Learning vs Schooling

Hello. Nice to meet you. My name is not important, you can just call me “Mother”. I am crazy. I do not hide from who I am and what I believe. I know I am crazy, I don't think like other people think I should. That's quite alright, I don't mind. I have learned through years of experience that I would much rather be crazy than depressed, and thinking the way they want me to think is depressing.

My life experiences are a big part of what led me to being crazy. I was raised in a traditional, conservative middle class home. The youngest of four children, and the only girl, I had a fairly “normal” uneventful childhood. My own Mother repeatedly told me I was the smartest person in the family, and then went on to tell me that I should become a secretary or a bookkeeper. It was made quite clear to me that there was no way in Hell I would be going to college. They certainly were not going to waste their money on it and since they made far too much money for me to qualify for any grants, I shouldn't even consider the option. I should just look for a nice man with a good job and “marry well”.

Now this might be an understandable if I was 20 or 30 years older, but I was born in the late 60's, and even in the 1980's when I was a teenager, they were still telling me this. While Gloria Steinem and other strong women were telling women across the country and around the world they could be and do anything they wanted, I was being told that my goals and dreams were “unrealistic” and that I should learn something “useful”.

Since I knew college was not in my future I started on a path of “self-education”. With all the information in the world out there waiting for me, I didn't see any reason to limit my learning. I knew at an early age that if I waited for a school or teacher to educate me, I would never be allowed to learn everything I wanted to know. So I never waited. At 4 years old I made my youngest brother (who was 12 at the time) teach me to read. From that day forward I read everything I could get my hands on. By the time I got to High School, I was so bored at school that I couldn't take it anymore. In my quest for learning, I was constantly finding examples of things that they were teaching at school that were either just plain wrong, or blatant lies, the hypocrisy of their claims to be educating children when what they were really trying to do was indoctrinate children was overwhelming to my fragile psyche. I dropped out. I wasn't going to college anyway, what was the point?

I did go back to school a few months later, when I found a school that would let me learn the way I did best, alone. I was given all the coursework at the beginning of the class, and told that I only had to show up to class to take the tests or if I had questions. My experience at the time was that if I wanted my questions actually answered I should never ask a teacher, so I showed up to take tests and did my “learning” in restaurants and parks. I finished 2 years of High School in 6 ½ months. I had two credits left when they decided to change the school rules and require daily attendance in class. I dropped out again.

It was just before my thirtieth birthday before I finally took the test for my GED. I didn't “study” for it or do any preparations whatsoever. I just went and took it, my oldest son (who was 10 at the time and home schooled) could have passed the thing if they would have let him take it with me. I started college that Fall.

When I graduated (Summa Cum Laude) from college (by the way, at the time, I was the ONLY member of my immediate family to EVER graduate from college), my parents did not come to the ceremony. They lived less than 200 miles away, but couldn't be bothered to take the time to show up. They gave me a used desk that they didn't want anymore as a “graduation present” several months later. My ex-Mother-in-law (not ex at the time, but shorty thereafter), with whom I had a relationship based on mutual disrespect and extreme dislike at the time, actually not only showed up but also was extremely supportive. The woman was a “raptor bitch from Hell” when it came to her attitude towards her own children and grand children (yes I actually called her that, to her face, some years before), but she closed her business, gave her employees the day off, and came to sit front row center for my graduation.

As a result of my life experiences with public education, I hold a different view of it than most people. I do not expect the government to educate children. It would be fabulous if they did! But I don't see it happening.  Public schools are designed to "school" children, they are not designed to help children learn.  The only time my kids have ever gone to public school is for Kindergarten and when I have had no choice in the matter. Every one of my kids went to Kindergarten, because they wanted to. But even when they were “in school”, I didn't depend on the school to educate them. To me, life is a learning experience, is not a metaphor, its fact. From the time I found out I was pregnant with my first child I started making everything a learning experience. I talk to my kids about everything. There is no subject “off limits” because of their age. If they want to know something I help them find the answers, and I help them learn to use their own minds to think through the answers we find to decide which one is correct or at least, most true. I teach them how to learn. Once you know how to learn, no one can stop you from learning but you.

Now there are some things that you probably just shouldn't try to learn completely on your own. I'll be the first to admit I do not want a completely self-educated neurosurgeon operating on my brain without some kind of extensive certification process. And I don't know if everyone is really as capable of it as I think they are. I believe if you start young enough and give kids a solid love of learning the vast majority will do far better than they do being force fed information that is, at best, irrelevant to their lives. But this is just my thought on the matter, I don't have huge studies or statistics to back me up, I don't need them because I am not trying to change public policy, it doesn't really matter whether I can “prove my theory” or not. It seems to be to be pretty much basic common sense to me though, human beings are the most inquisitive creatures on the planet, we are born to learn. When you put limits, or restraints, on a child's ability to learn you limit their ability to become fully human. To be all they can be, as it were.

I do know that what they are doing in our public schools isn't working, there are plenty of studies to prove THAT! Bubble tests will not solve education problems. And teaching FOR the tests is a ridiculous waste of our childrens' precious childhoods. I do NOT blame teachers for any of this, please do not think I do. Almost every teacher I ever had tried their very best to make the best of a bad situation, but they were even more stuck than I was. They had to follow the guidelines that they were given. They were not allowed to answer all my questions, or let me move on to the next thing when I was finished, everyone had to do everything at the same time, that was just the rule. Stupid fucking rule if you ask me, but totally not their fault. I had some AWESOME teachers who encouraged my learning and went out of their way to help challenge my mind, and I had a few shitty teachers who got mad when I corrected their “facts” when they were clearly wrong. I am sorry that I was not capable of keeping my mouth shut when the 8^th grade science teacher told the class that “the electrons of an atom can be found in the nucleus”, but ... seriously?!? But, as I say, the bad teachers were few and far between fortunately.

I know most people depend on public schools. I understand the need, and I would never judge anyone for sending their kids to school, even if they didn't have to. But most parents HAVE to send their kids to school. They have to work to put a roof over their heads and food on the table. And too many parents have been brain washed into thinking they are “not smart enough to home school” their own kids. And quite frankly there are plenty of parents who probably SHOULDN'T be the sole educational facilitator of their children, but unfortunately I do not think other people should be able to tell me I shouldn't be allowed to educate my kids so I would never say it to someone else, no matter how much I believed it. I am not suggesting public schools should be eliminated and replaced with private schools or online schools, or anything of the sort. I am suggesting that just because a child goes to school does not mean that the school has to dictate what or when they learn. The world today is truly awe inspiring in the amount of knowledge and information that we have at our fingertips 24/7. There is no reason to be dependent upon the public school system for learning anything.

