My Birthday Bitch…..

I awoke with a crappy disposition today….not because it’s my birthday, but because I’m getting really tired of the bull I’m having to put up with day after day.  These are tense times what with my daughter having had an accident and her car getting totaled (she’s fine.  A bit bruised and battered, but otherwise fine), my son and daughter-in-law having to jump over to the hospital every day because the twins are almost here and one seems to be on the verge of taking all the amniotic fluid from the other…so we’ve got trouble there…not to mention me trying to take care of a 4 year old who is getting  more spoiled and willful with each passing day.  No…on top of all that my husband knows my birthday is coming up and yet doesn’t put any money back at all….not even for a card.  And that’s just the first layer.  This got me thinking.  I’m 59 today and there are some people I’ve been very upset with for a very long time.

It occurs to me that it just might help me to get these grievances off my chest.  Here goes:

1.  Dad, you left me with a woman that I truly loved with all my heart and I never realized until a few years ago that you knew she was mentally unstable, yet you never took the time to get to know me .  Nor did you ever want to and that hurt.  I never learned to see myself through a male parent’s eyes.  I missed out on everything that would have made me feel better about myself.  I  have confidence problems to this day.
2. To my nephew Mark.  You were always dear  to me and I could never figure out what it was that I did that made you stop talking to me.  When I finally did, I couldn’t believe that you decided that because I declined to be your contact person for your kids school papers that you more or less disowned me.  How heartbreaking!  Did you ask me why?  No.  Did you ever consider that the loss I had incurred might not have been the only reason  I declined?  Did you show any empathy or want to understand what I was going through?  No, you did not.  You simply wrote me off.  I wouldn’t do what you wanted me to so I must not be a part of your family any longer.  Ok.  I can see that you are not the man I had hoped you would be.
3. Leslie, this came up many years ago but it broke my heart and it still bothers me.  I was going along thinking you were a really good friend of mine.  We had been so close in jr. high and I admired you so much.  Then I got a boyfriend.  No big deal, Renee had on in Jr. high and you and her were still close.  I don’t know what happened.  Here we were good one day and then I find a note on the floor of one of my  class room’s from Renee W. to you stating that she got so bored the night before that “I even called Jeri”…your response  “wow, you must have really been bored!”.  I know that you knew immediately when I handed you back the know that you had been caught.  I’ve thought about that for years and really cold not figure out why you did that.  This is why I am reluctant to see you in person again.  As much as I loved being friends with you, I don’t want to ever be hurt like that again.  I forgive you, but I am having trouble forgetting.
4. Sister, I love you but I have never, never understood you.  You make up your mind on anything and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong, dumb and just too stupid to live.  You seem to have no empathy for anyone else and no patience.  I will never understand your reluctance to reconnect with your daughter.  She had a stroke and still you did not contact her!  I don’t get that at all.  Do you really think she didn’t want you to at least call her to find out how she’s doing?  She’s like my sister and all I want is to make it right between you two.  It’s going to be too late before you know it….quit fearing and start living a life that you would surely be happier with!
5. To my dogs, Dexter, Danny and Rukkus….I love you all!  But please quit peeing and throwing up on my carpet!  Good God I’m worn out by all this other crap and cleaning up after you is no fun…no matter what machine I have!  Please, just deal with the fact that once in a while I get to get out of the house and what a joy it would be to come home and find that you had been such good boys that you hadn’t peed next to the hamper!
6. To my son and daughter.  Speaking of love.   You two have always been my unending joy, my laughter, my pain, my sorrow, my heart!  For as much as you both love me, why can’t you love and treat each other right?  You are all each other has after your dad and I are gone.  Be each other’s friends. Quit competing with each other or blaming each other…learn a better way to communicate with each other.  PLEASE!!!
7. To my husband Don.  Please quit this stupid war with the neighbor!  My God!  If I could never hear you make snide remarks about him again I would feel so much better about life!  And why, do you suppose, you’ve never been happy at work?  Why do you keep blaming everyone else for your unhappiness?  Did you ever stop to think that maybe it’s you?  Your paranoia is EXHAUSTING!  Please learn that you are not perfect and neither is anyone else.  Oh, and the next time you treat me like you did last year will be the last time.  I am NOT your slave, I’m not you, so don’t expect me to be at your beck and call…this is NOT 1955 and if you want a woman from 1955, well, find the nearest time machine and jump in it and transport yourself back.  I tire of being put last after everyone else.  If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have these great kids and beautiful grandchildren!  Every once in a while a woman needs a man to take her out, or to pamper her.  I was not put in this earth to be slaving away each and every day and bowing to everyone elses needs.  I have needs too.
8. *sigh*  I guess that about wraps it up.  There is more, but I am pretty much spent.  Thank you for reading.  If I’ve offended, well, that is the nature of the beast.  A bitch session oft time offends, but hey, I had to get all that out.  I won’t apologize, all of this is the truth.  And at 59, why hold it in any longer?
9. Oh, one more item, Evelyn, I love you from the bottom of my soul.  We were meant to be best friends and I will never, ever give you up.  You have enriched my life and I thank God that after 50 years we are still friends and that we still celebrate our friendship!  You have been there with me through thick and thin, highs and lows, joys and sorrows.  There is no one like you and I wouldn’t trade you for anything or anyone.  Not even my Don could make me stop being your friend!  May our friendship last another 50 years!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I was sick….

