TMI Tuesday on Wednesday!

You find a fairy. With a wave of their wand they can change anything for you.

What is the one thing you would change about your body?

My weight. I need to drop the equivalent of an 8 or 9 year old child. I want my pre-childbearing figure back. Weight loss is difficult for me due to the rheumatoid arthritis, makes it very difficult and painful to work out.

What is the one personality trait you would change?

My temper... Little things make my fly off the handle, but I am calm with big things, so I guess it's not SO bad... but still.

What is the one thing about your job you would change?

Not HAVING one! SOMEBODY hire me for goodness sake! I am REALLY good at what I do, and am very hardworking, reliable, conscientious, organized and nice! What's a gal gotta do?!

What is the one thing about your home you would change?

I’d make the master bath bigger. I’d love a nice big bathtub and a separate stand up shower big enough for two. I’d basically just like more ROOM in there.

What is the one thing about your Significant Other you would change?

His hearing loss from his time in the Army. Gets frustrating having to repeat over and over. Otherwise, he is pretty much perfect for me!

Who is the one person you would poof out of your life and why?

My brother-in-law. For reasons I can't share here.

Who is the one person you would poof back in and why?

My friend Magdalena who just vanished. I will always miss her. I loved her like a sister and it hurt me deeply when she just disappeared from my life.

Yawn

So, my life is amazingly boring at the moment. I am not yet working, and I don't know anyone here yet, so the sum total of every day involves housework and cooking, with an occasional bike ride or dog walk thrown in just to break up the monotony.
This would be why I have not posted anything recently, and have been pretty much slacking at my blog.
My brain is atrophying.
I can feel it.

I have not yet sunk to watching soap operas or the Lifetime Movie Network, however, so there is hope for me yet!

I am waiting to hear back from a job interview that went amazingly well at a job that fit my skill set like a custom made glove. Cross your fingers for me?

I love Texas, and especially love our new house, but If I don't get out of this house SOON, I am going to completely lose it. Total meltdown. I am already getting to be a crabby witch just from the lack of money earned, work completed, conversations had... etc...

AAARRRGGGHHHHH!

Poor Sportsmanship

Did you see that?!? The Swedish wrestler just threw his bronze medal on the ground and stomped away! His coach, his team, and his mother should all line up and bitch-slap that boy!
My son threw his headgear once after he lost an important match.
Once.
I frog-marched that boy out of the gymnasium to the hallway and laid it on the line for him in clear black and white plain english.
Son, if you EVER pitch a fit like that again, it will be the LAST time you EVER step foot on a wrestling mat again. You lose a match, you shake hands with and congratulate your opponent on a good match, shake the coaches hand, leave the gym and then, when you are totally alone, you can be angry and upset. But, and hear me clearly, don't you EVER, EVER display your temper or upset in the gym again. It makes you look like a poor sport, makes your team look bad and reflects poorly on your momma. You really don't want to reflect poorly on your momma.
Poor sportsmanship really pisses me off, in case you were unclear.

Olympics 2008

I LOVE the Olympics.
I love watching the best athletes in the world compete to determine the very best in the world.
But, I especially love that there are winners and losers.
In general, those that have the most talent, work and train the hardest and longest, and have the most heart and guts win. Those who don't, lose.
In our country today with its suburbs and soccer moms, apparently winners and losers have been done away with.
Let's not hurt little Johnny or Jane's feelings by telling them that the other team was better than them and they lost.
Let's not encourage them to work harder, train harder, and become resolute and focused... let's instead have them play a game with no purpose, no goal, no chance to become exceptional.
My sons began team sports at age four, when I could no longer keep them off a wrestling mat. They were both attending their uncles wrestling matches from newborn age. When my oldest son turned four, my brothers were coaching a pee-wee wrestling group, and talked me into allowing J to participate. I thought he was too young. But, finally, I gave in, and I must admit; it was the best thing I could have done for my son. So, D was allowed to do the same, and today wrestles Varsity at his high school.
Allowing him to participate, practice, learn, train and gain confidence were awesome to watch. It was hard to watch him lose a match. But, whenever he would lose, after the match he and I would talk together about what had happened during his match and what he could do next time to perhaps do better. Sometimes, he had to accept that the other wrestler was just simply better than him! Horrors!
I must be a terrible parent to allow my son to be faced with the fact that sometimes people will be better than him at something. That sometimes he will lose. The other guy will win.
And he will just have to suck it up and deal.
Wonder what would happen to the Olympics if there were no winners or losers? If the officials just stood all the athletes at the podium and said "you were all awesome! nobody won, nobody lost!"
blech.

