In Memory of my little Red

     I have been thinking a lot lately and that hasn’t been good for my emotional spirit. I lost my little doggie of ten years and the loss is something hard to get over. I haven’t had a melt down cry yet. I have memories of him and little things he used to do that just make me wish he was still here.

     I have been making sweet tea for years and when he heard me fill up a pan for water he would come running and start barking. I couldn’t make the tea fast enough. He would want it and it had to be fresh. I couldn’t give him any that was cold from the Frigidaire.

 He just couldn't wait. 

     It’s little things like that that make me wish he was still here. It is also way he would eat peppermints. I would get peppermints from Sonic and save them for him. And there is the field mice. The mice come in the house from the cold and he would leap off the bed onto the floor just to sniff them out to see if he could get them.


     He was a little dog and we gave him a good burial. He was hit by a vehicle and his back was paralyzed. The poor thing couldn't have lived a doggy life. He died chasing a female. Male dogs only know two things – food and tail. If he hadn’t died from chasing tail he probably would have died from the food he ate. I spoiled him rotten. I gave him tea, sugar and sweets. I spoiled the little animal and he loved us no matter what.


     Eugene said one thing that I never really thought about and that was “I hope Red ain’t mad at us.” When he said that I really didn’t think that Red could be mad at us because he loved us no matter what. I didn't think a dog like him would have any reason to be mad at us for letting him go like that.


     Maybe he could be mad at us for letting him go like that. I’m not sure. He was just a little doggie with doggie emotions. He had a doggie brain. He didn’t have a conscious like humans do. At least not that I know of. 

Can doggies have a conscious? 

Do they know good from bad? 

     You can teach them good from bad with reprimands and such but then you can also teach them bad from good by rewarding the bad.

Can I really say that Red won’t be mad at me for letting them put him to sleep?

     I am just glad that I did get to spend a little bit more time with him eventhough he wasn’t himself. I got to hold him on the way to the vet. They put him in a box for us. 

If it is against the law for a human to let the doctor put another human to sleep then why isn’t it against the law for a dog owner to put their animal to sleep?

We see dogs as being our property. 

What if they really aren't our property?

     What if they have a conscious but because they are dogs they just can’t tell us because their evolutionary development stopped them from talking to us. 

Do animals have a conscious?

     When a dog looks in a mirror they may see another dog but they don’t know that it is them. They don’t have that realization. They don’t have that awareness about them.

     Our consciousness is in us. Awareness is on our surface and around us. Dogs don’t have that consciousness so I wonder if they have an awareness of others around them. I believe that they are not aware of themselves.


     When we had to make that decision to let the vet put him down and we spend a few minutes saying good bye. I could see it in him that he was feeling our grief. He was feeling our emotions. He knew something was wrong but as a little doggie there was nothing he could do about it. I’m sure he was aware that we were totally upset but didn’t understand. 

Oh GOD, I hope there is a doggie Heaven and that we will see our pets again.

    Even as a dog I think he had a spirit. It was his spirit that touched our lives. His spirit interacted with ours and we became attached. I took a couple of pictures of him before they laid him down. It seemed his life was drained from him. I could see it in his eyes that he was not the same little doggie.

     Yes, we knew we would lose him one day but I figured it would be from old age. We can’t blame anyone. He was a doggie doing doggie things and that is just something that happens. Even as I try to write down all my thoughts, the tears just flow from my eyes. As my mental awareness and self awareness see the big picture, I know that I knew it was bound to happen. I want to critsize myself for thinking that I let it happen. If I have power to control animals then, …let me rethink this a minute . . . I have a mouse by my bed that is making a lot of noise and if Red was here he would be on the floor trying to get it.


     Red was a good dog. And I am thankful that I have had the opportunity to love an animal. Since now it has been one week, I have noticed that my female, Lulu has really taken up with me a lot more. She knows he is gone (I think) and has been by my side a lot more. I'm not sure if it is because Red isn't here to take up my lap time from her. I think the love from my Lulu has helped me. She is my little black and brown weenie dog. She loves to have her belly rubbed and be held like a baby like Red did. 


     So I can tell all you dog lovers out there that it is good to have more than one dog because when one dies unexpectedly like Red did then if you have another one to take up the emptiness - it won't be so hard to on your emotional self.


     I am glad that I took lots of pictures and I even have videos for memories. Red maybe gone and won't be here to drink the first glass of tea or bark for Eugene's chicken but the memories we have will make us smile. But the most important memory I have is the one where he demanded to go "bye bye" with us in the truck. He would get up behind our heads and hang out the drivers side window and bark nonstop until we got there. The place he loved to go is where we buried him which happens to be down on our land where will be living soon. I have a piece of concrete that I have painted his name on and his birth date and date of death. I know this will be the first of many.

So all I can say now is that I hope that we will see our pets in the hereafter. I got to believe that. 

Facebook and other things you need to know about me.

So whose line is it anyway? So what does it matter? Who said what? Do I really care? Does it matter what anyone says? I just wonder.

Thinking over the last couple of months of not posting anything has really been bugging me. I can’t think of things to write about until just now. I am an avid user of Facebook. You can find me on Facebook too!

