Now what?

It seems that I've done it again. Unintentionally.

Back in November, I got a wild hair and went off on a rant about judgmental people and food stamps and that post went INSANE. I'm still getting comments on that.

Then came the silly Tooth Fairy letter, which just caused everyone to go nuts (myself included).

Last night's post went kind of crazy. I kind of figured that it would, but I wasn't sure to what extent - and it really bypassed my expectations.

Those three things have caused the traffic on both this blog and my facebook page to grow exponentially. Fast. It took something like 20 months to get up to 3000 people on my facebook page, which averages out to about 150 people per month. In the past month or so alone, over 1200 people have 'liked' it.

What I'm getting at is that I'm not used to this. I've been a little bitty baby blog for a long time and I'm ok with that. I don't blog for numbers or money or fame and fortune. I started it on a whim and it's kind of taken off a bit more than I expected. So when things like this happen, I get a little bit overwhelmed. I like to compare it to the guitar player who loves playing little gigs at the local bar for a small group of people - and then is suddenly thrust into the spotlight center-stage at Madison Square Garden in front of a sold-out crowd. It's a little nerve-wracking.

It's fun, yes. But it's also scary. I know that people are going back and reading old posts to get to 'know' me. Some of my past posts were not taken so well, or were about very dark times in my life - and they sort of 'reappear' on my radar when people start reading them again. I've put so much of my life 'out there' and sometimes it's a little unnerving to have it examined by total strangers.

So why do I do it? I get that question a lot.

Like I've said before, it started on a whim. I never expected anyone to pay any attention. But the more time I put into it, the more people started to read it. I started connecting with people that I wouldn't have know otherwise, and people who were reading were connecting with each other. A nifty little group of people has come together because I started writing a blog.

And that's really pretty cool.

I never claimed to be an artist.

At the same time, it also leads to me wandering around the house looking a lot like this.

Ratty t-shirt, gigantic cup of coffee, and the purple bandana - check.

Deer In The Headlights look - check.

Questions flying through my mind at warp speed - check.

I'm always left thinking "Well, crap. Now what? What can I write about now that people will find interesting after I did THAT?"

So yeah. That's where I am right about now. Blogging about the fact that I have no idea what I should be blogging about today.

One thing that I can promise is this - it has been suggested numerous times that I start putting ads on my page because of the increased traffic. At this point in time, I have no desire to do that. None. I don't want sponsors. I don't want to follow someone else's rules and write about what THEY want. I'm going to continue doing things the way that I always  have, which means you'll get lots of random ramblings.

Because that's what I do.

Your rules say WHAT????

Anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time should know that I generally do not touch the "hot button" topics. I stay away from religion and politics and controversy unless it is something that really really grabs me personally.

I have debated writing this for several days because it's one of those topics. But I can't get it out of my head. I know that I'm going to anger and offend some people with my opinions, but that is what they are: my opinions. I am not writing this in order to stir up controversy or drama or fighting or anything else - I'm writing it because I need to get it out of my head.

All that I ask from you is that if you want to comment, please be respectful. Everyone has opinions. Everyone's opinion is right - to them. Just because you may not agree does not give you the right to be disrespectful to anyone.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Which brings me to the subject matter at hand.....

I don't remember when the subject came up for me, but I believe it was last summer sometime. The opportunity to enroll Alex in Boy Scouts presented itself. I didn't think much about it - I mean, come on, it's Scouts. Teaching boys how to camp and be respectful and all sorts of good stuff. What could be bad about that, right?

I admit that I was pretty oblivious about some things - and now, I so wish that I had done some research.

But I didn't. I went by my own preconceived notions and beliefs and we got started in Scouts.

He has had a blast. I have had a blast. He's in with a great group of kids and adults. He's already gotten to do a lot of really fun stuff and he's learning. All in all it's been a very positive experience for him.

However, the controversy surrounding Scouts has me more than a little concerned. And upset.

In case you haven't heard, the BSA is talking about lifting its ban on homosexual members - boys and adults.

Wait, what..........?

Lifting a ban on homosexuals? Are you serious?!?!?! You can't be serious.....

Are you telling me that I enrolled my son into an organization that BANNED homosexuals?

I. am. mortified.

And I am angry.

For whatever reason, I didn't know that Scouts had this ban. I seriously didn't know. I should have known, but I didn't. Had I known, Alex wouldn't be in Scouts in the first place. I assumed that since it was 2012, discrimination against any group of people wouldn't be an issue. I just went back and read through the paperwork that I signed when he joined - nothing in the paperwork says "you must be straight". It says something about following the "Declaration of Religious Principles" which I didn't even know existed until tonight.

