Welcome to the Doll house part 2 and new year's resolutions

I have no idea what my dollhouse has to do with New Year's Resolutions, but it brings me immense pleasure.  I am nowhere near done decorating it, as you can see.  I will never be "done" because it is so fun to decorate for holidays and such.  I am not a snob when it comes to the doll house world.  I carefully collected all the Madame Alexander dolls from McDonalds and put them in the house to live.  I also mix vintage pieces with homemade stuff and things from Hobby Lobby or my favorite resale store.  It's all good!  Where else can you find an all pink house with purple shutters?  Hubby did the renovations and painted the house.  I do need some lights in there and darn if the cats don't scratch on the roof so I have to hide it away in an unused bedroom.  Hubby painstakingly glued on tiny shingles and those cats!  They thought......thanks for the cool scratching post, Mom!

Anyway, it's 2012 and I should have some new year's resolutions, right?  All the other bloggers have them,  By the way, how the heck can these blog ladies have gorgeous homes with shabby chic, folded, laundried, home-cooked goodness all the time?  It's intimidating!   Right now, our dryer went out, so I am hanging every sock and undie all over the place.  The jeans come out crunchy.  There is underwear hanging from doorknobs.  We are still in recovery mode after hubby lost his job last year.  He did find work 5 months later, but it's very, very dangerous work.  That's another story.  My stay at home business was gangbusters in the summer into fall then I hit a wall in Nov. and Dec.  So, Martha Stewart, I can't punch fancy holes in stationary with your fancy hole puncher thingy.  Gotta get a dryer first.  

Commence resolutions.

1.  Put my health on the front burner.  The only reason I go to the doctor these days is to renew my prescriptions.  By the way, I have dumped the prescrip. I was on to help me "cope" with my mother's illness and death.  Those pills helped somewhat,, but the withdrawls are now brutal.  I'm determined to rid my body of this drug and possibly regain my eyesight and figure in the process.    I am haphazard with exercising, and my eating is heavy on chocolate..  I have stopped taking vitamins (a recent study said they did nothing unless you are iron deficient) and, this is painful, I have not been to the dentist in about 15 years.  

I know.  I do floss and brush like a maniac.  And I take my son, but for some reason, I don't think it's important to me.  Money is an issue, I cannot deny.  But, what good am I to the family if I am dead?  Or toothless?

2.  Put away at least 20% of money made or received.

3.  Enroll child in winter/spring activity.  He currently has no friends and likes computers, videogames and machines more than people.    That reminds me, if school continues to be a major social issue, I need to mull over diagnosis issue and possible new school in future.  

4.  Give more love to my husband.  I tend to retreat and feel resentful.  Nuff said.

5.  Donate or participate in Alzheimers Association/awareness.  I realize breast cancer is huge, but it's all I see on tv......no avon backed commercials for alzheimers. So, it's not cool to step forward with a relative who has alzheimers, celebrities?

6.  Cook more.  Engage child in cooking so maybe he will try something new off the beaten track.

7.  Pray.  Be good to others and to myself.  

8.  Laugh and don't beat myself up over the past.

9.  Stop eating popcorn for dinner.  For heavens sake!!!!

10.  Walk everyday.  Drink more vodka.  Cease clipping toenails.  Use morrocan oil instead of shampoo.  Replace showers with cologne spongebaths.  Steal. 

11.  Just kidding..

  I'd like to get a handle on this menopause, mid-life crisis, depressive wave that engulfs me every so often.  Perhaps giving in to it is best.  And like all things, it goes away, and good things return.  Like the waves on an ocean.

These are the Days of our Lives.

I was sounding a bit like a soap.  Seriously, if anyone reads this, I wish you a happy 2012 full of health, goodness, good thoughts, joy, peace, and love.   

Lee Fields - Honey Dove

Why in the world did it take me 50 years to find Lee Fields?  Soulfulness of another era.  All the forgotten artists.

