Without any doubt, one of my biggest flaws as a human and a Christian is trusting God. That sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it? Not trusting God? How very HUMAN of me to think that man can do where God can't or won't?
For many, many years, Mike and I made money. A LOT of money. And we spent. A LOT of money. Some prudently, much of it on a whim or on whatever worldly interest passed by our faces. I spent a LOT of money eating out because I was undisciplined and didn't make a grocery list and make meals at home. Basically, I was lazy. And undisciplined. And the two to not mix well together. I grew up with a mother that, every single night after work, would stop by the grocery store for "just a few things". She'd end up hauling home $30-$40 of food every single night. We had no money growing up as a kid and and this was one reason why. After I grew up, I tried to teach her how to plan a weekly menu and she didn't want to hear it and continues to do this today, stop at the store and impulse buy. Sadly, for many years, the bad shopper didn't fall far from the tree and I did the same thing. Thank God for my husband that told me in no uncertain terms to knock it off and now I don't go in without a list in hand, coupon binder with me, and ONLY when I truly need to get food. I plan ahead meals and know what I have on hand and we eat accordingly now. Bad shopping habits are, well, bad, and they come from bad decisions. They make for a train wreck of a woman and a train wreck of a budget. In the end, the only thing that really happened as a result of our spending sprees was Goodwill got a LOT of donations from us as we have pared down things we need to live with and things we don't. It's an interesting journey if you are willing to pack your bags, put your hand in His, and trust Him. TRUST Him.
After Mike lost his job in Central Oregon, residential construction, God began peeling away layer after layer of WORLD from our lives. First was my Durango. Then our house. Then one of his Mopars, a '70 Dodge Dart he had to sell to get a new transmission for the Dodge that carried him and some of our belongings back over the mountains to the er we lost everything in the crash of 2008. In a span of 22 months I would estimate that Goodwill received the equivalent of the LARGEST U-Haul truck packed to the gills with things we'd amassed in fits of "want" and not "need". God continued to peel away our veneer, stripping us of eating out, of buying useless crap. He downsized Mike's salary by sending him back to work in prisons. Pay was definitely dialed down. I assure you, our corrections officers do NOT make what they are worth, not having to walk amongst the worst of the worst with only their fists and their wits, no weapons, to protect them. Even the establishment doesn't protect them. They basically clock in and are thrown to the proverbial wolves and every day they clock out and go home is gravy. Think I'm kidding? I've got stories for you.
Then he took away the income by sending Mike into a chow hall fight in which his right knee took a direct blow with concrete at top speed and over the next year and a half, his career in corrections was irrevocably destroyed, sign this resignation paper on the line, date it, thank you very much, we don't want you anymore. Torn out and discarded like a sheet of notebook paper, to be replaced by another man that would likely stumble upon the same fate down the road. A SAIF hearing and a settlement check later, bills were paid, a freezer stocked, car repairs made, and that's all there was as income for a while, until some kind souls helped us find other avenues that were available to Mike as a result of the settlement with the Department of Corrections. It wasn't much time at all and we were back to money coming in nicely and while I was doing better with the budgeting and not eating out as much, not buying impulse items, not wasting AS MUCH, there was still glaringly obvious room for improvement. I can be hard-headed and I can only assume that there have been times where God has face-palmed himself and wondered if my guardian angel doesn't have Attention Deficit Disorder. I've done better, but doing better isn't DOING THE BEST with the provision He gives us.
This past 12 months, we as a family have seen more than $3,700 a month in income fly right out the door. Now, the only thing we have left is Social Security Disability. I get a few hours here and there at a part-time job, and I've had to work hard to get my calligraphy back up but honestly, I don't want it at the level I worked it for years. It robbed me of precious time with my family and made me an idiot. I identified myself as "a calligrapher" rather than, "I'm Lori, child of God, wife, mom, and friend." To whatever level He allows me to rebuild what was will be solely at His discretion, not mine. Right now, I feel as though God's protecting me from something that is sweeping our nation and He's being very careful to keep me close to Him. My family can't afford to be sued for anything because someone wanted to make me an example of their "rights" over my rights.
Let me tell you something really cool about God: He loves you and knows you INTIMATELY. Not the intimately that the world knows, in the carnal sense, but He made you. He gave you your thought processes and patterns and abilities. He knows exactly what you are capable of. He knows the numbers of hair on your head and knows the number of days of your life. Matthew 6:25 has carried me through many days when I thought He wasn't hearing my cries. Of course He hears your cries, but the Teacher is always quietest during the test. He also does not turn His back on you and let trial and pain come to you without first ALLOWING the enemy to test you. That testing is done so that God can once again be proven mighty and sovereign and be glorified so the enemy can be shown in our eyes for what he truly is: Evil and unwanted. As evidenced in the book of Job, 1:6. Satan has to go before the Throne to petition God allowing him to test you. Satan may be the ruler of this world but he still has to ask God's permission to go to town on you. When you are being tested, I have learned to visualize God on His throne watching me and praying He nods approvingly at how I handle whatever test lies before me.
Something else very cool about God, He is unfailing gentle. He's gentle when He needs to be and firm when He has to be. I am so grateful for that because had He taken away from us everything at once, I honestly don't know that I could have handled that. He gently removed one piece of pie from the pie plate at a time, allowing us to digest and readjust to our new circumstances. Ok, they're doing good, now I'll sneak away another piece of the pie. And another. And another. And finally, I'll leave one piece of the pie and see where their gratitude is at. How they handle that last piece. If they suck it up in one slurp, we're on to the cake, and if they break off bite at a time on that last piece of pie, I'll know we've succeeded. If you know me, I freaking LOVE cake, so you can be sure when he was taking away pie pieces, I was PAYING ATTENTION.
First he took away one source of income and let me tell you, it was Old Testament biblical time of gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair and wearing of sackcloth. From Mike. And all God said was, "Child, you're making this harder on yourself than you have to. Knock it off." So he did.
Then, this past February, he took away another source of income. Another BIG one. Now, you try standing before God and going, "Really? How DO you expect us to live on THIS?", because He will show you. In ways only He can, he eased us into this new life of much less, gently and lovingly. And God loving you as He does, allows you to look back at what you've learned and go, "Way to go, Lori! Atta a girl, pat on the back, knuckle knock and high-five, you did it, girlie!" You're seeing the big plan and letting Him know, "I trust you. Thank you for loving me enough to teach me." After all, that's the reason behind all of this. To teach you. Wisdom. It's HUGE in the Bible. Look it up.
Yesterday, after a week of hanging out over the toilet, I checked out the cupboards and found our kitchen went Mother Hubbard on us. Time to go shopping. With only "x" in the bank. I had to make every penny count. So, I made up a list, made a menu, and headed off to Walmart because I like one stop shopping and Mike needed test strips.