A Look back at 2011

I don't do New Year's resolutions. I find them to be little more than yet another excuse to beat ones self up over failures that were never going to be anything more than failures to start with. There are some things I would like to do next year, but I will make no resolutions to do them, I will either get to them in the next year, or I won't. Either way I'll end up doing whatever I have the time and motivation for at the moment, and that's about as good as I can hope for.

What I have been doing for the past several years is making a list during the last week of December of my major accomplishments for that year. I find this to be much more fulfilling and inspiring than making resolutions ever could be for me. So as I look back upon 2011 with fondness and despair, join me for a look at all that I have done! Actually that would be impossible, there is no way to list all of the accomplishments for the past year, it would take years just to type out the list! So we will just be focusing on what I consider my major accomplishments for 2011.

Mother is a quilter. First and foremost, I love to make quilts. Nothing in the world is more enjoyable to me (besides my husband and kids of course!) than taking big pieces of fabrics, cutting them up into little pieces of fabrics, and then sewing them all back together again to make something new and beautiful. There is such a peacefulness, such love and pure joy that comes over me, that I just cannot do enough of it. And this year I found a whole new layer to explore in this all-consuming hobby of mine, dyeing and embellishing my own fabrics. And all of the possibilities that have come from this one simple base layer are just mind numbing in their scope for me.

So most of what I consider to be my major accomplishments revolve around my quilting, no surprise there. But this year I added a whole new “hobby” into the mix, as well with creation of “Mother”.

So I have counted 8 completed quilts (made start to finish during 2011) :

“Nine by Four”

 

  “No Fences in the Jungle”

“Forever Wild and Free”

 “A Trip Around the USA”

"Waves of Happy"

 

“Breaking the Chains in High-Heels”

“Running Wild and Free”

Plus 1 more utility quilt I made that I don't have a picture of or a name for, it is a simple strippy scrap quilt that I actually gave to the dog when I finished it.  He loves to "help" me quilt, unfortunately he is not as helpful as he thinks he is.  So I gave him his own quilt to lay on while I work on new ones, it seems to have helped a little.

And I still have two quilts pinned and ready for quilting:

“Oriental Dreams”

  “Jungles Stones”

And I have three more quilt tops which are in progress, a scrap quilt made of my hand dyed fabrics and a landscape quilt in progress, along with this one below...

“The Journey Back Home”

 And 1 quilt top just waiting to be pinned and quilted:

“Baubles, Beads & Butterflies”

In the completion of the above mentioned quilts I have also completed my tribute to my Grandmother that I started 2 ½ years ago by making the last of the quilts for her Great-Great-Grandchildren, at least in my Mother's line of the family, which was all I ever intended to do. The ones I shipped off this year before Christmas will be the last quilts I ever give away for free to relatives (except to my own children and grand-children).

In June I started learning about the art of hand dyeing fabrics, and all of the possibilities that lie therein. Over the course of the Summer I dyed over 100 yards of fabric, mostly a ¼ yard at a time, in a rainbow of colors. I played with making batik fabrics, which was lots of fun, until it came time to get the wax back out! I am hoping my experiments next year with soy wax will alleviate at least part of that hassle. I played with the Shiva paintstiks and some dye sticks, and hope to do a lot more with them next year. 

I also started learning about the process of screen printing and hope to put some of that knowledge to work next year as well. The only problem I have is that all of these things have to be done outside. Our home is not conducive to messy or smelly projects, carpet in every room doesn't help either. Whoever thought that carpet belongs in kitchens or bathrooms obviously never lived with it for very long! Now where I live, for me there are about 4-6 months of the year that I can handle being outside for more than a couple of minutes, so needless to say my time with these pursuits is quite limited at this point. But I have been using the winter weather to learn as much as I can so that I have an even better starting point when the weather does warm up enough.

And in August, “Mother” was created. Since then I have created almost 1,000 silly pictures, and started this blog to rant at the world. I have “met” thousands of new Facebook people, and made people giggle from here to Timbuktu, and back again. I have laughed and cried and gained both inspiration and self-confidence from all of the Love I have found on Facebook.

Last Spring I reconnected with some old friends and this Fall I closed the door on the family members who care more about what strangers think than they do about the people they claim to love. I stood up for myself to them for the first time in my life, and it felt awesome! I just can't see ever going back to sitting in the corner biting my tongue, while the people who say they love me proceed to tell me how I am unworthy to even live much less have a home of my own or even raise my own children because I don't care about money as much as they do. Fuck that shit! So growing a backbone is another of my accomplishments for 2011.

What else did I do this year? Well, there was the anxiety attack that sent me to the hospital for two days, I eventually overcame that, and survived. So I call that an accomplishment. And there are all the hours I spent editing products and listings for my business and my husband's business.  I know I don't spend enough time on “work” but I did get a lot of things done this year for it.   And there is the kids, and while we probably didn't do everything we should have done this year, we did a lot.  We learned a lot, we had a lot of fun, and we are even better prepared for more fun and learning next year!

While I didn't finish as many quilts this year as I might have liked, I did spend the vast majority of my time constructively in one way or another, so I will call 2011 a year well spent.  I am certainly glad it is coming to an end, and I am hoping that 2012 will be a kinder, gentler year for everyone ...

The beginning of a new obsession

The beginning of a new obsession

This is where the obsession started. My very first quilt. Growing up I spent a week or two with my Grandparents every summer. I remember watching Grandma hand piecing her beautiful creations as she sat in front of the television each night. Everyone loved Grandma's quilts. Each of the Grandchildren received at least one and everyone wanted more. My oldest son had a particular quilt that my Grandmother had made, it was made as more of utility quilt. My parents had used it in their camper for years, and after they sold the camper I had confiscated it and had also used it for years.  Then my oldest son at some point ended up with it on his bed. It was well over 20 years old and had been washed probably hundreds of times. It was worn out! Stains had turned the white fabric a dull yellow and the fabric was disintegrating. I tried to buy him a new quilt at the store, but he refused. There was no way he was giving up that quilt unless he could have another home-made one like it. Grandma was no longer with us, and there was no one else, so I ended up volunteering for the job.