I love to read what others have to say about life. It is really a good way of finding out what people are all about. You can find out what they think. You can find out their education level by misspelled words or how much texting language they use in their status. lol jk

I see people on there who practically post their who entire lives and share them with other people who are their friends and even the whole public world. After tweaking my settings, I make sure my status is only seen by certain people and not the whole world. Who needs to know if I’m at the grocer store or at work. Who needs to know if I am having family problems or inner ear trouble?

One thing I have noticed about Facebook is how people love to share stupid stuff - photos, videos, links to other websites. All of this is very telling about that person. I love to get on You Tube and share videos I find interesting. Mostly stuff I find interesting and I am interested in or something that is a part of who I am.

We should really be careful about what we post and how we post. Employers can get on there and find out about you especially if you post that you got drunk last Saturday night and passed out in someone else’s bed.

So with all this being said or not being said. I am still married in Arkansas. Eighteen years now. Maybe I have revealed more about myself in my blogs than I should but I do have more control about what you will ultimately think about me.

Some things you may notice about my blogs is spelling. I am not the best speller in the world. I never won any spelling bees in school. I usually didn’t make it past the second round so spell check is something I truly love. I had two years of typing in high school and we used those old dinosaur electric typewriters. I used white out faithfully.

You may also notice that I only post when something is on my mind. I can’t start writing a blog unless I have something to think about. Most of my blogging is done at night after an eventful day whether it be at work or home. Something has to hit me to give me incentive to write.

My muse has been gone lately. I don’t know at this point how to get it back. I have a goal I had set for myself. To have a book written and published by the time I am 45 years old. I am 42 now. Three years. Do I have enough time? I don’t even have a clue as to what it is I am supposed to be writing. Divine inspiration has not hit me over the head with a baseball bat and I don’t know if it ever will.

I need suggestions but I believe the only way I am going to get any is just to start writing. I have started many stories but they don’t keep me interested in finishing them.

I need to find what I am good at. What am I good at? What am I good at? Ending sentences in prepositions? Yes, Ending sentences in prepositions. At? Of? Of course, dialog is not my foray either.

Well, I think I have wasted enough of your time by making you read this. Please, please, please! Email me at lisasanders2012@live.com if you can give me any advise about what it is that might be a good subject to write about. I am open to anyone’s suggestions. Or if you just want to email me for the hell of it, that is okay too.

My 2 Week Vacation

Today is Sunday, October 23rd. I started my 2 week vacation last Friday. I like to take a vacation after school starts and before winter time during Halloween. I have a lot to do and there is a lot going on in our lives. We are living here in this big 5 bedroom home, just Eugene and me with the dogs. Things are going pretty good. He will be starting a new job on Halloween. We are beginning to be in a situation where our finances are better. With the economy being so bad it takes everything we have just to live pay check to pay check.

I think that I will be able to get a lot done these 2 weeks. I want to have a moving sale and have the stuff here in my living room. We have a lot and I hope the weather cooperates. I should be posting more on here but it seems to me that sharing my life with the cyber world can be a big risk on making our private lives public. I guess it already is public because of facebook and google +. I need to begin thinking about my book and write more but it seems like I can find reasons why I shouldn't very easily. I find writing about my life isn't very interesting because I can't write about work and if I write about home, who really cares? Do I put everything on the table? or be like I used to be and hide things from people? Am I embarrassed about our home situation? Yes, and No. I'm embarrassed about how my home is not what I want or wish it was and No, I'm not embarrassed because I don't know any other way of life.

Maybe after I get this big old house straightened out I can take some pictures I would be proud of.

I HAVE ADD

     I am writing you a new post today to get the world updated on my life. I’m sure you are going to read this because you are interested in my world. I am also writing this also as a testimony of hopes of having this blog turned into a book for myself and and the generations to come. Who do I have to hand all this information down to? My son will soon be 21 years old. I gave birth to him when I was only 21. My hopes is that he will find a special someone who will bear his children so they can continue the Johnson-Adamson genes.
     So here I go. I started writing about the videos on the philosophy class on “Death” from Yale. After two blogs, I got distracted. Distracted with life. I call it Adult Distraction Disease. I start a project only to get distracted. I think that my intentions are good.

INTENTION. Similar to Detentions and similar to RETENTION. I intend to do it. I get detained and retained from picking it back up.

     So have I ever thought I was, what do you call it? Psychologically diseased? no. Psychologically challenged? no. Psychologically impaired? no. In fact, I have never thought I had anything wrong with me. Can I tell if someone else has ADD or ADHD? yes. Can I tell if someone else has paranoia? psychosis? dementia? yes.
     So what would you call what I have besides ADD? Did I have this when I was younger? not that I know of. Do I know what has caused this? no,.Do I think there are other people who have this? yes, very much so. Is it a bad thing? no, I think that it could actually help me in the long run. Do I think to much? yes, very much so. Do I worry to much? Yes! Do I think I am smart? no. Do I think I deserve more than what I have? no. Do I think that writing all this in a blog will help me with my ADD? yes. I have only written four paragraphs and already I feel better about having it. Do I still believe I have ADD? not completely.
     So starting every paragraph with the word “so” will be a habit of ADD. Lets break down why I am doing this. First, starting every paragraph gives me a good question to answer plus the word “So” is a pretty word. It is pleasing to the eye. It has lots of round curves and ends with closure. It gives your mind a mental break from the previous paragraph. Second, I am an Adult. But what really is an adult except someone over 21 yoa? Next is Distraction. What exactly does this word mean? To be distracted is to be totally engrossed with something then have something else butt-in and cause you not to to be engrossed with it. Right? I get distracted when I am typing and one of our new puppies that didn’t exist 3 months ago lets out a yelp. I get distracted when I am concentrating on writing and someone asks me a question that disrupts my train of thought. Then there are the bigger distractions in life that makes this a behavior a disease. The bigger distractions are when you intend (intention) to take a class that would not have any recuperations (such as a grade) if you didn’t finish it. If you intend on cleaning house knowing no one is going to come visit. If you intend on going job hunting but your friends keep you up late at night partying. Maybe you intend on reading this blog but something comes up in life and you don’t get back to me.