I pulled into the parking lot, shut off the Dodge, and looked at my list. Instead of saying, "Ok, God, let me show you what I'm going to do in here", I said, "Ok, God, show me what you're going to do for me in here. Show me how to be a good steward with what we have because it comes from YOU and I am asking YOU to direct my path."
And direct He did.
I managed to get the food to feed three people for three meals a day, including some great produce and meat, for $75, for the week. We aren't having tri-tips and pot roast and extravagant meals. Our stomachs will be filled, but above all, He showed me how much He loves us by making sure I had what I needed to make it all happen. Just what I need. Now I'm sure that there are extreme couponers out there that would laugh at what I spent but I really don't need 64 bottles of mustard stored in my laundry room so thank you, but no thanks. This wasn't about storing up what I don't need. This was about getting what we needed this week and then letting others know about how He meets those needs. Over the past few years, there have been needs and only by His grace has every single need been met in ways only He can. I continually marvel at the ways He's done that. And not only that, but he's taken a grown adult man that would rather have gnawed his right arm off than accept help from people, and taught this grown adult man how to graciously let others step in and help you and show you His love for you. He has helped us out with the Dodge over this past two years in ways only God can and my once VERY prideful husband has learned to accept help graciously and say a heartfelt, "Thank you, brother," rather than punish his family with pride and refuse all help offered. EVERYTHING is a lesson. Every day. And there is ONLY ONE goal at the end of all of this: To stand before Him that glorious day and hear, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." How I long to hear those words.
I know many of you are hurting with less of income and loss of lifestyle and loss of jobs, but this isn't the end of the world. You have the road map to keep going. It starts by opening the Bible, then getting on your knees, in prayer, asking His direction and leading and provision. And it moves on with your peeling away your "rights" and what you feel you "have to have" in order to live. And it moves further along by taking what is given to you and using it prudently and wisely. Meet your needs, not your wants. There's a HUGE difference between the two. Does this end? Only when you stop breathing. And until then, make your goal to be to stand before him and hear those same words I long to hear. Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
Now, get going. Others are watching you.
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Gratitude
Grateful
isn't for when the cupboards and freezer are full, the closet is full,
the kids are spoiled, the driveway has new steel in it, and the bank
account is packed.
Grateful is for when you are going meal-to-meal, not sure what you'll find when you open the freezer door, but each time you do, you find things you forgot you had stored away months before, and somehow, the way the fish and bread were multiplied, the food is multiplied and your family is fed. Grateful is your child sleeping in her own bed, and not in a homeless shelter. Grateful is the rent check clearing. Grateful is knowing your child needs clothes and you go to Goodwill and score everything she needs and it doesn't drain the checking account. Grateful is a creditor telling you, "Sure, I'll extend you until _______________ (fill in the blank as you need)". Grateful is your husband is alive and defied odds and can still make you laugh. Grateful is your kids love you even though you will never win Mother of the Year awards, but you still get that text from your daughter, "I love you, momma." That is GOLDEN. Grateful is knowing you will probably never have a leisurely day shopping at some froofy clothing store for women, but your husband still finds you beautiful AND sexy. Grateful is the off button on the television so the world can continue to spin out of control, but you have the peace of turning off the tv and picking up your Bible because peace is inside and we still live in a country where we can read it and proclaim the power of God and the saving blood of Jesus Christ. Grateful comes in all shapes, colors, sizes, payment plans, sales, and balances, but it isn't something that will look for you. YOU have to search for GRATEFUL and then let others see it in YOU.
Grateful is for when you are going meal-to-meal, not sure what you'll find when you open the freezer door, but each time you do, you find things you forgot you had stored away months before, and somehow, the way the fish and bread were multiplied, the food is multiplied and your family is fed. Grateful is your child sleeping in her own bed, and not in a homeless shelter. Grateful is the rent check clearing. Grateful is knowing your child needs clothes and you go to Goodwill and score everything she needs and it doesn't drain the checking account. Grateful is a creditor telling you, "Sure, I'll extend you until _______________ (fill in the blank as you need)". Grateful is your husband is alive and defied odds and can still make you laugh. Grateful is your kids love you even though you will never win Mother of the Year awards, but you still get that text from your daughter, "I love you, momma." That is GOLDEN. Grateful is knowing you will probably never have a leisurely day shopping at some froofy clothing store for women, but your husband still finds you beautiful AND sexy. Grateful is the off button on the television so the world can continue to spin out of control, but you have the peace of turning off the tv and picking up your Bible because peace is inside and we still live in a country where we can read it and proclaim the power of God and the saving blood of Jesus Christ. Grateful comes in all shapes, colors, sizes, payment plans, sales, and balances, but it isn't something that will look for you. YOU have to search for GRATEFUL and then let others see it in YOU.
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Big Mike's Week
Big Mike's had quite a week.
Yesterday we picked up his custom leg compression socks/wraps and wow, what a difference. He was measured for wraps for both legs and thank God for insurance. WAY out of our ballpark. It consists of a nylon sock that makes Spanx look like soaking wet toilet paper. That goes on his foot up and over his skin graft, and then a wrap with Velcro fasteners that fits from the ankle up. When he had his emergency surgery on 8/1/12, all the lymph glands from the knee down were removed and there is nothing to push the fluid in his body back up the leg and into the remaining lymph system in the groin and abdomen. From day one he's had ace wraps and Coban on his leg, every single day since 8/1/12. By my calculations last night, he's had over 950 ace wraps and about 850 rolls of Coban used. Coban--amazing stuff. I believe you could wrap the space shuttle in Coban and it would hold together through fire and re-entry. It's a self-sticking wrap that kept the ace wraps from loosening and falling off. This will be a HUGE relief financially because since he was discharged from Wound Care on 10/10/13 we have been buying it all ourselves and I'm tapped out. But, you do what you have to do.
These wraps will profoundly change his life. Although I did my best, there was never enough even consistency with the ace wraps. It took two every time and either one was perfect and the other too tight or one was too loose--swelling in the leg can be VERY painful as the skin grafts begin stretching and now he will have even compression all over the entire lower left leg. He has been taking showers every other day or at worst, every two days. Now, he can shower every single day, and he will gain some independence from me having to unwrap all the layers for him in order to take a shower. Now he can simply undo the Velcro straps, slide off the sock and jump in the shower. We will still cover the skin graft with some sort of product to protect the graft itself from being rubbed (we have already dealt with one hole being rubbed through the skin graft and that was a special hell in itself and I had to scramble to make sure it stayed clear of contaminants and didn't get infected. Dr. Van Der Hayden, the doctor that did the skin graft surgery, is NOT someone I'd want to piss off by ruining her work or endanger his life by opening him up to potential new infection).
