»

Sunday, December 28, 2008

The Deafening Silence!

Oh my goodness....I can't believe I haven't written in such a long time....don't time fly when your losing your marbles...well.....here goes.....
Hallelujah, I am finished juggling this holiday craziness while recovering from my surgery. I took some time out to walk through my garden today. I am trapped in this cyclical kind of nausea and it’s depressing me. But even in the winter bleakness there are things I can do to prepare a garden for the new life of spring. Ah spring….rebirth! Working in my garden is a preferred pastime, because of the connection to the earth and the meditative feeling I have when I dig and divide and plant, and also because of the silence. It is a funny thing because growing up on a farm, I hated doing everything that I now cherish.
When I say silence, I don't mean a complete lack of sound. In fact I am not quite sure what a complete lack of sound is like. It seems like there is always some kind of sound, even at the quietest of times. If nothing else, there is the sound of my breath and the beating of my heart to keep me company and remind me of the gift of life I enjoy each and every moment.
I am so protective of my alone time...I mean just me. I love hugging and I love to have someone close to me, holding my hand and just sharing space with me, but I need my alone time. It has become the balm to my soul.
In a world of constant noise, traffic, airplanes, constant bombardment of machine sounds and the like, it is no wonder that people feel stressed and anxious. I don’t even think they even know why. Alternatively, most people relax when they can get to places that are quieter and more natural, where one can hear the breeze rustling the leaves in the trees, and the sounds of water flowing over stones in a softly flowing stream. I find myself walking on the beach a lot to hear that calming rhythm. I even dream of walking on the beach a lot and I find it can be very soothing to me.
I believe the reason for that is that such sounds are natural and in tune with the Earth, unlike many of the sounds of bustling human activity.
One of the nicest things about relaxing sounds is that they allow me to access the most important aspect of silence, the silence within. That silence inside that allows me to actually hear my own thoughts and receive insights can leave me feeling not only relaxed, but more alive and in step with the planet. The word silence comes from the word silentium, which means repose, to sit down, to rest. So, maybe silence is not so much the lack of sound as it is the kind of sounds that give us rest.
So, my unsolicited advice: the next time you find yourself feeling a bit anxious without an obvious reason, stop and listen to the sounds around you. If you are not happy with what you hear, find a way to enjoy the sounds that do make you feel peaceful and relaxed. Take an early walk in the park…go with your dog if you have one, dig in your own garden, or my absolute favorite….go FISHING! Or sit on your porch listening to the wind blow through the trees, or maybe put a waterfall or ocean wave CD on to play, and enjoy the sounds of silence. Sometimes it is then that I hear what my heart has been trying to tell me……….smooches

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Just thinking....

I'm in one of those moods. I was talking to my friend Gary tonight. I love him and I so wish I could touch him and take the bitterness out of his heart but the sad truth is that it is a bitterness borne out of love. I have been there and I may very well be there again. Such is the risk. It is...a giant risk when you love someone, not just a romantic partner but as friends. I learned that lesson this week although in reality it was over a year ago, I just didn't want to accept it. Just like my Gary. One would think that when you love someone, be it friend, family or something other, that there is a responsible to each other. Not like you love them so they owe you, more like I have exposed my soul to you so please don't hurt me. I have made it known to everyone who knows me, that I wear my heart on my sleeve, irregardless of my bravado or brashness. That would be a cover for my hurt...
I have a friend, I would and have done anything for.......all they need do was ask and I responded, I never missed an occasion in their life, and I supported them as a friend should. I never expected anything from this person but to be my friend in return. But I may have expected too much, I expected to be treated with dignity, I expected to be treated courteously, I expected my friend to be truthful, I expected my friend to not hurt my feelings.....so I expected too much. More than obviously they could give me. I can only blame myself, my own poor judgment of character...
The depth of sadness in my heart is unfathomable, I am truly heartbroken. I feel betrayed, like when I needed my friend to fight for me, I just wasn't worth it to them. That is a hard thing to swallow. That is why I can't be upset with my Gary, he can stay as heartbroken as he wants. I just listen to him when his heart screams out...maybe it will drown out my own.

Monday, November 10, 2008

I'm mad, scared, confused, aggravated...pick an adjective....

First...it's Veteran's Day tomorrow and with a son and tons of family in the military and a family full of veterans, as well as special friends :)....go HUG A VET! and if you really want to celebrate them...ask them to tell you a story about when they served....they are a hoot!

Well, No more waiting…..I have to have surgery. So I am rearranging my life to accommodate this intrusion. I have had to cancel some plans because I’m unsure of what the aftermath will be. Funny though, I have always hated Christmas and this year I’m really going to hate it. We discussed it and decided to cancel the wedding too...not really cancel, postpone. Just as well, I couldn't get any of my family to come to it...just like the first one! I am really pissed off, so I shouldn't talk about family. Maybe its because I’m older, or maybe because I’ve been here before but I’m not feeling as optimistic as I probably have in the past. Funny, when I was younger, nothing really fazed me. Now the thought of surgery is really scary to me. I appreciate my life so much more and the thought of it been interrupted when everything seems so right, is going my way, is jarring me to the bone. When I am on the verge of getting everything I worked so hard for, it is daunting and it is ludicrous at the same time. I am reminded of a conversation a long time ago with my friend Pam. Pam and her husband, Paul had separated for a time, almost two years. This was about 20 years ago, but I was just talking to Pam about it a week or so ago. I found it a heart-breaking situation because I loved both of them. Paul once made the most incredible gesture to me. The morning that my father called my work to tell me that my mother was dying, Paul answered the phone, came to get me and literally caught me as I hit the floor. Then after I cried in his arms, he gave me his American Express card and told me to go charter a plane to get my sister and me to VA as fast as possible. I refused him. But I have NEVER forgotten that gesture. It is one act of kindness that I have always tried to ’pay forward.’ His wife Pam is an awesome person, a nurse and mother to five. They had just got suffocated with marital responsibilities and separated. But as fate would have it, they finally came to see that they belonged together and reunited. Within a month, Pam was rejoicing as they were expecting their second child. It seemed to fulfill a destiny. Pam nearly glowed with happiness from inside and out. Then she got very sick. She was diagnosed with a genetic kidney aliment. Her kidneys were shutting down and the prognosis was the surgery would most likely end her pregnancy, but the doctors were unsure if she could hold off. I sat and listened to her thinking out loud….she wanted to have everything straight in her head to allow her and Paul to make an informed decision. She suddenly burst into tears. I asked her if she was all right and she screamed NO! I have everything the way I want it and I might lose it…What could I do for her?…I had no answers for her and could only offer comfort. She did hold off and had the baby. It was difficult but she became stable and went on to have 3 more babies…each a little scary, but she did it, watching her kidney status very closely each time. I have often thought. Why is life like this? Why is it always a trial? Why to get to what you have dreamed about you have to endure something or work your ass off to achieve. I’m not sure I’m buying the whole line of thinking that it is to appreciate it more. Maybe I bought it for the first couple of times, but at some point you think it would be a mute point: Lesson Learned. I appreciate everything and that comes from having nothing, and I mean nothing, in my life ever being easy. Nothing goes my way, nice and easy the first time…I have just gotten really good at making it LOOK that way. Sometimes I even catch myself resenting the people who everything seems to come to them with no obstacles. Then I remember it is just the way things are for me and has nothing to do with them. So I have to believe that this is just a speed bump on my life’s path and that everything will get back on course as soon as I can regain command of it. In the meantime, I have to do what I do least well of all the skills I have…..wait and then recover. I have the patience of the proverbial snake that I hate so much….Oh just for the record….most of the people that I think get things handed to them…..usually have their own set of trials to endure…I'm just self centered. :)

