A Flame Three Feet High

The Soon to be ex hubby has flown off to Phoenix with his new girlfriend for a week. He said he was letting me have our daughter for New Year's Eve..........how thoughtful............it is such a kid friendly holiday!

I am so exhausted. Raising a toddler was meant to be with two parents. I think that is why God made it impossible to have a kid by yourself unless you are a starfish. My little hurricane has run me ragged today. I love her and I love painting and singing and dancing and tea parties and Barbie and play-doh and crayons and cooking and running and ball-hockey and going in and out the doggie door, but by 10 am I am pooped................she is just getting started. I wish I had the energy she has or half the energy of the energizer bunny.

STBEH does not have to ever put her to bed, give her a nap, take her to school, wash her clothes, call the daycare, get her up in the mornings, OR ANYTHING A RESPONSIBLE PARENT DOES!!

So all of this really burns my butt, just like a flame three feet high

There is No Arizona

He lied to me. Said he was going to see his brother in California for a week. I could tell he was lying.........

I can't believe stebh already has a girlfriend!! Hey never took days off to spend with me. He would never go with me anywhere and now he is taking a freaking week to go to Phoenix with his new girlfriend!!

I am telling myself I will not cry. Surprisingly, I am not. Maybe I wish I was because I have just raided my daughter's candy dish.

He is not going to see his daughter for a week!

I guess I didn't think it would hurt. Gosh it does. We have not even filed for divorce, yet!

I should be glad someone else has to deal with him, but it really sucks. It just feels so soon.

aghhhhhh I can't get this song out of my head as I think of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22tktN87ASk&eurl=http://www.facebook.com/home.php&feature=player_embedded

The Dog Ate My Vibrator

Okay, not really, it was a coaster. I just was thinking I should write a book about becoming a single mom and when the dog ate the coaster, I came up with that funny title.

Technology is a wonderful thing. It brings the world together and frankly, I wouldn't have a job without it. However, some of this "connecting" is not so great. Today, I saw on facebook my soon to be ex hubby--not even divorced is looking for singles online and his status is single and dating...............arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Here are the things I miss about having stbeh around:

• took out the trash
• walked the dog
• carried in the heavy groceries
• hung the Christmas lights
• changed light bulbs that were up high
• could put my cold toes on his back at night to warm them up
• watched some really cool stuff on the Discovery Channel and History Channel
• going to the movies
• keeping up with football
• okay, he really could make me laugh

Things that are better with him gone:

• don't argue about when he will take out the trash
• don't argue about when he will walk the dog
• don't argue about --see all the above hahahaha
• my self esteem
• cleaning, no dirty socks on the floor
• dish washing, I don't have any forks to wash
• yelling and name-calling
• my creative spirit
• sleeping in the whole bed

I did marry him knowing he had a temper. I did not know he would go to Iraq and come back devastated by PTSD. I did not realize how emotional abuse evolves. But he and I did one thing right. Our daughter is so beautiful....did I mention she is smart? She has his good looks and I hope my personality so we did right.

Okay, so I have cold toes....socks to bed because me and my daughter are better off taking out the trash ourselves. And I will just have to keep the dog out of the bedroom.

My Favorite Christmas Memory

I am a total sucker for those Christmas commercials. I don't just cry at the Kodak moments, either. Last week, I went out and bought some Folgers coffee because of the soldier coming home at Christmas and drinking Folgers. Right now, Jane Seymour is making me cry talking about her mom and the new "open heart" design she has made for Kay Jewelers. That ad agency deserves all the money they make because those every kiss begins with Kay commercials always get me! Why do diamonds say I love you? I dunno but those commercials make me believe it!!

As a kid, Christmas was one of my favorite holidays. Not just the gifts, but the anticipation of the gifts and of course the chocolate!! We always had excellent feasts and Mom's guilt trips were smaller as she was still on a high from how guilty we all felt at Thanksgiving.

I will never forget the year I got an Atari it had Pong in two colors!!! Of course there are the less favorite memories.....my grandparents forgetting that they had 3 granddaughters and having to pretend to be happy while my sisters opened gifts, my aunt asking me how it felt to be adopted and knowing my real father didn't want to talk to me even on Christmas......

I really think though, the best part of Christmas is the candles. I love the Advent Season. The four weeks of lighting one new candle and preparing our hearts for the coming of the baby Jesus. Oh, and the music. I love singing the music. All of it!! I have tried for years to memorize more and more of the second and third verses of hymns. I love to sing with my whole heart praising God without having to look at the words!

My daughter's first Christmas was fun. She crawled under the tree while I was washing dishes on December 23 and opened all her gifts. She didn't even look at the presents. She was so excited about the wrapping paper!!!

