A part of me is missing...

I can't find my journal in this mess of a freshly moved house, so I feel as though I am missing a part of me. Since I journal with my hands, I suppose I could say my right hand in missing. It feels weird not to have that part of me, that safe place to settle in to at night, or during my day. I don't want to buy a new one though, because I want the one I started with. So, I suppose I will have to start opening boxes and bags of stuff and begin the search tonight after work.

I just started reading this crazy and outrageous story called The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka the other night. It is very bizarre but has some great humor in to it. I'm anxious to find out just what happens in the end. It starts with a man trying to get up and get ready for work, but he wakes up and discovers he has transformed into some kind of insect. He scares his family half to death as they finally discover his secret and then they gradually begin to accept the transformation and start to take care of him. It truly is a strange story.

Well, time to go to work. I suppose I will write more on this blog until I find my missing journal. :)

Just life

I am sitting here watching Big Trouble in Little China. It's a classic. I love the dudes with lamp shade hats. Kurt Russel just cracks me up too when he tires to act like he isn't scared but you can tell that he is freaking out. And that part with the lipstick! Fricken Hilarious!

Life has been crazy as of late. After visiting family when Gram died, we came back and started moving. We are in a different rental now and going through another purging of stuff period. I am amazed at the things we have collected over the last two years. It's sad really to think of all the money we have waisted on stuff that we will end up getting rid of.

Home schooling is still in question around these parts, although I have not freaked out and put my girls in public school like some. I was asked by one lady about the home schooling laws in Nevada because she is thinking about packing up and moving there. Maybe I will do the same if home schooling becomes outlawed. Shad can get himself a little apartment and fly in on the weekends. Now that would be crazy!

I got to teach another class tonight at my work experience. It went really great and I am putting ideas in the head of my boss about hiring me on an on call basis. We shall see what happens.

Time for sleep now...

More stuff...

So things are moving right along. We went to be with family for a while, then had to get back as we found a new rental house and we are moving into it over the next couple of weeks. I am also having to make up missed time at my internship and have a ton of school work to do. When it rains, it pours right?

I feel like it is a dark time with light up ahead and we are struggling to get there but things just keep blocking our path. Frustrating! And I miss Gram, but I'm glad she isn't suffering anymore.

When things calm down I am taking a full day to hang at the beach. Anyone want to come along?

Sad

Gram died today.


I'm sad...

My best friend is on her way here today. Woooohoooo! We leave to pick her up at the airport in a little while. I'm looking forward to seeing her and hanging out. She has never been to San Fran so we will go there and I'm sure she will freak out and take a ton of pictures. I just hope the rain clears up before we go. The big storm that was supposed to get here yesterday and never showed up. This morning the wind is whipping a bit and it obviously rained all night and looks as though it will continue throughout the day. A good day for looking at old photos by the fire and just catching up on life.

I started writing a story last week and then my computer was attacked by a virus and I ended up losing it all. It totally sucked knowing I had written so much and "poof!" it was gone. I also had about six months worth of journal that is gone as well. That hurt. Sometimes I just hate computers.

So we are watching a Klitschko fight and it is a horrible fight. They are tackling each other and the other guy is taking huge punches but does these weird things to get hooked up with Klitschko. Crazy! I found it interesting to look at the faces of the onlookers. Most of them are men, (no big surprise there) and the interesting part is watching their faces as they watch the fight. Some of them smile the whole time, some are serious, some yelling out, I just find it interesting.

Oh, I read this book by Nikki Sixx called The Heroin Diaries over the last two days. It was very interesting to see how he would lie to himself regarding his drug use. He constantly tried to control the way he would get clean until it killed him. It is amazing he is still alive. The amount of drugs he did and with what they were, it's just amazing. If you want to know what a rockers life while on drugs was like, read it. But it is xxx so be aware. You could also check out The Dirt.

Well, Klitschko won. No suprise there. Time to get moving.
Enjoy your day!

Life is Funny...ha, ha.

Working in drug recovery has been eye opening, inspiring, and painful. It has brought back many memories and gosts of the past. But I have learned a ton and have seen change within myself and most importantly, whithin the group I work with. The only bad part about this whole experience is that eventually it will come to an end and I will have to move on to another area of counseling.