Sunday, November 2, 2008

time for a lil update.....

What a week! I have been flat out. Here's some highlights:
Doctor's appointment on Monday...waiting....Tuesday was basically a wash out...all stress, no productivity. Wednesday I had an 8 hour argument...from 8:45 am until 5:10 pm and then my car had coolant issues which required major repair.
Thursday-A daytrip to Salem MA for a witch trial...not my own! Had to take the truck cause my car was in the shop. Some crazy psychic lady made me cry...twice! The truth hurts, really.
Friday...a halloween party...Saturday, I had to catch up on something from work, then out with my honey to see Betsy rock the house at the Lafayette House....ok that night was good...VERY GOOD wink wink! but then...I always think of Sunday as a day of rest...HA! Started at 7:45 am when my father called to tell me that he was going to take the trackhoe and dig up my mother, whose been dead for 2o years and move her. Dad could ya let me wake up first? So I have to crawl out of my comfy warm bed, snuggled in loving arms to listen to him scream for an hour. Tell me again how blest I am! So I finally get my dad calmed down.and I told him if he moves her to tell me where...I do want to be buried by her!...then I got to enjoy a cup of coffee and out comes the love of my life to start with me. Well let me re-phase that...the man I thought was the love of my life.....hehehehe....relationships SUCK! So I sent him packing, oh not for good...but for a long while :) and I sat down to write two more papers. Seems this rotation of classes I am in requires that every other week I have a paper due in both classes and try as I might....I can not get started on them early. So I write first about a law and how I think it will impact service delivery then I write out a program evaluation plan on a made up scenario about a youth symphony....the first paper I finished at noon...the second I started at 4 and just finished before I started this....so that is that....Mi Vida Loca....oh did I mention that I gotta go back tomorrow and finish the 8 hour argument? God gimme strength!
Oh a sidebar...my buddy Kells sent out this survey thing that I in turn forwarded...for lack of anything else better to do...and who responds.....one of my bestest friends from middle school...and better yet....he knows everything about me....now that is a blessing....I love you Mark!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

I am a GREAT me!

Take a look at this picture...I am always doing goofy stuff with my photoshop. Can you see what I did? Nothing spectatular....I just think I like it better this way.

I am in a very strange place...viewing the world with eyes that are deceptive....





I just have to get some stuff off my chest…and please don’t read anything into what I’m babbling about. It’s mostly therapy for myself…although if you do recognize something about you in my diatribe and it makes you want to change a behavior, then by all means…it’s about you. HAHAHA….ok that makes my PMP* So, basically I have no one to tell all the inane crap that spews from my head so…guess what? Here it is….I have been in some of the most bizarre relationships. The most obvious term to use is one sided relationships…I give and give and I get taken. Not the least of which was my marriage…I’m not finger pointing and in all reality I know I was a bitch with a capital B. But if I learned nothing else….it was about energy…like E=MC2…you get out of it what you put in to it. I used to laugh when my husband cheated on me. He would spend several hours online picking the slut of the week. Then, he would send her flowers and special trinkets and wine and dine her. Tell her this incredible story about an uncaring wife and children. While I sat at home, alone, wishing he would pay a minute’s attention to me. If he brought me a happy meal toy, I would have done anything he wanted. I tried almost everything he ever suggested. In the end, he said it was because he knew he could have me anytime. So basically he said I was not worth the effort. But at the same time, when I threatened to leave, he would be good. He would even tell me that I was the best he could ever hope to have. I fought and fought myself for years…denying myself and denying who I am. What I need….I wouldn’t ever go back. I don’t need any grand gesture….I want to trust….trust for me is knowing how the other person is going to respond. As a result I decided that I had to be totally and completely honest with my significant other. If we are to truly have a future then he must know and accept everything and vice versa. This is sharing my secrets and to be totally accepted. Now I’m afraid, I’ve given him a weapon…so does he protect me with it or make me bleed. I just don’t want him to think I am someone I am not…been there…I want to be ‘me’…I am a GREAT me. And at the end of the day…I have had loved ones carve me up. Guess what happens the next day…The sun comes up again.

*pissing my pants

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Catching up....



