This isn't pretty

Okay, I think I have Trust issues. The trust I am not getting from others. Maybe even respect. Where did I lose it and why? Tom seems to think that I leave myself open to this. What does that mean? Leave myself open to it? Of course he couldn't give me any examples of "leaving myself open to it"..he never does when he gives me his two cents. which is all it is when he can't elaborate for me. Lame!

So the feeling of people not hearing me or taking me seriously is bugging the hell out of me. I am competing with people who have to have their hands in everything and that sucks because they don't leave anything alone. even when it's not suppose to imvolve them!!! Why do these people think that everything has to have their signature on it.

I just want people to respect that I have a handle on things that get handed to me. That I am able to pull things off without having them be involved. Even my own husband doesn't trust me. He doesn't trust my recall ability, he doesn't trust my cooking, "Is there mustard in that?" He doesn't need to ask someone else to make sure what I told him was true. Whats that?
Then when I have opinions about sets and lighting and costumes that they get some validlity instead of poo pooed off like " what does she know". Or " we've" already taken care of that. To even consider that the only thing that I am doing for this play is a Rock prop !!! and that maybe I can handle that!!!???? without anyone's two cents? Am I being to sensitive about these stupid things? that I should just get over and move on? Ignore it? Hell no.
I deserve the same considerations as anyone else. I am VALID!!! So kiss my ass!

(breath)

~Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.--Mohandas Gandhi

What can I say?

Nothing I guess. I haven't been inspired to write on my blog latley. I think it's because I really don't want to expose myself too much. I have some shit going on with me, but I don't want to clam it yet. what's up with that? I can't lay it out there. So off I go with life and all is well until I resolve what ever it is that is bugging me. What bugs me is that I only have this issue in my life that is far most right now. It seems so meager and un-important compared to the whole picture of life itself.. why does it weight so much on me? why does it keep me from reaching out? I don't return calls. I don't want people making plans and including me. I want to be left alone.... But I don't. So I make things happen and I am , most of the time very glad I had.
So what the hesitation? Why the stall? Am I not listening?

~If you want to love, take the time to listen to your heart. In most ancient and wise cultures it is a regular practice for people to talk to their heart. There are rituals, stories, and meditative skills in every spiritual tradition that awaken the voice of the heart. To live wisely, this practice is essential, because our heart is the source of our connection to and intimacy with all of life. And life is love. This mysterious quality of love is all around us, as real as gravity… Yet how often we forget about love….
~Jack Kornfield

Peace Rally in Traverse City

"For seven years Traverse City have been combinding conflict resolution services at (11 ) elementary schools. 500 students have been trained in CR skills and assist their peers in finding peaceful resolutions to everyday school related problems. The theme is "Have a Hand in Peace." Way to go Upper Michigan!

Can youu imagine if it was a required course in all public elementary school in th US? before moving on to high school? Is that too big brother? Well, big brother is screwing up and needs to change the focus! I ripped this article out of the local paper while on a short vacation. I think I'll send it to the Superintendent of schools in our area.

" If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children."--Mohandas Gandhi

Turning another page

what is all this new stuff on my blog? I don't like changes!!!
I get the feeling I have more options to my simple little blog. here, lets play a bit and see what happens. insert block quotes? insert link? italic tags? bold tags? Have I been lifted up to the next level?

This is what happens when you don't get on the blog for a few days. I'm lost in my own blog!

Went to a going away party this weekend for some good friends of mine. It was a "get trashed and go down memory lane, can I say a whole sentance without slurring my words party. ( I'm guilty of that). I wanted to "have some fun" and I got it. I don't think I liked it though. I started looking around me and seeing thing differently. I didn't like what I saw. I didn't want to be a part of a group that night. I wanted to be one on one or noting. So much for the socialbility aspects of my personality. And I'm not even p.m.sing!!

I just wanted a one person conversation and a few cigarettes. People got so trashed. You'd think we were in high school, talking about how lucky we were not to have killed anyone in our younger days. What's that? What about tonight? Lucky for me my husband only has one beer at these gatherings. Not much of a drinker. True Brethren background can do that to ya.

I think I just needed to withdrawl from people. I am pretty sensitive to how people react to me. I've been sensing a lack of "something" from a few . Sometimes I thinks it respect and other time just plain value. It concerns me when this happens. I try to brush it off, but I find myself getting a bit miffed about it, so I hang back until it subsides enough for me to get back into swing of things. I find that it's a time for me to look at myself and try to see what other people see. Who the hell likes to do that? There isn't a gathering that goes by that I don't rerun conversations and cringe at some of the things I've said.