And without quoting and getting all sorts of technical about it, basically the Declaration says "Hey, we're a religious organization, but we don't dictate what religion you follow. If you don't belong to a church, we assume that your parents are teaching you about whatever religion you choose to follow. If you do belong to a church, we assume that you follow the rules of that church."

OK, so the Bible says homosexuality is a sin. So theoretically....if you're following any sort of Christian religion, you shouldn't be gay. I get that.

But the last time I checked, Christians weren't supposed to judge each other, either. 

I go to church almost every week. I was raised Methodist, and that's the kind of church that we go to simply because that's where I'm comfortable. I don't claim to be a Christian, because even at 42 years old I'm still not sure what to believe. I do believe that there is something way bigger than I am out there but whether it's "God" or "something else" - I haven't figured that part out yet. Regardless, I don't have a problem with religion in general.

(For the record - the older three kids also attend a Baptist church with their father, and Alex occasionally goes to his stepmother's church, but I'm not sure what denomination that is. If I felt that my religious views superseded all others, my kids would not be attending other churches.)

I do not believe that ANY religious views should overrule others. None.

What I do believe is that no person - regardless of religious affiliation - has the right to judge another person.

No one has the right to discriminate against another person.

My children will NOT be taught that it is ok to judge or discriminate against anyone for any reason. My children have always been and will always be taught love, acceptance, and tolerance. They will be taught that it is ok to stand up for what they believe in and that it's ok to stand up for others who are being discriminated against for any reason.

I do not want to pull Alex out of Scouts. I really don't. I think that the experience is a good one for him. But if this ban is not lifted at both the national and local levels, I don't feel that I have a choice. I can't teach my children that judging others is wrong if we are participating in an organization that does exactly that.

How can BSA teach these young boys about honor and respect for others when they aren't modelling the same behavior as an organization?

Found on Google Images

Super rant - on money and heroes

So apparently the Super Bowl is over. From what I can figure out just from looking at my facebook newsfeed, the Ravens won and there was some kind of a power outage during the game. The commercials, while awesome, apparently left a bit to be desired for some.

I know that there were commercials for Oreos, Dodge vehicles, Taco Bell, Tide, Budweiser, Go Daddy and for the farmers of America.

What I have yet to see, however, is a score.

Or a mention of a player. Or of a great play in the game. Nothing about the crowd, nothing about statistics or positions or bad calls or even good calls.

Nothing about the game.

Isn't that what this is supposed to be about? Isn't the Super Bowl supposed to be about football?

But, I suppose when companies are paying $4,000,000 for a 30 second ad, it's ok to forget about the game. It's alright to forget that the reason that the commercials cost as much as they do is because they are to air during "The Big Game".

Maybe I'm a little more callous about it this year because I didn't really have an opinion on either team. I don't like or dislike either one, so I wasn't really interested in watching the game at all anyway. So being disinterested in the game to start with made me notice that no one was really talking about the game. It was all about the commercials.....which wouldn't happen without the game.

I don't know what the average salary is for an NFL player, but I can only assume that it's considerable. I'm betting that they get nice little bonuses for playing in the Super Bowl as well, not to mention side gigs as official spokesmen for products or whatever.

It's all about the money. The game got lost among the dollar signs. But these men are our heroes. They are looked up to by people young and old. They are admired and loved because they play the game in front of millions of people and get millions of dollars to do it.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't be admired for what they do.

My opinion? 

I think that the millions upon millions of dollars in advertising could be spent better elsewhere, but that's just me. Sponsors could focus on the game, put out a simple ad for their product, and donate the excess millions to the homeless or the hungry or animal shelters or education or mental health programs or veteran's services or something more important to real life than hocking their products during the game.

But besides that....

In the sports world, I have very few heroes. There are very few people who I admire simply because they participate in a sport that I enjoy.

But I will tell you this - my heroes? My personal sports heroes? The young men of the 2012 Penn State football team.

Those young men signed up to play for a legendary program, and then the rug was yanked out from underneath them. Everything fell apart. They were given the opportunity to walk away from the team and play elsewhere with no penalties whatsoever. They could walk away, play somewhere else, and go all the way.

They were told that if they stayed, there would be no post-season. No bowl games. No championships. No glory. Nothing. A regular season, and that was it.

And all but a handful stayed. Some left, yes. But almost all of them stayed. Why?

Because they love the game. They wanted to play the game at Penn State. They stayed and stood up for what they believed in, knowing that they wouldn't play as much as they had hoped, and knowing that they had no possibility of ever getting a championship.

