At this time of year, many of us are plagued with that annoying cough that won’t go away because there is such a big tickle in your throat, way back there where you can’t reach to scratch it.  And it always happens at the most inopportune time!!  This can be very embarrassing as I know first-hand.

But, if you keep a chocolate bar with you and you start coughing in the bank or where ever, you can sooth it quickly!

As if you needed an excuse to eat chocolate

Please understand that people around you are hit blind-sided when your mood suddenly changes and have no freaking idea unless you tell them!!!!

I say this because I care…and, quite simply you’re driving us nuts!!!    Speak up!!
We don’t know why you suddenly change from one mood to the other unless we were directly responsible for it in which case, get over it we beg for forgiveness.  And honesty, we never know when you’re gonna think something’s funny and when you’re going to take it personally and get all mad!  I mean!  COME ON!  We’re only human!  It’s not like we can read your mind!  We can read your body language but that’s about as reliable as your moods are sometimes!!

Okay ~ the root of the PSA.
I am a very emotionally stable person.  I blow up now and then but basically, I live happy.  Well, yesterday my husband and I were hanging out at home when I suggested we go to Borders Bookstore and hit the new Ruby Tuesday’s up that way.  We were in a good mood!!  We were cruising along…cracking jokes…singing songs.  La La La 
We got there and separated as usual at the front door so that I could dig through the bargain boxes and he can go look at a bunch of books that he won’t spend the money on.  Six months of going to all kinds of book stores and he’s yet to buy a book!!!  Well, anyway… I met up with him like 15 minutes later and he was this completely different person!  I wondered if he was cranky or if his back hurt because his back has been in horrible shape or if a book said something nasty to him or what!! but he wouldn’t even admit that his mood changed!!  And God Forbid should I happen to ask in hopes that I can make whatever it is better and we can go on with our day!!  <he’s SO spoiled!!> 

Ever meet someone who acts mad and then blames you for their anger because you implied they were mad?  It’s so maddening!!

So, look folks!  Some of you need to hear this!  I know that life is hard!  It is for all of us!
WE’RE ALL GOING THROUGH THE SAME CRAP!!
Some of us don’t let it ruin how we interact with others though…I mean, we don’t impose our misery on others unless they’re the one causing it, right?  If someone cut you off on the road, does your wife or your coworkers have to pay?  Heck no!!!  Hunt down the one that cut you off and badger them with words and attitude if you must but be fair…and be careful if you plan on actually doing that!!

Basically, this is one person’s plea that I hope will help someone else if nothing else at least know that they’re not alone.  For everyone’s sake,  if your mood has changed for no obvious reason, tell the people you’re with WHY (or that you don’t know why) so that they don’t have to wonder about it and have it ruin their day too.  It’s not fair…some of us enjoy having good days.  Thanks for listening…

Create Peace

Do everything you need to, everything you can to keep it GOOD!

A lot of people fall into complacency and allow the daily grind to wear away the things they love into dust.
It could their marriages, their relationship with their kids or family members and friends, or hobbies that they used to love.  When you’ve got it good, it’s not the time to let it all go.  Some people seem to take better care of their cars than they do their relationships!  That’s crazy!!

Don’t assume that you’ve told your loved one WHY you love them and keep the communication lines ALWAYS open!  Speak to them as you would others, with respect! 

And, know at the get-go that everyone gets on everyone’s nerves and you are not immune.  As long as it only happens 5% of the time instead of 75% of the time, get over it and let people be who they are.  Love them for who they’re not!!  My husband has table manners that belong in a barn but he doesn’t drink, womanize any other woman than me and goes to work and comes home every day!  He still looks at me with the same lust that he did 15 years ago and makes sure to acknowledge my side of life…what I’m up to, you know?  We seem disinterested if we don’t ask and in reality, we are disinterested if we don’t bother to ask, right?

