It was a wonderful Christmas after all.

I had a surprising wonderful Christmas. As I'm sure it has been for the majority of the country, it's been an extremely tough year for us. I've been looking for a job for over a year. Since we got here to Martin, actually. We've had to rely on the kindness of our families and even some strangers to get by. I'm thankful everyday that we still have the car we worked so hard to buy and now working harder to keep. I'm thankful that we have a safe and comfortable place to live and that our kids can't tell that mom and dad are struggling like they are. I'm thankful that I have the family that I have. I've seen so much worse and I know I am extremely blessed. Even though I haven't spoken to them in a while, I have the greatest group of friends a girl could ever ask for. And the best part of all, my rock, my very best friend, my husband. Now that's a man I am so blessed to have in my corner. Through all my ups and downs he's right there by my side. He holds my hand when I'm unsure about anything and gives me the support and guidance I need. I don't know where in life I'd be without him. We've been married for a little more than 10 years and they've been some of the wildest, craziest, funnest times of my life. I've said since the night I met him it's been a whirlwind. Sounds like a great segway to my other blog, My Whirlwind Life With Michael.

OK, my honey's home now and I wanna spend some time with him. L8r!

Time heals all wounds....

Whew! What a day it's been and I'm only half way through it. It started off kinda shaky and got worse the more I opened my eyes and let my day start. My daughter woke me up asking for breakfast. So I stumble out of bed (I like to sleep in on Sundays) and make my way to the kitchen. Once there I resembled that home alone kid. My kitchen looked like a bomb of tomato sauce went off! I wanted to cry! There was stuff EVERYWHERE and not a clean dish to be seen. My husband made his famous chili and homemade mac & cheese last night and left a HUGE mess. So in my dismay, I told her to get a couple of pop tarts and call it a morning. My son did the same thing and grabbed some pop tarts. Then I turn around to go to the bathroom and I notice the living room. OMG!!! It looks like a kidnado blew through! I am still feeling the effects of the cortisone shot I had to get earlier in the week, so the rage was starting to come out. I hollered and yelled about the condition of the house and put everyone to work. My husband had to do something for his grandmother so he was off the hook. So the three of us went to work. The kids swept and cleaned the living room and I cleaned the kitchen and started the laundry. All the while, my mood was not improving because my football team was losing to losers!!!! I am a die hard San Diego Charger fan and to see them lose to a team like the chiefs was NOT GOOD. I know that statement may anger some KC fans, but right now I don't care. My favorite Ladanian Tomlison shirt that I wear for every game was dirty and in the washer. Everytime I don't wear my shirt for a game, they lose. I still had to get it in the dryer before I could put it on and my Chargers were getting beaten badly. So I keep busy until I can put the clothes in the dryer. Buzz!! The washer's done so I hurrily grab the clothes and throw them in the dryer. About 40 minutes later, and my Chargers were losing 21 to 3, I grabbed my shirt outta the dryer and put it on right there in the laundry room. By that time the 3rd quarter was almost over. I was keeping tabs on the game through my computer, so when I came back to see that we had scored, I knew things were starting to turn around. Hard to believe that was only 4 hours after my daughter woke me up. Time marched on and my Chargers won the game. Aaaahhh. That's better. Hey, my husband's home! And he brought presents! Yay! I start to feel better, but an immediate feeling of guilt came over me at the same time. I was so mean to my babies earlier that I had to explain to them what was going with me. They knew about my back hurting, but they didn't know I went to the doctor or that I got a cortisone shot. They're so sweet. I asked if they noticed a change in my mood and my daughter says "yeah, you've been crabby" OMG! So I gather them up in my arms and apologize profusely for yelling at them. I told them I loved them and showered them with kisses and they hugged and kissed me back. After our little scene I noticed the time....
Wow I do feel better and it's 6 plus hours since my baby girl woke me up. Time really does work for healing wounds because I was certainly feeling wounded this morning.

Happy Birthday Daddy !!