I think it has something to do with this homechooling group I've been hanging with. There are so many highly motivated people that there isn't any room for another. I take this as a call to slow down even more in my life. (why not?) Why put out all the effort when someone or somebodies want to do it? I say "go for it"! and put my feet up and kick back. What an adjustment. But one I obviously need to consider invaluable. I will not do it all anymore! There is always someone else to take your place. WA-HO! Better them than me? right?

So where is this all going? Where do I end up? What is my new focus? Is it me? Is it my kids? Is it my marriage?

~Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life--learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.--Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)

I need a Cigarette

I just do. So I get some and light it up and wow, it tastes like shit but I keep smoking it just because. I enjoy a good smoke once in a while, but the situation has to be just so for it to be enjoyable. Tonight I wish the situation was just so but it isn't. Maybe I need more than just a smoke. I need to meditate on what it is I need........shit.I just want to party, laugh and let go.
I want to just let go.

"The soul of our quest for the simple life reflects a need to re-establish control of our lives." ~ Peter Fossel ~

Making a dent into our first week of vacation and things are getting done. Framing the windows for the treehouse and weeding and transplanting in the garden. But outside the home things still go on. Dance lesson's, mom's nights out for the homeschooling group, script program for Holycross school and some babysitting.

I only get a few weeks a years to be home at night during the week with my husband. During those time I expect for the world to stop , no one calls and asks for anything (church), or all lesson's suspended until further notice. but that is not the reality we live in, just my fantasy. I guess that is what you get if you don't spend major amounts of money and go somewhere to get away from it all. (gas prices & bills to pay controlled vacation).

It takes at least a week to get into the mode of a vacation before it really starts to feel like a vacation. That is why after years of taking one week at a time we decided to do two in order for my husband to feel rested and have a feeling that he has accomplished things he's been wanting to get done or experience.

This Saturday we ( and the homeschooling group) are going to Chicago to see "A Midsummers Night Dream" at Navy Pier. It should be great. The homeschooling group will be using two acts in the 'wood scene' of MSND, to put on a small 20 minute play of our own for friends and family. We have been working on this for weeks. The children will memorize their lines and have homemade costumes made by one of our mothers who wants to use them in her portfolio. So you can imagine her expectations. So we gave her a budget and anything over that she has to suck it up. I am in charge of some of the props. Shakespeare didn't use a whole lot of props, in fact none most of the time. So just a few bushes and a boulder is all that is asked of me. I leave the rest to the others who have the energy to talk about all other aspects to death.... this is what I feel tonight's mom's night out will be about. I think I will excuse myself and leave early , get home to my man and continue spending this rare time with him.

~"I think we can already see the conflict of attitude which will decide our future.  On one side, I see people who think they can cope with our... crisis by the methods current... I call them the people of the forward stamped.
On the other side, there are people in search of a new lifestyle, who seek to return to certain basic truths about man and his world.  I call them homecomers." 
~E.F. Schumacher

Shakespeare's sonnet #15

When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night,
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.
    

To garden is to let optimism get the better of judgment.

It's nice to work on a small simple vegetable garden. No big expectations, no fluffy foo foo stuff, just vegetables. One of the three mom's who is part of this garden is highly motivated. Too much so. I feel she bites off more than she can deal with. This we have excepted because we all have our issues, but it really doesn't effect us too much directly, just her kids. But sometimes it leaches over on to us and we can get swept away with all the glory of it. Like I haven't been there or like that myself before? The point is, we just want everyone to be satisfied with what they bring to this group garden. I'm talking a small 20x8.5 foot garden, purely vegetables and herbs. One of the other mom's calls me with great concern about a "budget" for this garden because of the expectations of the motivated mom who wants three or four blueberry bushes and strawberries in half cut barrels. Nice, but not a practical first year garden. So the three or four blueberry bushes have to go and so do the barrels. So much stress is now gone, but what is next? Why did I get involved in this? Where is my sanctuary? I want to be left alone in the vegetable garden. I have to consult with two other people before I do anything? At least I'm starting to feel that way. The good part about this garden is that it is for us mom's rather than the kids. {we've tried this several times before without any interest from the kids, why bother?} They don't want to have anything to do with it until harvest time. That's fine with me. After all the planting is done, which I wish I could do by myself, I will try to show up alone when I can and enjoy the maintenance and the smell of the lilacs that surround this property that draws me there. Today is manure and peatmoss day. The sod is up! Let the tilling begin!

~"A garden is the mirror of a mind. It is a place of life, a mystery of green moving to the pulse of the year, and pressing on and pausing the whole to its own inherent rhythms."
~Henry Beston