I DO NOT believe in marrying just for the sake of being married (I had 5 marriage proposals before I found my husband…each I said no to because I really wasn’t 100%) and I frown on weddings prior to at least the age of 29.  I feel that people change when they’re 30.  I think that people need to exercise more patience.  We say yes to the first thing that comes along because we’re so afraid that there’s nothing else.  Trust me!  There is someone who only gets on your nerves 5% of the time!

And never let let present circumstances determine your entire future.  Sit tight…be patient.
I lived miserably with my mother till I was 25.  I could have gotten married just to get out of there but I knew better and I waited.

And then sometimes we sacrifice everything, relationships that we’ve built and personal interests and hobbies for a job that really couldn’t care less about us if it did have feelings, which it doesn’t.  The job doesn’t need us…we can be replaced!  But if you pay attention, you can have both.  Work to live, don’t live to work.

Many of us work to create our own little piece of heaven here on Earth and then we don’t tend to it.
Relationships need as much tending to as a garden or a simmering pot of stew but how many people actually put forth as much effort in one than the other?

I worked hard to get what I have now…and I’ll tell ya, I’ve We’ve got it GOOD!  And we’re keeping it!!  I feel we’ve earned it but, whether it’s earned or just plain luck, it’s important to acknowledge your blessings.  If we ignore them, they’ll fade away.

So, in a nutshell…

They say that if you are in the right place or meet “the one”, you will know it and you will have no doubt.  They were right!
They say that patience pays off.  They were right!
They say that every decision you make matters.  They were right!

Sometimes THEY are RIGHT!!! 

So, I felt the need to pass along this public service announcement and so I did…I hope it helps someone.
I’m big on PSA’s for future reference.  I make no excuses.

This is a subject that I’ve wanted to write about for a long time but always changed my mind at the last minute and deleted it.

Recently Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean was apprehended in Mexico.  He is the married marine who is the only suspect in the disappearance and murder of his fellow marine and possible mother of his unborn child, Maria Frances Lauterbach.  This was a pregnancy that allegedly resulted from Laurean raping Lauterbach and she was preparing to testify against him when she went missing.

The day that this story broke the ripples that it created were much wider than people consider when they’re watching the news.  He is married…His wife, Christina who claims to still love her husband had the rug swept out from under her feet.  His mother, father, siblings, friends and coworkers had the rugs swept out from their feet!  A lot of people when they hear the news only think about the obvious.  When you hear that someone was shot dead on the streets of Philly, somewhere out there is the mother of the shooter who’s about to have her life ripped apart.

It is obvious to the casual observer that those who loved Maria had the rug swept out from under them immediately when the story broke.  Having a loved one go missing has got to be one of the most intensely heart-breaking thing to happen to someone.  Having them found dead under any circumstance let alone having been brutally murdered rips their hearts out and left them changed forever.

What isn’t obvious to many is the family of the defendant and how it rips their lives apart as well.
Many of us pray for the victim but how many make their prayer circle complete by praying for ALL who are involved.  When we watch a highly publicized court case on TV such as the Scott Peterson trial, many of us were rooting for the guy to burn in hell.  We’d been praying for Lacy’s family since the get-go but how many considered praying for Scott’s family?

This is, unfortunately, something that I know about only too well.

In April of 2006 I got a phone call that changed my life immediately and forever.  My brother had been arrested for suspicion of a double murder that occurred in 1995.  The gamut of emotions that ran through me lasted for almost 2 years until he was finally convicted and I had to succumb to the reality that my brother would spend the rest of his life in a cell waiting to die in a place that most of us couldn’t survive a week in!

The second that I heard about it I immediately started praying for the victims families, imagining the horrors that they went through.  But, here I was on the other side of the courtroom.  Being one who has always been interested in the law and did everything in my power to be law abiding, I was always the one who thought about how nasty and ugly the defendant was and only throwing my Light onto the victims side.  I was lop-sided.  I remember thinking negative thoughts about Scott Peterson’s mother…how could she bear such spoiled fruit but realistically, did Jeffrey Dahmer’s mother create the monster?  No.  No more than my mother raised a murderer. 