Today my Dad turned 61 years old. Wow, I really never thought he'd make it this far. I know that must sound like a pretty morbid thing to say about my father, but if you knew the kind of life he'd led up to now, you'd wonder the same thing. He's a disabled veteran now with prostate cancer. He's doing well now and going through his treatments. He fought in Vietnam twice before I was born. He was born and raised in the deep south in 1947. Could you imagine for a minute was life was like in the 40s and 50s for a young Black man? Pretty treacherous. I remember listening to the stories he would tell me about growing up in Mobile, Alabama. How he would spend his free time running because it made him feel so free. He knew he wasn't like the kids around him. He knew he was different from his 5 brothers and sisters. For one thing, he never developed the accent of a deep southerner. He sounded like he was from California and he still does to this day. His ambitions were light years away from his peers. He knew there was so much more to life and the world than what was going on in tiny little Mobile. When he graduated from high school, he packed up and joined the Navy. While he was on his first tour in Vietnam, a friend of his introduced him to his cousin through a letter. They exchanged pictures and letters for over 2 years before they met in person. On May 17, 1969 they met face to face for the first time and married on May 19, 1969, two days later. Then my dad had to go back, but not without leaving his impression first. His new wife was pregnant! When he returned 6 months later, she was showing quite a bit. A couple of months later, she arrived at the hospital to give birth to her first child. God did not see fit to give that child, named Brenda Joyce, to her mother so he took her for himself and this left my father and his new wife distraught. It was only time and the grace of God that allowed them to see past their hurt and try again. Soon they discovered they were pregnant again and this time, God let them keep what they prayed so long for and here I am!!! My dad and mom had me in October 1971. My parents told me after I was born that my complexion was the color of a new penny. My mother is very light skinned and my father is dark skinned. And I have big eyes just like his. From the start I was Daddy's girl. My parents never had anymore children after me. My dad took me everywhere he went. I think I learned my street smarts with him and all our adventures. My mom was always big into school. Do your homework, do well on tests. I get my school ethic from her. I get my will from both of them. My dad has had it pretty hard since returning from Vietnam. That was back in the day when soldiers and sailors came back to getting spit on and trash throw at them. My dad was just a kid when he fought over there and he came back a changed person. Today, we now know his condition is called PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), but all we knew was that he was always angry. He was rarely happy. He would have extreme mood swings and then sometimes, he would sleep for days. My parent's marriage was a strenuous one for both of them and it ended 16 years after it started. They even tried again about 9 years after they divorced the first time, they remarried but it only lasted 5 years. Sometimes things are just better left alone ya know? My mom wasn't the only one to have issues with my dad. He and I have had our issues too. He wasn't always there for me when I was growing up. There were times when he showed up or manned up just when I needed him to, but most often it was just me and my mom. When I became an adult he tried to play the "daddy" roll and I took offense to it. Why try to play daddy to an adult when you should have done that when I was a kid was my line of thinking. He was try to press his rules and regs on me and I'd be like "whatever". He hadn't lived with us for years and there was no way I was going to let him control my life (or so I thought). Fat was he was still my father and I owed him at least that much respect. The older I got, the more I understood, and now being married to a Veteran with PTSD, I understand some of what he was going through when he was younger. Too bad I couldn't help my mom understand about PTSD and how it effects everyone close to the sufferer. But here I sit today, already having called my dad and sang him happy birthday, amazed at the life he's lived and what he's gone through to come out the man he is today. I'm so proud of him and I'm so lucky that he's my father. I love you Daddy! Happy Birthday!

So I'm back today after being away for so long. What's been going on? Well, a whole heck of a lot. Shortly after I started this blog I fell into a pretty deep well of depression. It seemed that my world was caving in on me. School was becoming overwhelming, my kids are extremely active and popular, medical issues for my husband and now for me. My Superman hurt his shoulder pretty badly and he'll have surgery next week. I fell and hurt my back 20 years ago and on occasion, it will lock up on me. Last year when I had the flu from hell, I coughed a little too hard and that was it. I'm not quite sure what happened but my back hasn't been right since. About a week ago I got out of bed only to grab hold of my dresser to stop from falling on the floor. Pain shot from my back all the way down and my knees buckled. The tears came almost immediately. "I'm only 37. Why am I in this pain?" are the questions going through my mind as I scoot back to the warmth and comfort of my bed. Once I lay down I realize I have an even bigger problem. Not only is my back throbbing, the initial reason I got outta bed still hasn't been address.....I have to pee!!!!! So my husband, hearing my cry and being concerned, helps me to the bathroom. He has to help me sit down and stand up. That's it! That's it! That's the final straw! I'm 37 and my husband had to help me go to the bathroom? No way! I call the doctor and say I'm on my way. I get there and he asks me what my deal is. He's so funny. He checks me over and prescribes me some pretty heavy drugs ;-) and physical therapy. After I get home, I sit and think. About what? What's gotten me so down over the last couple of months that I ignored the things that were important to me, alone. I ignored school, I ignored my house, and ignored the outside world. I hardly even went outside. I was starting to feel like an agoriphobic. I don't want to be like that. So I started thinking of what I used to do when I got down and it came to me; writing! I used to have dozens of spiral notebooks that I would write in for hours and hours. I have carpel tunnel now so I can't write for hours, but I have an ergonomically correct office and I can type for hours, so I got back to my blog. My goal is to keep this up because of the theraputic properties it has for me. Hopefully, I can take people on my journey of self discovery. How cool is that?