Not Another Homeschool Blog

Unlike last time, I got a letter back from the women's center saying my mammogram is all clear. "No abnormalties that indicate breast cancer. The last time THEY acted completely freaked out, called me back in, did another mammogram while making no eye contact, then left me laying on a table for over an hour while a doctor went around looking at women's results, doing a hands-on exam and telling them whether or not they had cancer.  I lay on that table for over an hour listening to women crying... I started planning my will.  Fortunately, I had some pearl-cysts he said... not cancer...  but what an ordeal.  To rub more salt in the would, they completely messed up my billing ( hence the experience this time ).  But the cysts eventually went away, I poked them daily for like a year until I could not feel them anymore, and I am all good. I don't know about this FitBit. Maybe I'm nuts, but I think I can feel the sensors... I am very aware of my wrist the whole time...

It is the morn of my 49th birthday, and already I have been besieged with people purposely wishing me a happy 39th or the umpteeth anniversary of my 29th birthday.  What kind of shenanigans are these? I am 49 and have earned every single day of my existence. I don't like it when people roll back the clock on me (though I am trying to have good humour about it).  I am sure I have insulted at least one person this morning... but... My sisters (step sisters) passed away at 28, 30, and 35 due to a genetic illness I don't have.  My brother made it to about 44. His daughter made it to 21. I have 4 brothers left, who survived the genetic lottery. I am aware of my mortality and every year is a triumph.  I am also quickly approaching the age my mother passed away. She was 55. I am not worried though because she had cancer when she was younger than I am now, so there's another victory! Excuse my morbid nature, but it just irks me when people wish me a happy birthday, by ...

It is rare to be invited to the wedding of someone you know casually, like a work chum or someone you have met thought hobbies or such, but this past weekend, I scored such an invite. I went to the wedding of a young lady who I have costumed consistently over the past 2 years in a few stage productions. I am a big fan of hers as she is hilarious. Even more so, I admire how her fiance (now husband) got onto stage at her request recently and take part in a flipped gender comedy. He was out of his element, but easy-going nature and willingness to play along won my heart. And so these two crazy kids got married. They were just a few years older than I was when I got married, but in this day and age they are YOUNG! But that's OK. There is a certain beauty in attending a wedding where you are not a relative, or where you really don't know anyone else there. I had a small group of other theatre people, but mostly we knew no one. So there's no probing questions from relatives wh...

I have been driving from one vintage booth to another as I close down the one where the store has lost it's lease due to a new owner in the plaza and a supermarket coming it. (It took alot of pulling teeth to get the full story.) I have been painting alot, and just trying to manage to get items ready for sale. I have been crafting every single evening, also to have booth items, and to get rid of an over abundance of craft supplies... of course each supply calls for another supply to finish the job. I have been organizing my home to make all this stuff more accessible. I have been putting items for sale on Ebay... I'm tired, and I haven't seen pay off yet, so that is exhausting. And my husband is seriously giving me the side eye because he sees me doing all this work, but progress is not quite as evident. Ugh.  It's so difficult and confusing to embrace your talents.

I have been using a cane for just under a month now. It is interesting to see how much is confuses some people and calls other's to action. The confusion I am sure is because of my face. No one believes that I am 48, turning 49 in about 10 days. But the cane instantly ages a person so they look at the cane, look at my face, and look at the cane again... then I am sure they decide it is weight related, and they move on. Other's jump into action. As I am working on my vintage booth/business, moving furniture from time to time men and younger women jump in and take over.  It is sweet, but they don't handle my furniture as carefully as I would, so sometimes I leave the cane in the car until I am done with my work.... and then I really, really need it. Oh, the cane... why?  Numbness and tripping... so I need it for balance.  The physical therapist is working to fix the issue, and I am working do drop a few pounds because I am sure that will help.

It has been an interesting last few weeks as we celebrated the youngest's college graduation, had a party,  visited with doctors to follow up on health issue that being in college exacerbated,  lost one of our dogs, and packed her off to her internship in upstate NY.  She and her dad are driving her car there as we speak. Then he will catch a plane in the morning and fly back home as she sets up her living arrangements by herself for the first time in her life. I have always been available to pre-clean her room, make her bed and arrange her furniture. Yes, she's 20, but I am an unrepentant child hoverer... that and the fact the she is very messy by default, I have figured out a system where she can function and use the room in a way that will avoid her tendencies to be a slob.  The fact that she is sharing a small studio apartment with another person has me nervous, but perhaps the presence of someone so close will make her at least pick up her clothes and towels. ...