Cold turned into Bronchitis….as has happened before, but not only that, I have calcium deposits floating throughout my body and some lodged in my right shoulder and somehow I couldn’t move my arm with my lungs being all inflamed and such!  Gah!  I felt like I was paralyzed!  Honestly, I COULD NOT MOVE my arm!  Thankfully I went to Urgent Care and they gave me a steroid shot which not only helped my lungs, but now I have full movement back in my arm…I’m hoping it won’t go back to the way it was!  That was a true nightmare!  I’ve been awful about blogging again.  I’m feeling down and mad and not wanting  to be negative all the fricking time!  Because I’m afraid that’s just the way it will come out on the page.  I’m not happy and that’s all.  I’m trying, but circumstances are making that difficult at best.

6 years ago I signed on with wordpress…

Isn’t that interesting?  No?…since I have rarely blogged, I didn’t think so either!  Being that as it may, the main reason I’m blogging at the moment is because I’m sick!  I hate being sick!  I don’t know where this came from, but it’s NASTY! Stuffy nose, can’t lay down to sleep, nose running.  Feels like some strangled me because of the post nasal drip!   Gahh!  Thankfully my daughter is off for 2 days (Tues and Wed.) and just for fun, Phoenix is sick too!  Not only that, but hubby felt nearly the same as I did, but went to work anyway!  I’m just going to try to get as much rest as I can and hope that by Thursday I feel better so I won’t feel like I’m dying as I’m taking care of Phoenix!

Between posts, TQ (my daughter) had to go to the Dr. because being a dog groomer, she gets hair splinters in between her fingers which causes infection, which causes ugly boil like sores.  The only way to get rid of them is to go to the Dr. and have him just slice them open, get the pus out, bandage them then get an antibiotic.  This happens to her all the time, even though she spends at least 1/2 an hour a night picking those hair splinters out from between her fingers with sharp tweezers….it’s a never ending routine…at any rate, when she went to the Dr., he prescribed an antibiotic with a strain of penicillin.  She told him that she was allergic, he said that with only a small strain in it, she should be fine, but if not, go to urgent care or er if she had a reaction.

Well, guess what?  She had a reaction all right.  I thought I was going to lose her!  I was so scared!  She broke out in a rash on her hand, she threw up all night long and she had taken just 2 of the 4 pills (500 mill each) he had prescribed!  Thankfully she had 3 days off.  Turns out that only 20 percent of all people who think they are allergic (or have been told that they are allergic) to penicillin really are.  Being that he had NEVER seen her before, I guess he just decided to test that theory!  Pfft!  Yeah, she REALLY IS ALLERGIC!  They gave her amoxicillin for everything she got sick with when she was a little kid, until the day she had a reaction to it and threw up all night and broke out in a rash….that’s what giving too much cillin to children can get you!  I’m just so thankful that she is all right!

