Haven't You Heard? Crazy is in this Year!

Talk about having everything going on at once! My life has been insane! Friday my sister Angie, my Niece Emma and my brother-in-law Matt arrived here in Ohio, unpacked their things and took up residency at my house. They are here doing a Christmas show at the Grace Brethren Church in Westerville, Ohio with their camels and donkey. If you haven't seen the show, I recommend that you do. Lots of singing and story telling, and well you get to see my brother-in-law Matt wearing make-up, which is worth every penny I have to spend to see it.

So over the weekend, I had the three of them, my other sister Brooke and Keith and myself all sharing our one bathroom. Growing up we only had one bathroom for our family of six, so I used to be accustomed to showering in shifts, but I had forgotten what it was like.

Little Emma has taken over my house, which is really funny to me to see toys laying around on my hard wood floors. I have a refrigerator with sippy cups, a miniature potty in my bathroom and the smell of Johnson's baby products perfuming my house. The best part of having them is the laughing. Emma is a good little girl for the most part and she's always laughing and hamming it up trying to be as cute as earthly possible. Kids, they really are something.

The only downside to my family visit is that it falls on my busiest time of the year...FINALS. My FINAL finals! I'm graduating in mere days now and I have no time, or sanity to put towards studying. How can I dedicate myself to Economics when Emma wants to snuggle with me on the couch? And this is why I don't have kids...I would have never made it through college if I had them. They are just too cute to ignore.

So wish me luck, as I try to balance my new found family life with my old life which consisted of studying and the quiet that comes with always being alone. Noise....it's a change, but a good one.


Current Mood: & busy
Current Music: Cheryl Crow - Change Will Do you Good

Where There's Smoke There's Fire & Utter Heartbreak

Tonight my heart is aching for the loss and hurt that resides only a little ways down the road.

We had just ordered pizza, were putting up the Christmas tree, laughing, bickering the way only sisters do and settling in for the night when Keith called and said those words nobody ever wants to hear “Linda and Bruce’s barn is on fire!” My heart fell to the ground; all joy completely gone from my soul.We rushed around the house to find shoes and coats, etc. Just as we opened the door to leave, I saw Bruce standing in the mud room. A smile on his face, a look of peace, I was shocked, I immediately wondered if someone was playing a cruel joke on me….I looked at him and said “What..what are you doing here?” and before he could answer asked “where have you been?” he said he’d been at his father-in-laws, and that’s when I looked at him with a calm and in shock face and said, “Bruce your barn is on fire.” He dashed out the door and we went shortly after him.

We got there and it was engulfed in flames. I jumped from Angie’s truck and ran as fast as I could to the burning barn, Keith, Ben, Cole, and some others were getting the animals away from the barn. Those trapped inside couldn’t be saved. I walked towards Bruce’s shop and there stood little Sammy, all alone, and when she saw me, she screamed my name, I ran to her, and she needed to be held, her eyes were huge, round, filled with tears and she needed comforting like no other little girl I had ever seen. She was barefooted with not even a jacket on her skinny arms and she clung to me for the feeling that she so desperately needed. She made me cry as I held on to her shivering little body.

The guys got trucks hooked up to the trailers and pulled things away from the barn to try to save what they could, but the barn literally vanished before our eyes. The hay mound collapsed and the barn buckled in the blazing heat. Linda wasn’t home yet, but when she arrived, she was sick with grief! Here I thought I was having a bad night and here in front of me was someone else’s life literally being burnt up, being taken away with a simple spark.

We didn’t make it to get the pizza until over an hour later. I accidentally gave the lady at the window $27.00 plus managed to give her a $50 bill as well, then drove off with my 25 cents change only to realize I just gave the girl a fifty dollar tip. Lucky for me she gave it back to me when I realized what I did and went back through the drive thru line. Our pizza was cold, but none of us had much appetite after what we’d been through tonight.I watched my favorite television show (Grey’s Anatomy) with Angie & Matt, until Matt headed up for bed and smelled smoke in the upstairs bedroom only to discover a towel too close a light bulb that had began to smolder. So, tonight, it could have been my house and Linda’s barn to be lost. My blood pressure still hasn’t returned to normal since that scare. Living in an old house such as mine always has a certain scare factor about it with the old wiring and whatnot, but you never can be too prepared for the day you wake up and realize everything you have is gone. A feeling that in my life, I’ve come too close to experiencing too many times. But, one thing I know is, it’s all just stuff, stuff can be replaced, people however cannot. I choose people over stuff any day!

So for those of you looking for a last minute Christmas gift ideas for me…..FIRE EXTINGUISHERS and SMOKE DETECTORS PLEASE!This post is dedicated to Samantha a brave little girl who tonight will forever be changed by the lesson of loss AND Tanner who is the most big hearted little man I've ever had the pleasure to meet. My heart is with you both tonight!


Current Mood: sympathetic

Howboutcha Karma, remember me....Heather...your friend?