So, so, so . . . .


What else?


     Can I give you a scene from my life that is a total distraction from this blog about my life? I am listening to head phones playing music while I am writing this to help tune out the television playing in the bedroom. My husband is watching something and I need total concentration on what I am writing so I will listen to the music playing on my computer with ear buds I bought from the Family Dollar store so I can tune him out. Does it totally tune him out? No, I can still hear the people talking when the music goes silent so I have to really have the music on full volume and I try not to think about the television playing because it is a big distraction when I am writing.
     So the scene from my life revolves around a song. Not just any song. It is a song by Salt-and-Pepa called “Push It”. It is such a dirty song. It’s all about sex. It is all about getting on the dance floor and dancing sexy. Now you may look at me and wonder why in the world or better yet, how in the world I could possible relate this song into my life. Well, if you knew my when I was 18 – 19 years old then you could probably say that you know how I could relate to this song. When I was 17 I lost a lot of weight and I was able to keep it off until I got pregnant. I looked good for those three years. I was young and active. I found myself at a lot of dance clubs. I have even written a story about an encounter I had while attending one of these clubs in Pine Bluff. Do I wish I had gone back to see the guy after the encounter? Yes and no. In the story, push it was not playing but the sexual attraction was definitely in place. Also something else about this story I told can be followed in the other stories I wrote about on Triond. When I write these stories I have to be totally engrossed with it and re-live it in my mind. Only then, can I go back and add or change things up to make it a work of fiction for my readers. But it is loosely based on fact. Did I meet this Uniformed Officer in a Dance Hall? Yes, Did we dance on the floor? Yes, Were the words I written exactly what I said? no. So you may also wonder what happened after we left. Well, how can I explain it? nothing, nothing happened. I didn’t go back. And the reasons why? I had to leave the song and the fantasy at the club. I was married. Did he deserve my loyalty to not cheat in our marriage? yes. I took my vows very seriously and I still do. Could I have gone back to the club and met up with this stranger and left? yes, which brings me to another story idea I should write about.
     So, did you learn anything about me? So, do I deserve any recognition as a writer? So, do I have you totally obsessed about ADD? Do you have ADD? So, do you think I have ADD?
So, this blog is totally ADD. I started out on one subject. I got distracted and went to another subject and ended on another subject.


THIS BLOG IS AN EXAMPLE OF ADD


Is it not?


Want more read this!

My Response to Class 2: Dualism vs. Physicalism

  In this second lecture I can boil it down to one question.

Will I survive my death?

     Shelly doesn’t profess to being a medical doctor to explain what happens to the body when the body physically dies but he does a pretty good job explaining the major sequence of events that would occur.
     I hope that you will go to the website and listen to his second lecture  about dualism and physicalism  before you read the rest of my blog.
Go there now and come back to read the rest of what I am about to blog about so you will understand where I am coming from and my point of view. 


