Positive Day

Today is Positive Day (Declared by Dust Bunny Hostage's sweet daughter).

What can I be positive about? Let's see...

I positively love my husband and believe that waiting as long as it takes to find your prince is totally worth it!

I positively believe that foster care is worth the heartache (even is sometimes I positively want to rip their little heads off and stuff them down their cute little necks).

I positively believe good friends are earths angels.

I positively believe that every human has a story and that story should be told.

I'm positively sure that even though my upbringing was difficult that God has used every second to mold me for His purposes.

How's that for positive?

On Reading and Writing

I've always struggled with the notion that in order to write well you have to think differently. To fill out a story some detail is required. I'm often frustrated with the simplicity of thought I possess. My life has swung so solidly toward the side of short, simple and straight forward. I love reading because I'm struck with the beautiful ways others string words together. I've read so much lately that my brain has started leaking. By that I mean that sometimes in thinking I'm able to come up with sentences that really say nicely what I'm shooting for. I hope that's a good sign. I have come to terms with the notion that I will likely never write anything publishable. It's fun, though to entertain the thought that I might be able to play around with writing. It's encouraging. I think now if I could figure out character development I'd do well.

It occurred to me today that I should have been keeping a log of all the books I've read. When I was a kid my mother had such a thing and I thought it was really cool. I'm certain I've read hundreds of books in my lifetime. I'm certain though that in the last year I've read A LOT of books. I'd love to know the number. I got three more today and I'm almost halfway through the first one. I'm still stuck on memoirs. I'm reading and I just can't seem to stop.

But Being A Bad Parent Is Much More Fun & Convenient

I'm having a bad day. My girls woke up with a silver spoon in their mouths and decided to start the day acting like spoiled little selfish subhuman beasts.

Last night the oldest without regard for others maybe wanting cereal this morning decided to drink the last of the milk WITH HER ICE CREAM!!!! So she gets up this morning looking for breakfast and said with an attitude "Since we can't have cereal....". And the fun began. She wanted to cook eggs (and destroy my kitchen doing so like she always does). Scott said no because there was a little bit of leftover breakfast casserole that needed to be eaten. She with an attitude exclaimed that she didn't like the stuff. Interestingly enough when I made it she raved about how much she loved it and even had seconds. A few minutes before that the youngest decided she wanted waffles. Neither one of us wanted to make waffles. There was the matter of the breakfast casserole and there were a couple of other options. She continued to gripe about wanting waffles and that she didn't like anything else. SO.... we did not allow the ungrateful subhuman beasts to eat breakfast. I was livid at the notion that they would be so ungrateful given the notion that they didn't even regularly have food in their former life. So.. lunchtime came around and I decided to make my point. I made them PB&J sandwiches. We've been having a bit of a standoff over this particular food item because they've decided that having that once a week for lunch is "too much" and they're "tired of it". I didn't allow them any side item. I made them drink water. I explained to them why the whole bratty ungrateful thing ticks me off. I also told them that if they didn't eat the sandwich they would not be allowed to go to the sleepover they were invited to tonight. It took the older one a while but she managed to get most of it down (except the couple pieces of crust I caught her slipping to the dog) (she's lucky to have lived after that). The younger one ended up sitting there a while. She destroyed the sandwich and kept moving around on her plate. Eventually she declared herself through. I asked her on her way to her room if she ate it all. She said yes. I was suspicious. I asked her if she threw it away. She said no. I assured her that I was headed for the trash can and if I found it in there she would be in huge trouble. I knew by the look on her face that she had thrown it away. Sure enough. She had hidden it in the bottom of the can. (yes I dug) So I went to the bedroom of the guilty child and said to her "I hope it was worth it.. you aren't going to the party and you're grounded to your room from the time the party starts until tomorrow morning." She cried for a good long while. I could hear the older one in there trying to console her. At one point the oldest came out and asked if the youngest REALLY wasn't allowed to go to the party. I assured her that I meant it. The little one cried some more.

So when the little one finally emerged she asked when dinner was. I laughed and told her it would be later and she would be having a PB&J sandwich. I told her she would eat every drop of it. She asked me if she could skip dinner. I said no. She asked why she doesn't get to choose. I told her because in not eating the sandwich, wasting it and then lying to me about what she had done she already made her choice. She was then brazen enough to ask what would happen if she chose not to eat it. I assured her she would eat nothing but PB&J for a solid week. She then said "You mean until you run out of bread?" to which I replied "No, I'll buy enough bread for you to having nothing but that for a week." She walked away. She has come back since then and asked if she eats the dinner sandwich if she can go to the party. I explained to her again that the party ship sailed with her not eating the first sandwich. I sense that the conversation isn't over on her end.