The wraps were torquing his knee and making walking excruciating. He's flat footed and the wraps were causing foot pain in the arch and wrecking his one good knee. Now, everything is even, consistent, and comfortable.
AND, this leads into the second blessing of the week.
Mike's new doctor has referred him to the Bariatric Surgery Unit of Salem Hospital. It goes without saying that if you're off your feet for four years, diabetic (type 1), and dealing with physical injury, you put on weight. A lot of weight. For nearly two years all he's heard is STAY OFF YOUR FEET. That kills the boyish figure.
We were scheduled to attend a once a month introductory meeting this last Wednesday but he came down with bronchitis and we passed until next month. The meeting is mandatory and he'll be weighed and given a packet of paperwork to fill out. They have strict weight guidelines that he must meet before he can have the surgery. This is good. Left to his own devices, the man is admittedly lazy. Having these requirements will motivate him to meet their guidelines. He's jumping ahead of the game by getting weighed in a day or so on his own at the hospital and seeing how much work is ahead of him to accomplish the expectations of the hospital before the next monthly meeting in July.
August 1 will be two years since our lives slammed into flesh eating bacteria, or I should say flesh eating bacteria slammed into our lives. We have lived transparently about how this journey affected each of us. It has been brutal, painful, agonizingly long at times, and blessed with victories at other times. Many days there were more questions than answers. Many days I just cupped my hands and raised them up over my head and said to God, "Here. You take it all. I can't do this right now." Our faith is what has kept us from just jumping ship and running. Knowing that eternity awaits us, that's what keeps us going.
I have seen a profound change in Alison. She's had to carry a much larger burden than many children her age carry. Having a sick parent is TOUGH. She asks questions only a child could ask. "Why doesn't dad have a job like other dads and go to work?" "Why does dad have to always be at the hospital?" Why. Some days she's just broken down in tears and I haven't had answers. Her most basic needs have been met, but now that Mike's doing better, it's time for Alison now. Her clothes have worn out and she needs new ones. She's larger than many girls nearly 10 years old. Five foot four and wearing women's clothes and shoes now. Puberty is pounding on the door. Take all of the last four years and mix it with puberty and my sparkling little glass of champagne is suddenly a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20. There is no magic pill or wave of the wand. It's a lesson for Ali that life isn't always a sitcom where every crisis is solved in 22 minutes with a fabulously dressed and coiffed family. Real life isn't a Disney show. Real life means you hear "no" a lot and you either act like a turd, which gets you nothing, or you handle it graciously and know mom will try her hardest to make things happen when she can.
Admittedly, this has all taken a toll on me, too. I'm tired. If my tolerance for bullshit was minimal before, it has headed into negative territory now. I have learned to navigate my way through hospital rules and doctors offices. I've learned to advocate for someone that is incapable of advocating for himself. I have learned to graciously know when to shut up and when to fire off a verbal missile that gets things moving. Walk softly and carry a big stick has become my mantra. The world tunes out a noisy bitch. The world moves when the quiet suddenly raise up the big stick. I hate seeing the man I love suffer so much, but I have learned to focus on making him comfortable and mentally at peace, rather than wringing my hands and worrying about how we will make it. His greatest compliment to me EVER is that he considers me the epitome of the Proverbs 31 woman. I won't agree or disagree but that's high praise from a man that had basically no use for women before this. God, without fail, has ALWAYS provided when I saw nothing. A couple of times our church has come alongside us and taken the wheel when the truck needed work. No words, just stepped in and did what needed to be done. Miracle makers. We are officially joining our church tomorrow. We will stand before the congregation at the prayer service and commit to stand with the church that committed to stand with us and has, many times. I have been able to encourage other women taking care of their husbands. If God used this to show other women, "You are stronger than you know, you can help the man you love," then it's all been worth it. If one person seeks Mike and sees the Kingdom, then it's all been worth it.
Yesterday we picked up his custom leg compression socks/wraps and wow, what a difference. He was measured for wraps for both legs and thank God for insurance. WAY out of our ballpark. It consists of a nylon sock that makes Spanx look like soaking wet toilet paper. That goes on his foot up and over his skin graft, and then a wrap with Velcro fasteners that fits from the ankle up. When he had his emergency surgery on 8/1/12, all the lymph glands from the knee down were removed and there is nothing to push the fluid in his body back up the leg and into the remaining lymph system in the groin and abdomen. From day one he's had ace wraps and Coban on his leg, every single day since 8/1/12. By my calculations last night, he's had over 950 ace wraps and about 850 rolls of Coban used. Coban--amazing stuff. I believe you could wrap the space shuttle in Coban and it would hold together through fire and re-entry. It's a self-sticking wrap that kept the ace wraps from loosening and falling off. This will be a HUGE relief financially because since he was discharged from Wound Care on 10/10/13 we have been buying it all ourselves and I'm tapped out. But, you do what you have to do.
These wraps will profoundly change his life. Although I did my best, there was never enough even consistency with the ace wraps. It took two every time and either one was perfect and the other too tight or one was too loose--swelling in the leg can be VERY painful as the skin grafts begin stretching and now he will have even compression all over the entire lower left leg. He has been taking showers every other day or at worst, every two days. Now, he can shower every single day, and he will gain some independence from me having to unwrap all the layers for him in order to take a shower. Now he can simply undo the Velcro straps, slide off the sock and jump in the shower. We will still cover the skin graft with some sort of product to protect the graft itself from being rubbed (we have already dealt with one hole being rubbed through the skin graft and that was a special hell in itself and I had to scramble to make sure it stayed clear of contaminants and didn't get infected. Dr. Van Der Hayden, the doctor that did the skin graft surgery, is NOT someone I'd want to piss off by ruining her work or endanger his life by opening him up to potential new infection).
The wraps were torquing his knee and making walking excruciating. He's flat footed and the wraps were causing foot pain in the arch and wrecking his one good knee. Now, everything is even, consistent, and comfortable.
AND, this leads into the second blessing of the week.
Mike's new doctor has referred him to the Bariatric Surgery Unit of Salem Hospital. It goes without saying that if you're off your feet for four years, diabetic (type 1), and dealing with physical injury, you put on weight. A lot of weight. For nearly two years all he's heard is STAY OFF YOUR FEET. That kills the boyish figure.
We were scheduled to attend a once a month introductory meeting this last Wednesday but he came down with bronchitis and we passed until next month. The meeting is mandatory and he'll be weighed and given a packet of paperwork to fill out. They have strict weight guidelines that he must meet before he can have the surgery. This is good. Left to his own devices, the man is admittedly lazy. Having these requirements will motivate him to meet their guidelines. He's jumping ahead of the game by getting weighed in a day or so on his own at the hospital and seeing how much work is ahead of him to accomplish the expectations of the hospital before the next monthly meeting in July.
