Just Checking In ...

Hello there Internet People!  Long time no ramble at.  Mother took several days off from writing for the Thanksgiving weekend.  And I will probably be pretty spotty with the postings for the next month or so.  This is always a really tough time of year for me, and this year its promising to hit me hard.

And then you throw in that my husband finally gave me that work that he wanted me to do for him and I think that is gonna shoot the shit out of a whole bunch of days before I am done.  

Mostly though I just don't feel like writing right now.  I know that anything I do write is going to turn out being full of either self-pity or self-loathing, and I really don't need to be dwelling on either of those things right now.  When I am ready to face myself and the world again I will get back into writing more faithfully, but for now I am not going to push myself.

 

One way or another I will come out the other side of this holiday season and get back to getting on with life.  In the mean time I will just take it one day at a time, or one minute at a time as necessary, until the new year gets started and hopefully life can begin to get back to normal for a while.  I will write when I can, but don't expect too much from the old crazy lady for a while, just making it through the day is all the challenge I can take right now.              

 

It Was Definately A Tuesday ...

Happy Tuesday (or whatever day it happens to be when you read this) Everybody!  I spent the day doing housework and laundry and man am I tired!  I did manage to finish phase two on that new art quilt as well, so it has been a pretty damn good day as far as getting shit done.  Tomorrow I will have to spend the day in the kitchen doing the prep work for Thanksgiving.  My husband does the actual cooking on Thanksgiving (and most other nights as well), but there are some things that are left to me and it is much easier if I get them done ahead of time so that I am not in his way.

Hey, maybe I can even remember to take some pictures  and share some more recipes.  Its been a while since I posted any recipes, I should probably get back to doing that for you all again one of these days.  There are a lot of things I should get back to doing, unfortunately most of them will never get gotten to.  While I have been doing better at not throwing my time away as much there are still not even close to enough hours in the day, and there never will be.  And while Blogging is a priority that is high up on my list, there is only so much time I can put into this shit no matter how much more I might want to do.

Oh well, it is what it is I suppose.  We will just keep on taking it one day at a time until we figure out a way to squeeze a few more hours into each one.  If any of you all figure that out please do let me know, I would greatly appreciate it.  In the mean time though I think I am going to go cut up some more fabric into little tiny pieces again for a while.  I used up a whole bunch of my tiny pieces today so I am going to need a whole bunch more.  Talk at you all again next time ...

 

                       

                       

Abstract Thoughts ...

Hi There!  Me again!  Not sure who the hell else it could be, but it is still just me.  I had a pretty good day today, even managed to get the vacuuming done, which is an accomplishment for me.  And I started a new art quilt project.  Yes, another one.  No, I didn't finish any of the other ones yet.  One has nothing to do with the other.

So, anyway, the new project is an abstract.  I mentioned yesterday I was going off in a different direction in my art, that was the direction I was going.  Giving myself permission to just play with shapes and colors and themes in this way is a whole new experience for me, and so far I am thinking I am going to enjoy this immensely.  I don't know if anybody else will like it as much as I do, but I sure hope so.

I also learned something today that I was extremely disappointed that I didn't already know.  Remember the pictures I shared last week of the "art" that I did a few years back, the pen and ink drawings of the squiggly lines?  The "gel pens" I used for those and much of my other "art" over the last decade and a half, it turns out you can use them on fabric too!  I am so pissed at myself that I never even tried it before!  Most of them don't even bleed the way other fabric markers do.  And they seem to be pretty colorfast even after washing.  I have only washed my test piece once so far, but since I am wanting to use them on things that aren't meant to be washed anyway, I think they will work really well.   And, if it turns out that they do hold up to multiple washings, I have some other ideas I might want to play with them on later.  Of course, now I need to go buy new pens since I just threw out half of mine because they didn't work anymore, but that can wait.  

At this point its gonna have to wait anyway. Sales have sucked too badly lately for me to spend any money that isn't absolutely necessary.  I am hoping when I get my "Top-Rated" Seller status back on eBay tomorrow sales will start to pick up a little bit.  I know it made a difference last time, the increased exposure they give to the listings of "Top-Rated" Sellers at least gives me a chance at getting seen, and that is the biggest part of the battle.  Well, other than getting someone to actually buy something, but that is much easier if they can SEE it.  Have I ever mentioned how much I hate eBay?  Some day I will have to write a rant about that.  If you have never tried to make a living selling on eBay, you would be amazed at how difficult they keep trying to make it.  (By the way, in case I haven't mentioned it before, I am not bitching in an attempt to get you all to buy shit!  I have, however, learned that the more I bitch about bad sales, the more likely it is that sales will improve.  It's kinda like a general karma thing, putting the message out to the universe for a share of the energy or some such shit.  I don't know, but it usually works, so just go with it, Okay?)

For now I think I will sign out of here and go back to playing with my new art piece.  I have over an hour left before bed time, might as well put it to good use.  Until next time, Namaste.

               

               

Learning a New Way of Thinking

Hello Internet People!  I just finished cleaning up my work area in the bonus room and thought I would pop in here and fire off a Blog post before my game starts this evening.  It sure feels good to have all my tools and supplies organized and accessible again.  What I really need is just a huge open space with lots of tables and shelves so I could have everything in one place, but that is not gonna happen, so I am making due the best I can.  

I put away all of the projects I had started.  Each one in its own box so I can pick up where I left off whenever I am ready.  I found a new wave of inspiration yesterday and I am looking forward to riding this one for a while.  I was telling you all yesterday about the concept of "writing from what you know" and I got to thinking about some other things that I know that I hadn't been taking into consideration previously.

Although I have always been severely lacking in confidence I have actually been creating my own art for decades I just couldn't acknowledge it as being "art".  They were "doodles", "time wasters", not "art".  "Art" is what other people do, not me.  And by thinking that way, I made it true.  Now, I am trying to learn a new way of thinking, and let me tell you it is not so easy.

