"Hope is not about proving anything. It's about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us."
Anne Lamott

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Ugh!

rEaLiTy BiTeS

Why won't life stop & let me regroup?Why won't it give me a break?
Why wasn't I born a princess?
Why can't ANYTHING be easy?
Why do I have to be strong? I don't want to be.
Why can't I just sleep for days?
That's what I want to do right now.

I know....I should be a motovational speaker.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

:)

Through all of this CrAp, I have been So LuCkY to have the friends and supporters that I DO have.

THANK you for standing by me through all my changes and crap lately.

xoxox

My Therapy


GAWD I've missed being an unproductive loser.
I mean, just a TEENY TINY bit.
I have just spent five & a half hours in my underwear reading, drinking diet coke, eating a big ass bag of chips for breakfast an hanging out with my dogs & listening to podcasts. Yesterday I was on the verge of a break down, today.....today I'm WAY better.

I am a rollar coaster, man.

But sometimes I just need down time to back my brain up before I add more to have to work through.

I just needed a little alone time to just CoMpLeTeLy waste. Which I haven't done in what feel like a MONTH.

Ahhhhhhh.

Now for the rest of the day:
Shop
Go to Cable Store
Get Eyebrows Waxed
Laundry

I KNOW. I KNOW.
I am a jetsetter.

I should call hubs. Last night he told me I better never show my face there or he'd "fuck me up". Of course he weighs 114 pounds. I could just sit on him if he tried.

Stay out of trouble everyone! Have some Ice Cream!

BTW....isn't my colorful quilt CUTE?? My Sister In Laws got it for me.

xoxoxo

SonOfABitch.

SERIOUSLY???!!!

Yeah, let's cut funding to Planned Parenthood. THAT will save us money in the long run!
THEN let's bitch when unplanned pregnancies go up.

Wisconsin to defund Planned Parenthood, joins Indiana, Kansas and North Carolina

Wednesday, June 22nd 2011, 12:58 PM


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2011/06/22/2011-06-22_wisconsin_to_defund_planned_parenthood_joins_indiana_kansas_and_north_carolina.html#ixzz1RckhDt00

Wisconsin is set to become the fourth state to defund Planned Parenthood.
Republican Gov. Scott Walker is expected to sign off on a state budget that would eliminate federal and state funding to nine of the state's 27 Planned Parenthood centers by the end of the month.
Wisconsin will join Indiana, Kansas and North Carolina in passing similar legislation. Each cut funding to the health care and abortion provider earlier this year.
The state's Legislature passed the $66 billion budget on June 16. That includes a $1 million cut to Planned Parenthood. All the Republicans and one independant voted in favor of the plan while all the Democrats opposed it.
Republican state Sen. Glenn Grothman argued that the new budget doesn't cut enough funding from Planned Parenthood.
"There's a very ugly side to this organization, and I regret that they're going to take such a tiny cut in this budget," Grothman said.
Wisconsin only provides funding for the nine health centers that are facing budget cuts.
Planned Parenthood is already barred from using federal funds to perform most abortions, but is the largest abortion provider in the U.S. and a frequent target of pro-life advocates.
The nine clinics that will be affected by the budget cuts provide low-cost health care to approximately 12,000 uninsured women.
Teri Huyck, president of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, said she is disappointed that political ideology will take precedence over health care.
"It is greatly disturbing to me that some politicians' personal beliefs are trumping our shared responsibility to make sure women and men have access to preventive reproductive health care, which is not only essential for their own lives, but also a cost-saver for all Wisconsin taxpayers," Huyck said in a statement.
Planned Parenthood came under the national spotlight during this year's budget talks. The GOP unsuccessfully pushed an amendment to eliminate the organization's federal funding


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2011/06/22/2011-06-22_wisconsin_to_defund_planned_parenthood_joins_indiana_kansas_and_north_carolina.html#ixzz1RckudZ1S