Last year was a hard Christmas. Hubby and I were separated. I was living with my parents in the middle of nowhere New Mexico. (I mean so small that I got to sing two solos during the Christmas season.) My Daddy was the preacher and all the kids called my daughter Baby Jesus. They still do because when they were reading the Christmas story the teacher said and then came the Baby Jesus and Daddy walked in the Sunday School room with her! Last year was my daughter's second Christmas and well I was sad we weren't the perfect little family. I was also sad because we were planning to drive all day Christmas day and we had to open gifts Christmas Eve. And because Daddy was the preacher we had to rush to do it between services.

We sat in the first row at the second service because I had to sing and Mom had to read a bible verse. My daughter was next to me in her new Dora Dress her other Grammie had mailed to her. It has a white ruffle on the neck. She still fits it! So as we sang Silent Night and lit candles, my Mom had to go and help Daddy at the back, leaving me and my daughter alone in the front row.

The lights went down and just the trees were lit. And the two of us held the candle. As I looked at her and she was shining so golden from the lights. Her blond hair was like a halo and the ruffle on her shirt was so perfect in the candlelight. I looked into her big brown eyes and saw the wonder of a child and the beauty of God's grace. I wanted a camera so bad that moment. I wanted to share this beautiful sight with the world, but then somehow God told me the precious gift was for me and to show me his love.

This is my favorite Christmas memory!

Butterflies

If you love something set it free
If it comes back it is yours forever
If it doesn't it never was

In second grade, I was a Brownie. As part of some Girl Scout badge, we were each given a caterpillar and some milkweed. I remember the jar so well. I watched each day as the caterpillar grew. I remember coming home from school and being so disappointed because it went into its cocoon while I was gone.

When it became a beautiful Monarch Butterfly, I wanted to keep it. That is when my mom told me that poem.

That butterfly did not come back. I had loved it, fed it, cared for it, nutured it, and prayed over it. And it was gone. It was a crushing blow to my 7 year old heart.

As a matter of fact, in my life, NO butterfly has ever come back. I watched a beautiful butterfly walk out my front door. I kept thinking I heard his truck pull back up. Once, while lying in the heaping sobbing pile on the landing of the stairs, I thought I heard the front door open. I was wrong.

Now, my not yet 40 year old heart dealing with this crushing blow once again, is going to look for a new kind of butterfly.

I think I will focus on my daughter. I will love her, fed her, care for her, nurture her, and pray over her. I will also let her go when she has matured. Somehow, I think this is one butterfly that might come back.

When EF Hutton Talks...People Listen

As a kid I wanted to be a boy. Not because I thought I was a boy inside or because I wanted to kiss girls, but because boys got away with so much. I wanted to be the class clown and that position always seemed reserved for a boy.

Alan H. was our class clown in 5th grade (one of my favorite years). Well him, and my bestest ever BFF, BA. Alan was not smart though. B and I were. But the guys got away with it and I always had to go stand in the hall. Or worse, no one laughed!!

In high school, I pulled a prank on our 10th grade honors English teacher. That woman was sooooo stodgy. She named her daughter after Emily Dickinson. Anyway, I played the joke, straight faced and she didn't get it. Then no one NO ONE laughed. Not even a murmur. I wanted to die right there in the silence. Afterwards, like lunch time, I found out everyone was talking about it and it was the funniest thing anyone had ever done to her. They were just all so scared of her no one would dare laugh.

Daddy has always told me to be a stand up comic. I would love that job. But the problem is I don't tell jokes to be funny. I also always have a story to tell. And I don't tell the story to be funny or because I live in the past either. I tell the story because I need the attention. I try to be funny because I have no self esteem.

Bad publicity is better than no publicity, right? I was not popular in school. I would never have won any election or class favorite whatever, but I bet you can't find 10 people who didn't know me. I knew tons of people and everyone knew who I was. Usually, not for anything good I did, but maybe funny.

I think being the middle child makes me this way. I feel like I always have to go the extra mile to please mom and dad to get any attention.

I don't think I can quit being a talker. Okay, really that is not up for change anyway. I don't know about the story telling either. I really like being the center of attention.

But I am going to work on trusting myself. So many times I don't let my own word stand for itself. I will say something and questioned or not, I provide an authority to back my word. The authority might be the Library of Congress or just Mom, but it seems I can't ever just say because I say so. Like I have something to prove to someone. Well for eight years I have had to prove every statement. I have had to justify myself. I don't know if I was always this way or just as the abuse grew, I grew this way. Well, I am going to try to stop this. No More I say.

When EF Hutton Talks................who gives a shit, I am not going to listen.....I don't need him anyway.

ARGGGHHH

I want to know who sets the papertowel machines in the public bathrooms. Who decides how much papertowel I need and how long I have to wait until I can have another one?

This just irritates me. I think the laptop may fritz out cz my hands are still wet!!!