Thursday's Mess & Black Friday Findings

as promised

Thursday’s Mess….Oh we just heard some terrible news in our office.  Our brick mason’s 13 year old daughter was raped.  I cannot imagine the pain and anger these people are dealing with.  All I know is that it makes me ill to think of these things happening.  Thank GOD that the parents know about this and that this little girl doesn’t have to deal with this as some big secret.  As hard as it is to imagine, I hope it was not a family member…..is that a proper request???  I mean, to think of it being a member of your own family is bad enough, but if it were a stranger or someone who you would never be able to catch up with…..there is no easy answer here.  And with Hadon’s new book entries I so just want to run home and hug my little girl so hard.  She is so sweet an innocent and I’d like to keep her that way!  Dear Jesus….all I can pray for is the blood of Jesus to surround her and keep her safe.

Friday’s Update.  YES the guys that did this to this little girl were arrested.  The sad thing is that the man is a friend and co-worker and it was him & his brother who attacked the girl.  The mother was best friends with the wife and in the friends wedding and even hosted a baby shower for them.  Her daughter had been babysitting for the couple.  At 2am the mother woke up and felt the need to check in and called the girl.  She said everything was fine.  At 3am she was raped by both men …only one waswearing protection.

 

And if that weren’t enough, the boss’s 17 yr old daughter has missed some 8 days of school in a row, which he is surprised to find out since he’s been dropping her off at school every morning.  So he decides to stake out the scene with one of our supervisors (thinking he’d have to confront a boy)…..who do you think shows up to pick up the girl not minutes after?  Not what you’re thinking…………….the grandmother!!!!  HELLO!?!?!?!  Seems the girl told grandma that there were “tests” and she didn’t need to be there.  And grandma didn’t bother to check on this with the Dad?

 

On the notes of abuse and children, I remember having an Uncle (not blood related) who we all thought of as a dirty old man.  I don’t know what is was about him exactly, but the old “come sit on my lap” thing made us all uncomfortable.  I don’t recall that he ever got “out of line” it just was weird.  Now he may have just been a loving man for all I know, but my girl cousin also mentioned the same discomfort.  My Nanny was surprised to learn we felt that way about him.  We were always in the presence of other people, so things were obvious to the eye, we just gave him the customary “hug and kiss” and got back to what we were doing as quickly as possible.

 

Well….I guess that’s my “black” Good Friday stories.  I hope everyone has a good Easter Weekend! 

The Bell

with me....and I want to share it with you

 Just up the road from my home is a field, with two horses in it.

From a distance, each looks like every other horse. But if you stop your car, or are walking by, you will notice something quite amazing.

Looking into the eyes of one horse will disclose that he is blind. His owner has chosen not to have him put down, but has made a good home for him.  This alone is amazing.

If nearby and listening, you will hear the sound of a bell. Looking around for the source of the sound, you will see that it comes from the smaller horse in the field. Attached to her halter is a small bell. It lets her blind friend know where she is, so he can follow her.

As you stand and watch these two friends, you'll see how she is always checking on him, and that he will listen for her bell and then slowly walk to where she is, trusting that she will not lead him astray. When she returns to the shelter of the barn each evening, she stops occasionally and looks back, making sure her friend isn't too far behind to hear the bell.

Like the owners of these two horses, God does not throw us away just because we are not perfect or because we have problems or challenges. He watches over us and even brings others into our lives to help us when we are in need.

Sometimes we are the blind horse being guided by the little ringing bell of those who God places in our lives. Other times we are the guide horse, helping others see.

Good friends are like this. You don't always see them, but you know they are always there.

Please listen for my bell and I'll listen for yours.

 

Thursday's A Mess

 

 

Today was full of surprises...I'll elaborate on that more tomorrow.  Last night was also full of surprises and one my hubby is patting himself on the back about.  He must be preparing for his 7 day trip to Florida without me!  That's all I'm saying! 

My Tara had a panic attack today at the end of her dance class.  I hate it for her.  She had suddenly got pains in her abdomen and of course it scared her.  I don't know if was from eating before dance, then stretching and dancing so much or if it was gas....now I say GAS because on the way home she began letting out some noise.  Once home she continued and now seems happier than ever.  She just finished reading me the Night Before Christmas story.....just before Easter????  Well, I guess that fits.  I mean it was Christmas first.

I am prone to panic attacks and I'll just assume she gets it honestly.  I am able to handle hers better than my own LOL.  I get her to be still and breathe deeply and slowly and she'll say silly things and so will I....this usually gets her mind off her problem and lets her relax some.  She goes to sleep with her radio playing....I remember those days myself.  Shoot, I still do this if I'm away from home, say in a hotel and especially if there is outside noise that I want to drown out.  You can probably find me next week doing this too since Tom will be away.  Kind of my way of shutting off my wandering mind.

I was able to talk my Mom into considering to have Easter dinner at her house on Sunday.  My step-Dad's son is coming in from California tomorrow night.  He's been on Broadway, All My Children, several community theatre plays and musicals, and recently made his TV debut on Showtime in "Sleeper Cell".  We never had much to do with him as his mother moved to Calif when he was just a baby and my step-Dad decided that it would be better to NOT complicate the kids life by interfering.  So lil step-bro was quite understanding and gracious for that and has enjoyed getting to know us.  When he turned 18 he contacted us by letter, and later came to NC to meet n greet.  He was here last July just before my nephew was born, so he'll get to meet lil Chase this weekend.  Should be a fun weekend!

I hope everyone has a grand weekend and a Happy Easter if that's your thing!  We'll be enjoying the eggs and food right along with ya!

Humpity Day & Misc Thoughts

Happy hump day and thank GOD this weekend is s'pozed to be a beautiful one with temperatures in the low 80's.  Hope the eggs don't spoil before we can find them on Sunday.  Speaking of Easter, I was thinking about having the family over for dinner, but then I said "nahhhhhhhhhhhhh".  I think I'll call my Mom and tell her that I'm inviting everyone to HER house for dinner Sunday.  LOL  That way maybe we'll have a little egg hunt with my Tara and my lil nephew....he's only 9 months but it would be a hoot to get pictures of him and his first Easter.  Who knows...maybe if the weather is REALLY nice, we'll take a boat ride.  Now there's one to think about....we'll have the Easter Egg Hunt over on one of the islands!  Cool!!!! 

I'm pretty sure I've got everything ready for Mr Bunny.  There is a new Bratz movie out on DVD yesterday that I may get.  Although I just bought her the "Narnia" gameboy game and Season 3 of Full House.  She loves those shows and they're pretty good for her to watch, ya know the family values and all.

My hubby is being awful sweet today....I've been telling him how he needs to "show" some love not just say it.  I mean, anyone can say the words.  We just get caught up in a rut of the way things are done...kid goes to school, comes home, homework, I'm working, then home, eat, ready for bed, TV to wind down and Zzzzzzzz.  BORING.  Tom surprised me on Sunday with flowers - that's a first.  And tonight he's been especially attentive.......hmmmmmmmmmm. What the hell am I still doing on this computer????????  I'm gonna go check things out!  (Wish me luck!)

Nite to all........

Nickle n Dimes and Report Card

You know the feeling of being "weighed" down?  I dump out my pocket book and count out the change that I have accumulated.  $1 in pennies; $3.60 dimes; $2 nickels and $10.25 in quarters.  And there is more in the car, but that's for the drive thru when you need it.  Reminded me of when I was a little girl, my Papa would tell me that I could have the money if I'd count it out and roll it up. Woooo hooo!  So if I could just discipline myself to put this money aside, at the end of a year I could have enough for A TANK OF GAS!!!!

Gas is going, going, gone crazy --- up 5 cents in one afternoon here.  It's at $2.67 for the lowest in the area.  So where's the hurricane?????  I mean, the Easter bunny "hops" so it's not like we're having to fund his route.  Most are going to go to church anyway, so it's not like a major "get in the car and go" festival.  When is someone gonna file a complaint in the Federal system to halt the price gouging???  Hell, I'll sign the petition.  It's gonna get so that I can't afford to go to work!  I can hear that call now..."Hello boss?  It's me, um, I'm not coming in today cause the bank won't loan me anymore gas money."  "Hello boss?  I've got a disease called fundzalow."

