Day 632: Chewing The Fat

Well y'all I can not go to sleep yet. I have to wait for a car seat cover to finish washing so I can put it in the dryer. That boy was sick this week end and y'all don't want to know what ugly things went on in that car seat. The wind is howling outside and I could be using this time to clean my house but I just thought I would chew the fat a little bit. I was thinking that most of the people who follow my blog are my mom. But there may be a few of you out there who say hmm... I sure would like to know a bit more about this blogger. So let me clear a few things up and maybe tell a little about myself. First off you may wonder why I blog in this southern vernacular. I don't talk like this in every day life y'all. But it is my mother tongue. I was at Mt. Rushmore y'all. I heard some one saying "well we gonna head on back over at the hotel. What y'all want for lunch. It don't bother me none what we have" Y'all I swung my head around to get a good look because these folks were speaking my language. I am from Texas and although not every one in the great state of Texas uses bad grammar and talks like a hick some do. Add to that my father's people are from the deep south, well lets just say you got your self some back woods talking going on. And I like it. I don't use it in everyday conversation. Mercy no. But it feels comfortable to write like this. It is not just about the grammar or the dialect either. People from the south have special words for certain things and sayings that make me feel at home. My Mamaw always called hair spray hair net. She never said she was happy to see me she was always proud to see me. My uncle often yells out howdeey when he sees a loved one and instructs them to hug his neck. When asked to do something he would rather not my Dad always replied "Let's not and say we did" I love the southern dialect because it is comfort and hospitality and has such variety. It feels like home.
What else do y'all want to know about me? How about one of my pet peeves. If you go to the store and you only have one child and you use a cart with seats for two small children you will be on my last nerve. I need that cart y'all. I have two small children! You are messing up my shopping trip. Stop stealing carts you don't need. You don't either need the extra seat for you PURSE! I need it for a kid. Think people. Think. Oh sorry. I got a little carried away.
What was that? What kinds of stuff do I like? Well if y'all think I am going to say puppys and kittys and rainbow and lotions that smell good you are wrong. I like comfortable clothes. I like the way my baby's hair feels so velvety soft. I like talking on the phone with my sister for a long time. I like seeing my ex husband squirm. I like food. I like thinking I could win the publishers clearing house and thinking of all the fun things I would do with my winnings. I like the taste of grape juice because it reminds me of communion and the smell of vinegar because it reminds me of easter. I like a million other things like the way that Randy Stonehill says well, well and calls people baby in many of his songs and how if you watch Robin Williams movies he often call people cheif. I like lots of sugar in my coffee and I like the lady that gives me my coffee at McDonalds every morning. She is nice.
Well y'all it is time to put that car seat cover in the dryer. Y'all have a good night now.

Day: 632 Shiny Threads

A few months back I had a birthday. My sweet friend came to my office and put silver metallic streamers all over my office. They were everywhere y'all. After a while I got sick of them. By a while I mean after a half of an hour. They got everywhere y'all. I have trouble throwing away things that I might use later so naturally I put them in my car so I could take them home. They sat in a walmart bag in my front seat and eventually got moved to the back seat floor. Well y'all my kids started stepping on them and meddling with them and got a hole in the bag and before you know it those durn things were everywhere. Every time the door opened some flew out or they stuck to our feet and clothes and traveled with us where ever we went. I got fed up with that and scooped them up and threw them away. Then I started to notice something y'all. When I went to drop the kids at day care I looked down and there was a streamer or two stuck on the fence. At school when I dropped the boys off there was one stuck in the automatic door. I found on on the ground at the bank y'all. In the gutter by my neighbors house, at little ceasers pizza. I am not kidding y'all. Everywhere I travel frequently I keep seeing these little silver streamers. Then I thought of something. We leave little streamers where ever we go in life. Only life streamers are not visible. We leave them by the words that we speak and the things that we do. Just a little remnant to say we were here and we left something. We don't even mean to or sometimes know that we have done it. But they stick to us and we deposit them to the people and places we frequent often. I know it is not profound but next time I see a silver streamer I will be reminded that I am leaving my mark on this world weather I want to or not. So let my mark add beauty and let my mark point to the truth. Let my mark, be it ever so humble, be a blessing to someone else. Just a little something to chew on y'all.

