blessings

January 27, 2009

Biding Time

~start here~

My alarm goes off and the first thing I think is, aaaaaaaah crap, I have to do this again? This getting up thing? Gaaaaaaah.

I review the reasons my life is so hard including gems like having to use an automatic dishwasher to clean my dishes. Ugh. And having so many clothes, they barely fit in the closet. Boo hoo. And who could forget having to shower in hot water in an inside bathroom? Using pear scented body soap and 9$ a bottle shampoo? Woe is me.

I make the coffee, sit down to check email and Facebook and Flickr and Twitter and express a desire to own cowboy boots. Cute, supple ones. And maybe red.

Finally (sigh) I begin to work and try and make sense of the notes I scribbled sometime between 2:15 and 3:45 am early this morning for the screenplay I’m working on. Wearing my slipper socks (I wish I owned these in a size 10) on my pedicure-neglected feet propped up on the ottoman which is covered with the red and black Navajo designed wall carpet that hung on my dad’s office wall for over 20 years, that I now own because I out-whined a sibling a few years ago, I note the heat turning on and pull my sweater a little closer to my neck.

Staring at the screen, I begin to review the first world problems that I’ve almost allowed to ruin my morning while Iceland is completely falling apart and people are scared, angry and rioting in the streets. And insane government officials try to lie and corrupt. And helpless animals are paying for the very definition of people with too much time on their hands.

And then I remember I live in the USA where we just elected Obama and I feel like I’ve actually received too many presents at Christmas and it’s almost garish and greedy.

I sip my coffee and begin to type.

~fin~

(In case you wanted to check out my pores and sunspots and the luggage under my eyes, I’ve provided this photo:)

leah_jan_09

December 4, 2007

The Drive

I drove to Salt Lake City, Utah today. It took about 12 hours. There wasn’t much snow and what there was of it was next to the road or up on the mountains and not where I was driving so we got along just fine.

As we left Vegas and the smog lifted, I remembered why I like Utah sometimes even though we weren’t there yet. The drive is beautiful starting somewhere around the Virgin River in Nevada and then up through Snow Canyon and farther north into the Utah Valley. Drop dead gorgeous.

I don’t have any photos of the fields of dry, yellow grass along the side of the road mixed with the white snow next to the green dotted hills leading up to the bracing blue sky sporting all shapes and sizes of pink-tinted clouds. And I don’t have a photo of the sky as it turned to dusk that looked like it was on fire for miles and miles, all fierce reds and oranges. You’ll just have to take my word for it – it was beautious.

Tonight I’m so tired that I can barely keep my eyes open and my muscles ache. But it’s all good, baby. It’s all good.

November 27, 2007

Gingerbread Houses, er, Buildings, er, Somethings

After we got done gorging ourselves on turkey and stuffing and pie, we got out the supplies to make gingerbread houses. We used to do this every year but have slacked off the past few years. But this year – back on task.

As I pulled out bag after bag of candy, none of which anyone wanted to eat because they were so full (it’s part of the plan, yo) the kids got around the table and grabbed a ziplock of icing. We found out that we were missing one of the walls for the houses and we were 2 gingerbread men short. Most of the candy was too heavy for the icing and I thought – this is awesome.

Never, in any of the years we’ve done this, have the houses ever worked. They just don’t. The icing is either too soft or too hard and the house parts are too heavy or too brittle and the graham crackers that I buy to have just in case are broken. I mean, if the point was to actually make gingerbread houses, the entire thing would be a bust. But that is never the point.

Alex did hers on the tinfoil.

Devon made a huge glob of marshmallows.

Lacey made lovely designs.

Tony did mostly all his candy on the inside.

Tyler made some kind of bench out of gumdrops.

And Alison and Tony made a Holy Moly roller church –

that sacrificed gummy bears.

All in all, a great success. Complete set here.