First I had to design a quilt that was similar to the original, but with no "girly" fabrics. At this point I really didn't know anything about quilting.  I had been sewing for 20 years, but the closest I had come to a quilt was some pot-holders I had made for Christmas one year. I didn't know you could buy quilt patterns, or where to look for them. I just took out a piece of graph paper and started drawing. Once I had a basic idea of what we were going to do I had to start collecting fabric.  I had a large stash of cotton fabric, but most of it was flowery "girly" fabrics. After collecting the fabric and cutting out all those 3 1/2" squares our life was suddenly and dramatically turned upside down and the quilt pieces were put away before I could sew a single stitch. A few months later we had moved into a much smaller house (almost a third the size of the house we left), most of my stash was listed on eBay and sold I had started selling my machine embroidery designs and life was starting to calm down again. I found the plastic baggies with all of those little squares and decided that sewing them together might help me deal with all the emotional upheaval. I found I really loved sewing the patches together. If my seams didn't line up perfectly I didn't really know enough to care. When I made mistakes of which fabric went next in the row, I didn't really think anyone else would notice, so I didn't really care. I was enjoying myself and that was really all that mattered.

When I finished putting the top together I had to quilt it. The original quilt was a queen-size, but this one turned out to be a large King-sized. I bought the batting and fabric for the backing. I had a basic idea of how I was supposed to put it together, but I did not have an open space anywhere that was that large (this was before I figured out the driveways are an awesome placed to pin quilts). So I laid out the layers on my queen-sized bed. Now this in itself would probably not have been that bad, but our bed is not like a normal queen-sized bed, the top of the mattress is over three and a half feet off the ground (I have to use stairs to get into the bed)! So here I am, on top of an unstable step stool, trying to get the whole thing laid out straight on a bed that is considerably smaller than the quilt. After several hours I finally had all the layers pinned together, now I had to figure out how to actually quilt this monster. I had a little cheap Brother sewing machine with a throat space of about 4 1/2" maybe 5". I knew I was supposed to start in the center of the quilt and go out towards the edges, but how in the heck do you get to the center of the quilt? I ended up rolling up the sides and fighting, stuffing, shoving until I had the whole thing quilted. If you turn it over and look at the back it is a mess! Puckers and pleats everywhere! But it was done and I was never going to make another big quilt like that again, that was for sure! My neck and shoulders hurt like crazy for days afterward!

But as the days passed I thought about all I had been through to make that quilt and I was happy I had done it. I really enjoyed the piecing, and maybe the quilting part wouldn't be that bad if the quilt was smaller. Within a couple of weeks I was drawing up a new design and planning out the next quilt.

Greed - *WARNING* This post contains massive ammounts of explicte language! You have been warned!

I consider myself to be a pretty easy going person.  I am highly emotional and do tend to get charged up about certain issues, but for the most part I try to not get too excited about most things because its just not healthy for me.  There is one thing that gets me going like no other though, and that is the subject of GREED!  Now before anyone gets bent out of shape let me say quite clearly, I have absolutely no problem with people being rich.  I like rich people, I want rich people to buy my art, if there were no rich people who would have the disposable income to pay me $1,000 for one of my quilts?  What I do have a problem with are GREEDY people!  I hate greed. It makes me sick that people think it is acceptable for one man to have a gold fucking toilet when there are people in this world who work hard every day just to put food on the table.  FUCK YOU!  Sorry, but that is just fucking sick!

Greed has caused the destruction of every civilization that has ever existed.  Look it up, I am not kidding.  And yet somehow greed is not only tolerated in our modern world, it is exalted, worshiped even!  This is fucking sick.  I don't care who you are if you cannot see the problem here there is something seriously wrong with you.

I will never understand people who try to tell me that rich people work harder than poor people so therefore they deserve to have whatever they want.  EXCUSE ME?!?  Are you fucking serious?!?  I mean, you CANNOT be serious, can you?  First off, the VAST majority of rich people have never worked a day in their lives and have no clue what the word even means.  Second, about 90% of the poor people I have met in my life do work, they work very fucking hard, every fucking day just to survive.  I would LOVE to see Donald Trump try to survive for a week on what the average American lives on (we won't even get into what the rest of the world has to try to survive on), without using his connections or his name to "buy" him favors he couldn't make it three days.  And MOST importantly, just because you have accumulated wealth in whatever fashion you accumulated it (we will get into the lack of "hard work" involved in screwing other people out of their hopes, their dreams, and their money in another post) does not mean you are any fucking better or more deserving than anyone else!  FUCK YOU!  The real problem with "entitlements" in this country is with these rich asswipes thinking they are "entitled" to special fucking treatment because they are fucking rich!  FUCK YOU!

Sorry, as I mentioned I tend to get a little worked up over this issue.  I just don't get it.  Our government wants to make laws over every fucking little thing I can or cannot do to my own body, whether it effects  anyone else or not, but there is no law against greed.  Greed has destroyed more lives, more families, than any plant or drug or behavior that has ever existed.  It has destroyed whole civilizations, and continues to bankrupt us financially and morally to this day, but yet there is not a single law against it?  What the fuck is wrong with these people?  Not only do they refuse to outlaw the greatest evil to ever afflict man-kind, they continue to make laws to protect and promote it!

Seriously, am I the only person who is just so fucking outraged that I cannot sit back and keep quiet anymore?  I know I am crazy, I have never tried to hide or deny that fact, but COME ON MAN!  Can't anyone else see what is so crystal fucking clear to me?  Until we step back and look at what the real problem is we ca never hope to solve the financial crisis our world is falling into.  If we do not stop it NOW we will all be living in a Hell of our making and dooming our children's children to forever being slaves to pay for our sins against each other and against them.

I didn't feel like doing anything today - so I wrote you a tour of my home! Enjoy!

I have a serious case of the "I don't want to do shit"s today. Now, this may not be a problem for many people, but I am incapable of not doing anything so it presents me with a serious conflict. And since I cannot handle conflict (it makes me physically ill - that's why I don't let people start shit on my Facebook page - they literally make sick!), this presents me with even more problems.

I have to be doing something all the time. I can't just sit and watch tv, it drives me crazy. I have to be using my hands and my brain all the time or I just don't know what to do with myself.  Sometime I can kill a little time playing on Facebook, but I can only take so much before someone is stupid and I have to go do something else before I get overly irritated.  So I decided I would write today, now what to write about?  I know, I'll write about how my obsessive compulsive attention deficit disordered brain affects how we organize our home.