Well I guess at least 1 of you read that Phoenix is officially a Laughary now!  We were so stoked when the call came that she went down to the attorney’s office immediately to pick up the paper work (the certificate).  What a relief!  He can actually carry on her name now!  A celebration by the entire family!

I’m feeling just a bit better and dinner has arrived.  Thanks for  reading!

I think I need Xanga time…..

I remember when I first started getting subscriptions on my Xanga site….as I was going around reading what everyone else’s  lives were like, I became more and more happy with my own….and that is what I needed at that time in my life.  It becomes so easy to look at everything that is not so good as opposed to everything that is good…you know, counting those blessings?  As of late I am so focused on the bad that it is getting harder and harder to see the good, even when smacked in the face with it.  I know that I have a home to live in, food to eat, cars to drive, a loving family and pets, but my husband just drives me nuts sometimes.  I’m sure it’s nothing overt, just things that nag at a marriage over the years.  Seems like I’m supposed to do everything for him…EVERYTHING, down to letting him know it’s time to get ready for work.  My God, the man is 57 years old, you’d think he could stop what he’s doing and look at a clock!  I was 6 minutes late in telling him it was time to get ready and I didn’t even know I was supposed to do that!  He asked what time it was, I said “It’s 1:46”.  He said “You need to let me know no later than 1:40 that I have to get ready!”  Really?  When did I become the timekeeper as well as everything else?  What if I weren’t here?  Would you count on me to drop whatever is was I was doing, run back home to let you know that it’s time to get ready for work?  Honestly…what does he think I do when I’m here all by myself with Phoenix?  I’ve taken him for play dates with no one telling me it’s time to get ready, I fix him dinner without anyone telling me it’s time for dinner…done laundry while watching him, cleaned the house et. all.  Do I really have to keep time for him just because I’m here?  I was eating my lunch for goodness sake!

And THAT is a prime example of how I’m blowing everything out of proportion! But you know it’s not just that, there are other things that vex me as well.  But we can either ignore them, or hell, save them for some other post…I’ll leave that open.  At any rate, having a blogging community helped me to appreciate my own life much more and I need it again.  It just seems like it’s “tough getting the old gang together”.  Perhaps I should read some of the “communities” recommendations…you know, cruise the neighborhood!  What do you all think?

Some things just bear repeating and this is one of them.

This was my response to a challenge given to us back in Xanga days on Featured Grown ups way back in 2008.  I still feel the same way and just want to share again.  Hope you all don’t mind.  And yes, I really will get to a new post soon!  I promise!  May I present to you my letter to my mom.

Write a letter to your Mother.  It doesn’t matter if she is in heaven or on earth.  Tell her what she means to you…

Dear Mom;

   I know that you know how much I love and miss you.  There is not a day that goes by that I do not still stop whatever I am doing during the course of the day and think about you.  Be it a sweet memory or a tearful heartache, you are still within my heart and soul.

   I wish that I could sit with you just one more time.  I’d make you your iced tea and I’d have my cup of coffee.  We would sit and chat and giggle and remember old times and I’d catch you up on the kids’ lives.

  I’d let you know that I am happy and that everything you taught me did not go unheard, that all of your lessons have been taken to heart and passed on to my own children.  I’d remind you how much I love you and let you know that you have always been, and will always remain the most important influence in my life. 

   Mom, your  love and devotion to me have made me such a loving and strong woman that you can’t even imagine how my heart fills with love whenever I think about all of the unheralded sacrifices you made for our lives.  You did that, all by yourself.  Know that you were the one constant in my life, that you, with all your faults and fears, gave me the all gifts that make me who I am today, tomorrow and for the rest of all time.  Your generous spirit taught me how to give to others without expecting anything in return, your quick mind gave me humor and laughter and the ability to share that with others.  Because of you I can love myself which gives me the ability to love as you did, with a ferocity that is unmatched.