November 19, 2007

Dinner Last Night

All the kids came over for dinner last night and it was awesome. Really, really awesome. There was stuff to talk about and lively conversation ensued. There was background music and lots of singing at the table. There was more than enough food and lots of eating. And it was easy and good.

And I felt different. I know that fact has a huge part in all this. I felt different. Not desperate. Not sad. Not upset or feeling gypped. I was present and just enjoying the couple of hours they were there and not wishing for something else – something more.

I think that in response to that, the kids can be different, too, and just enjoy the time as well. Instead of feeling guilty or bad or whatever they’ve felt during the past few months. It was just easy last night.

How much of this has to do with the new medications finally kicking in and how much has to do with the fact that they’ll be here over the Thanksgiving weekend which makes me feel rich in time with them right around the corner – I don’t know. But I do know it was wonderful.

October 12, 2007

Going Home

This trip home was by far one of the best ever. I think not having the kids created a different dynamic and even though I’ve learned in past years to appreciate my parents on an adult level, this was the only time I can remember going and having it be that way the entire time.

I’m working on a family recipe book for Christmas and I was hoping to add some old photos of our family. I asked my mom to help me look, which is kind of like asking someone casually if they’d like to climb Mt. Everest with you in about an hour. These kinds of things take preparations and it was hugely kind of my mom to just dig in and help me look through things in all the boxes. Isn’t she beautiful? Isn’t that quite a mess?

Here is one of my favorite family photos from the mid seventies. My hand is on my dad’s hand and I’m genuinely happy looking. I used to go back and look at it from time to time during some really hard years and wonder what happened to me.

To further spread this wicked rumor that I love lists, here is one from the early eighties. It’s aptly named The Roberts’ Recommended Reading list because if you are a young Mormon in the eighties, there is no such thing as too much Jack Weyland or Lee Nelson. If you look closely, I’ve even assigned which age groups will be approrpiate for which books. I knew a lot at age 9.

And this last list, this grocery list, I think is from the same time period. My mom would sometimes look through the cupboards and yell out what we needed from the store and then whomever was close, me in this case, would write it on the awesome fancy list holder thingy. As you can see, I got a little carried away including a pet hamster near the end and his grain ‘for chewey’ as the last item. Oh, I was a cut-up, I was.

But, this last picture is forever burned into my brain in a good way. This is how I imagine my parents were and are when no one is around and when they don’t have a zillion things weighing them down. My mom is giggling about how people will see this photo and think that they come out and swing all the time and my dad is laughing with her. It is definitely in my top 10 favorite images.

Thanks for a great week, Mom and Dad. xoxo

October 9, 2007

The North Garden

By the way, I’m in Utah. Here is the beautiful North Garden. It’s on the, uh, north side of the house.

It’s been a relief to be here because my mom is a list maker, too. We make lists together and we both feel awesome about it. I can feel my brain getting straightened out with all our list-making. Like, every second. Here is a glimpse into just how much I love lists. And this is just one from one day. And it’s from the morning. You don’t even want to know what it looks like now. It’s bad enough that the one I’m showing you tells you what foods we are eating and when.

Hurry! Look at this Fig tree so you forget how odd I am.

And, last but not least, here are the old grapevines that we love and that still kick it pretty nice. My mom is mad at the new ones because they have seeds even though they aren’t supposed to. Stupid new grapevines.

October 4, 2007

My Heart Just Went Bump

September 29, 2007

Remembering

When I first came back to San Diego after that last mental hospital stay and integration, I was so frustrated to be so far away from them. They were 2 and a half hours away from me! That’s 150 minutes of driving from one house to the other where I willed the traffic to go faster and hated every car in my way.

But, I saw them every other weekend for 2 days straight. It was 6 hours round trip from door to door and it was hours and hours of glorious time spent squished together in my car that was too small for five people with the windows rolled down since we had no air conditioning. We talked. We screamed at the top of our lungs for the count of five to relieve the angst and listened to the radio at eleven. Even the tape deck barely worked in that car.

I miss those days.

