I love Karen’s site and reading all that she posts. Her photography is amazing and when I read her blog entries I feel like we are sharing a cup of tea and having conversations so real they are nearly tangible in their intensity. Not to mention she has a wonderful speaking voice that I have heard many times in Momversation videos and that always helps to set the relaxed yet intense tone of her blog.

Tonight she talked about planning and asked her readers the question if we knew where we wanted to be in five years, and did we wish we did, or did we even care? Here is my response

My parents used to tell me “Want to make God laugh? Make a plan”. I firmly believe this to be true. Don’t get me wrong I have goals that I have set (and reset) for myself over the years, but I find when I plan it out, it inevitably gets twisted.

Ten years ago I would have said I didn’t know what I wanted to do or to be. I was interested in history, in teaching and I loved books. I, for the love of all, was not going to be a librarian like my mom. I had already spent six years in libraries.

Ten years later, I have my AAS in Paralegal Studies,  and I was attempting my Bachelors degree in Legal Studies. I had it all mapped out. That is until I started working in the library after a year and a half hiatus. Once I shelved my first book I knew I was home. So I changed my major and I am going to take that degree and my 14 years of library experience and I am going to get my Masters in Library and Information Sciences.

If I had to project what my life would look like in five years, I have to honestly say, I don’t know. I would like to be finished with my M.L.I.S., I would like to have a full time job with benefits, and I would like to be living on my own and sharing my life with all the people that I love and that I have connected with in the past 30 years.  I want to have people over, host the Super Bowl, and to have time to devote to things like writing and photography and crafts – things that have fallen by the wayside since I went back to school.

Will that happen? I have no idea. I’m not making any plans…

Am I happy with the idea of not making solid long term plans? Yes. As I have grown I have seen how quickly life can change and I don’t want to miss on out on beautiful moments because I was too busy focused on life’s to do list.  I am content enough to say that I want to do x, y, and z things in life and leave it at that. Are there moments when x, y, and z can’t come soon enough? Sure, of course. I am just not ready to lay down the law of a strict timeline just yet – but you may want to check back with me on that when I hit 40….

One year my aunt and my uncle gave my mom a sewing basket. As a small joke my Uncle Rich put in the basket the worst looking undershirt I have ever seen. This thing had more holes than swiss cheese. Upon giving it to her, he said that now that she had this new sewing basket, maybe she could fix his shirt.

Fix it, she did. Not only did she fix it, but she had me write a little poem to commemorate the occasion. Tonight as I was clearing out my files, I came across this ditty, and I thought I would post it here. May it gave you the laugh it gave me.

A Tale of Tatters

Oh woe is me, oh woe is me,

I came in a package three shirts apiece.

But alas when it came time for me to be clean,

I was done in by too much bleach and steam.

Now I look worn and tattered,

With seams ripped and holes scattered.

Martha and Rich gave me to Jan in her new sewing kit,

In hopes my tears she could fix.

But not even a seamstress as wonderful as she

Could fix a worn old rag such as me.

Then one night, Christmas Eve to be exact

That old lady found a use for me, now I’m all that!

Rich, in need of comfort after the long day of laughter and mirth,

Can now find some rest in his old stuffed shirt.

Jan cleverly put me inside two pieces of satin and lace,

And now I help make a comfy pillowcase.

I want to thank everyone who has helped me on my wonderful journey from the store shelves,

To the washing machine,

To Jan’s smart little scheme.

My life has been filled with adventure and dirt,

And I want you to know I will always be…

The Grateful Undershirt.

This means there can only be one cure. I need to get rid of more junk. It never fails to amaze me at how quickly it accumulates. I went through some of my things awhile back -specifically items to go into whatever place I am living in after this house. I managed to purge half of my collection. Afterwards I felt the most amazing sense of euphoria at what I had accomplished. I was hoping to feel that same sort of release today.

I thought by getting rid of this many things and organizing my other totes in the basement I would feel like the burden of it would be lifted, but it’s not. Ever since the end of school I have been looking to streamline the amount of stuff in the rooms that I am in the most.

Times like this I dream about the day I can move out, and what that place will look like. I am envisioning clear counter tops, book cases with minimal knick knacks – e.g. one vase. The one thing that will have “clutter” is the living room floor on movie night. Blankets, pillows, popcorn and tissues will be all over the floor. Now that is my kind of clutter.

Well it is offically summer in the city and I am back on the front porch, blogging. It feels as though eons have passed since I last blogged from this locale.  It is absolutely gorgeous out here tonight. It is cool and the mosquitos are keeping the humidity company in another town.

So why the porch? Because it is late. Really late, 2:30am late. I didnt want to keep any lights on in the house, so here I am. Plus, I needed some outside time, sitting in a calm and serene place with no distraction. Sometimes, even late at night when everyone is asleep, the house still has too many distractions to write.

