OMG, Can’t We Just Love One Another?

This last week has been very disheartening to me.  I listen to people blame Donald Trump  and the NFL for their hate filled hearts, its disgusting.  Seriously people we are all responsible for our own actions, not President Trump or the NFL. 

For the last two years I have watched people that I thought were kind people become so filled with hate and feel that Facebook is the place to exhibit this hate.  I discovered that black lives matter and only black lives, I was so surprised because I have always believed that ALL lives matter, imagine my surprise over that one.  I also learned that police officers lives don’t matter either, I was always taught to respect police officers so this also surprised me.  I taught my kids that everyone matters and that there are hate filled people that come in ALL colors and walks of life, I just didn’t think that they would have to experience this hate on Facebook or in their day to day lives.  I guess Facebook is a safe place for people to post hate filled posts and to continue spreading this hate in other areas.  It’s a shame that this is the platform that they wish to take, I can only hope it doesn’t come back to bite them in the butt.

Last year we had an NFL player decide to not stand for the National Anthem, ok it’s his right, and now we as a nation are taking this to a whole new level.  His not standing didn’t bother me, what did bother me was that he didn’t follow through on his protest.  If you are going to protest injustice then get out there and do something about it.  Volunteer at a homeless shelter, go to the inner city and work with children showing them the right way, mentor young people, volunteer at a veterans home or hospital, do something don’t just sit it does nothing but show your arrogance.  When this player decided to sit and not stand many people decided it was time to burn their jersey’s, did it solve the problem?  No I’m pretty sure it did not because they just went out and bought more stuff.  What also bothered me was when they would show the players during the National Anthem and a few were sitting on ice chests or riding exercise bikes, seriously!!!  That to me is not acceptable and they should have been pulled from the game, but we all know that the owners aren’t going to pull players until it hits their pocket book, the almighty dollar rules the game.

So here we are a year later and the only change that has happened is people are filled with more hate then they were a year ago.  Rather than take responsibility for our actions we have allowed our environment to dictate our actions.  We no longer want to be the solution we want to be the problem.  We would rather choose hate then to choose love and acceptance.  We would rather create dissention then to create unity.  It’s a sad time for America but we cannot blame the president because we are all responsible for our own actions.  It’s up to each one of us to decide if we want to treat people with respect or not.  I for one still believe that every single person is important and I want to continue treating people with respect, it doesn’t mean that I’m not going to speak my mind because after all this is America and I’m pretty opinionated but it does mean that I’m going to continue to treating others the way that I want to be treated.

Rather than focus on the sit/stand problem facing America this week I’m going to focus on those that have lost so much due to the hurricane’s that hit parts of the US, I’m going to focus on those that have lost loved ones this year and are learning how to go on without them, I’m going to focus on children that are going to bed at night on an empty stomach, I’m going to focus on our vets who can’t get decent medical treatments, I’m going to focus on how I can be a better person and how I can make a positive difference.  What are you going to focus on?

OMG, I Love Christmas!

Ever since I was a little girl I have always loved Christmas.  I have never been concerned if I got gifts or not, I just love the season, the meaning behind Christmas, the lights and just about everything that comes with the season.  I love Christmas so much that I usually start shopping in January and usually have everything wrapped by Thanksgiving.

This Christmas we were fortunate that we had both our daughters and their families here for Christmas Eve and Christmas day.  We did all of our family traditions and added a few new ones. 

We start preparing for Christmas on Thanksgiving.  This is when we pull out the tree, yes it is an artificial tree, I have a hard time cutting down a tree just to sit in my house for a couple of weeks when an artificial tree works just fine.  On the morning of Thanksgiving, we pull out appetizers along with all the Christmas decorations and turn on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  As soon as the parade is over football comes on in one room and Christmas movies in the other.  Usually by the time the parade is over we have all the decorations out and ready to start decorating.  I do the inside of the house and my husband heads outside to decorate outside.  We spend the day decorating while also cooking our Thanksgiving meal.  By the end of the day we usually have the tree up, gifts under the tree, part of our Christmas village, lights on the house and other decorations displayed throughout the house.  We get up the next morning and finish our decorating jobs.