Recently I’ve fallen into a bit of a slump mood-wise, which in all honesty isn’t really like me. It all started when I was driving down highway 90 at 3:00 am listening to some really heavy rock on a radio station I’d never heard of. I started to think up things that come from who knows where in my soul, and by the time I got to State Route 51, I had mentally written a new poem….See….let me try to explain how this works……my brain goes into some weird place and it without my permission just kind of thinks these things up, and well since my brain controls the rest of my body, it makes my hands grasp for paper and pen and write the shit down as it sees fit. So I guess I should have known my mood had shifted when the name of my poem was “Hey Motherfucker!”

Ever since then I’ve felt my spirits declining slightly, but yesterday I hit rock bottom mood wise. It was Thanksgiving. A holiday I usually love, but this year was the first year in thanksgiving history, I had no dinner plans. Every year we spend Thanksgiving with my mother’s side of the family and it’s really the greatest. We eat, sleep, play cards, watch old home videos, laugh, joke, and generally enjoy each other to the fullest while the day rolls on. This year though, it was postponed until Saturday. So yesterday while the rest of the world ate turkey and watched football, I rearranged my furniture, finished my legal argument / research assignment, did laundry and prepared for my holiday houseguests. Yesterday was strange, one minute, I felt down, then something cool like an email from a friend, or finding a dollar in the washing machine would have me bounced back, laughing and joking, then something would happen to bring me down again.

Here’s a perfect example….by evening, I was in fairly good spirits, Brooke, Keith and I went to visit my Aunt and Uncle (Ben & Kim), they were having people over for dinner, mostly people like us who had nowhere else to go. It was fun, we played screw your neighbor (cards) and had some good food, etc. and although it was absolutely freezing outside, I was in a good mood when I got home. Well that was until I walked into my house. My wonderful dog Phoebe, who has been shacking up in our mud room since she had puppies somehow managed to push the front door open and avidly pursue destroying my kitchen with the trash bag she ripped open and ever so considerately deposited over every square inch of my previously clean house. Then when she was done with that, she went into my office and shit on the floor.

Just like that WHAM, back on the down side of life again. I actually, found myself saying out loud, “Heather, you really did it this time, you've wronged someone royally and karma is no longer on your side.”I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m hoping that since I haven’t been feeling the greatest that I’m just fighting off a cold or something and that’s what has my mood and my immune system slightly lowered. Surely I will bounce back any day now.

Current Mood: blah
Current Music: Tracy Chapman - Give Me One Reason

Scrooge No More! - [{Only a month until Christmas}

Did I ever tell you that I used to HATE the holidays? Yeah HATE them. Thanksgiving, Christmas AND New Years. While the rest of the world gave thanks, rejoiced in the spirit of Christmas and blew their New Year’s Kazoos, I shook my head and tried to wish it all away. I detested Christmas music, dreaded holiday get-togethers and hated the fact that my gifts were random and most likely from the clearance bin at Value City while my siblings got something that they had been begging for since last Christmas. I never told anyone back then my true feelings about the season. I always faked being just as happy as everyone else. Apparently I was a good faker, because nobody ever seemed to notice otherwise....or they just didn't care. Can you feel the negativity and ungreatfulness in that? I feel crappy saying it, but it was the truth. And If you can't tell the truth here, where can you?

It wasn’t until I moved in with Amber “my best friend” Kimmet that I realized that the holiday season was about love. The giving of thanks for your loved ones, giving and receiving gifts of love, celebrating the milestone of a another year you were blessed with love.

Since I was the odd girl out in my family I never really could grasp that. Am I saying I never felt loved at home, um, you know, not..not really. There were fleeting moments when I felt it here and there, but they were fleeting. I don’t know if it was my mom stressing about being able to afford to buy us stuff, or what it was, but the holidays in our home never felt like a definition of love to me. Likely because our home wasn't a defintion of love any other time of the year either! It was just another day of me feeling that I was born into a family I didn’t quite belong to, but amplified ten times. I feel as though maybe I should tell you this slightly embarrassing story about me to prove to you how screwed up about the holidays I really was as a young person……Well, when I was almost 15, I was dating, well seeing not dating a guy who was 19. He was a freshman in college, and I was a freshman in high school. I thought he was dreamy since he had been the quarterback of our high school football team and now a college guy! Anyway, we had been going out for about 10 months when I decided that giving him my virginity for Christmas was going to be a great idea. Yes, you heard me correctly, I was giving my virginity as a Christmas present. Looking back on it now, I shake my head and slap my hand to my forehead embarrassed to death by my immature attempts at intimacy with the opposite sex. But I’ve got to tell you, at the time, it seemed to me to be the best gift ever. I of course ran it by my friends who said, “Man, Heather! That’s Huge!” None of them had “done it” yet, so they were pretty excited for me.

So on Christmas, my mom drove me to his house so we could “exchange gifts” as we had surely planned. I found myself looking at my mom’s face as she drove me. If she only knew what she was driving me to do. She’d have locked me up and threw away the key.It wasn’t until I opened his gift to me that I realized; maybe the whole virginity thing wasn’t such a good idea. I got a really ugly sweater. I mean, I was giving him my virginity and I got a hideous sweater….A SWEATER! I can only imagine what my face looked like when I opened it. I was probably all pale and nervous looking anyway, and then add the look of disgust and disappointment and I bet I was looking far from sexy! I don’t know what I had expected to receive from him, but somehow a sweater just seemed insignificant under the circumstances.