     To be true to my nature, I am a southern woman. I may have been born in the north and partly raised in the north but I can honestly say, all that snow is not for me. I remember living in New Richmond and Saugatuck, Michigan. 
     Looking up to see huge ice cycles hang from the roof. Drops of water beaded down the side of the melting upside down cones with the sun shining only to refreeze at the first hint of darkness.               
     I never thought about my soul as a child. My body didn’t fail me. If I fell, the blood would immediately clot and heal without a dab of Neosporin. I could play outside in the snow with shorts. I could ride my bike in a skirt on ice. I thought of myself as indestructible. It never occurred to me that there was this soul inside who would go on after my body failed me.
     So as a child you could have called me a physicalist. I had this body who could play all day and only after a five minute nap, get up and stay awake half the night before making my daddy holler at me to shut up and go to sleep. My idea of self was to go on and on without feeling any recuperation.  I’m sure that if you are a mother, like I am, or a father then you can understand where I am coming from with your children.
     As a child I acted as a child who only knew my body could do these amazing feats. Things like jumping off of a huge pile of dirt. Rolling down a grass meadow on the side of hill. Making my bike jump off of or onto a curb. Turning around and around in circles until I made myself fall down dizzy. Running with my German Shepard until I panted just as hard as he did. Play peek-a-boo with my little brother just to hear him laugh for hours on end. I physically could do the same thing for hours upon hours without getting worn out.
     My sense of self was within myself. As I got older my sense of self became detached from my physical body. I starting seeing myself as others saw me. When I looked into the mirror, I saw this person whom I didn’t know. As a child when I looked into a mirror it was the same a dog who looks into the mirror. I was seeing something there but not really caring what was there. That’s why we have mothers to dress us because as a little girl, I really didn’t care what I wore. This reminds me of this time I attended summer school in Michigan. Part of the class was to go to Lake Michigan and take swimming lessons. I didn’t have a swim suit because we were to poor to get new clothes until school started for the fall. This was the summer so I had to make do with clothes people gave us. The first time we went to take swimming lessons I had to be sent me down the hall to get a swim suit from some women who worked there. I had no idea who they were. I just remember that the lady who helped me put on the swim suit was talking to the other woman about how some mothers didn’t care about bathing their children. I knew the woman was talking about me and how she was disgusted at my dirty underwear and/or dirty clothes. As she dressed me I think I started crying. I didn’t understand why they were saying these things. I just knew that I couldn’t help it if I didn’t come to school clean. After all, that summer we were living in a shed next to a big house owned by Old Man Merlin on his farm. The shed had no running water nor a bathroom. It did have our bunk bed for my sister and me, a stove for mom to cook on and I can’t remember the rest of it. I do remember mom having to take us into Old Man Merlin’s house upstairs to take a bath once a week. How we survived that summer is impossible for me to remember but it gave me these bad memories that I believe contributed to my physicalist point of view evolving to a duelist point of view.
     I want to tell you more about Old Man Merlin’s big two story house but that will have to be another time. I would be getting off the subject if I divulged all the incidents that happened. After all, I’m supposed to be reviewing and telling you my point of view about how Shelly Kagan gives his lecture on dualism and physicalism.

     I even wrote a college paper on crying. Crying became something I was definitely good at as a child. Nobody told me to stop crying. Nobody told me that crying was a sign of weakness. I think it was and is because I am a girl. When my son would cry, I told him to dry it up and take it like a man and to be tough. Little girls who cried as much as I did was just ignored. I became to like the ignores I got from others. It kept me from having to deal with the bad mouthing or meanness from others I received.
     So as I got older, the duelist view became into being within me. I saw myself become a woman in the mirror, literally. I would look at myself and wonder who that body was. It didn’t feel like me. I felt my body was just that – a body separate from whom I was deep down inside. I would just look in the mirror and stare at myself at my eyes to find my soul. I was behind those eyes. My soul, even though I didn’t know what it was called at that time, was some where inside. I don’t know where my soul is exactly but I know that without looking into my eyes you can’t see my soul. I’m not saying that if you look into anyone’s eyes you will see their soul but if you do then you would have a pretty good idea of who that person is and what they are all about.
     I also want you know that I wasn’t raised religiously. I didn’t go to one particular church. I attended various vacation bible schools. But being one particular religion is not how I was raised. An atheist? No. A Presbyterian? no. A Pentecost? no. A Missionary Baptist? no. A First Baptist? no. A Second Baptist? no. A Catholic? no. I wasn’t schooled into knowing who or what to believe. Did this Not having set rules about being a good and a bad little girl have a lot of effect on me? Yes, it did. But it didn’t stop my belief that somewhere inside of my body was my soul. That little child who could slide her bike 10 feet on ice and scrape the side of her leg but still have the courage to go do it again when the chance came along.
     So even with all this said, I can honestly say I am a duelist and will most likely be for the rest of my life. Born a Physicalist? Yes, spent my childhood that way. So it is my belief that when Professor Kagan wants us to only reference two kinds of beliefs about self awareness, dualism and physicalism, he is just merely trying to give us some bases to reference the rest of the class. To try to give a platform to spring from. To get us into thinking above and beyond ourselves. We can’t be restricted to a limited point of view if we are to grow.
     Think of it this way. You have a self awareness only you know. Nobody else can make you think one way or the other. Or can they? The whole purpose of downloading and listening to Shelly for me is a personally one. I was and still am interested in studying the reasoning behind what will happen when I die. Shelly Kagan wants to persuade you, or/and give you other people arguments as to why, your self awareness should not be limited.
     Thanks for reading this and I will continue to give my own personal experiences as responses to his lectures.

Independent review on Death and Dying, Class 1

     Welcome to my first blog about reviewing a lecture that is free and downloadable from Yale University. I was going to attach the video but it takes up valuable MB's and time for it to download. The videos are pretty big. So just go to the link I posted after Professor Shelly Kagan's name below to get the video yourself.
     I have always been interested on furthering my education without going back to school. Some time ago, I googled free online course and discovered quite a few websites where you can study things for free.
     One school that I knew I would never financially be able to attend is Yale. After looking through all the available free classes, this introductory class on death and dying by Professor Shelly Kagan caught my eye. http://oyc.yale.edu/philosophy/death/  
     On this website you will find the syllabus, class sessions and videos for each of his class sessions. There are a total of 26 to download. There isn't a lot of reading with this class but the majority of the reading involves Plato’s Phaedo, John Perry’s A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality and Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Llych.
     I took the time to find a place to be able to download each video for each class to save to my computer to watch at my leisure because, again, the files are pretty big. Shelly, as he likes to be called, is an Indian sitter - on his desk - who is very animated. He uses his hands to talk and is typically a blue jean wearing and tennis shoe wearing man whose voice is not overpowering nor boring.
     Basically this class takes the religion out of what I, as a Missionary Baptist, grew up to believe about what happens to the soul/spirit when one dies. He ultimately hopes you will agree with him on at least one theory he believes in about the nature of death. I do think that if you are curious about this topic and can put away your religious views then this will be a good class for you.
     He also admits to being a harsh grader. I know I am not getting a grade for this but as to why he feels the need to explain this rumor is more for his students to know why they got an "F" on their first paper. As a theorist, he gets into a discussion about why he doesn't believe he is a hard grader and his main reason, because the administration wouldn't give him the facts on paper.  So he goes into another discussion about what the letter grades mean to him. He reads some statements about what past students said about him and his class. One statement that seems to sum him up is a statement from a student who said "You will either like him or you won’t."
     