Day 627: Full Speed Ahead

Y'all know I am so happy right now. Things are finally going well. Things are good with work, finances, kids, home. Things are just good. But there is something that has just been bugging me. Y'all I know you just been waiting for me to spill the beans about the wart and all the trouble he caused me and his deep dark secrets. I been wanting to do that to y'all. And I have told some of y'all in private all about it. I've been thinking when this divorce is over I am going to tell every rotten thing about him. and believe me y'all it's a jaw dropper. But, I can't. I have been trying. I keep writing blogs and face book updates only to take them down because it does not feel right. I know that would not honor God. I hear it in my spirit. I want to argue that it is not fair because he has been meaner than a snake and he deserves for everybody to know all about his nasty self. But there is that uneasiness that tells me no. Don't do it. I was not understanding but willing to obey. Then I went to church on Sunday and y'all know the preacher was preaching on putting your hand to the plow and not looking back. Y'all I know that is what is required right now. I got stuff to do in front of me. I can't be looking back and trying to punish him or live in regret because things did not turn out how I planned. Come what may I got a life to lead and the future is in front, not behind. Maybe some day God will give me the go ahead to tell my story. When it can helps someone, when it is a blessing and not a curse. It is a story to tell but it will have to wait because I am going y'all. Come on now.

Day 621: Momma Bird

Y'all. I am fixin to become a momma for the third time. It is going to happen real soon y'all. That precious baby is going to be mine. We are just waiting for a court date. I know some a y'all said I was crazy when i said I was taking another foster kid last year. Y'all were all like "she has got enough on her plate. What is she thinking" Right from the get go I felt the green light from God. I had no idea that he would stay, but I knew what ever happened it would be okay. And I am over the moon y'all. Join me in giving thanks to the God of the universe for this amazing baby. *Happy Dance* So here I am a single mom with four young boys. All with some type of special need or another. How in the world did I get here. One time my Grand mommy sent me a card that said life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans. It's true y'all. I have a special journal that I keep. I only write in it on new years eve. I started when I was 19years old. When I look back over the course of my life one year at a time I am amazed at the things that I prayed and hoped for that came to fruition and so thankful for the things that I wanted that I never got. Life is beautiful and messy and scary and breath taking. Let's go y'all

Day 430: Up In Smoke

Y'all I have been thinking about my younger years and it is true what they say. Youth is wasted on it's own. I was so dumb y'all. I know this may come as a shock but there was a day when I did not always have it together like I do now. Stop laughing. I mean it. No really. In fact my early adulthood could be characterized as a series of missteps, misadventures, and malfunctions (big words I know but stick with me) that seem quit humorous in hindsight, although at the time they were anything but. Make that butt,as in cigarette butt because many of my mishaps seem to center around my smoking habit. Now y'all smoking is not funny at all. If you do it quit it. You know you should. I started smoking on a dare y'all. When I was 23 years old. Who starts smoking at 23? My friend told me I was a prude and that I would not last one week smoking. I showed him I smoked for seven years. My step father always accused me of "hot boxing it". I don't know what that means but I do know that I caught my hair on fire a number of times trying to light up on my ELECTRIC stove. I had talent y'all. I can tell you this it sure made it easier to meet folks when riding the bus. Why I had to be taking the bus is a whole nother blog. One day at the bus stop I was wearing my Mickey Mouse tee shirt a pair of black stretch pants (not sweat pants Donna!) and my red cowboy boots. That's right. That was how I rolled back then. A fella came up to me and asked if I wanted to go on a date with him. Well having been on only one date with a drunk guy at the bowling alley I thought this might be my opportunity to break into the dating scene. With out ever making eye contact or getting a good look at the guy I said yes and arranged to meet at his stop in two days. That is right y'all I had no sense. I arranged to take a day off of work y'all just to meet this fella at his stop. The night before the big date I went over to my friend Donna's house and the boy paged me on my new and hip pager because I did not have a phone. Well y'all I called him back and right away my friend Donna (who had sense) caught on that this might not be a very nice person just from the questions he was asking me. I was a bit naive and stupid and just kept talking. Donna was cooking and burned the bread trying to get me to hang up the phone. Smoke pouring out of the oven and Donna saying "just give me that phone!" She was giving me ax signs and the finger across the throat thing and making all kinds of gestures, but no way was I going to miss my chance to start dating people. The next day I rode to his stop as planned. Well when I got there I saw him. Never having really looked at him I had created the image of this handsome ripped guy with sparkly eyes and a beautiful smile. Instead I saw a fella with a beer gut and dull eyes looking very disheveled (unlike me in my other Mickey Mouse shirt and boots). I started to think I should just stay on the bus and "miss" my stop. I hunkered down a bit and waited for the bus to pull away. No such luck. He got on the bus y'all and said "Well are you gonna get off or what?" Now I could not hurt his feelings y'all so I got off the bus. Right away he tells me that we have to ride the bus to the pawn shop before we can start our date. THE PAWN SHOP. Y'all I shoulda turned tale and run right then. When we arrive at his apartment we meet his roommate sweeping water out of his living room in bucket fulls. We slosh in through the water while his room mate explains that he put laundry soap in the dish washer because they were out of regular soap and the dishwasher has over flowed. I ponder this for a while while my date feeds his dog potato chips and then it occurs to me that this is much to much water to be coming from the dish washer. While my date is yelling his dog for eating his last chip I spy where the water is actually coming from and open the door to the hot water heater. "Hey man" I say because I really forgot his name. "Your hot water heater is leaking" Well, he leaned over to get a better look and y'all, I don't even make this up, his butt crack was hanging out of his pants and he had butt acne! Oh y'all if I had a lick of sense I would have just run screaming back to the bus stop and never looked back. So then we headed out to the pawn shop and the guy wants to hold my hand and put his arm around me. So I let him. The bus driver, who had actually witness our meeting two days before, looked at me with disdain and said "didn't you just meet him the other day? Why is he got his arm around you so tight?" Well y'all then he tried to kiss me. This is when my nu-uh kicked in. No way was I going to kiss Mr. butt acne. I turned my head away and said no thank you. Y'all he PINCHED me on the leg. Oh no he did not *takes off earrings*. He did not just pinch me *hold my purse* someone is fixin' to get a beatin'. That is what I thought in my head but really what I said "was this date is taking a long time and I really need to get home." I got off at the next stop and went home y'all. So you can see my big break into the dating scene did not happen as planned. Y'all I got a page from him a few days later. Being me I quick put on my flip flops and high tailed it to the 7-11 to call him back. I told him it was not going to work out between us. He said "don't you know what love is?" I said "Yes and this is not it" He said have a nice life and hung up on me. So I did y'all.

