They Love Me/They Hate Me

Seems like all my life I have been motivated by this one thought…….If I say, do, act like this etc., will I be liked?

Even when I set out to write this blog, it is a main concern of mine and a lot of the time, no wait, most of the time I DO NOT choose to write what is really on my mind because I’m afraid that it will not be liked and therefore, I reason in my mind, no one will ever read what I write again.

Unfortunately, I’m seeing that with the process of thinking and reasoning my way out of what I feel like I want to write, it is my fear that is being realized…….I am the cause of people not being interested in what I have to say!  After all, my actions are a direct contradiction to what my title is saying……..that I am, “one tiny voice among many”…….I am supposed to be saying what I think.

This morning, for the very first time, I’ve had a clarity that I never realized before.

For the longest time I’ve heard people say “follow your passion”.  For the longest time too, I’ve had that thought going through my head, trying to figure out what my passion is and I think I’ve finally figured out what that is…….I like telling people what to do.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m trying to be bossy.  When I’m trying to explain to people how to do something, my motivation is to try and help them to be better at what they’re doing.  I feel like I have mastered what it is they’re trying to do and I just want to share what I’ve learned with them so they will do good also.  I want to help them.

Most of the time, however, my help is not always well received.   You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve heard the expression, “Nobody likes a know-it-all”.  

Sometimes too, if I’m speaking really fast to this person, so that I can get out all the information that this person needs to know before it’s too late for them and they make a mistake, it just sounds sometimes like I’m yelling at them….like when I was teaching my son first and then my daughter a few years later how to drive a car.   Needless to say, neither one of them appreciated hearing what they needed to know from me.

At work I run into resistance a lot also.   Not many people are really interested in hearing from an old lady, (I do qualify now for senior discounts, BTW), how she did this job 43 years ago or even just 17 years ago when I was first employed by this company……they’re just interested in getting it done fast….doesn’t need to be done right!

It’s because of this resistance to me and my trying to help people that I find myself thinking that people really don’t like me much and it makes me try and become someone that I’m not and I try to become the person that they want me to be.

It’s been that way all my life.  

I love to dance.  I always have.   When I was a kid, I was told that I was dancing to get people’s attention….it made me just want to dance away from where people could see me do it.

I used to love to sing out loud.  When I was about 7 years old I was going around the house trying to imitate an opera singer singing the scales.  My mother heard me and blurted out, “What the hell do you call that?”  and I stopped singing out loud.

I don’t tell you these things to get pity…….I just want you to understand that there are always going to be people who want you to feel bad about who you are…..to make you behave the way they think you should behave.   It has taken me the last 50 years to get to this point where I can say to you……..Be True to Yourself.

I can’t worry anymore about whether people will like me for what I say, how I say it or what I do…….I don’t have any control over what anyone might think of me and my motivation now is just to try and share something that might help someone else become who they are supposed to be.

Expectations…….

As many of you know, I live alone with my little white dog, Etta.  As much as I really like “alone” time….it is not my favorite way to live.   It is not what I chose for myself but a circumstance that I found myself in that I’ve been trying to make the best of for the last, almost, ten years.

Often, I find myself asking myself, “why is my life the way it is and what is it I’m supposed to learn from it?”

When I was a kid, I imagined my life to be so much different than it is now.  It’s not that I expected to have lots of things even though there were lots of things that I wanted, when I was a kid.   I guess I just never had the expectation of ever having it be anything grand….never even occurred to me to think like that.  I basically expected that I would get married, have kids, they would grow up, have kids of their own and I would grow old happily surrounded by my family.

Well, part of what I expected to happen did.  I got married and had kids.  I also got some experiences that I hadn’t planned on either.  I divorced the man I married…..I guess I kind of knew shortly after I got married that that was probably inevitable.  I also had one of my children die……by her own hand I might add…….and I certainly never saw that one coming.

Katie and I lived together at the time of her death.  I did expect that someday she would have a place of her own either by marriage or just by wanting to have her own place.   Either way, I had the expectation that we would more than likely be in touch every day or every few days or so once she did have a place of her own.  Like me and my own mother stayed in contact.

My son Adam on the other hand, was never in touch with me very much since he became old enough to be on his own.  He’s the child that was more independent of me so I really never had the expectation of him staying in touch…….he more or less called when he had something specific to talk to me about.   It was only after Katie’s death that he made more of an effort to keep in touch with me, probably because I needed him to more than he needed to and he recognized that.

I guess I also had the expectation that once my children had children,  it would stand to reason that I would be a big part of their lives.  That was true when they were babies….I was needed more then.   Now, not so much anymore.  The girls are teen aged and almost a teen and the boys, well they’re just into little boy things. 