Moving on to other things...

So I joined Joe in writing five pages a week and found it easy to come up with over five pages of story to write about the other night. I didn't even have any idea what I would put down on the paper, it just sort of spilled out. I am interested to see what all comes about. Then I will have to figure out what to do with it all.

Kenzie had a 24 hour flu this last week. I got home just in time to help her get to the bathroom to throw up. I felt so bad because as well all know, throwing up really sucks! It tears at my heart when my kids are sick and I can't do anything to fix it. Hopefully we all stay healthy and make it through the final leg of winter without any more sickness.

Gram is heavy on my heart as she is now unable to leave her bed. She sleeps most of the day away. I miss her and wish I was there with her so I could love on her some more.

Here is a little trivia info for President's Day...
President's Jackson and Garfield were both born in log cabbins.

That is all...

Finally after nagging for two years, my best friend is going to visit. I'm very excited to share all I have learned about this wonderful place we have been blessed to live in. We will go to the city one day, then the beach the next. It's going to be nice having her here and getting a chance to catch up on life.

In other news...
The last two nights I worked, I was able to facilitate the group meeting with my friend Rebecca. We played drug jeopardy the first night which was a lot of fun for us and the clients. Then the next time we talked about relapse. That was a very serious group meeting as there were some clients going through some deep emotions that night, but they shared a ton with us and I think we all walked away with something good.

I'm totally enjoying myslef working there, although sometimes I wonder if we are doing as well as we are told by some of the counselors. I have thought about asking for a part time job there for after the interning is done, but am not sure if it will work later on when I have to do another work experience. Not to mention that they might not want to hire me anyway. And I would have to make sure school with the girls came first before any of it all. I guess I just need to do more thinking and praying about all of that.

Today is my day off from everything! I think I will.....um....well....all I can think about is getting school work done and cleaning house. I think I need a new hobby.

Ant Saga Continues...

They are attacking! I am still not sure where they are coming from, but they are there and slowly multiplying. I have taken just about everything off of the counters, sprayed, laid traps, and still they appear. The professionals are going to come on Wednesday to do thier voodoo majic but I am not looking forward to another round of battle with the little ninja ants tomorrow morning. I worked out tonight in preperation for the event. I hope I can make it another day.

Tomorrow night I am facilitating a group and we are doing drug jeapordy! I will have to share more later.

The Ant Conclusion...

So after talking with my bestest friend, we came to the conclusion that the ants were either sick or at war with another colony and in need of some medical supplies. That would explain why they were in our medicine cabinet and not the pantry.

;)

Ants!!!

They are sneeky little bastards!

I got up this morning all ready for a nice quiet breakfast. My daily rutine includes taking meds and vitamins, so I went to the cabanet and found thousands of ants that seem to have come from no where just hanging around the medicine cabinet. What the hell?!?!

I looked and looked, but couldn't find out where they were comming from or even what they would be in there for. A party maybe? They are like little ninja ants or something too because they started taking off all crazy like. I cleaned them out, but now I feel compelled to clean out the pantry as well. It makes me itch just thinking about them. Maybe I will clean out that whole side of the house as well.

Not the greatest morning event I have had these days. Later I get to go pay rent and rant about the ants! I know chemicals aren't good for the environment, but I am having something done. And I am not paying for it this time.

Okay, I am done bitching!


I got to help facilitate a group meeting Tuesday night. We talked about Methamphetamines and what they do to the body.

"Chronic abuse can lead to psychotic behavior, including paranoia, insomnia, anxiety, extreme aggression, delusions and hallucinations, and even death."

And...

"Although these pleasure centers can heal over time, research suggests that damage to users' cognitive abilities may be permanent."

Interesting and informative. There is a great photo display of how Meth can change a person. Go to Google and look up "faces of meth" and you will get to see some real pictures of real meth users and how the drug changed them. It is just sad!

Cough! Sniffle...

I went on a road trip and all I got was a cold!