August 1 will be two years since our lives slammed into flesh eating bacteria, or I should say flesh eating bacteria slammed into our lives. We have lived transparently about how this journey affected each of us. It has been brutal, painful, agonizingly long at times, and blessed with victories at other times. Many days there were more questions than answers. Many days I just cupped my hands and raised them up over my head and said to God, "Here. You take it all. I can't do this right now." Our faith is what has kept us from just jumping ship and running. Knowing that eternity awaits us, that's what keeps us going.
I have seen a profound change in Alison. She's had to carry a much larger burden than many children her age carry. Having a sick parent is TOUGH. She asks questions only a child could ask. "Why doesn't dad have a job like other dads and go to work?" "Why does dad have to always be at the hospital?" Why. Some days she's just broken down in tears and I haven't had answers. Her most basic needs have been met, but now that Mike's doing better, it's time for Alison now. Her clothes have worn out and she needs new ones. She's larger than many girls nearly 10 years old. Five foot four and wearing women's clothes and shoes now. Puberty is pounding on the door. Take all of the last four years and mix it with puberty and my sparkling little glass of champagne is suddenly a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20. There is no magic pill or wave of the wand. It's a lesson for Ali that life isn't always a sitcom where every crisis is solved in 22 minutes with a fabulously dressed and coiffed family. Real life isn't a Disney show. Real life means you hear "no" a lot and you either act like a turd, which gets you nothing, or you handle it graciously and know mom will try her hardest to make things happen when she can.
Admittedly, this has all taken a toll on me, too. I'm tired. If my tolerance for bullshit was minimal before, it has headed into negative territory now. I have learned to navigate my way through hospital rules and doctors offices. I've learned to advocate for someone that is incapable of advocating for himself. I have learned to graciously know when to shut up and when to fire off a verbal missile that gets things moving. Walk softly and carry a big stick has become my mantra. The world tunes out a noisy bitch. The world moves when the quiet suddenly raise up the big stick. I hate seeing the man I love suffer so much, but I have learned to focus on making him comfortable and mentally at peace, rather than wringing my hands and worrying about how we will make it. His greatest compliment to me EVER is that he considers me the epitome of the Proverbs 31 woman. I won't agree or disagree but that's high praise from a man that had basically no use for women before this. God, without fail, has ALWAYS provided when I saw nothing. A couple of times our church has come alongside us and taken the wheel when the truck needed work. No words, just stepped in and did what needed to be done. Miracle makers. We are officially joining our church tomorrow. We will stand before the congregation at the prayer service and commit to stand with the church that committed to stand with us and has, many times. I have been able to encourage other women taking care of their husbands. If God used this to show other women, "You are stronger than you know, you can help the man you love," then it's all been worth it. If one person seeks Mike and sees the Kingdom, then it's all been worth it.
Shopping
Alison
and I ventured out to find a few items to stretch her wardrobe. All
that was needed was shorts and capris. Apparently that was way too much
to ask.
I have a girl that will be ten in August and is 5'4" and wears a women's 10-11 shoe. She is not teeny and delicate like her sister. She's got a beautiful figure, a set of hips, beautiful straight back, shoulders always pulled back, legs that stretch on forever. The only zero she will ever wear will be the zero next to the 1 in her shoe size. I have tried to raise her with a sense of modesty and to be proud of how God made her. In this world, that's a nearly impossible effort. The world wants to debase our children and make them profane glitter wearing little sluts that look like they could turn tricks on a corner and act like sex-starved nymphs. On the other hand, Alison has a good sense of self. When she enters a room, she doesn't see an entire room with kids smaller than she is. She sees friends. She doesn't care that she can see clearly the part in everyone's hair. She knows she's welcomed and loved no matter where she goes. Her sister was the same way. She always entered a room with a smile and knew she was loved. I am VERY lucky both girls had that mental strength.
While perusing the racks of clothes at a store, Ali was becoming more and more disenchanted with the offerings.
"Sheesh, mom, I just want to find a nice pair of shorts. I don't want to look like I'm advertising anything. I want to dress modestly and nicely. It's going to come to a point where I end up making and designing my own clothes!" Necessity is the mother of invention, sweet girl. You may very well end up doing just that and being the envy of all the other girls you know that have to buy the same clothes off the rack and they all look the same. You can tailor your clothes to fit you and your body and your attitude and not line the pockets of someone that throws together crap just to make a buck. There's a line from Absolutely Fabulous from Patsy. "That skirt's so short if she bent over the world would be her gynecologist." That just about describes every single thing we looked at for shorts. Or as Ali put it, "Look, mom, denim panties."
Two stores and a lot of disappointment later, we went to Goodwill where INSTANTLY we located a pair of jeans shorts and a pair of capris. Next, to a store where she found a nice pair of tennis shoes. She's a very simple young lady. No froof needed. She's the one that wants to live on a farm and whose greatest aspiration in life is to be a mom and wife. She knows dressing like the world will not go over with dad and that guides her choices. She answers ultimately to dad and God. If more parents would make that same requirement instead of trying to be their child's friend, maybe we wouldn't need to comb through rack after rack of clothes that make young girls look like Hooters girls during the day and call girls at night.
I have a girl that will be ten in August and is 5'4" and wears a women's 10-11 shoe. She is not teeny and delicate like her sister. She's got a beautiful figure, a set of hips, beautiful straight back, shoulders always pulled back, legs that stretch on forever. The only zero she will ever wear will be the zero next to the 1 in her shoe size. I have tried to raise her with a sense of modesty and to be proud of how God made her. In this world, that's a nearly impossible effort. The world wants to debase our children and make them profane glitter wearing little sluts that look like they could turn tricks on a corner and act like sex-starved nymphs. On the other hand, Alison has a good sense of self. When she enters a room, she doesn't see an entire room with kids smaller than she is. She sees friends. She doesn't care that she can see clearly the part in everyone's hair. She knows she's welcomed and loved no matter where she goes. Her sister was the same way. She always entered a room with a smile and knew she was loved. I am VERY lucky both girls had that mental strength.
While perusing the racks of clothes at a store, Ali was becoming more and more disenchanted with the offerings.
"Sheesh, mom, I just want to find a nice pair of shorts. I don't want to look like I'm advertising anything. I want to dress modestly and nicely. It's going to come to a point where I end up making and designing my own clothes!" Necessity is the mother of invention, sweet girl. You may very well end up doing just that and being the envy of all the other girls you know that have to buy the same clothes off the rack and they all look the same. You can tailor your clothes to fit you and your body and your attitude and not line the pockets of someone that throws together crap just to make a buck. There's a line from Absolutely Fabulous from Patsy. "That skirt's so short if she bent over the world would be her gynecologist." That just about describes every single thing we looked at for shorts. Or as Ali put it, "Look, mom, denim panties."
Two stores and a lot of disappointment later, we went to Goodwill where INSTANTLY we located a pair of jeans shorts and a pair of capris. Next, to a store where she found a nice pair of tennis shoes. She's a very simple young lady. No froof needed. She's the one that wants to live on a farm and whose greatest aspiration in life is to be a mom and wife. She knows dressing like the world will not go over with dad and that guides her choices. She answers ultimately to dad and God. If more parents would make that same requirement instead of trying to be their child's friend, maybe we wouldn't need to comb through rack after rack of clothes that make young girls look like Hooters girls during the day and call girls at night.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part
For
the past several months, I’ve watched as several women I know join a
sorority none of us would have ever voluntarily joined yet actively
serve in every day. It’s a sorority of women that have, for whatever
reason, become caregivers of our husbands. Day in and day out, we live
our vows of “in sickness and in health” to the letter, taking on the
physical load and emotional toll of making sure
our husbands get through the daily battle of whatever illness has
landed on them. I promise you, none of us asked for this, but it is a
role I have come to love, even on the most difficult of days when all
you want to do is yell, “I can’t do this anymore, you either find a way
to deal with this or I’m going to curl up in a corner, go to sleep, and
fight waking up ever again.” It’s HARD. We are on the front lines of
seeing the man we love, the man we married that stood strong and proud
at the altar, the man that was once the “hunter/gatherer” for the
family, struggle to do even the simplest, most mundane of tasks, from
going to the bathroom to putting on a pair of shorts, to combing his
hair, to drying off after a shower, walking through the house, eating a
meal, or even completing a thought.
This journey of mine has brought me face-to-face with my own mother’s journey from wife to caregiver of my father. For all intents and purposes, theirs was a marriage of agreement and arrangement. Two nattering old women decided that their kids would be perfectly suited for one another. My father, the sweetest, nicest man I’ve ever known, who wouldn’t say shit if he had a mouth full of it, came home from the Navy to meet my mother at a dinner the two women arranged. My mother came from an unconventional family background, her father having been around 35 years older than her mother, died when my mother was two, nearly three. Her mother raised her as a widow until she met and married the town drunk and then it was on. Her life was in constant upheaval and her mother eventually divorced the drunk, but not before wreaking havoc in the lives of everyone in the family and leaving three women, my grandma and her now two daughters, my mom and her half-sister, to fend for themselves. My mother became a dental assistant and on payday, her mother would stand at the door with her hand outstretched and my mother had to hand over her paycheck to her. When this dinner was arranged, my mother not only saw handsome sailor at the table across from her, she saw her knight in shining armor. She put him on a white steed and never allowed him to dismount that steed. She worshipped the ground he walked on.
In June 1995, he woke up one morning, having endured a week of agonizing headaches, and collapsed on the bed, suffering from a brain aneurysm. He was whisked off to the hospital and then to another one, where he was rushed into surgery by an amazing neurosurgeon. During surgery, the main artery in his brain ruptured, causing two strokes in the front lobe of the brain, otherwise known as the “executive lobe”, where all decisions and impetus for doing anything come from. My sweet dad went from a Type A “gotta get it done yesterday!” to falling asleep in front of the television while watching endless hours of TV Land and Cartoon Network. Upon arriving at the hospital the day of his aneurysm, I said a simple prayer. I asked God, if you’re going to take my dad Home, please give us the strength to go on with a life that would make him proud. If you’re going to leave him with us, please give us the strength to give him a life of peace, comfort, and pride.
My mother, on the other hand, became a tightly wound ball of nerves, white knuckling away hours in the waiting room, shredding tissues, working herself into a hysterical mess of tears and nerves. My dad survived and had a shunt put in eventually to rid his brain of the fluid, encephalitis, but he was forever changed. As one doctor put it, “Your father has had the equivalent of a frontal lobotomy. His ‘get up and go’ was taken away when he had those two strokes.” In other words, my dad would always have the mentality of an 11 year old boy. He was incapable of summoning the initiative it took to do anything around the house. My uncle kept him on at the shutter shop he owned and kept my dad employed until it became very apparent in 2006 that my father was struggling with the simplest of tasks related to a move to a new and larger building. He couldn’t find his way around, couldn’t remember simple tasks. My uncle was torn at having to make the decision to let my dad go, and he tearfully apologized to me, but he had a business to run and he had the safety of not only my father to consider, but every other employee as well. I completely understood and made sure he knew that. My mother DIDN’T want to understand and made sure he knew that as well. Theirs has been a contentious relationship for the past almost 40 years and she’s not been kind to my father’s family. This was the nail in the familial coffin.
Two years after my father’s brain aneurysm, my mother noticed a lump on her neck. The doctor put her on antibiotics and the lump went away, only to reappear that November. She went to an ENT who ran tests and in his office, explained she had mucoepidermoid carcinoma. She had a tumor on her right saliva gland, a very aggressive form of cancer, and surgery was needed immediately. As if that wasn’t shock enough, what the doctor said next blew her mind:
“Mary, this form of cancer doesn’t just show up. It is a cancer that is kicked into gear by a traumatic event. You’ve told me about your husband’s brain aneurysm and how the stress affected you. I’d venture to say that it was that incident that set this all into motion.”
In other words, my mother stressed herself into cancer. Or as she liked to put it to other people, not jokingly, “My husband caused my cancer.” She thought that was comical. She had a very invasive surgery that removed nearly all of the right side of her neck, chemo wouldn’t touch this cancer but she underwent radiation five days a week for six weeks and is now 17 years cancer-free.
The next several years as my father required more and more care, my mother’s handwringing became worse and worse, her worrying became almost uncontrollable, and we began hearing a mantra in all of her conversations. “He doesn’t do ________ (insert anything there pertaining to work around the house) anymore.” And then…….
“HE’S NOT THE MAN THAT I MARRIED!”
I heard those last words over and over and over during the course of the next several years. Finally it occurred to me what was going on. My father, her knight in shining armor on his trusty white steed, dared to fall off that horse and was never able to get back on. For the longest time she’d placed him so high on a pedestal that when he fell off, her world crumbled. She’d never had to really be a “giver” in the marriage. He was always there to take care of her and anything that came along. One day, in one fell swoop, her man ended up needing help and she had no clue as to how to take care of him. She was still in “I want my husband back. He’s not the man I married!” territory. She was eyeball deep in that fantasy and refused to see that everyone changes. Even that man she married that she absolutely worshiped and adored, had changed over the years in great ways, but in her mind she still saw her sailor that swept into her life, rescuing her from that awful life with her mother.
One day, not long after Mike and I married, while we were staying with my parents until he found a job, my mother went into one of her hand-wringing “he’s not the man that I married!” fits when Mike had had enough.