Also, there is the factor of the other side of their family which I didn’t figure into the equation early on……big mistake!   Certainly didn’t expect to have to compete for the attention of my grandchildren.  I lost!  Didn’t have the means to compete…..all I had was me and it wasn’t enough.

And then too, there was the mourning period that I went through after Katie died.  Such a terribly, terribly low point in my life……not even wanting to be around anyone……..always just wanting to be by myself.  I think that may have impacted my relationship with some of my family members as well.

On the one hand, I realize that everyone is busy these days….living their own lives.  This one has to go here and that one has to go there, etc., etc., etc.  Even I am working six days a week almost every week so I know about busy.

And then there is location to think about…….many families do not all live within the same neighborhoods as one another anymore.  Sometimes people are miles and miles apart which is the case of my son and his children.  They are at least an hour’s travel time from me…..one way, so I do understand about not being able to visit as often…..really, I do!

I’m happy hearing from my son at least once a week….he knows I’m expecting him to call.  When it gets to be almost two full weeks, I feel the need to talk to him and he better call because by that time I’m frazzled and on the verge of tears. 

I hate that I feel so needy sometimes.   If I had my way, I would be talking to one family member or another every other day or so because I love them and I love talking to them.  I hold off though because  I don’t want them thinking I’m a pain in the neck. 

I do realize that with having expectations there is always a risk of  feeling disappointed….I get it!

I don’t know about anyone else but for me it’s hard to not have expectations of people…..primarily, my family.   I really don’t expect any more from them than what I’m willing to give to them.  A little time, attention, a listening ear and maybe some encouraging words, which I think we could all use every once in a while.

Maybe for today, what I’m supposed to learn from my life being this way is to be in this moment, stop expecting it to be more and just accept that this is the way that it is……for today.

 

Self What?

I saw a tv program tonight that showed a lot of people losing their cool when push came to shove….especially in road rage situations.  I was feeling threatened and frightened for those involved while I was watching it……..I can only imagine myself being in a situation like what I saw.  I would be so scared……Anger scares me.  You just never know what some people are capable of doing when they’re angry.

Almost everyone knows that there is always something that doesn’t go the way you want it to…it happens.  It’s how you deal with these situations that really makes the differance.

When I was a kid I used to pitch fits if things didn’t go exactly the way that I thought they should.  I never physically lashed out at people but I sure as hell had my share of kicking and throwing things and punching walls.

Back then I never thought about who was around when I acted like that…didn’t care.  I never thought about what affect it had on anyone either, again, didn’t care.  All I knew or cared about was that I was pissed and I was going to have a fit over it….or be rude and beligerant when you talked to me when I wasn’t in the mood to be bothered by you.

One day when I was about 13 or 14 I was acting like that to my mother.  She wanted me to do something and I was cranky and started mouthing off to her.  She quietly got up from where she was sitting, walked over to where I was and hauled off and slapped me across the mouth. 

I was shocked!!!!!!  Seriously, I was so self-centered at the time, I really had no idea why she would do that to me.  I proceeded to tell her that I was PMSing, (like that was some sort of legitimate reason or defense for acting like that and talking to her the way I was talking to her.)

What she told me next was that PMSing was not any kind of reason for talking to her or anyone else that way.  That I was going through a normal part of life and that I had better learn to control myself.

I learned a valuable lesson that day.  The reason I gave to my mother was only an excuse for behaving badly.  People have the power to control how they’re going to react to certain circumstances and situations……we always have a choice.

I still have things that get to me sometimes and I still pitch my own little private fits.  I don’t punch walls anymore but I do sometimes whip pillows around my bedroom.

Self control is a very powerful thing.  In today’s world, there could be a lot more raging going on with the way the economy is and such but people are exercising their self control.  I just want to acknowledge all those people here and now for  keeping themselves in check in situations that they find themselves in while living their daily lives.   Thank you for your discipline.

Trying to Understand

Today I turned on the news and the “big” story was of the grandmother in Connecticut who had picked up her grandchildren from daycare yesterday and  took off with them.  There was an amber alert put out on her last night but they didn’t find them until this morning.  They were all dead.  How horribly sad and awful for that family.

Why do things like this keep happening?????    What I heard on the news was that the grandmother killed the two children and then herself.   What the hell is going on with people?

Since my daughter Katie took her own life September 10, 2003 I have been trying to get my head around someone wanting to take thier own life and I have only had glimpses, at best, to understanding that particular mindset.  I am finding that murder-suicide, baffles the hell out of me even more.  It’s one thing to feel that taking your own life makes sense to you but why does one feel the need to take others with them?????