Day 421: Still Waiting

Oh y'all. I should be in bed. That old clock is ticking away and just reminding me how precious time really is. Y'all I been waiting on something for a long time. All my life really. I have been waiting for the perfect life. Don't be coy. You been waiting for it too. You have your list too. Waiting to be skinny, waiting for my house to be spotless and my kids to be perfectly behaved. Waiting for my ship to come in. Waiting for the perfect job and the perfect man and the perfect me. I aint about to lie. I still want that stuff. But there is something way deeper here. Y'all, I been waiting for the wrong thing. I been reading and thinking about waiting. This year I really have felt like I am waiting to see how my life will unfold. In addition to all the regular waiting I have added waiting to see when I will ever be free of the wart (some of you know him by another name), waiting to see if my lawyer is actually going to do her job and defend me so I walk away with more than the shirt on my back, waiting to see if it is possible for me to buy this house that I love, waiting to see if I will be able to adopt the two babies that I have fallen head over heel in love with, waiting to see if said babies have serious medical diagnosis, waiting to see if I need a summer job, or another job all together. Waiting y'all. So I thought I would get out my old trusty Nave's Topical Bible that I five finger discounted from my loving Auntie (kidding y'all. I am pretty sure she knows I still have it) and see what it has to say about waiting. Well it tells of all the times in scripture that people waited. Psalms is full of waiting y'all. A couple of things struck me. It says things like they waited on him continually and with full confidence. With earnest desire y'all. Especially in adversity. With hope in his word. They waited for mercy and guidance and protection and the fulfillment of his word. Guidance and teaching . Y'all then I read this : Those who engage in it wait on him only, are heard, are blessed, experience his goodness, shall not be ashamed, shall renew their strength, shall inherit the earth, shall be saved, shall rejoice in salvation, shall receive glorious things prepared by God for them. Dang y'all that sounds like a pretty good deal. So maybe, just maybe, instead of waiting for a house to fall on the wart or waiting to win the lottery or waiting for the other shoe to always drop, I could wait on the Lord. Because he loves me. And he has good thoughts about me. Puts that whole "seek ye first the kingdom of God"stuff in perspective. After all where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord. So maybe if I am waiting for the fulfillment of his word I better get back to the study of his word. And, I am just spit balling here, if I am waiting for protection, guidance and mercy I ought to wait with full confidence and earnest desire. What are we waiting for y'all? Let's get started.

Day 403: I Missed Y'all

Well y'all it has been a month of Sundays since I updated this blog. That is because I have had a lot going on. For starters my marriage fell apart like a $2 suitcase. The bottom fell out last may and it has been a crazy ride since then. Y'all I would love to tell all but that will have to wait until the dust settles. But don't worry. It will be worth the wait. Any who since the hubby flew the coop somethings are different. You remember those cute houses I was obsessed with ? Well I up and moved into one of them. That is right. I sure did. And I had to get one of those J-O-B things as well. I work at the school where my boys go to kindergarten. Perfect. I am still fat. It is true. But my affair with my love Toshiba has been over for about 330 days now. When that wart of a person moved out mama had to trim the fat to stay afloat so cable was the first thing to go. Y'all I am a single mom/foster mom now. Some times it kicks my butt sometimes I feel so blessed. I still struggle for balance. Trust has become a big issue. I worry to much. But day by day y'all my savior makes his mercy new. I can't complain y'all.