Six Word Saturday (5/18/13)

We're Counting Down to Summer Vacation

My kids have school Mon-Wed and half a day of school on Thursday and then they're done for the year!  I know for sure my son is looking forward to lazing around all summer and I hope my daughter finds enough things to keep her from being bored.

I don't know what to think about Dr. Gosnell being found guilty and having to spend life in prison.  I think the media's all too glad to put the abortion industry back in the closet even though there is information about another Gosnell-like doctor in Texas.  Unfortunately, I don't think abortion will ever be banned outright no matter how many atrocities get exposed.

In counseling Wednesday we were talking about how most of my paralyzing fears stem from people thinking I need help and can't do it on my own.  For example, after my first divorce everyone would basically nag me that I needed to go after my ex for child support, insinuating that I couldn't make it without the extra money.  I wish I hadn't let their nagging bother me.  I should have told them how he couldn't hold a job for more than a couple months when we were married and drank the money away anyway, so it was only my income that was used to "make it."  Trying something new always paralyzes me, and people aren't helping when they tell me to be careful or tell me to take someone with me or whatever.

Since I missed the showing of the Mother Teresa movie at San Albino two months ago, someone loaned me the VHS tape and I watched it Thursday.  Mother Teresa acted like Jesus to people, taking care of them and loving them.  She also explained that she and the other nuns do everything as an act of love to God, like treating everyone like they were Jesus.  I thought it was a pretty good movie.  I didn't realize she actually wasn't FROM India but was just "sent" there.

And then yesterday, after two days of my daughter complaining and acting like she was going to die, I took her to the doctor's again.  My husband thinks she's just being dramatic so he acts really impatient with her.  She screamed at me that she wanted to feel better and I felt helpless because she vetoed everything I was suggesting she try.  It really makes me feel like a bad mother when I don't know exactly how to make her feel better and everyone blames me.  The doctor tested her for strep again but thinks it's just allergies, so she's supposed to take Claritin.

Six Word Saturday (5/11/13)

Work Problem, Presents, and October Baby

Every Monday my supervisor emails me the job numbers for all the assignments I typed the previous week so I can put them on my invoice and email it back for payment.  One Monday about eleven months ago I didn't get the job numbers emailed to me, so I waited till the next week thinking I'd get them for sure then.  But the next Monday I got only the job numbers for the previous week like usual, so my supervisor had to "figure out what happened."  When I finally got the numbers, it was sent by someone else because my supervisor got fired.  Anyway, two weeks ago I didn't get the email for my job numbers, my "new" supervisor had to figure out what happened, and somebody else sent me the numbers.  I hope my second supervisor didn't get canned.

Me and my husband's anniversary is coming up in a couple weeks.  I ordered something from Personalization Mall and also ordered a personalized card.  The present is a canvas art:

For our personalized fill-ins, I listed most of our vacation destinations for the past 15 years.  I also put our kids' names, our current dogs' names, my husband's website name, and M*A*S*H (since we watch an episode every night).  I'm hoping he will like it.  For the card, it says "Happy 15th Anniversary" on the outside, and inside I quoted something from "Taxi"!  Louie (the lovable-but-awful dispatcher) had the chance to see his ex-girlfriend Zena before she left on her honeymoon.  Alex (the "smart" cab driver) was annoyed that Louie missed her wedding and said he (Louie) could've said something classy to her like "Happiness is hard to come by in this life and you've given me more than my share."  Louie barges in Zena and her new husband's room on the cruise ship and at first starts fighting with her husband so Zena tries to kick him out.  He ends up doing the right thing and dejectedly tells her that sweet line.  So that's what I quoted in my card, because I know my husband will remember that episode.

Thursday night I went to San Albino Catholic Church in Mesilla for another pizza/movie night.  The movie was "October Baby."  I had heard a little about the movie (a girl who was born from a failed abortion attempts to find her birth mother).  Even the KnockTV series "Surrender the Secret" included watching the movie and included some clips from it in that episode.  I came away from the movie thinking it felt really short!  I also wish there had been more of a story about the "abortive mother" because she wasn't in the movie very long.  Also to me the movie didn't imply that the abortive mother and the girl had any more connection after the initial one.  I had kept a napkin with me in case I cried during the movie but I never even teared up.  I will say that John Schneider looked AMAZING in this movie - HOT even!!  Oh my goodness.  He plays the adoptive dad of the girl in the movie.  I remember him from his Bo Duke days on Dukes of Hazard in the '70s and then his country star mustache days in the '90s.  But now!  Hummina, hummina! 

Six Word Saturday (5/4/13)

Triangle Meal, Anniversary, and Dr. Gosnell

A week ago I went to the monthly gathering of past Rachel's Vineyard retreat attendees for lunch.  The theme was "triangle meal," i.e., all the food was in the shape of a triangle.  They had ordered pizza from someone who made low-salt healthier pizza (and it wasn't that good).  Triangle-shaped crackers and cheese.  They also served a half a dozen different kinds of cheesecake.  I didn't talk much.  After we finished eating, we prayed a rosary and then went home.