RIP Betty Ford

I just always thought she was freaking cool



From Slate.Com:
Betty Ford Dies: Former First Lady Dead At Age 93
LOS ANGELES -- Betty Ford, the former first lady whose triumph over drug and alcohol addiction became a beacon of hope for addicts and the inspiration for her Betty Ford Center in California, died at age 93, a family friend said late Friday.
Her death Friday was confirmed to The Associated Press by Marty Allen, chairman emeritus of the Ford Foundation. Family spokeswoman Barbara Lewandrowski said later that the former first lady died at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage. Other details of her death were not immediately available.
"She was a wonderful wife and mother; a great friend; and a courageous First Lady," former President George H.W. Bush said in a statement on Friday. "No one confronted life's struggles with more fortitude or honesty, and as a result, we all learned from the challenges she faced."
While her husband served as president, Ford's comments weren't the kind of genteel, innocuous talk expected from a first lady, and a Republican one no less. Her unscripted comments sparked tempests in the press and dismayed President Gerald Ford's advisers, who were trying to soothe the national psyche after Watergate. But to the scandal-scarred, Vietnam-wearied, hippie-rattled nation, Mrs. Ford's openness was refreshing.
And 1970s America loved her for it.
According to Mrs. Ford, her young adult children probably had smoked marijuana – and if she were their age, she'd try it, too. She told "60 Minutes" she wouldn't be surprised to learn that her youngest, 18-year-old Susan, was in a sexual relationship (an embarrassed Susan issued a denial).
She mused that living together before marriage might be wise, thought women should be drafted into the military if men were, and spoke up unapologetically for abortion rights, taking a position contrary to the president's. "Having babies is a blessing, not a duty," Mrs. Ford said.
"Mother's love, candor, devotion, and laughter enriched our lives and the lives of the millions she touched throughout this great nation," her family said in a statement released late Friday. "To be in her presence was to know the warmth of a truly great lady."
Candor worked for Betty Ford, again and again. She would build an enduring legacy by opening up the toughest times of her life as public example.

RIP Ms. Ford

My Girlfriends Coulda Told YaThis!

The jig is up — guys like to cuddle more

Tenderness more important to men than women in long relationships, new Kinsey study finds


*Link*

By Kimberly Hayes Taylor
msnbc.com contributor msnbc.com contributor
updated 7/6/2011 12:50:10 PM ET2011-07-06T16:50:10

Men need more cuddles and kisses than women, and if that weren’t surprising enough to researchers in an international study on long-term relationships, sexual satisfaction is more important to women in long-term relationships.   
Researchers interviewed 1,009 heterosexual couples in the United States, Brazil, Germany, Japan and Spain. Participants, ages 25 to 76, lived together or were married at least one year, but an average of 25 years. The study, done by the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University and published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, is the among the first to examine sexual and relationship satisfaction in middle aged and older men and women in long-term, committed relationships.


“There are so many popular stereotypes, caricatures and jokes about women and sex, but this study is saying that, for the average couple, sex is important and maybe it’s even a tad more important for female partners,” says Raymond Rosen, study co-author and chief scientist at New England Research Institutes, a private research organization in Watertown, Mass.
The findings hold true in Contessa Myrick Rudolph’s decade-long marriage.
“When it comes to that special time, I’m not thinking about anyone else’s pleasure,” says the 40-year-old Detroit health educator. “It’s all about me. It’s only self-fulfilling.”

But her husband, David Rudolph, a public relations professional, says he desires deeper intimacy.
"I really appreciate it when she holds my hand or slides closer to me on the sofa,” says Rudolph, 44. “It’s more important for me to get hugged and touched; everything doesn’t have to be about having sex.”

Couples in the study that frequently hugged, kissed and caressed their partners and had sex more often reported being more sexually satisfied, researchers found. Both men and women noted being happier the longer they stayed together. For women, the sex got better the longer the couple was together. Those who'd been with their partner for 15 years or more reported an increase is sexual satisfaction.

In other findings, Japanese men reported significantly (2.61 times) more sexual satisfaction in their relationships than American men, and Japanese and Brazilian women were more likely to report sexual satisfaction than American women. Generally, men were more likely to be happy if they were healthy, and their partners had orgasms.“This is an important study because it shows people can be in relationships for decades and still enjoy healthy, vibrant sexuality,” says Michael Sand, study co-author and clinical sexologist at Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals in Richfield, Conn. “A lot of stuff we hear in the media is fueled by popular press, anecdotes and information people take as a given. It’s a stereotype; it’s not what we have as reality in research.”

Friday, July 8, 2011

Today I Lost My Shit


"I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish."
Anne Lamott

Today I lost my sheeeot.
I had a long day of work, and I have so much on my mind. Hubs keeps repeatedly swearing at me and treating me with such anger. He's trying to escape the rehab place. He's telling the nursing staff he hates me. He's leaving horrible messages for me. (Ones like: "Don't you EVER show your face around here of  will fuck you up. You are a peice of shit for leaving me in here for a month and a half!".....it's been two weeks.) I really am afraid that he will get out and try to hurt me. The "Old Him" would never physically hurt me. I feel like the "New Him" would. I don't feel safe and feeling afraid pisses me off and gives me NO PEACE.