I have been fighting this exact same battle with myself for most of my life.  And every time I think I have risen above it and moved on, it shows up again to knock me back "down to earth".  And that right there is my problem.  I am not supposed to be having my feet planted firmly on the ground as was drilled into my head my entire life, I am supposed to fucking fly!  But no one ever let me fly before, much less showed me how.  Everyone around me has always tried to keep me firmly tied to the ground for my "own safety".  Giving myself permission to fly is turning out to be pretty fucking difficult.

The funny thing is I have thought I have done just that a thousand times in my life, but I have never actually even tried to leave the safety of the ground.  This Blog and the Facebook pages were my first real concrete steps towards releasing myself, but they are just a tiny baby step in a journey that I know is going to take paradigm shift in my thinking.  I am trying.  But this shit ain't as easy as it should be.  We are talking about 4 and a half decades of flawed programming that are needing to be over come here, it ain't gonna happen over night.  Just identifying the dysfunctional thought processes as being dysfunctional is a pretty big accomplishment when you consider how many of those there are in here.  

    

               

                     

Finding The Art In Me

Well, I started out doing pretty good today.  I managed to write two Blog posts before the waves of pain took over and I couldn't focus on the words any more.  I think they are starting to subside again now, so I am back and trying this shit again.  We shall see how far I get this time.     

I spent some time earlier today looking through my "Me" book that I made a few years ago.  I started it during the months leading up to leaving my ex-husband.  I was trying to discover who I really was after a lifetime of trying to be what everyone else wanted me to be.  It was a very fulfilling exercise in art, and thought processing, and I still find comfort in the pages I created whenever I take the time to open it.

The binding has given up on the idea of holding the pages together, but most of the pages are substantial enough to support themselves so I have left them unbound.  There are dozens of pages of collages created from cutting pictures out of magazines, some with captions or quotes tying them together.  There are also dozens of pages of collages done with stencils and gel pens, many of them with wording as well. A few pages of my own drawings and sketches are thrown in for variety.  And there are dozens of pages of inspirational quotes and messages, all hand written in a multitude of colors.  It was never meant to be seen by anyone but me.

As I flipped through the pages today I think I finally may have found the key to pulling my artistic vision out of my head for others to enjoy. I think my tendency to set myself up for failure has been guiding my ambitions lately, and taking a moment to genuflect on my self, on my life and its challenges, has given me some probably much needed perspective on how I want to go forward.  I have been trying to force myself into being able to do things that probably cannot be done, at least not by me at this point in life.  I need to get back to what I can do, and focus on what brings me joy so that I can share that joy with others.

The hardest part of any of this is finding the faith in my own abilities, and then holding on to it.  We end up right back here battling that "Bi-polar ego" thing I have talked about before.  My gawd I have been sewing for nearly 40 fucking years and I still have days where I feel like I don't know how to do shit.  Which is totally untrue, I probably know more than 90% of the people who actual make a living doing it, but I still feel inadequate.  I always feel inadequate.  Except when I don't.  At those moments I can do anything, and there is nothing that can stand in my way.  Except for me of course.  I can always stand in my way, I am really good at that.

   

        

Write From What You Know - Which Is Probably More Than You May Think

My oldest son and his girlfriend are participating in this thing where they have taken on the challenge of writing a novel during the month of November.  It is an internet based, world-wide thing I guess, I have heard a few other people mention it on Facebook, but I originally heard about it from my son.  So anyway, we were discussing what he was going to write about for this project and I gave him the same advice I have always given him that he has really never listened to, "write from what you know".

This led us to an entirely different conversation about how truly unique his life has been.  I think most people tend to think that if we have not lived a life full of adventure and travel on a grand scale, that somehow this makes our lives boring or mundane.  What we often fail to see is that everyone's life is a unique and grand adventure in and of itself, the rest is just gravy.  

My son fell into that trap.  He is 25 years old, has never been married, has no kids, and has lived his entire life within a couple hundred miles of where he was born, most of it within 50 miles.  Why would anyone want to read about his life?  Sounds pretty boring and mundane.  That is until you figure in the fact that he spent 3 years living in the middle of nowhere with no running water or electricity as a child.  That he taught himself to read out there using a battery operated cassette tape player and a set of children's books on tape.  Or, add in the fact that out of the 13 years that most kids spend in public school, he did a total of about 5, and then he started College at 16, having never gone to high school at all.  As a teen he taught himself computer programing and Japanese, among other things.  He also helped raise an Autistic sibling long before most people had even heard of Asperger's Syndrome, and found a way to drag his chronically depressed Mother out of the terminal darkness when everyone around him was conspiring to keep her there.  

Okay, so maybe I am a little prejudice in this particular case, the kid is my fucking hero and he knows it.  But I think that if you look closely enough at anyone's life you will see that there are probably a lot of things you have done or seen that most people would really find extraordinary even if you don't.  I heard somewhere once upon a time that "in everyone's life is an unwritten novel", or something to that effect, and I honestly believe that to be true.  Someday I will get my shit together and start writing mine.  I know that my boring, mundane little life, is cram packed with all kinds of fascinating experiences that other people probably never even imagined much less lived through.  I have shared tiny glimpses into my life here on my Blogs, but there is so much more than I have even begun to hint at.  And if my boring little life can have so many interesting tales tucked within it, just imagine how many you might find in yours if you just started looking. 

                 

           

Another Friday, Another Ramble

I just spent the last fifteen minutes sitting here doing almost absolutely nothing while trying to decide what the hell I am going to do with the rest of the day.  Still haven't figured it out yet, but I did figure I would be better spending my time by typing rather than just thinking, so here I am.  Probably shouldn't keep subjecting you all to this, but you keep coming back for more so somebody must be enjoying it.  

I find that I have caught myself up in another of those continual loop cycles in my head again and the best way for me to close the loop is to ramble my way out of it.  Part of my problem is that there are just too many possibilities and very few certainties in my life and I am having trouble finding my focus again, or still.  Whatever.  

Speaking of continuous loops though, that picture I posted yesterday, did you all notice that it is one?  That was part of the challenge in making those pictures, it is just one line that ends where it begins.  I was thinking about reproducing the concept as a design for screen printing, maybe with some hidden messages or something else imbedded within the image.  Something else to experiment with I guess.