The day after Thanksgiving is when I start working on our Christmas letter as well as the Christmas cards.  Our Christmas letter is really a family letter describing what we did for the past year.  It is a lot of fun to work on as it requires me to look back over the year and remember all the great thinks that we did.  After the letters are printed and the cards are addressed they are ready to be mailed.  I usually wait until the following Monday to mail them, sometimes I’m too excited so they go out that day. 

Once in a while we will go out and do some black Friday shopping but we wait until the afternoon in hopes that the crazy people have all gone home for some much needed rest.  We start baking our Christmas goodies the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  We plan out what times of goodies we are planning on making, who we are sending them to and who we are going to hand deliver to.  We both enjoy this time.  I always make my fudge, which is requested by many, my husband makes a wide variety of cookies.  This process usually takes us several days but seeing the happiness on he faces of those we care about when we give them these goodies makes it so worth it.

At this point we are now able to enjoy Christmas movies.  I have a set schedule of what movies I watch and I rarely go outside the box and change them up.  I start off with Miracle on 34^th Street, on to Elf, then onto Santa Clause 1, 2 and 3, after this it is time for both Home Alone movies and then if I’m lucky I watch Vacation Family Christmas.  I always end my Christmas movie watching with White Christmas.  In between watching the Christmas movies, I also watch Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and the Grinch.  I like to do this with a big bowl of popcorn in my sweatpants with comfy socks on my cold feet.

One of the things we like to do as a family is load into the car and go look at Christmas lights.  When the kids were young we would grab hot chocolate and just drive around various neighborhoods, as they got older we would go to Opportunity Village and the last couple of years we have headed to Ethel M. Chocolate Factory, who doesn’t like to get chocolate while looking at Christmas lights? 

Something we have done a couple of times is draw names for a secret Santa gift exchange, take $20 and buy stuff for our stockings. It is a lot of fun.  You have to spend all $20 and if you don’t then the remaining $20 goes into the stocking.  This year we filled out questioners which helped a great deal when making your purchases.  We then wrap them and fill our secret Santa stocking.  On Christmas Eve we eat fried chicken with coleslaw and French fries.  While eating our food we open our stockings from our Secret Santa.  We have to guess who drew our name which is not always easy.  The gifts are meant to be silly gifts, this year my husband drew my grandson’s name, he asked for food items such as Hamburger Helper, Shake n’ Bake and hot chocolate.  So my husband got him Hamburger Helper, Shake n’ Bake, chocolate covered pretzels, hot chocolate and since he said that he liked the scent of vanilla he also got a room deodorizer.  We all laughed because it was such an unusual gift selection but it’s what he wanted. 

After everyone goes to bed the rest of the gifts are delivered by Santa Clause and the stockings are filled once again from Santa.  When everyone gets up in the morning we eat cinnamon twist coffee cake, drink coffee or hot chocolate and then begin to open presents.  This year our grandson was given the task of handing out the presents, he did such a great job.  After all the presents are opened we spend the rest of the morning playing with our gifts and napping for those of us that got up way too early.  One tradition that we stick to when opening presents is we save all the bows, I know bows are cheap but I have a hard time not reusing them so we save them and reuse year after year. 

Christmas dinner has changed through the years.  When our girls were little we used to have ham, mashed potatoes, rolls and a vegetable.  We now have prime rib, backed potatoes, salad, rolls and a vegetable.  We are not big dessert people so we either don’t bother to serve any or we have ice cream.  This year we made hot chocolate ice cream, which was delicious.  By the end of the day we are all tired but happy and content.

While our Christmas is busy we still take time to remember the true meaning of Christmas.  It’s not about presents, food or shopping, it’s about the birth of Jesus.  While we enjoy all the traditions remembering the birth of Jesus is the most important part of the holiday season.  I hope that your Christmas was as special as mine, God Bless you!

OMG, Politics!!!!

