who is dead because his father shot him in the head…

So how does this “go along” with the Red Book and Cotton?

• The book takes place during American Slavery and is the true story about the life of an African American slave named Nimrod, who’s John1′s* great, great grandfather.
• Parents are committing out and and out horrors against their children: selling them as sex slaves and treating them like slaves by shooting them in the head…
• We believe the problems the youth are having today their, addictions and bad habits– alcoholism, drug addictions, overeating, pornography–are a form of slavery.  Rather than enslavement it’s a mental thing, an In-Slave-Mental** issue–a term John1 coined.  This “slavery” their experiencing comes from their parents addictions/slavery which is a residue of American slavery from the 1700′s.  Red Book and Cotton offers a solution to the problems, which is True Freedom.

Starting on Thanksgiving we uploaded the video for Shanyia Davis to YouTube and since, two more have been added.  The other two videos are from the 40 that I’ve been telling you John1′s been working on–the “book videos”–for the book.

I’ve embedded Shanyia’s Video here.  It’s called “Shanyia’s Cry”.  It’s a brand new concept, one that again was totally John1′s idea and creation.  I haven’t been able to snatch a shred of creative credit here.    The man is amazingly creative.

Be sure you follow the directions at the beginning.  I’ll post one of the other two videos tomorrow, but if you don’t want to wait, and I wouldn’t blame you click here.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4jzTbWF0zE&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Night, Love ya,
Theresa Jane
-who went to see Blind Side again and needed every tissue she brought just in case.  This is such a great movie!  Go see it!
–*John1 is: John Solomon Sandridge.  My business partner and author of Red Book and Cotton.  If you’re a new friend to my blog you need to know this.  I also have a son named John, who also works with us and it just became too confusing to always have to note who was who