For now I better figure something out to do before I waste the whole damn afternoon, so I think I will sign off from here and get back to cutting up fabric for no apparent reason.  Here is another picture for you to hold you over until next time ...

   

   

Some Thoughts on Why I Create

Hello Internet People!     I thought I better come spend some time at the keyboard before I lose myself in the process of cutting tiny shapes from fabric or vinyl, whichever I end up deciding to work with this evening.  Still waiting on my husband to put me to work, so I have been playing with my art projects again.  I am experimenting with an idea for the screen printing system that could be a lot of fun if it proves successful.  I used to make these intricate collage pictures a few years back using different stencils and colored pens, I will try to find one later and take a picture to show you.  I am trying to recreate the concept in a four color separation process where each color is a different layer, and the whole thing is done freehand, no stencils, no computer layout.  It may prove to be a complete and total waste of time in the end, and I know it would be much faster and easier to try to figure out how to do it all directly in the computer, but where would the fun be in doing something the easy way?

I worked in a print shop many, many years ago, and while I was there the owner spent a lot of time with me teaching me all of the various aspects of the business.  From the front office, to the drafting table, to the darkroom, to the press room, to the bindery, I learned every job, and almost every machine in the building.  This was in the early days of computers, the time of dot matrix printers, and most of our type setting and layout design was still done by hand, and I got to do a lot of it. Gawd I loved working with the old man!  Every week it was something new to learn and explore, my favorite kind of job!

Anyway, the point of the story was that I have been pulling from the many things I learned during my time in the printing business to use them in the screen printing project.  I find I do that a lot.  I have an extremely diverse background and interest base, and combining that diversity is part of the drive that motivates me to create art in the first place.  There is no other way to bring together who and what I am other than through images and words.  And someday I may even get good at it.

Until then I will just keep trying new things and exploring new ideas because apparently that is what I was born to do.  Well, that, and to spend excessive numbers of hours deeply engrossed in teeny tiny details that no one else will ever notice or appreciate.  I love doing that too for some strange and bizarre reason.  

Since I don't have any pictures yet to show you what I was talking about, I thought I would share a totally unrelated picture of a piece of "art" I made around 15 years ago.  It is made using the same type of pens that I used making the collage pictures, but its totally different.  I really liked making these too at one point, but mostly because my ex-husband hated them.  He thoughts they were "scary" and they frightened him, so I made a lot of them the last couple of years we were married.  Enjoy ...

       

Can We Get Over Everybody Else's Sex Life Yet?

Hello Internet People! I don't know about you all, but I am a little sick and tired of the news media's fascination with the private lives of public officials.  My husband has been watching a TV news station for the last couple hours, and I swear I haven't heard them talk about anything except the latest sex "scandals".  Who the fuck cares?!  Unless you are going to demand the immediate resignation of every single person in this country who has ever even thought about cheating on their spouse, I really don't care who is fucking whom and I do not see why our media is so damn interested in it.  

Holy Fucking Toledo Batman, people like to fuck, get over it already.  They act like this is some new thing that never ever happened before. Seriously?!?  And why the hell is the FBI looking into the private relationships of individuals anyway?  I haven't heard a single word out of any of it that would lead any rational person to think there was threat to "National Security" in any of this shit.  Its just a huge waste of resources and time when we have far more important things we should be worrying about.

It is about time we get the government and the media OUT of people's personal lives entirely.  Neither one of them has any business there, they obviously have enough issues of their own to worry about. It seems to me that the only goal anyone has these days is the destruction of the lives or the happiness of everyone else.  It doesn't even really seem to matter if the one causing the destruction actually profits from it in anyway, they just want to see everyone else destroyed for the sake of destroying them.

I for one am just sick and tired of it.  I hope I am not alone. 

              

              

Mother is Ranting, Again

 Hello again Internet People!  Mother is back, and while she should be working, she still doesn't know what she is supposed to be doing, and the stuff she could be doing, well she is just in too much pain at the moment to do any of them, so here I am typing away at you again.  This of course presents a new problem as I have absolutely no fucking clue what I want to write about today and all the ideas that keep popping into my head are being shot down as fast as they appear.  I am not in a very good place in my own head at the moment and I don't want to inflict my negativity upon anyone else because as my dear husband so correctly pointed out this morning, negativity does not serve a useful purpose in our efforts to recover and move forward.  And this is as true for me (and maybe you) as an individual as it is for our nation and indeed our entire world right now.

That is what is truly "wrong" with people these days.  Everyone is so quick to focus solely on everything that is "wrong" instead of how we are going to go about making things better.  Playing the blame game, and the finger pointing, and the us against them crap, all that shit has got to go.  It really doesn't matter anymore how things got so screwed up for everyone, the only thing that matters is what can we to do make it better for EVERYONE!  I am so tired of people bitching and moaning about how terrible things are right now, but no one wants to do what is necessary to make things better.  I know, I am probably as guilty of it as anyone, I sit here on my bed bitching about how bad things are, but what the fuck am I doing about it?  Well, actually, I am fucking trying to make things better, for my family and for all the people who have found a smile, or a laugh, or maybe learned something on one of my pages or posts, maybe its not enough, but at least I am trying.   

All the doom and gloom talk is really unnecessary, and completely counter productive.  These stupid fucking business telling everyone how they have to lay off people because of "Obama-care" are just shooting themselves in the fucking ass and I really hope they all get infected!  Fuck you "Papa John" - if all you had to do was raise the price of your pizzas by 15 fucking sense in order to give ALL of your employees health care - it should NOT have taken a fucking LAW to make you do it Asswipe!  Just raise your fucking prices and give a little something back to the people who Really built your fucking business jackass - the EMPLOYEES!  Maybe if you paid them a living fucking wage and took care of them the way they have taken care of you, maybe then they wouldn't be getting fucking foodstamps while they are working for you!  