Both the Republican and Democratic conventions are over and now it is time for the bashing of each party to really get started.  I listened to both sides with as open a mind as I could, however it was not always easy.  This blog is my own personal opinion and is not meant to persuade anyone to one side or another.   

I’m going to start with Donald Trump.  While some feel that he has no filter and in all reality he doesn’t, which is a trait I happen to admire as this is how I live my life.  Never ask me a direct question unless you are prepared for a direct answer.  What I like about Trump is that he is not a career politician and so therefore he has not had 35 plus years to hone his skills of using a lot of words to say absolutely nothing. 

Some say that he is a bully.  I don’t necessarily agree with this.  I think that he is someone who speaks his mind which I know can come across as being a bully.  I hope that all of those that are judging him on this remembers that Harry Reid used to do the same thing but worse, he would destroy someone’s life and not think anything about it, Donald Trump has, to the best of my knowledge, never done that.

Some say that he hates women.  If he really hated women would he have married such strong independent women?  Would his daughter be a strong independent woman?  I can say NO he would not, he would be married to someone like Michelle Duggar who feels that her husband is the king of the house and that she should be there for him no matter what and his daughters would be like the Duggar girls.  The tag line that the Democrats like to use is him say “she had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming from I don’t know where”, I took that to mean that she was looking at him with hate and evil in her eyes. 

I have heard that he plans on putting up a wall around the boarders.  We are a diverse nation and will always be one, no matter if there is a wall or not.  I’m all for people coming here to the US, but I want them to come here legally.  I want them to do what my ancestors did.  So I guess I’m for putting up a wall if it forces people to come here legally.

It has been said that he has caused contractors that worked on his buildings to go bankrupt.  I really have a hard time believing this.  I would like to see the contracts that the individuals signed.  There are ways of getting your money and clearly they did not do any of the things that they needed to do.  Also did they even read or have their agreements reviewed?  I would say probably not, but I’m just guessing.  I have only heard others talk about these companies but have never heard anyone from these companies step forward and say that this really happened so to me it’s just another way to try and convince people to vote for Hillary and not Donald.  So sad that she has resorted to lies.

Now on to Hillary Clinton.  First off I’m going to say this, she is a career politician she has been coached on what to say and when to say it.  She changes her political viewpoints to insure that she will get more votes and not because she really truly believes the words coming from her mouth.   

She stood on a stage and talked about women’s rights, how she is there for all women and that she was breaking the glass ceiling, seriously!!!!  I remember a few years ago when her husband was accused of sexual harassment, what did Hillary do?  I can tell you she did not stand behind these women, even knowing what a pig her husband was.  She could have easily sat and said nothing but not her she decided it was best to trash these women in the media.  I’m not sure about how you feel but knowing that this is her way of standing up for women’s rights but it makes me sick.  She could have handled the situation with more class but she chose to take the gutter route instead.

She talked about how Trump wants to put a wall up around our boarders and that she is not for that.  I guess she has forgotten that she voted several times to do this exact thing.  She stated that those that come here are not taxing on our resources and that we should welcome them with open arms.  I disagree with her on this.  Take a look at our schools, not only do our already over worked, over stressed teachers who have to deal with so many other issues now have to add to their stress by how they are going to teach these children that do not speak the language, don’t these children deserve more?  Also have you ever been to the emergency room?  When people come here illegally they do not have healthcare so they are not getting preventative healthcare, instead they rely on our emergency rooms which then means that doctors can’t treat those that have true emergencies because they are taking care of those without insurance.  Also speaking of insurance what about car insurance?  If someone comes here illegally they do not go out and get a driver’s license, so therefore they do not have car insurance.  Who ends up paying for this if they are in an accident?  I can tell you it’s those of us that have car insurance.  But remember they are not taxing to our resources.

Let’s talk about her healthcare plan.  She is all for Obama Care, I guess she can because I’m sure that the tax payers pay for her insurance and she has no idea what health insurance costs, especially since Obama Care went into effect.  I am fortunate because the company I work for pays my insurance for me so every month I look at it as a bonus but others are not so fortunate.  I handle our accounts payable at my job so I see the health insurance bill every month and I can say that if I had to pay for health insurance I probably would go without insurance.  If I was a family of 4 it would cost me 1 pay check a month to pay for health insurance.  That means 50% of my salary would go to health insurance, I’m not sure what she call’s affordable but that is not affordable. 