I finally kinda feel like myself after the flu last winter, and my mini vacation. I costumed a few shows last winter, and kept up with my board duties, and that pretty much kept me offline. Here are a few pics of what I have been doing. Stealing Home (partial cast) Amazing Mayzie Gertrude Mc Fuzz before Gertrude McFuzz After Children's show, Rumplestiltskin (faces cut out) Rainbow tree in Puerto Rico Plants in Puerto Rico

That is how I feel lately. I am speechless and I feel like while I have a ton to say, the words are caught in my throat.  I feel like I have to choose between speaking and breathing. I feel like my throat is so constricted from worry that it can only serve one function at a time... well, maybe two, cuz there's eating.  But at first, I couldn't even eat.  All I could do was breathe, barely. I felt myself grasping onto a proverbial banister or chair rail, panting with heaving chest and laboring back just to exist from one moment to another.  Being so focused on just living, breathing from day to day, left my mind crowed with words that can't seem to get out.  My brain is full... and the images are not cute or fuzzy. Basically. I'm pissed and don't know how to express it.  Who am I mad at?  The world. Everything and nothing. And now I am dragging.  Perhaps I have been breathing too shallow for so long that the oxygen is no longer making it to m...

A few years ago, I posted that I was going to get my real estate license... I took the online class, but at the end decided not to go through with it... it seemed like an easy way to get into the workforce. After a few years of volunteering, and learning while doing, and talking and thinking, I have decided to get a second bachelors followed by a Masters degree... right now, I reviewing math online because I will probably need college algebra. Wish me luck.

As I lay in my hotel bed with sore legs and aching feet, I feel very happy and satisfied. I have just spent 3 whole days at BroadwayCon 2017, also known as BroadwayCon #2, the year we didn't get snowed in due to a huge blizzard. It was great, and after the last couple of months, I was due a break from the issues of the world that troubled my mind. It's not like I wasn't aware of the STUFF that has had me so upset, but I was allowed to celebrate, art, and fun, and the artists who create the fun and entertainment that is so worth celebrating. The STUFF was actually a pretty major theme throughout the weekend, but to get to look at it through the lens of artists, deep thinkers, who create and reinterpret the world around us, was a beautiful thing. It was also good to know I was surrounded by people who were pretty much of the same mind. Sure some people didn't agree and a few people left, but in this crowd, it probably less than 1% of the crowd who had a problem with t...

As is typical in Metro Atlanta, I live in what some would call a McMansion, in a gated community. It didn't take me long to discover that I was locked in with the crazies. The people within this gated community act just as squirrely as the people on the outside. Within our upper-middle income community, we have had thefts, drug deals, speeding on streets kids play on, and vandalism... the people that did the crimes lived within the community.  Take for instance the fact that my car was ransacked last night. The thief took my backpack. But before they took it they removed the contents.. My binder for the community theatre board, my folders and receipts for each costuming project. They just took the backpack and the cell phone charging brick that was in the pocket.... well, that and then they tossed the car looking for change. They didn't even take the Gas card that had $17.00 on it. Chances are, this was a neighborhood kid.  Who lives in my community. If I see my backpack ag...

When I was in college working on my BA in Fine Art, I would grate when it was time to critique one another's work... especially when it was time to critique mine. These people were always so far off the mark. That time when I did a still life of things in my dorm room, which happened to include handcuffs that my brother won at the county fair and somehow I kept them as a momento. That still life was deemed deeply sexual when for me, they were a symbol of strength and connection. That time when the teacher berated me for doing a Madonna and Child print when in reality the woman holding the child was my oldest sister who had died from Cancer at 30 and the child was my 2nd youngest brother who could not break out of mourning... He was broken and my heart was not only broken for me, but for him and the loss of her.  (I brought in the source photo the next day and threw it at him.) How could these people look at my work in insinuate their own experiences into them. How dare those ...

My daughter kept saying that she was sure we were going to be hit with a meteor that would end all life before 2016 was over.  The year had been so messed up, and losing Carrie and Debbie Reynolds together to her was a sign of impending doom.  But were still here! So here we are, alive and pretty much still in a bad mood. The politics are grating. The racial climate is uncomfortable (understatement), and the world seems suddenly unwelcoming. But that's OK.  I'm still here are I have stuff to do. What to expect from me this year? 1. Rebranding, as evidenced by the change in my blog name. 2. No nonsense- straight talk.  I feel an urgency in my heart that won't let me mince words 3. Completion of projects to clear space to start the new ones waiting for me. I feel a sense of urgency in my heart that is propelling me forward. I got stuff to do.