That is part of why our home is a little unorthodox in its layout.  The other reason is that it isn't just our home, its our school, our place of business, our art studio, and when its cold outside its our playground.  We have organized our home to fit our life, not the cultural norm.  We have decorated it for functionality and certainly not fashion! In our living room we have our 3 computer workstations and my sewing cabinet along with the usual TV, electronics and furniture.  I sit in my desk chair most of the day and evening (unless I am up doing housework or whatever), I have my computer on one side and the sewing machine between me and the TV.  My desk holds my basic sewing tools and office supplies, along with candy and stickers. The shelves over my desk hold other quilting supplies and books, the ones beside my desk hold software, more books, my quilting magazines, two of the 6 printers that are in our living room, and the boys portable video games. The boys have their computer on the other side of my desk, and all of Father's computers, printers, and assorted business supplies are on the other side of the room.  We have a couch and a recliner, but the dog and cat spend more time on them than any of the people do,

All of the console video games, along with our school books and supplies, board games, science equipment, basic art supplies and my good embroidery machine, are all in the "Master" bedroom (along with the big Christmas tree this time of year).  We have two TVs in our bedroom, one we can see from bed and another for the video games.  Our bedroom is actually larger than the living room, it is an addition that was meant to be a family room, and I guess that is what it really is, we just happen to sleep in there.

Our kitchen doubles as our dining room and our shipping center, so along with the usual dry goods and kitchen wares we have a case of envelopes and other shipping supplies in the kitchen.  

The boys share a room by choice.  They have a TV (a very large TV) in their room, along with about 70% of their toys, and their bunk beds and dressers and such.  The rest of their toys are usually either in the garage or (surprise!) our bedroom.  There is an additional bedroom inside the house which actually does NOT have a TV in it, we call it the "bonus room". Its a small room with an attached bathroom (Father's bathroom), so we use it for a linen closet and I have my cutting table set up in there, along with the cat's paraphernalia and the boy's shoes (its the only place in the house where the shoes don't seem to be able to grow their own feet and walk away).

There is  an enclosed "breezeway" between the house and the garage, it houses the spare refrigerator, some storage, and Jack (our dog) has a bed, and food and water out there for when he wants to come in from the cold, but can't come in the house for whatever reason.  Next to that there is the two car garage, which is so full of stuff that it has no room for a car to park inside. Someone closed off the back of the garage and created an additional  room.  It is about 8 feet wide by however long a 2-car garage is wide. That's my "sewing room".  When it is cold outside it serves as more of a "storage room" than anything else as most of my fabric stash,  my sewing machines and supplies, our craft supplies, my eBay inventory and my non-fiction books.are out there, but its too cold to actually work out there.   

Damn, for poor people we sure have a lot of shit!  Most of our shit would probably be trash to a lot of people, but it works for us. And as I started out this post telling you that I have to be doing something all the time, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I have a lot of freaking hobbies and interests.  And since I have a lot of freaking hobbies and interests, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I have a husband with a lot of freaking  hobbies and interests, and it probably logically follows that we have kids with lots of freaking hobbies and interests.  And all those freaking hobbies and interests require lots of shit.  We have been working on thinning down how much shit we have, but it doesn't seem to work as we continue to find new freaking hobbies and interests!  OK, ... I keep finding new hobbies and interests.  And I keep trying to hoist new hobbies and interests upon the boys, but that's my job as I am not only their Mother but their educational coordinator as well.  So we need a lot of shit.  That's my story and I am sticking to it. 

I mean it is not like that "Hoarders" TV show or anything!  Our home is cluttered, and usually dusty, but there is no garbage outside of the garbage cans, there is plenty of room to walk safely through all of the rooms, with open floor space to play, and it is generally fairly clean.  We don't "entertain" guests.  My parents come by a couple of time a year and my oldest son comes down to visit when he can.  Other than that I think we have had maybe half a dozen "guests" inside our house in the last 4 years.  We are not people people.  We don't have many friends, and none within 100 miles. So our house is organized to fit out needs.  Other people might find it unconventional, but they aren't living here, working here, educating here, creating here, growing here, and they will probably never be invited here, so it doesn't really matter what they think now does it?

Christmas

Christmas is my favorite holiday! Which is funny coming from an atheist I suppose, but I just love all the lights and decorations, the gaudier the better! Mother LOVES gaudy! Christmas - to me - isn't about religion (yes I know its supposed to be, but Hell the Christians stole the holiday from the Pagans in the first place, I am just re-stealing it), Christmas - to me - is about sharing the Love. There were a few years, when my older children were little, when we didn't celebrate Christmas at my house. After I left my first husband I gave the kids the choice, they all spent Christmas with their fathers' anyway, so I told them that we could either do the whole gift giving thing once a year at Christmas, or we could skip Christmas and whenever I found something they wanted, and I had the money, I would just give it to them then. They opted for the later, and for three years we didn't do Christmas at all. I missed the decorating though.

But sharing the Love is what my life has always been about I guess, its who I am, its what I stand for, what I believe in. I know its silly, I should be focused on important things, like making money. But showing people that someone Loves them has always been more important to me than money. When I was a teenager, I had a best friend that I loved dearly. She had led a hard life and had some pretty crappy shit to deal with. I used to bring her flowers every week or so, whenever I could. Her boyfriend couldn't afford them, and generally wouldn't have thought of it as important. So I did it. I was always finding stuff to give to my friends, and I hated the idea of waiting for an "occasion", so it was always Christmas. No matter what the calendar said I was probably wishing someone a "Merry Christmas" at some point on any given day.

We started celebrating Christmas again as a family after Father and I were married and the boys were born. We have always told the kids what we are really celebrating and why. We call it Christmas because it makes it easier for the rest of the world to understand, but we aren't celebrating anybody's birthday. We are celebrating our Love for each other, and my love for pretty colors and shiny things. If it was up to me we would have Christmas lights up all year round, and actually we do - the boys have them as nightlights in their room and we have a few strands that stay up all year round outside, but I would have them all up all the time. Father thinks that is a bit excessive, so we compromised.

I also cheat on Christmas shopping if you want to know the truth. Every year I take the boys to Toys-R-Us and tell them they have whatever amount of money I have to spend, and let them pick their own presents. I do the same thing for their birthdays. I know when I was a kid, my Mother gave me the Sears Christmas catalog every year and told me to mark the things I wanted. And then she made sure she did NOT buy a single thing on the list. It drove me crazy! For a lot of years I hated Christmas because I knew I was just going to get a bunch of crap I did not want and I would have to act happy about it. I promised myself I would never do that to my kids, so I don't. They pick out what they want and I bring it home and wrap it and put it under the tree. Father and I both get them other things that they do not know about ahead of time as well, so the element of surprise is still there when they unwrap their gifts, and no body is disappointed by what they got. It works well for us. And now I make sure my parents just get the boys gift cards so their is no let down there either.

