Michelle's Mind..........

Ok, so I just made that up.

I was preparing dinner tonight and thinking about my new job. Oh yeah, in case you didn't know... I started a new job last week. I'm now the billing manager for a doctors office not far from my home. Back to dinner.... and I was thinking about how much I really did enjoy working in Tulsa. I mean, yeah, the drive sucked, but, at least I was in more of my element.

You see, I live in the sticks. We're talking borderline deliverance. I'd forgotten how simple minded and backwards most of these people are until this last week, it was painfully thrust into my face when I had to deal with some of them on a one on one basis. Don't get me wrong, not all of them are stupid, and some of them just don't know any better - they're a product of their upbringing, but it still made me wonder how in the hell I turned out like I did.

My parents are smart, my dad was always very techno-savvy, and I was encouraged to learn and expand my horizons. But still, its amazing to me how I managed to not turn out to be like these people. 90% of my close friends (all of you who would be reading this qualify) are intelligent people, and incredibly creative. I love all of you for giving me something to come home to and peek into your minds here to see whats going on in the "intelligent" world.

Because believe me, they've taken me out of the city, but I refuse to breathe the same air as some of these people.

A couple of weeks ago, my grandmother mentioned to me that she was getting new carpet and she asked if I wanted her old area carpets. They were still in great condition, but grandma has this thing about being able to see footprints in the carpet...makes her crazy. We'd been talking about replacing our carpet for a long time, it REALLY needed it. The topic had come up to just pull the carpet up, paint the concrete floor and use area rugs, so this seemed like a good idea. My allergies are insane, so I've always been of the opinion that the carpet is my enemy... dust, mites, etc.. *shudder*

So yesterday she calls and says her new carpet is coming this week, can we come get the old. So we go, we load it up in the truck, bring it home, unload it and then settled to watch some TV. Charlie looked over at me and says "Hey, lets go pull up the carpet in the hallway and see whats under there, what we'd be up against." I agreed. I don't think he thought I would...

So, about 8 hours later, half of the living room and all of the hallway is now down to the bare concrete.... You can tell a lot about the history of your home by pulling up the carpet. Someone had a big area rug down once... and painted the floor around it red, leaving what was under the carpet bare concrete. There was also once some wood looking tile on some of it. It was that really stupid kind with asphalt backing. That shit is hard to get up off the floor.

I'd also like to kick the ass of whoever decided to glue the carpet pad down with a big swirly string of glue.

I will say this. After seeing what was under the carpet and pad - I will NEVER have carpet again. Not unless I can move it to clean under it. DISGUSTING. No wonder I can't breathe half the time.

I'm sure it will bug the hell out of me, so on my day off this week, I'll finish pulling up the rest of it. I'm a little nervous about how much more of that @#$&*(! tile I'm gonna find. That stuff is a bitch.

My back is killing me, and its really nasty, dirty work, but I'm pretty sure when its all done, it will have been worth it.

I was browsing the news online today and ran across a list of the new laws that went into effect today. I always like to keep up with the nonsense of the great state of Oklahoma.

It made me grind my teeth when I read this:

"Also starting on Tuesday, expectant mothers in Oklahoma are required to take prenatal classes with warnings against using alcohol and drugs during pregnancy."

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm totally about educating the uneducated. But, unless this is going to be some kind of scare tactic, do you really thing that the drug and alcohol abusers are going to benefit from this? Probably not, but, hey, if it saves one baby from a birth defect, then its a good thing.

So why am I upset?

Well, lets stop and look at this for a minute. Lets say that I'm pregnant for the first time. I'm a 34 year old intelligent woman. I am a business professional, I have always had a job. I rarely drink, and I've never, ever, ever used any kind of illegal drug. EVER. I go to get prenatal care and I'm forced to sit in a class about using alcohol and drugs during pregnancy?

Since when is it ok to say, "Well, the majority of you are stupid, so I guess that means that we're going to make ALL of you take this class because we're too lazy to screen people to determine who is high risk and who isn't."

Most of you know that I have a nursing degree. It doesn't take a medical professional to deduce that most of your drug and alcohol abusers who get pregnant most likely don't get prenatal care until they are in to the 2nd trimester of pregnancy. They'll go for the first visit, get confirmed and then they run straight to DHS to get on medicaid so they can get signed up for wic and other hand outs then the DR won't see them again until they are pretty close to having the turkey timer pop.