Once the gifts were opened, there was only one thing left to do…he led me to a bedroom and he took off my clothes, laid me on the bed and then took his off as well. He got out a condom, put it on, and began to devirginize me. He knew I was nervous and did his best to try to make me feel comfortable, he was very caring and gentle with me throughout the ordeal. However, my little almost 15 year old body wasn’t having it. Apparently the sweater not only shook me mentally, but physically too. After several minutes of trying to have sex, I called off the troops! There was just no way THAT THING was going all the way in there. So yeah, it was an awkward moment in time. Me with my sweater, him with the Ohio State sweatshirt I got him as a decoy for the real gift that I just failed miserably to give him. I don’t recall getting dressed so fast, or calling my mom to come get me so enthusiastically ever! I didn’t even wait in the house; I put on my coat and sat on the front steps for her to arrive. My boyfriend eventually realized I wasn’t in the house and came out and sat with me. He tried to make me feel better about what happened, but I was fairly inconsolable at that point. It was freezing cold on those concrete steps, but I had the heat of embarrassment to keep me warm, that and my new UGLY FUCKING SWEATER! ….*laughing*

So even when I hated the holidays, I was trying to give love, or feel love like everyone else….okay, well not using the same method as everyone else, but I was trying to feel, feel something. Give something...understand what it is to derive joy from the happiness you give..not get!Finally though in 1998, I got it. Mysteriously in the night it must of happened, because i just woke up one day and felt happy and festive for the holidays. I had the saddest little Christmas tree ever known to man that my mom bought for $2.00 at a garage sale. So I got some lights, ornaments, a tree skirt and star for the top. I set it up in our front window and felt really happy when I looked at it, despite the constant ribbing from Amber. She was NOT a fan of my pathetic tree, but even Amber’s loathing of it didn’t set me back to my old ways. I found myself taking pride in my wrapping paper selection instead of wishing I could just give them the damn gift in the store sack. Even more surprisingly I felt the want to get that perfect gift for my family and friends. I don’t know what came over me, I can’t tell you for certain what changed in me, but I’ve fallen in love with the holidays and I haven’t looked back.So if you see me this Christmas, wearing my Santa hat while wrapping gifts and whistling “have yourself a merry little Christmas”, don’t scoff, I went though a lot to get here!

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I dedicate this post to the guy who didn’t quite get my virginity wrapped in a big red bow! Sorry M_ _. I’m even sorrier that I broke up with you immediately following. I guess I just wasn’t ready yet. Oh, and I apologize for publicly announcing that I hated the sweater you got me, it was a really nice gesture to get me anything at all.


Current Mood: killing time
Current Music: R.E.M. - Everybody Hurts

Life is Just Better with Music

Yesterday as I was traveling home from Wisconsin, I drove the first stretch and let Keith drive the rest of the way. Now Keith and I are polar opposites on many of life’s little details and music is no exception. He likes AC/DC entirely too much and that googy Buffalo song by Ted Nugent! Now I saw Ted Nugent in concert while waiting for KISS to come on stage, and while old Ted is a vigorous entertainer, he is however just not my cup of tea. So, call me antisocial, but I slipped on my headphones and listened to them for all but maybe an hour there at the end of the journey. Keith listened to whatever it is that pleased his ears and I listened to my kind of tunes.

It was kind of funny when we found ourselves communicating by use of sign language instead of talking. Instead of saying “Holy Shit, look out for that car!” I’d point, he’d look and we’d half smile at each other. Instead of saying “Geeze, do you have to have that CB turned up so loud, it’s annoying the piss out of me!”, I’d look at him, down at the CB and crinkle my forehead and raise one eyebrow….he tuned it out so the static subsided. He’d point at something funny, I’d look and laugh. It was peaceful.

When communicating without all the talk, it does something magical; it takes out all the unimportant garbage and bitchiness that eight hour drives can invoke. I can’t explain how nice it was to listen to music that moved me, and not HAVE to talk. And I’m a talker by nature, so it was probably really un-like me to do what I did. I’m far from what one would call antisocial. I’m practically comparable to a used car salesman, without the fakeness and cheesy leisure suit.

Yesterdays long journey home would have pretty much sucked with all the Chicago Traffic, AC/DC and Ted Nugent, being trapped in a single cab pick-up with a slight shaking caused from the back tires and the sun burning the side of my face for most of the ride. But with the simplest act of sliding my headphones under my beanie cap, turning the power to on and away went the stress, away went the discomfort, I closed my eyes, occasionally opening them to smile at a truck driver or two and having them smile right back.What is it about music that appeases the mind, causes your foot to move to the beat, make your head involuntarily bounce with an unusual motion? You can’t help but sing the words and you feel the deep down desire to just belt it out at the top of your lungs….Music captivates me, motivates me and fulfills my soul. Think of all the things that you find yourself doing while listening to it.