I spoke with the arresting officer and felt pretty sure, as sure as she was, that they had the right man and I asked her to pass my condolences to the victims families and I explained to her that my brother wasn’t a monster and that he has a sister who loves him very well.  A sister who when she was arrested for DUI some 20 years ago actually thanked the police officers a week later for saving her life!!  Yes, the whole ordeal cost me a lot but it didn’t cost me my life or someone else’s, thank God!

This experience has taught me to be more balanced.  It has taught me more about what we are supposed to do when we live our lives in the shadow of Jesus…doing the best we can to do what Jesus would have done.  I spent 2 years going to the emergency room every other week because of the stress it caused on my heart which was completely shattered.  Shattered at the thought of what he could have done.  Shattered at how his life ended up.  Just shattered.

Sometimes I think that the families of the victim might even have it easier because they know, or I hope that they do, that their loved one is with God.  The victimizer, the defendant is placed in quarters where the unthinkable happens on a daily basis and a person’s animal instincts are all that they have to keep them alive.  In many ways…they are better off dead.  In other ways they deserve to sit in that cell under the conditions that they knew existed before they committed the crime and think about what they have done…
or allegedly have done for we all know that everyone in prison is innocent.

I don’t tell many people that the last living relative I have that is alive, as everyone else has passed away, is living in a maximum security prison and will only leave feet first.  I don’t know why…I’m not ashamed.  What he “allegedly” did has nothing to do with my character…I can’t even kill a field mouse who’s been soiling my counter-tops for two weeks!  But, things happen in life that we don’t understand.  Sometimes things get out of control, most times through desperation of some kind, and they happen so fast that people barely know it’s happening. 

I’ve often thought that there has to be a support group of some kind for people who’s loved ones are incarcerated.  I have noticed in check-out lines at stores that people will chatter about everything from the shape of their marriage to the shape of their colons but never do I hear that someone is sad because their loved one is in prison.  Something tells me that many of them just don’t care though…not to judge or generalize but many of the life inmates weren’t living in such great circumstances on the outside and might have come from families that are unlike mine.  Homes where crime is planted in the children’s minds early on.  My brother was a good man though.  You would have never known to look at him that he was capable of such rage but in my heart I believe that we are all capable of doing the unthinkable but most of us aren’t faced with the life circumstances that would bring it to light…again…thank God! 

So, I have to believe that every numbered person in stripes has a parents and siblings and loved one and acquaintances who care about them as much as they care about the victims of the crime.  I have trouble praying for the criminal but I do my best.  I do believe that we are all “sick” but some are sicker than others.  I think that child predators are sick, murderers, rapists, robbers…all of them have to have some sort of chemical imbalance that allows them to act in a way that is unthinkable to most of us.  It’s hard to conceive evil when you’re not hard-wired for it.  It in no way an excuse but I do try to understand.  I have been a victim of crime, unthinkable crimes, but I managed to forgive those who trespassed against me and I won’t allow them to destroy me because that would mean that their brand of evil has won! 
Sometimes I think about something I heard about pitt-bull dogs…something about an electrical spark that goes wacky for a split-second and makes the dog go berserk.  Maybe it happens in people too?  We’ve all heard about how so-n-so snapped. 

So anyway, I ask all who read this who regularly pray to remember to keep your prayers full.  Make the circle complete by praying for all who are involved. EVEN the investigators, lawyers and judges because we all know that the justice system is not at it’s best and needs our help.

I don’t believe in a vengeful God or One who is full of wrath.  I believe that there is no reason to ask for God’s forgiveness because God never needs to forgive us…we only need to forgive ourselves because we are human.  And the best we can do is to do what we feel is right…letting our conscious be our guides and remember that what’s going on at the surface is nothing compared to what is going on behind the scenes.
The ripples of our every action goes out far and wide even when it is not seen.
There are many who need people who do their best to do what they believe Jesus would have done around them and knowledge is power so I hope you’ve gained even a little by reading this.

Peace

I asked my husband the other day what it meant when the man on the news said that we are basically already in a recession.  He said, “when it costs more to live than we can make”.