Until we meet again in another time and another place, I’ll be hugging you in my dreams and holding your love within my heart.

Your devoted daughter,

Jeri

Self Indulgence? Or just memories….

I have been rereading the posts that sweet Courtney retrieved from Xanga here for 2 days!  All those memories flooded back, the good and the bad.  It has been a memory overload!  I loved it and hated some of the memories both!  The great posts, those that I am most proud of, are generally written through a blog ring.  I really have to say that I miss those!  I was proud and amazed that I had written them!  The so- so posts?  Those seemed like the kind I’ll be doing for a while until I can get back into the groove.  I’m sure that the reason I have had such a difficult time getting back into blogging is because of the last few years on Xanga where I was up so high then sank so fast because I just couldn’t keep up with it all!  I’m vowing to take it slower and easier this time around.  Without feeling like I have to entertain anyone, just blog what feels right!  The entertainment aspect got me all caught up and led to me leaving KoffeeKween in the first place and taking up residence over on Jeri_Dee…stick with the real, leave the entertaining to someone else!  I just don’t have the time nor the inclination to do it!

Hubby took Little man out for the day!  This will be a first!  Just when I thought I’d have the majority of the day to myself, TQ called to say that they had no other dogs for her today so she’ll be home shortly….*sigh*.  That’s alright.  She needs a break too and I doubt she’ll be doing anything that will disturb me.  We get along better than my husband and I do!  At least we talk about something other than work, Little Man or the annoying neighbor!

Hoping the you’re all having relaxing weekends!

We meet yet again…

New draft, new place apparently.   Thought I had started over here, but can’t find hide nor hair of the other blog!  But that was back in 2009, so, there you have it!

A couple of my online blogging buddies have decided to pick up the blogging gauntlet once again so I figured that I would give it a go as well.  It won’t be easy with caring for my daughter after her surgery and taking care of my grandson, but I’ll probably need someplace to vent or share my thoughts.

Just a short item to let anyone know I’m here…..

Over a week? A walk on the Island

Oh my! 

Is it possible that it’s been over a week since I’ve posted?  I hang my head in shame.  I’ve been paying close attention to the Kween_of_the_Queens blog ring and basically living my life!  I’ve had a lot of company over the past week.  Jon and Irma and Laura have been here nearly every night and hubby has had the pager for work which means that he’s had 3 weekend days off.  So it’s been pretty full!

We even went out on a date last night!  We saw the new Indiana Jones movie.  I liked it.  There was still the quirkiness of Indy and the action and the fun.  True there were aspects of it that were “supernatural”, but in context with the series, there actually were a lot of supernatural events.  So, it was fine by me!  The fun part for me was that it took place in 1957, the year that I was born. . .fun!

On other horizons, what follows is my walk on the Island  for today.  For those of you who don’t know what it Island is, you need to go there and join up.  Make sure you are a blog ring enthusiast. There are always good challenges over there as well as on my own blog ring.  Mike’s subject for this month (a choice of 3) for me is:

35.1 What makes you unique?

When I first saw this challenge I thought to myself.  “Hmmm”  “What does make me unique?”  I’m actually a pretty normal human being in my opinion, but as I thought more about it, I realized that I do have a distinguishing physical feature this is very unique.  Probably the most unique side to this feature is that it took me so long to come up with it!  First, the picture

:

You’ll notice that “strawberry birthmark” there on the arm?  I goes to the top of the right side of my chest, stops, then continues down the right buttock right down to my heel.  Now, I know it’s huge, but I never even notice it!  Honestly!  My wonderful mother made sure that it never bothered me by her words of wisdom “Honey, if you don’t make a big deal out of it, no one else will either.”  Truer words have never been spoken!

And I never did!  In fact, it didn’t occur to me until much later that any boy I may have had a crush on might have rejected me simply because of it!  Good thing I was married and already had a family by the time I had that thought!

