Doodledash

I had really good intentions to write every day but did not accomplish it. I will do better in December. Thanksgiving was a nice time. I had a turkey issue that made me tense. I have never a turkey that was not finished cooking early. I put in the meat thermometer after 4 hours and it said it was done. I took out the bird, took it out of the bag, placed it on the platter and Dane started carving. He kept saying how hard it was to carve and I looked at it. The meat was not done and everything else is. He finished carving and I nuked the white meat, put the dark meat in foil and stuck it in the oven. It was good and worked out well. I bought a digital meat thermometer to use from now on. Not gonna do that one again. Raw turkey is so unappealing! My mother-in-law(who was fairly well behaved), my parents, my brothers Bill and Greg, and Amy were here for the day. It was pleasant and I really appreciated my mom and everyone's help with the meal. After the meal was done and clean up w...

this has been a really shitty day. arguments and tense. stress. yuck. all of us have been wound up and walking on eggshells. i warned amy this morning that i was walking on eggshells with myself and to beware. there was just a lot of things that came up and bit all in the ass. it was not fun. nothing productive about any of it. kate and mackenzie came over for dinner and that was nice. it was the highlight of the day. i love crockpots. thank goodness it is time for bed and time for putting the past behind me. good night and good riddance to sunday.

I have 45 minutes of me time right now until I have to leave for work.  For the moment I have chosen to use some of them for writing this. I had a disturbing revelation this morning that will be my topic of pondering for quite a while. I realized that all my life I have tried to be a lot of different people. I have tried to be my mom, my dad, my aunts, an uncle or two,  my husband, my neighbors, my friends, my respected people, my aquaintances, my coworkers, my kids, and others. It was a matter of I thought I would be better if I acted like (insert name here) .   Now there was one very important name missing in the list. It was mine. I was trying to be everyone else but Debbie.  So now all these thoughts are flooding through my head...I don't have to be a (insert word here) . I don't have to be a math whiz like ( insert name here) , I don't have to be like (insert name here) , etc. It is very scary, very liberating, very exciting, very life changing.  ...

Verdana--Why can't blogger update their fonts? I am very tired of the sorry selection that is here. Be more considerate of your patrons. I am going to be changing fonts while writing this. Bitching done. Trebuchet--Amy is home today sick for day #4. I was home Monday and now Thursday. It concerns me because of work. Nothing I can really do about it though. It is out of my hands. She has had a cold. She should be going to school tomorrow just in time to get everything she needs to be busy this weekend and play catch up. She has missed so much school already and gets stressed when she gets back and has to make up everything. It is a vicious circle. Times--I am feeding her lunch right now, a tasty totinos cheese pizza. Crunchy and nummy. She had a distress call cuz a big booger fell out of her nose and she didn't know where it landed. I did a rescue mission and brushed it off her shoulder. Imagine not being able to pick your nose. No more deep digging to get that annoying boog...

ya know those days when everything is making ya nuts and you are tense and stressed and react to everything? well that is my day. i am snapping and crying and nervous and not a fun person to be around. i looked up f*** you on google cuz that was how i was feeling. i got a rude reminder of why that is not a nice thing to say and just how vile it is. i was ashamed of myself and asked the lord for forgiveness. anyway i have to go the knee doctor tomorrow and i am really nervous. background....my dad had bilateral knee replacement surgery seven weeks ago and i have had a first hand up close and personal why i do not want to do that in addition to all the other reasons. anyway my knees are hurting. they are tight. my left calf hurts on the side and i don't know if it is knee, ligament, tendon or what but it makes sleep very unpleasant. anyway my brain is going a hundred miles an hour and my emotions are on red alert and i am having a hard time relaxing. i feel like tears will be c...

I just had a revelation. It is OK to be proud of myself. I have been in a major funk for the past week. Last week I reached a 15 pound weight loss. I was so excited about it. I then found myself in a terrible depression. I did not understand it at all and have been struggling with anger. My legs and my knees have hurt. My tail bone has hurt. My shoulder has hurt. I have been one big ache. We had a long week of rain and gray skies which was a major factor in my aches and mood.  I had so much anger and I couldn't get to the source of it. I finally felt I needed to make a list of everything I was angry about and it turned out to be ten pages long. That was really depressing especially since most of the things I listed were small things. I did notice a pattern that I have to address but I have to just learn to cope with this stuff. I don't have to be mad at myself because I didn't dust. It is stupid.  I have been eating and sabotaging myself. I was full and just wanted t...

It is time for me to get off the bench. I have spent most of my life on it. I have been called off it at times to play and participate in the game but most of the time has been spent on the sidelines. I have been content to sit and watch. Be it right or wrong that was where I chose to be. Choices are something I have been learning a lot about in the past several weeks. Joining Weight Watchers made me face my eating choices immediately and it was a shock because I saw how many wrong food choices I made. I had to adjust to that and then acknowledge the deeper reasons as to WHY I made these choices. What needs were my food and my eating choices telling me? What was I substituting food for and why? Why did I eat? It has been a very revealing time for me. Things that had been hidden and buried were suddenly exposed and opened up for examination. There have been a lot of tears shed that have helped clean out those old festering wounds. I have learned it is okay to face the problems and...