Here’s my list of things I find to be much better when music is added to the mix.
• Doing the Damned dishes
• Cleaning the house (especially mopping)
• Driving in my car
• Doing homework --(usually classical guitar)
• Working
• Resting
• Surfing the internet
• Working out
• Making the bed
• Cooking
• Having sex
• Shopping
• Eating
• Peeing
• Showering
• Putting on makeup
• Picking out what to wear
• Writing

So maybe I should have made a list of things that I don’t do while listening to music eh? *laughs to myself*


Current Mood: busy playing catch up
Current Music: Send the Pain Below - Chavelle

Checking in from the Depths of the wildnerness of Wisconsin

19 November 2005 @ 09:03 am
Good Morning!

Well it's 9:00 a.m. in beautiful snow-covered Wisconsin. The temperature is cold, the sun is bright and little Emma Rae is showing me her dora the explorer panties. So it's not exactly a tropical paradise with cabana boys bringing me fruity drinks, but it's vacation to me!

I won't write so much as to bore you with the details, but I wanted to write so those of you who wished me safe travels would know we made it okay. It was snowing a lot when it was my turn to drive (the last shift) and we arrived slipping and sliding around every corner in Keith's 2-wheel drive Ford Ranger at 4:00 a.m., but we arrived.

Oh, and traveling in a Ranger, turns out similiar to what it must be like when you are used to traveling in first class and get seated in coach instead. I couldn't even stretch my legs out all the way, and I'm not that tall! No seat lying back could be done, no back seat to keep your stuff in and only a cassette player to which we had no cassettes to play. Well except for that one REO speedwagon tape I had left over from the early 90's....which we didn't listen to.

So anyway...we made it! Well....I have to go....going Christmas shopping up in Fond Du Lac. Have a wonderful weekend all. I'll write more once I'm back in good ol' Ohio!


Current Mood: Not exactly awake yet.
Current Music: Twist and Shout -Emma's Sing Along Tape

Waging War Against Ourselves

Does anyone else feel that the inner conflicts we have within ourselves are causing too much unneeded stress? I’m not talking about your “what should I wear” conflicts where your mind says your attire looks fine, but your ass says to you “are you kidding me?” No, I’m talking about those nagging feelings of doubt, longing, restlessness, wanting for unattainable or even morally corrupt things.

For example (this is just one mind you): If someone were to ask me when were you the happiest, well many of you know my answer to that, from approximately 1998-2000. The world wasn’t perfect and I had to overcome too many obstacles to count, but it was life. That life is one that I was more than happy to keep living, BUT just because your world is seemingly perfect, the outside world is constantly changing around you.Let’s take my “old” life for example….I lived both alone for part of the time and with Amber the other part. Both occasions were pleasing to me. I enjoyed the companionship of my best friend being there everyday but I appreciated the solitude that living alone had to offer as well. The drinking at times perhaps a bit extreme, but under control for the most part. The fun consisted of drinking, spending quality time with friends, meeting new people, traveling to wherever the wind blew us, dancing, laughing, playing games, shopping on our measly salaries and spending countless hours watching lifetime recovering from hangovers.

Now, on paper this life doesn’t necessarily sound all that appealing….or responsible for that matter, but it was the happiest I have ever been. What does that say about me? That I love an undesirable lifestyle? That I have commitment phobias, that I am a closet alcoholic, that I’d rather be carefree and wild then committed, tied down and responsible?

Yeah, sure we all chalk it up to “we were young”…..and now we have had the metamorphosis that transformed us into mature adults and even parents for so many of my friends…..but I’m still waiting for it to get good. I know I’m kind of stuck here in the middle between my old life…and the new one…..when you are totally focused on college, it’s hard to actually be able to reap the benefits of the life I’ve been living for the last five years…..I haven’t become a mother, I rarely see my husband, I work, study, eat, sleep, shower and write this crap most days.

My friends are all one step ahead of me with their careers in place, children born, living the normal life…..but I’m not even sure that “living the normal life” is going to be fulfilling to me. What if it isn’t? What if two kids, two dogs and one husband into it, I say to myself..”Heather…This SUCKS!” Talk about biting off more than you can chew then….!! But if I don’t live that life, what is my alternative? Being 40, single, hanging out at the Rustic with people in their twenties who have their whole life ahead of them, reminding me that mine is slowly slipping by without a thing to show for it?

Blind ambition is a bitch. I want to do something, but I don’t know what, I want to be somebody, but I don’t know exactly who, I want to love in a way that is pure, but the feeling seems to too often escape me and I want to be happy without consequence. It’s hard to say I’m asking for too much, when it’s me who’s not even sure what it is I’m asking for. See these are the internal struggles that I deal with….I could write for eternity on issues like this…..DOES ANYBODY ELSE FEEL THIS WAY???!!!

Now don’t worry too much about little old me because despite my neurosis I somehow manage to function just fine in whatever life I lead. I think I can thank my Aquarian nature for that. I consider myself entirely too lucky in that I am able to find joy in so many little things, that it’s sometimes easy to squash the internal battles and just smile about what’s right before me. Movies, playing my guitar, taking beautiful photographs, walking along the river, music, sleeping in a bed with clean sheets and a down comforter, talking to Amber, Rachel, Brooke, both Mikes, Angie & Emma and Linda, swimming, playing tennis (especially with Tina & Linda, who both make me laugh more than I hit the ball), volleyball in my back yard, watching sex in the city while curled up on my big red couch that I actually bought new, making someone smile, helping an old lady with a door, helping anyone in general….when my life feels to be one big aimless wandering…I distract myself with the beautiful things that I don’t have to try so hard for….they are the natural things. There is a lot to be said for the things in life that are free and simple pleasures.