So who does this really benefit? It would inconvenience me to have to take another day off from work to go to some class thats potentially full of people who should have had counseling FAR before now, to hear a lecture on why we shouldn't do drugs and alcohol while pregnant. What happens after the pregnancy? Is it okay to fire up the meth lab after the baby's born? Why not target the problem BEFORE it happens, A) Don't do drugs... B) drink responsibly, if your legally able to drink and c) don't get knocked up until you're responsible enough to take care of A & B.

Why should those of us who are intelligent enough to know these dangers without someone holding our hand be forced by LAW to submit to this?

It just pisses me off.

I used to think vacations were over rated. They seemed like a lot of work and you usually need a vacation to recover from vacation. This year was different. For once, our 'vacation' didn't involve going to visit relatives or a racetrack. Last week, I packed up our camper and on Friday night, after everyone had made it home, we three of us and the two dogs hopped into the truck and away we went. Our first real vacation in I don't know how long.

We didn't get out of here until about 9pm, I think, and we drove about 3 hours to McAlester, OK. Much to Charlotte's horror, we pulled into the Walmart parking lot and after a quick trip inside to pick up an atlas (I forgot to get ours out of the car) we crashed for the night in the camper, in the parking lot. I have to admit, I was a little worried about this horribly redneck start to our family vacation, but bright and early the next morning, we were off and on our way to Galveston.

The wind was HORRIBLE. We had budgeted for gasoline at about 11 mpg. A 20-30 mph headwind was making our mileage come out to something like 8.8 mpg. It took us a little longer than we thought, and about $75 more in gas to get there than we had planned, but at around 4:30 we drove into Galveston on 11 Mile Road and as we popped up over the hill, there was the gulf.... It was beautiful.

We easily found the RV park and got settled in. The RV park I had chosen and made reservations for was right on the beach. So after we got all hooked up, we went to the beach for what was supposed to just be a walk, but we ended up in the water up to our waist with waves that would break at shoulder height or even over our heads.

We spent Sunday on the beach off and on, and all of us managed to get sunburned, but we had a great time. On Monday and Tuesday we went to Moody Gardens and visited the Rainforest, the Aquarium, the IMAX theater, the paddle boat "The Colonel" and the 4D theater. If you ever get a chance to go to a 4D theater, you should. It was pretty cool. The movie was about ocean life and it was in 3D. There was also vibrating seats, water that would spray in your face from the seat in front of you, smells that would waft through the air and 'feelers' that would touch your legs as you sat in your seat. I can truly see this as being the future of theater -- imagine watching your favorite movie like this! On Monday we completed the day by having dinner at The Rainforest Cafe. It was a lot of fun. We finished Tuesday off by going to the movies to see the 2nd Chronicles of Narnia movie.

Wednesday was beach day again and we hit it off on and on all day and went to play mini-golf. On Thursday we made a short trip into Houston and visited the Space Center. I wish we'd gotten there earlier, and had more time to explore, but we had a good time overall. I did find out that they have a special tour that you can take for $80. Its their VIP tour, they only take 12 people on this tour per day, and you get special access to the really cool places that you don't get to see on the regular tour. I'm definitely going to go back to that someday and take that tour. I was completely fascinated by the center and want to go when I can spend more time there. We went to a local place seafood place named Gaido's for dinner and even though we had to wait 45 min for a table, it was well worth it. Charlotte was just ecstatic that our 4 course meal ended with a dessert off the dessert tray. She had a hard time choosing but said the the Chocolate Mousse made her very happy.

Friday we loafed around, went to the beach again and watched a movie in the camper. Charlie and I took a walk in the moonlight on the beach. It was really nice.

We got up at 6:30 this morning and headed home. It was a reluctant journey. I'd just about had enough 'family togetherness' for a week..... but I had a really good time and enjoyed getting to spend time with my family. With all the festival stuff that we'd done, it seemed like we hardly saw each other at all for the last 2 months and this time together was much needed.

Tomorrow, we get to clean out the camper and get everything put back together to get ready to go back to the Monday Mundane of work and life in general.

I loved the beach, loved Galveston. If it weren't in Texas, I'd consider moving there!

So, OKRF 08 was overall a pretty good run. Keli and I had an absolute blast this year, having left the dance team (with much sorrow) and trading that time for time on the streets. It proved to be a good choice.

Over 2/3 of our shows were full, with people standing at the back, we did pretty well on tips, and the smoker was just FREAKING AWESOME!

I was a little irritated that it seems like every time we come up with a good idea, it seems that everyone else starts doing it too. I don't know if that means that we are just that unoriginal- that other think of the same thing too... or if its flattery by way of imitation. I don't know... don't really care either, we had fun.