Right now everything is major and I know when I have some distance, it will be in better perspective but for now it sucks.  I am making progress with changes in my life which is awesome. I am being more diligent and doing things in a more timely manner. I am trying not to be mad at myself and to forgive myself. That is all good stuff. Other stuff though is making me very gggrrrrr. Amy came home and had to vent about school. I am glad she did so we could get some things resolved. I had to make a phone call and talk to her case manager about the fact that she did not have a para who was scheduled to be with her for her afternoon classes. The teacher who was supposed to be in charge of it forgot. It made me very angry and Amy was mad. It was uncalled for and it will not happen again.  There has been some definite communication issues in this family. Too many assumptions and too much defensive reactions. Too much walking on eggshells. Too much tension and stress. It is oo...

I have always liked the color yellow. My bedroom was a pale yellow growing up. My kitchen is a sunny happy yellow. I can't wear yellow it makes me look jaundiced. I do love the color though. In the English language, yellow is associated with jaundice and being cowardly. It is the second color in a stop light indicating caution. A coward is called a yellow belly. It is associated with aging with both people and paper. I feel yellow.Yellow in the way of being cowardly and cautious and old. I don't have the sunny happy yellow in me lately. I realized that I have been very impatient, snapping and reacting to everything. I do it without realized it. I even stopped talking for a while because I was walking on eggshells around myself. I didn't want to open my mouth and say something wrong. I have been really defensive and frustrated. Unlike this lovely flower picured above I feel all moldy and dark inside. It is quite unpleasant. Yesterday, I had a chat with ...

The past few weeks have been an enormous challenge for me. Stress has been a constant companion trying to catch me unaware and either kick me or bite me in the butt when I am not paying attention. Nasty stuff. There has been so much stuff happening that it has all piled up and it collapsed on me the other night.  I need to do a rundown of it to clear my mind... School started which is always a major hurdle. New paras, new teachers, new classes, the uncertainty is hard for Amy. Breaking in a group of people is hard because of her special needs. Thankfully one of her PCA's from the summer, Kris is working with her in school and she knows what to do. That was a blessing. Katie lost her job and is looking for a new one. She also moved in the midst of that. Money is a huge stresser for us all and it is hard not to get worried. Being a parent and watching your kids go through the hard times is just as hard as when I had to go through them for myself. I so want to spare her but that i...

Work has left my brain fried lately and I have had no desire to write. The thought will flit through my head and exit quickly. I have spent a lot of time on Facebook lately http://www.facebook.com/doodledash playing Farmville. It is fun but it causes me to waste a lot of time. I put myself on a self imposed fast of my computer for a day. I read something in a book that had a comment how technology is the new god. It hit home with me and I decided to pull back. I have pulled back a lot in the past few weeks with some stuff so I could get a fresh perspective on myself. I came to some hard but important truths that have made me do some restructuring. I have been diligently doing tasks for specified time periods-short ones. I find I have gotten a lot accomplished and it adds to my feelings of satisfaction. I am learning that I can get things done and it helps me build on improving things. Weight Watchers At Work was recently implemented at my job and I have joined the group. Yesterday wa...

I just watched or should I say fast forwarded through a movie called Smother. Diane Keaton, Liv Tyler, Ken Howard, Dax Shepard were the stars. I did not enjoy it at all. I hoped it would get better but it didn't. I do not recommend it. Point of this all is the plot sounded interesting, I like the stars, and I gave it a shot. It cost me a dollar. Thank goodness for Redbox. Smother is what I have been doing to myself for a very long time. I have done my best to be a people pleaser. I want to please and not upset. I therefore have been stifled by my own actions. I then get angry and resentful because I am not happy. I have learned to not communicate. I have smothered my emotions, my thoughts until I do not know what I genuinely think or feel about something. This fact causes no end of aggravation and argument because I cannot give a quick honest opinion and so I end up saying what I think wants to be heard and I get more frustrated and angry. I know that was a terrible run on sentence...

Another picture from Milwaukee trip. This is what we call an Uncle Bob shot. My brother Bob will pick up a camera and take a picture of himself. Many an unsuspecting person will get their pictures developed and find a grinning picture of Bob. It has happened to me over the years so any time we take a picture of ourselves it is an Uncle Bob shot. I was trying various ones to see how it would turn out through the dangling vines. This was the best one. My brother Bob is the strong silent one in my family. He keeps things to himself but he is always there for you and a wonderful loving man. I love him very much. When Sarah was in the hospital, I liked to sit with her at night when it was quiet. I sat in a rocking chair next to her bed. One night I was sitting there rocking and I looked up. There was Bob leaning over Sarah and gently stroking her hair with tears running down his face. He never said a word but I will never forget the love that I saw on his face that night. That was the ult...