And what did I do last night but get in my gas guzzler 02 4door GMC truck and tour my town.  (You know the sound that the straw makes when you're sucking the bottom of a glass??)  Yep....we toured some area's which I had not been to in so long.  My mom said the other day she was taking the kids to the park and I said "what park?".  Oh my.  Boy have things really been built up.  See?  All I do in my town is come home and sleep.  Most of my time is spent at work or the dance studio.  I rarely drive north of my home and when I do it is for a specific reason...like to go to Mom's. 

The Report Card is in!!  Everything is normal - A's & one B.  BUT, get this, she gets an "N" in music!  What???  So Tom says WTH? and drives back to the school to find out why....seems miss priss has not taken any tests in music this 9 weeks.  HUH?  How do you do this??  How does a 9 year old decide that she's not gonna take tests in music?  Guess I'll have to wait till I get home and talk to Tara (do thewords summer school scare them anymore?) and send a note to the music teacher.  I know it's only music, but if she does this now, who knows what she'll try to get away with in other classes.  Tom had taken Tara over to her Grandma's to help out with her little cousin (9 months old) but he quickly went to retrieve her, cause to him going to Grandma's was more of a treat than necessity.  She still has to pass her 7, 8 & 9 multiplication tables this week then 10, 11 & 12 next.

Why was 5 afraid of 6?  Cause 7  8  9 !!  LOL  I love that one!

Wish me luck!

 

Prayer & 15 Things To Consider

God, grant me the Serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the Courage to change the one I can, and the Wisdom to know it's ME.

1. God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts.
2. Dear God, I have a problem, it's me.
3. Growing old is inevitable ... growing UP is optional.
4. There is no key to happiness, the door is always open.
5. Silence is often misinterpreted but never misquoted.
6. Do the math ... count your blessings.
7. Faith is the ability to not panic.
8. Laugh every day, it's like inner jogging.
9. If you ! worry, you didn't pray. If you pray, don't worry.
10. As a child of God, prayer is kind of like calling home everyday.
11. Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape.
12. The most important things in your house are the people.
13. When we get tangled up in our problems, be still.
God wants us to be still so He can untangle the knot.
14. A grudge is a heavy thing to carry.
15. He who dies with the most toys is still dead.

Happy Days!

First let me say a big HAPPY 5-0 BIRTHDAY on Monday to Pam over at Just One Girl's Head Noise.  What a brave and beautiful lady she is. 

Now that my weekend is winding down, I'm trying to do the same.  We had a full couple of days.  When I got home from work on Friday everyone wanted Pizza of course.  But one of our favorite joints had been sold (didn't know that till we got there) so we went off to the ritzy titzy pizza joint.  I call it that because it has a bar and a lounge with tv's and couches, and candles on the table and serves doctors and lawyers and business men and us!  It's quite the upscale pizza experience....not the usual red n white plastic table cloth kinda place.  Hey, large 1 top pizza = $18  that's about $5 more than the locals, but worth it for a great pizza.  (I hate Domino's!! and the locals are so greasy.)  Plus this place has the best Alfredo sauce...yummmmmmmm...very creamy!! and I mean real CREAM!  Then it was off to the world of WalMart to pick up some knock around shorts for Miss Tara for the summer, and home early.  We had to get an early start on Saturday.

The parade line up on Saturday was scheduled for 7am!  Now that meant me getting up at 5:30am (ugh).  Tara was excited to be going even if it was still dark outside.  I had a slice of cold pizza for breakfast...she and her dad wanted doughnuts, so we stopped at Dunkin Donuts.  She's not impressed with DD...we're the Krispy Kreme kind, being Suthern and all.  Well, we headed off for downtown.  When we got there, the "guards" didn't want to let us down to the line up area.   My DH says "I'm  handicap and we've got to get the little one dropped off".  The first guy says basically "so what"....but I was determined to get as close to the area as possible.  So "guard" #2 was more sympathetic to the whole handicap/little girl scene and told me OK, but once I'd drop them off, I had to turn around and come out to park somewhere else.  Whew!  That's all I really wanted.  Except that by now, the roads were being blocked off and I ended up parking some 8 blocks away!!  Geeesh whatta long walk.  At least it was warm .... 65 degrees and sunny so far, butwindy!   I mean we're right on the river so I anticipated it being windy.