I left yesterday without telling a lot of people goodbye. If you are one of them, I'm sorry. Charlie had to leave for work and we were in a little bit of a hurry, not to mention that Keli and I were pretty upset at the end of the day.

I don't understand why some people cannot respect others and other peoples stuff. Yesterday, we had several patrons (mostly kids) who had asked us if they could play in our tub. We love getting people in with us, and of course, we said they could, if they came back to the stage around 5:30 ish.

We were finishing up our last show, and about to head to the smoker when some cast members asked if they could get in. We told them no, for two reasons... 1) the LMC was setting up for their show, and 2) they were filthy and we knew we had people coming back to get in with us after the smoker. We didn't want the water to be THAT nasty.

We left and went to the smoker, and came back, to find that they had ignored us and after the LMC was done with their show, they got in the tub anyway. Even when the LMC said "they told you no".

They justified their dip in the tub by saying, "oh, I'll help them clean it out".

Well, that wasn't the point. The point was, at the end of the day, we had to tell patrons who had waited all day to play with us there that they couldn't because there was now all kinds of nasty crap in our water and the water was black. We had no water to take with us to closing gate, and on top of that, a bunch of cast kids apparently decided to help themselves to our water balloons that we'd saved and rationed all day- so instead of the 1/2 of a large laundry basket full of balloons that we thought we'd have a gate, we had 1/2 of our smallest bucket full.

I'm not trying to be bitchy about it, and I'm not even really pissed off about it now, but I am pretty disappointed in cast members who show that much disrespect for other people and their things. I'm irritated that we now feel like we're going to have to 'guard' our stuff, that we can't leave anything out on the stage, and that we are going to end up looking like bitches because we'll have to tell everyone no about the tub.

Its just frustrating. (oh, and by the way... they didn't show up to help clean the tub. Big surprise!)

I know, I know... its been a REALLY long time since I posted anything here. I got lost in another world and finally dug ....or got shoved...out of it. I will apologize now for whatever babble comes out of me. I'm feeling really shitty and am trying to resist the urge to just curl up in a corner with a bottle of really good rum and waiting to pass out....at least if I passed out, I would quit thinking. Random rambling follows.....

Today would be my son's 15th birthday. 2 weeks ago, when I created the schedules for work, I scheduled myself off for today. I didn't consciously do it, it just happened that way, and when I looked at the schedule on Sunday night to see what day off I had this week, it hit me. And as usual, I've had way too much time to think.

Its been a really shitty day. I won't go into a lot of big details about it, but its been hard, both over the usual emotions that I have had every 20th day of May for the last 15 years, and over the present status of my personal life. I've fucked up a lot of things, and I tried to make them right. Every little step I'd made towards making it right came crashing down on me today and its sucked. It's my own fault... and I know it, but it doesn't make swallowing it any easier.

I suck at being married. I am selfish, unreliable and unable to make a commitment and stick to it. I don't know what has kept Charlie from kicking my ass to the curb.

I got really messed up in the head when we lost Kevin. For a long time, I didn't like myself, or anyone else for that matter. I didn't allow myself to truly be close to anyone and my emotions and feelings got all screwed up. I really should have had some counseling, but was young, and naive, and didn't know that it was even available to me. The military should have had enough sense to know that I needed it. Yeah, right.

My self esteem was shot. I started exhibiting attention seeking behavior, and loved the feeling I got from it. I became addicted to the feeling of being able to manipulate other people into believing anything I told them and juggling things around to suit my own agenda. I didn't care that it was going to hurt someone or everyone involved.

I've made excuses that I'm not proud of and I've told lies that have created more problems than they are worth. Why is it so damn hard to just be honest to the one person that should matter more than any other? I just don't understand myself. I have no problem telling someone off or telling them to go screw themselves, no issues with confronting someone with a problem. But when it comes to conflict in my personal relationships, I will do ANYTHING to avoid it, even if it means I have to lie through my teeth. I can't do it anymore. I'm tired of it.

--------------------

Dear Kevin,

Today, you would be 15 years old. I should have spent the day baking a cake, wrapping gifts and teasing my boy about becoming a young man. Instead, I spent the day screwing my life up worse than it already is.

I am mad as hell that you were taken from me. That single event caused such a change in me that I am completely unable to even remember what I used to be like, who I used to be. I became bitter and hateful. 5 years ago, I thought I was crawling out of the haze that I'd lived the previous 10 years in, and thought that I was finding myself again. Now I'm not so sure.