 All I do is freaking chase around. It's HOT out.  Traffic sucked. I couldn't find a place I was looking for that was right in front of my face. It was a day that making a grocery list just felt like too much to do.

But I did get some stuff done that I needed to. And I put on my new bedspread. The bright colored quilt my Sister In Laws bought me.  One that hubs would NEVER have let me get in the past. I removed the ugly pic that has hung in our bedroom for years. I went grocery shopping for things that only I like and want. And tomorrow I am cancelling his cable he never uses.

I don't know what the future holds and I can't tell you how much that sucks for me. I prefer to plan and right now I'm having a hell of a time planning anything.  I have SO MUCH to still be greatful for....I hope this feeling passes quickly.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

In My NEXT life.....

I would like to be J. Lo

My Day Today...

I have PMS. So, I'm dangerous. I'm hungry, I'm tired, I have more to do than time & I want to be lazy & life refuses to allow me the luxury.

So I started the day pouting.
I drove to work, I stopped at my usual place for coffee, I had my morning telephone conversation with Mr. *Right* (He always thinks he's right), and I went to work.
And weeded.
I weeded a weed patch.
I lugged and wrestled hoses.
I yelled at testy sprinklers.

During a water break my friend Bambi handed me a gift bag. With a card telling me to hang in there, a little statue of a cardinal, and a tiny pillow with the letters OMG on it. (Private jokes, but very meaningful.) We had such a nice conversation and in the  middle of me talking she said to me:
"JENNIFER! You really are SO PRETTY! I'm not gay or anything, but I just had to say that."
At the time I had dirt smeared ALL over my face. LOL. Oh well, I'll take compliments where I can get em.

And then I went back and weeded a creek bank bead. And Bob The Old Guy came and laughed at my unsteadiness and asked me why my hair was two colors and I asked him if he had anything better to do and what did HE do all day? "Stand and boss people around" is the answer I got. I tol him to go back to doing that.

And I weeded some more.

When the day ended I went to the nursing home and had a decent visit with the hub. Until I told him no and he opted for company with a resident over me.  Silly man left his phone in his room. And I answered it. And it was his friend John. Let's just say his "Escape Plan" for Monday Morning has been foiled. LOL. John said hubs also asked him to "Bring a bag."
"Oh...probably to pack all his stuff in." I said.
"Uh, no....a uh.....*bag*" He said again.
"Yeah. To pack up his stuff." I repeated.
"No...a *bag of recreation".
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."
I really AM dense sometimes.

ANWAYS...I left the nursing home and came home to large dog poop all over the living room.

I love my life.

I pray tomorrow will be better.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Crazy Train Life.



I love this song. I wish the intro could play everytime I enter a room. THAT would be AWESOME!!

Peaple have called me crazy before. I'm on the impulsive side. I go off. I'm on the dramatic side...or "passionate" or "expressive" as I prefer to call myself. Which is FINE, if it' all in fun.

But lately...my life is crazy all on it's own.
Do you know what happens THEN?
I am forced to be a sane person.
I am forced to be a responsible adult....finally, at age 40.

So today I paid my daily visit to my husband at the rehab facility/ nursing home. (YESTERDAY, we actually had a nice visit.) TODAY, it wasn't so good. His blood sugars were running high. He was irritable. He says he's escaping on Friday and has a ride. (I don't know who the ride is. He won't tell me.) I told him that if he came home, he'd be brought back.

He said "By WHO? YOU can't get me iin the car."
I said no.
"A COP? YOU can't have a COP bring me here!"
I said, "Yes I can".
And then the swearing started.
"FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU!"
I said if this was the way the visit was going to go, I'd have to leave. 
"Then GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!" He screamed at me like a crazy person.
"Have a nice night" I said.  I set the grapes  that I brought for him on his tray table. (He constantly complains about the food there so I try to bring him a treat when I visit) I started to walk out of his room hearing behind me repeated screams of "FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUUUUUUCK YOU!"
I crossed paths with a charge nurse as I was leaving and he gave me a "Probably for the best that you leave" look.

He has since left me two messages on my voice mail that he is coming home, he has a ride and there is nothing I can do about it so "FUCK YOU" and another that he's not going to eat anymore food there.