Doesn't this picture make you want to break into a rousing rendition of 'Going to the Chapel!"? I couldn't resist...as I have intimated the only thing worse than me being a jaded crone is me as a fool in love. So let's catch up.....physically...I am miserable....I have been running my ass off and in between dealing with this leg. I have had this reoccurring pain in my right leg since June and have had at least four doctors look at it...an orthropedic, a vascular surgeon, the house doctor at camp, and my personal physician. I had an ultrasound and a MRI....final answer is...for all you anatomy freaks...I recieved a blunt force trauma to my calf...an electric wheelchair full force into me....and the resulting bruising cause a build of fluid in my calf....now it swell...then it subsides....and of course the major consensus is all I need to do is stay off my feet for a few days...WHICH IS NOT GONNA HAPPEN! In the past month alone, I have been all over the New England....I was in Maine, then I was in New York and there is barely an inch of Massachusetts, RI and CT that I have not been through so when am I suppose to stay off it? yup, when I'm dead! so I have to tell you about upstate NY....I did not want to come back....we stayed in a cabin...the night sky was so loaded with stars.....the love, the friendship, the comfort...I wish that you each could know such peace. We went out kayaking on Lake Vanare.and had an fabulous dinner Saturday Night..It was an awesome time....the Lake George/Adirondacks area is breathtaking. I miss you all aready...Audrey, Charlie, Derek, Emma, Peter, Greta, Robbie...my Virginia Tech friend....Dan and of course Jill and Mike.

I have been thinking about something lately. Someone asks me at least once a week, why I do what I do...how can I face people everyday with disabilities? Is it depressing? How do I cope? Every person on this planet faces some sort of challenge every day...so the people I call my friends have challenges that you can see a mile away. I almost wrote that they are like everyone else....but they aren't.....'normal' people judge....'normal' people think you have a motive.....'normal' people think you're weird. I have friends who love me for who I am....laugh at me and laugh with me.....they are always glad to see me, even if I'm not wearing designer clothes...they don't find it odd that I hug them and tell them I love them, everytime I see them...they accept me for who I am....odd and all! That is a blessing in this life....to not have your feeling rejected. I will admit however, it have made me worse with 'normal' people....they aren't quite sure how to react when I grab them and hug them....or I get ackward silences sometimes when I say I love you...but the good news appears to be that they are getting used to it....well most of them.

I'm going post of a ton of pictures on MySpace and FaceBook if anyone's interested.... pictures from NY, around Boston, the horses...etc.

I love you Boob!...nope didn't mispell Bob...I meant Boob! hehehe! The next year of our lives is going be fantabulous! I promise with all my heart!

See ya round....smooches

Sunday, September 7, 2008

I've created a monster.....


I'm joking! My buddy Artemis wants a better picture and I gotta tell ewes guys this story.

As you are all aware, I like to take a life break in late April. I always take 3 or 4 weeks off beginning the middle of April into May. My Birthday is April 28th and as a present to myself I do what I want for a while. It started out as a week off and that just didn't seem like enough for me...so I stretch it out. This past April I was off for a month. I do all sorts of stuff, just no work. Well, not my regular jobs...I want things to be different. I go to Virginia, badger everyone I know there....and partake in a little self awareness and reconnecting with who I am. Ok, I'm rambling...The point being I was not around much this past April. So I was sitting and talking to Artemis and we got this new computer program that is incorporated into her master program. It basically allows standard responses to be set to icons so that it can be accessed quickly. This will be handy for her as people are always asking her the same questions over and over, but we have to reprogram the responses or change the questions....tweak it if you will. So the first one...What is your name? and it says TODD. We both cracked up laughing..but I told her from now on I'm calling her TODD. Then she hits...My birthday is...and it says June 18th...I asked..is that your birthday? She can answer yes or no questions with her eyes...closing them means yes...rolling them up is no...she said no. so I said when is your birthday...Jan...up...no...Feb....up...no.....March...no....April...she squeezes them tight...YES..I get a feeling in my stomach...because I feel so close to her.....I said...Is your birthday the 28th and she said YES.....and I started to laugh....I go over to grab my purse and I pull out my license and hold where she can see it and she HOWLS.... Her Mother was folding clothes and walks over to see why we are cracking up and I said...'Artemis and I have the same birthday'.....she says....OMG....you two are giving me goosebumps.....I tell Artemis that we are PEAS.....two peas in a pod....she is smiling....and she wants me to take her pic while she is happy...so here she is....LY....always...g/f.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Artemis....Goddess of the Hunt...


































(ok first.........I have been flat out.....between being incredible busy....I have this pulled thing in my leg and I've been limping FOREVER. Kelly and Linda thought they were gonna have to amputate it last Friday night. My dear Kelly...sweet Kelly....First I have her critiquing wedding dresses in my office and then I have her in the North End at the Feast of St. Anthony watching me grimmace with every step......what a trooper! Thanks to Nikki and Linda for meeting us there!)

Now...I have to tell this story....

About a year ago, I got a phone call from a vendor about consulting on a case with a young woman....27 years old.....graduated valedictorian of her high school class at DR....graduated Magna Cum Laude from Yale University....a year from her PhD....language expert, comparative Lit major...this girl speaks 7 languages. She had gone to Serra Leone to document atrocities from civil unrest. She had a plan, she calls it the 'Vision.' So my new friend, she was in a horrific accident in Serra Leone....she broke bones, she suffered nerve damage, she was O2 deprived, she was in a coma for over a month.


She awoke...and couldn't breathe on her own, she couldn't eat, she couldn't move. But she can still think....she can still smile and she can still love......so the work began....it was hard work....
This incredible mind is now trapped in this nearly lifeless body....she breathes on her own, she eats, she talks to me with her computer. We have shared some incredible conversations.
It has been an awesome experience for someone like me, who feels sorry for myself. I spend 5 minutes with her and I can't.
She tells me stories and then tells me to get over it!
She once told me the story of William. He loved her, she thought she loved him. She got the opportunity to go to Serra Leone, he didn't want her to go...he asked her to marry him. She said no. She told me if she could stand up and walk by herself, she would go to him right now and tell him she loves him and will he marry her. She doesn't cry....but she said I lost the one I love and he will never love me now. Then she told me, you have everything yet you hold it off for fear of being hurt or let down, you live in the same place I do, but I have an excuse. Bitch! and she laughs.
Sometimes she asks me why, I don't know but I have to believe God put you here for a reason, you thought it was for the 'Vision' but maybe this is part of it and He just hasn't shown us what the next part is.
Her brother told me that it was a blessing the day I walked into their home, that she needed me....oh yes it was a blessing.....but I think I was one who was blessed....meet my friend.....then and now.....and there....are ya happy now?... a whole blog just about you...read it and enjoy....I love you, Artemis....