When I think back to the circumstances leading up to the night that Katie died, I find myself wondering, what did I not pay attention to?  I knew that her life was not going the way that she wanted it to….but was it my denial of how bad she felt or my belief that it would all work itself out eventually or my lack of knowledge about clinical depression that contributed to her being successful in her suicide?  I have heard it said, “hindsight is 20/20″ but I still can not figure out  ”why” she did what she did.  I will never know why Katie did what she did but I have learned to let it go otherwise it will frustrate me for the rest of my life.

I find myself now wondering the same things about that grandmother in Connecticut.  Was she really behaving like what was normal for her?  Wasn’t there anyone in her life that suspected that she might be close to being in crisis?

Believe me, I am not trying to be mean to anyone.   My heart breaks for that family and the depth of the loss that they are feeling and will continue to feel for a very long time.  I know I am not posing any question that they will not ask themselves when they are ready to try and figure out what and exactly how this could have happened.

I know there’s been an ongoing conversation going on over gun control and mental health issues since the tragedy in Newtowne, Ct. but as of yet, I don’t know that there is a solution for preventing these tragedies from happening.

Dr. Wayne Dyer says that “the solution is always in the problem.”  Have we really identified exactly what the problem is? 

Is the problem about the mental health system in this country being inadequate?  Is it inadequate because a lot of people have a hard time believing that mentally ill people really are ill?   Do most people think that mental illness looks like the homeless guy on the street in rags talking to someone who’s not there? 

Or, is the problem about gun control and needing more restrictions over them?  I’m thinking that maybe it’s a little bit of both. 

I also think that maybe a lot of us are so busy with our own lives that we may not be paying as much attention when we see things that do not seem quite normal. 

And,  is it possible that when we do see things that may seem odd, that we have the tendency to not want to believe that we are seeing what we are seeing?   I think it really takes a lot of courage to speak up about some things…….after all, what if we’re wrong? 

I also wonder, why don’t newscasters wait until they have the whole story before reporting it?  Would it not keep getting repeated over and over so many times if they just waited for all the facts and reported the story once, complete?   Why is it necessary to keep repeating such horrible things over and over?

I wish I knew what the answer was for this to never happen again.  There is so much unnecessary killing going on in this world.   I hope that the conversations being held will come up with a solution….the sooner, the better.

 

 

Are There Really Hidden Messages in Dreams?

          Rarely now do I dream anymore……or if I do, I don’t remember dreaming after I wake up.  This morning when I woke up, I actually remembered dreaming,  and, somewhat of what had happened in my dream.   As a matter of fact, it was the end of the dream that brought me into “awake” land.

         When I first opened my eyes and was drifting into being awake, it’s like I had forgotten for a second that I had just been in dreamland.   When my brain started to engage in the world of being awake, I remembered and I asked myself, “what was that about?”

          Dreams to me are always so strange.  A lot of the times not much of it really makes any sense to me.   I had a book about dream interpretation once and tried to make sense of what I was dreaming but it still never did. 

           Sometimes my dreams make such little sense to me that I’m embarressed to tell anyone about them because they just sound so silly.  But y’all know how it is…….you always want to tell someone, right?  Well me too!

           As a matter of fact, right now I am so tempted to tell every single one of you about the dream I had this morning but I’m thinking it is just too weird to share on here with so many people.

           Ah, well, what the heck?…….here goes.

      I remember flipping through the clothes on hangers, on racks at the thrift store.   Just standing there, flipping, checking out every single item, making sure not to miss out on finding something really good to buy. 

           I sensed someone standing right next to me, someone I knew.  I knew somehow that this person was actually with me, checking out everything also as I was flipping through all the clothes.  We were there together.

         All of a sudden, from out of nowhere, President Obama was right there next to me and said something to us just to be friendly.  I can’t remember what it was he said and then he was gone just as quickly as he had appeared.   Then all of a sudden, I was face to face with Mrs. Obama with one of their daughters.   I then took it upon myself to introduce myself to her and her daughter.  Then when I went to introduce the person I was with to them, I realized that it was my own daughter Katie that I had been shopping with…….and that is when I awoke from my dream.

          So you see how crazy that dream is?   How the heck do you interpret something like that?

          Like always, I did my best to try and make sense of that dream.    What I think, is that yesterday was the first time I’ve actually seen my son Adam in quite a while. 

          Between his job being what it is and his living over an hour from where I live, we do not see each other face to face a lot.   So I was really happy to see him.   Also, I’ve been thinking about the President’s  Innauguration. 