My life is CRAZY right now.
And I am forced to be the sane one.
Being crazy is WAY more fun.


Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Finally....the end to a LONG day.


Ah....finally sat down with my Sangria with a fruit salad in it. LOL. What a day. Something about sweating my ass off and getting dirtier & smellier that I can remember and getting in a cool tub and cleaning it all off and feeling like an actual GIRL again.

I had a visit with hubs today that could ALMOST be described as pleasant after a nightmare one yesterday & a couple of threatening phone calls in the evening from him, one threatening to take his camper he bought without my knowledge and take off.   I asked the nurse to order a psyche consult, which she did.

On days when I can remove myself from any hope for a certain outcome, it seems like things turn out.

I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but I know that today, right now, sitting in my airconditioning & feeling sqeeky clean....I am ALMOST....almost...feeling peaceful for the first time in quite a while.

So...I just want to enjoy it for the moment. :)

Thank you....

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Scorpio Week Ahead....*Love Focus*

Your Week Ahead - Love Focus: You deserve a little happiness. Well, actually, you deserve a lot. A little will do to begin with, though. And, if it is the right kind of little, it will mean a lot to you. I am going to stick with the word 'little'. It is a good word. It says all that needs to be said about the amount of effort that you now need to make - or the amount of change that has to be brought about. Here too, you may think that you need a lot. But you don't. A little (of the right type) will more than suffice. You'll soon encounter a little bit of magic! Someone will make a small, but sincere, gesture that means the world to you.

*Little??? Snort.*

<----VOTE ON MY POLL

How embarassing that only TWO PEOPLE have.
(Me included.)
LOL.
xox

Noooooooo! I LOVE my Diet COKE!!!! :(

Diet Coke is my *Crack*


From CBS News.Com:

New study is wake-up call for diet soda drinkers

(CBS) Sorry, soda lovers - even diet drinks can make you fat.

That's the word from authors of two new studies, presented Sunday at a meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San Diego.

"Data from this and other prospective studies suggest that the promotion of diet sodas as healthy alternatives may be ill-advised" Dr. Helen Hazuda, professor of medicine at University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, said in a written statement. "They may be free of calories, but not of consequences."

Consequences like weight gain.

For one study, researchers at the center followed 474 diet soda drinkers, 65 to 74 years of age, for almost 10 years. They found that diet soda drinkers' waists grew 70 percent more than non-drinkers. Specifically, drinking two or more diet sodas a day busted belt sizes five times more than people who avoided the stuff entirely.

And as waist size grows, so do health risks - including diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other chronic conditions.

Just how does diet soda make you fat? The other study may hold the answer. In it, researchers divided mice into two groups, one of which ate food laced with the popular sweetener aspartame. After three months, the mice eating aspartame-chow had higher blood sugar levels than the mice eating normal food. The authors said in a written statement their findings could "contribute to the associations observed between diet soda consumption and the risk of diabetes in humans."

But how?

"Artificial sweeteners could have the effect of triggering appetite but unlike regular sugars they don't deliver something that will squelch the appetite," Sharon Fowler, obesity researcher at UT Health Science Center at San Diego and a co-author on both of these studies, told the Daily Mail. She also said sweeteners could inhibit brain cells that make you feel full.

So if sugar soda is no good, and diet soda isn't either - what should we be drinking?

Dr. Hazuda told the Daily Mail, "I think prudence would dictate drinking water."

Little Pink Houses....

For some reason, this song is patrotic to me. *shrug*

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY WEEKEND!!! :)





Have a safe & happy fourth of July! This morning I got up & went watering on a property. This is the first weekend in a month that I've had a tiny amount of free time & I'm enjoying it VERY MUCH. Today I'm going shopping with my Sisters In Law and then we are going out to dinner. It feels like after so VERY long wait summer is finally here, or maybe it already was, but like stopped for me for a bit. I feel like I'm slowly adjusting the the changes this last month has brought me.

Hope everyone is enjoying every second this weekend.
xooxoxoxoxxo

Saturday, July 2, 2011

My FAVORITE summer DRINK.....SANGRIA!

Try it! You'll LIKE it!