I think I’ll quit whining now and count my blessings instead!Here’s a blessing, only a few more hours before I leave for Wisconsin…..:*smiling profusely*


Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Alice In Chains

Anticpating Live After College

I’m not one to usually dote on myself, but I’m pretty impressed by me at the moment. It’s 11:58 p.m. I just finished a rather lengthy research assignment/legal argument preparation and I’m sooooo….TIRED. This week has been nuts and it’s only Wednesday. Monday work and then home to prepare my Economics interview assignment and oral presentation. Tuesday morning 8:00 a.m. to the Allen County Courthouse to learn how to do a title search. Followed by a day full of work, then straight home, to guitar and then home to spend the rest of the night (until 2:45 a.m.) working on the paper I just finished about a half hour ago. Can you believe with all of that going on, I actually felt bad for skipping my aerobics class? I did some sit ups around 1:30 a.m. to make myself feel better about it though. So all is well in Heather’s world of fitness…at least until next week.

If there's one thing i've learned over the last few years and that's how to bite off more than I can chew, but somehow, at the final moment, still mangage to pull it off somehow. Thank God this is my last quarter, my miraculous finishing of procrastinated work is starting to take its toll.

Tomorrow, I have work until noon, then it’s off to school for Real Estate Law, followed by Civil Trial and Procedure, then home to do laundry, pack, take Phoebe and her puppies to the dog sitter and then off to Wisconsin until Monday. All of this work….leading up to my departure….ah, I can’t wait to get away from here…..No offense to anyone who I’m leaving behind, but a change of scenery will do me some good. I will sit and watch the snow fall, while strumming Matt’s guitars (much nicer than my own by the way), stay in my pajama’s all day if I want, and do NOTHING! I may even sleep in while snuggling with my niece, the cutest little two-year-old girl in the world.

Well, it’s now 12:09 a.m. I’m to the point of having to use toothpicks to hold my eye lids open and I don’t know if I have the strength to hike all the way upstairs….I just looked over at my big fluffy red couch and imagined myself embedded in it…..yeah, it’s time for me to go. Good night…..and I’ll try to post from the beautiful state of Wisconsin….if I feel up to it!Falling asleep now ………..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……………zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


Current Mood: Coma toast
Current Music: Adam Sandler's Thanksgiving Song!

Strangers

Perspective is a funny thing…..I met someone recently; a complete stranger for the sake of conversation purposes. He, being of a complete different background of course has a lot of outside views on my life and the things we discuss. It’s refreshing to talk to someone who is so different, yet similar to yourself….perhaps it is geography, perhaps age difference, whatever it is, it’s a welcomed change from your everyday conversationalist.

When meeting someone new, you have that rush of interest in finding out all there is to know about this person…everything from their shoe size to their favorite color. You find yourself talking and talking and nothing seems to hinder your willingness to share, learn, inquire or divulge. Why is it sometimes easier to talk to a complete stranger than to your own best friend, your family or even your significant other? Is it because nothing you say really matters in the long run; the fact that you are free to be whomever you really are, because they have not formed any misconceptions about you….they are ultimately a blank canvas whom is willing to be covered by your colorfulness, whether your colors are blues and grays and blacks, or the most vivid of oranges, yellows and reds, they welcome whatever you have to bring to the table. That kind of welcome in life is inspiring. I mean, in this journal I have written a couple times about encountering some of the ugliness that the human race can tend to dish out…all the negativity that plagues so many daily lives…but here is a person who is seemingly happy regardless of his own plights, courteous of others with a inquisitive nature and general wish to connect with others in a meaningful way without the complication of defining such connections. A few minor details aside, a soul similar to my own.

Through the conversations I’ve had recently with this person, I’ve heard the things coming out of my mouth and when they were repeated or questioned back to me, they sound different. Once they are filtered through his brain, with all the useless particles strained from the main content…it allowed me to see some things more clearly. Things I think I really needed to see clearly so I could make some decisions about things that are important to me, things that have the potential to change my life as I know it. And for this I am grateful.

The thing with strangers is that you never know how long you will have them; you don’t know which conversation will be your last, and the excitement of knowing each other generally burns out before making that transition from stranger to friend. Sure, some manage to plant roots and lock-in their existence in your life, and they take their role as an active participant in your story….but mostly……strangers in the end, return to being just that….strangers.


Current Mood: Sleepy...stayed up til 2:30 am
Current Music: Classical Guitar

The beginning of the Ending...

I’ve been thinking a lot about different things, relationships, life, wisdom, and talent…. I’ve come to the conclusion that I hate endings and love beginnings. I am not a fan that in order for some beginnings to begin, something else must end. The demand for finalization scares me. Final is final and there is no going back….burnt bridges can be rebuilt, but never the same, words said can never REALLY be taken back, and hearts that are broken always bare the scars regardless of how well they have healed.