Wednesday (May 1) was my son's real first wedding anniversary.  They pretended to elope on Halloween before he left for USAF basic training and my husband had insisted they were lying and he kept checking for a marriage license online and finally found one for May 1, 2012.  Her parents signed as witnesses.  They married in a park in town and left me out.  (Maybe if my husband wasn't such a PRICK we could've been included, right?)  The other really strange thing about that is May 1st is my son's ex-girfriend Somara's birthday.  I wonder if he did that intentionally to get back at her or something.  At any rate, I went to counseling and talked about his "real" anniversary and how much I miss Somara, and I actually felt comfortable enough to cry.

Another "anniversary" of sorts on May 1 was the first day back on the internet for Paul Miller of tech site TheVerge.com.  He gave up the internet for a year - no email, no YouTube, no Google!  He wrote articles about it and put them on a zip drive for his employer to upload.  I followed the whole Offline series and it was pretty good.  He summed up his experience by saying, "The internet doesn't make me who I am; I do it to myself, thanks."  In other words, he thought the internet had been a big time-waster for him, but when he didn't have access to it, he found other stuff to waste his time on.  That just inspires me to be more aware of what I was doing online myself.

This trial of Dr. Gosnell is driving me crazy, I tell you.  Granted, the media supposedly isn't covering it very well but I can (and do) find plenty about it on the internet.  I bet you he'll be acquitted or at least just given fines.  I feel that shedding light on other clinics that admit they leave babies in failed abortion attempts to just die is actually helping the defense in Gosnell's case, as sick as that sounds, because to me it seems like saying "everyone's doing it so it must be okay."  Anyway, I found a transcript of a nurse's testimony at a 1996 hearing about "partial-birth abortion" (where everything but the head is delivered and then ensuring demise), and even as a LEGAL procedure, "I saw the baby move in the pan.  I asked another nurse and she said it was just 'reflexes.'"  Sound familiar?  Well, as I said, I bet this jerk walks free till he has to answer to God.  When he dies, he'll be in hell with the asshole who performed my abortion.

Six Word Saturday (4/27/13)

Is It Ever Going To End?

Last Saturday my daughter went to a teen lock-in at a pizza place overnight.  By Monday, surprise, she was sick and complaining her throat and chest were burning when she breathed.  Well, ever since the kids went back to school after Christmas, she has stayed home from school pretty much one day a week (with a "headache," "stomachache," "someone's bullying me," "I'm tired," etc.), so I intended to make sure she was genuinely sick so she wouldn't get in trouble so I took her to the doctor.  She has a bronchial infection so the doctor ordered her to stay home the rest of Monday and Tuesday, and take some antibiotics.  Wednesday she cried and said she still felt horrible so I called the school and said I was keeping her home.  She did go to school Thursday, and they had a "snow day" yesterday.  Then yesterday, after not complaining all day and my husband went to hang out with his friend that afternoon, my daughter starts screaming like she's being stabbed to death.  It scared the hell out of me because five minutes before that she was laughing and watching a movie with her brother when my husband left.  She screamed that her ear hurt really bad.  I put some drops specifically FOR ear pain in her ear, she still screamed.  I was THISCLOSE to calling an ambulance!  My son had some painkiller leftover from when he got his tooth pulled and I gave her 3/4 of a dose of it.  It started working about 20 minutes later and she fell asleep for four hours, and I kept going in every half hour to make sure she was still alive (because the prescription wasn't for her and I felt guilty).  I was sure my husband was going to be mad at me for giving it to her, but HE didn't hear that girl screaming!  He actually wasn't upset except to chide me for believing her "drama queen" antics.  At any rate, it looks like I'm getting to take her to the doctor again on Monday if she's too sick to go to school.

In counseling, my therapist's cell phone keeps going off.  It distracts me.  It also "triggers" me to remember when my ex-friend J got a phone call once during our Bible study and she laid on the couch for 25 MINUTES talking to someone (who actually turned out to be my therapist since she goes to the same guy).  I hate my ex-friend, so now I just feel like running out of his office when his phone goes off.  Even if he doesn't answer it.  Even if he just glances to see who it is.  (When my ex-friend had talked for so long, I ended up leaving her house and peeling out of her driveway.)  I just can't do this, and I brought it up a couple weeks ago and his "solution" is to work with me on dealing with my reaction to his phone.  Get that?  It feels rude and abusive to me for his phone to keep going off during my session, so HE wants ME to learn to tolerate the abuse.  (Oh, by the way, he "can't" turn his phone off because it might be someone like his elderly parents having an emergency.  What the hell is his SECRETARY for?)

Lastly, commenting about the Gosnell trial.  Adding to the comments I made here last week, I agree with the comments by Lauren Kathryn McCall on the American Thinker website (her piece called "What difference does it make?"), which basically states that everyone is appalled that Gosnell's clinic was filthy and the staff was unprofessional but post-abortive women (like herself, and even myself) went to a clean clinic with a professional licensed doctor - but what difference does it make?  NONE!  All of us were scared and told an abortion would fix everything and we could go on with life as normal, but it was a LIE!  We will never be the same.  I also agree with another column I just read this morning by Matt Barber of WND titled "Much ado about nothing," which is full of complete sarcasm but actually made me feel better.  His tagline was "What do you think abortionists do, heal people?"  I wonder if maybe God is using Gosnell to wake people up.