     Some other Open Course Ware websites include
The University of Notre Dame Which looks like it has a new course from the Spring of 2010 called Paradoxes under its Philosophy Courses. Sounds interesting to me.


You might also want to try Berkeley

The UC Irvine has some OpenCourseWare classes too.


And even Utah State University has online courses.


And you might even want to check out UMass Boston 


But I would suggest you start with this website called OEDb or Online Education Database

     I know this was the introduction class so he didn’t get into much discussion about death so I couldn’t give you any feedback yet. I will make my next blog about the second class and lecture he gives and give you, my reader, a good discussion of what he discusses but in my words and how I theorize his class.

Permission to freely share or remix the work from this video at Yale can be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/
And quite a few of the other websites also use this license so people can freely share information and videos.

Change Happens

So I started this on Thursday June 23, 2011 and then I updated again on Friday June 24th at 11:40 PM and updated again on Saturday afternoon June 25th about 3Pm. But now This is my final update on July 10th, 2011 at 2:50 PM.  It all started from me browsing around on the web, looking at other peoples blogs, Looking at Facebook, reading my mail and I dawned on my that I haven't posted anything here on blogger in a good long while.
While I really like updating information on Facebook, I find it harder to post more stuff here. It seems like I have to have a story to tell and post pictures and more stuff but basically I could have more shorter blogs if I wanted to do that here. The reason I am adding to this blog is  #1 my internet card modem thingy got hot and I couldn’t regain my signal and #2 was because it was getting late and. now #3, because I needed to wait and add more to this post than what I was thinking about.
Now you may think you know me. You may have just been clicking on the words at the top that says “Next Blog” and found me. But anyway, you found me and I hope you will read this post and some of my previous blogs to find out why you should follow me. 
As my title says "Married in Arkansas" "A Look at Life from a Southern Woman's Point of View"
That is exactly what you are getting. I can call myself a Southerner even though I wasn't born in the South. I've been here long enough to know that the Northern way of life is not for me anymore. I don't know why I am in Arkansas though. When we moved from Michigan, some 31 years ago, my dad's intention was to move to Louisiana. He came down to scope out a place to live. Well, he stopped in central Arkansas to visit and stay with some friends, close friends who moved down here from Michigan as well.
So I almost became a Cajun. Now, I have nothing against Louisiana because, apparently, we lived down there before. Things had happened I remember nothing about because I was so young. And now, I don't think my stomach could have handled all that spicy food.
This was taken of me as a little girl when we lived in Louisiana.And the girl on the left is my older sister, Theresa.   
My intention is to blog about married life. My intentions are always good but the making them happen part is not. I wanted to share some of my thoughts and feelings with my readers and now after 24 hours I added more information than I previously thought I would blog about.
1) Life is too short. Old cliché but so true. Looking back I wonder what would have happened if . . .
      . . . if I had stuck to my guns and graduated college before giving it up for married life and child
      . . . if I had said "No" a lot more times than I actually did
      . . . if I had spoke up more often in Twelfth Grade English Class
      . . . if I had gone to prom stag or just not gone at all
      . . . if I had attempted to become a friend other than expect others to be friends with me
      . . . if I had just smiled more.
2) My idea about what life is and what isn't is a lot different than what others think. And I think there will be a lot of people out there who can relate to what I am saying. My idea of what life is about is learning. We are learning to deal. We are learning facts, figures and ideas. We spend all of our childhood in school learning things to get us through adult life. If we fail to learn everything we need to know growing up, it has a direct effect on us as adults. We learn to add, we learn to write, and we learn history as children. As adults we use those numbers and letters to learn to not repeat history. History repeats itself. We all know that fact. As adults we must learn to not let history repeat itself.
Case in point:

Tammy grew up with a mother who was an alcoholic and her father was not present. Her mother went from man to man. Tammy didn’t learn what a stable home life was all about. As a teenager she started drinking. By 17, she was pregnant. She married the father of her baby but after 6 months he left her. With no idea as to what a home life is, she did the same thing to her child that her mother did to her. By the time Tammy turned 30, she had overdosed and almost died. It was a wake up call. She came through with the love and support of her teenage daughter. She became closer to her daughter. She learned her daughter was smart because of her demanding the daughter to go to school so she learned facts, figures and learned history repeats itself. Her daughter wanted to break the cycle and went on to become a psychologist and sociologist helping women who were alcoholics; and, Tammy, well, she learned things happen for a reason. But the reason may not always be what we expected. She learned from rearing her daughter everything she should have learned from her mother when she was growing up.