Well, I think that sucks!  I think that there’s a lot of dishonest people whose only goal is to collect the most shiny things and step on as many low lifes as they can!  They climb up on the ladder using our heads and our backs as ladder rungs and never even give a nod.  And all we do is keep on suckin’ as my husband says.

And you know that “they”…corporate america…knew what they were doing it when they were doing it.
And we knew it!  We all said how our mail boxes are full of credit card applications and everyone wanted us to sign up for their card.  I don’t think they really cared about your credit rating.  I think that initially they don’t give a crap if you can make the payments or not.  They just want your signature.  They will get the money somehow.  If not from you, which they will eventually get it from you even if they have to wait till you’re dead, then they’ll get it from their insurance company.  Then the insurance companies start charging more and well…you all know how the story goes.  And how many people were given mortgages that the banks knew the people couldn’t handle?  It’s all pretty sad…

We’re pretty frugal and we pay our bills on time.  My husband works hard for his money and I make it stretch as far as it needs to.  We’re not credit card people and we don’t take vacations that we can’t afford which means that we rarely take vacations…only 3 in 15 years.  We live comfortably and don’t do without in any way shape or form.  We are happy buying a certified used car and will take care of it till it can’t go no more.  We are happy with $5 shirts from Wal-Mart (well…not my 18 year old but she works and buys her own stuff) and we do a lot of sales hopping for bargains.  I see people who are biting off more than they can chew and they know they’re doing it while they’re doing it but it’s so tempting!  <ooo, a piece of candy>
I know it’s tempting!  I’m tempted every day!  But I’ve figured out how to get what I want for less money and therefore, I can have more and owe nobody!

The thing is…I can’t imagine how the generation that’s growing up now, my daughter’s age, will survive such a thing!!  They’ve never wanted for anything!  They haven’t lived through the gas lines and eating fried bologna sandwiches just to make it different from last night’s dinner.  I know that I’m generalizing there and of course there are some who have to live in deplorable conditions but for the most part I think that the child protection services works.

Anyway…this is kind of like my own little “Recession Rant” for now…I don’t like to talk about money but now and then it just has to be done.  In the coming days ahead of us I may post some of the old home and garden information that I used to use in my discussion groups.  I’ve got some pretty good ideas and if I help one person then it’s all worth it, right?

May I start out with a shout out to all of the women who are in their late 20’s to early 30’s who don’t moisturize.

YA GOTTA MOISTURIZE!!

I’m lucky.  I’ve spent many years worshipping the almighty sun and I have to say that all of the wrinkles on my face are from smiling and squinting and I wouldn’t trade them for the world.  But, I will keep them toned so a few months ago I decided to start an experiment.  I’ve always used moisturizers after my shower but I wasn’t paying enough attention to what I hope everyone I meet is looking at…my face!  Here I am almost 44 years old and I’m just starting to worry about something that started 10 years ago!!!  If only I knew then what I know now…

I bought Avon’s Dramatic Firming and Avon’s Hydrofirming creams and I LOVE their Advanced Eye Perfector which feels like cool gel that revives you in the afternoon and ANEW Retroactive Repair Eye Serum and I used them for one month.

Then I bought, after much research Loreal’s Advanced RevitaLift Face & Neck and Loreal’s Advanced RevitaLift Night creams along with their RevitaLift Eye cream and I used them for a month.

Well, the other day I noticed that the lines on the sides of my mouth were much deeper than they’d been in a while and the lines between my eyebrows were coming back.  One month of Loreal and I felt like I was back at square one.   This morning I used the Avon creams again and my face feels and looks better!!

I would have thought the exact opposite.  I associate Loreal to high-end products and Avon with the other end of the spectrum but after trying out a few of their products, Avon really surprised me!

Also, if you are tired of trying to get the last of the cream out of a jar, screw the lid on and bang the jar on it’s side onto a padded surface, like a rolled up towel.  You don’t want to break the jar or knick your counter tops!  It makes it all go to one side and it’s easier to get your money’s worth.