As 2016 draws to a close,  I sit here in a proverbial pillar of salt.  While it was an interesting and reasonably good year on a personal level, I am sad and despondent over the state of our nation. As much as I would like to be positive and say that 2017 is going to be a banner year, it is far more likely to become a shit-storm. That me for me it is a time for introversion and building. My book will be finished. I will be working more with homeschoolers and maybe less in the arts... unless those two things combine. I will make a decision about my Masters degree.. will I get one or not? I hope I can find some joy this year.. as I have a wonderful family and am well cared for, but what good is my comfort if others are being persecuted? Goodbye 2016.  I will spend the next few days putting on my armor for the coming years.

A week ago I had the opportunity to sit with a young man and have a meaningful conversation.  I will start by saying that I am glad to not be young in this day and age. The loss of privacy between this generation and mine is astounding. The social media causes one to either be completely antisocial or more visible than they are comfortable with. If I had to deal with that in my early 20's and try to maintain a relationship, I never would have made it. We talked about how I had a long-distance relationship (with my now husband) throughout college.  He was astounded that we had a phone date once a week where we spoke for an hour. That it all. The bill cost too much for anything more, although we did have an occasional 5 minute quickie conversation, we really only spoke once a week... for 4 years... and saw each other on major holidays. When we compared this to how the young people's conversations work, with daily and sometimes hourly texting, he asked me to draw a comparison...

I'm not going to go into it. Matthew 6:4-6 says "Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you." So only a handful people will know the details... the person I had to get permission from to spend above the pre-set amt, the 2 women I tell my secrets to, and my children who notice everything I do... but the short and short of it is I was moody.  I knew someone had a need, and I took care of it. HELLO CHRISTMAS SPIRIT. For today anyway.  So that's the answer... think less about me and my moods and my ... depression... and think more about others and the mood will lift.  Good news. Good news. So if you are one of those people for whom this holiday season brings you more down than up, find someone who is in need and help them... they are not too hard to find.  Just ask a couple of friends, or call a church or something. I know I didn't have to look far. ps... I hope no one thinks I am bragging... I just really, really wa...

Well.. actually, I've never been real big on Christmas.  I decided it was anticlimactic around the age of 11. My older brother used to wake everyone up at 3am to open gifts when we'd rather be sleeping and then we would go back to bed.  I never felt the warm fuzzies about that exercise...  I preferred the Christmas Mass at the church instead.  That's just me. So I have been the producer of the Christmas show at the community theatre this year, and while it was fun and Christmassy, it occupied my thoughts in a way that was not very 'holiday'.. more business instead.  So that it over now, and I like 1 week before Christmas... OK... wow! We have gifts that I need to wrap (put in store bought pre-decorated boxes) and I guess maybe we should start making cookies or something. I wonder if anyone is having a party.  That might put me in the mood... or at least A mood.

I edited an essay for a college bound student the other day.  I found the essay intriguing because it was quite and artistic way of saying, I tend to procrastinate, but I am working on it. If I were the admissions officer, I would accept them. The essay started out describing time as the enemy. It pondered through the relativism of time and some philosophy regarding time and how we move through it. Interestingly enough, I have been feeling similar feelings... except more like that time has become a tractor trailer with failing brakes. My dad was a truck driver, so I am well aware of the struggle the truck has climbing the hill. It seems, slow, arduous, and painful, but it keeps chugging with that "I think I can attitude". As it climbs that hill (of life) it picks up experiences, and skills, and learns little tricks and tips to make the journey successful.... And then it reaches the top.  It puts its proverbial hands on its hips and surveys the surroundings.  It would...

I'm more excited about the boy's college graduation and the girls 3 weeks at home more than the actual holiday.  If I ever was a scrooge before, I am certainly feeling it now. I just paid college tuition for the last time... for my daughter... for the school she is in. We are waiting to hear from my son's college re his grad school application, so there's money.... and girl wants grad school eventually, and I'm sure that's gonna cost us something... sooo... Anyway, I can't wait for my daughter to get home so we can hang out and sew stuff and have inappropriate conversations... cuz that's what we do.  She's just growing up so fast that I find it both depressing and exciting.  She even had her first doctors appointment without me this week... she felt like garbage and did not ask me to drive 2 hours each way to accompany her to the doctor.  If course I had to reimburse her for the copay (yikes) and the prescription (double yikes) but she was well e...

So, I changed my blog title.  It was coming for some time.  My youngest homeschooler graduates from college in May and my oldest just applied for Grad school... and while I am still somewhat involved and give advice to homeschoolers (and am almost done with my book), my most passionate posts as of late have been about me and dealing with this world.  Check out my Anger and loathing series and you will see what I mean. I am constantly having moments. I am short tempered.  It gets real hot at the most inopportune times and my under-boob skin is dry and sensitive.  I've spent my whole life being a "natural beauty" with the exception of some awkward teen years, and now My bathroom is bursting with potions and bottles.  Lord, Help Me!! So this is where I am at. Enjoy the ride.