3) Don’t plan anything. I mean DON’T plan anything. Plans don’t work. Plans can change. Plans can be broken. Plan is a rotten word. It gets you motivated. It gets you looking at possibility that may not be able to come true. It is possible that plans can work but most of the time plans are broken. Murphy’s Law is in full effect.
4) If you think you can’t get it, you probably won’t. If you have even a inkling in the back of your mind that it can’t work, it won’t. You may want something so much that you plan for it, you struggle with what your going to do with it after you get it that you set yourself up for failure.
Case in Point for 3 and 4:

Jimmy and Joanie plan to go buy a new house. They find their dream home. They apply for the loan and everything seems to be going good but Joanie remembered that the creditors scrutinize all your debt and she forgot to mention an outstanding debt she occurred and didn’t pay so it put a blemish on her credit report. They are told that everything is good until the bankers find she lied about this little outstanding debt so therefore, they can’t get the house of their dreams. So Jimmy and Joanie planned on this particular house. They dreamed and talked about what they are going to do with the bedroom, the colors they will paint each room. They even went so far as to prepare to move and couldn’t back out of their current agreement with their landlord who wouldn’t let them stay since they aren’t moving.
Joanie knew in the back of her mind that this little outstanding debt would eventually catch up with her but she did nothing about it. She lied on the application to get it. In her mind, she feared that the deal would fall through. She kept that feeling of dread in her stomach and the whole time while they waited and planned, her stomach caused her pain, her blood pressure rose and migraines became an everyday problem. Their plans backfired.

5) Negativity gives birth to negativity. Negativity is a common emotion. We all think negativity. I’m to short to play basketball. I’m not smart enough to take that AP course. I’m not good enough to sit at the popular students table. They won’t like me. I can’t talk to him/her because I’m not good enough for them to like me. All these things give rise to how we act, think and feel about ourselves. If only we could find the courage to think positive and not worry about not being good enough. I’m sure that everyone who is reading this can say to me

“This is common sense stuff and I’m not going to read anything else she writes because it’s boring”

So this is me, thinking negatively. I’m scared that, I as the writer, and you, as the reader, will stop reading my blogs and think I am boring and therefore anything I write from this point on will be of no value to anyone except my own person self worthiness and ego I need to feed. This kind of negative thoughts invade my life everyday even though I didn’t intend for it to happen. I just wanted to tell you, the reader, that negativity breeds negativity. I have these negative thoughts in my head as I write this and I can’t help it. I don’t want to be so negative but it’s such a natural emotion and reaction that makes me human. It is when that negativity overrides the positive that causes a problem. We shouldn’t dwell so much on the bad because it makes us sick.
Negativity can make you physically sick. Worry can make you physically sick. Dread can make you physically sick. Doctors say you should watch what you eat because it can make you sick. Sugar makes you sick, Processed foods make you sick. Carbonated drinks make you sick. So those things feed your body physically but what caused you  to eat those 16 square sugar cubes, eat that half gallon of chocolate ice cream or bag of Cool range Doritos? I’ll tell you – negativity. Feeling bad for ourselves. We had to fill that void. Have you ever seen a fat positive person who loves life and has the world by the horns? No? Have you ever seen a person who totally loves life and is positive about everything? No?… didn’t think so…
If you are a young person reading this, STOP! Realized, wake-up and smell the coffee. You may not understand now but one day you will and like mom and dad said, you will get paid back when you have children.
If you are 40 or older, then you will probably stop reading this. You are thinking negatively. You think that I, as the writer, am crazy. You think I am not telling anything you don’t already know. Well, I am here to say that you are still reading this because you needed this pointed out to you but you just now realized it.

Case in Point:
Danny was bummed about not getting hired on at the local factory. He really wanted to work there but when he was at the interview he didn’t give it his all. He didn’t put his best face forward and gave the interviewer a bad impression about his skills. He started beating himself up and let the negativity cause him to start staying in bed. He became depressed and with only an aging grandfather around he didn’t have a hard time hiding from life. Depression isn’t something men have as often as women but who is to say it can’t happen. Danny starting eating. Before he knew it, he was 300lbs, 400lbs, 600lbs. Then one day he was too big to take care of himself. He practically ate himself to death all because he didn’t get the job.
Can this happen to you? Sure, if you let it. We have to roll with the punches. We have to learn to find the good in all things. What Danny didn’t know was that if he had gotten that job, he wouldn’t have found a woman who was willing to give him all the love and support to think positively to lose that weight he had been carrying. The weight was his burden to carry. The negativity grew and grew. Until he found the love and support to lose the weight from a companion, he couldn’t let that negative seed go. It feed his emotions which in turn feed his body all because he didn’t let it go and find the good about not getting that job.