Ingredients
  • 1/2 cup brandy
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 1/3 cup frozen lemonade concentrate
  • 1/3 cup orange juice
  • 1 (750 milliliter) bottle dry red wine
  • 1/2 cup triple sec
  • 1 lemon, sliced into rounds
  • 1 orange, sliced into rounds
  • 1 lime, sliced into rounds
  • 1/4 cup white sugar (optional)
  • 8 maraschino cherries
  • 2 cups carbonated water (optional)

Directions

  1. In a large pitcher or bowl, mix together the brandy, lemon juice, lemonade concentrate, orange juice, red wine, triple sec, and sugar. Float slices of lemon, orange and lime, and maraschino cherries in the mixture. Refrigerate overnight for best flavor. For a fizzy sangria, add club soda just before serving

I LOVED the show *Pushing Daisies*. LOOK! Olive SNOOK!


 

Scorpio Horoscope: The Month ahead!

Your July Monthly Forecast: When you come to look back over the story of your life, how important will this month seem? Will it be part of the padding or will it contain an integral piece of the plot? Life can easily provide you now, with a straight continuation of a recent scenario. Simply make no changes and no changes will come about. That doesn't mean, though, that you can't make July truly special. You can - without even achieving or accomplishing any great material goal. Just set out to think about things differently and you'll experience magic of a most moving kind.

*I could use a little bit of magic.*

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

(BTW...as a side note, I LOVE that Teri Hatcher's daughter is named Emerson. Such a cool name for a little girl.)

ThE dAy EvErYtHiNg ChAnGeD.......

So......

A month ago.....I got home and couldn't open my back door. It was a Sunday. I don't normally work on Sundays but it was a busy week & made an exception this day.  I was tired. Ready to relax....and thinking about dinner. I had no idea that my life as I knew it was about to change.

My door was stuck. I turned the key...but something was blocking the door. I pushed a little harder...and it slid open and I looked down and I saw my husband's face. Covered in blood, eyes rolled up in his head...tougue out....hands  in the posturing position....

I thought he was dead.

I'd been dreading this moment for years. He's diabetic. We've been through horrendous low blood sugars together. I've woken up to him *seizing* from a horrible fast crash in his sleep. I've called 911. I've made that 3AM ride to the hospital behind the ambulance. I used to live in fear constantly. That *today* would be the day I'd come home & find him dead. I used to panic anytime he didn't answer his phone.

SOMEWHERE along the line, I made peace with the fact that I can't be with him 24 hours a day & we'd do the best we could. It was that or be even MORE of a mental case I am as a baseline.

So when I opened the door, or course I freaked. You can intellectually *decide* anything, but when the actual moment comes? It's not so easy to process it. I didn't know where all the blood I saw on him was coming from. I didn't know how long the seizure had happend. He had wet himself. His skin was cold, clammy. His tee shirt soaked with sweat. His glasses off. I leaned close and heard breathing. Labored. I called 911. I think three times in the course of 10 mins or so it took for them to get there. A few times he stopped breathing.

It's weird what goes through your head in moments like that.
"Please don't die?"
"Did he have a STROKE?"
"Can he hear me?"
"My house is a mess for the 911 people"
"When were the dogs last let out?"
"Is he going to die?"
"I'm terrified"
"Where are his glasses?"

When the paramedics DID arrive, I've never been so happy to see ANYONE in my life.
They gave him an IV....got his blood sugar back up...but unlike ALL these other times......he did not come back. His eyes stayed rolled up. His tongue stayed out. He continued making animal sounds.

They thought maybe he had had a low blood sugar & his seizure triggored a stroke.
They took his 100 pound body making these crazy sounds and twitches to the ambulance on a tarp.

And suddenly my house was quiet.

I called my sister in law, who later said she couldn't believe how calm I was.
I mopped up the blood.
I didn't know what I would know when I came home & I knew I didn't want that to be the first thing that I saw.
I gathered stuff for him.
His meds.
His PJ's.
A T-shirt

And I made my way to the hospital........

(To be continued....)

Don't Answer Me......... A song for when I wake up at 3 AM with my head spinning from earlier events.


Today he told me to leave. *"Get the fuck out"* actually. Claims he is going to escape his rehab place. He said that I don't want him home. He called me a fucking asshole. He wouldn't listen to me. I brought the dog to see him. Brain damage or not....I'm not visiting him for three days.  I feel as though I'm wearing myself out for nothing.

Friday, July 1, 2011

OMG....I need to SMILE!

A Song for ME.....cuz I want it!!
"You know that I'm a crazy bitch, I do what I want when I feel like it."
I love Avril. And I would LOVE to have green hair right now!!!!!