Tuesday, August 19, 2008

HA HA HA....
















Monday, August 18, 2008

Life as I know it.....



I have gotten everyone in a tizzy over my wedding plans....what can I tell ya.....if I'm gonna do this...I'm doing it the way I want.......it's gonna scream BRENDA......of course everytime I mention something new to him I get the 'whatever ya want honey'. I told him I was gonna get one of my litttle people friends to dress up like a leprechan. OMG---I'm kidding....


So last Saturday was my family reunion....I decided I'm going to make a movie with pics of the reunion... past present and future and include some other shots....look for it....I'll post it up here when I finish it.


I gotta tell ya I did crap today.....and I was so spoiled. I sat in the sun and made Simpson characters out of pics of my friends and family...I'll post one or two of them every so often...see if you can guess who they are....so I made about 35 characters. Dinner was made and I was SERVED outside and after dinner I got a leg and foot massage. I keep looking up to see if a plane falls out of the sky on me. Again....I have all kinds of issues about deserving to be this happy.


Artemis wants to read about herself in my blog so coming soon...the story of Artemis and how I met a friend who changed the way I think, to let me live my life to the fullest....I was suppose to help her get past issues and she saved me from myself.....I miss you....see you soon.....love to you all.......miss ya, B


Guess who these are supposed to be.....hahahaha!


Friday, August 8, 2008

my LUCKY day!

So the number 8 has been my lucky number since I was like 8. I saw it on SchoolHouse Rocks which were like these cartoon things that were supposed to be educational. They taught things like multiplication, addition, grammar......'Conjunction Junction...what's their function...hooking up works', etc.....coming back to you now?....It's from like 1973. So anyway they had this one about the number 8 and how if it's on its side it is the symbol for infinity...they used an ice skater to demonstrate it...anywho....I was SOLD...my lucky number. Well......what kinda day ya think I had.....the date is 08-08-08! Baby....and ya know what I was doing at 8 pm tonight.....not my homework!!!....I was sitting in a theatre watching the new Mummy movie in the arms of a man I love. Snuggled...warm....comforted....I can't remember the last itme I let myself feel that. SAFE. I dunno....I think I might just get used to this.....
Oh before I sleep....check this out.......
How lucky is this.....
Hailey Jo Hauer and Xander Jace Riniker, both born at 8:08 a.m. on 8/8/08, weighing 8 pounds, 8 ounces.
can you say...wicked kewl!
night all

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Who am I?

I was born in Roanoke, Virginia. My mother was Irish with red hair and freckles. I inherited her freckles and her Irish temper. She taught me to find four leaf clovers. She instilled in me that anything is possible. If I could find a four-leaf clover and make a wish, then it would come true. She is responsible for the fanciful, silly side of me. St. Patrick’s Day is my favorite holiday.
Being raised in the south has definitely made me view things in a different way. My grandmother never quite got over the fact that I was born before my parents had wed and made sure that I knew how she felt. I felt as if was being held accountable for something for which I had no control over. This instilled in me a need to please and to help people. In the southern ‘Bible Belt’ there is a strict code of behavior among the older Southern Baptists and it can be difficult to overcome the prejudices that they possess. She also had a fascination with John and Robert Kennedy. I keep a picture of them, from her ,in my bedroom because it makes me feel close to her and that times were good then.
I also had the fortune or misfortune of living in the state of Virginia when the law was passed to integrate the public schools. In jr. high school, I was bused across Roanoke city to attend an predominately black school. I could never understand what the fuss was all about. I went to school just as I always had and made many new friends. I remember my parents complaining about it, but it never really bothered me. I did come to have the opinion that people should be judged on what they say and what they do as opposed to how they look. After a few years, it didn’t matter any more.
I grew up with 18 cousins more or less, most of them female. In the summer time, we were sent to stay at my grandparents’ farm. We were the workforces of the farm. We tended the gardens, we took care of the livestock, gathered eggs, milked cows, picked berries, did the housework, made pies and learned how to sew, knit, and crochet at my grandmother dress hem. My grandmother’s attic was set up like a dormitory. We all took turn bathing in an aluminum washtub. she had no running water and an outhouse. We were raised as brothers and sisters rather than cousins and we all remain fairly close to this day. There is nothing like family.
When I was small, I was very upset that I was a girl. I felt that boys enjoyed more freedom and didn’t have as many rules as girls did. I always had to be ladylike. I was learning to run a household from my grandmother. I thought I had been born to servitude. This attitude continued until my teens. It gradually subsided and as I became a wife and mother, I realized how truly honored I am to be a woman.
In 1983, I moved to MA. I got a job working in the Department of Mental Retardation for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I became a Recreation Therapist. At this time, I met a man of Portuguese decent. We dated and eventually married on July 17th, 1988. His family was first generation from Lisbon, his parents barely speaking English. They were catholic and was upset that I was not. I consider myself a Christian and had adopted a non-denominational foundation to my faith. So I gave it some thought and attended some masses and decided that I would convert and raise our children in the catholic faith of his family. Funny, now considering how little contact I have with any of them. I’m not sure it makes sense but I have had some issues with the church, but not with my faith or what I believe. I think that the church is made up of men whom God endowed with free will, just as he did the rest of us. Some of them have made poor choices, but they must face the laws of man and God.
I have two boys. The oldest is going to 22 and currently serving in the US Army and my youngest is 14 and entering high school. I am American and I am proud that my son serves. Many of the young men in my family are currently in the service of this country. I am proud of them all.
I enjoy working with people. I have had the pleasure of bringing life, love, and enjoyment to profoundly and severely challenged individuals. I have taught life skills and skills of daily living to people who face mental and physical challenges that would be hard for some people to even imagine. I have experienced the joy of watching the face of someone who had never been sailing, or ridden a horse in their entire lives, some of them in their 50’s. I see their faces light up as they see me because they know I will take them to fun and adventure. For everything I have ever taught someone, he or she has taught me things: unconditional acceptance, respect, and the strength to persevere. While there is a clinical side to my job, I always try to make it fun in its application.
Therefore, I consider my southern upbringing, my Irish side, my job and my being female to impact my cultural identity the most. There are other elements that impact but I don’t feel they are dominant in my value system. I know I will meet people in my life whom I care for deeply and will not care for me, some I will not care for and they will care for me and every once in a while I will meet people I care for and they will care for me back. That all men are created equally and should be treated the same way. So basically, I really believe the golden rule works.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Update from Fort Hunter, Liggett, California