So I am very much looking forward to Christmas again this year. Every Sunday from now until Christmas I will be sharing vintage Christmas cards all day on Mother's Facebook page as my way of sharing the Love with all the Facebook people who share the Love with Mother. I hope you enjoy your Holiday season, whatever Holidays you may choose to celebrate for whatever reasons. And always remember, Mother Loves you

Holidays

Well Thanksgiving has come and gone with no major issues between my Husband and my Father. It was actually a very pleasant afternoon for the most part. I got to show off my latest quilts to my most appreciative audience (my parents really do appreciate my quilting probably more than anyone else I know) the boys got to show off how smart they are, and Father got to show off his excellent cooking skills. I Love my parents dearly, but the tension when they visit is usually thick enough to be cut with a knife.

We live less than 5 miles apart, but we only see each other half a dozen times a year. They have no real interest in being involved in the lives of their Grandkids, which makes me sad. One of the most important relationships I had as a kid was with my Grandmother. She was a cantankerous old bitch, but she and Grandpa always had time for me and made me feel special and important. I could not wait to go to my Grandparent's house when I was a kid. My kids will never know the kind of closeness I had with my Grandparents, and that is sad. My parents just don't like kids, I think. They won't come out and say it, but they have never had any interest in spending time with any of their Grandkids, until they are adults, or at least close to it. My oldest son is probably the one Grandchild they spent the most time with as a child, but most of that wasn't by their choice.

But once the dinner was over and the dessert had been served, my folks went home and we were able to enjoy a nice quite weekend at home in a clean house with plenty of leftovers. So in the end, the four days of house cleaning and cooking turned out to be worth the investment.

Time

Time is a funny thing. Especially in relationship to our lives today. We spend hours each week playing video games, screwing around on Facebook, Twitter, or whatever other "social networking sites" are popular this week, watching mindless entertainment on television, and then at the end of the week we sit back and wonder where all the time went. What the Hell did we do with all of that time before all of those things where invented?

I didn't get my first computer until 1997, that's only 14 years ago. Yet, if I wake up in the morning today, and for some reason I cannot log onto the internet, my day is entirely fucked. I cannot wake up in the morning without checking my email (and now Facebook too), it throws my whole mindset out of whack. I would probably accomplish a whole lot more without the constant draw of the computer beckoning me every minute of every day, but I would have a really bad attitude all the way through it.

I never have enough time to do all of the things I want to do in a day. Mostly because I waste so much of it sitting in front of the computer. The television usually doesn't stop me from getting things done because I can work on most things while I watch (or ignore) whatever is on. Its these damn computers that suck up all my time. Unfortunately, about 75% of my "work" is done on the computer, so it is not like I can really get away from it anyway. Its just finding the motivation to quit screwing around (like writing a blog) and get back to "work" that is the problem. Father is always working on "work" and 100% of his work is on the computer so he loses his patience with me once in a while, but he has learned that he just has to get over it. I work. I work a lot. And I have a lot more "jobs" than just the ones that pay us money, and those usually have to take priority. He says I am being selfish when I spend too much time doing the things I want to do rather than the things that make money, and he's probably right (he usually is). But as I tell him, I am sorry, but I don't care. I will do the things that HAVE to be done when they HAVE to be done, I always do. But I will never spend as much time on the things that SHOULD be done as I do on the things I NEED to do.

I figured out years ago that Father will never understand me. I am so completely foreign in some of my thinking that he just cannot begin to comprehend the way I feel about certain things. Especially time. Time is precious, and I will always choose to spend as much of it as possible on enjoying my life. I spent fifteen years in Hell learning the value of both my time and my happiness, and the one thing I am still sure of is that I would rather die a pauper in an unmarked grave after living a life of joy and happiness and Love, than have some fancy headstone in tribute to a life spent in pursuit of money at the expense of those things. Fortunately my wonderful husband Loves me in spite of my crazy thoughts processes, and he knows how damn lucky he is that the things I do spend my time on keep me at home and out of trouble (most of the time) and they don't usually cost him anything except when he wants them to.

So maybe I am selfish with my time, and I know I waste far more of it than I would like, but I am happy with my life for the first time ever and I refuse to allow anyone to change that. I know I don't spend enough time on things I probably should, but if I did I wouldn't have the time to ramble on endlessly to complete strangers who really probably "should" be working too.

Its just sad ...

We really live in a screwed up world today. Life should be better than it ever has been, and for many people it is, but whether it is or not, no body thinks it is. I mean, its really quite ridiculous when you really think about it. Keep in mind I live in the US so I have an automatic step up in my standard of living from more than half of the world, and I know that. For my society, I live in "poverty", have since the day I moved out of my parent's house at 18. But, I am sitting on a very comfortable bed in a warm home, typing on a computer that allows me to not only communicate with the rest of the world (or at least the percentage with internet access), but to learn pretty much ANYTHING I could ever possibly want to learn! I have food to eat, clothes to wear, a family who loves me. I really have more in my life today than I have ever had, I feel rich in so many ways. But I am poor, and according to our society and many of our leaders here in the US that means I am lazy, and not a valuable member of society. It doesn't matter how many hours a day I work, or what kind of impact I have on the people who's lives I touch, if I am not rich, or at least trying to be rich, I am unworthy.

Do you have any idea how disheartening that can be? If you are or have ever been poor you probably do. Most of the poor people I know are NOT lazy! It takes a lot of work to survive in our world today without money, there is nothing easy about it. I made a deliberate, conscious choice to be poor, but most people don't have an option. There are lots of rich people who sit around eating fucking bon bons all day doing nothing, but somehow they are more valuable to society than the guy who picks up their trash every week? Our country is so fucked up its just unbelievable. We have families living in tents and cars, while other people have gold plated fucking bathrooms. I am sorry, I don't care who thinks they "worked" harder, that is just fucking wrong. My husband used to work with a woman who bought a house for her dolls. No, not a doll house, a real, 4 bedroom house in a nice neighborhood. No one lives there, she just keeps her dolls there.

Don't get me wrong i have no problem with people wanting to be rich, or even being rich. If you feel the need for all that, more power to you. But there has to be a limit people. And it shouldn't have to be a fucking law. If you have more money than any normal person in this country could spend in 6 lifetimes, try helping out your fellow man just a little. Do you really need 17 multi-million dollar homes? or could you maybe help somebody who didn't have the same opportunities or skills or even intelligence that you did? I just don't see how the super rich can sleep at night knowing that they are responsible for the suffering of so many people, and even those who are not directly responsible, they still responsible because they have done nothing to help. But since everyone in our country seems to be out for themselves and doesn't really give a crap about anybody else except in wanting to tell other people how they should live and what they should or should not do, but they have no interest in actually helping anybody or caring about anybody.

