Wednesday, January 30, 2008

It's So Cold Grace Chattered Her Tooth Right Out!

The snow pictures are from Monday though it has been super cold with various combinations of precipitation off and on ever since.



One can only do so much in the area of snow man construction within the window of a two-hour school delay.



After weeks of barely letting anyone LOOK at her tooth, let alone actually try to PULL it, said chomper finally just leaped to freedom as we were leaving the Wilco store yesterday. Thankfully, Grace caught the slippery little sucker in her hands and didn't swallow it.


Grace has been to school ONCE so far this week. A two hour delay means "No School" when you're in half-day kindergarten. She has been having a lot of difficulty going to school lately anyway. We're still trying to get to the bottom of her not wanting to go, but the snow days have made my life easier, at least temporarily, in not having to endure the struggle.

This morning she came to get into bed with me, saw the snow outside and said, "Is there no school today?" To which I replied, "Well, for you there isn't. Do you know why?"

... get ready for this one, folks...

"Because God loves me and wants me to be at home so he made it snow..."

... you know... she's right. She has been needing some extra time with mommy and she's had two unexpected days of it this week and she won't be behind in class.

God is taking care of her.

God is taking care of all of us.

Peace, Ya'll.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

I was born a grown-up.

It's Sunday *morning and to say I have been X-Treme Multitasking would be a gross understatement.

I have been working, listening to some amazing worship music and contemplating where I actually am emotionally/mentally/spiritually, compared to where I thought I was and...

... how...

... I ...

... got ...

... H E R E.

Actually, I've spent the last couple of days pondering the last topic almost constantly.


Disclaimer: By now, you will likely have guessed that this will not be the usual lighthearted "Angeleen" post. I'm going deeper folks and if you'd rather read about premium cat litter and life with cows than watching me plumb the depths of my surprisingly complicated emotional interior, you might want to check back in a post or two.


This isn't the venue for getting too explicit about why I dropped off the planet for a while there, so I will only say that it involved some pretty heavy, life-altering events and choices that have caused me to take a very long look at how I got to the place where those events could occur. I am going to start counseling soon to make my best effort at getting to the bottom of these issues, start healing, stop the cycle of pain and hopefully spare my girls a similar legacy.

They will get to have a childhood full of innocence and security.

I was never a kid.

This is not a new concept in my observations of my self, rather I have a new awareness of the long-term impact of the unaddressed fact.

I was introduced to the quagmire of adult situations and traumas and vocabulary and conflicts and heartaches and pain... all of it... by the age of three.

It was kinda like being fed the Fruit of the Tree of What Grown-Ups Know and Wish They Didn't served on a graham cracker and washed down with the innate knowledge I had no power whatsoever to escape any of it.

By the time I was about 12, for all practical purposes, I was fully indoctrinated... the only vestige of childhood that remained was the inability to control my own surroundings. EDIT:**My mom was on her second divorce, and would enter into her third doomed marriage within EDIT: a year and a half. My focus was taking care of her. With regard to my needs and desires and goals, I just wanted to be as little trouble as possible, make her happy and to be one thing she didn't have to worry about. One thing about her life that wasn't complicated. EDIT:***My brother and I were really good kids... I didn't get complicated until much later.

I wasn't adventurous.

I wasn't rebellious.

I didn't drink or use drugs and tried to be a good influence on my friends who did.

I wasn't mouthy or belligerent.

And, though I discovered *boys* waaaaay too young, I wasn't what you could remotely call promiscuous or in any way reckless.

I was never disrespectful.

I was always upbeat and smiling and dishing out hugs to people, even when, at times, I was living a nightmare at home...

I got reasonably good grades, was well-thought-of by my teachers and had a small group of very good friends.

I was, and am, a survivor.

By the time I hit 17 I had *memorized* The Unillustrated Guide to the Troubled World of Adults without ever cracking Intro to Adolescence or How to be a Proper Teenager.

.........

All this is to preface my most newly-formed hypothesis on one element of the contributing factors of recent events. Here it is:

Our lives are supposed to happen in a very specific sequence. Each phase builds off of the one before it, must be taken in order (duh) and is set aside for us to make mistakes/take actions/engage in events that are appropriate to that age and time with correspondingly appropriate risks and life lessons.

If you skip ahead and miss those lessons, you will still have to get them somewhere down the road. Even if it's many, many years down that road.

One of the lessons you learn as a teenager is that being reckless and disrespectful is distructive and effects everyone around you. Only, for the well-brought-up teenager, there is less at risk, for the most part, of far-reaching and profound damage. You also have the benefit of being able to blame your transgressions on being young and inexperienced and you have plenty of life ahead of you to redeem yourself.

When you're 40... It's a whole different story. When you trip, there are legions of souls who fall with you. There are no reasons that fully satisfy the pain-filled questions. There are no answers or explanations that lead to spontaneous healing and enlightenment... and there are children involved whom you risk thrusting into that exact place in which you found yourself all those years ago.

The anguish and remorse take on fully-fledged, grown-up-sized magnitude and the whole weight of just how much work there lies ahead crushes your chest and makes breathing feel like a luxury. Sleep is a futile endeavor without properly medicating far enough in advance. Eating? Nearly impossible.