          So my explanation of my dream is that because I finally got to see my son after not seeing him for such a long while, I was more relaxed and restful last night as I slept.  I think that being relaxed is more condusive to dreaming and remembering that I had dreamt.     I think too, because of those conditions, it made me more able to remember what had happened in my dream as well.

         I think the President and his family were there only because I was thinking about the Innauguration.   My daughter Katie, I believe was there too because, again,  I was so relaxed.   One thing that I do believe is that your loved ones who have passed on do visit you in your dreams but I believe that you have to be in a relaxed state of mind so that you are aware of when they visit.

           So there it is.  See what I mean about weird?

An Old Memory

            Sometimes I get into these funky moods and start saying negative things to myself.  When I realize what I’m doing, it gets me to start thinking about things I havn’t thought about in decades, never mind years.  The following is one such example of what I’m talking about.

           ”Ewwww, couture cootie bug, don’t let ‘em touch you!”

            And,  just what is a Couture Cootie Bug, you ask?

           Couture, ( french,  pronounced Coot-`cher like the oo sound in the word foot ), it is my maiden name.  

           The phrase Couture Cootie Bug came about by, I’m sure one or just a few but what seemed like, at the time, all,  the children at my elementary school when I was a child.  It is the one size fits all kind of name, applied by the kids at school to myself or whichever of my five sisters and three brothers or to all of us at the same time if we happened to be out and about all together at the same time.

           I can’t even count the number of times, there were so many, that we’d be walking down the street  and we’d see other kids coming towards us from the opposite direction.  When they were close enough to us for what they said and did next to have some sort of impact on us, they would suddenly squeal, “ewww, it’s Couture Cootie Bug….don’t let ‘em touch you or you’ll get cooties” ,  then they would run off across the street .

         Honestly though, that was nothing, really, compared to having to endure that treatment, daily,  from the very first day that I started kindergarten at Robert O. Morris school to our last day in second grade when we were switched to Dorman school. 

       Unfortunately, some of the kids that behaved this way were also transferred to our new school and Couture Cootie Bug moved to the new school with us, and continued until I completed the sixth grade.

           The name, I’m afraid, was not originated for me.   I believe that it came about when all the children became aware of my oldest sister, Malvina…..she was born, (labeled by my parents) “special”.   As in special needs. 

          Malvina had been deprived of oxygen at birth and suffered brain damage as a result.  Back then there was no such thing as being “politically correct” and it was completely normal that she was referred to as “slow” or “retarded”.   Her condition made her incredibly vulnerable and suseptable to all sorts of mean tricks and taunting by other kids.  And, by association,  none of us Couture kids escaped their wrath either.  Although, my younger siblings were not as badly tortured by it as we older ones.

           The kids back then were relentless…….the older I got, the more I dreaded going to school.   I hated to be singled out for anything in class and never volunteered any information on anything.  I figured if I just sat there, quietly, no one would notice I was there and it would not give anyone an opportunity to inflict thier abusive comments on me.

          When I was very young, I didn’t understand it.   I didn’t know what I had done or why I was being treated this way.   I just wanted to have friends and be a part of what was going on but no one wanted to be my friend…….they didn’t even want to be near me.

            I can’t remember ever telling a teacher….I think I just figured that they could see it all by themselves…..how could they not?…it was always so blatant!    My question would be to them now if I had the opportunity to ask, why did you let this behavior go on?  

           I remember asking my mother what was a cootie bug?  She told me that she thought it was a bug….made up for a game.  Which it was.   I guess you had to answer questions correctly and receive pieces of the bug.  When you had all the pieces to put the bug together, you were the winner if you were the first to complete the cootie bug.

          When I told my mother that kids were calling us “cootie bugs”, she told us to “ignore” them.  She said that if we didn’t act like it was bothering us, it would not be fun for them anymore and they would stop.  She was wrong……it did not stop!

          I really don’t know why some kids do these kinds of things to other kids.  I suspect that they may be in their own powerless situations and have a need to feel that they have some power too.

There are always going to be people in the world that want you to feel like crap about yourself.  Sometimes they may even be family members and adult.  Try to stay strong and believe in yourself.  You sometimes have to work very hard to not let them succeed.  Believe me, I know.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

What else would I have to say to all of you on January 1, 2013?    Would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a positive and prosperous year! 

Every beginning to the new year, I always feel like it’s a fresh beginning to my life.  I hope that this year I am able to keep that attitude throughout the coming months.  It is my intention this year to practice keeping my head where my body is at…..living in the moment.