You are not going to believe this.....my son, Cpl. Joseph Fonseca, who thankfully is on US soil, in sunny California, which one would think would be safer than Afganistan, until the earthquakes start!!!!... So this guy loves nothing better than torturing me. He calls me to tell me that he's been SNAKE BIT. Now anyone who knows me knows that rubber snakes freak me out. I got bit by a snake when I was 9 years old, an I have a HEALTHY respect for them and a murderous regard! Gregory made me go see 'Snakes on a Plane' and I had nightmares for a week.....so I ask him what kind of snake and he says 'rattler'. Are you kidding me? Seems he was out on guard and felt something wrap around his leg. He throw a light on it and saw it was a snake and shook it off. As it hit the ground it strikes back at and hit him right at the top of his boot. One fang hit the boot and the other glances off his shin. So for his trouble, he got a TET booster and an anti venom shot and a 12 hour stay in the infirmary for observation. For those of you who follow my darling boys' exploits, add this one to the list...with the eye, the magnets in the nose, locking themselves in the bathroom in the middle of the night, getting a finger stuck in a keyhole...hahahahaha!!....I feel like Rosanna Rosannadanna...."It's always SOMETHUNG!" so
when I see him...what do you think? He's got the snakes head in a baggie in his pocket and he HAS to show me! Speaking of Joey.....I have spent a lot of time just looking at him.....he gives me the 'OH MA!' because I tear up when I look at him. But have you ever looked at someone and didn't recognize them?......Yea, I have a hundred reasons to start to cry for Joey but the reason I do is that I can't find the little boy in him any more. He is a man, with eyes that grieve for lost companions and have seen things that I will never see, not in all my many years...hehehehe! but there is a set to his jaw line, there is a purpose in his step, there is no thread of that child left whom I remember. I love him, I will always, but I miss that imp. I hope that he is still there somewhere and when the situation allows he will re emerge....laughing....

Saturday, July 5, 2008

This is bad....

I am so happy.....right this second...I refuse to even think about it past this second...ok past today. I am so afraid though....everytime I get my hopes up, everytime I let my heart feel something...I'm running out of the strength to deal with hurt. I'm not joking. So....do or don't I?

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Sitting.... thinking a thought.

I have been writing papers every week for 5 weeks....officially this class blows! But the bitch of it...I have learned so much...:) Researching what I want my thesis to be in each case. So I don't like it, but it is what I am doing, and the end justifies the means. So why write my drivel, because something is stuck in my craw! I am nothing, if not predictable. I was sitting, first, thinking how many people say the f-word, immediately upon the conclusion of filling their gas tank. I stopped to get gas on my way home and I heard it 4 times in the lot, ok, once by me!
Well, then I start thinking about what a bill of goods the voting, taxpaying American public has been fed over the years. I know I am always getting a ration of shit about remembering my past, but I do not live in the past. I remember my past, I remember what about it was good and what about it sucked. Why doesn't this country? I remember people who supported me and most definitely the ones who didn't.
Does anyone remember the Alaskan pipeline? When our country convinced us that the construction of this pipeline would decrease our dependence on foreign oil and keep the supply and demand in check. Can ANYONE tell me where this failed? Is It still working? lol
I can only imagine that even Thomas Jefferson, the Republican gentleman from Virginia, is doing loopdy loos in his coffin.
Jefferson’s quote, "I hope we shall crush ... in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country" is often attributed to being a strong warning against corporations and their function in American government and society.
Hello Oil cartel. Some three hundred years later, I have come to view this man as a visionary of epic proportions. I have felt that this country is like a runaway train on a collision course with something. Any one else feeling the same way? We can only hope that this election yields something that gets America back on it path. Ok, I'm finished yapping.....

Sunday, June 29, 2008

One more thing.....


Today would have been my parent's 44th Wedding anniversary, I'm not sure if they would have stayed together had she lived.....but I know she loved him with all her heart and put up with so much of his shit....so it's probably a safe bet.


On their wedding day, June 29th, 1964...with my cousins Cheryl and Jennifer. In case you wondered where the DNA cocktail named Brenda K came from....lolol

I've been a bad girl!

I haven't written in my blog for over a week.....I have just been so darned buzy! Laconia last week...Ewes guys know I love Bike Week!...I got pics...maybe I'll do a photo array/slideshow when I get a few minutes.......but I haven't had a minute to blink this week either. We have been having some SEVERE weather, as they like to call it. All I know is that Tuesday Night we were all set up outside with a buffet and band and then in 2 minutes the sky got black, there literally was one raindrop then the heavens burst. Everything, everyone was soaked. I felt really bad for the band...the instruments....yuck! But as always.....the girls pulled it all together. Grab the food, all the folks and made for shelter...I work with the most amazing group of women and I am lucky enough to also call them my friends. Well, so I went to a baseball game Wednesday night...Kayaking Thursday and then attended Kathy and Yvonne's cookout on Friday. It was the first anniversary of getting that hook in my eye...remember that! Kathy did not wanna hear bout it at all....it scared the heck out of her. So yesterday I went sailing on the Charles River.....so beautiful....that is the image that everyone has of Boston...Sailing by the Longfellow Bridge. It was so calming!
And today....well, I can't tell ya what I'm doing today, because it's a surprise and the person reads this....hahahahhaha! Now you'll all be wondering...
Hope ewes guys are having a great summer.....smooches

Sunday, June 8, 2008

friends....Sirach 6:11-18

A kind mouth multiplies friends, and gracious lips prompt friendly greetings.
Let your acquaintances be many, but one in a thousand your confidant.
When you gain a friend, first test him, and be not too ready to trust him
For one sort of friend is a friend when it suits him, but he will not be with you in time of distress.
Another is a friend who becomes an enemy, and tells of the quarrel to your shame.
Another is a friend, a boon companion, who will not be with you when sorrow comes.
When things go well, he is your other self, and lords it over your servants;
But if you are brought low, he turns against you and avoids meeting you.
Keep away from your enemies; be on your guard with your friends.
A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter; he who finds one finds a treasure.
A faithful friend is beyond price, no sum can balance his worth.
A faithful friend is a life-saving remedy, such as he who fears God finds;
For he who fears God behaves accordingly, and his friend will be like himself.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

How my heart breaks....