It so sad. We have become such an us-versus-them society that nobody seems to remember we are all just people. In 2011 in the USA there is no excuse for people to be homeless, or hungry. If our government has the money to rebuild buildings in Iraq and have troops fighting in any other country, if we can give money and food to countries all over the world, why is it wrong to take care of our own? I don't understand why some people think we have plenty of money to kill people any time they decide people should die, but we don't have any money to take care of the ones that those same people want to say have to be born.

I keep hearing this thing about how the Republicans are "the party of God", from what I have seen, they are the least "Christian" in their policies and platforms. I thought Christianity was supposed to be about Love and helping out your fellow man, you know the whole "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" thing and "love thy neighbor", oh and lets mot forget "judge not lest ye be judged"... Where do any of these fit into the Republican platform that wants to tell everyone who they can or cannot love, what they can or cannot do with their own bodies, but wants to "get government out of our lives"? The Republicans just confuse the Hell out of me, and as I have mentioned before, I come from an entire family of them. I am a poor atheist and I have given more of myself to others, inside my family and out, than any of them have ever even thought of doing, but they are the "good Christians". I choose to stay home and raise and educate my children rather than send them to day care and public school so that I could work at a job to make lots of money to buy them lots of crap to show them I love them since I was never around, but my brothers are amazed at home much better adjusted and smarter my kids are than theirs. Not that one has anything to do with the other.

I don't understand Democrats much better, but the Republicans, especially those in the Presidential race and the others who suck up to the media lately are all just a bunch a bullies! Mr. Cain is blaming the unemployed for not having jobs. Ms. Bauchman says if you can't work you should not get to eat. Mr. Gingrich saying that unless a person is a Christian they do not have any moral values (like you do, Dude? Seriously, this guy is going to talk to anyone about moral values? PLEASE!) They all seem to say its better to bomb other countries than to support the elderly and poor in this country. The only one I can even stand to listen to is Ron Paul. Yes, I know he is crazy, but I like some of his crazy. He believes in personal freedoms, I LOVE that. He has been trying to legalize both hemp and pot, I definitely LOVE that. Some of the stuff he says goes a little too far, but I like the general direction. Our government is too damn big and totally dysfunctional, and maybe taking the whole damn thing apart and starting over is the only answer. I do have a problem with just letting people die because they are poor, and frankly I think businesses do need a few guidelines to keep them from fucking up the world around them.

But the point is, why is that they all seem to think that I am somehow less important than Britney Spears in the grand scheme of our society? Yes, she is rich. Did she earn it? Did she have to work hard? Is she a great role model for young women everywhere? PLEASE! What about Paris Hilton? Why is she more important, more valuable as a human being in the eyes of Republicans, than Jane Doe who works hard at Burger King and still has to collect food stamps to feed her kids? It isn't about "hard work", its just about money. So it comes back around to Republicans being the "party of God", but their only true God is MONEY. I am not suggesting the Democrats are any better. They don't give a crap about people either, they are just as guilty of worshiping at the alter of the almighty dollar.

Its just sad.

Balance

I am forever searching for balance in my daily life. You may have noticed by now that I am easily distracted, but I am also obsessive-compulsive. This leads to a lot of internal conflict as you may imagine. I think I do a pretty good job of keeping the obsessive-compulsive part in check, most of the time. Except when it comes to my hobbies, then I tend to go overboard a lot more than I probably should.

I have been working for Father the past few days, doing the computer grunt work that he doesn't have time for, and I find it difficult to do anything else until its all done. Of course this does not work in my favor as Father will invariably have another task awaiting me when I finish this one. So I usually work like crazy on his stuff for a few days, then I get bored and screw around for days on end doing the things I want to do (but that generally do not result in anybody giving us money). This has a tendency to lead to conflicts. Father has learned that there is not much he can do about it, yelling at me will just ensure it doesn't get done for that much longer. He tried guilting me into it, but since I am the Guilt-trip Queen, he didn't stand a chance. So he learned that a few gentle reminders are about the best he can do to get me back to work. That, or bribery, bribery works really well for him.

I am spoiled rotten, you should probably know that, I was the only daughter, the baby and my youngest brother is almost 8 years my senior. So I got spoiled as a child, and I never really got over it. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not adverse to work, I like working, but one can only take so many hours of repetitive mind-numbing tasks on the computer before ones brain is fried. Well, I don't know about anybody else, but I certainly have limits to my endurance.

So everything in my life is pretty much done in fits and spurts. I will work obsessively on one thing for however long I can, and then I have to do something else. I usually do come back and finish what I started, well, at least 75% of the time anyway. But I would like to be able to allocate my time better. I waste more time deciding what I want to do next than most of my projects actually take. I have lists of projects I need or want to do that are longer than the expected lifespan of our Universe, I do not have time to be indecisive. Of course, I do not have time to write a blog either, but here I am. And that's probably the worst of it, I have way too many things to do already, so what do I do, find a new hobby! I Love my hobbies, they help make life worth living, but I really do have way too many of them, and I keep adding more. The last two years I have spent every free minute on quilts, making them, designing them, photographing them, living and breathing quilts basically, then this Summer I discovered dyeing and painting fabric and now I am learning screen printing as well. So since I had nothing better to do (cough cough) here I am writing a blog.

I did mention I am a little crazy right?

Facebook

So I think we have already established that "Mother" began on Facebook. I originally started the page as a way to comment on other Facebook pages without offending the rest of my family. Of course by that point I think I had already convinced them I was crazy by the pages I had "liked" on my personal page, but they didn't need to be reminded of it every day. So I just started Mother's page to spout off, and before I could even finish adding all the "likes" from my personal page to Mother's page I already had people "pimping" Mother. There were 100 people "liking" the page within the first few hours.

And then my husband's niece posted a silly picture of her cat hanging from the shower curtain rod and I made the first silly picture for Mother. Since then Mother has taken on a life of her own. The pictures have evolved, along with my skills with my favorite graphics programs, into fairly presentable silly pictures. And that's all they are ever supposed to be. I am forever getting "helpful" people commenting about how this picture offends them for whatever reason, or they don't "get" that picture. There is nothing to "get" people, I am not making a social commentary, I am just trying to help people smile a little more, maybe even giggle once in a while. If someone happens upon one of my pictures when they are having a shitty day and the whole world seems to be out to get them (I think we have all had those days)and the sillies I put out into the world makes that one person spit their coffee all over their computer screen, well then, my efforts have proven worthwhile.