Beginnings are hopeful, exciting and full of possibilities; middles are comfortable, familiar and reliable, ends, are heart breaking, depressing and can even leave you longing for the rest of your life. When you’ve had something, and you lose it, can it ever really be replaced, or forgotten?

Favorite Beginnings:

• Birth of a baby
• The first amazing conversation with a stranger whom you wonder if you might fall in love with
• New socks~First kisses
• Sunny summer mornings
• Starting a new career
• The smell of a new car
• Reading the first page of a book you can’t wait to really get into
• The touch of someone you’ve just become intimate with….the unfamiliarity of it…
• The first day of Vacation

Great Middles:

• Shoes that you finally have broken in
• Friendships
• Stories
• Cappuccino once it’s cooled to that perfect temperature between too hot and getting cold.
• Middle of a first date when you discover…. “Wow, he’s not at all what I thought he would be like, he’s better!”
• Middle of getting an education…the beginning behind you, no longer scared, the completion in sight, reward within reach….
• The middle of summer, when the days are long and nights are warm.
• The middle of a bath when the water has begun to soothe your aching muscles and you close your eyes and feel perfectly relaxed.

Endings I wish I could postpone indefinitely

• A good movie or book that you never want to end
• Television Series that still have story lines left to explore
• A song that takes you away to another place
• A first kiss
• A night of productivity
• Leaving a job you’ve been at forever
• Ending a relationship / marriage
• Ending a friendship
• Vacations
• Dreams
• Love
• Hope
• Death
  
  

Current Mood: excited about vacation
Current Music: Pink Floyd

Good News

Hey everybody Phoebe had her puppies today!4 - boys2 - girls all black and perfect in everyway!I can't wait to get home from work to see my new little bundles of joy!


Current Mood: Proud of my girl Phoebe!
Current Music: Nirvana

Impulse Buys

Impulse buys are the crazy unnecessary things that you drop into your cart while standing in a check out line. Well, most of the time they are anyway. Yesterday I impulsively purchased panties that are styled after men’s boxer briefs, but shorter and cuter. Perhaps I’ve never told you this before, but I L-O-V-E, love underwear. You know how most women love shoes; well I love panties. Shoes though I have to tell you are a close second.So back to these new panties….they are cute, pink, blue and white stripped and they actually cover my whole bottom.

For the last few years I’ve been completely devoted to thongs, with the occasional use of my black panties that say “Rebel” across the back, or the red ones that have the little gemmed guitar on the side that cover most of my backside, but leave a little of each cheek uncovered. I don’t know what possessed me to purchase these new unconventional undergarments, but really, what’s conventional about a string going up your ass anyway? I tossed them into my cart and said to hell with conventional, we are doing this!

Later that night, I decided to try them out. I pulled off my pants, removed my existing thong and tossed them into the laundry hamper. I pulled the new ones on and was surprised at how well I liked them. They didn’t bunch up, they fit perfectly and made me feel like I could run a marathon, perhaps even the high jump. They are sporty looking, and I am very pleased with my purchase.

I wonder however if a man would find men’s underwear on a woman sexy. Is it taboo to seduce your man while wearing the same thing down below as him? I mean, if I was about to get it on with a guy who was wearing a jeweled thong, I would run out of the room screaming in horror! Does this mean I’m not comfortable with a man who’s comfortable enough with his own sexuality to wear women’s panties?

Well, I’ve only had these new underwear one day, I suppose i should calm down, take a deep breath and investigate this further and let you know if panties get ripped off faster or not at all when they are styled after the latest in men’s fashion. To be continued......


Current Mood: Fighting a Sore Neck
Current Music: CCR

Littering....

For as long as I can remember, nobody I knew ever, ever thought it was okay to litter. Even the word litter was sacrilegious if spoken in the presence of any one of the “Osting” clan. No cigarette wrappers, pop cans, fast food sacks or tissues were ever tossed carelessly from any of our windows. I’d like to think that the anti-litter campaign started because of the fact that I spent the whole of my childhood cleaning up beer cans, broken lawn chairs, candy bar wrappers and used condoms after each and every infamous campground “band night”; however the holy commitment to the environment most likely stemmed from my Grandfather “Red” Osting. He was a very stern, serious and respected man. He died the year before I was born, but his legacy was never out of my reach. Stories of him were ever present and I yearned to hear about any and all of his little idiosyncrasies.

One such legend my Grandfather ever so passionately left behind was his “what goes around, REALLY does come around” tale. It was a typical summer day in Northwest Ohio, sun shining, birds chirping in the trees surrounding my grandparent’s house. My Grandfather was in the yard doing a little outside maintenance. He was enjoying his day, showing his meticulous pride in having everything look its best when he noticed a car driving slowly by. Now, those of you in the city perhaps have never heard of “country cruising”. Let me break it down for you, it’s where you drive around in the “country” drinking beer where there are supposedly less chances of getting pulled over. It’s very popular with the pre-bar crowd. Too young to get in the bars, too old to get plowed and ride your bike around the block….therefore you are left to do the only thing you can do…. “country cruise”.