Whenever I read stories like this....

http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/163576

When I was 15 years old, I took Driver's Ed at Franklin County High School. My instructor was a wrestling coach. He was big and burly and scared the hell out of me. He would yell 'RANSOME' at top time of his lungs when he would tell me to go left and I turned right. He showed up for class one day with a big black permanent marker and put a 'L' on my left hand and a 'R' on the back of my right hand and then he said when I tell ya to turn right...look at your hands. It didn't come off for about 6 months. I have never confused my left and right since. But this is a story of my heart and you all know it is attached to my sleeve and gets bruised and battered regularly. So I'm 15 and a 1/2 , driving down the streets of Rocky Mount with Coach and 2 other students. The radio was on and a news story began about a mother who had taken a one pound can of black pepper and poured it down her 9 month old's throat, asphyxiating him. I began to cry and my hands shook so badly that the coach ordered me to stop right in the middle of the road and that big bear of a man patted my shoulder and told me it would be OK. I looked up to see that he was crying as hard as I was. I just could never understand how a mother could do that. We sat there in the car for over 20 minutes and then he instructed one of the students in the back to take over driving. When I finished Driver's Ed, earning my certificate, he told me to do myself a favor and never listen to the radio in the car. This is a true story and can be verified by my buddy Mark who was in the back seat at the time. Call me I'll give ya his cell number, he lives in Portsmouth, VA and is a Special Ed teacher. Coach also took to calling me 'the smartest dumb girl he ever met.' All I know is that whenever he would see me in the hall or around school....he would walk over and ruffle my hair and wink at me...like I knew his secret....he was a softie!

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Memorial Day weekend

Gregory and I are busy filling up waterballoons for our Memorial Day cookout. We are mowing and trimming, cleaning the house, preparing the food, getting the pool situated, setting up the sound system because a some point Betsy will be singing 'Be Alive'...hehehehehe!! from her CD. Lots of food, lots of laughter and lots of love. You all know to drop on by, if ya want, but if you can't don't worry..
The root of memorial is from the latin memoriale meaning to list in memoranda, to keep in mind, remember. So know that I remember..I remember the time you made me laugh, I rmember the time when your smile made my day, I remember when you defended me, I remember when you said you were my friend and I remember everytime you said I love you! If I remember then you are here, in my mind and in my heart....
UH oH! Getting a drity look from Greg....breaks over, back to work....see ya all at the party!
REMEMBER...I Love You.....smooches

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

ILLUSION.....

Tonight I went to see David Copperfield at the PPAC. The PPAC has to be my favorite venue. I have seen Phantom of the Opera there...front and center! I think it has got to be the place to see a show...just the right size..you feel cozy but not lost. So I gotta tell ya...as a 40 something, very jaded crone...I sat there like an 8 year old in utter amazement. I know that is is illusion, magic...smoke and mirrors. I think I found such an affinity because it is like my life...don't look too close....my whole life has been unreal.....I have loved and thought I was loved and I was not. I have been betrayed by the ones I had the most trust for. I am a duplicious child who no one really knows and most would be aghast learn about. I am not being dramatic, I am being truthful. Twice in the past year or so I have been told by 2 different people the value of being normal. I have never been, as much as I have longed, to be normal. I fear at times that pople will diescover my abnormalities. Am I wrong to think that it makes me unloveable or unable to love? I may be being silly...it is the mood I am in...but I am merely thinking aloud....re read the header if you forgot where you are. hahahahaha! But still I wonder about the illusion of my life and where it will lead me. I can only be who I am and I have fought too hard in this life for this girl named Brenda K to let her sink into the murky depths unnoticed or with the slight turn of a mirror appear as if she never appeared at all.....

Saturday, May 10, 2008

to a MOTHER I love....

I find in this day and age that Mother's and Father's days are obsolete....there are so many instances where a child is raised by a single parent, male or female or a loving person who is a relative or no relation at all. It is such a blessing in this life to have someone in your corner. I had a long talk with my mom today...I hope my love her for reached her in heaven...
So as I do with my toast, I am writing about someone who I know but I will not name her....and this is in no way to slight all the fantastic mothers/fathermothers I know....it just that this one is touching my heart right this second......

-to the mother who alone raised five, yes FiVE of the most beautiful daughters you have ever laid your eyes upon. She has told me stories of the christmases where the kindness of strangers/teachers and her church was the only reason they had any sort of christmas. She has never sounded bitter...she just did what needed to be done! I see her be the peacemaker, she is always my cheerleader....and she is not even my mother! I know that if I send out one of my incredibly dopey blah blah emails.....she will be the first one to respond and tell me what a freat person i am and how much what I have to say means to her. I know that her daughters think that she is the strongest woman they know.....cause I know I do!! She retired to stay home and watch her grandchildren.....giving them the same love and encouragement that we all miss from she her as much as we used to.....every week I have to go find her for my hug....Happy Mother's Day

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

a Mother's Day present....for OT BARBIE!


I thought this was a surprize but I see that it has been viewed more than a coincidence would allow. Therefore I am assuming that Kells send the link out to everybody she knew! So I might as well get some work off it....hahahaha!! (Baracuda!!)
To a very special friend....my OT BARBIE!
Kelly and I often joke about how when I lost my dear friend Dino, he sent her to me to make sure I didn't miss him too much! I absolutely believe this!!! We talk about him and laugh about how we would never have met (Maybe) if it weren't for him! All I know is that from the first second we said hello, we have been fast friends...she is the one who named me the SMOOCHES fairy...something I will never forgive her for! (so I named her OT Barbie!)
So when she contracted me to make a special DVD for her son's upcoming graduation...I couldn't resist taking some of the pics and making her a lil present.....to give to him to remind him where he gets his support, love and strength!
Happy Mother's Kelly! You inspire me to be the best mother I can be...(we all have to support each other!) You have a beautiful son to be proud of, I know because he looks at the world through his mother's kind and loving eyes..:)....LUV YOU, smooches
Come back to us!!I miss you!!
P.S. Turn the music player off at the bottom of the page....