It was a rape

A friend of mine was raped in the fall of 1980.  We were young, maybe 18 or 19 and decided to visit a mutual friend of ours at Northern Illinois University.  This friend lived in a dorm, and partied a lot, as we did at the time.  Only, I had gone to a community college and still lived at home and my friend, D, lived at home and worked.  We drove the hour to get there and sure enough, the parties started almost immediately.  PartyTime was constant  on college campuses...although usually mondays and tuesdays were considered school days.  We were ecstatic! Bring on the college dudes!

This was a weekend.  We started out in a dorm room and began playing drinking games.  It seemed innocent and fun and we all started drinking beer.  Lots of it.  So much of it that the night became, obviously, a blur.  Soon, all the dorm rooms were open and the party continued in all of them.  People came, people went and the entire floor of rooms was the party. 

My friend was flirting heavily with a guy.  This was a co-ed floor and the guys were plentiful.  We were delighted.  Loud rock music, we felt gorgeous after primping and dressing in tight jeans......it was a blast!  I hung out with the mutual friend, and spent time flirting and dancing.  And drinking more.

I became seperated from my friend.  At first, it was no big deal.  These things happen when you party and besides, how far could she have gone?  The party was confined to one floor of the dorm!  She would show up eventually, and she seemed to have hit it off with that cute guy.  She looked happy.  Maybe she found a future boyfriend!

Hours passed.  Hazy hours.  I drank a lot, but as usual, didn't find anyone I liked and was ready to end the night.  I began looking for my friend.  We started searching rooms and asking, drunkenly, if anyone had seen D?  No one had.

In my own drunken fog, I remember finding her.  She was in a room.  She was wearing man's clothes and hers were not there.  She was in his room.  She was hysterical; crying and screaming that she needed to call her sister to go home.  We tried to calm her, to find her clothes...The boy said she wanted to switch clothes.  That didn't make sense.  He seemed very calm and quiet.  Apathetic.  It was all so confusing.  I thought she liked him.  She was flirting, kissing him, and now this.

The next thing I remember, she was running blindly through fields, parking lots, running to where, I do not know.  I was running after her, trying to stop her.  I was in no shape to drive us home, but she wanted out of there.  She wanted to call her sister and go home.  We had no cell phones in those days, so I took her to a gas station to call her sister.  She was coming immediately to get her. 

For some reason, I decided to stay.  When her sister arrived, she asked what happened?  I said I did not know....I said D had said she was raped.  I said something I will always regret.  I said to her sister, that I wasn't sure if it was a rape. 

Those words came back to haunt me.  Our friendship ended after D found out I said that.  I was confused, but I should have taken her word that she was raped.  How could I have doubted my friend?  Rape doesn't always come in boogie man scenarios in the middle of the night.  This was a rape.  The term "date rape" didn't even exist at that time, but as a female, why did I not support her at that moment?  I beat myself up mercilessly after this, and tried to woo her back with stuffed animals placed at her doorstep, notes, flowers, but she would not speak to me.

The night after the rape, I went searching for this guy.  What the hell I could have done was beyond me.  I was still probably drunk, as we all were, but I found him, and asked him what he did to her?  He claimed she wanted it and wanted to change clothes, and that was it.  He seemed bored, not the least bit scared we would go to the police.  It was dawning on me that something horrific occured in that dorm room that night.

I was to find out later, she became pregnant from that rape, and had an abortion.  D and I rekindled our friendship briefly, years later.  I apologized profusely, and she accepted it.  I still never felt right about my reaction to this.  I felt it was a wedge between us, a horrible hurdle that I could never overcome in the friendship.  She went on to have a brief marriage and 2 boys very quickly after all this and then she divorced.  We lost touch, and have not seen each other since.

I don't know why she never pressed charges against that guy in the dorm.  Perhaps she knew it would be hard to prove all this in court........?Or, she didn't think anyone would support her or believe her.  She might be raped all over again in court.  As her friend at the time, I failed her.  Why would she expect to not be failed again by strangers?

It's over.  And I am the guilty one in all this.  Me and the rapist.

Temple of the Dog - Say Hello 2 Heaven

Say hello to heaven

I don't think of the lost 2 babies much anymore.  Most people don't think of them as a bonifide death at all.  They weren't born; they died within my womb.  Once in a while though, I think of what could have happened, what would they be like, who would they have become.  Ahhhhh, miscarriages are a dime a dozen.  My tears are totally dry now. 

But every once in a while I remember that experience and it knocked me off my feet.  I was completely blindsided by a "blighted ovum" diagnosis, and alone in the exam room.  At nearly 40, I thought it was my only chance at pregnancy...I cried big cries.  I had to have surgery to remove the................leftover baby.  My body bled for months and my hormones were wicked.  I would cry all the time in the car.   Any song would set me off.  Life was dark.

Then I had a boy!  He is beautiful and funny.  He is complicated and kerfluffering.  I made that word up.  He is my son.  Life is good.

Got pregnant right away after having the boy.  Lost that one too.  My body was clearly not ready for a pregnancy so soon after childbirth, but we were eager, happy, and recognizing my advanced age, ready for a sibling for our boy. 

Not to be.  Yet this time I felt relieved physically.  I could not handle any more at that time.  Hubby was devastated this time.  I told him not to, but he set up a bedroom for the new baby.  God damnit.  A loss again, and it was never to happen again.

I am grateful to have this complicated, beautiful little boy. 

But once in a great while, I think of the 2 little ones  that lay in the midst.  We really wanted a sibling for our little man.  But hey, some people cannot have children at all.  We looked into adoption and couldn't afford it.  Can you imagine?  Human lives cost a lot.

And so, you suspend the little ones again.  Put them away in a little box and close the lid.  Move on.  And wonder.  Yea, in my quiet moments, I wonder about them.




                                                             New like a baby
                                                              An' lost like a prayer
                                                                The sky was your playground
                                                                   But the cold ground was your bed



                                                             Say hello to heaven
                                                              heaven, heaven
                                                               Say hello to heaven
                                                               heaven, heaven................

                                                          

Merry merry Christmas!!

Thank you

A Christmas feast, indeed.  Crab legs, crab cakes, shrimp, tiny potatoes, old bay, lemons, and real butter.

And a glass of vino.

  Hubby wanted to take some down time after working  night shifts and fixing crains attached to box cars on the railroads.  The night before christmas break, he was stranded on a box car for an hour and a half at 4 a.m.   But that's another story for him to tell.

  Guess he just wanted  our favorite meal and.....just us.  The night before we celebrated with my family to great success.  Traditional turkey and trimmings and wonderful gifts abounded.  We exchanged gifts with his family a few days before christmas at his request.  His family is large, and a cast of thousands was not on his list of relaxing things to do.  We received so much from everyone this year.  I felt sheepish and low in a way.  But, I suppose family knew that we struggled with a lot of issues this year.  Least of them was unemployment and the threat of losing the house.

I mulled that one over so many times.....there are family members, but no where realistically to go.  Not with the pets......the child.........the vast array of things we possess now.....NO WHERE TO GO.

People remembered us this year, and for that I am grateful.  Homelessness is a terrifying prospect.  Not for me, but for our child.  I feel as though I could endure through anything.    But my child.......I cannot destroy his life.  My "business" has been null nov. and dec.  Oh, the guilt.  But, as hubby said, it was our turn to receive.

I think I enjoy giving more.  I feel so vulnerable and beholden to a degree, upon receiving great gifts. 

But I really need to just say thank you.  Thank you for having a home to raise our child in.  Thank you for my father.  Thank you my child is in regular school.  Thank you for our health.  Thank you for my sister's healthy outcome after colon resectioning surgery.  Thank you for the bountiful christmas feast.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.

If I am in a tizzy of anxiety in the morning because of petty problems, the two word mantra is there for me to take.

Thank you.