The whole idea that this is some new thing is just fucking obscene.  In Washington State, where I have spent most of my life, we have had laws requiring employers to provide insurance for full-time employees for fucking ever, all the employers have ever done is make sure they don't give anyone full-time hours.  They will keep you at 30 minutes under whatever number of hours they set it at, it makes no difference.  The servers at restaurants don't even make what was considered a living wage in the 1970's, the owners can pay them basically 1/4 of the minimum wage here in this state, but they are supposed to be able to provide their own medical coverage out of that, after ALL the other fucking bills are paid!  Yeah, while the owners sit in one of their multi-million dollar homes complaining about how terrible it is that they should be expected to actually PAY the people that put them in that fucking house a living wage and then turn around and bitch and moan about all the "lazy" people on Welfare.  Fuck YOU, they are NOT lazy - they are working their asses off so that YOU can be LAZY!  You sick fucking bastards need to get a fucking grip on reality before somebody just a little bit crazier than me gets as sick and tired of your crap as I am.

Well damnit, I thought I said I didn't want to be inflicting my negativity on all of you and then I just went and did it anyway.  Sorry about that.  My bad.  Oh well, I reckon you get what you pay for huh?  I will however try to end this on a positive note because that was my point after all, that we all need to focus a little more on the positive.  So, in the interest of the betterment of the lives of ALL the people on this planet, I am hereby officially declaring that all wars will now end, the Recession is over, all people are free and equal, and the ultra-wealthy around the world will now be happy to pay 90% tax rates on their incomes to cover the deficits that they have benefited the most from.  There you go, problems solved.  Mother has spoken.

          

               

Art Quilt Preview

Hello again!  I'm back!  Anybody miss me?  Yeah, I didn't think so.  As expected I spent most of the day working my little eye balls out for my husband, but I did have a little time to work on my art quilt, and to even take some pictures to show all of you!    

                 

Pattern on clear acetate

Face and Hair

Parts and Pieces

So this is the art quilt you have heard so much about.  The blue square is 8", I laid the pattern on top of it in the bottom picture to show how all the pieces will go together.  Once I get her all assembled then I will try some stitching and add in more details and embellishments, but I am afraid to do too much more to her, I am really happy with how she is coming together and I don't want to screw her up (again)!  

I am really enjoying this process of "painting with fabric", and I am trying to figure out what all I want to work on next.  I know, I should just focus on finishing this one first, and I am, sort of, but I still need to plan for the future.  I have decided I have better results when I start with an actual photo to work from, so I have been hunting for ones I can work from.  The problem I am encountering is that my eyesight is getting so bad that I am having a hard time deciphering a lot of the details in the photos I have been trying to work from.  I am going to have to start trying to figure out how to do some of it on the computer to sharpen the details if i am going to get very far.

Other than that, I spent the day creating new graphics for my husband, and tomorrow I will do some more.  Now that I have some basic templates worked out I should be able to zip through a bunch more rather quickly so I can get on to the next phase of work to be done.  Still not exactly sure what that is but hopefully by the time I am ready he will be able to explain it to me.

For now though I think I will sign off of here and go take a nice, long, hot bath and see if I can relieve a little of this pain before I head to bed.  Tomorrow is another day and it will be here soon enough, I will talk at you all again then.

This Friday's Ramblings

Hi there!  I am back again!  I made marked progress on that art quilt project today.  The third time really was the charm on this one I guess.  I am not too sure how much it looks like her, but she does look pretty, so she is a keeper.  I have her face and hair done (well put together anyway) and I think I have found a background for her.  She still needs a neck, and maybe a shoulder, not sure how far I will take her yet.

I did end up pulling out my other drawer full of colored pencils.  As awesome as the Inktense pencils are, the color range is limited.  Since this project is meant to hang on the wall and not to be washed I can use a wider range of supplies on it.  I am even thinking about giving her real earrings when all is said and done.  As difficult as this has been for me stepping outside my comfort zone, it sure is turning out to be a lot of fun.  I think I would like to work on more portraits in the future, but there are some other things that I need to focus on first.  

I haven't forgotten the other Blogs by the way, I will be back to posting to them again shortly, I never really intended them to be as post heavy as this one is anyway.  I am going to be busy working for my husband again for the next little while though.  Business has really tanked since eBay's stupid rule changes last Spring and things are starting to look pretty bleak.  We need to find a way to boost sales, and quickly, or we are going to be in serious trouble.  So if I end up being kind of scarce for a while I am just working my eyeballs out and I will pick up again when I have a chance.  I will still be posting during all of this, probably just not as much. 

I wish I could just go get a job and bring in some real money like regular people do.  I have been trying for the last 25 years to figure out some way to make enough money to at least help pay the bills. It doesn't seem to matter what I do, it never ends up working.  I have come to the conclusion that I am pretty much financially pointless.  I do work for my husband, a lot.  And he says it does help to make money, but nothing I have ever done on my own has ever been successful financially.  I just don't think there is anything that I am ever going to be able to do to change that.  Not that I have given up trying, I just need to focus on trying to help him first, because his business can pay the bills.  It did pretty good for us before eBay fucked us up so badly with their stupid arbitrary rule changes.

Where there is a will, there is a way, right?  I sure as hell hope so!  I don't know what the fuck we are going to do if things don't get better soon!  We have already told the kids that Christmas is going to be a lot leaner than usual this year.  Its not like they need a whole lot more toys, they rarely play with anything but Legos and video games, and the have plenty of both of those.  

Hopefully things will pick up soon and won't be so scary anymore.  I have to have faith that they will, the alternative is not an alternative that I can handle right now. 

     

  

Thursday Night Rambles

Hello again everyone.  Mother has been working on her art quilting ideas today, and while I still don't have anything to show you all yet, I made pretty good progress today.  I figured some things out and I think I am starting to develop an actual plan.

I have been working on a portrait quilt.  It is small, probably around 8" squarish.  Not really sure since I haven't finished it yet.  I have started it twice.  And tomorrow I will start it again.  I am getting better each time, and the first one was actually pretty fucking good for a first attempt, so I might have something to show you someday.  I am hoping that this one will actually be a Christmas gift for my oldest son since I am working from pictures of his girlfriend.  I promised her i wouldn't make her look "bad" so I am really trying to be as perfect as I can on this one.

I think I have most of the kinks worked out.  I have actually "drawn" a pattern to work from that looks pretty good, now I just have to cut it apart and put it together, again.  I also started working on some other patterns for future projects, but it has come to my attention that I need ink in my printer, again, and I really hate to ask my husband to fix it.  It is still printing, and it works fine for work, but it doesn't print pictures work a damn and I need a bunch of them printed at the moment.

It does feel good to be back to playing with fabrics instead of Facebook though.  I got sucked back in again during the election and post-election hoopla, but I managed to tear myself away again today and get back to work.  I even finally opened the $150 colored pencil set I bought over a year ago that I hadn't opened yet!  These things are pretty cool (they better be for the fucking price!)!  They are pencils, but they work like a cross between watercolors and ink, and they are permanent when heat set.  They are called - Derwent Inktense Pencils and you can use them dry and then add water, or wet the fabric and then use the pencil, or both.  I had a lot of fun playing with them this evening figuring out just how they work.

I also brought in my oil paint sticks, and my fabric markers, but they are still so many things out in the sewing room that I could really put to better use if I had them in the house where I am working.  It is too cold already to work out there, and that will just get worse before it gets better.

I need to find a better way to organize my fabric and embellishments for the art quilting though.  One of those scrap booking carts with lots of drawers might work, if I can figure out how to fit it into the room without getting in my husband's way.  Or figure out a way to move my stuff in here and the boys extra school stuff back into the bonus room.  Hmm, now there's a new idea I will have to ponder.  The furniture is a little more difficult to move on the off chance that my son and his girlfriend ever want to stay the night when they come down to visit.  But that's not likely to happen much, and the stuff is small, if not quite portable, so I think I could make it work.  I will have to do some measuring and see what I would need to do.  It isn't as warm in here, or as quiet, but I think there is more room to spread out without being in my husband's way as much.  It just might work.  Now I just have to work up the motivation to move all the shit around.

That will have to wait for another day.  I am tired and it is late so I think i will be signing off for the night.  Hope you all enjoyed what it turns out is my 200th Blog Post of all time here at Mother is NOT Pleased.  I will leave you with a silly picture to make up for the fact that this entire post was pretty pointless.  Thank you for reading it anyway, you are a greater help to me than you will ever know.

      

   

Post Election Elation

Oh my goodness Internet People, Mother feels soooo very much better today.  It is like a hundred pound weight has been suddenly lifted from my shoulders!  Of course the other thousand pounds are still there, but every little bit helps!  I am extremely proud of my fellow citizens of Washington State for trying to take two giant leaps forward in civil rights yesterday.  I know we still have a long road ahead of us on both of those issues, but at least we are finally headed in the right direction!

I suppose I should be more specific for all of you who have no fucking clue what the hell we did here in Washington last night that has Mother so happy.  I spoke out on one of the Issues over on my Issues Blog, known as Referendum 74, in which Washington voters officially approved "Gay Marriage" as being legal in Washington State!  Mother is VERY Pleased!  No, I am not gay, if that matters, and I don't know anyone who is really, other than a few wonderful people I have met on Facebook.  I did have some LGBT (add whatever letters you need) friends when I was younger, but I haven't seen any of them in years.  To me this, as is the other issue, is a matter of Civil Rights, and I will always stand up in support of ALL Civil Rights for Everyone!  And of course this is about Love, and you all know I have no choice but to stand up for Love!  That is who I am.

The other issue the voters dealt with here in Washington State, was to legalize the Recreational Use of Marijuana by Adults.  Now, I am not so delusional as to think that this is really going to be allowed to stand unchallenged by the Federal Government, but you will have to forgive me for giving in to just the tiniest bit of hope that this might be the crack in the wall that will allow us to finally end the MOST Destructive and Costly War we have ever fought against our own citizens.  I have been waiting for this day for nearly 30 years, you will have to forgive me if I wallow in just a tiny bit of joy before reality comes crashing back down to remind me that the fight has just begun.

If you have missed that part previously, I Love pot!  Marijuana, Cannabis, Weed, whatever the fuck you want to call it, I don't care, I just fucking Love the stuff, beyond all scope of reason at times, so trying to assail me with any opinion to the contrary is going to prove completely fruitless.  I have done the research, I know the truth, and I will not listen to a single second of the ridiculous propaganda that people have been spoon fed by the narrow-minded, greed-fueled war machine.  I won't assail you with all of my reasoning right now, but I will say that 80% of my support of legalization has to do as much with the potential of hemp and what it could mean to our economy, and our planet, if it was utilized to its fullest potential instead of ignored and mocked. 

Of course the rest of my support is due to its currently most popular use in this country.  People should not be going to jail and having their lives destroyed by their own government when they are not doing anything to hurt anybody.  Those mofo's on Wall Street got to rob half of America blind, they got paid off when shit tanked, but the people who lost the money are still out, and then Wall Street exec's still collect bonuses for it!  These "People" have destroyed lives, stolen homes and savings from people, wrecked our economy and keep threatening to hold us all hostage if we try to put a stop to their excesses, and they get bonuses, but the Mom in the Mid West who sold $22 worth of pot to buy diapers for her kid - she got years in jail and her kids removed from her custody!  You wonder what is wrong with our country? - there it is - right fucking there! 

Now, I am not actually one to actually advocate for the complete legalization of all drugs, but I do support decriminalization of use.  I think EVERYONE would be better served if we looked at the hard drugs as a health problem instead of a legal issue.  But, I am the first one to tell you, those drugs are bad, very fucking bad, and you should stay as far away from them as humanly possible at all times.

Pot is NOT a "Drug" like heroin or cocaine or meth for fuckssake quit pretending it is.  It is less dangerous than freakin Tylenol, and Far more effective, so could we please get real about it now?  And, by the way, the idea that kids will have easier access to it if it is legal is just delusional.  Right now if you ask any teenager in this country they could probably get you a bag of weed within 24 hours, even if they don't smoke it, if they go to school they know someone who does.  And by the way, the whole "Gateway drug' thing is delusional as well.  I started drinking alcohol long before I ever smoked pot, and when I found pot, I gave up drinking.  I have never done "Drugs", at all.  As I said, I did my research, those things are fucking nasty, I don't touch them.  And maybe, just maybe, if we quit lying to kids about pot being so terribly "bad" they might be able to take us seriously when we tell them something else is bad when it really is!

 So Mother is once again cautiously optimistic about the future, and relieved to know that at least half of my fellow Americans chose Love and Compassion over Greed and exclusion.  I can only hope that the other half will some day choose to leave the dark ages behind them and walk forward with the rest of us into the 21st Century.  It would sure be nice to have you all here with us, but we can't keep waiting forever.       

           

     

    

 

Mother is Tired

Aloha fine People of the Interwebs!  No, I am not in Hawaii (wish I was!), just got tired of saying the same thing to start every post, so I thought I would change it up a little.  Sorry, i am just feeling kinda over-stimulated at the moment and I am needing to let it out.  

I really am finding it difficult to continue to Love people.  I know there are some good people out there, like most of you who actually bother to read my thoughts and try to understand where I am coming from without bothering to throw judgements around like they are party favors.  But those other people are just so damn loud.  And Obnoxious.  And Sickening.  And I really, Really, REALLY want to believe they are still the minority in this country, but at the moment i am just not so sure.

I want to have faith in my fellows Americans.  But I don't have much left.  I am just scared to death of what will happen tomorrow, or worse yet, what will not happen tomorrow.  I really, Really, REALLY wish that the Republicans hadn't gone so fucking far off the deep end these last few years.  IT seems to me that as the rabid extremist Democrats were finally fading into the woodwork the extremists on the other side saw an opening and turned it up by a factor of a thousand.

Why does everybody in this country find it so necessary to control what everybody else can or cannot do?  I don't fucking care what you want to do, what you want to believe, what you want to say, it is your life - live it however the hell you want to, just keep it out of my house!  Why can't everyone just mind their own fucking business in this country?  And quit telling me that crap about "protecting the children".  You want to protect children then you arm them with the FACTS and a family that actually pays attention to them and you will protect them far more than any law telling me what I can or cannot do with my own body will EVER do!

I am just sad.  Saddened by what I see as sheer stupidity.  The destruction of our planet for the sake of greed and profit and the exploitation of our people for the same ends is just sickening to me.  And I am NOT some tree-hugging fanatic either, there are some things that need to be done in order to provide for all the people on the planet, I just want some fucking BALANCE!  I am so tired of the extremists controlling everything, or rather, trying to control everything.  They are all just freaking ridiculous in their hypocrisy and I really cannot stand it anymore.

So I am going to start telling everyone who stops to listen, exactly how I really feel about everything I can think of.  Unlike the ones I am speaking out against, I am not going out into the world trying to force anyone to listen to me.  I am just here talking, you can come and listen if you want, but no one is making you!  I am going to keep rambling away whether anyone is here or not.  Maybe I should try to be nice and accommodating so that I could get lots of hits and maybe someday actually get paid for this shit, but the whole point of starting this Blog (and the Facebook Pages) was to have a place where I do NOT have to be Nice or Accommodating!  I spent my whole fucking LIFE being Nice and Accommodating, and you know what it got me?  Fucked!  That's it.  That's all I ever got.  Fucked!  I am DONE being Nice and Accommodating.  I am just going to be me.  

I really do not need any one else to like me or what I have to say.  I am so beyond that it is not even funny.  I have no friends.  Other than my husband and three of my kids, I have no family.  I have been alone for the better portion of my life, no matter who the hell was around, so being alone now has become just another fact of life.  

I have no clue why the hell 26,000 people bothered to "like" my Page when they wouldn't give me a second thought if they passed me on the street.  And most of them, if they did give me a thought, it wouldn't be a positive one that is for damn sure!  I have spent my life on the outskirts of society and that is where most people would prefer I stay.  And I really have no problem staying there, I chose to live here for a reason and 30 years later that reason has not changed. What has changed is my willingness to stay silent while I am here.

        

     

Bitch Mother Bitch!

Hello again everyone.  Mother is NOT Pleased.  Mother is Really Fucking Pissed.  I know that is Father's job, but apparently we are work sharing today.  I really am tired of people who feel they need to insult me, argue with me, or otherwise attempt to force their sick and twisted world views upon me and MY Facebook Page!  And by the way, if you are disagreeing with me, I automatically think you are sick and twisted and NOTHING you say is going to make a tiny bit of difference to me, and no one else is going to see it, so just shut the fuck up and go away already!

The ones posting comments on the Blog are actually quite funny - EVERY comment on ALL of my Blogs is moderated by me BEFORE anyone else will ever see it.  If you are disagreeing with me, do you really think I am going to let it post?  Are you all really that stupid?  I am not, so you too can shut the fuck up.  MY Blogs, and MY Facebook Pages are where I post what I want to post, where I say what I want to say.  If you do not like what I say or post - leave.  Pretty fucking simple.  No one has ever forced you to read the shit I post.  No one has ever demanded that you agree with the stuff I post.  If you do not like what I post just make your own damn page, call it "Everything that is wrong with Mother is NOT Pleased" and you can tell the world how stupid or ignorant YOU think I am.  Feel free.  I will not complain, I will not care what you say because I will not see what you say.  Then you can exercise your freedom of speech all you want - just like I do here.  YOU have NO freedom of speech Here, only I do.

I have been very upfront and clear about my philosophy on all of this.  It should not come as a surprise to anyone, if it does you can blame Facebook for not showing my Posts to everyone because I have said it over and over again.  I do not expect everyone to like everything I post, hell I don't even like everything I post!  All I have ever asked is that if you do not like it you do NOT tell me about it.  You are making me physically ill every time you do that!  I do NOT deal with conflict.  At all.  Ever.  It causes me real physical pain.  I am not trying to be a bitch.  I HAVE to be a bitch as a matter of self preservation.  Do NOT tell me to just get over it, or let it go.  I CAN'T!  It hurts.  A LOT.  

I know that I should have never put myself into the position to allow people to cause me such pain, but I did, and I am trying to cope with it the best I know how without letting down all the crazy people out there who depend on my insanity to make them feel better.  I am NOT going to stop talking just because you feel the need to cause me pain.  I am actually going to Talk Louder and more frequently (after I ban your ass) so you are not doing anyone any favors.

    

Please just leave me alone if you can't be nice.  I have enough problems in my real life already, I don't need any help creating more.  I live with pain levels everyday that would take down an elephant, I really do not need any help there either.  There are LOTS of Blogs and Facebook pages that encourage interaction and discussion, I do not own any of them.  I have no interest in your thoughts or opinions if they disagree with mine, you are certainly welcome to have them, but I do NOT want to hear about the.  EVER!  I am NOT being close minded either - I am willing to research any and every subject (and I do) and I am even willing to change my mind if I am ever wrong, but YOU are NOT going to be the one to change it for me.  So Please just Shut the Fuck UP and let me live in peace.

   

Some Thoughts on Going Powerless

Hello again Internet People!  I want to thank everyone for their support and cooperation concerning yesterday's Blog post.  In less than 24 hours it has already become the 5th most read post in the history of this Blog, and I thank every single one of you for that!  I probably should have mentioned before that I have no real world connection to Mr. Rick or his book.  He sought me out on Mother's Facebook Page, probably because of my reputation for supporting ALL anti-bullying efforts, but I really don't know why, I never asked.  When he first approached me about promoting his cause on my Page, I didn't know him, at all.  Since then we have exchanged a few emails, and though I still don't know him at all, I have grown very fond of him and his family.  It is so comforting to know that there are people like them out there in the real world fighting to protect children from a system built for efficiency rather than effectiveness, and I will continue to do anything I can do to help them in their efforts.

In other news from Mother's house, I actually got to talk to a female friend of mine from my past today (well we chatted on Facebook, at this point that is close enough - thank goodness I was talked out of closing that down or I would have missed this!).  We haven't really spoken for over 15 years, but she was once upon a time my very bestest friend.  I was so thrilled when she took the time to chat with me this morning, and I hope she will do so again.

About an hour after that our power went out.  Completely and totally gone.  Took just over an hour for them to get in turned back on, which is really not bad and I am certainly not complaining knowing how many people on the other side of the country are still suffering.  It was just funny to me how completely and totally dependent we have become on electricity.  I have told you all before that once upon a time I spent three years living without "mains" electricity, "off the grid" as they say, so one would think that an hour without power should be no big deal, right?  Well, it really wasn't so much a big deal (until after the power came back on - but we'll get to that), but I just found it amazing how difficult is was to be forced to try to find something to do that did not involve electricity.  Every idea I had of what I needed to do today, or was set up to be able to do today, came back to requiring electricity.  I had the kids playing a board game within ten minutes, but I was still running ideas for myself for another 15 minutes before my husband finally gave me the mail to wrap. Fortunately by the time I was half done with that the power was back on, and life was back to normal.  Except, of course it is not.

Nothing around here is ever normal or easy, what would be the fun in that?  (Read sarcasm into that statement - it is heavy with it)  The network router is fried, and I have no idea what else also fried, but my poor husband has been bitching and grumbling for the last 3 hours trying to get everything back up and running again, and I do not think he is done yet!  When I lived "off the grid" it was long before computers were a part of my world, I am not so sure I could ever do it again.  

I remember all those years I waited for the day I would finally be able to have a computer of my very own.  Long before the internet or any of the fancy programs so common today were even considered I knew that having a computer would change my life.  Unfortunately no one else wanted me to be able to change my life, so it took a very long time before I was able to get my first one.  And I did buy it for myself, just after I started college in 1997.  I remember that I paid just over $1400 for it and it did not even have a gigabyte of memory!  And it did indeed change my life.  I graduated College with the help of that computer, I even met my husband on it!  I have been through many, many computers since then, all of them thanks to my husband, and every one of them has helped in making my life better, even if they have caused more than their fair share of grief as well.  I sure would not ever want to live without a computer ever again, even an hour without it was stressful enough.

Fortunately for me, my husband is a computer genius and as long as the world doesn't fall to shit I will probably never have to worry about it (knock on wood).  I will continue to take comfort and pride in the knowledge that I could live without electricity if I had to, but I am sure as hell glad I don't have to!

        

Mommy, I Wish I Could Tell You What They Did To Me In School Today. - Book Review

When the author, Richard S. Stripp Sr., asked me to help raise awareness for his cause on Facebook I was more than happy to do so at every given opportunity.  His book, "Mommy, I Wish I Could Tell You What They Did To Me In School Today.", focuses much needed attention upon the "Everyday Atrocities Faced by Special Needs Children" in the one place they should be the safest, at school.  Raising awareness of this issue is something that is extremely important to me personally and anything I can do to help, I will do.  But when he asked me to read the book and write this review, I have to admit, I was hesitant to agree to do it. 

I didn't want to read the book.  I was scared.  I knew it would make me cry.  I knew it would affect me deeply on a very personal level and bring up memories and emotions I really did not want to be made to deal with, ones I have been actively trying to avoid for years. And then I thought about all the children who are out there, still being mistreated, still being hurt mentally, physically, and emotionally by the very people their parents entrusted with their safety.  My pain became irrelevant, stopping theirs is what really matters.

 So I spent an afternoon with a box of tissues and this extremely moving book.  And I cried my little eyes out for the children whose stories "Mr. Rick" tells.  As a special education professional, the author opens a door into a world seldom witnessed by outsiders, and shines a light on the dirty little secrets many people in the field would prefer not be exposed to the eyes of the world.  That such neglect and abuses as these children experienced abound within the public school systems in this country is troubling enough, but the attempts to negate and cover-up these atrocities are unforgivable.