I have my own personal commentarian in the form of my daughter, Amy. She loves to add her two cents to everything and has just got to know who I am talking to or what is happening. She is a younger version of yours truly. It is truly scary to see yourself in your kids but it was worse the first time I heard my mother's voice coming out of my mouth when I was talking to my kids. It shook me up for days. Last weekend my prince and I went on a weekend excursion to Milwaukee. We went to Miller Park and saw a Brewers game. Very nice park and it gave me a taste of what Target Field will be like when it opens next year for the Twins. We had great seats in row 8 next to the visitors dugout which was the Dodgers. One problem was the concern of foul balls and broken bats but thankfully we were any of them. We did a boat tour of Milwaukee which was nice and very touristy but I liked it anyway. We walked along the Riverwalk. Saw the Bronze Fonz. Visited the Three Domed gardens. It was a nice c...

A whisper in the breeze and a quiet question is asked...What will you do with what you have been given? What does that mean? What do you mean by what I have been given? Do you mean things? Talents? Time? Opportunities? Life? Which? What? Why? I sit at my computer typing. I play games. I read blogs. I read news. I read. I doodle on paint. I update itunes. I charge my touch or my phone. I sit and watch a movie or show or play a game on the wii. I read a book or the bible or a magazine. I take a nap. I clean or do laundry. I talk on the phone. I play with the dog. I talk to my kids or my husband. I go to target. I buy groceries. I cook dinner. I read this list and wonder this is this really my life. What happened to the fun? To the joy? Where did it go? When did I turn into this person I don't know or particularly like a lot? Where is the laughter? Where are the smiles? What happened to dreams? What happened to the spark of creativity? Is this blog it? I spend time existing. What will...

Ed McMahon died a few days ago. Farrah Fawcett died today. Then the biggest shocker of all, Michael Jackson. These are three people who have had or been a part of my life. Ed McMahon was Johnny's partner. There would have never been a "Heeeeerrrrreeee'ssss Johnny" without Ed. I used to stay up watching the Tonight Show when I was a kid and Ed was a part of it. I watched the Jerry Lewis telethon and Ed was there as a part of it. Publishers Clearinghouse. StarSearch. Ed was a part of it all. Farrah Fawcett was the toss the blond mane and shake it dream girl of everyone. Her smile on the poster, the red swimsuit, the flashing teeth and blonde hair made every boy drool and every girl dream. She was so cool, so Charlie's Angel. She was married to the Six Million Dollar Man and then divorced him and took up with his friend, Ryan O'Neal. Scandalous and delicious. Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, the cute little guy who could dance from the Jackson Five. Thriller, Of...

I have been really stressed at work lately. I like my job. I like helping people. I like to talk to them and help solve their problems. One aspect of my job is hard for me. I cringe and get tense everytime I have a certain situation. I dread the calls. It has really started to affect me negatively. I realized that I have to take control of the situation. I cannot let this dread and this fear paralyze me. It is such an awful feeling and it has to stop now. "This situation is unacceptable and I am going to beat it. I am going to beat it. I am going to turn this around and be the victor over it. I will not dread it. I will not be afraid of it. I can do this for myself. I have to do this for my family. I will make it and master it until it is natural for me." This is one of my new mantras.

I am full of questions tonight. Why do dogs turn in circles before they lay down? Does it somehow make it more comfortable? Why is Brett Favre's last name pronounced farve when it is spelle favre? Why does freshly mowed grass smell so good? Why does my dog always know what time I am coming home? One day I finally figured out it was the bird clock that alerts him of the time. Why is losing weight so darn hard? How come there is not some wonderful tasty food that has no calories and would help you lose weight? Why are people still so in love and enthralled with Obama as he keeps piling up this incredible debt and sellinbg our country down the river? Why do people like black licorice? Why is it possible to have baseball, football, basketball and hockey seasons all at the same time? Why does my husband zealously maintain control of the remote and dmoan and groan when he can't find it?

The anchor holds though the ship is battered...Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls all your waves and breakers wash over me. Psalms 42:7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers wash over me. I stand on the shore watching the tide come in. All the waves are rolling in and they batter the shore. They crash upon the rocks. The rocks stand up to their power. The rocks can't fight the power of the waves. Instead they stand there in the open, letting the waves wash over them smoothing out the roughness, removing the hard edges. The crushing power of the breakers wears down the harshness of the rocks leaving smoothly worn surfaces. The rocks can't fight the waves. It is impossible for them to get up and run away. The rocks must accept what is given them. The waves don't always batter and crash. Sometimes they gently slide over the surface gently caressing the rocks. Sometimes there is peace and a quiet. The rocks cannot know wha...

I love rocks. When people are traveling, I will often ask them to bring back a small rock for me. I don't know why. I just love rocks. This a picture at the start of Minnehaha Creek at the Grays Bay Dam on Lake Minnetonka. I love going fishing here and just sitting and watching. They got great rocks here and I love to watch the water rushing out of the dam onto the rocks. It makes me smile.