Monday, May 5, 2008

Peek into my heart....

Today is Cinco de Mayo. The 5th of May and it is one of my best friend's birthday. I went to see her. I lucked out because she has been living out of state but she came to home to visit her family and she called to tell me that I could come there instead of driving 2 hours to where she is living. It is the same every year as my birthday is April 28th and her is a week later to the day so we get together and celebrate both. So I crash her sister's house-me and my son, Greg. Her family is there and so is a mutual friend of ours. We had a great time. Laughing and remembering. So first our friend leaves. I decide that I should go because if I tarry she will stay and will be late as she has a deadline. I tell her that I'm going to go and she says she will walk me to my car. ??? Do you think that is a good idea?? She laughs, she knows. If we say goodbye here in front of her family, we are mature adults. If we go to my car, we are in trouble. We stand by my car door. I can't speak...my heart still throbbing from Va...( watch the video of my leaving my uncle and aunt and tell me I don't need medication! it's on my YouTube channel www.youtube.com/bkf428) So we stand there and stare at each other tears welling up....then I feel that familiar feeling starting in my gut and erupting up thru my being to gush out my eyes. She matches me as we embrace in a hug between 2 friends that have shared secrets and knows each other...supported each other...she had been there, my strength when I thought I had none. But with the will of Hercules...I released her and walked away...she had braced herself against a fencepost. I drove away, I didn't look back just like when I left Roanoke, if I looked back my heart would explode....I miss my friend.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Oh Me OH my!

Well, I'm back from VA.......can't honestly say I'm too happy about it either!! I know this upsets my friends and I wouldn't hurt ewes guys for the world. Ok, maybe I'm a little glad to be back to my routines. The month I took off was fun, but Ineed routine! I have four 2 GB memory sticks filled with pics and movies...everything...I drove everybody NUTS! check out this pic...



I have to share this.....Denny and Reed ....could they be playing rock, paper, scissors? I doubt it.....Reed is throwing a SHOCKER...I laughed my ass off! In case I haven't said it enough...I love CROWN ROYAL! hehehehehehe!!
So, what have I done......

Well, I did a lot of work for Breezeway....that's my web design moniker! I got a new singer, a new band (in VA!!! yeah!).....and I did 5 custom DVDs....and I got the coolest referral! I can't say yet......

While I was in VA, I got to see so many of pieces of my heart....I only hope that you all have something that means as much to you as being home means to me. I did that little consult thing in C'burg. It worked out. I got a bonus, my commission and I got a fabulous offer! I just feel like everything, or almost everything is going my way.....I love me! Soon I'll get the latest degree that was 10 years in completing....and I'm hoping for great things...a couple more jumps up the career ladder and I'll be ready to head south forever!
One more funny thing......I got a little cousin named Heather, I swear she is gonna be the CMT Horizon Award winner one day soon.....mark my words!!!...but I am partying in her big brother's club and there she is....within weeks of releasing her new CD which is awesome!!.... sitting on the floor filling the beer cooler behind the bar. I start yelling at Derek to get her up off the floor. "she's gonna be a star." He says, "fine--when she's a star...now she has to earn her keep and it's good for her!" He's right! and she loves him for it!
ok, til I get around to this again...






Monday, April 28, 2008

Have to add this....

There are times in a person's life when the most incredible things happen....today I got the best present a mother could ever get...I got a phone call from my oldest son! Not only did I get to hear his voice...he said that he wanted to tell me that he knew that I had always felt that I had not done everything I could when he was younger. I have always felt bad that he was caught between me and his father and our crazy insanity. But he told me...and I am crying buckets...that he felt that both his father and myself had done a damn good job teaching him the things that he needed to know and that he would change very little. He had come to appreciate his father in some way and that he knew that he had my strength. Why is it the best presents don't cost a thing?!

I do the craziest things!



I stopped by the house I grew up in on 18th Street. My brother told me that it had burned down and I wanted to see. It had caught fire one night when I was about 13 and I thought that it had been kind of fated. So Greg and I drove down the street and it was sitting there, just like it always had been. I reach back and grab my Nikon, deciding I was going to snap a pic of it to show my family. Well, a gentleman in the house saw my flash bar and came out on the porch. I started telling him how I lived there when I was a girl and so forth and so on. I told them how the house had caught fire one sunday night when we home watching TV...the Wonderful world of disney was showing the AppleDumpling Gang...yes my memory scares me too sometimes....anyway i told them how we all got out.Guesss what? 2 pots of coffee later, we are all on first name basis, I have had a tour of the entire house inside and out, and I have a pictorial essay! They invited me back anytime.



Speaking of my being odd....I have finally found something that can chase me off Mill Mountain. Lightning!!! Saturday afternoon we had this HUGE thunderstorm. It poured! Greg and I went up to the star to see what it looked like and this bolt of lightning came down from the sky, hit that mountain and shook my fillings loose. Gregory is laughing as I grab him and run like heck to my truck! 2 funny! I have always felt blessed but I'm not ready to meet my maker quite yet.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Growing up on Farm