6) Love is more important than money. Friendship with someone special is the most important relationship you’ll ever have. Finding Mr. or Mrs. Right is good for your health. It is a proven fact by doctors that married couples who stay together their whole adult life live longer than those who aren’t married or in a loving relationship. So go be in love. If you are afraid to ask for what you want, then you won’t get it. How will you know if that boy or girl likes you unless you ask.
Case in Point:

Jerry Jack needed a date for his prom. He wasn’t a popular guy or even a good looking guy so he picked a girl on a dare from his Buddies' The girl wasn’t one on the best looking girls. On the chubby side but smart. A girl that had her own ideas about who she wanted to go to prom with but because Jerry Jack was the only guy who asker her, she said yes. Jerry Jack thought he was in love with this girl. He dated her before prom. He continue dating her afterword's too which eventually lead to marriage. Like most high school couples they thought they could concur the world with their love. And to make a short story short, they lived a long wonderful live in love but not with each other.
Jerry Jack discovered he was really gay and she, well, she went on to find love with a man who reminded her of her daddy. Did they regret their love? No. Good things happened such as their children.

7) You can’t control other people. You can’t control their thoughts. You can’t control their feelings. You can’t make them like you. You can’t make them love you. You can’t tell another grown adult how to act or behave. You can’t expect something for nothing. People lie. People play dumb. People think you don’t know what you are talking about. People play innocent until proven guilty. People are individuals who don’t want to be controlled. How would you like it if I tried to control you by telling you, as my reader, that I, the writer, can make you regret not asking that girl/guy to the prom or dance all those years ago? I can make you regret. I don’t have to do anything but write a little scenario that may or may not be real. I can write a scenario to control your thoughts and feelings. That’s what books do, don’t they? and movies too? But it should be obvious that I’m not trying to write a book or movie. I am trying to tell you that I can’t control you. I don’t know how you will react or what you will think after my next Case in Point? You can lie and say you loved it. You can get mad and stop reading at anytime. I have no way of controlling you to make you read every little word I write but I can make you feel something, like jealously, envy, regret or hate.
I think all of these things are so true to life. But the last idea I have about life could be one that you will definitely disagree with me about.
8) Life is boring. I say it is boring because it just is. When you have nothing to do and just sit around and think about it – living is boring. We need other people around to talk to. We need other people to joke with. Without other people, life is boring. I was used to having a house full of people everyday. It was always something. James got mad at Jerry. Sally slammed the door to her room because she couldn’t get what she wanted. Somebody was always around saying something about somebody else. When you have a family in one house and they all go there separate ways, the mundane becomes even more mundane. Without loved ones in our life the everyday stuff is just that, everyday stuff. Getting up in the morning, eating breakfast, going to work, coming home, cooking dinner, going to bed. Routine, routine, routine.

After 4th of July Update

Mother-in-law, Mother-in-law, Mother-in-law

What would we do without them?

She cooks my husbands favorite dinner

 Chicken and Dumpling's.

Good old chicken legs and thighs, not de-boned of course, 

no gristle and fat removed from the pot 

but boiled until it is so tender you couldn't tell anyways.

She would have made the dumpling part 

if I had flour in the house.

Eggs and Oil I have. Flour No. 

So canned biscuits had to do.

She also does laundry I might say. I imagine she would have put the clothes up too if she had known where they go. But overall, mother-in-law's can be a good thing - if they like you that is.

I've had my share of mother-in-law's and 

I see how my mom is to her daughter-in-law too.

If the mother-in-law has a beef with the daughter-in-law, 

well, 

lets just say the daughter-in-law is in for some trouble.

I don't know about you but I've had the good fortune 

of having a good mother-in-law right now. 

My ex-mother-in-law - not so good but I won't go there. 

Let's just say, being her first daughter-in-law was rough.

 So now, I have a mother-in-law who may not be rich 

but would do anything to help us. 

She has been here since Saturday and hasn't been
nosy, demanding or hardheaded.

I wrote a short article about how to get along 

with your mother-in-law on Triond quite some time ago. 

I thought some people might get some help from tips I wrote and about what to do.  How-to-Get-Along-with-Your-Mother-in-law-When-She-Comes-to-Your-House-for-Christmas.

I think that having the mother-in-law to come visit
can be a good thing.

 She didn't come in and try to take over my kitchen.

 She didn't come in a say how dirty the place is 

(not that I keep a dirty house, shhhhushh your mouth).

 She didn't come in and demand to be waited on hand and foot either. So for me, having the mother-in-law I have is better than most mother-in-laws I have met. 

So for this day after the Fourth of July Day, it will be bitter sweet because she could have been living here the whole time. 

So other than her returning home which is,

 by the way 100 miles away, 

things will be kind of back like it was before she arrived. 

Less people but at least some 

normality, quietness and peacefulness.

Mother-in-law tongue plant

My version of Spaghetti Dinner

This is my version of spaghetti. 

It’s fast. 

It’s convenient and my son didn’t have any problem going back for seconds.

I started with 2 packages of regular spaghetti. 

Not the vermicelli nor the angel hair but 
the real thick kind.

I boiled it and when it was almost done I added a full bag of Kroger Brand Peppers and Onions.The bags of frozen veg’s are usually on sale at Kroger for only $1.00.  It has slices of red, green and yellow bell pepper and white onions. After added it, I let it simmer while I opened and microwaved 

a large Family Size box of Banquet Meatballs 
in their own sauce. 

Then I opened two large cans of

Best Choice Brand pasta sauce. 
I got these 2 cans plus 4 others 

on sale from the Family Market on Asher 
for only 50 cents a can.