Mother never wanted me to feel like she had as a girl.  My grandmother was not a cruel woman, just uninformed.  You see, when my mother was very young she came down with an illness that was very rare.  I could never remember the name of it and still can’t.  The treatment was to use radiation to get rid of it.  Unfortunately, the radiation kept the left side of her limbs from developing the entire way.  All limbs were the same length, but her left side was decidedly thinner than her left.  Mom might try on a dress and ask grandma how it looked and inevitably say something like “Now Ruthie, remember you’re different.”  Mom knew that she didn’t mean to be cruel, but it still effected her.  That’s why she never wanted me to feel that way!  And it honestly did work!  I rarely even think about it and I never see it when I look in the mirror!

I would surmise that my attitude about it is pretty unique too, but that is really a tribute to my wonder mother and her determination to make me feel as normal as possible!

Thanks for reading!

~Jeri

Scattagories!!!!

Ok all of you.  I STOLE THIS FROM RELAXOLOGY! 

This happens to be my very favorite game and I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t resist.  Relaxology is very popular, so I must apologize to those of you who have already done this.  I don’t read her every day, but was glancing through her posts as Kween_of_the_Queens.  I hope she doesn’t mind too much!

The Rules:

It’s harder than it looks! Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following t

hey have to be real places, names, things…nothing made up! Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial. You CAN’T use your name for the boy/girl name.

What is your name______________Jeri

4 Letter Word______________Just

Vehicle______________Jeep

City______________Juno

Boy Name______________Jon

Girl Name______________Jennifer

Alcoholic drink______________Johnny Walker Red

Occupation______________Janitor

Something you wear______________Jersey

Celebrity______________Janet Jackson

Food______________Jello

Something found in bathroom______________jacuzzi

Reason for being late______________jailed

Cartoon Character______________Jimminy Cricket

Something you shout______________JUMP!

Animal______________Jaguar

Body part______________joint

Word to describe you______________Jolly

Oh that was fun and yet a bit of a brain teaser!  Don’t think I would have made it if a timer had been on!

Now you try!

~Jeri

Hello, hello!

Here I am back here once again, only without the frustration I was having before.  I know I didn’t say anything about it, but the power cord for this laptop had a cut in it right where it goes into the laptop!  Which made it sometimes go to the battery and was getting to the point where it just wouldn’t come on at all!  Pfft!  SOOOOOOOO, we got a new power cord for it today.  Holy moly!  They charge enough!  But the good news is that we got 12% off, which was still expensive, but better than it would have been had we not had it!  I’m hoping this will be a much better connection because the way it plugs into the computer is at a different angle so that the cord shouldn’t  be getting bent at each and every turn!  So, YAY for a new cord!

A few weeks back, someone, I’m thinking one of the kids in the neighborhood, set my clemitias on fire!  Oh I was so upset!  It was a beautiful lavender color and blooming like crazy!  I missed the lovely blooms so much!  Hubby decided that he had to get me a new one today.  It wasn’t the spectacular light lavender color, but rather a deep purple.  It’s gorgeous too, and I’m sure I’ll be enjoying it just as soon as it takes off.  I was just so mad that kids who weren’t even mine had the gall to stand on MY walkway right next to the house and set it on fire!  Why don’t people watch their kids?  I sat outside each and every time mine played outdoors just to make sure they weren’t doing anything like that!  Well, that and so they would be safe and not be snatched up by some perv! 

We went shopping today (got our incometax refund and paycheck) so we had to make the rounds.  The hardware store (new clemitias, new filters for the house), WalMart (sundry items) and Costco (stocking up on foods and sundries).  Good Lord!  I hardly slept at all last night!  Kept waking up about every hour and a half!  I’m exhausted!  Wish I could take a nap!  But hubby is doing some transplanting at the moment and I don’t know what his plans are after that.  We got 2 movie tickets so we might be going to see the new Indiana Jones movie later today. . .or maybe after he gets off work sometime tomorrow.  I’ve been itching to see it since I saw the previews!  I just love the character!

I think I’ll try to slip in a nap, you all have great weekends!

Hugs~Jeri