At the end of the day I could almost live with all of her flaws, however I cannot live with the fact that as Secretary of State she could not distinguish between personal and confidential governmental emails.  I cannot trust someone who does not understand this very basic part of her job.

At this point I’m sure you can figure out who I’m voting for.  I do want to point out that if you are voting for Hillary just because she is a woman then please do us all a favor and stay home that day because you really do not deserve to vote because you are a clueless person, I guess that is the Donald in me coming out.

GOODBYE 2015, HELLO 2016

We are only a few short hours away from saying goodbye to 2015 and hello to 2016.  The best way to describe 2015 for me was the year of the “Good, Bad and the Ugly”. 

The Good – I’m so blessed with an amazing family.  My daughters, grandkids and husband are my world and I don’t know what I would do without them.  My youngest daughter taught me patience and how to go with the flow.  Her life seemed to some as being in total disarray, but she somehow kept her chin up, a smile on her face and stayed positive.  She managed to move, with her husband and dog, 600 miles away from where they live to a new location with just a few days’ notice.  She had to live with her in-laws, which for some would be difficult, and she figured out a way to make it work.  I’m so proud of the way she handled this difficult time. 

My oldest daughter has shown me how to be a good parent.  She is raising two of the most thoughtful, loving, caring individuals I have ever met.  I’m not sure where she learned her parenting skills from but I stand in awe of what an amazing job she is doing.  We were able to take a short trip with our two grandkids and our daughter; they were the best traveling companions ever.  We had such a good time.  We were having such a good time that the hotel manager called to tell us to quiet down; I guess we had a little too much fun. 

My husband this year has shown me that he is my true sole mate.  He is the one person in this world that knows my inner most thoughts, my fears, my hopes, my past, my present and my dreams for the future.  He is my rock, he is always there when I need a shoulder to cry on (even though I hate to show emotions), he makes me laugh when I really want to cry, he reminds me every day that I’m worth something and that he is proud of me.  I love this man!

The Bad – this year I have had to say goodbye, or more like hope to see you again, to some that I cared a great deal about.  It’s never easy.  Some of those individuals were people I worked with. Knowing that I’m not going to be able to swing by their desk or pick up the phone just to talk has been hard.  One of the individuals that were let go was someone who always had my back at the office, seeing his empty cube was not easy and has been an uphill battle for me.  His departure meant a lot of stuff was dumped onto my shoulders and an increased work load.  I’m learning to adjust to this and redefine my processes.

This was also the year that I discovered that no matter what I do or accomplish I’m never going to amount to much in my mom’s eyes, so why keep trying.  This was a sad discovery for me but one that I should have known was coming.  I love my mom and always will but I know that for whatever reason I’m a disappointment to her. 

The Ugly – this last year brought out the ugly in so many different ways, mostly through social media.  I have witness family members rip each other to pieces on social media over differences of opinions, why can’t we just agree to disagree? After all the bickering family members would wonder why they were unfriended, seriously? 

One of the ugliest moments was when a sibling decided it was a good idea to bring up past events from our childhood and then stated that it was their Facebook page and therefore could post whatever they wanted to.  I know for me it stirred up a lot of old memories that I thought I had buried or dealt with, I lost many hours of sleep over this. I have since decided to consider the source and know that this sibling is an extremely unhappy person and making others feel the same way somehow makes them feel better about their life.  I guess you can’t fix stupid.

With 2015 almost over and 2016 about to begin I plan on making some changes and have only "The Good" for 2016.  My goals for 2016 are to be a healthier, happier person.  I’m not going to let the bad and the ugly of the past define my future.  I hope that 2016 brings to you much happiness!

OMG, Food Poising!!!!!!