Those young men - are my sports heroes.

Just in case you're new here - I'm a proud PSU alum.
Class of 1994
(Picture taken this past summer on TMOART:12)

Give the boy a camera...

Today was the last day for basketball. Last one. Final. The end. No more.

Until next season, of course.

The day wouldn't have been complete without drama. Jared stayed with Ex1 last night because he wasn't feeling well and we weren't sure if he was going to play today or not - but he woke up feeling fine and so we were all going to meet up at his game, which was the first one of the morning.

We were already rushing, but I wasn't worried about getting there a few minutes late, since Jared would already be there. And then it happened.....

Emily realized that instead of having HER jersey in her bag, she had Jared's.....which meant that Jared had hers. Which meant (duh) that he didn't have his, and his game was starting in about 45 minutes. And we were still at home, 30 miles away.

GET! IN! THE! VAN! NOW!!!!!

We may have broken a few land speed records, but we got there with 30 seconds left on the warm up clock. Jared got his jersey on and was ready to play.

When his game was over, we took off for Emily's game, praying to the gas gods that we would get there without having to push the van because there was no time to stop and get any. But we made it. Barely.

Now Alex does not like to sit still for me. Trying to get him to sit and pay attention to a basketball game is next to impossible. He'll do it for his father, or for anyone else, but he will not do it for me.

However, hand that boy a camera....

Granted, I had to occasionally swipe the camera from him in order to get a few pictures of the games, but he kept himself amused through both games like this. Maybe it's time to find him a cheap (indestructible) digital camera to have for himself when he needs to be able to keep himself occupied.

I can NOT look at these pictures without giggling.

Two years.

Today is an anniversary. Not a happy one, either.

I wrote this post 2 years ago today, just a few hours after it happened. I wrote this one on the first anniversary, one year ago today. You can go back and read those to get the full story - because I'm not going to relive it again.

I read both of them a few hours ago. And I cried. It still hurts, even after two years and all of the progress that I've made - it. still. hurts.

I don't get it.

For the most part, life is good. If you know me in real life or if you've read my blog for any extended period of time, you know I'm generally a very happy person. However, I've been dreading this day for weeks but was hopeful that it wouldn't bother me that much.

Wrong.

Contrary to what some people might believe, it still really gets to me.

I don't really know what it is that bothers me. There are so many mixed emotions and it's so hard to explain to anyone - including myself - what is going through my head right now

For the most part, I don't feel guilty. I mean, I do - but I don't. I know that I didn't force him to drink. In fact, I did everything in my power while we were together to get him to stop drinking - but he wouldn't couldn't. I firmly believe that I did everything that I could, but a part of me still wonders if I couldn't have done more. But I will never know the answer to that.

I still grieve the loss of what could have been. When I married him, I wanted the happily ever after. But we didn't get that. Even after we separated, I still wanted it. I still hoped that he would get sober and we could reconcile and get that happily ever after. But it didn't happen. That hope was yanked out from under me the day that he died.

I am sad that Daniel will never know his father. He wasn't even 2 years old when we separated so I doubt that he remembers anything. He recognizes his father in pictures, and he knows that his father got sick and died and is in Heaven now - but he's too young to understand much more than that. The older kids remember more, obviously - and we keep our talks about him centered around the good memories rather than the bad ones, as much for Daniel's sake as for our own.

I know that as time goes on, it will get easier. It is already easier in many ways - but there are still days that it sneaks up on me and it still takes me by surprise. Maybe one of these years, the day will just go on past and I won't even remember the significance of the date until later. Maybe it'll happen next year, or the year after, or 10 years down the road. Maybe it will never happen.

All I know right now is that no matter how happy I am, there is still that sadness. It's not so much for me as it is for Daniel. And although I am sad that he will never know his father, I am thrilled that he has The Dude in his life to take on the role of a father figure for him. Knowing that he will grow up with a man in his life who loves all of us in spite of everything makes the sadness easier to handle.

It's not the life that I had planned - but it's the life that we have now. And we are doing whatever we can to make sure that it is the best life possible.

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March 27, 2006 - our wedding day

Not exactly what I had planned...

OK, seriously, when your day starts off with a sunrise like this, what can possibly go wrong? Really?

Wrong question to ask.

My plans for the day were fairly simple.

Get the kids to school. Come home and clean and whatnot. Get the kids from school. Make supper. Have The Dude come over and watch the kids for about 2 hours while I go to a meeting. Come home. Hang out. Put kids in bed.

Easy, right?

HA!