So the silly pictures on my Facebook page are there for everyone to enjoy. Share them to your heart's content. I really don't care about the credit, but I really would appreciate you not removing the watermarks. I know they are distracting, but I have a family to feed and times are tough all over. The www.everything4lessstore.com is our family owned and operated business, and the only reason I can justify spending countless hours creating silly pictures for everyone to enjoy is to call it "advertising". No one bitches when Coca-Cola makes a silly commercial saying how tacky it is for them to be "advertising" their company through humor, so do not bitch when I do it. Hope that's clear enough.

This blog is also part of the evolution process of Mother. I have pretty much quit talking to people on Facebook lately. I found that every time I express my opinions on pretty much any topic some "helpful" person had to come along and tell me just how wrong I was. Excuse me, uh, NO. Number one, Just because you do not agree with me does not make me wrong, it is far more likely that you are a Moron. Number two, It's my freaking page! I made the page to express my opinions, if you do not like my opinions you can "unlike" the Damn page! I do not care what your opinions are, if you want a place to express them Make Your Own Damn page!
Now don't get me wrong, its really not that they "disagree" with me that is the problem. Its the condescending, insulting and just down-right Bullying tactics they use. If there is one thing I cannot stand it is Bullies! I have a few "fans" that disagree with things I say, but they can do so without attacking me personally so they are still around. But the minute someone posts something that I find offensive or insulting, its gone, and if I feel there was malicious intent behind it, the poster is banned.

So I decided to start this blog as way to express myself, without the character limitations of Facebook, and without the limitations of Facebook characters. Its still linked to Mother's Facebook page, so the posts are announced on Facebook, but now you have to make an effort to see what I have to say. So if after all of that you are not happy with whatever I have said, you have no one to blame but yourself since you came here of your own free will and read it. So there.

I am still working on creating the time to be able to write everyday. That may be a while, but I will sneak in here whenever I have the chance. I do have a lot of things to say and some of them may even be funny, or interesting, or worth your while in one way or another. Most of it won't be. Most of it will probably just be the ramblings a of a peri-menopausal, stressed-out crazy lady who thinks all people deserve to be treated with a little basic decency and a little bit of Love.

Love - Hate

I mentioned before that I have a Love-Hate relationship with people. I have to Love everyone because I really can't stand anyone. Well, as I started thinking about it I have come to realize I have that same perspective on pretty much everything. I sit here typing on a computer that I love, but at times I hate the damn thing. It sucks up so much of my time and attention, it screws up all the time by doing exactly what I told it to do, its just a general pain in the ass. Television, oh don't get me started on TV, There are some shows that I just really love, like "The Big Bang Theory" or "Criminal Minds", but I also hate the damn TV. Its too loud, its on too much, its too distracting, and not the least of it Father likes to watch horror shows and movies (and a whole lot of other crap I do not care about), I hate horror stuff. This wouldn't be so bad, except they way our life is arranged everything pretty much revolves around the TV. Not literally, but literally. The TV sits about 5 feet from my "work station" where I have my computers and my sewing center set in an L-shape, with the sewing machine facing the TV, so whatever I am doing the TV is right there.

But the point was that I have the same view on the rest of my life that I do on people, no matter how much you Love or enjoy something, it will, at some point, piss me off.

The Crazy Lady

I often refer to myself as "The Crazy Lady", and with good reason as you will soon discover. I am a walking contradiction in many ways. I Love people, I mean really, I do Love everybody. But I also hate people. Well maybe hate is a little strong, I only really Hate one person on this planet, I just dislike the rest of you, sometimes intensely. So you can probably see where this might tend to make a person a little bit loony. Especially when that person is an emotionally charged individual with rampant hormonal mood swings that could take down an elephant.

And yet this is just a small part of what makes me crazy. I guess it all really started about the time puberty hit. I was a tad bit strange as a child, but crazy came with the hormones. I was raised in a conservative middle class family (my parents just celebrated their 56th wedding anniversary last week), but I never really felt like I belonged there. Even as a kid I knew I was different from them, but I didn't know why or how, until I met George.

When I was a hitting Junior High the other girls were all into movie stars and musicians. They had posters in their rooms of this actor or that singer, some of them even joined the fan clubs and wrote letters to their favorites stars. I could never get into all of that. I have no interest in the lives of the rich and famous. I have never read the tabloids or watched the TV shows about celebrity happenings, I don't care. Those people are not relevant to my life. They are not "real" people to me, its not like I am going to run into them at the grocery store or go to dinner with them. They are entertainers. I might like their movies or their music, but who they are and how they spend their time just isn't important to me. There are very few famous people who have ever had an influence on my life in any measurable way, and then there was George.

George is one of my mentors in life. George taught me to think about things in ways I never thought about them before. George opened my mind and through his words I learned about myself and the world around me, learned to see that their was far more to life than I had ever imagined. My love of words came, at least in part, from George. I was probably 12 when I met George, around the same time I started drinking and smoking, not sure which came first, but they were probably all related. My introduction to George came from an album I stole from one of my brothers. The album was "Class Clown" and while I wouldn't say it "changed my life" I would say it had a major impact on who I am today. George, and "Weird" Al (who also played a major role in my formative years), were probably the most important male role models I had outside of my family. Which, in retrospect, probably explains a lot.

I am NOT saying that George or "Weird" Al MADE me crazy. Absolutely not. They allowed me to be crazy. From my perspective, they gave me permission to be ... myself. No one had EVER done that before. My family was always big on "what will the neighbors think", and my public school, like all public schools, was all about conforming. No one had ever told me it was okay to be different, I had been taught that being different was bad. I knew I was different, so therefore I must be bad. So, I grew up with the same conflict I think most people face, conform or be bad. Then George and Al told me that "bad" was not a bad thing. Different was okay, it might be difficult to be different, but it was NOT bad. Damn, what a novel freaking concept!

So I learned not to care so much about what other people think, and to just live my life for me. I am who I am, and who I am is a Crazy Lady. I love the gaudy, the crazy, the different. I have tried to teach my children that being different is not only okay, it is preferable. I like being me, I enjoy my company, I even agree with most of the things I think. My life may not be what anyone else would dream of having, buy I enjoy it immensely and there is very little I would change even if I could. So Love me or don't, that's your choice, either way I will be me because that's all I have ever wanted to be.

a little more background

I am not rich. I am not famous. I am just a simple person, so I know that those who claim to represent the people of the United States of America have no interest in me or what I have to say. After 43 years of watching the country I was taught to love and cherish being torn apart and virtually destroyed by those who swore an oath to defend her I reached the point where I could not sit quietly by and watch the destruction any more. It is time to come out of the closet into the light. It is time to stand up for the Constitution of the United States and the principles of freedom that this country was founded upon.

I started drinking hard alcohol when I was 12. I started smoking cigarettes when I was 12 (to cover the taste of the alcohol). I started smoking pot when I was 15, at school. I used LSD a few times. I used psilocybin mushrooms a few times. I have never used cocaine, heroin, or any other hard drug, had plenty of opportunities, but enough intelligence and personal responsibility to know better. I was a high school drop out. I was an unwed mother (twice). I was raised in a Christian home. I was baptized in the Lutheran Church. I was divorced.

I am a 43 year old woman, born and raised in the United States of America. I am an artist. I am a quilter. I am a seamstress. I am a fiber artist. I am a designer. I am creative. I am intelligent. I am not mechanically inclined. I am an avid reader. I am a writer. I am a gardener. I am a cook. I am a baker. I am a wife. I am a mother of six. I am a friend. I am a sister. I am a daughter. I am an Aunt, a niece, a sister-in-law. I am a care-taker. I am a teacher. I am a mentor. I am addicted to nicotine & caffeine. I drink tea or soda, never coffee. I smoke un-filtered cigarettes, I roll my own. I am college educated. I am self-educated. I am happily married. I breast-fed all of my children. I home-school my children. I am an atheist.

I believe in two things above all else:

1.)The Right to Personal Freedom. I believe in the right-to-choose, the right to keep-and-bear arms, the right to free speech (even if it is offensive), the right to own personal and real property, the right to be free from illegal search and seizure, the right to be free from unlawful arrest and imprisonment, the right to travel unencumbered, the right to have dominion over my own body and my life.

2.)Personal responsibility. The second greatest failing of this country over the last 50 years has been the erosion of personal responsibility. Freedom is a responsibility. It is a responsibility to ourselves and to each other, not only in the responsibility we each have in fighting to protect those freedoms, but in the responsible use of our freedoms so as not to infringe upon the rights of others.

Introduction to Mother

After careful consideration I have decided to start a blog for Mother. Mother is full of opinions, helpful information, advice, love and silliness. She cannot be contained within the restraints of Facebook alone.

So here is some background information taken from Mother's Facebook page to get us started some of it is rather Facebook specific so if you came here from elsewhere feel free to ignore those parts:

There are some things you all should know about Mother.  Mother Loves everyone, unconditionally. (Except stupid people, Mother does not Love stupid.  She tried it once and it was a miserable 10 years!)  Mother HAS to love everyone unconditionally, because she really doesn’t like people.  So if She didn’t Love you unconditionally She wouldn’t like any of you at all.  People are mean.  People are greedy.  And it just seems like nobody gives a Damn about anyone or anything anymore except themselves.

I started Mother’s page because Life Sucks.  Not my life in particular, I must admit I have it pretty darn good most of the time.  But Life, in general, in this day and time, just really sucks.  Everyday I have to deal with stupid customers who think the entire world revolves solely around them and that I would just go out of my way to screw them over because they are just so f*cking special.  People, if over 4,000 people have gotten what they paid for, why do you automatically assume that you would be the ONE person on the face of the planet that I would deliberately try to rip off?  Maybe if people would learn to READ, it would help.  But mostly, just quit f*cking assuming that just because you are too stupid to figure out how to insert a freaking disc in your computer and LOOK at what is on it, does not mean anyone is OUT TO SCREW YOU!

This applies to all aspects of LIFE people.  Take Mother’s page for example.  You all came here and clicked the “like” button.  With the exception of 6 people, Mother didn’t invite any of you, Mother certainly didn’t come to your home and log on to your account and click the Damn button for you.  Don’t get me wrong, Mother LOVEs having you all here, for the most part, but the point is, you came here of your own free will and the door is always open for you to leave if you don’t like what you find here.  Everything Mother posts required some investment of time and energy, no matter how small.  And guess what?!  You all get every bit of it for FREE!  It doesn’t cost you a freaking dime!  You can choose to invest a little time back into Mother’s page, by liking the pictures, or commenting if you want to, but it is not required. Mother really doesn’t mind.

It should be noted here that Mother can really be a cranky bitch.  And her sense of humor does have its limitations.  Mother will NOT tolerate rudeness or obsessive corrections of her grammar, spelling, or anything else.  As I have said before, if I need to be corrected I will talk to Father, if I need to be talked down to I will call one of my relatives, if I want to be insulted by someone who’s intelligence is lower than pond scum I will call my ex, I do not need a blog for any of those things, Thank You very much.

The photos Mother posts are all Public Domain images, the verbiage on the photos was copied and pasted from a vast multitude of sites on the internet.  So far I think there have been maybe a dozen photos that Mother personally created the verbiage for, everything else is just copied and pasted.  Mother does look for typos and spelling errors and corrects them when she find them, but she does have a life and she has never EVER claimed to be perfect (again, that is Father’s job).  The whole point of making the pictures is to bring a smile, a chuckle, or a laugh to anyone who needs one.  That’s it, that’s all they are for.  If they make your day just a tiny bit brighter for one small moment in time, then they have done their job.  And, since you all aren’t paying anything for the pictures Mother has no interest in anyone bitching at her about anything to do with them.  I hope this is CRYSTAL freaking clear now!

Mother does not tolerate conflict.  Any kind of conflict makes her physically ill.  Mother’s page is supposed to be a place where I can go (and where the rest of you can come as well) where there is no freaking conflict.  So starting today, NO CONFLICT IS ALLOWED on Mother’s page, ok?  Good.  There are lots and lots of pages where they encourage you to go and bitch and vent all you want, go to one of them and bitch about Mother if you want to, that’s fine.  Just keep it off my page.  Mother is allowed to be snarky, and you all are allowed to be snarky too, but not AT Mother.  No snarking AT Mother.



Thank you all for your understanding.  If for any reason, you do not like any of Mother’s rules or opinions on how she will allow things to happen on her page, there is an option to “unlike” this page, feel free to use it.  If you choose to stay, AWESOME!  Great to have you here!  Just remember, this is Mother’s house and Mother don’t take no shit.  Have a Great F*cking Day!