A while back my husband and I bought a bullet, thinking how much fun we would have making healthy shakes.  I went to the grocery store and bought a variety of fruits, vegetables and raw pumpkin seeds.  The first one that he made was hard to drink because of the bright green color and he had put spinach in it, which apparently raw spinach doesn’t agree with my tummy.  So I went a while without having another one until one dreaded Friday.

My husband decided one Friday to make us a fruit shake with a variety of frozen fruit and yogurt.  It tasted delicious and even told him how great it tasted.  We leave for the office and on the way there are started thinking that I didn’t feel very good but that I probably just needed something other than just a shake.  When I got to the office I decided to eat some pretzels that I had in my desk drawer, not a wise idea.  While eating the pretzels I break out in a sweat and feel the need to get sick, yuck not a work.

I run to the restroom, luckily it was a false alarm or so I thought.  I go back to my desk and start working, all of a sudden I feel like I need to get sick.  I run to the restroom, no false alarm this time.  I rinse out my mouth and think “ok now maybe I will start to feel better”.  I get back to my desk and once again I need to run to the restroom.  After about the third time I call my husband and said I’m going home.  Thank God I keep towels in the car because as he was driving me home I was getting sick every 3 – 5 minutes.

We arrive home and I run into the house to continue what I had started at the office.  This is when my husband decided to do some research on what was going on with me.  I have my head in a bucket; I’m trying to sip water and praying that it stays down.  He comes into the room with me and says “I googled your symptoms and I’ve narrowed it down to three probably causes”.  I’m thinking “what the . . . “.  He says “it could be a concussion”, I replied that I didn’t hit my head, “ok so then we can rule that out, so then it could be food poising or a mental health issue”, I’m looking at him and still thinking “what the . . . “, I then blurt out that it must be mental health because I’m sitting here and listening to this.  We then determined that it must be food poising, which is what I figured all along.

Once we determined that it was food poising he then decided to read to me the ingredients from my morning shake.  I still have my head in a bucket, taking sips of water and praying that it stays down when he begins to read the ingredients.  If you have ever had food poising going over what you ate is not a smart idea.  He keeps reading as I’m getting sicker by the minute and finally I couldn’t take it any more so I scream out, “I have mental health issues so just stop talking”.  He quietly walks into the other room and thank God I fell asleep. 

It has now been a couple of weeks, I still can’t eat fruit or yogurt and my husband has come to the conclusion that it was food poising after all.

OMG, Getting Older Sucks!!!!!

Every time I see an ad that says 30 is like the new 20, 40 is like the new 30 and 50 is like the new 40 I want to slap the person who came up with it.  I’m sure it is someone who is in their 20’s and has no clue what it’s like to get older or it’s someone who is older and is just trying to make themselves feel good about their age.  Either way they still deserve to be slapped because I’m pretty sure when I was twenty it didn’t feel the same as when I was 30, and when I was 40 it didn’t feel the same as when I was 30. 

I’ve also heard that wisdom comes with age.  This is true but most of the time you can’t remember anything any way so where the heck did all this wisdom end up.  I once had a friend who was watching me struggle to remember something say to me “our mind is like a great big filing cabinet and as we get older we just have more files to go through to find the one file that we are looking for”.  I’m not sure if she was trying to make me feel better about not remembering or if she was trying to point out in a nice way that I was old, either way it did make me feel better so that is what I’m going with.

As we get older the things that we used to do with no problem seems to become more and more difficult.  Now when I do things I think “what the heck is that noise” and then I realize it’s my body going snap, crackle and pop.  I also find myself moving slower than what I used to move or being more cautious when doing things.  Man getting older sucks!!!!

As we get older we start growing skin tags all over our bodies.  Skin tags seem to grow over night.  One day you have none and then the next day you’re like “where did that come from”.  They are never cute enough to be called a beauty mole, no they look like those eye things that grow out of potatoes when you have had them for too long. Getting older sucks!!!

I now catch myself asking “when did the (pick any place) start hiring children?” and then I realize that they are actually adults.  When did everyone start looking so young to me?  Man it sucks getting older!!!!!