So when the spaghetti, bell pepper and onions were done, I drained off the water and then

I added the sauce and Banquet Meatballs to the mix.

     I didn’t have any parmesan cheese or garlic bread but I’m sure that would even make it taste even better. The Meatballs and sauce have spices in them that taste real good even on there own on bread.

     I don’t add salt or pepper to my food when I cook but if I had some Parsley, Rosemary or some other green spices it sure would have been better. I don’t have any spices in my kitchen right now because of moving and all. The spices that were here to use were old so we had to throw them out.

     I had made this Sunday Night for us and the boys. I like to just throw things together that I have in the kitchen without all the measuring and receipt following.

One of my favorite things to make is just plain old goulash because you can put in just about anything as long as you have some kind of meat base, vegetables and tomato based sauce. Next time I do this I’ll be sure to take pictures. I’m not an excellent cook. I’m not even the best cook. I’ve burned my share of biscuits and water. But I do know what taste good and I like to cook stuff that is fast and affordable. I probably spent about $6.00 for all the stuff for the spaghetti. 

     Next time, I’ll be sure to write down specific prices. I love to buy on sale so if it’s not on sale, I usually won’t buy it.

Memorial Day Reflections ode to My Daddy

Mom and Dad right after they got married.

So this Memorial Day is the same old thing. People are cooking out. People are going to the lake. People are visiting relatives, going to cemeteries to remember long lost loved one, and maybe having a beer or two. I remember past Memorial Day’s as being a day where we get together with family and friends and we got along for Heaven’s sake.

Some relatives graves in Illinois

Friends of the family, David Jones with wife and son at Remmel Dam in Hot Springs

Dad would bar-b-q some chicken on the grill with a towel around his neck. He wore his blue jean overalls without a shirt. A large clear glass full of ice water next to him. Aunts, uncles, cousins and close friends of the family would join him in the yard under the shade tree.

How I wish I had more pictures of him. My mind can only remember the big picture of how he was. All the little details, down to the color of his eyes are hard for me to imagine now. It has been almost 34 years since I lost my dad to a major heart attack. He was only 44 years old. I’m only 3 years away from being 44. I can’t imagine how he felt that last summer he was alive.

Dad was proud of his tomatoes

I remember a couple of years before his passing, he had gone to Florida to visit some family. He brought someone with him that looked like his twin brother. When he pulled in the drive, I ran out the back door yelling “I got two daddy’s!”

Uncle Johnny, daddy, aunt Virginia and JW

Actually it was his Uncle Frankie. The spiting image of dad and I became very close to him as well. I loved having Great Uncle Frankie around. It wasn’t long after dad’s passing that Uncle Frankie returned to Florida. I’m not sure exactly what he did in between that time, my memory fails me but I know he was around a lot. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of Uncle Frankie.

Dad with his siblings

My dad also had a younger brother, Uncle Johnny, who also was around a lot but did live in Florida and came to visit. He still comes to visit to this day but only to see his sister, Aunt Virginia.

Dad’s mom Margaret, who also died young and who I favor most.

It seemed to me that we were always going to visit dad’s relatives but they didn’t visit us much, as it is also with relatives on my mom’s side.

Me, Tommy, Tony and my little brother Sans at a laundry mat in Sheridan, Arkansas.

Memorial Day would be a whole weekend of visiting relatives or going on a trip to Petty Jean. He would load us kids up in the back of his pick-up, back when it wasn’t illegal not not buckle up, and ride on Highway 270 to Lake Catherine in Hot Springs or go to the big Pine Bluff Flea Market on Hwy 270 on Sunday Morning.

Dad when he was in the Army in Okinawa

Memorial Day sure has changed over the years. It was about family and friends or short day trips. People just don’t get together like they used to do. Conflict, jealousy and hatred has been more the norm than the usual for those in my family and those around me. “Keeping up with the Jones” has been taken to heart.

Old pick-up dad had that we rode in the back of

To go back to those days, growing up, where cleaning up the yard, cook outs and short trips were the good old days that the new generation growing up now doesn’t know much about would be awesome. I think there are probably are families who are still doing those sort of things but finding them are few and far in between.

Uncle Johnny

Memorial Day is a day to remember those loved ones who passed. The person who held the family together. The person who made things happen. The person who could get sisters and brothers together despite the hatred between them. They would get together all for this person but now that person is gone. Whether it be grandpa, grandma, Great Uncle Charlie, long lost Aunt Betty, cousins or second cousins, we did the family thing “just because.”

As I sit here writing this, I know that we can never go back. We can never bring back those loved ones. We can never recreate such scenes in life as those in our memories. So if I could say something to the one person who was the back bone of our family, I would say:

“Dad, I miss you. I wish you were here. You kept our family together and I hate you for dying on us when we needed you most. I’m sorry for not being there when you died and I didn’t tell you how much I loved you on the phone that night before. I hope you are in Heaven and I will one day see you again. If you aren’t in Heaven, then I pray that your memories will forever be preserved for me to think about since you won’t be with me in body or spirit. Daddy, you left a big hole in my heart. It has only crusted over with time. You may be gone in body but I know, in spirit, you have been my Guardian Angel.

I miss you, your daughter, Tootsie.”