Not really. I also got to laugh my ass off watching my brother playing charades, listen to my sister pretend to be me on the phone to my best friend, see my beautiful niece and nephews, watch a pet snake eat a defenseless little mouse, play Rock Band, eat tons of awesome food that my dad made, and sleep in a winter wonderland.

I had a great weekend. Well worth the head full of snot. :)

I'm doing what?

I'm about to embark on a road trip with my dad and brother. I know, crazy, but it is their birthday's this month and they wanted to celebrate with a road trip to see my sister. To be honest I am not looking forward to it as I am fighting off the beginning of a cold and I am horrendously busy these days, but sometimes we just have to take a time out.

My day starts with a 4:30 wake up call tomorrow morning and I am not, I repeat, NOT a morning person. Thank God for coffee. Then, while I am trying to visit with family, I have a paper to write and some research to do. Yippee!

I don't mean to complain, I mean, I am thankful to be able to spend time with my father and siblings, it is just that they tend to treat me like shit most of the time. Part of me wonders why I agreed to go in the first place. Only God knows. Hopefully there will be enough of us there that I can kind of disappear before any focus comes to me. That would be the secret of my survival all of these years people. Now the secret is out.

Livin' La Vida Loca

Life has been on the crazy side lately. My days are filled and the work never ends, and for some reason, I am kind of glad. Not that I haven't had my plate full while working and home schooling in the past, but this time it is a little different somehow.

Anyway, I started last week on my internship working two nights out of the week. Both nights I found myself going through a mix of emotions. When I found myself with nothing specific to do, I would stand there questioning myself and my presence there. Yet when the people would come in for group, I would find myself feeling relaxed a bit, and totally engaged in listening to their stories while trying to think of ways to connect with them a little better. One unexpected outcome of all of this was memories of past events clicking into my mind, producing weird dreams and slight anxiety. I am hoping that eventually goes away but for now I keep moving forward.

I was told that I will be given my own group to work with pretty soon, and I am both looking forward to it and frightened at the same time. Today I plan on doing research on the twelve steps and other recovery material so I can be better prepared. This is going to be a wild and wonderful twelve week journey. Any advice would be helpful. :)

Cold

It is fricken cold! I am a desert rat, not a polar bear! Yes, I understand that I do not live in the arctic or anything, but still, I am cold all of the time during the winter here. Then, when we turn on the heat I just want to sleep all of the time because of the warmth and the darkness from the overcast days. It's driving me crazy!!

Okay, so now that I got that out I am feeling a bit better.

I start my work experience tonight and I am a bit nervous. I haven't had a paying job in almost five years and have no idea what to expect tonight. Um, I just remembered, I still won't have a paying job, this is an internship. Still, I am looking forward to it. I will have to write about my experience as it goes along. (As much as I can without violating confidentiality laws that is.)

Time to make some breakfast...

Huge Storm!!!!!

For those who wonder, we are fine and not floating away or being blown over or sliding down a hill. The wind is blowing hard, and the rain has not stopped, but so far so good. There are other places though, that are having problems. Problems with flooding, mud slides and power outages.

Oddly, I feel it is actually kind of nice to have weather that gives us a reason to make hot soup and drink hot cocoa. I really like hot cocoa. And I just might go out and buy an umbrella today. But at the same time I feel blessed to be warm and dry and safe and am praying for this storm to pass quickly and that no one gets hurt.

2008! Yes!

I am a big fan of starting over on a new year. To me, it really does feel like a nice new start to life, a time where one can take out the trash of the past and start the new year with a new clean bag for all that future trash to come. I can smell the freshness even now!

Today I accomplished a few things that made me feel good later. One was finally purchasing a new address book that isn't a day timer. The idea here is to have a book I don't have to throw out that has all of the important dates and information on family and friends in it. This way I don't lose them either.
Another accomplishment was going to shop for groceries and being able to pass up the cookies and other crap that we really don't need in our house. Although, I would love a cookie and a glass of milk right about now. Oh well.

I'm thinking about taking on a part time job soon at the local community counseling and medical center. I will be doing some work experience for school there anyway and thought I might look into working for them afterwards. My work experience will start in a couple of weeks and I will be working along side a counselor for a drug and alcohol program. They have groups for people who are court ordered to go, and groups for those who want to be there. It should prove to be an interesting four months to say the least and I am actually looking forward to it.

