Blog Better

Susan Hill, a well-known British author, is offering a Creative Writing course on her blog and I've signed up. Now that I've had a "proper tea" I should fit in with my "classmates" quite well. It's all online, of course, but wouldn't it be fun to have a meet up in London after the course? Maybe I'll sign my new book contract over there.

My best friend's oldest son attends a small university in Vermont and it's Homecoming this weekend. I leave on a 6 a.m. flight tomorrow (I will definitely have to sleep in the car tonight all dressed and ready to go). He is the quarterback of the football team and we're going to cheer him on to victory! Hopefully he ordered enough corsages; he'll have six dates for the Homecoming Dance -- his mother, me, two of his sisters, his girlfriend and her mother. Actually, I don't think there is a dance (darn!). I also hope he doesn't plan on having much alone time w/ his girlfriend because we expect to be entertained!

While my hope was for fall foliage, the weather reports show temperatures still in the high 80s, so that's not going to happen. It is beautiful country though and will be a nice change from hot, flat Florida. (I'm sitting outside with an industrial fan blowing on me and I'm slick w/ mosquito repellent. AND I think I'm getting a summer cold, of all things.)

Mr. Quarterback's sister is staying w/ us tonight; the two of us will meet the other four at JFK. Last year they missed their connections and ended up riding from NYC to the school with total strangers. Nice strangers, though.

Now that I've established myself as having dillusions of grandeur and other ridiculous expectations, I hope you will come back again. You can see if my writing improves over the next few months or even critique some of my homework!

P.S. The "boys" are both OK over in the Sandbox.

Breaking Free!

I hired a dog walker! Because my husband gets home from work at least two hours after I do AND I work 20 miles from home, I was feeling really tied down by having to be home by a certain time every day to walk the dogs. Now, two days a week they get a nice long walk with a very nice woman and I can stay in Lakeland and do fun stuff. Yoga was on the menu for this evening but I forgot my comfy clothes and had to work late anyway. Definitely meditation tomorrow evening.

Ever read the Five Love Languages? I did; years ago. I'm "physical touch" and my husband is "words of affirmation". After all these years and having "read the book," it took my psychologist to educate me on how these principles can really improve relationships. And it took me years to find the "perfect" psychologist. I'm the type of person you have to "show me" or "tell me" before I "get it." Now that I get it I'm getting it more often! Ooooohhhhh, that's so . . . mature and honest?

Recently I had a discussion w/ a friend who is Catholic and, being raised by a Southern Baptist preacher (who was 100% Sicilian), I know nothing about Catholicism. She explained a little about her religious practices and then I told her all she needed to know about being a Southern Baptist. Guilt! My Dad, though I loved him dearly, was the King of Guilt Trips! And all my life we were never allowed to say words like "bra" (OMG) or "underwear" (How awful! the appropriate word is "undergarment") and even though I don't think my parents thought sex was bad --- unmarried sex was definitely very, very bad. Unfortunately that very, very bad training doesn't go away when you get married. Especially if you've had unmarried sex!

The pastor from the church we went to for many years called me at work today wondering why we hadn't been there lately. I told him why and he was ok with that, saying, "I'd rather be like a mushroom and not know." Now you know why I don't go to church.

Say Cheese!

Today a newspaper photographer came to my house to shoot me; I mean take some shots at me; I mean take some photos of me for an upcoming article in the St. Pete Times. He was very kind, put me at ease with my very first "photo shoot," and made it enjoyable. My husband took a few photos of the photographer taking photos of me (I let him take a break from painting the house).

Austin was able to IM for about 1/2 an hour last night (4 a.m. his time) and he also talked to his brother on the "Army phone." They should be getting together soon. Kris sent an e-mail so I know he is doing well.

I followed through with my plans to attend the meditation class and plan to attend another Intro to Yoga class after work Monday. I'm looking for a solution to having to rush home to walk my dogs and hopefully be able to do a lot more productive things after work.

I Have A Plan!

For Wednesday, anyway. I am going to attend "Intro to Yoga" class at a Yoga studio near work. I've done Yoga before at the Y, but I really need to start over. My husband said "Hey, I'd like to take Yoga too." FREAK OUT! My husband is 6'2", 220, a big hunky guy, and I just CANNOT see him in Yoga class. (Is that a negative statement?)

For Thursday, I plan to attend a meditation session at the same place.