With all of that said, this next part shouldn’t surprise you! The slow moving automobile, tossed out a beer can along with some other miscellaneous trash. Tossed it out in my Grandparent’s yard, and worst of all, right in plain view of my Grandpa! Like a special ops officer, he threw down his tools, ran through the trees within the woods, and made it to the north road before the car had even turned the corner and proceeded east on Miracle. Without missing a beat, he got the license plate number off the vehicle and then made his way back to pick up the evidence of the crime committed against him, and every other person who has been trashed along the way.The following week, on one of his Construction sites, it was quitting time. Grandpa Red, loaded up all of the construction waste from the day into his dump truck, which included broken glass, wood, nails, insulation, bricks, wiring, you know typical construction materials. It was routine at the end of each day to pick up and prepare your site to be in working condition before each and every new workday. This day was no exception. He instructed my uncle and my father to make haste with getting every last item to be disposed into the bed of the truck; nothing was to be left behind.Sluggish and tired after a hard day of work, they obeyed their father and loaded everything just as instructed. He then looked at them and said, “Get in boys”. Being as they were young, tired, dirty, and probably hungry, they began to complain when he again said, “Get in!” They climbed into the truck and away they went. The boys talked amongst themselves about their day and their plans for that night when they realized the truck was no longer moving. They turned to their father to see him putting the truck into reverse. Peered out the window, searching desperately for the dump site within this very residential area they began to become nervous. Their eyes would have continued their hard search but were interrupted with, “Get out there and open the tailgate!” They jumped out as quickly as they felt the situation called for. Then they watched in amazement as my Grandfather; their father dumped an entire day’s worth of construction garbage onto the front lawn of a little house, off a side street in the middle of town. Once the truck was emptied, the boys jumped back in the truck and they headed home so as to make it on time for dinner. The return payment had been made.

What my father and uncle didn’t know is that the day that careless litterbug had so foolishly trashed my Grandpa’s yard, he called in a favor from his friend the Sheriff and got the information from the license plate number that he had gotten that day in the woods. He then planned and executed a lesson to be learned by all litterers everywhere: DON’T EVER, EVER, EVER THROW GARBAGE IN MY GRANDPA’S YARD, OR YOU’LL BE PICKING NAILS OUT OF YOUR GRASS FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS….MAYBE LONGER!” ~What? Did you expect a more profound lesson?~


Current Mood: In a state of restlessness
Current Music: Cant' Get You Out of My Head - Kylie Minogue

Belated Halloween Story

Most of you already know this, but my father is crazy! Not crazy like pet raccoon crazy, but crazy like paranoid-control freak-domestically violent-stalker-crazy! So I would normally never write a story about my father that actually contained fond memories since there were so few to recall from childhood, but the Halloween season does bring back a couple distinct memories, and it’s only fitting they are scary ones.

My father always liked to scare his girls. Which looking back now…is a wee bit unusal I think, but at the time, he was our dad, and it seemed normal. I’m not sure why he got such a thrill out of making us scared enough to pee our pants, but he loved it.

One night it was just us girls home alone. Angie was supposedly babysitting us while our parents were away for a couple days. Yeah, you heard me right; three young girls were left alone for a few days to our own devices. It was around 11:00 p.m. when the phone rang…..the big old rotary style phone that hung in our kitchen next to a rather large picture window. Angie answered, well because she was the oldest and supposedly the most mature, that and she could beat the rest of us up, so she generally did what she wanted. She said “Hello?” and then she sat there with a look on her face of sheer bewilderment. Angie quickly hung up the phone, and then pulled the curtains closed and ran into the living room. I asked “Angie, who…who was on the phone?” Before she could answer my question, the phone began to ring again. She looked at me and said “you get it this time!” I hesitantly picked up the receiver and that’s when I heard what had Angie in a panic…it was laughing, a god awful laughing of a man. A creepy, eerie, laughing that didn’t stop, just kept laughing until it sounded that he hadn’t a breath left to produce his cackle, but then he would laugh some more. Finally the laughing stopped and the line fell silent, and he disconnected.

By this time, Brooke was in tears, I wanted to run around the house locking all the doors and pulling all the blinds….Angie was trying to remain calm and collected, but we were all shook to the core with fear. The phone rang again…..Angie stood up and grabbed up the receiver and said “Hello!”….followed by “Who is this?” “WHO IS THIS!!??” Her fear was turning to Anger. Brooke and I just stood next to her for little sister moral support, which I’m not sure was worth much, more symbolic than anything I suppose. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the laughing stopped and was followed by some laughing from a familiar voice, my father’s. He apparently bought us this frightening clown doll that when you pushed on his stomach, he would laugh, and laugh, and laugh in a creepy clown kind of way. None of us thought my father’s trickery was very funny, and when he finally came home the next day and brought that doll with him, we all refused to ever play with it. As a matter of fact, we avoided it like the plague. To this day if I were to hear that laugh would give me nightmares for a week.