“Mary, knock it off. You have two options here. One, you can go out there and sit with your husband and thank God Almighty that he survived a horrific aneurysm and strokes and even if it’s just keeping him company while he falls asleep to Cartoon Network, you have a husband that is ALIVE and so what if you have to take care of him and his needs—he’s alive. That’s choice one. Or, two, you could be going out to the cemetery to where Ed and Nadine are buried (my paternal grandparents) and visit your husband while he’s pushing up daisies. So he’s not the man you married. YOU’RE not the woman he married either. Everyone changes. NO ONE stays the same once they’re married. People change, lives change. You’re stuck in November 1963 at the altar where he rescued you. Now, grow up and go be the wife he needs and not the whining shrew he’s now able to tune out because he has the brain of an 11 year old boy.”
That’s my husband. Cutting right through the bullshit to the real truth. And she didn’t like it one teeny bit. But it was all true.
The night that I sat in the waiting room waiting to hear if my husband was going to live or die, I made a promise to God and myself. I would NOT become my mother. If this was the life that had been planned for us all along, then I would live that life to the best of my ability. I’d live a life that would honor my husband. Most of all, I would live a life that would NOT resemble the life my mother lived, one of fear, one of nagging and controlling.
I can only speak for myself, but I can honestly say my husband is not the same man I married. Happily. The man I found in 2001 was angry. He was resentful of women in his past. Quick to be angry, slow to think before he spoke. Of course, being a woman, my first thought was, “I love him—I’ll change him!” I can’t remember how I found the book but one day I managed to get my hands on The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Omartian, a book that changed my entire life.
Surprise--my husband wasn’t the problem. I was. Reading the book I learned to change MYSELF from within, I learned to quit standing in God’s way—how else could he do his work if I was standing in between he and Mike? I learned to PRAY for my husband. Then one day, I asked God to do something that is very, very powerful. I asked Him to show me Mike through His eyes. What I saw amazed me. I saw a grown man with the heart of a little boy. I saw a man that made his own life by working hard, telling himself his abusive childhood didn’t matter, that wanted desperately to be loved and love someone completely and wholly in return. I saw a man that was willing to change many things about him for the right woman and I saw that I was that woman, but I had to exhibit the qualities of a woman he would trust with what he was willing to change. Becoming a caregiver to your husband is an act of complete submission to the Lord so you are able to exhibit His goodness and kindness to your husband and those watching. As He submitted to the humility of washing the feet of the disciples, we submit to His will and metaphorically, and sometimes not to metaphorically, wash the feet of our husband.
Lately, several women I’ve either known for years, or have come to know through Facebook, or other forums on the net, have stood at the same door I stood at two years ago. They’ve stood at the door that, once they walked through, would lead them into a life where they’d see their spouse, their husband, the love of their life, suffer through accidents and illnesses. Some were minor, several were very serious. These women, one by one, have become caregivers to the person they loved the most after God Himself. Together, in this sorority, we have slipped hospital gowns on our husbands, we have walked them down a hospital hall, rolling IV towers alongside us. We’ve waited in hospital waiting rooms with total strangers, longing anxiously to see the familiar face of a surgeon and hoping to hear only the best news, but many times digesting the worst. We’ve sterilized the house to welcome home our sick spouse, held their heads while they vomited, pull them off the toilet, clean them up after they’ve used the toilet, held a urinal while they leaned on us for support. We have administered medicine, changed bandages, and arranged follow-up doctor appointments. Some of us have taken stitches out at home, wrapped wounds, washed blood spattered clothes and bed sheets. We have held their hands while they cried, and held our own heads while we cried, silently in the bathroom with the shower running to drown out the sound of sobs. We have crunched numbers and asked how we would make it, and some of us have looked up to the heavens to offer thanks for the gift card or check that arrived in the mail totally and completely unexpectedly. We wake up living our vows, we move through the day living our vows, and we go to bed living our vows. This is a role we take seriously, that of a caregiver. Our loved ones didn’t ask to be sick and truth be told, we would take their illness in a nanosecond to take the pain and fear away from them. Women are MUCH stronger than people think and I have discovered that men aren’t as strong as they like to let on. If your spouse becomes sick and you must assume the role of caregiver, please don’t look at it as a burden. It is a joy to show your love for your spouse when he or she runs headlong into illness. It is exhausting, frustrating, expensive, painful, confusing, and maddening, but it also a JOY. In the words of Jesus, "The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.' Matthew 25:40.
I will never know His true reasons for my father’s aneurysm, or why it happened, but watching all of that unfold was the blueprint I needed to see in order to avoid doing to my husband what my mother did to hers. Our parents’ behavior many times influences OUR behavior in situations. I was given the opportunity to right the emotional ship I’d seen in my own family, and to serve my spouse with dignity and love and not belittling him or whining about what was and why couldn’t it also be again. My husband has been forever changed, but then again, so have I.
To my sisters that have entered the service of being a caregiver, you are in good company, for there are so many more of you than you’re aware of. Your heart is filled to the overflowing with love for a spouse that repeated the same vows to you that you repeated to him. Your care is worth more than diamonds to the one that loves you and depends on you. You’re tired, I know, but each day begins with fresh new mercies. Your fears overwhelm you and drive you to tears, but remember, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28. You take time to shed your tears after your loved one is put to bed and the tears bring relief. Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning.
This journey of mine has brought me face-to-face with my own mother’s journey from wife to caregiver of my father. For all intents and purposes, theirs was a marriage of agreement and arrangement. Two nattering old women decided that their kids would be perfectly suited for one another. My father, the sweetest, nicest man I’ve ever known, who wouldn’t say shit if he had a mouth full of it, came home from the Navy to meet my mother at a dinner the two women arranged. My mother came from an unconventional family background, her father having been around 35 years older than her mother, died when my mother was two, nearly three. Her mother raised her as a widow until she met and married the town drunk and then it was on. Her life was in constant upheaval and her mother eventually divorced the drunk, but not before wreaking havoc in the lives of everyone in the family and leaving three women, my grandma and her now two daughters, my mom and her half-sister, to fend for themselves. My mother became a dental assistant and on payday, her mother would stand at the door with her hand outstretched and my mother had to hand over her paycheck to her. When this dinner was arranged, my mother not only saw handsome sailor at the table across from her, she saw her knight in shining armor. She put him on a white steed and never allowed him to dismount that steed. She worshipped the ground he walked on.
In June 1995, he woke up one morning, having endured a week of agonizing headaches, and collapsed on the bed, suffering from a brain aneurysm. He was whisked off to the hospital and then to another one, where he was rushed into surgery by an amazing neurosurgeon. During surgery, the main artery in his brain ruptured, causing two strokes in the front lobe of the brain, otherwise known as the “executive lobe”, where all decisions and impetus for doing anything come from. My sweet dad went from a Type A “gotta get it done yesterday!” to falling asleep in front of the television while watching endless hours of TV Land and Cartoon Network. Upon arriving at the hospital the day of his aneurysm, I said a simple prayer. I asked God, if you’re going to take my dad Home, please give us the strength to go on with a life that would make him proud. If you’re going to leave him with us, please give us the strength to give him a life of peace, comfort, and pride.