Guns, Bullets & Teachers

So, as I said in a way earlier post, now that I live in Texas, I intend to learn to handle weapons; most especially a handgun. So, W.H. (being all for my learning how to protect myself) looked around and found a gun range near our new home, and we went and checked it out tonight.
The range is only about 20 minutes away and I love it! No frills, no fuss... just a shack from which to rent lanes and weapons & buy ammo, and three sections of shooting lanes; handguns, rifles, and shotguns. I can't wait.
W.H. was Army, and rated "expert" in weapons, so he will be teaching me the basics. I fully intend to take the "Beginning Handguns" and "Concealed carry" safety classes eventually. For now, I just want to get to a point where I don't jump to the ceiling every time I hear a gun fire.
I will also be test firing several calibers of handguns to find out which one suits me best. On the recommendation of both W.H. and the range guy, I will be beginning with this:
A .380 caliber handgun. The guy handed me one to get a feel for this evening, and I liked how it felt in my hand... not too heavy, but not a lightweight either. Now I just have to see how it feels to fire.
Which I will be doing Tuesday evening! YAY!
Between me, W.H. and the range guy, we decided that since I am SO very gun-shy (watching your father try to blow mom's head off will do that every time!) It will be better for us to come to the range on a Tuesday evening when it is pretty much empty, and I can concentrate on learning gun safety, and not be reacting to so much gunfire.
I am really looking forward to it for several reasons.
Firstly, I need to overcome this irrational fear of guns. The GUN did not try to kill my mother. My FATHER tried to kill my mother, and a gun was simply the tool he used to make the attempt. Could have just as easily been a cast iron skillet.
Secondly, I really am concerned with the direction this country is taking. Neither candidate should be allowed to run a playground recess, much less our country. And when the big bad comes knocking on our country's door, I want to be able to defend my home and family.
And Thirdly, I want to be able to protect myself. I want to be able to walk from a store to my car without worrying about the rapist behind me. I want to do whatever I can to protect myself from the depravity of my fellow "humans".
But, I am not a fool. I also want to be safe FROM the tool I have selected to protect myself with. Therefore, I am becoming "grasshopper" and taking lessons from the master.

Books, Books, and more books!

A gauntlet has been thrown down by "Biped Employing Opposoable Thumbs" http://auspiciousnovice.blogspot.com/.
I am waiting to see how this list was chosen, but please see below:
Not Particularly a "Worm"

Biped reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books printed.
1) Bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own blog.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo


Ok, so I have not read nearly enough of the classics, but frankly, a lot of the classics are simply boring. And don't think that just because I have read a lot of the classics that I am a snob! LOL! Far from it... I just love to read.
As far as the meme instructions go, I am unable to underline anything, but I did love many of the ones I have read! Anyone else out there a reader?

Anybody want to buy a house in Ohio?

For Sale:
Lovely four bedroom, 1.5 bath home with eat in kitchen, living room and family room. Many updates including newly remodeled family room with custom built-in floor to ceiling bookshelves and entertainment center wired for surround sound and designer paint!
Appliances include dishwasher, newer stove, refrigerator, dehumidifier in basement.
Great home set on one full acre property in the country! Many mature trees on property.
Call TC Wood Realty at 419-947-8015 to inquire about viewing the property located between the towns of Ashley and Cardington, Ohio. Cardington-Lincoln School District.
Go to www.tcwoodrealty.com to find listing # 2827944

It was a great house, in a great town, with a great school in a town with nice people. Now I just REALLY want to sell it!

My Life... Part 7...Living Terror

I know I have not written anything in this series for a while now; things were getting pretty heavy there for a while and I needed to take a break from the memories.

After that first night, my father began fabricating reasons for us to be alone. He would send my mother to the store, making her take my brothers with her. He would need me to accompany him into the woods to gather deadfall and kindling, etc...

Always, the moment we were alone, my father would be touching me, or making me touch him. He taught me how to masturbate him to ejaculation, then the proper way to perform oral sex for the most enjoyment for him. He taught me a lot.

I also learned never to say no. Never. Bad things happened to my mom when I said no. Her bruises were my fault because I tried to say no, told him I did not want to have sex, did not want him to touch me.
I hated it; every moment... in my mind, I wanted to vomit. My body though, that was another story entirely. It liked it. He would touch me in ways that I somehow knew was wrong and bad, and yet, I would have an orgasm. I felt dirty, ashamed, and I wanted to die. I must be a terrible person because otherwise my body would not like the things he did to it.
The older I got, the worse things got. The more my body developed, the more he wanted to show it off to his buddies in the bar. He bought me skimpy tops, made me remove my bra, and took me into the bar for an afternoon. I spent probably a complete year of my life in bars over the years with my father. Hour after hour, day after day. Exposing my developing body to drunken, leering men.
There was no escape.