I feel like there are about 1,000 thoughts in my head at the moment. One of them is a question I pondered two years ago in this blog. I was in my basement tonight cleaning out an old desk. Apparently in my last clearing out I neglected to get all of the memorabilia from my last relationship out as there was a card still lingering.

Did I read it? Yes. Was that wise? Probably not. I began to ask my self the same question I did two years ago, where did the love go? I am two years removed from that question, and light-years removed from the relationship, and still I can only speculate.

I think the answer is the love didn’t go anywhere. It just changed. It morphed into resentment and eventually anger and loathing. I believe this to be true because as I felt the love get smaller the others grew. Love is energy, it doesn’t die, it just transfers.

Why does it transfer? Because it has to, it’s energy and therefore always changing. Only by taking the time out to cultivate the love in relationships can it be sustained. Stop pulling the weeds of misunderstanding and resentment, and they take over the love, eroding it back into the ground. The fragments are still there, they have just taken on a new form.

To the question, can you get the love back? I don’t believe you can. It would be like resurrecting the dead, and if you have seen Practical Magic, you know that is not a good idea! But on a more serious note, why would you want it back? No matter how great the love was, for whatever reason, it turned sour. Bringing it back won’t cure the sour. It is best to look forward, move forward and let the relationship continue to evolve than to wish it were someplace else.

Just for the record, I am not wistful at the thought of my ex, Heck to the no. I don’t want to even think about that!! YUCK! I just felt like revisiting that question and seeing if my answers were still the same.

All in all I have a pretty good life. It has thrown me for a few loops this past year: a major car accident, a nasty sprain, and that was just from mid March to mid April.  It has left me with a desire to reorganize my priorities a bit.

Normally, I do try to be a “what is” kind of girl versus a “what if” kind of girl. Tonight though, the cool night air has my mind wandering over to the ifs in life.

There are two things that I would be sure to ticket. One, people who do not use blinkers. To merge sans blinker is incredibly dangerous. The people behind you need to know what you are doing! You are not God, and you cannot just expect people to read your mind and know that you suddenly one to be one or two lanes over.

The second thing I would ticket – drivers who do not stay in their lane when making a left hand turn.  I have had the stuffing sacred out of me more than once while sitting in a left hand turn lane. I have witnessed many drivers, who while making a left hand turn from an adjacent direction, want to drive in their lane and mine. To compensate, when I am the first car in a left hand turn lane, I don’t pull up to the line. This way if the driver coming at me from my right wants to execute part of her turn in my lane, my front end will still be intact.

I have decided that when I finally get a full time job and am able to settle down a bit, I want to live no more than twenty minutes from my employment. The less time I spend on the road, the better.

As any reader of this blog knows I have a lot of faith and I am very much a spiritual person. In this last year all of it was put to the test. Looking back I can’t say I walked away unscathed. My spirituality took a hit. Each night I would go to sleep  in my bed I would pray and cry (if I fell asleep in the recliner I didn’t pray – I slept there a lot).  I must say I began to grow weary of praying, knowing that it would lead to tears because I didn’t know how the events of my life would turn out.

So what changed you ask? The way I feel when I pray. I used to feel like I had this direct line to God. It was a fiercely strong connection. Now, that feels absent. I feel like my prayers are like dandelion fluff and they are going out into the prayer universe.

I feel like this past year I should have a stronger connection to Him. A connection that I could have had, but relied too much on my own capabilities to get through hard times rather than handing it over to God. I just couldn’t let go. I couldn’t let go of the certainty of the anxiety that I felt and let it go into the uncertainty of God.

“The uncertainty of God”, is a powerful phrase. Since when did I start believing that God was uncertain? I don’t, I am sure I don’t. If I don’t, then why did I just say it?

I know that God is out there and I know I can pray. I think the events of this last year have just left me feeling unprotected and vulnerable. I remember after the car accident not being able to take the good things and really appreciate them because I was too focused on the stinking pile of mess that was the rest of my life.

This past weekend I ran into a man who I have known all my life. We used to go to the same church and he was talking to my Mom about retirement and asking her when she was going to retire. My Mom showed hesitancy. (Rightly so, she is very active in her work and she enjoys it and the people. There is no reason for her to quit just yet.) Our friend took one look at her face and said that if it was money that she was worried about, she shouldn’t be.  He proceeded to tell us how that was a concern for him and he had prayed about it. He said that God said to him, “Who do you have faith in, Me or money”?

That is a very powerful question. Who do I have more faith in, God who has seen me through, or myself, who is not all-knowing and all-seeing? Is it even a matter of faith, or is it a matter of trust? I have faith that God is there, but maybe it is just my trust in Him that is failing. The trust that He is really going to avert me from disaster and I won’t have disaster after disaster land on my head again.

The trust of disaster aversion is important. Is it the most important thing? Maybe not, maybe what is more important is the soft place to land after disaster has struck.

That will be something to ponder on tonight after I have prayed….and cried.