Reading: I currently have the following self-help books read in various states of completeness:

The Artist's Way At Work by Mark Bryan with Julia Cameron and Catherine Allen

Kind of a zen book. I misplaced it a few months back and didn't even think about it until I found it again in my attempt to become more organized. Any book associated with Julia Cameron is going to be very enlightening.

Having had "issues" at work all my working life, I have also read Working for an Idiot: Survive and Thrive Without Killing Your Boss by John Hoover (finished). My boss is by no means an idiot, but she switches moods like, hmmmmmm, me! It's a Job, Not a Jail: How to Break Your Shackles When You Cant Afford to Quit, by Robert Hochheiser (almost finished this one but it was astonishingly similar to the Idiot one (i.e. Kiss the Boss's A--).

This Time I Dance by Tama Kieves (finished)

Great inspiration for finding work that you love. But I gotta say there must have been substantial parental funding involved.

Passionate Marriage by David Schnarch, Ph.D. (about 1/3rd read)

I bought this book, frankly, to see how to get true "It's Our Honeymoon!" passion back into my marriage. WORKS!!! (Well, sort of.) The author's main focus is "differentiation" or being content with who you are w/o looking to your partner to affirm your desireability or worth, and expecting your partner to make you complete. It's a hard concept to understand, much less to explain. But I get it and my marriage has sored on the passion scale!

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John M. Gottman, Ph.D. (about 1/4 read)

My new psychologist recommended this book to me. So I'm reading it. I have to say that I like Passionate Marriage a lot more because it involves sex. But this book promises sex later. I WANT IT NOW!

(drum roll, please) And finally, The Relaxation & Stress Reduction Workbook by too many people to list here. (Just begun)

All of these are workbooks in which you are asked to WRITE responses to exercises. Well, I love books. I love owning books (mostly softcover, never a mass market paperback -- those you use to light fires) and actually WRITING in a book is forbidden in my world! I don't even dogear books that I own (and don't you dare if I loan one to you!). So in this Relaxation & Stress Reduction work book I had to actually WRITE on the first page "This is MY book and I give myself permission to write in it w/ INK and even when my writing is very shaky -- like now."

Then to round things out I'm reading a novel about the Holocaust! OMG, what was I thinking?

Actually, I will tell you what I was thinking when I bought that book. I wanted to read about people who truly suffered through a war or because of a war so that I could try to make myself feel better in comparison.

Hoping to Stumble On Happiness*

Fear controls my life. At any one moment I can be happy and a second later fear overtakes me. My fear is for my children; my two sons (29 and 22) are in Iraq serving our country in the Army, my daughter (24) thinks she's "bullet-proof" (she's engaged to her soul mate; thus, the planning a wedding bit), and my step-daughter (28) is slowly finding her way to contentment. For more information on my fear, please read my other blog ArmyMomTimesThree.Blogspot.com.

Two of my children and my daughter-in-law are college graduates (West Point (son & DIL) and Florida State), three of my children are homeowners. All of my children are happy with who they are and how they are living their lives. They are all healthy, financially independent, smart, good looking, fun-loving adults who make us very proud.

I believe that I am married to my soul mate. We've been together for 16 years. He has been an amazing father to my children and without his influence I know they would not be who they are today. When my oldest son was married in 2000, he gave my husband a pocket watch with these words engraved on the back: "Thanks for being the Dad you didn't have to be." (See Brad Paisley song, "He Didn't Have to Be".)

My children have lived in this house since they were very young (we moved here 21 years ago). It is "Home Base" for them and, not having roots of my own, part of my commitment to them was to let them grow up in one place and always have HOME to come back to (hopefully just to visit). My children love this house so much that they are planning to have a tattoo designed with our address #! Maybe I'll do it too.

In my lifetime I have been able to change my legacy. From a childhood of barely getting by, moving every few years (father Baptist preacher), seeing only financial irresponsibility, having been manipulated by an unstable mother ("You are a miserable person and you make everyone around you miserable), to having and raising such wonderful, content, accomplished children; my life's mission accomplished.

So NOW what do I do?

Having made my "opening remarks," I hope to never write a negative sentence again on this blog. This is where I WILL Take Back My Bliss.


*Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (Harvard Professor of Psychology) -- it's an amazingly informative and funny look at how the human brain functions. READ IT!