Six Word Saturday (4/20/13)

Comments on Things in the News

1. Saturday night I found out the author Brennan Manning died on 4/12.  I had just gotten his book "Ragamuffin Gospel" from the library since I enjoyed reading "Abba's Child" a couple years ago.  He had been in poor health for a while so I can't say I was shocked to hear this.
   
2. The Gosnell trial, about that abortion "doctor" in Pennsylvania with the filthy clinic and performing late-term "abortions."  The details are horrible and it's been a ping-pong game of media finger pointing because the trial barely got any coverage but now it's getting a little.  Even if I agreed with my Facebook friends who post comments about it, I feel like I don't have a right to an opinion because I've had an abortion before.
   
3. The Boston marathon.  One of the two guys responsible is dead and the other is in custody (so we get to hear about him through all his trials for the next five years).  I wonder why the city officials told everyone to stay home cowering in fear.  Now the next dopes who decide to do something bad will know there won't be any resistance then either.  After 9/11/01, the people in NYC were told to go on with business as usual, and there are a lot more people there than Boston!

Six Word Saturday (4/13/13)

Not That Much Is Going On

Last Saturday night my husband took me and the kids (plus my daughter's friend) to Uno's for dinner.  We had wanted to go to Texas Roadhouse but there was a huge wait.  I still got a steak and a couple glasses of wine at Uno's though.

Monday we went to the library and there was road construction en route.  It was scary also because it was really windy that day.  My daughter ran the books in for me and helped find an alternate route home so I wouldn't be so nervous.  I didn't request any new books.

In counseling we're kind of doing "empty chair" therapy (where you pretend a certain person is in a chair).  My therapist's cell phone vibrated and I could hear it, so we talked about that, how I forgot I was supposed to ask him if I was important as the caller was.  I think it's strange that I have to alter my behavior like that for him instead of him just turning the stupid phone off and leaving it on the floor in plain sight (because he claims he's scared he'll forget to turn it back on when my session's over). 

I finished the assignments every day of Week 1 of the Mindfulness book I'm reading.  The short meditation focused on your breath, the routine activity I made myself fully aware of was taking out the garbage, and the "habit releaser" I used was sitting in a different chair than normal when I ate.  I read this week's chapter and the meditation is twice as long but I only have to do it twice a day for six days instead of all seven like the first week.

Right now my dog Hershey is at Petsmart getting groomed.  I don't know why they say his appointment's at 10 because we got there and they told me he'd be there waiting for three or four hours.  Next month after Princess gets her rabies shot, she will be getting groomed too, but maybe I will have it done during the week and there won't be such a long wait for her.

Six Word Saturday (4/6/13)

Easter, Extraction, Egg McMuffins and Mindfulness

We didn't go to church this Easter.  Well, I'm the only one who would've gone anyway but I watched Northpoint Online's service instead.  The pastor Andy Stanley made a really good point:  If you can believe that Jesus was "just" a good teacher, prophet, good man, etc., but maybe not the "son of God rose from the dead" part:  The very same people who saw him be a good teacher, prophet and good man whose testimony you believe are also the same people whose testimony it is that they saw him after he was risen from the dead.

My youngest son had a tooth pulled Monday.  My husband took him.  Before his appointment that morning, my husband was snapping at me even if I said hi to him and he would glare at me every time he walked past me.  Granted, he could have been nervous about our kid being in pain but he could have voiced that to me.  No, instead he was a six-foot-tall toddler being a jerk to me.  The procedure was very quick and they got home within an hour and then my husband was all smiling and talking to me like nothing ever happened.  Jeepers!

Every Saturday morning before my husband goes to teach, he stops at McDonald's to get an egg McMuffin.  Last week he found out there is a "breakfast sandwich maker" that you can actually buy.  You put the English muffin in two compartments, the cheese and ham next to the top one, and a special tray in the middle to cook the egg in - and in five minutes - ta-da! - your McMuffin is ready.  He ordered it off Amazon and I also got a DVD of the movie Zookeeper and a book by Prof. Mark Williams called "Mindfulness - An Eight Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World."

Sometimes I get so many thoughts in my head and I feel like I can't slow them down, and I had looked on YouTube for the shortest guided meditation I could find (since I have the attention span of a gnat when my thoughts are flooding me) and this actual professor personally narrates a three minute one.  It really helped me.  Next I looked him up on Google and found out he's a professor at Oxford and that he has written some books, and I found one of them on Amazon that looked good.  He has a lovely speaking voice - very gentle and soothing, with a soft British accent.  Okay, he's pretty good looking too.  Anyway, I've read the first four chapters that explain everything and today I'm going to work on Week 1's assignments.