Was I greeted with Romney news? Sure, after I look past Weinergate: A Tale of a Man, A Camera, and Twitter. The top, not one, two, or three, but FOUR, news stories were about Congressman Weiner and how his Twitter account was hacked and a picture of him in his underwear became Twitter-fare. It might be funny if it weren’t so pathetic.

How is it possible that in this country where we have the greatest informational resources known to man, what comes over the wire is a story of a man who has taken a lewd photo? Now I know some will say that he says he didn’t take it. I will believe as soon I see an elephant fly. The man never denies having not taken a photo like that, and regardless of whether or not he sent it, I believe that it is him. Let his lawyers prove otherwise.

For me this issue calls to mind many questions.

1. As a political figure, why on earth would you take a photo of yourself in your underwear? That is just stupid.

2. Why would anyone take a photo of themselves like that? I get it, long distance relationships create tough times for couples, but after seeing time and again, photos like this surfacing, why take the chance?

3. What does this say about us as Americans that not only are we giving this man the spotlight for an image that, frankly needs only be seen by his wife, but that it has taken over the political sections of news websites over and above a man who has just announced his run for the leader of the free world.

Only in this country could a man, his underpants and Twitter  trump the presidency.

My brother, mother and I all went in on the same phone plan to save money. I called my carrier and got my brother a free phone – because he wanted one just like mine. I did that for him because I wanted him to have a nice phone and he really liked mine. Then I check the bill. He or someone has racked up nearly 100 dollars in charges such as downloading ringtones – I can’t see my brother downloading Justin Bieber. His ex girlfriend however, I can.

She currently has the phone. The phone bill is about to go over its minutes. I have tried to get it back, but to no avail. She wont meet me because I am a stranger, even though I wanted to meet in a public place. (She cant meet a stranger but its ok for me to pay her phone bill.) Then we offer to pay for her a cab to go to my brother to drop the phone off but she wont do that because she doesn’t trust cabs. Bottom line it this woman is nuts, a user, and a liar. She also has an extremely vulgar mouth. I can’t remember the last time the f-bomb was used at me, or I was called that word.

I am just hoping to get the phone back from her. If I shut the phone off, then I really have no way to contact her to get it back. She has also threatened to throw it in the Mississippi. Funny she can make it to the river to drop it in but not to the home to drop it off. The genius has said all of this in a text message, so if I ever take her to court I have proof she has destroyed the phone. She claims to not have a car to get to the home so I have given her until 6pm tomorrow to get the phone back to me or I call the police, report it stolen, and call the phone company to shut the service off. Then I will start court proceedings against her for the cost of the phone and the charges to the phone. I have checked it out and I think I can prove it was her who downloaded the ringtones by looking at the calls that took place around the times that the ringtones were downloaded. I can prove a couple, but I have to investigate further. I want to be prepared if I have to go to court.

This nice gal will not be finishing last.

Ten years ago this man masterminded the worst attack on American soil our country has seen. He was successful in inciting fear and terror, fear and terror that lasted much longer than the 40 minute gun battle that ended his life.

I am grateful to the forces that eliminated this man. I believe now the people of our country can now begin to properly heal. I think the healing process has already begun of course, but I am sure there had to be that lingering sense of what if in the back of the minds of many Americans. Thanks to the American government that “What if” has now been minimized in a major way.

I have often heard it said that Americans have forgotten 9/11. Anyone who has read this blog knows that in my case it is certainly not true. I also believe that many Americans who have loved ones stationed abroad and at home still remember, as do the family members who have lost loved ones in the war on terror.

Tonight my hope is similar to that of President Obama’s. I hope that our country can come together again, this time not in terror, but in joy, elation, and relief that Bin Laden is no longer a living threat. I hope that as a nation we can ban together under American pride for having gotten rid of a man who represented pure evil.

I also want to say thank you to the individuals who came together to make this mission a success. I want to thank them for giving their nation the gift of a peace of mind that this man is gone. Thank you for your hard work, your bravery and your sacrifices to make this happen.  I also want to thank the soldiers who since 9/11 have died in the effort to rid the world of this man. To those men and women, your sacrifices will not be forgotten. I also want to thank the families of all soldiers for giving up their loved ones so that the rest of this country may feel safe. Thank you for giving up having them at holidays and special occasions and for letting the burden of our freedom rest partly on your shoulders.
Sincerely,

A grateful and proud American citizen

We started out with Whitman and Dickinson and worked into Huck Finn. Then it was short stories about race, death, soldiers and PTSD. Then over break it was As I Lay Dying by Faulkner. That book is just horrific.

I have discovered I am an emotional reader. When asked if I liked a story or not,  my first response is not yes or no, or anything about overall themes. I tell people how it made me feel.

To Faulkner: You make me feel disturbed. Your absence of emotion and overabundance of apathy and callousness is disgusting.  I read you and I need a mental vacation and a hot bath.

So WordPress world, is American Lit overall just morbid? Say it isn’t so. If it is, I am adopting British Literature – at least then I can have my Austen.