But, where there is enough Love, there is Hope. With Love, miracles can and will happen. I have been blessed with people in my life that Love me more than I ever imagined possible or deserve. Even when they shouldn't want to, they Love me and that helps me keep loving myself. My husband is the most obvious and best example of people who continue to show me this kind of Love, but by far, not the only one.

It's God's love shining through them that gives me Hope. Hope that all this pain and revelation is part of God's plan to make me the person He meant for me to be when he put me in my mom's belly.

There are so many things I still need to discover about myself, healing to be done, deficits to be filled in order for that person to live and breathe and be a blessing to others. But, in the Long Run, the exquisite agony of these latent growing pains will be worth it because they are baby steps toward becoming the person He meant for me to be. I could run away and just be contented to stay damaged and incomplete because it would be easier in the short-term, but what a waste. With superhuman effort, patience and Love, in the fullness of time, His perfect plan will come to fruition and on the other side of this experience I'll know what he really intended my life to look like. Yes, I have Hope.

I don't know what Shelly The Counselor will think of my theory of my skipped adolescence, but I'm pretty sure I'll be one client that gives her a lot to chew on... or perhaps baldness and premature aging...

I'll keep you posted as to my progress and her wrinkling.

Peace Y'all



*clearly not morning any more.

**It is very important to note that I do NOT blame my mom for my "issues." I never have. She did the best she could in her own set of circumstances. She had her own set of baggage and always, ALWAYS TRIED to do what she thought was best for us, sacrificed for and loved us without limits. I am merely relaying the facts of my early life and don't intend to place "blame."

***Due in no small part to the unceasing prayers of our amazing grandparents who provided a haven of stability and accountability in our lives... and STILL do... even after their passing.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Thought for the day

Here's a very potent quote nicked from my friend Richie's blog.


"Society often forgives the criminal, it never forgives the dreamer." -Oscar Wilde



'nuff said.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

NYT Mac ad link...


For those of you who didn't make it to the New York Times online home page in time to see the BRILLIANT ad I gushed over in my 1/17/08 post...

Click on the picture or here :)

I do what I can in the interest of Mac Snob Public Service...

Stripped Down and Sophisticated

Remember how fascinated we all where when the California Raisins introduced us to Stop Motion Animation?

Well, it was out there before in a clunky, unrefined form, but Wil Vinton took it to a whole new level and made us aware of what we were looking at. Made it cool.

I found this video on the New York Times humor page and just sat there agape. This is not over-produced, CGI, let's-see-how-much-eye-candy-we-can-generate, cutting-edge techno-flash.

So jaded am I by what technology makes possible that I am seldom impressed when I watch any heavily CGIed piece of animation or live action. I've seen the man behind the curtain and know that my eye can easily be tricked by legions of talented, young professionals locked away for uncountable hours performing unimaginable feats of programming acrobatics.

This piece, however, is so refreshing for me to watch. So simple and pristinely executed... its spartan elegance and the effort and time AWAY from a computer it took to produce made me say, "WOW!"

It takes a great deal to make me say, "WOW!" ...about anything.


This is a total breath of fresh air.

Enjoy!

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Mac Advertising Brilliance Reaches New Heights


I don't know how long this is going to run so go take a look at this FREAKIN' AWESOME Ad for Leopard on New York Times web site RIGHT NOW!

UPDATE:
That ad only ran for one day so here it is on ValleyWag.

It's not just funny... watch as "PC" climbs behind the frame of the web site! GAH!!!

I'm SUCH a geek, but that kind of stuff just totally blows my skirt up. I'm sorry.

LOVE IT!

Once again, Apple has renewed my devotion to complete Mac Snobbery.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Signs of life


This should not be construed as an actual blog entry. This is me sending up a flare.

I want to let the four of you know, well, judging by Sitemeter I think there are about 17 intrepid souls who visit here regularly, that I'm okay... again... and that I will actually write something of substance in the near future.

Honest!

Right now I am catching my breath and catching up on neglected and new work, not to mention new commitments I have made to my family... like...

Turning OFF the damned computer after 5:00! "Please, step AWAY from the MAC!" ...and Oh, now that I'm not online or working, maybe I could have dinner ready sometime before 9:00!

Um, yea. Mom's got kind of "problem" with the internet and distraction in general. Specific boundaries can be helpful when dealing with the Obsessive Compulsive. :)

I will resume writing about the things I think are important to share with you like how to take care of your body, tools for avoiding foods and chemicals that contribute to ill mental and physical health, foods that heal... not to mention expounding on things like my favorite cat litter, adventures in bovine artificial insemination and the importance of 600+ thread count sheets... I just have to get my work done first, 'cause, you know... I won't be doing any blogging in the evening.

I love reading your comments and even though I haven't been good at commenting, I have been keeping up on your blogs, too... Hi Elora and Wendy and Lisa and Angelina and Cheryle! I look forward to getting back into the bloggie loop again.

Thanks everyone for caring enough to wonder where I've been and actually letting me know you miss the random craziness that spills fourth from my brain into this space.

Keep looking. I'm not ever REALLY gone... just quite busy keeping up with my very important jobs. :)

Peace, Ya'll