The other notable time that my father scared the ever living shit out of me was on a 1980's Halloween night, after the hayride and after everyone in our campgrounds had safely made their way back to their campsites. I had been down by the shelter house sitting around the fire pit, playing in the stones with my feet, when I heard the faint sound of hoof prints in the distance. Horses were my life and I’d know that sound even if I were deaf and in a coma. I heard the hooves getting closer, the pounding created by their force getting louder. I squinted my eyes down the path to try to make out what I was seeing…..flowing mane of a white horse and a luminous figure riding upon its back. The closer it got, the less I was squinting, and by the time my little girl brain could comprehend what my now hugely wide eyes were seeing, that’s when it happened…..the flaming pumpkin carved to look as though it was stolen from the depths of hell that was carried by the ghoul on the horse threw it to the ground igniting a flame that would spread and burn for 100 yards down the path behind him…people were screaming….laughter rang through the night from the seemingly headless creature which rode upon a white horse. The flames continued to burn as if hell were erupting from below the Woods and Waters soil, the pounding hoof beats faded into the night which then fell silent. I was frozen until the flames went out and even then I didn’t dare move until someone came looking for me after all the commotion.

As far as spooky goes, my father had a gift. Scaring women and children have always been his strong suit. I just wish it were something he would have confined only to the October 31sts, that one day of year when scary, creepy, and horribly terrifying is the order of the day.


Current Mood: In good spirits - It's Friday!
Current Music: Damien Rice - Again...He's addictive!

Hidden Treasures

A couple weekends ago, I went to visit my sister Brooke in Dayton, Ohio. It was nice to get away, just relax somewhere where you don’t have dishes to do, laundry to wash and floors to sweep. So, okay, I’m putting off my cleaning….don’t look at me that way, I’m sorry that I’m not one of those anal people who take a white glove to everything! Okay, well now that I’ve gone on the defensive….lets move on……Anyway, I was in Dayton with Brooke, doing homework for the most part. I did homework until 3:00 a.m. on Friday night, got up around 9:00 a.m. and did homework until 2:00 p.m. So needless to say, I was about f*cking sick of doing homework by the time Brooke said she and I were going to go do some shopping. I welcomed the break from the never ending sometimes overwhelming Civil and Trial Procedures case briefs.

Now Brooke’s idea of shopping is a little different from my own. She loves a good bargain, and well considering that she is the definition of a broke college student, I can see why she does. On that note, the first place she took me was a thrift store. Now I haven’t been to a thrift store since the last time I donated about 10 bags of clothing to the Delphos Community Thrift Store and that was to donate, not shop.

The place was hopping with every type of person, there was the lady with the six screaming kids all wrecking the place, the old bag-lady looking woman who was looking at afghans, teenagers scouring the place for Halloween ideas and Brooke and I. I felt entirely over dressed in my seemingly average outfit.

Brooke starting going through the racks, and I yawned. Maybe I just don’t have the patience for thrift store shopping. Rummaging through rack after rack, checking for sweat stains and missing buttons. Maybe I’m not the smartest person alive, but the way I see it, I work my ass off all week long for my paycheck. A paycheck that I hope can afford me the luxury to go to a retail establishment which actually has dressing rooms for me to try things on and has more than one size to chose from. Maybe I just want too much out of life….Once I decided that I wasn’t interested in looking for clothing, I went on a search for something else. It started out with books. They had a couple of stacks to which I sifted through. I read the backs, laughed at some of the ridiculous ones and not being surprised as to why they ended up in a thrift store instead of lovingly on a bookshelf in one’s home. I spent the majority of my time book shopping, but when nothing peaked my interest I wondered off towards the corner of the store. This particular corner was filled with all kind of miscellaneous items from typewriters, fax machines, cell phones to toaster ovens. It was in this sea of obsolete equipment I saw the greatest find in the place…..something I had always wanted……a magic 8 ball. You know the silly little 8 ball filled with blue liquid that answers your questions, predicts your future with lines like “It is decidedly so”, “Yes”, “My sources say No”, etc. I swiped that thing up so fast, the Chinese lady next to me thought I was going to take off running with it. She looked a little startled by my delight with such an idiotic piece of plastic. Oh, and I was in luck, it had an orange sticker which meant that it was half price. Half off of 75 cents, man this was my lucky day!

It’s silly how a stupid little thing like a magic 8 ball can make you smile from ear to ear, I think I appeared to be the happiest or most suspicious person in the store once I had it in my hands. The rest of the day I drove my sister crazy, consulting with my toy on where to eat, what to wear, asking all those questions you never thought you would get an answer to….she got into it after awhile. She’s a kid at heart just like I am. After all she was addicted the Rubik’s cube just last Christmas, so she has no room to talk.

Now I keep my magic ball on the nightstand next to my bed, I consult with it regularly. It’s usually wrong, but it did say yes when I asked it if it was going to rain today….so 1 out of 100’s not bad right?!…..The point to my story, if you want to call it a point….is that I had no interest in shopping at a thrift store, but had I closed my eyes to everything around me, I might have missed out on something. So I guess what I’m trying to say is, don’t close yourself off to trying new things, experiencing what you might not normally attempt, you may not know it exists and if you don’t go in search of it, you may not find the hidden treasure that’s waiting and longing to be discovered by you and only you. Happy hunting and let me know what you find.


Current Mood: running on empty
Current Music: Vince Gill