Sometimes the helping hand you need is the one attached to your own arm

Thank God for this blog, or else I would put my foot in my mouth on a routine basis. I would speak my mind and say things to people that probably should be left unsaid. I would hurt people’s feelings without blinking an eye, and it wouldn’t bother me one bit.

I have a Facebook friend, and I use the term ‘friend’ loosely and lightly. We all have those ‘friends’ don’t we? Those casual acquaintances, those people that add us as friends, that we don’t talk to anymore, but we keep them on our ‘friends’ list just because we are too lazy or too busy or too whatever to delete them.

Anyways, like I said… I have this Facebook friend. She’s one of these people that is constantly in need. (Feel free to read about my previous mention of her “need”.) She can’t keep a job, she’s always struggling financially. She has too many kids to count, and one or all of them are always having problems. Her Facebook statuses consist of prayers asking God to lay His hands on her and heal her, heal her kids, take care of her, give her more hours at work, find her a new job, find her husband a job, blah, blah-blibbidy-blabbidy-blah.

*sigh*

It takes everything in my power to just ignore it and move past her posts on Facebook and ignore her. I don’t know why I don’t just delete her as a friend (and I think after writing this post, I probably WILL). I don’t believe that begging God for help needs to be broadcasted in a Facebook status update to hundreds of people.

But today’s status was the last straw. Today’s was the one that prompted me to lose my cool. Rather than unleashing my political diatribe onto this person, I’ve decided to write it here– semi-anonymously. HA!

This morning her status reads:

Can’t believe in sevens day my daughter will be an eighth grader. How am i suppose to buy everything to get her ready for school when I haven’t worked in a month. Then they had to go to stupid uniforms. Another expense I CAN’T AFFORD. WHERE IS MY STIMULAS PACKAGE MR. PRESIDENT!!!!!

I don’t know about you, but I am sick and freakin’ tired of our nation being in the freakin’ toilet. Pardon my language boys and girls, but since when did it become the duty and job of our President to bail our asses out of the situation we’ve put ourselves in? We as a nation have gotten GREEDY. We have gotten greedy and corrupt and we need to stop it. NOW. If this person can’t buy her kids school supplies, she needs to get a job or find some stuff in her house to sell. Please don’t drain any more resources from MY TAX DOLLARS to STIMULATE YOUR HOUSEHOLD INCOME!!!

Have we really gotten to a collective point in time that when we as a society get in a bind and we simply cry out “Help!” Then, this stimulus check arrives in the mailbox and everything is OK for another month or so? Isn’t that kinda like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound? Yet, here’s some person asking our President to bail her out because she needs school supplies for her kids.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but studies may have shown that logging off of Facebook and actually looking for a job have resulted in one actually finding said job and earning some MONEY to pay for those needed school supplies.

Maybe if everyone in our country started helping THEMSELVES rather than relying on the Government and our President to bail them out, we wouldn’t be in such a mess right now. Like I said, the helping hand you need might just be the one attached to your own arm.

Note: I have a heart, people. I truly do. If I thought that this person was truly in need, I would go out right now and buy this family a whole truckload of school supplies. But I know in my heart that if I walked in their front door, I would see a $50 carton of cigarettes on their kitchen counter and a case of beer in their fridge and that negates my willingness to give. When people have money to buy ALCOHOL AND CIGARETTES, I do not feel sorry for them.

Now I’m going to to into Facebook and do some deleting.

Parting is such sweet sorrow

This blog has certainly seen better days.

I have been blogging off and on for over four years now, and I feel like I finally have simply run out of things to say. My kids have gotten older now, and frankly, they aren’t doing anything funny anymore. Things happening in my personal life right now need to remain private and not splashed all over this site, and as you might have noticed… I have decided to password-protect several of my previous posts. I hate having to do that, because I liked sharing my past experiences with all of you. And it bothers the hell out of me, because I have always despised when others bloggers do that. Because seriously– why the hell do you bother posting something when you aren’t going to let people read it, for Pete’s sake?

But now– I get it. I understand why. A little bit. So if you want to read them, the password is in this post somewhere. And that’s all I’m going to say. I don’t want to delete those posts, because someday, for some reason, there might be someone out there that needs to read them. Someone that needs to know that I went through those experiences.

So the story will stay. For now.

Over the last few weeks, I have logged on to this site SEVENTEEN TIMES, only to sit and stare at a blank screen. Nothing comes to my mind to write about. Nothing witty to say, no funny anecdotes to share. No smart-aleck comments to share about any current events.

I am just this person stuck in a rut, living my life on the same repeat day after day after day. Get up, go to work, come home, run kids around, go to bed, and do the same thing all over again. You would get bored if that is what you read here every day, but thats all I’ve got to give lately.

Well, that and password-protected posts.

I’ll come up with something.

As one of my favorite aunts used to say “Life is short… Eat cookies.”

Now I’m hungry.

There really are NO excuses, are there?

Leave it to someone at Nike. This ad has been around forever, but I have now seen it on at least three different blogs or websites lately.

I can make up a million excuses as why I don’t exercise. Most of them center around not having enough time, or complaining that I am too busy.

It’s like someone at Nike is trying to tell me something.

Protected: Words Cannot Describe…

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I’m going to make it a good one.

There is this heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach this morning.   It is a mixture of excitement, fear, anxiety and stress.  Simmering on the back burner for the last 18 years, it has finally been turned up on high this week. 

Today, it just might boil over.  

Today is the day.

Today is the day I meet my son.

Last Thursday, I met with the adoption caseworker, signed some papers officially agreeing to open the adoption records, and I discussed some lingering questions and concerns I had about meeting him.   During our meeting, I discovered there were still some things I had not yet dealt with from my past, and I learned that I probably never really got true closure in this whole ordeal.    I am hoping that meeting him today– and meeting his family– will help me finally be at complete peace with everything.

Funny thing is, for the last 18 years, I thought I was “fine”.  I know that I don’t regret what I did.  I know I did the right thing.  I know that he and I are both better off for this.   But me pasting on a happy face and returning to life as normal after something like that was a farce, and I don’t believe I ever properly dealt with the feelings and emotions I was facing at the time.  

Anyways, today is the day.  I will sit through work today, not really being able to concentrate on anything.  Knowing an amazing opportunity awaits me this afternoon at 4:00.  Fully aware that my world will be changed forever today– June 3, 2010.

Because today is the day.

Today I meet my son.