September 26, 2007

Devon, Age 18 | Joe, Ageless

September 10, 2007

A Girl Can Only Do So Much

Last weekend I spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to spend my time doing, both employment wise, working for the man, yo, and also the rest of my time. If you know me at all, you know I like to start new projects. Sadly, I don’t have all the resources in my fingertips or in my brain to complete them all by myself. This can be a most frustrating fact sometimes. And other times, like this weekend, I think I would do myself a favor if I let some of them go and quit worrying about them and exerting mental energy towards them because DUDE they probably would have happened by now if they were going to happen.

This post marks the end of Project Cathartic, may you rest in peace. I’ve loved the idea of a place for artist to put their work and share the therapeutic process of creating them and maybe someday that will happen. But, for now, I’m letting it go.

Also, I’ve taken the t shirts down from Zazzle and Cafepress for a bit. I’ve been told they aren’t the best quality. I’m going to look into some other options and then bring them back. In the meantime, if you’ve bought one and are unsatisfied, email me and I’ll buy it back from you. Or, replace it for free when the new ones come out, up to you. Just let me know.

My religious study has been removed as well. And I’m also not working on the video interviews at this time. That one hurts me the most, because I have been so excited about saving the history of the internet though profiles and interviews, but without the support I need, I just can’t do it.

So, goodbye, you awesome and worthy projects. I hope to see you again someday and take you out for a soda. In the meantime, I’m ready to embrace what’s next.

September 5, 2007

Get Out Of Debt Free Expensive Card

Joe and I have deemed this next 18 months or so our Get Out Of Debt season. We try not to be too hard on ourselves on how we’ve managed to get this way. We’ve both known that this moment would come, we’ve been anticipating it, but there wasn’t a lot we could do about accruing our debt, with the exception of not living where we live. Living near my ex so the kids have the ease of going to one home or the other has been the goal for 5 years. And we’ve done it. But we’ve paid a price to be sure. The trade off was slowly going into more debt a little at a time with occasional spurts of doing it fast when we ran into any issue outside of our very tight budget. Like a new tire for the car or a delayed paycheck.

There was a time a few years ago, when we even had to go to one of those short-loan places to pay the rent. You know the kind – where they charge you about 2745% interest for a week? We had to keep that going for a few months before we were able to break free, and man, that was a rough and expensive patch of time.

Because we’ve been careful to not get credit cards and max them out trying to stay afloat, it’s mostly family, friends and cars that we owe. Without family this past 2 years especially, we never would have made it. I don’t know what people do if they don’t have family. I suppose get into high credit card debt and then become homeless? So, things could be much worse and we’re thankful that they aren’t. But, they are bad enough for us both to be highly motivated to put every cent we can towards paying everything back and off as soon as possible.

I went over the numbers this past weekend and got very brave and actually figured out how much we’ve paid in overdraft fees to the bank in the past year. Add that amount to the money we paid the thieves that run the short-loans and you’ve got a number so high that it makes me want to throw up. It’s over 2k.

It’s expensive to not have enough money. If you have to make that payment so the electricity won’t get turned off and the bank allows it to go through, Thank God, but then charges you a fee for going under your actual balance, you just start accepting that it’s a part of the deal. You add an additional $30 dollars to anything going through that you figure the bank will cover, even though you know your don’t have that much. We got pretty good at identifying what the bank would accept and what they would turn away. Of course, you always run the risk of them turning everything away, which is within their right, and then you feel like an idiot and worse, have to pay additional fees if there was another bank involved and worst, let people down and tempt fraud charges if it happens too often.

WELL, we got tired of this game. And we’re on our way to being debt free. It feels great. It feels great to have a plan and know how to get there. But it’s only possible because we have enough income now. Six months ago, we didn’t and no matter how much we didn’t want to be in such bad shape, there was nothing to be done about it except move to Alabama or somewhere else where the cost of living was low. Which wasn’t something we were willing to do.