I've spent every May 20th for the last 15 years wondering what life would be like now if you'd not died. Wondering if all my Friday nights would be occupied with various sporting events, wondering if you would be going to the race tracks with your dad for Saturday night racing. I wonder if you would be good buds with my dad - I bet he'd have you flying planes with him now. I wonder if you would be interested in faire, like the rest of us. I wonder if you'd be playing big brother to your sister and threatening all the boys that she seems to be interested in, and I think about how your dad and I would be planning on a car for your 16th birthday next year.

I know that there has to be some reason why you were taken from me, but it doesn't mean that I have to like it or be completely understanding of it. I'm angry, I'm heartbroken, and I'm feeling like I was cheated. But what makes me even more upset is the fact that your death set off a chain of events that so completely screwed up my life and I can't get away from it.

I keep telling myself to just suck it up and go on, and thats usually what I do... but this time, today, its been an exceptionally BAD day, and all I want to do right now is get away from it.

I never stopped loving you.

Mom

alright, alright... I got a nudge from bob.... I've been SWAMPED!! I promise I'll do a for real update tonight!

See that blackish gray asphalt looking stuff on the road? Yes, its ASPHALT. The white stuff on the other side is ice. The ASPHALT part is clear, and mostly dry, and well traveled upon so that there aren't even just the ruts to drive in anymore, but a totally CLEAN and CLEAR lane. Amazing isn't it?

Now, since you have decided that you can drive in this shit, either get the hell out of my way, or pull over to the shoulder or the icy side so I can go around your 40 mile per hour driving ass. If you aren't confident enough to drive on this, then for the love of God, please stay home. Or wait until noon to get out when all the people who need to get to work have gotten there. I understand that you are being cautious, but sometimes being overly cautious is bad. If you can't see that the lane is dry up ahead of you, then we need to talk about glasses for you. Get off the road. Get out of my way. Move over and let me go on around you so I can play nice and not scream in the car at you.

Oh yeah, and while we are talking about it, would you please clean off all the sheets of ice off your vehicles? You see, when you get in your car and crank up the heater to a temperature that rivals Hades, the ice on your roof melts and flies off, spinning like a large icy frisbee and crashes into other cars. Someone's going to get hurt, and if it hits my car, it will probably be you.

No love,

Michelle

ok,well, they were heard in Spavinaw at least.....

Friday night, at 10 pm, our power went out. It tried to come back on a couple of times during the night, but it didn't work.

I can deal with no electricty. We heat our home with a fireplace w/an insert, so its not TOO bad to be without power. We managed to rig up the inverter in the car with a huge extension cord into the house so we could watch TV. I used about 1/2 a tank of gas like that over the weekend, as we had to have the car running to make that little set up work.

On Saturday evening, my sister and her family came to camp out with us, since their house is total electric, and the temperature was dropping quickly and road conditions were getting worse by the minute. So, seven of us camped out at my house. Still not too bad.

Sunday morning, we run out of running water. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to take up as much water as I had containers for before this happened. Unfortunately, this many people in one house, and no water make for stinky toilets. We finally went to my sisters to get tubs of water for flushing. (She was on Rural water, and it hadn't quit yet)

Monday- Im starting to get pissy with everyone. I mean really pissy. My sister moves her family to her husbands grandmothers house so they can take showers -- she has a gas water heater. My husband and I load up the kid and go to my grandmothers to shower - same situation. At least we quit smelling like 3 day old funk. We check on my grandmothers friend who is staying in town, refusing to go to a shelter, who has no electric or water either... no heat.

Tuesday- I'm beyond irritable and pissy and have moved into full bitch mode. Everyone irritates me. I need to go to work, but downed trees and ice on the roads to the main highway make that impossible. We finally make it out of the house around 2 or so and head to the grocery store. We determine that if we don't cook the food that was in the fridge on Friday, (we moved it outside- was colder there) then it was going to spoil. When we get home, we see the electric crews working in town again and notice that the west side of town has power.. YAY! Grandma's friend has power but her heater blew up when it came back on. We take her a portable heater.

We go home and get the grill going and start cooking chicken and hamburgers. We ride down the block to see if anything on our side of main street has power, and its looking good. They are moving our way. We stop at the corner and talk to a couple of the guys on the tree trimming crews. I ask them if they have had anything hot to eat in the last few days, and the guy tells me that they've been eating bologna sandwiches for four days. I feel really bad for them. We get back to the house, and the hubby and I decide to cook all the meat that was going to end up bad if we didn't and we take it down to the guys. Two aluminum trays full of bar-b-que chicken and cheeseburgers, a loaf of bread and a couple bags of chips. Those guys were so grateful. That made me feel so much better, I know they were cold and hungry, and have been working their asses off. I should have some good Karma coming for that.....