Christmas was fine. We spent a lot of time with family and that time flew by way too fast. It would have been nice to stay longer, but we have so much going on here that we had to get home. Our drive was great as there was very little traffic and we were not in a hurry so we took our time. We got home around just after 9pm on New Year's Eve and celebrated the new year with a confetti fight with the kids. All in all, a nice trip and a great ending to the year. We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.

The kids will be starting school again next week. I have a study on the presidential election planned with hopes of bringing history into it in a way that won't be too boring. I also have a few vacations to plan that will include educational aspects. One trip is to Oregon for our niece's graduation from college. I'm looking forward to spending time there exploring and learning with the kids. We plan on taking a trip to Yosemite at some point as well.

I'm tired so I am off to bed.
May your dreams be big and your actions even bigger.

Christmas Sucks...the life out of you

I'm not sure what happened, but this holiday season I am feeling a bit Scrooge-ish. Shad says it's the tree. Our Christmas tree is fake and doesn't smell like anything. He could have a point, but as I sit here looking at our Christmas tree I can't help but start wondering why we feel the need to have a tree in our house anyway. I don't recall any tree in the story of the birth of Jesus. It is fun to hang stuff the kids made on it, but isn't the fact that we feel the need to go out, take a tree and stick it inside our house a little on the cookoo side?

And the gifts; remind me why we feel the need to go out of our way to obtain debt so we can give more stuff we don't need away to each other, because I am not getting it. Yes, I did go out of my way to purchase gifts for my children, and even made some gifts this year for others with the hope that this would make the gifts more meaningful or something, but now I find myself questioning my own intentions. My kids don't need any of the things I bought. They have an over abundance of things they don't need, and I went out and added to their collection. Isn't that a little bit on the cookoo side too?

Perhaps I've been affected by some kind of anti-Christmas virus or something. If I have, and if there is one, would I even want the cure? I feel like Christmas hype has sucked the life right out of me. I don't claim to know the real reason behind Christmas, but I am pretty sure it isn't this.

Bah!

Last Night to This Morning

So last night went something like this:

rain, rain...
wind, wind...
rain, rain...
wind, wind...
rain harder, and harder...
wind, wind, gust...
rain harder, wind gust,
POP, (the lights go out)
Um, can we sleep with you? (the kids are a little freaked)
wind, huge gust, huge gust, rain harder....
POP, (lights come on)
Um, never mind, we will go back to bed. (kids fine now)
wind, rain harder, gust...
POP, (lights go out)
Can you find us the flashlight? (kids still up! It's got to be about 2am now)
rain hard, gust, rain harder, gust...
POP, (lights come on)
POP, (lights go out)

this continues until around 6am. To say the least we are a bit tired but glad that we have power this morning. It was the largest storm I have seen in a long while.

Curves suck, but in a good way!

Life tends to throw around many curves. I am maneuvering such a curve right now in my life.
I really don't care to go into it, but the final realization seems to be that I have made positive change in my life. Long lasting positive change, and that's good. I just wish I didn't have to experience so much sadness and hurt to get there though.

In a few hours I am going to visit the local Senior Center for a class paper I have to do. My hope is to gain the information I need to write the paper although one never knows what can happen. Many of my class mates have tried to visit other places of human service and been snubbed. I kind of find that interesting. Hopefully I do not find myself surrounded by the elderly with canes and walkers caulked and loaded. Now that would suck!

In other news, well, there really isn't any other news worth talking about so...

Time flies...

Where did this year go? Call me crazy, as some always do, but it just seems like this year flew by. And my kids have grown so much just over the last two years it is almost unbelievable. I guess my mom was rig.. ri... well, you know, about time flying when you hit 35.

So in about an hour we are going to head out and look at two houses. One of them I have already seen but Shad hasn't. I fell in love with it which is the wrong thing to do when looking for a house because anything can happen. I can't help it though. As soon as I saw it I was hooked. Then when we went to the backyard I had this flash of seeing the girls in the pool and the dog running around in the yard. Yep, it was over right then. When we finally do purchase a house, I will share more about it.