I know from experience that living in the moment is sometimes easier said than done.   It takes discipline and determination, two things, I’m afraid, I havn’t had a lot of in the last 60 1/2 years, but, the beauty of it all, is that we can begin again at any point that we choose.  I do believe this!

So have a wonderful day and thanks to all who have stopped by.

 

 

Hotdog, Broccoli & Cheese Casserole

Yesterday I had the day off from work and I was rummaging around,  looking for something differant to eat.  This casserole is what materialized from all the ingrediants that I had.  It is delicious and I hope you all like it as much as I did.

2 tbsp. butter    onion powder      celery salt      1/2 c. mayonaise      3 c. water

3 1/2 hot dogs     1 1/4 c. egg noodles     sharp cheedar cheese    asiago cheese

bread crumbs (Italian flavor)  1  1/2 c. chopped broccoli   2 tbsp. pasta water

1 c. blue cheese dressing:  equal parts mayonaise & sour cream,   1/8 c. crumbled blue cheese and a little vegetable oil

1.    Start 3c. water in a med. sized sauce pan.  Add in egg noodles when the water starts to boil and cook until  semi-tender.  Add in broccoli when egg noodles are almost done.

2.    Slice hotdogs in half, length wise then chop into bite sized pieces. 

3.   Place 2 tbsp. butter in small frying pan then add in hotdogs.  Season to taste with celery salt and onion powder.  Cook until browned.

4.   Drain pasta, saving the 2 tbsp. of pasta water to deglaze frying pan and set aside until hotdogs are done.

5.    Add hot dogs to egg noodles and broccoli then add in blue cheese dressing, mayonaise and shredded cheeses.   Mix well.

6.    Place mixture in a med. sized casserole and sprinkle with bread crumbs.  Shred more of each of the cheeses on top and bake in a pre-heated, 350* oven for about 25 minutes or until golden brown.   Let it sit for about 10 minutes before serving.  Will serve about 6.

Christmas Holiday

As is true with a lot of folks this time of year, I too have the upcoming holiday, Christmas, on my mind.  I don’t think though, that my thoughts about it are the same as most folks

I think most folks are thinking about presents to buy, wrapping them, who’s going to be there and what they’re going to have to eat.  I’m just thinking about how many days it is now until I get that day off from work.

  Fortunately, our store closes on Christmas.

I havn’t planned on going anywhere on the last several Christmas’ because by the time the day gets here I’ve been so busy at the store, I just want to stay at home and recoup.   You would not believe how crazy frantic it can get in there those last couple of days before Christmas. 

There are cakes and cupcakes and large decorated cookies and pies and cookie platters and specially ordered products that have to be ready for specific times and this one wants that bread and that one wants these rolls and on and on and on until the store closes at 6:00 P.M. on Christmas Eve.  Even when you’re walking through the store to go to the ladies room, you get stopped along the way….where’s this, where’s that?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful that people are shopping and spending their money…….I like having a job.  I’m just glad when the holiday frenzy is over and I can crank my stress level back down a notch or two.

This year my son is in Florida, visiting his kids…….they moved down there in August.   I will be alone with my dog Etta.   That’s ok though, really.   I don’t have to get dressed up for anyone or anything and if I want, I can sit around all day in my pajamas drinking coffee and watching Christmas movies.  Which I think is my definate plan for the day at this point.  I am also planning on cooking a pork roast because I love a nice salty skinned pork roast with mashed potatoes, a vegetable or two along with a good thick gravy made from the drippings.

So however you spend your Christmas, I hope it’s a good one.  God Bless!

 

 

Is it My Imagination……..

or have large eggs gotten smaller over the years?

……packaging looks like it always did

 

To me this looks like it should be a medium sized egg……it just looks too small to be considered a large….kind of a reverse re-packaging…..smaller in a large container. 

But that seems to be the way of the manufacturer’s these days, right?   They keep making the packages smaller, thinking nobody is going to notice.  Guess they think consumers are too stupid to figure it all out.

Personally, my thing is that if they’re going to raise the price on something, just raise the price.  It isn’t necessary to make the package smaller…….we know the price has gone up!

I just hate it when I’m being manipulated.   And that is exactly what is happening when the package is made smaller.  It just feels so sneaky and underhanded to me and so unnecessary.   Makes me not even want to buy what they’re selling.  I’ll do without or, better yet, buy store brands!  Store brands don’t need all that manipulation, they’re already cheaper than most name brands and just as good.

As for the eggs I buy,  I suspect that they’re really not as large as large eggs used to be but I can’t prove it.  Maybe the chickens that are laying now are smaller than chickens used to be.  Who knows?   I will still buy them……I love eggs!