What's really bobo about the situation is that I was gonna have a kid free evening!!!!!!! She ruined that for me. WHY? Why can't I just settle for being a mediocre parent. Is consistency worth it? It damn well better be! That's all I have to say about that.

Raising someone else's damaged children isn't fun. It's a labor of love and I really hope it turns out to be worth it.

I Scratch My Head

Facebook wierds me out at times. I'm "friends" with people some of whom I actually know very little or knew very well a long time ago and therefore have no modern perspective of their lives. Being the person with a penchant for analysis causes wierd things to occur to me while looking at the pages of acquaintences and/or distant friends.

Just a few minutes ago I was looking at pictures the odd character my daughter met at that wierd camp has posted. They are of herself. They are from random photo shoots. Model is one of the many things she does. I can't wrap my brain around her life. It's truly otherworldly. She can't possibly live in the Shenandoah Valley. Moreover.. who are the people in the background at these fashion shows? Do they live in the valley? I scratch my head.

An old friend from high school found me. She was one of those people I knew would be very successful. Instead she dropped off radar shortly after high school. Now she's on Facebook. She's very overweight and married to a man who's 20 years older than her. She's a stepmother and grandmother at 36. In what dimension does she live? I scratch my head.

I've been able to reconnect with lots of people from my hometown. I've been very surprised by seeing who knows who. People from different non-related segments of my life are each other's friends. It's almost like I checked out and my life segments ended up combining in one place and they all met each other and became good friends. It's weird. Weirder still is that some of the people found me and befriended me before they found the people they were actually close to/best friends with back then. How in the world has wallflower me become the go to person for finding people? I scratch my head.

I saddened by one waif of a person that has found me. She was the classic obese elementary school kid. I was nice to her. We had nothing in common really. Her life was sad. She ended up dropping out after 10th or 11th. I didn't even know she dropped out. She told me that when she found me. So, she sends me rounds of drinks and other stuff that I totally ignore. Her status begs constantly for anyone to speak to her. Her life hasn't changed one bit. She was practically dancing when I told her I'm not in Jackson, MS anymore. She wanted to know how I did it! She's stuck. How did I avoid that same fate? I scratch my head.

If I Met Me...

If I met me... I don't think I'd like me. I'm terribly odd. But, I have inside knowledge about myself. If I met me without having inside knowledge perhaps I might like me. I just don't know.

Another odd game I play is within a conversation sometimes I'll "hop" outside of myself and take in the conversation as a third party. I try to see myself as others might see me. How am I sitting? Am I saying stupid or insensitive things? Do I look angry (something I'm told I do all the time)?

I'm also really bad about (during a conversation) doing the same thing for the other person that's speaking to me. I'll basically judge their conversation performance. (No, friend who actually reads this blog, I don't do this to you) I only do that when I'm bored with the conversation but too lazy to change the subject or if I'm otherwise trapped.

My brain is busy lots with being occupied with odd tasks like those mentioned above. I wonder if that's what people are really seeing when they see me. They see the evidence of my weird brain working on my face. If it is, then it's sad to me that they stop there as I know many have. There's so much more beyond my face.

My Mind Is Made of Teflon...

I've just read my third book by Haven Kimmel. I really like her writing. The first two I read were memoirs (my favorite genre of late). The last one I read The Solace of Leaving Early was her first novel. It was really good. The book was very "heady". She quotes lots of literature. It made me very aware that my brain doesn't hold that type of information. All of the literary references were completely lost on me and kinda hurt my brain. The characters were all reminiscent of Lorelai Gilmore (Gilmore Girls) and her quick wit except the things they were saying was all the stuff you might hear a triple PhD spouting instead of movie or music references. The way the story was written really intrigued me. It was predictable and simple but reminded me of a really good dream or walking through a spider web. I understood what was going on but there was an odd ethereal feeling to it. It didn't fall within "my usual" for reading material. The departure was refreshing.

I really wish I could relate to the world for just one day with a really intelligent sponge-type brain that remembers everything. I hear, see, and read so much really good stuff. But.... it just slides off my brain never to be recovered. Nothing sticks! I'm no idiot. My teflon brain just won't hold onto anything. In reading the aformentioned book I began to wonder if there really are people who know all that stuff. I'm certain there are. It creeps me out. I quite enjoy being able to skim along the surface of intellect. I'm a long way from drooling-in-the-corner but I'm also a long way from erudite. I'm in intellectual no man's land. I'm unsure of how I feel about that.

Clever Things

I will ultimately get back to writing clever things. I've been reading A LOT lately and haven't been inspired by daily life because A LOT of it has happened from the couch lately. The couch is a very uninspiring place.