The other day I caught myself taking my glasses off so that I could read the small print on something and I found myself thinking “when did they make the print so small?”.  I was so frustrated until I went to work and saw a co-worker do the same thing which made me so happy until I realized that she is older than me.  I said something to my eye doctor about having to do this and he said “well it’s all part of getting older and that his dad was going through the same thing”, what the heck I’m now as old as my doctors parents, when did this happen?

So while I’m trying to embrace getting older I still want to go on record as saying “GETTING OLDER SUCKS!!!!”

Paper Gown’s, seriously!!!

Once again it was that time of the year that I had to have my annual visit to the doctors, yuck.  I’m not looking forward to this appointment because, well let’s face it, it’s not any fun.  So as I walk into the waiting room the first thing I hear is a screaming baby, and I think to myself I want to scream too but people think you’re crazy when you’re an adult so I hold it in and sign in at the front desk.

I take my seat and wait for the mountain of paperwork that you are expected to fill out with each visit.  I wish you could just write on the paperwork “Look at last years” but that’s not accepted.  My name is called so I go and get my clipboard with the mountain of paperwork attached.  I sit back down, still hear the screaming baby, and begin to fill out all the paperwork.  Once I’m finished I take it back and give them a copy of my ID and insurance card.  I then go back to sit back down and continue listening to the screaming baby, won’t that kid shut up for Pete’s sake. 

Finally they take me back, yes no more screaming baby.  The nurse and I walk to the scale, oh good lord did I wear light enough close, nope I must have gained 10 pounds from my house to the doctor’s office.  Oh well it is what it is.  Time for them to take my blood pressure, I’m sure it’s elevated after all I’ve been sitting in a room with a screaming baby, filling out a mountain of paperwork and I just got weighed, that would make anyone’s blood pressure rise.  Apparently between walking from the scale to the chair I must have died because I had no blood pressure.  After a few minutes of looking at me and then back at the blood pressure cuff she must have realized that I was indeed still a live and something must be wrong with the cuff so she takes my pressure from the lower part of my arm and, hallelujah, I’m alive.

After that scare it was time to enter the exam room.  We enter the room and the nurse hands me a paper blanket and paper gown, which she tells me is one size for most and to leave it open in the front.  She leaves the room and I fist unfold the blanket, I’m using the term blanket loosely as it was the size of a baby blanket, doesn’t she realize that I’m a grown up in a grown up body and a baby blanket isn’t going to cover anything so I quickly pray that the gown is made for grown-ups, I figured since I had just come back from the dead my prayer was sure to work.  Nope the gown was made for someone that wears a size 0, seriously how many people really wear a size 0?   

I begin putting on the size 0 paper gown, which I leave open in the front, and I hear a tearing sound so now my size 0 paper gown is open in the front and the back, awesome.  Oh well nothing I can do about it now.  I proceed to the exam bed, which why do doctors face the bottom part of the bed towards the door, don’t they realize that during the exam your whohaw is going to be facing that direction.  I hop up onto the exam bed and proceed to put the paper baby blanket over whatever I could and it happens, a hot flash hits.  Not just a small one, no that I could hide but a full blown sweat dripping one.  So I notice that now my size 0, torn, paper gown is stuck to my body, awesome.  Now that the gown is stuck to my body I’m thinking I must look like a fright.  Here I sit in the size 0, torn, wet paper gown anxiously waiting for the doctor to come in.

In walks the doctor, oh how I hope everything is somewhat covered, but since it’s stuck to my body at this point it doesn’t really matter.  After we exchange greetings the exam begins.  I’m soon asked to scoot to the edge of the exam table, not an easy feat since it feels as though I’m going to fall off the table and give the doctor a lap dance, not the way I want this appointment to go.  The doctor sits down to begin the exam and decides at that point to crack a joke, I start laughing and then begin to worry that I might laugh so hard that tinkle a little, whew I didn’t.  A few more jokes and answers to a few questions this appointment is over.

The doctor leaves and I’m finally able to take the size 0, torn, wet paper gown off and put my clothes on.  As I walk back out into the waiting room the screaming baby is still in there, thank God I made it through without screaming but there is always next year.