I swear it costs a lot to be broke. You miss out on cash-only incentives and lower prices and interest rates on loans. You are forced to take what you can get because you feel so desperate and just want to be able to eat next week. We held many a garage sale on a desperate Saturday.

We’re very thankful. Things are looking up. And it would be even more awesome if I started bringing in more regular money. Hello? Universe?

August 30, 2007

Phew

Quite a week, duckies. Quite a week. Not a lot to say about it, as it’s too fresh and raw but perhaps soon.

Last weekend in Santa Barbara, my sister and I had a couple of great conversations about God. If you recall, I was worried about telling her how much my idea of a higher power differed from hers. Religion being what it is in my family, my fears weren’t unfounded. However, we had no problem understanding each other and really, at the base, our beliefs are quite similar. It’s just when you get to the organized religion part that we really start to differ. I have a huge issue with the Joseph Smith story and depending on others for the power of the priesthood. I have huge issues with Jesus Christ dying for my sins when I had no say in the matter and being indebted to him for eternity because it makes so much more sense to me if we are all accountable for our own sins and not laying them at the feet of someone else. I don’t believe it’s possible.

However, I do believe in spiritual power and I feel it all the time. I felt it in the Mormon church and I’ve felt it at the Catholic church and outside in nature and at home. I also believe in the principle of supporting the needy with our own resources. I have no doubt that parts of every religion have some good and I firmly believe that not any of them hold the one and only sure way to heaven.

I believe you can be a good person, a great person and not believe in any specific higher power. I’ve met many. The argument that you must be a Christan or God-Fearing person to be a good person makes no sense to me. Living a life of fear and doing things because you are afraid or storing up blessings in the afterlife does not make you a good person. I believe you really have to do things because you love. Love for yourself. Love for others. Being kind and loving is not the same thing as being a Christian, although they can both reside in the same person and do often.

I believe it doesn’t matter which religion you belong to or if you belong to one at all. Every single one thinks they are right, clear down to their bones and with equal passion. If you are a Catholic and join another church, your family will be praying for your eternal salvation until you come back into the fold. They will mourn your apostasy and pray to their version of God to save you and bring you back. The same for the Mormons. The same for them all.

When I see an organized religion that says, with all honesty, they don’t care if you join them or not and they think it doesn’t matter which one you belong to and they are there mostly for community reasons of support and not because of some special keys or promises or other thing that only they have, then I might think about joining them. But only because it’s nice to be around people sometimes and I could use the friends. I won’t be there because I think they hold all the answers.

I have no idea if there is an afterlife and I don’t care. I tend to think there is something but I have no issue with not understanding it right now. Why would I want to? I’ve got all I can handle in the present. It’s enough to feel the loving energy surrounding me and the knowledge that I’m not alone. I’m held up with light anytime I need it or ask for it. I know I’m loved just like every other being on the planet is loved.

I know my life is being guided just like everyone else’s is. I know things happen and my job is to adjust to those things, embrace them, accept them and learn from them. And all that can sometimes be hard but it’s always worth it and it helps if you can keep your sense of humor. I believe that sometimes hard or terrible things happen and it has nothing to do with what I did or didn’t do. The Universe unfolds as it is supposed to and all my hemming, hawing, praying, wailing, praising and praying won’t change it a darn bit. And that’s alright, too. But the more I accept things as they really are and accept reality instead of trying to make reality be what I want it to be, the happier and more peaceful I am. And also? It’s fine if you believe something different and maybe even awesome if you do, because that will give us a chance to talk about how we both feel and explore new ideas and learn new things and love the differences in each other.

Though this exploration, I’ve found that I can spot in an instant when other people start telling me what I believe based on their understanding of their own truth. When they start in with the intent to change my mind, I know that they aren’t really listening and everything they are saying is all about them. A reflection of how closely they must cling to their truths. It’s how THEY are inside. It’s their own fears about someone believing differently.

But when someone is truly trying to understand and they are listening with their hearts more than telling me, with their knowledge, why I’m wrong, we get on quite well. Next up – world peace.