Having raised a special needs child of my own I understand first hand many of the challenges involved in dealing with those who need to be cared for differently.  For those of you who do not know, I have a son with Asperger's Syndrome, a high-functioning form of Autism.  He was also born 7 weeks premature and had a host of minor medical issues as an infant and toddler, most of which resulted from the treatment he received in the hospital after his birth.  My son was non-verbal until he was 5 1/2 years old, and then he pretty much just repeated phrases he had heard in movies for the next year or so.  He could use them "appropriately" in a conversation, but they were not his own words, they were movie lines he had memorized. 

So I had my own reservations about sending my son off to the care of strangers everyday when I was not sure he could tell me what was happening to him each day.  When he started Kindergarten the first time we still did not have an "official" diagnosis.  I had figured it out, but no one wanted to listen to me, I was just his Mother. His teacher actually argued with me, saying there was "no way that child is autistic, he is just spoiled rotten because you refused to send him to day care."  Yes, she actually told me that, and yes, I still had to send my son (and my daughter) off to the care of this woman everyday.  My son was lucky though, he did have his sister.  She is 18 months younger than him, but due to the issues with the school system they ended up starting Kindergarten together.  And all throughout elementary school, I demanded that they be put in the same class together.  Every year, at every school they attended, the administration and the teachers would try to fight me about it, and every year they were forced to put them together.  I knew the only way to ensure he was treated appropriately was to have someone there to speak up for him until he could learn to do it for himself. 

The children whose stories are told in this book didn't have little sisters who could report home to Mom what was happening to them at school.  Their parents trusted that the teachers and administrators at their children's schools were trained professionals who knew how to help their children to learn everything they were capable of learning.  I can only imagine the shock and horror they must have felt when they learned the truth.  But these children were the lucky ones.  They had someone come into their lives who was not only willing to listen to them, but was willing to speak out for them, even when it was not in his own best interests.  How many children are there in our public schools today being abused and mistreated who do not have anyone watching the people who are supposed to be watching out for them?  Even if the number was only one, that would be far too many.  

More than just raising awareness though, this book provides concrete solutions which could eliminate the vast majority of the mistreatment that our most vulnerable children currently endure.  Key among those is appropriate training for the people dealing with these children.  My son attended a total of three different public schools during his elementary school years.  And every time we moved to a new school I was the one who went to the school and educated the teachers on my son's condition and what it would mean to them.  Most of them had never even heard of Asperger's Syndrome, and the only thing they knew about Autism came from the movie "Rain Man".  Because my son was in mainstream classes I also asked that the teachers inform and educate the other students about his condition so there would be no excuses for his mistreatment from anyone.  And because they were educated, he had very few problems with the other kids, they accepted him for who he was, quirks and all.

In the closing chapter, Mr. Rick offers a rather simple piece of advise for those dealing with special needs children that I think everyone should apply to every interaction they have with another person.  "If someone was treating me in the same manner in which I'm treating this child, would I be fine with it?"  Treat others as you want to be treated.  Its a pretty simple rule that a lot of people seem to forget these days.  Special needs children are just children, small people who need love, compassion, and understanding, just like every other human being on the planet.  They should be treated as such.  They deserve nothing less.  

As much as I resisted reading this book in the beginning, I am extremely grateful that the author asked me to do so.   And I am even more grateful that he wrote it in the first place.  By speaking out against the mistreatment of these children and others, he has placed his own career on the line more than once.  Those who would prefer no one knows what they have done, and will continue to do if left unchecked, fight relentlessly against anyone challenging their status quo.  

As painful as it is to see the reality depicted within the pages of this book, everyone needs to know the truth of what is happening so that we can end it now.  Evil feeds on ignorance.  Together we can make a better world for all of our children, but only if we are willing to open our eyes to what is wrong, and demand that it be changed.  In his book, "Mommy, I Wish I Could Tell You What They Did To Me In School Today." Richard S. Stripp, Sr, does exactly that.  I hope all of you will read this extremely moving book and join with me in support of his efforts to reform a defective and dangerous system.  For all of our children.

            

For more information please visit the website: http://www.mommyiwish.com/ 

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Thursday Update

Hello Internet People!  Well, I really broke my great record of writing every day, I went two entire days without writing a damn thing!  I am not going to let it bother me though, I am just going to pick up where we left off and start again.  

Tuesday was just a fucking weird ass day all the way around.  I woke up with the oddest feeling and the day just went to shit from there.  Still not sure why I was feeling so weird that day, really don't even know how to describe the feeling, it was just weird.  Kinda like someone else was in my head, but not really.  Anyway, I got up and tried to get to work, and my computer decided it was time to die.  It had been having issues for weeks, one thing after another, but now it is just dead.  Fortunately my husband was able to save all the hard drives so I did not lose any data, but it will take weeks before he gets all my programs back up and running, and some of them I may never get back.  I am lucky that I already had a back-up computer, and my laptop, so I am never without, which when you run an online business, is pretty damn important.

So the computer dying really had no influence on the fact that I didn't do any writing on Tuesday, other than the time suck it caused and the addition to the general malaise of the day.  I just did not want to write that day, so I didn't do it.  

Yesterday was a whole different story.  I spent 10 hours ironing fusible webbing to the back of more than 70 yards of 8 1/2" wide strips of fabric yesterday.  By the time I was finished I was in excruciating pain and it was 10:30 pm; I just didn't have the time or the energy left to write.  I do, however, now have another couple hundred colors for my art quilt palette, so it was mostly worth the pain and suffering.

Now, I am here, bright and early today (early for me anyway) and ready to spend some time banging away at my keyboard today.  I will be heading over to my newest Blog "Mother Has Issues" when I get done here to write up some very bitchy posts regarding the upcoming elections, so be looking for those later today (I hope).  I also got a new book in the mail this week that I will be writing a review of in the next few days, so stay tuned for that one, it promises to be very interesting.  

I did do a little baking the other night.  I made some little fruit pie pockets, which I have managed to eat two of so far.  Unfortunately I didn't think about taking pictures until it was too late, so there will be no write up on that one, but maybe next time.  I am thinking about making some apple bread next, that sounds kind of tasty at the moment.  I might even be able to remember to take some pictures this time.  No promises on that, but I am trying.