My mother, on the other hand, became a tightly wound ball of nerves, white knuckling away hours in the waiting room, shredding tissues, working herself into a hysterical mess of tears and nerves. My dad survived and had a shunt put in eventually to rid his brain of the fluid, encephalitis, but he was forever changed. As one doctor put it, “Your father has had the equivalent of a frontal lobotomy. His ‘get up and go’ was taken away when he had those two strokes.” In other words, my dad would always have the mentality of an 11 year old boy. He was incapable of summoning the initiative it took to do anything around the house. My uncle kept him on at the shutter shop he owned and kept my dad employed until it became very apparent in 2006 that my father was struggling with the simplest of tasks related to a move to a new and larger building. He couldn’t find his way around, couldn’t remember simple tasks. My uncle was torn at having to make the decision to let my dad go, and he tearfully apologized to me, but he had a business to run and he had the safety of not only my father to consider, but every other employee as well. I completely understood and made sure he knew that. My mother DIDN’T want to understand and made sure he knew that as well. Theirs has been a contentious relationship for the past almost 40 years and she’s not been kind to my father’s family. This was the nail in the familial coffin.
Two years after my father’s brain aneurysm, my mother noticed a lump on her neck. The doctor put her on antibiotics and the lump went away, only to reappear that November. She went to an ENT who ran tests and in his office, explained she had mucoepidermoid carcinoma. She had a tumor on her right saliva gland, a very aggressive form of cancer, and surgery was needed immediately. As if that wasn’t shock enough, what the doctor said next blew her mind:
“Mary, this form of cancer doesn’t just show up. It is a cancer that is kicked into gear by a traumatic event. You’ve told me about your husband’s brain aneurysm and how the stress affected you. I’d venture to say that it was that incident that set this all into motion.”
In other words, my mother stressed herself into cancer. Or as she liked to put it to other people, not jokingly, “My husband caused my cancer.” She thought that was comical. She had a very invasive surgery that removed nearly all of the right side of her neck, chemo wouldn’t touch this cancer but she underwent radiation five days a week for six weeks and is now 17 years cancer-free.
The next several years as my father required more and more care, my mother’s handwringing became worse and worse, her worrying became almost uncontrollable, and we began hearing a mantra in all of her conversations. “He doesn’t do ________ (insert anything there pertaining to work around the house) anymore.” And then…….
“HE’S NOT THE MAN THAT I MARRIED!”
I heard those last words over and over and over during the course of the next several years. Finally it occurred to me what was going on. My father, her knight in shining armor on his trusty white steed, dared to fall off that horse and was never able to get back on. For the longest time she’d placed him so high on a pedestal that when he fell off, her world crumbled. She’d never had to really be a “giver” in the marriage. He was always there to take care of her and anything that came along. One day, in one fell swoop, her man ended up needing help and she had no clue as to how to take care of him. She was still in “I want my husband back. He’s not the man I married!” territory. She was eyeball deep in that fantasy and refused to see that everyone changes. Even that man she married that she absolutely worshiped and adored, had changed over the years in great ways, but in her mind she still saw her sailor that swept into her life, rescuing her from that awful life with her mother.
One day, not long after Mike and I married, while we were staying with my parents until he found a job, my mother went into one of her hand-wringing “he’s not the man that I married!” fits when Mike had had enough.
“Mary, knock it off. You have two options here. One, you can go out there and sit with your husband and thank God Almighty that he survived a horrific aneurysm and strokes and even if it’s just keeping him company while he falls asleep to Cartoon Network, you have a husband that is ALIVE and so what if you have to take care of him and his needs—he’s alive. That’s choice one. Or, two, you could be going out to the cemetery to where Ed and Nadine are buried (my paternal grandparents) and visit your husband while he’s pushing up daisies. So he’s not the man you married. YOU’RE not the woman he married either. Everyone changes. NO ONE stays the same once they’re married. People change, lives change. You’re stuck in November 1963 at the altar where he rescued you. Now, grow up and go be the wife he needs and not the whining shrew he’s now able to tune out because he has the brain of an 11 year old boy.”
That’s my husband. Cutting right through the bullshit to the real truth. And she didn’t like it one teeny bit. But it was all true.
The night that I sat in the waiting room waiting to hear if my husband was going to live or die, I made a promise to God and myself. I would NOT become my mother. If this was the life that had been planned for us all along, then I would live that life to the best of my ability. I’d live a life that would honor my husband. Most of all, I would live a life that would NOT resemble the life my mother lived, one of fear, one of nagging and controlling.
I can only speak for myself, but I can honestly say my husband is not the same man I married. Happily. The man I found in 2001 was angry. He was resentful of women in his past. Quick to be angry, slow to think before he spoke. Of course, being a woman, my first thought was, “I love him—I’ll change him!” I can’t remember how I found the book but one day I managed to get my hands on The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Omartian, a book that changed my entire life.
Surprise--my husband wasn’t the problem. I was. Reading the book I learned to change MYSELF from within, I learned to quit standing in God’s way—how else could he do his work if I was standing in between he and Mike? I learned to PRAY for my husband. Then one day, I asked God to do something that is very, very powerful. I asked Him to show me Mike through His eyes. What I saw amazed me. I saw a grown man with the heart of a little boy. I saw a man that made his own life by working hard, telling himself his abusive childhood didn’t matter, that wanted desperately to be loved and love someone completely and wholly in return. I saw a man that was willing to change many things about him for the right woman and I saw that I was that woman, but I had to exhibit the qualities of a woman he would trust with what he was willing to change. Becoming a caregiver to your husband is an act of complete submission to the Lord so you are able to exhibit His goodness and kindness to your husband and those watching. As He submitted to the humility of washing the feet of the disciples, we submit to His will and metaphorically, and sometimes not to metaphorically, wash the feet of our husband.