As we pull into the driveway after delivering their food at 7:15 ish... the lights come on... YAY! Water just now came back to us too... very little pressure, but at least its there :)

I hope everyone else gets their power back up soon, and stays warm. It may be a week more for mom and dad.

Thursday night we left the house and headed for Virginia. It was an uneventful trip, hitting rain in Knoxville, but it wasn't too bad. We checked in to our hotel and went to see Charlies family and to see all the neices and nephews that we have aquired since we left here 10 years ago. Got to spend some time later the next day with a very good friend, and did some Christmas shopping, two or three times actually...

Its good to visit the family, but Im not sure I will be able to stand to be here until Friday...

I miss my wench!

If you are like me, and enjoy driving around looking at everyone else's Christmas light displays, then you should make a trip to Tulsa. On 41st Street, between Yale and Harvard, 2 houses west of Patrick Henry Elementary School, there is a man who has designed a holiday light display that uses energy efficient LED lights, a computer, and a FM transmitter to choreograph his lights to very upbeat music.

As you approach Yale (or Harvard, whichever direction you go), tune your FM radio to 91.1 and drive slowly. You will see the display. At some point, there will be a video online, but for now, you can read about how he did it here


Its VERY much worth the trip to see.

many thanks to desahra (I can't remember how to do the linky thing on a username and dont have time to look it up...) I blatantly stole this from her, but think all the girls, and guys too, should read this :)

http://tweekerchick.blogspot.com/2006/11/so.html

50 mistakes women make in bed

Your results:
You are Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)

Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 95% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 85% Wash (Ship Pilot) 70% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 65% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 55% River (Stowaway) 50% Inara Serra (Companion) 45% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 35% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 20% Alliance 10% A Reaver (Cannibal) 0%

Honest and a defender of the innocent. You sometimes make mistakes in judgment but you are generally good and would protect your crew from harm.

Click here to take the Serenity Firefly Personality Test

I love snow. I love getting up first thing in the morning and getting out to look at it before its spoiled by animal tracks, or human tracks for that matter. I couldn't sleep last night. It was probably from being home all day, in the house with nothing to do but goof off. But, it was partly from being excited about the snow, going out every hour or so to check the accumulation and to get firewood.

I think I like it so much because for a brief time, early in the morning after a night time snowfall, the world looks clean, pure and pristine. Its almost like a sacred time...

( Photos from my house )

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. I love not having to deal with the hassle of Christmas, and still getting to eat my favorite dishes and see my family. One of our favorite holiday traditions happens at my Uncle's house.

We love to play games. Our day usually starts with playing with the kids, either baseball, or volleyball, or sometimes even football. Once us older folks are worn out, then we go inside and play board games. Our latest game obsession is Catch Phrase. If you have never played this, you should. Its fun. The object of the game is to split in teams and take turns passing this digital disk around that will show you a word. You have to get your teammates to say the word without saying it yourself. Between the family (my sister & husband, cousin and wife, other cousin, me and hubby) and all of our friends who hang out with us, with girlfriends and boyfriends, we usually have between 12-20 people playing this game with us.

Last night, one of our friends Patrick, brought his girlfriend over and she joined us in the games. I had not met her before, and she was very pleasant and likeable, we all hit it off great.

During the game, one of the words that came up was 'Alpaca'. The person holding the disk gives his clue. "Its like a llama, but not a llama". After several different versions of his description, my sister finally guesses that it is an Alpaca.

After a few moments, Rachel, the girlfriend, says... "What does Llamas have to do with terrorists?" We sat for a heartbeat and all burst into laughter. She thought that Alpaca was an islamic terrorist group.....

Before it was all done, and after about 10 minutes of hysterical, tear causing laughter, we had determined that Al-Pacas was an Islamic Terrorist Group, made up of Gay Islamic Men who hoped that their 72 virgins would be big and hairy. Their M.O. is to go into convenience stores dressed in womens clothing with cans of Redi-Whip strapped to their chests screaming that they are going to blow.

So, as you go out into the big world, be on the lookout for those Al-Pacas. You never know when one may sneak up on you.


Alpaca:




Llama:





Al-Paca Terrorists: