Six Word Saturday (12/28/13)

I'm Not Doing 6WS Next Year

To cut down on my internet usage and since people rarely read my blog anyway, I won't be participating in Six Word Saturdays next year.  I'm proud of myself for posting almost every week this year though.  I'll post next year only if something extremely interesting happens.

Christmas

My husband's birthday was the day before, so I picked him up McDonald's for breakfast which is the tradition, and then we went to Dion's that night for pizza and then drove around looking at lights.  The kids helped put all the presents under the tree.  It felt ridiculous to me because everyone knew what 90 percent of their presents were already.  I was the one who wrapped them all, and I kept wondering to myself what the point was, but I also wrapped them because my husband gets in THE foulest mood wrapping presents.  He hates doing it and has to make sure everyone knows how mad he is.  So for the past two Christmasses, I've wrapped them, even though it always looks like Stevie Wonder helped me.

Of course, my husband was sick all night because he ate too much, so all he did Christmas morning was lay on the couch as we opened presents.  He had the kids unwrap his presents for him.  He made a big breakfast for everyone of french toast, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, hash browns and orange juice.  And some of those almond roll "bites" (bite sized) which he thinks are the best things in the world.  I don't.

I have a whole list of reasons why I hate Christmas, but here are the main ones:

• None of my family of origin's Christmas traditions have ever been used since we got married.
  
• My family opened one present at a time and everyone took turns.  Now we all just open presents like a mob.
• My family played Christmas music throughout the house from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day.  Now I only hear it in my car or if I play it on my computer with headphones on.
• My family played secular and religious Christmas music.  Now the only time we hear a religious song is on accident in a store or something (or if I play it for myself on my headphones).
• My family sent out (and RECEIVED!) over five dozen Christmas cards every year.  Now we only send out cards if I write them all out myself and nag about doing a Christmas picture to include inside, plus I sent out 24 cards this year and received maybe 10.
  
• Christmas 1976 I wanted a Bionic Woman barbie so incredibly bad, and then Christmas came and not only did I not get one, my SISTER got one, and I mouthed the words "That was for me!" to my mother, crying, and she glared at me and put her fingers to her lips.  From then on, I've never allowed myself to "want" anything for Christmas - I tell people things but I won't let my heart hope anymore.  Also, if my kids act like they really want something, it makes me feel extremely anxious that I won't be able to find it for them.
  
• Christmas 1987 I attended the office party where I worked.  The entire month before it, all the secretaries kept badgering me to tell them who I got for Secret Santa and they also told me "horror stories" of the shitty presents they received from their Secret Santas in previous years.  It upset me so badly to know that they would hate me like that if my present wasn't good enough and I actually became extremely suicidal.  To this day, I hate giving presents to people because I worry they will hate me if it's a bad present.
  
• My husband's birthday is the day before Christmas so he's very bitter, and it's really hard to be in a festive mood for me anyway, so I feel guilty knowing that I should be doubly festive to make up for HIS lousy mood but I can't even get very festive for one person, me.

Movies

Here are the movies I watched this past week:

White Christmas:  This is the 1954 "classic" starring Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby.  I didn't know it was going to be about 75 percent singing/dancing and 25 percent plot.  It was like a Christmas version of Mary Poppins.  Rosemary Clooney played one love interest (Betty), and some other actress played her sister, the other love interest (I think her name was Judy).  I kept getting distracted by Judy's thick black eyebrows.  Anyway, it was a decent story but the dance numbers and songs were just too darn long and boring.

My Left Foot:  This movie is a true story and stars Daniel Day Lewis as a man (Christy Brown) with horrible cerebral palsy who teaches himself to write and paint with his left foot.  People say Lewis should have won an Oscar for it but I disagree.  His speech wasn't believably garbled like a person with CP's is.  It was neat, however, to see the kids in Christy's neighborhood include him in their playing (even as a teenager "playing" soccer).  At the end of the movie you find out he eventually married.  I looked up the real Christy Brown's page on Wikipedia and his life was much worse than what the movie portrayed.  Also his wife was abusive towards him and there's suspicion that she may have even killed him instead of him "accidentally choking to death."

12 Dogs of Christmas:  This movie was supposed to be taking place in the late '30s but the only period items I saw were some cars.  Even the clothes and hairstyles weren't exactly that time period.  Anyway, a girl arranges to put on a Christmas play using stray dogs even though dogs are banned from the entire town.  The only problem I had with the movie besides not being completely '30s era was when the "bad guy" would corner the girl because she would act (badly!) like she was shoving him away but he hardly moves but she can still escape.  I'm a dog lover so of course I loved all the dogs.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty:  We saw this on Christmas Day at the movie theater, and it was worth every penny!  What a great movie!  No nudity, no graphic violence, only two swear words in the whole movie.  Ben Stiller did an excellent job on this!  He plays Mitty who works at a magazine and he finds out the picture for the final issue cover is missing.  So he basically goes on a massive adventure to find it.  Mitty always daydreams about being a hero, saying the right things to people, flirting with the girl he has a crush on, etc., because his actual life is boring, predictable and reserved.  At the end of the movie (not a spoiler) I actually cried because something happens where Mitty finds out that he hadn't been as "invisible" as he had thought.  My husband even went with me to see this movie, so that should tell you something because he hates movie theaters.

The Switch:  I watched this on Netflix on suggestion of my sister.  Jennifer Aniston plays Kassie, a single woman who gets artificially inseminated so she can have a baby on her own.  It was very tacky and gross that she had an insemination party for it and invites the gorgeous donor to it.  The title of the movie refers to her best friend (a guy) who gets wasted and is jealous of the donor and dumps out his "sample" in the bathroom (which made me GAG) and adds his own instead.  After Wally sobers up, he doesn't remember what he did.  But basically her kid is his, and the rest of the movie is him being oblivious that the kid is identical to him, even though Kassie makes him spend a ton of time with him so she could go cavort with the donor guy who she thinks she's in love with.  At the end, when he figures out that the kid is his and he wants Kassie in his life (!), he tries to be honest with her at a party where the donor guy was getting ready to propose.  So Kassie yells at Wally and also slaps him in front of all those people.  Yet somehow he still wants her and they end up together, happy ending, which was so unbelievable.  No guy would stick around Kassie if she treated them how she treated Wally.  The one part of the movie that made me so mad was when Kassie and the donor guy took the kid to a climbing wall place for his birthday.  The kid didn't want to climb the wall but the donor guy cajoled him and Kassie didn't stop it and in fact encouraged her kid to do it too.  So the kid had to climb the wall because Kassie wanted him to do it solely for the fact the donor guy wanted him to do it.

Bustin' Loose:  This is an old Richard Pryor movie where he plays an ex-con who drives a busload of troubled kids cross-country to their new group home.  Back in the late 70s/early 80s there were a lot of these movie plots (one man helping several kids, like Bad News Bears, etc.).  There were a few funny scenes, a lot of dripping sweet moments, cursing (Pryor naturally) and bad music.

Resolutions

Although this isn't really a resolution, I want to cut down my counseling sessions from weekly to biweekly.  With the extra money, I could either save it or donate it or pay for some kind of entertainment for me and the kids without feeling so anxious about running out of money.  When I told my therapist about my plan a couple weeks ago, he never said I could or couldn't do it but asked me what I thought it would be like for me and be like for him.  I should think he'd still care about me even if I didn't go every week.

My only resolution for 2014 is to stop playing Sims 2 for a year.  Just a year!  I believe I'll notice how much real-life stuff I can accomplish for myself instead of spending time improving virtual people's lives in a game.

Six Word Saturday (12/21/13)

Visit From In-laws and Christmas Movies

Sunday afternoon my husband's parents came down to drop off Christmas presents.  They rented a hotel room for the night and let our kids swim in the pool.  We went out to eat at a fancy steak place.  The next morning after we dropped the kids off at school, me and my husband had breakfast with them at Bite of Belgium.

I decided since Netflix will probably remove the Christmas movies after the holidays that I would concentrate on them, but I only watched two.

Switchmas:  It sounded good in the description (a Jewish boy changes places with a bored Christian boy at an airport so they get to experience each other's holiday).  The movie seemed aimed at a younger audience and wasn't that interesting after all.

12 Dates of Christmas:  My sister recommended this one.  It had kind of a "Groundhog Day" feel to it.  A woman had to keep reliving the same day over and over till she could get over her ex, accept her father's new wife, befriend her lonely neighbor, and see her blind date for who he really is.  It was a cute movie.

I am currently watching the famous movie White Christmas, but only have 30 minutes done so far.  They sure had a lot of musical dance numbers in the old 50's movies.

Six Word Saturday (12/14/13)

Post Office Adventure and Christmas Program

All last week I had wanted my daughter to go with me to the post office to mail my son's Christmas package overseas, and she had some excuse why she couldn't go.  So Monday I boxed up the gifts myself and wrote out directions to the post office off of Google Maps.  I probably could have gotten there okay without them but I do have anxiety about getting lost if I'm not in my comfort zone/neck of the woods.  I wrote out a different route for the way back so it wouldn't have so many left turns.  Even before I left the house, I had an overwhelming feeling like "if you get in your car, you're going to die!"  It was really scary and I started crying, but then somehow I remembered Andy Stanley's message from church online the day before - he was talking about Gideon and Samson, how they actually were ordinary people who, with God behind them, did extraordinary things.  Andy is kind of a motivational speaker so he instructed that you should ask yourself, "Would God want me to do this?" and if the answer is yes, then go for it because He will help you!  So after I envisioned God with me (and Jesus sitting in the front passenger seat) I was able to drive to the post office without any problems.  

HOWEVER, driving home was a different story.  I never saw the street I was supposed to turn on.  And I happened to look up in an intersection and saw that the street I had been traveling on was named something else at that point.  (Where I live, this happens a lot:  You can drive a straight line on one single street and the name will change three times.)  So I panicked and began crying and screaming for God to help me because when I'm lost I always feel like I'm going to end up driving so much that I run out of gas, end up starving to death on the side of some road, and nobody will even notice that I'm gone.  At first I was praying to see something big that was familiar (a hospital, the mall, a school I knew, etc.).  But after only a minute my chest hurt so bad and I felt like I couldn't swallow, and I prayed, "Can't you point me the way to Alameda [the street I needed to be on]?"  It felt like a last-ditch prayer like people in plane crashes pray ("Save me!")  Because then when it doesn't work out and I die (or the crash victims die), I/they can tell God, "Why am I here in Heaven?  I prayed!"  Anyway, the very next intersection had a red stoplight, so I looked up at the street sign and (I kid you not) it had an arrow pointing left with the street name El Paseo and an arrow POINTING right saying Alameda!  I love how God is so, so, so obvious when he deals with me.

Last night even though this year I hadn't planned on going at all, my daughter went with me to a Christmas program at the Baptist church I used to regularly go to.  They served cheesecake and coffee during the show.  We sat in the far right corner, right in front of the choir stand, and even though our table wasn't at a central point, I loved how the band didn't drown out the choir voices from our viewpoint.  I really liked the show although that jerk Mackenzie was in the choir (who got me "kicked out" of the latest Bible study I went to last year).  And, of course, she was on the end so I had to look at her through the whole show.  And she sang a solo because everyone thinks she's so wonderful.  At any rate, afterward the show we turned the car radio to 88.3 because the outside lights on the church were synched to Christmas music, which was pretty cool.

As for movies, I only got around to watching one movie this week on Netflix, a made for TV movie called "The Christmas Angel."  It had Kevin Sorbo (Andromeda) in it - I love his voice!  It was about a little girl who was the only one whose wishes came true.  She wished things for other people (not like a boy tells her "wish this for me"; it was more like she saw that the boy needed something so she wished he could have it.)  Della Reese played the angel (naturally).  The little girl's friend Lucas was as adorable as can be too!  I liked the movie although it was extremely predictable and blatantly Christian.  I want to concentrate on watching Christmas movies because Netflix will only show them during the season.

Six Word Saturday (12/7/13)

Trans Siberian Orchestra Concert and Movies

My husband took the kids to see a football game between two rival high schools here in town so I've had a couple hours to myself.

Monday night the four of us went to the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert.  We all wore earplugs because it was insanely loud.  I thought the kids wouldn't care for it because of the noise, lasers, pyrotechnics, etc., but they really enjoyed it.

Here are the movies I watched on Netflix this week:

Heart and Souls:  I don't really know how to describe this wonderful movie so I am copying a short synopsis a reviewer left on IMDB.  Robert Downey Jr. is wonderful as the man who became the medium for 4 people who died in a bus accident at the same moment the hero was born. As a child these "friends" were known only to him, eventually leading to psychiatric evaluations because parents, teachers et al insisted something had to be wrong with this child. While still a small child, the "spirits" decide it's time for him to be "without his special fiends"...until at about age 30 they suddenly make contact again. They need a favor; 4 favors. Each one of the foursome died before they could take care of some important unfinished business. In order to go to Heaven and rest in peace, their "little friend" would need to allow each of them to enter his body (since they are only souls) to accomplish their missions.

Brother White:  An L.A. megachurch pastor gets transferred with his family to an Atlanta innercity black church.  The actor who played Pastor White was perfect.  His wife is played by his real-life wife.  (Incidentally, she played the part of the coworker who had the abortion in Sarah's Choice.)  It was a predictable movie and, of course, the family saves the Atlanta church at the end (and **spoiler** they decide not to go back to L.A.**),

Listen to Your Heart:  About a music-writing waiter who falls in love with a deaf girl who ate at his restaurant with her over-protective mother.  The movie was predictable till about an hour into it, then all hell breaks loose (literally).  Everything that could possibly go wrong with this couple, happens.  The last 45 minutes of the movie I couldn't stop crying.  Cybil Sheppard plays the deaf girl's mother and I just hated her for not letting her daughter do very much on her own.

Dutch:  Ed O'Neil (Al Bundy from Married With Children) plays the boyfriend of a rich kid's mother who offers to drive the kid home from boarding school for the holidays.  For most of the movie the kid is cold and unfriendly, but after all their adventures and mishaps he warms up to Dutch.

Six Word Saturday (12/1/13)

Yes, I Know It Is Sunday

I just don't know why I didn't write yesterday.  So I will give a rundown of everything today as if it were yesterday.

We dog-sat for our neighbors' Yorkie from Friday the 22nd through all last week.  Everything was fine till Tuesday.  I took my daughter to school, came home, four dogs (our three plus the Yorkie).  Took youngest son to school, came home, three dogs.  Thinking that my husband actually cared about me, I called him to say I couldn't find the Yorkie.  My husband yelled at me, do I want him to come home right that second and look for him or what?  I said never mind and hung up on him.  I screamed for God to help me find him and I went outside and yelled his name.  I see this little expensive ball of fur running down the middle of our street, and he came right to me!  God is so good.  I found out he got out through a hole in the fence (that our dogs are too fat to get through), so I had to keep my eye on little Houdini till my husband got home later to fix the fence.

Wednesday I went to Target with my daughter to get my son and his wife some Christmas presents because I want to mail them early so they get them in time.  My daughter picked out some clothes that she thought my daughter-in-law would like and then a few things for my son (plus my daughter needed two things).  Grand total was just over $200.  Funny how you think it's going to be $50 maximum before you even set foot in the store.  I noticed as my daughter put stuff on the conveyor that she had hidden other things in the cart underneath the things I did know about.  And since this trip, she has worn two of the shirts I thought I got for my daughter-in-law.  So tomorrow I'm going to wrap up whatever is left and then maybe Wednesday after my session go to the post office by myself and mail them.  Every time I need to get a couple things and I take my daughter with me for safety (because I am terrified of getting lost), I end up spending way more than I want to.  And I feel really, really used.

Thursday was Thanksgiving and we went to Cracker Barrel as usual.  It was pretty good this time and not all dried out but I think it's because we went there early and got seated right before noon.  It was very noisy and I started to feel frantic by the time we got pie, so we took that home.  My husband and daughter put up the Christmas tree, and my daughter told me she felt bad because my husband kept yelling at her.  I personally feel paralyzed getting ordered to do things just because I know I'll get in trouble or yelled at if it's not done right or quick enough (or whatever else reason my husband has that I failed).  Anyway, that night my husband took me to Dick's Sporting Goods at 8 p.m. for their early Black Friday sale and had me get a box of some 22 long bullets.  It was one per customer so basically my husband got two boxes because he used me.

Friday I went with my daughter to the Dollar Tree to get one thing (she wanted a big initial letter of her name to put on the wall).  They didn't have any but she did manage to find 20 other little things she wanted (and I got a bottle of Dr. Pepper and some wrapping paper).  I just can't win.  I really want to get her on an allowance and tell her I'm not buying anything for her anymore so she'll learn how to manage money and also learn how to save up for big things.  Friday afternoon she helped my husband put the Christmas lights on the house.  I'm not sure why anyone does this.  It's too cold most of the time to go outside and admire your own lights at night so why bother.

Yesterday afternoon my daughter had a sleepover at her friend's house (with a bunch of other girls) so my husband got Sonic for dinner which was fun.

Here are the movies I've watched since my last post:

Diary of Anne Frank (BBC):  Everyone knows this story, right?  I thought this adaptation was particularly well done.  The actress who played Anne was perfect for the part.  The movie ends where the Nazi guards make them leave the attic to go to the concentration camps.

The Pianist:  I really liked this movie, a true story about a Jewish Polish musician and his quest/luck escaping the Nazi concentration camp and being in hiding.  The actor who played Szpilman was just wonderful, although the movie itself was a little harsh (violent).  I wonder how people like him who lived during those times were able to go on with their lives without being really angry that their entire family was killed or being bitter that they were mistreated or almost starved, etc.  I almost feel stupid moping about some of the crap I've had to go through.

Freedom Writers:  This was actually a good movie even though I didn't care for the genre of music used (R&B, hiphop, rap).  A new English teacher finds a way to connect with her students and encourages them to write in journals and they end up getting published into a book.  This is based on a true story.

Intouchables:  I loved this movie!  It was in French with English subtitles and it was funny and very touching overall.  A very rich man who is a quadriplegic hires a young black man to be his caretaker (the black guy only wanted the job INTERVIEW so it would look like he was trying to find work, the rule for getting his welfare).  Basically, you discover that the rich paralyzed guy is "untouchable" because he can't feel anything even if you were touching him, and the black guy is "untouchable" as in nobody wants anything to do with lazy good-for-nothing black guys.  I didn't want the movie to end and I couldn't imagine how it could, and the ending was just marvelous.

Regarding Henry:  I remember when this movie came out but I never saw it.  Harrison Ford looks so young in this now!  He plays a vicious attorney who gets shot in the head during a robbery, and as he recuperates his personality changes.

Sarah's Choice:  I probably shouldn't have watched this movie during this time of year (six weeks from my abortion anniversary).  It wasn't too triggery though.  It was kind of like "A Christmas Carol" because the pregnant girl Sarah ends up having three visions of what her life would be like if she had her baby.  There was a good quote in the movie and I know I'm not saying it exactly, but it was something like "Don't let circumstances make your decision; your heart knows what you should do."  The girl Sarah is played by Christian singer Rebecca St. James and she looks a lot like Princess Catherine.  Sometimes Christian movies don't have very good scripts or good actors, but this movie had both.

The War:  This was about a Vietnam vet (Kevin Costner) with PTSD whose young son (Elijah Wood) was being bullied, and he was advising him what to do about it by relating stories from the war.  One of the things the veteran couldn't get over was that he left his buddy in combat to die while he got rescued by a helicopter.  Later in the movie, he gets a job in a mine, and I personally think his guilt about the war resolved because *spoiler* ** he did get to save his coworker's life in a mine accident.  He got critically wounded himself though and ends up dying.  The son later also basically saves the life of the brother of one of the bullies toward the end of the movie and the bullying stopped. **

Six Word Saturday (11/23/13)

Wasting Time in The Digital Age

I'll make that the headline because it's true.  I finished reading "Prayer in the Digital Age" by Matt Swaim this week and it was extremely good.  It was convicting and interesting.  How much of what we're doing online is glorifying God anyway?  I've only been blogging about things in my life so I'd have some record of them to remember by.  But I could just as well note them in an old-fashioned book style journal.

My therapist told me that your body starts giving off negative energy when you feel upset, even before you get upset.  He said that's what scares people about me.  So basically I'm screwed because I'm pretty aware that I'm upset most of the time even if I don't say a word to anyone.

I'm terrified about applying for jobs.  I don't think anyone would want to hire me, and it would be extremely stressful having to work outside the home because my kids and husband don't help around here.  But it would be nice to give money to a charity or pay down some debt or save money so I could take a trip.  Right now every cent I make goes to my therapist.  God, please help me know what to do.

Rundown of movies I watched this week:

The Christmas Lodge:  Predictable holiday movie about a lady who ends up falling for a widower who owns an old mountain lodge that the lady spent her childhood holidays at.  It did have a Christian theme and dialogue even though the movie itself was a little dull.

Happy Accidents:  Marisa Tomei starred in this movie (from 1998 I think) who falls for a man who insists he's from 300 years in the future.  This would have been a GREAT movie except the group of women friends got together and bashed their ex-boyfriends and men in general.  Also, since Marisa's character dated someone she found out later was religious (oh the horror), she dragged this time travel guy in front of a church to test him and kept asking "Are you sure you don't want to go in?"  That made me mad.  Then at another point in the movie, the time travel guy tells Marisa's character that they don't have religion in the future ever since 2033 when scientists eliminated the gene that produces fear.  (Rolling my eyes!)

Dear Santa:  I loved this one!  A young girl wrote a letter to Santa asking for a new wife for her dad since her mother died.  A spoiled lady with rich parents (who are threatening to cut her off) finds the letter and in desperation she finds out where the girl and her father live and tries to make the girl's wish come true.

Crazy for Christmas:  Movie about a grumpy single mother who drives a limo and one of her Christmas clients is a very wealthy man who was giving his money away and buying things for people all day while she drove him around.  There was an unexpected (to me) twist toward the end.  The best part of this movie was that Howard Hesseman (who played Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP in Cincinnati) played the wealthy man.

Executioner's Song:  1982 movie about the true story of murderer Gary Gilmore.  I used to watch this movie incessantly on HBO/Cinemax when I was in college.  It used to haunt me really bad at the end of the movie (his execution) because I'd worry if he was scared or if it hurt or if he's in heaven, etc.  I watched it on Netflix this time mainly just to see if the movie still used "Una Paloma Blanca" as the song on the radio that he heard when he was being transported to the execution site.  (It was a Waylon Jennings song this time, but in college it was Una Paloma Blanca.)  I sometimes get paranoid about the songs I listened to because I obsess about knowing which one is the last song I hear before I died myself.

Six Word Saturday (11/16/13)

Broken Washer and Watching Turning Point

Sunday my husband loaded his clothes in the washer, started it, and then headed out to do errands with my daughter.  I went to heat up my coffee in the microwave, and on my way back to my office room, I noticed the carpet in the hall was wet.  I opened the door to the laundry room and there was water everywhere.  I stepped inside and water completely covered my shoes.  This is the second time this has happened.  I didn't want my husband to have to come home from his errands so I tried to handle it myself.  I spent over an hour sweeping water into the garage and soaking up the excess with clothes and towels.  I started to really worry that my husband was going to be mad when he got home that everything was wet and the washer broken, so my youngest son suggested I call and warn him.  Boy, was that the wrong thing to do!  He yelled there was nothing he could do about it where he was, and I said I was just warning him, that's all.  But since he's so much more important than me, he has to win all the time.  

When he got home, I put away all the groceries so he could work on the washer.  No matter what I did, it was the wrong thing.  I was so sick of being yelled at.  I still thank God it was my husband's clothes that were in the washer so at least he couldn't blame me for that.  And then his little threat at the end of the day, "One of these days you're going to find yourself sitting on the curb alone with nothing and wonder what the hell happened."  Isn't he so loving.  Things are better between us now, but it's events like this which either turn me off completely or make me extremely desperate to get a full time job so I can leave.

Thursday night my friend from my first Rachel's Vineyard retreat and I went to San Albino (Catholic church) to watch the last movie of this Year of Faith monthly series.  It was called "Turning Back: The Father Donald Calloway Story."  It was basically just him sharing his testimony.  First of all, why are some Catholic priests so cute??  Oh, he sure was.  Anyway, he was born when his mother was 17 and she married three times.  They weren't religious and he never had any rules so he got in trouble a lot and hung around with the wrong crowd (sex, drugs, stealing, etc.).  His stepfather got transferred to Japan and at first he resisted going and then he decided he would be even MORE rebellious there.  He was in the beginning stages of joining the Japanese Mafia and the authorities finally caught him.  They made him and his mother leave the country.  (His passport has a stamp in in that says "Don't ever come back.")  

They lived in Pennsylvania but he ran away and got in more trouble so he had to come back home.  He got put in rehab a couple times and his mother became a Catholic while he was gone.  When he came back home, he saw a book in his room (about the mother of Jesus) that he decided to read since he was bored and didn't want to do drugs right then.  Something in his heart changed.  He didn't understand very much what he was reading but he "fell in love" with her.  He slept like a baby because he finally felt loved.  The next morning he threw away all his drug stuff, rock music, and freaky clothes because he just didn't want them anymore.  He went to see a chaplain on the military base and talked his ear off, telling him everything he had done wrong.  Eventually, he was baptized Catholic.  Anyway, to make a long story short, by the grace of God he was able to go through college and seminary(?) to become a Catholic priest.  Me and my friend talked on the way home that if there was hope for someone as bad as him, there should be hope for us.

Movies I watched this week

Sympathy For Delicious:  I watched this the afternoon of the washer incident and it felt like a punishment because my husband was barely speaking to me (when he wasn't yelling at me, that is).  There was a LOT of swearing which I didn't like, and the story was kind of slow but a good plot.  The movie stars a real-life paraplegic who is a club DJ and lives in his car.  He attends a "healing" service by a phony televangelist.  There was another guy in a wheelchair who went to every healing service and still wasn't healed but he always acted happy (so the DJ doesn't like him).  The DJ doesn't get healed but he finds out he himself can truly heal people (but he can't heal himself even though he tried, and he yelled the F-word out of frustration).  A priest who helps the homeless notices the DJ's new "gift" after a man with Alzheimers starts walking around talking coherently.  The priest finds out that this wealthy gentleman will give his Catholic charity $250,000 if the DJ would heal his daughter.  The DJ gets really mad because he feels used by the priest, so he joins a band and their gimmick is him healing people.  There are a couple of twists to the plot that I didn't see coming but I don't want to spoil it.

Fatal Attraction:  I hadn't seen this movie for a good 25 years but I remembered watching it in the movie theater when it came out.  I think everyone's seen it or at least heard about it by now.  Back then I thought Michael Douglas looked pretty old and I thought Glenn Close was pretty, but not this time.  Also just watching them flirting and being adulterous made me feel really uncomfortable, let alone the suspenseful parts when he finds out she's a fruitcake.  I didn't watch it with my full attention because I couldn't stand it, and I wonder what kind of person I was back then that this movie appealed to me.

Windtalkers:  This was supposed to be a movie about the Navajo Indians who helped the military in WWII develop an unbreakable secret code, so I watched it.  Starred Nicolas Cage.  I thought it was going to be the strategy/non-combat side of the war - NOPE!  Oh my gosh, the battle scenes were gory and disgusting, and I ended up not finishing the movie.

I started reading Prayer in the Digital Age by Matt Swaim yesterday and so far it's very convicting but I love it.

Six Word Saturday (11/9/13)

I Don't Know Why I Bother

My sister had let me watch "The General's Daughter" on her streaming account a couple months ago (I think I might have blogged about it) and a scene in it really upset me, where the daughter got raped and was in the hospital and her father leaned over her and whispered, "It never happened," because he didn't want the controversy to ruin his career.  Anyway, it triggered me so badly because my parents and sister act like nothing ever happened to me either, so I emailed my sister and went off on her about it, like how unfair it was that my sister (who hated me at the time) was asked her opinion on what I should do about the baby and how she said I should get rid of it because "she can't take care of herself let alone a baby."  (I am so sick of remembering that line!!)  She wrote me back but I printed it off without reading it because I wanted to read it with my therapist, and two months have gone by and we always think of other things to talk about so I hadn't read it all this time.  Finally, last week we read it.  She claims she never knew I was pregnant and that she only found out about it five years later.  And I think by way of an excuse, she went on to tell me that she and her friends drank a lot in high school.  Like maybe she did say those things to me back then when she was drunk but had forgotten completely about it till someone told her about it again.  Well, so much for getting any closure from her.  I just thought she has ignored my pain about it all these years like everyone in my family does, i.e., if you don't talk about it, it didn't happen.  So I wish I never wrote her.

I watched that movie "Meant To Be" again and it has really impacted me.  I've decided that if Claudia knew me and what I was like, she would like me.  She would think I am sweet and helpful and do a lot of wrong things trying to be loved.  I think she'd be happy that I think about her so much.  She would be touched that I name some of my Sims game characters after her so I could "see" what her life would be like through them.  Anyway, I wanted my therapist to watch it, and he threw a damper on everything by asking me why.  It's really making me mad why he does that.  I loan him a book; he asks what inspired me in the book.  I make him a CD; he asks what it means to me that I'm giving it to him.  I gave him my copy of the movie "Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School" to watch; he takes it and after a year still hasn't watched it.  So this morning I've been thinking about my motivation.  In a way, I suppose I need someone else to agree with me that the book/movie/music is good because I believe my opinion doesn't count!  I feel like a big zero, stupid, worthless, incapable, a loser.  If someone who isn't a loser says such-and-such movie truly is good, then everyone wants to watch the movie.  But I feel like my therapist acts like there's some ulterior improper motive when I want him to read/watch/listen to something.  So I wish I could just enjoy these things on my own and not need his (or other people's) agreement that it's good.

More movies I watched from Netflix this past week:

Life is Beautiful.  This movie is in Italian with subtitles and at first it was difficult to read AND watch at the same time but I got the hang of it.  I wanted to watch it because I remember when Roberto Benigni won the Oscar and how incredibly happy he was!  (Watch his acceptance speech on YouTube; you will cry!)  The movie takes place in WWII when the Nazis put Jewish people in concentration camps, and he plays this positively happy man who twists the truth to his little boy about what's going on so that he won't be scared.  Some party-poopers comment that the movie was unrealistic because the children in the camps were actually separated from their parents but this little boy got to be hidden the whole time in the bunker his father stayed in.  Anyway, I liked this movie even though the ending is sad.

Digging to China.  This movie stars Evan Rachel Wood when she was about 10.  She plays a curious, talkative, imaginative girl whose alcoholic mother eventually dies so she's cared for by her older sister.  She befriends a mentally retarded man played by Kevin Bacon.  I very vaguely remember watching this movie 15 years ago (because I love Kevin Bacon) but most of it still surprised me.  I liked the movie and wish I had a friend like that little girl, who just wants to talk to you and be with you even if you don't say the right things (or anything!) back.

And then like I said, I watched "Meant To Be" again, with my baby Claudia in mind, and watching it has helped me immensely.

Six Word Saturday (11/2/13)

Corn Maze, New Phone and Netflix

Last week was uninteresting and I didn't write a 6WS page for it.  Saturday the 26th we went to the Mesilla Valley Corn Maze.  This was the first time I went although my husband takes the kids every year.  There were about two dozen vendors competing in their BBQ ribs contest so we sampled a few and voted.  My husband pushed me around in a wheelchair because I thought it was going to be too much walking, and I'm really impressed because he even hauled me through the maze.  It was mowed into the shape of a Campbell's vegetable soup can.

We got rid of our land line and my husband bought me a new cell phone (which uses the land line number) and has a slide out keyboard, internet, and a camera on it.  My old flip phone was a pain to text on (number pad).  I joked with my husband if the new phone came with friends to text to.  So far I guess I like it.

We also got rid of cable TV and subscribed to Netflix instead.  I have watched eight movies on it so far:

• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  This stars Jim Carrey and it's not a comedy.  His character hires someone to erase his memory of his ex because he found out she erased her memory of him.  It was kind of disturbing and messed with my head a little.
  
• The River Why.  The tagline for this movie was that a man gives up his life in the city and moves to the wilderness to fly-fish and think about life.  It was filmed in Oregon and the scenery is breathtaking!  I also liked the musical score.  The story was "slow" if you're used to watching a lot of action but I found it very relaxing.  The message I got was that everyone dies, whether they're a good person or a bad person, and you should take in your world through all your senses to truly live.
  
• Meant to Be.  This is a pro-life Christian movie about a young man taking a trip to find his birth mother.  His birth mother is a social worker wrapped up in helping a pregnant teen.  The guy discovers something shocking about his life.  I can't say anything else or it would give away half the movie, but I will say I want to watch it again with Claudia in mind and maybe that would be healing for me.
  
• Biloxi Blues.  Matthew Broderick stars in this 1988 movie based on a Neil Simon play.  I saw it when it was originally released, and I have always remembered Broderick's character at basic training in Alabama marching in line and commenting to himself, "It's really hot.  This is like 'Africa' hot."  Lots of other funny lines I'd forgotten too!  And Christopher Walken played his creepy platoon leader.
  
• Born on the Fourth of July.  Tom Cruise stars in this movie of Ron Kovic's Vietnam experience, injury, and later anti-war activism.  The language was pretty awful and the violence was very graphic.  I had seen this too when it was originally released in 1989.  Granted, the director Oliver Stone is as left-leaning as they come so I'm sure he exaggerated a lot, but the conditions of the hospital when Kovic was first being treated were deplorable (nonworking equipment, filthy, rats).
  
• Noel.  I watched this movie to prepare for being bombarded by Christmas stuff after Halloween and also because Susan Sarandon is in it (yes, she's an outspoken leftwinger too, but she is beautiful and has a cool sounding voice and reminds me of my late friend Nancy).  There are several small story lines intertwined in this movie (adult daughter visiting her mother with late term Alzheimer's, a couple who break up before their wedding because of the boyfriend's abusiveness, a homeless man who mistakes the aforementioned boyfriend for his dead wife reincarnated, etc.) and I loved the ending.  Robin Williams has an uncredited serious role too.  I wish I could watch this movie again but it was only available till the 1st.
  
• The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.  I watched this only because it was taking place in WWII (a time period I like).  A Jewish boy in a concentration camp is befriended by the young son of a high-ranking Nazi guard.  The little boy was lonely even though his family was wealthy, and I really empathized with him.  He ends up digging a hole under the concentration camp fence so he could play with his Jewish friend and also help find the Jewish boy's father lost in the camp.  I wasn't expecting the ending at all and it was very dramatic and I'm a little haunted by it still.
  
• Radio.  This stars Cuba Gooding Jr. as "Radio" (given that nickname because he carries around a transistor radio) a young retarded man who the high school football coach gives a small job with the team, even though at first everyone in town hates him because they're afraid of him (and the quarterback's father spends most of the movie trying to keep him from being in contact with the "normal" people).  Slowly during the course of the movie, people start warming up to him and realize he's very nice and supportive of everyone, so by the end everyone loves him.  This is based on a true story.

Six Word Saturday (10/19/13)

"What Am I Going To Do?"

Nothing exciting happened this week.  I haven't been walking lately.  Every month I weigh myself on the 15th and I've gained two pounds, so I should probably start walking again now that it's colder.

On Facebook I've been using Spotify to queue up and listen to all the songs from Billboard's top 100 from this week in 1984.  Well, at least the 77 songs that I liked or could find.  Listening sends me back to that time, especially "All Through the Night" from Cyndi Lauper.

I was telling my therapist about it and about how I used to have headphones plugged into my jambox back then and I'd listen to music all night, falling asleep to it.  I mentioned that hearing "All Through the Night" in particular reminded me of being pregnant back then.  Before everyone even knew I was pregnant, and once I figured out I was, all I could do is fret.  What am I going to do?  The sad part is back then I though once my parents found out I'd have to give the baby away, which really bothered me.  At the time, I never dreamed I would end up having an abortion, considering my parents knew how mentally unstable my paternal grandmother was for the rest of her life after hers.  I actually hated my grandmother after she died and I found out about it.

As I mentioned to my therapist, what I really needed back then was somebody to talk to.  I had no one.  Even if someone did care enough to talk to me, they probably wouldn't wholly listen to me.  Their agenda would always be in the back of their mind.  I wish I could've talked it all the way through with someone.  So my therapist was telling me that I could listen to the pre-abortion 17-year-old me now and acknowledge her story, even though she can't change any of the events.  So that is what I would've said, that my grandmother was a horrible person for killing her baby so that wasn't an option and that I was scared my parents wouldn't let me keep mine even though I would've liked to.  I know for a fact that my doctor saying "she wouldn't survive a pregnancy" is baloney, but back then I wonder why my parents didn't get a second or third opinion like they did for all my other health problems?  Actually, I know the answer:  their agenda, their reputation.  It was really convenient that he scared me saying I was going to die.

I told my therapist I wish I had died during the abortion then, the very thing they were "trying to prevent" if I tried carrying to term.

Six Word Saturday (10/12/13)

Helping Rachel's Vineyard and My Antonia

On Monday I went to the house of the coordinator of the Rachel's Vineyard retreats to help put together information packets for the retreat this weekend.  She had made nachos (in the oven) and chicken a la king over rice as a small meal first.  There was one other lady and her two young adult children helping there as well.  I folded a couple dozen mass programs.  It felt really good to help out, and it always feels so comfortable being around people associated with the retreats, so I had a good time.

Since I haven't ordered Elizabeth Smart's book yet, I was looking around for something else to read.  My daughter had to read Willa Cather's novel "My Antonia" over the summer for school, so I picked it up since she's done with it.  She doesn't really like to read and thought it was a boring book, but it kind of reminds me of the Little House on the Prairie style books I used to read when I was her age (so I like it so far).

Actually, there's one more event I want to note.  My father has another pacemaker surgery coming up on Wednesday.  Last week in counseling I admitted that I feel about as concerned about his surgery as I would feel about Clint Eastwood having surgery; I'm that far removed from my family, especially him.  I know I've disappointed him and embarrassed him and he won't forgive me and acts very uncomfortable around me.  I told my therapist that the only thing that I'm worried about is if my father dies then he will get to see Claudia in heaven before I do.  I know it sounds petty.  For the past 29 years he has not said ONE WORD about my abortion, like it never even happened, and he'll get to see the baby from that event (who doesn't exist, as far as he's concerned) before I do.  It just doesn't seem right to me.

Six Word Saturday (10/5/13)

My Job and Son Are Gone

Sunday night my husband, younger two kids and I went out to a fancy steak place with my inlaws, my oldest son and his wife.  My inlaws picked them up from my daughter-in-law's parents' house and supposedly got to meet them.  I've never met them so I'm a little jealous.  We had a decent dinner and then went out for ice cream afterwards.  Then my inlaws made plans with me to go to breakfast with them and my son and his wife in the morning.  When the morning came, my younger two kids told me they felt like they didn't get to talk to my oldest son very much the night before, so I let them skip their morning classes so they could go with me.  So the next day off he went to Italy, and his wife is staying with her parents here right now till she receives her visa and then she'll be flying over with their dogs soon after that.  Me and my daughter want to take her out for breakfast sometime before she has to go, but I don't think she really likes me.  I don't know what my son has told his wife and inlaws that made them shun us so badly but I know he didn't have a very good life with us (see May 1, 2012 entry).  I feel guilty.  Again, I just want to say that my parents were glad to get rid of Claudia and now I believe my husband's glad to get rid of my oldest son.

As for my job (the one I just got three weeks ago).  It was hard and I couldn't get the names of the medicines right.  The editor told me to just put INAUDIBLE if I wasn't 100% sure what the name was, and then two assignments later she lectured me about the medicine names.  I had two questions about my invoice that I turned in last week and I skyped the guy in charge of that, and he never answered me back, so I should have known something was up.  Then the following morning he wrote me that maybe I would do better with their non-medical transcription.  I asked for the link to apply for it and he gave it to me, but I still haven't done it because I'm hurt.  Plus I'm scared the audio is going to be crappy quality like these other medical ones ALL were.  Sometimes I could barely hear them.

Oddly, I'm not that upset about going back to only having the one job with sporadic assignments now.  Having my neat freak therapist come over last week really put a shot in my arm about getting my house shipshape.  Amazingly it's not bugging me that it will be a long process, and I have been working on it all week.  I'm proud of the microscopic improvements I've made.  I'm pleased and feel like I've been accomplishing something, which I give God the credit for (credit for giving me stamina, credit for giving me approving eyes instead of critical of what I haven't done, and credit for giving me a new small feeling of NOT being worthless).

Six Word Saturday (9/28/13)

Unglued, Surprise Visit, and Eating Out

Unglued

I finished Lysa TerKeurst's book a couple days ago.  I'm familiar with her from her contributing posts on incourage.me, and her writing style sometimes takes away from my interest in what she's saying.  Even in her book, she used a lot of sentence fragments.  Like this.  And it drives me nuts.  She also uses words like "Google," "blog," "You know what I'm saying?," etc., that aren't going to hold over for eternity.  It's a shame because I loved her book otherwise!  This actually is one of those books that you're looking for when you feel frustrated, crying, and hopeless and are thinking to yourself, "I wish I knew what to do!"  This book was so helpful to me in that regard.  The only thing that disappointed me (besides her writing style) is I'm familiar with her back story and she didn't mention a single word about her abortion, so all the self-righteous Baptists who read her book are thinking she's one of them (you know, sinless).  It's one thing to give helpful instruction for not coming unglued when you're coming from a place of "for the most part I'm a pretty good person" but another thing to give instruction when you come from a constant place of "Of COURSE I'm a bad person!"  As I said though, despite her writing style and not mentioning her abortion, this was a wonderfully helpful book.

Surprise Visit

My daughter has been bossy and borderline abusive to my youngest son virtually since the day he was born, and once he got older he started fighting back.  It scares me to death.  My oldest son used to help me get things back in control but he hasn't been around for three years, so they're fighting bad again.  My youngest son has a habit of disengaging from a fight but then sitting in his room screaming and crying like he's being murdered.  He won't tell me how I can help, and my daughter pretty much just stokes the fire and yells at him some more.  I have been bringing up in counseling about every other month how they treat each other.  Well, typing that, I just realized that it wouldn't sound like an emergency if it was that infrequent.  At any rate, Tuesday they fought again, my youngest son screamed and cried and refused to go to school.  (Their school is cracking down on absenteeism and I don't want to get in trouble because he's already missed three days of school and they started only a month ago, so I was very frustrated.)  So I typed up an email to my therapist demanding to know why he wasn't helping me with their fighting.  He said he'd get back to me (which upset me).  Then two hours later he wrote me again saying that he was coming over so be ready, and he showed up at my house.  By then, my son had calmed down and was talking to my therapist like a normal person.  From that surprise session, we determined that I could tell my daughter to give us 10 minutes and then I could go into my son's room and shut/lock the door and listen to what's bothering him when he's upset like that.  Then I could go into my daughter's room, shut/lock the door and listen to her (since it's her big thing to complain that I'm "always" on my son's side, and it probably does look that way since she doesn't get equal time with me, her yelling doesn't count).

Although I was EXTREMELY grateful that my therapist finally believed me for once that things are bad around here and was proactive in helping me out, when he left I realized what my house must have looked like to him.  It's a f***king mess and it smells, and I've been to his house before and they are neat freaks.  I had a session with him at his office by myself the next day and I mentioned being ashamed about the condition of my house, and he said something about it being an underlying problem but that as soon as I get the bigger issues dealt with that it wouldn't be such a problem.  It hit me the wrong way that he kept saying "problem" and when I got home I started cleaning things up.  I told  him I want to be as shallow and fake as he and his friends are.  Everyone in this stupid town has a neater house than me.  I'm no hoarder and the Health Department wouldn't say anything about how we live, but I sure feel worthless now.  I don't have an excuse for living like this because when I was married to my second husband he demanded everything be perfect, and it was, so I can do it because I did it back then.  I guess I just need to make being fake, shallow and neat a priority.  Little by little, I'll get there.

Eating Out

Me and the younger two kids met up with my oldest son and his wife at Texas Roadhouse on Thursday night and had dinner with them.  My kids didn't really say much.  I don't have the words to describe the anguish I feel deep inside myself about them moving so far away.  Anyway, my husband's parents are coming down on Sunday, and possibly we'll be having dinner with everyone so they can say goodbye to my oldest son and his wife too.  My husband is vicious and hates my oldest son and won't talk to him but probably will be compliant if his dad wants us to go.

Six Word Saturday (9/21/13)

 Emotions Are All Over The Place

My new job is actually pretty hard.  There are a lot of medical terms and drug names that I keep having to look up the spellings for, and it slows me down.  Also the audio isn't the best (recordings of doctors' appointments) and some accents are really difficult to understand.  I feel kind of discouraged.  I had visions of saving up all this money and actually contributing to the family by paying off some bills or paying for a vacation, but I'm not really sure $5 a document (average) is worth the stress and aggravation and dings on my self-worth for being so slow.  And, of course, now I feel guilty because it's like I let God down if something happens to this job or I quit. My husband, for some oddball reason (I'm thinking alien abduction) actually told me I didn't need this job OR the other job and that I didn't need to work at all.  He thought I just wanted to work as something to do.

I didn't get done working till 3 a.m. on Friday and then I went to bed.  I got up leisurely around 9:00 and was in the middle of making some toast and getting ready to read a book while I ate breakfast when the doorbell rang.  I thought it was going to be the neighbor kid so I took my sweet old time answering the door, still in PJ's and messy hair, and ... it was my oldest son!  Oh my gosh, I was so happy!  I felt a little ashamed that the house was such a mess but he knows that's how we live so it wasn't too bad.  The coolest part was that my younger two kids didn't have school that day due to parent-teacher conferences so they got to see him too!  He goes to Italy on the 1st.  He and his wife are supposed to have dinner with me and the kids some night before he takes off.  And he didn't sign on for two years; they're going to be there for four.  I don't want it to sink in because this huge cloud of depression is just going to kill me.

My father's having another minor heart procedure (pacemaker) on the 8th.  I know this is awful to say but I worry about him dying during it for the sole reason he'll get to see Claudia in heaven before I get to.  I've repeatedly told my parents I don't want to outlive them but I don't think they know the actual reason why.

Due to my new job being so time consuming and tiring, I haven't finished reading "Unglued."  I'm about two thirds done and think it's surprisingly good.  Maybe next weekend I can give a report.

Six Word Saturday (9/14/13)

Guess What?  I Got Another Job!

God answered my prayers that I've basically been saying since my birthday back in July.  I applied at two places online in the last couple months, and the first place contacted me on 9/11 and offered me a job.  So far I've only done one five-minute audio for them (and have two more small ones to do this weekend).  But I'm thrilled and ever-thankful!  Now I can make a little more money and feel a little more needed.

The only other thing going on this week is that my mother told me that my oldest son and his wife were driving to my brother's house in Kansas, and my parents were meeting up with them there.  And, surprise-surprise, my sister was bragging on Facebook that she was in Kansas for the weekend too!  My mother claimed that my son told her that they were probably coming here (since his wife's family lives here too).  But technically I haven't talked to him since Mother's Day.  It doesn't help that my husband doesn't like him so I don't blame them if they skip us when they're in town.  But he has a younger brother and sister here, and then my oldest son and wife get sent to Italy for two years.  I always feel like I'm not going to live long enough to see them when they get back.

In other news, I bought Lysa TerKerst's book "Unglued" and it's pretty good so far and I'll probably talk about it next Saturday.

Six Word Saturday (9/7/13)

Five Wishes and The General's Daughter

It feels like my therapist is reading my blog because Wednesday he gave me an assignment to remove my "filter" (he thinks I don't pay attention to people's compliments of me) and observe how many times people do say I'm a good mom.  Weird, huh?  So hi Mark if you read this today.

Five Wishes by Gay Hendricks

My sister had been recommending this book to me for quite some time and I finally ordered it and finished reading it.  Basically, this man tells a story of going to a party and having some guy ask him to imagine the end of his life on his deathbed and answer the question "Did you have a successful life?"  Then the author goes through his own personal five answers ("My life was successful because/my life wasn't successful because ...") and shows how he turned the answers into positive workable goals, so that when he really does lay on his deathbed, he can answer yes to that question.  There was a worksheet where you can plot your own deathbed answers.  Here are mine:

My life was not a success because ...

1.  I didn't make my own decisions.

2.  I didn't have a job all the time that I loved.

3.  I didn't live somewhere comfortable and healthy for me.

4.  I didn't invest much time in my family (husband and kids).

5.  I didn't act friendly to everyone even if they weren't my friend.

(My action plan)  My life is now a success because ...

1.  I make decisions even if people hate me for it.

2.  I'm typing things for fun while waiting for my dream job to come along.

3.  I'm careful to keep my body comfortable no matter the weather conditions.

4.  I'm slowly and consistently finding things to do with/for my kids and husband to show love.

5.  I am friendly to everyone I see.

The General's Daughter

My sister let me stream this movie Wednesday afternoon.  It's from 1999 and has John Travolta in it.  He plays an investigator of the murder of an army general's daughter (hence the title).  There are flashback scenes and interviews with different people in her life (specifically her psychiatrist).  ****spoiler**** The psychiatrist mentioned that she told him her father visited her in the hospital after the first brutal rape.  It showed a flashback of the scene.  Her father bent over her and whispered, "It [the rape] ... never ... happened."  He knew if it got out that his daughter was raped at West Point then the controversy would probably cost him any promotions.

How sick is that?

And, of course, it triggered me greatly.  My parents and sister have never talked about my abortion, and I've felt all along that they go on with their lives like nothing ever happened.

Anyway, John Travolta's character solves the murder and you surmise the general pretty much gets to go on with his life worry-free as if his daughter didn't even exist.  ****end spoiler****

To end this for this week, I'm a good mother because ...

*  I made a promise to my daughter on Tuesday to take her to the gas station to get a Slushee and Wednesday I did it.

*  Thursday one of my dogs was really sick and I took care of/cleaned up after her.  (I know that I'm not a dog's mother but I'm still counting it.)

*  Thursday I gave the kids a little surprise (a glass of Cherry Coke) for eating dinner at the table with me.

Six Word Saturday (8/31/13)

I Am a Good Mother Because ...

I was thinking a lot on my walk today (69 rounds of the military jolie, if you're curious, and I'm really proud of myself how far I'm getting).  Well, more of a continuation of the discussion I had in therapy Wednesday.  I vented a little about a problem I was having with my kids, and my therapist asked me to the effect of "Oh, we're talking about THIS again?" but I said I was just venting.  All the other times I've mentioned problems, he doesn't really help me.  He doesn't have even one bit of advice.  He thinks I'm doing fine.  He claims as long as they know I love them, it doesn't matter what bad stuff is happening to or because of them.  One of the last things he asked me while we were on the subject was what do I need.  I told him since I don't have a mother I can talk to every day (whether I ask for advice or not - just to talk to!), I think I'd like someone to check in on me kind of frequently.  What my heart aches for is to have someone, anyone, say to my face that I'm a good mom.

As I continued walking, I realized that my own mother got positive feedback constantly from people, and she didn't have to cry to a therapist to get it.  In fact, my mom already knew she was a good mom so she technically didn't even need to hear it.

It dawned on me that both of my grandmothers were probably never told they were good mothers either.  My dad's "scary" mother was in and out of mental hospitals her whole life, and my mom's "scared" mother had agoraphobia and other mental issues without treatment who everyone ridiculed her for it.  It really hurts me that they never got to hear positive feedback.  Which brings me to my point about this post today.

Sometimes "Dear Abby" will have a column where someone complains that their friend or family member didn't text them at midnight on New Year's, call them on their birthday, congratulate them on a promotion, etc., and Abby advises that if the complainer wants those things to happen, the complainer can do those things themselves so those things will happen.  If you think it would be cool to have texts at 12:01 on New Year's, text someone at 12:01 on New Year's.  So here's what I'm going to do for myself (although I do admit it really does suck that not a single soul on this earth can help out), every time I catch myself doing something right, something that a "good mom" would do, I'm going to acknowledge it, if not in writing then at least conscientiously in my head.

So for starters, I'll post the first one I thought of, and we're talking basic of all basic ones:  I am a good mother because I had my oldest son, my daughter, and my youngest son.  I am proud of myself that I didn't let doctors' opinions, family opinions, co-worker opinions, and even husband opinions coerce me into making a(nother) horrible choice.