That long walk reminded me that my inside was still healing...it kinda gave me the "I'm still here" story by the time I reached the line up area.  So I asked the dance boss lady "can I ride instead of walk beside the float?" and she said yes.  Little did I know I was going to end up working the sound system for our float's 2 dances.  That worked out pretty good!  Some of the girls told Tara "you're Mom is nutz"....ya know, they're right!  And of course they kept asking "what time is it?" and "when will we start?".  The parade usually begins at 9am and we were entry 89...we had 3 floats...actually we were on the long beds of 18 wheelers, still there were 3 of us.  The first one was our cloggers.....ours was 2nd with 2 hip hop numbers...and the 3rd was the little guys doing a cute jazzy "car wash" number.  The Azalea Festival Parade was under way! 

Tom met us after the parade down in the Cotton Exchange near the dance platform.  We grabbed some street food (sausage n peppers and pizza) and strolled down through the vendors.  I noticed that I was now closer to where I had parked (still 5 blocks away) so I decided to go on to get Tara's costumes and move the truck closer to the stage while they walked back to the performance area.  It's a good thing I moved closer, because the weather changed quickly just before we were scheduled to dance on stage, and they cancelled the rest of the afternoon events.  We had to hurry to our vehicles or chance being soaked by the impending rain and/or hail.  Just as well for me because I was wearing out by now and it was only 3pm!!!  And do you think I remembered to take my camera?????????NOOOO!  So I don't have any pictures to show for my effort.  (Bad Mommy) Just a couple of minutes on the video camera of Tara horsing around near the stage.  AND...the picture of our float/truck showed up in the paper on Sunday but I didn't make it....just 2 people to the right and there I'd be, but NOoooo, Mr Photographer, they didn't chose my picture!  So much for my fame and fortune.

To top off my Saturday, Tara wants to have Cassie come over for the night........are you kidding???  OK, but I had to lay down some rules because I was butt tired!  Tom & I ordered chinese and Tara had left over pizza.  Cassie made herself a salami sandwich.   

Tom's Dad was scheduled to come home on Saturday, so he gave a call to the house and there he was.  Up and around doing great.  He's got the home health care people coming in and out this week, doing check ups and taking blood.   He was so glad to be home and eating "real" food.  I know whatcha mean there pops....I had my fill of it this January when I had my hysterectomy. 

We were in bed by 9:30pm and the girls were still going strong.  I was so tired that I used my cell phone to call the house phone and tell the girls to calm down and get quiet!  (Lazy)  Of course they were up at 7:30 Sunday morning but luckily they didn't bother us.  I dragged myself outta bed about 9:30 and cooked bacon and eggs w/cheese for the girls.  Once this was all cleaned up and outta the way, Tom took off for the grocery store for dinner fixins and my Sunday paper.  He never forgets my paper.  This time he surprised me with a bouquet of cut flowers....he never does that!!  How sweet!!  We spent the afternoon on the deck in the warmth of this beautiful Spring day.  It was cooler today than Saturday, but not as windy by the afternoon.  It was so nice that the girls decided to put on bikini's and "get a tan" on the deck.  They were so cute, so grown up looking laying there on their towels, sunglasses on, CD boombox playing, and reading their books.  My how they are growing up so fast.  I did snap a couple of pictures of them with my 35 since my digital is at work.  Cassie didn't want her pic made (she's a bit chubby) but eventually gave in.

My Nanny came by today and we talked about old times and people we've run into lately.  She was saying that her newest "great grandbaby" (my lil nephew) just doesn't like her.  We tell her that he just has to get to know her better first.

The "yard boys" had been here on Saturday.  It is so nice to come home and the lawn is cut.  I used to do it and loved it, but my allergies give me such a fit and I didn't have the time anymore, plus my NYcity born hubby didn't know how or want to.  Besides, I'd been mowing grass since I was about 9 years old....it was time I retired.

Speaking of retiring.....I am worn out so I'll be saying "nite, nite, don't let the bed bugs bite".  Hope everyone has a great week coming up!