Lately, several women I’ve either known for years, or have come to know through Facebook, or other forums on the net, have stood at the same door I stood at two years ago. They’ve stood at the door that, once they walked through, would lead them into a life where they’d see their spouse, their husband, the love of their life, suffer through accidents and illnesses. Some were minor, several were very serious. These women, one by one, have become caregivers to the person they loved the most after God Himself. Together, in this sorority, we have slipped hospital gowns on our husbands, we have walked them down a hospital hall, rolling IV towers alongside us. We’ve waited in hospital waiting rooms with total strangers, longing anxiously to see the familiar face of a surgeon and hoping to hear only the best news, but many times digesting the worst. We’ve sterilized the house to welcome home our sick spouse, held their heads while they vomited, pull them off the toilet, clean them up after they’ve used the toilet, held a urinal while they leaned on us for support. We have administered medicine, changed bandages, and arranged follow-up doctor appointments. Some of us have taken stitches out at home, wrapped wounds, washed blood spattered clothes and bed sheets. We have held their hands while they cried, and held our own heads while we cried, silently in the bathroom with the shower running to drown out the sound of sobs. We have crunched numbers and asked how we would make it, and some of us have looked up to the heavens to offer thanks for the gift card or check that arrived in the mail totally and completely unexpectedly. We wake up living our vows, we move through the day living our vows, and we go to bed living our vows. This is a role we take seriously, that of a caregiver. Our loved ones didn’t ask to be sick and truth be told, we would take their illness in a nanosecond to take the pain and fear away from them. Women are MUCH stronger than people think and I have discovered that men aren’t as strong as they like to let on. If your spouse becomes sick and you must assume the role of caregiver, please don’t look at it as a burden. It is a joy to show your love for your spouse when he or she runs headlong into illness. It is exhausting, frustrating, expensive, painful, confusing, and maddening, but it also a JOY. In the words of Jesus, "The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.' Matthew 25:40.
I will never know His true reasons for my father’s aneurysm, or why it happened, but watching all of that unfold was the blueprint I needed to see in order to avoid doing to my husband what my mother did to hers. Our parents’ behavior many times influences OUR behavior in situations. I was given the opportunity to right the emotional ship I’d seen in my own family, and to serve my spouse with dignity and love and not belittling him or whining about what was and why couldn’t it also be again. My husband has been forever changed, but then again, so have I.
To my sisters that have entered the service of being a caregiver, you are in good company, for there are so many more of you than you’re aware of. Your heart is filled to the overflowing with love for a spouse that repeated the same vows to you that you repeated to him. Your care is worth more than diamonds to the one that loves you and depends on you. You’re tired, I know, but each day begins with fresh new mercies. Your fears overwhelm you and drive you to tears, but remember, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28. You take time to shed your tears after your loved one is put to bed and the tears bring relief. Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Rules of the Road
1. Your boobs are not crumb catchers. Eating that Taco Bell taco with cheese and lettuce falling in between the ladies really is incredibly appetite killing.
2. The light turns green, that means go. It doesn't mean rearranging the items on the passenger seat in a fit of OCD until the light is 10 seconds away from changing to yellow. Get a move on.
3. Every car has a suspension and unless you drive a horse-drawn wagon, I know you can go faster than 1 mph into the parking lot. Why the hell can you not pull into a parking lot faster than a glacier moving down a mountain?
4. Parking space lines are not SUGGESTIONS. Those lines mean "park in between me and that line over THERE". If you're going to park over a line, then I'm going to park exactly where I'm SUPPOSED TO and I'll take a cell phone picture of your ineptitude so when you write me a nasty note or think you'll teach me a lesson by slamming your car door into mine, I'll have photos of your license plate AND your idea of parking captured on film for the police.
5. If you are walking through a crosswalk, it's not mandatory to move like you have a purpose but it is APPRECIATED that you move like you have a purpose in life. If you want to move like a slug I will pour slug bait on you so I can watch you shrivel up and die in place and then see where that gets you.
6. If you want to pull up next to me with your windows down and generously blasting NeYo from the speakers, I really appreciate your thoughtfulness but I'll be thoughtful right back at ya by blasting Rush Limbaugh out MY speakers at equally as loud a volume, if not louder. Homey can play games with the radio that will leave you wishing you were as creative.
7. Buckle your kids in. If you're a visual kind of gal, let's go to the produce department where I'll drop a watermelon from oh, about seven feet off the ground and then we can both stand there and take in the sight of a melon busted to smithereens and imagine that's your child's head on the pavement. You doosh.
8. If there is a six foot gap between me and the car in front of me don't you dare try to squeeze in front of me. I LOVE to screw with people that think they're entitled to because I'm in a big fossil fuel guzzling behemoth and they're in a pussified little electric car. My cat snores louder than your car. That's not a car. That's a cat with an engine.
9. I have Tourettes. Really I do. Drive past me with an Obama sticker on your car, or an SEIU sticker on your car and see which finger of mine suddenly pops up in a fit of Tourettes. Don't take it personally, though. I really don't have much control over it.
10. If you don't mind me doing a mime interpretation of the entire movie of Steel Magnolias while driving at 65 mph, using both hands, then I don't mind if you finish dressing and commence to applying your makeup at 65 mph, using both of YOUR hands. Ready......go!
2. The light turns green, that means go. It doesn't mean rearranging the items on the passenger seat in a fit of OCD until the light is 10 seconds away from changing to yellow. Get a move on.
3. Every car has a suspension and unless you drive a horse-drawn wagon, I know you can go faster than 1 mph into the parking lot. Why the hell can you not pull into a parking lot faster than a glacier moving down a mountain?
4. Parking space lines are not SUGGESTIONS. Those lines mean "park in between me and that line over THERE". If you're going to park over a line, then I'm going to park exactly where I'm SUPPOSED TO and I'll take a cell phone picture of your ineptitude so when you write me a nasty note or think you'll teach me a lesson by slamming your car door into mine, I'll have photos of your license plate AND your idea of parking captured on film for the police.
5. If you are walking through a crosswalk, it's not mandatory to move like you have a purpose but it is APPRECIATED that you move like you have a purpose in life. If you want to move like a slug I will pour slug bait on you so I can watch you shrivel up and die in place and then see where that gets you.
6. If you want to pull up next to me with your windows down and generously blasting NeYo from the speakers, I really appreciate your thoughtfulness but I'll be thoughtful right back at ya by blasting Rush Limbaugh out MY speakers at equally as loud a volume, if not louder. Homey can play games with the radio that will leave you wishing you were as creative.
7. Buckle your kids in. If you're a visual kind of gal, let's go to the produce department where I'll drop a watermelon from oh, about seven feet off the ground and then we can both stand there and take in the sight of a melon busted to smithereens and imagine that's your child's head on the pavement. You doosh.
8. If there is a six foot gap between me and the car in front of me don't you dare try to squeeze in front of me. I LOVE to screw with people that think they're entitled to because I'm in a big fossil fuel guzzling behemoth and they're in a pussified little electric car. My cat snores louder than your car. That's not a car. That's a cat with an engine.
9. I have Tourettes. Really I do. Drive past me with an Obama sticker on your car, or an SEIU sticker on your car and see which finger of mine suddenly pops up in a fit of Tourettes. Don't take it personally, though. I really don't have much control over it.
10. If you don't mind me doing a mime interpretation of the entire movie of Steel Magnolias while driving at 65 mph, using both hands, then I don't mind if you finish dressing and commence to applying your makeup at 65 mph, using both of YOUR hands. Ready......go!
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