I got the kids to school. I came home and putzed around and didn't do much of anything for a while.

Then, it happened.....*cue ominous music*

The Dude called me from work to ask me to bring some ibuprofen or something to him because his back was hurting. I had just gotten a shower so I finished getting ready and ran across town to give him the medicine. I could tell that he was hurting - badly. But he had to wait for his boss to get there before he could leave so I came back home.

He called me again a little later. And it's one of those calls that no one ever wants to get.

"Babe, can you come and get me and take me to the ER? I can barely breathe because it hurts so bad."

I took off and got him from work and he was miserable. We got to the hospital and it was all he could do to walk in the door. It was busy but luckily they got him in fairly quickly - and then we waited. I had to leave to get the boys from school so I took off across town. As I was driving, I called a friend of mine to see if she could watch the boys for a couple of hours, and luckily she agreed so I told her that I would be there as soon as I got them. I hung up and called Ex1 to explain what was happening and to ask him if he could just keep the older three kids instead of bringing them to me, and he agreed. I got the boys, dumped them at my friend's house, and got back to the hospital about 30 minutes after I had left.

He had gotten the xrays done by that time and was even more miserable than when I left him half an hour earlier. The doctor came back and said that things looked ok on the xrays and that it did not appear that his lung was collapsed (wait, what? you mean you thought that was a possibility???) and that it was a severe thoracic strain and the muscles were spasming. He got a couple of shots in the butt and a handful of prescriptions, and we left.

I dropped off the prescriptions and then we went back to his work to drop off the doctor's note and to lock up his truck since we were leaving it there, and then I took him back home and poured him into his bed. Then I left to go back to pick up the prescriptions and bring those back to him.

At that point I realized that if I rushed I could still make the meeting that I had planned to go to, so I raced home and changed my clothes and went to the meeting. While I was there, Ex1 called to let me know that Emily had forgotten some stuff she needed for school but not to worry about getting it to her since she was the one who forgot it. We touched base about a few other things and then I went back to the meeting.

After the meeting, I went to my friend's to pick up the boys, back over to The Dude's house to get some money, ran out to get him some food, and then took the food to him - and then finally got the boys home. They ate a late supper and fell asleep on the couch.

Emily texted me about the stuff that she forgot - apparently the lines of communication got crossed and she thought that I was bringing it to her tonight. I talked to her and Ex1 and we decided that there was no way I was doing it tonight (25 miles round trip at bedtime for the boys? I think not...) but I would bring it out in the morning after I drop the boys off - but only because if things hadn't been so crazy tonight she would have been able to get it and would have had it for tomorrow.

And then to top it all off.....

I had gotten a message while all of this was happening that the blankity-blank-blank Tooth Fairy letter had been posted on cheezburger(dot)com. I didn't worry about it too much at the time because, well......I was busy. I looked into it tonight, and sure enough it's on there - under the "Parenting Fails". And yeah, that bugs me. It was just a silly letter, and it's totally being taken out of context and it's driving me nuts. And I know that it shouldn't bother me, but it does.

But it's also a good reminder that judgmental people suck.

One of those days...

It's been one of THOSE days. You know the kind.

First off, the weather was AMAZING. Beyond amazing. 70+ degrees worth of amazing. Of course it didn't start out quite that warm first thing this morning, but it was still nice enough that I finally forced myself outside and managed to get in a 3 mile walk.

Seriously. 70 degrees. In Kansas. In January.

Crazy stuff.

The Dude had to do some work on his truck today, and he needed my hacksaw (don't ask) to do it - not to mention that it's easier to do it in my yard than it is to do it in his, so he came over this afternoon.

We got to spend a little bit of time together before I had to go and get the boys from school.

It was so nice outside that I basically told the boys that they were NOT allowed to come back inside until I had supper ready and on the table. It's so rare to have days like this, and they needed to be outside to burn off some energy and get some exercise.

I was working on supper and was standing at the kitchen sink doing some dishes, and I looked out the window. The view was so incredibly amazing, and I realized just how awesome my life really is - even though I don't always admit it.

I mean really - right there, outside the window - there it is. The love of my life, working on his truck while the kids played nearby. Granted, it would have been better with all of the kids here (and if he wasn't working on that blasted truck) but still - it honestly took my breath away and I just stood there and watched and smiled. And when supper was ready, they all came inside and we sat down and we ate... and then The Dude went home and I got the boys in the tub and ready for bed.

It's definitely not the life that I had planned on having. It's crazy and chaotic and there's a lot of drama and stress at times. But it's my life, and I love it.

It's been one of those days.....that shows me just how lucky I really am.