When you grow up on a farm, there are certain realities you learn to face quick in childhood. Thing's like...it is useless to name the animals anything but'breakfast' 'lunch' or 'dinner'. On a farm there is a circle of life that you just learn to accept. You watch little things be born, you feed them, you love them, and they either get sold, eaten, or die. This is not meant to be hurtful...it just is.
Well, I have been partying way too much...so I decided I needed a quiet day. So I went to visit a friend from high school named Liz. I used to go to her family's dairy farm and buy the baby calves when I was younger. Liz's dad would sell me one for $10. Calves are part of getting the milk. because a cow has to get pregnant to produce milk, but the farmer wants the milk, he doesn't want the baby calf to drink it. So the calf goes elsewhere. They either get bought by someone like me. I got up at 5 am and mixed milk and fed my babies before I went to school. I did this for months til they could eat on their own. I raised them and then while I was at school. my father would sell them and keep the money.....I was a sap! I would get pissed and swear I was never going do it again,,,and then I did.
But for the other baby calves, they were housed in these little spaces that are basically dog houses. Small confining pens so that the calves couldn't move. This was so that they did not develop muscle. The calves were sold for veal. I always got upset over this...I always wanted to save them all....but I never had enough money when I was a kid!!
So Where was I? Oh I went to visit Liz. So as I walk into the barn..the smells...the sights...I have been waxing sentimental this entire trip, my emotions just hovering. Because you can go back to the place...but you can never go back to the time....you can never capture what you've lost....that love, that friendship, that smile...it's a memory. And it has all haunted me this trip. I torture myself.
Well, as I walk into the barn...there in the barnyard are like 200 of these little veal confining huts. The way I started crying and carrying on you would have thought I was walking thru a Jewish concentration camp or on the memorial for the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor. Mr. N looked at me like I had lost my marbles. My brain knew I was being a complete dope too. It is the life on a farm and I knew that, but it seemed so unfair to me. But the thing that scared me...I was reaching for my checkbook and trying to figure out where I could keep 200 holstein calves....could I get them in a UHAUL? Go ahead laugh...that was the point...I am special! but does anybody want one? ok so you know what you're gonna get for your birthday this year!!! I love you ewes guys

Sunday, April 20, 2008

The definition of PEACE!

Hi guys......I miss you all, really I do! But I, as of this very moment, have such a sense of peace in my soul. Today I did nothing of note. I slept in....my dad made me breakfast, I sat and talked with the woman who will be my new step mother, visited a friend, and I went to Walmart with my sister. I saw a beautiful rainbow after a torrential downpour and I saw 2 does....deer nibbling new grass at the roadside. Believe me when I tell you it could not have been a better day. Well maybe, if I could have had my 'brothers' with me. Baby steps..... I want to tell you a story about one of my brothers.....I have or rather, I had 2 brothers...siblings...two males who shared a parent(s) with me...Wayne who I lost almost 2o years ago and Bubba....the apple of my eye! the biggest and the best baby brother a gal could have.....however when I say 'brothers'..I also mean the poor saps who I have adopted...in total there have been or rather there are...4 of them. David and Vince who saved my sanity and my life respectively. I can't tell that story until I have sat them down and told them what I need to.....I've danced all around it with them both but I never feel as if I gotten them to understand.....hopefully I will get the chance, SOMEDAY....then there's Martin...we went to high school together. I adopted him because it gave me the chance to do for him for the great things that had been done for me....a giving back, if you will. Martin and I shared a great loss and it sealed us together as the heads and tails of a coin. And finally my Steve! This story I will tell....this story makes me laugh and makes me cry.....but it is some story, and it starts in SE Roanoke in 1975....I was in the fifth grade at Jamison Avenue Elementary school...I was a piece of work....introverted...yes ME! I walked around my neighborhood readng a book, never making eye contact...your basic shadow. The kids in the 'hood called me retarded and other things. There was a lil mom and pop store on the corner...W's Market. As I walked home from school most days I stopped in to grab a little Debbie cake, I think they were a quarter or something back then. The building is still there...right on the corner of 18th street and Jamison Avenue. I lived a block from Fallon Park. So Mr. W ran the store and he had a son, named Steve. Steve was a social outcast like me, he laughs when I say this....cause it's true. Kids can be such jerks. Steve was also ridiculed and taunted because of his weight. But when Steve and I would talk his eyes would make you feel so at ease, like a warn towel from the dryer. I wanted to protect from the little shits at school but he always said if a girl fought his battles it would be worse. So we endured. Sometimes Steve would walk with me home from school and then I would walk back to the store with him because he would have to work there. While he was working, I would walk and read. When Steve would come to my house, my mom would make such a fuss over him. She had lots of practice making a teased kid feel good...I was the object of everyone's torment and she always took me in her arms and made me feel better. So she could make Steve brighten up. I remember once when he came home with me and she was in the kitchen and she yelled for us to come to her. She told us to sit down and she gave us homemade cookies and milk.....Steve said, 'shouldn't', he was too fat already. Mom said.. 'what are you taling about? You're a growing boy and one day you're gonna be tall and lean, you need the strength to grow.' He smiled at her and wolfed down the cookies, then we were off to play. As things happen, Steve and I didn't have long to be playmates. His Dad got sick and had to sell the store and they moved. We did what we could but we grew apart. Until August 22th, 1987. That is the day my mom died. I'm not gonna go into great detail because as I sit here at home in Virginia the tears are way too close to the surface anyways. Just believe when I tell you....it was the day from hell....my only comfort was that my mother's pain was eased. But by the time I got there from Massachusetts she was gone. I walked into the house to a crowd of family waiting for me. My father called me to his side and turned to a tall handsome young man at his side and said, Brenda I think you know this gentleman. I looked at him, I stared at him. I didn't know a minster. Suddenly in his eyes I found the friend that I had lost so many years before. I felt that warmth wrap around me. I couldn't not believe it as my father told me how Steve had been ministering to my mom for about 6 months and how my mother, we spoke on the phone daily, had not mentioned this to me. It was a strange course of events. And truthfully now...it's a blur. Except for 2 things....my brother Wayne's departure from our mother funeral.....which I'll spare you all for now and second, what Steve said as he preached her funeral. I sat there and listen to him describe her as kind woman who share her joy with many. That even when he first met her that he knew she was a gentle soul because of the way she had raised me. That I had been a blessing in his life when he needed a friend. He suddenly began to relay the story of that day. The day of the cookies and how when she had first seen him after nearly a decade the first thing she said was...'See I told you....Tall and lean...you just needed a few cookies to give you the strength to grow.' He told how he sat at her bedside and laid his head on her arm and cried and she toused his hair. After the service I could only weep into his arms. Now...I bet about now you are trying to guess why I have gone on for so long about such a simple subject....well....if you remember I started telling you about my brothers...and how they each mean something to me...and how I HOPE I mean something to then.....well....Steve is dying....he has a degenerative disease from which there is no return. He does not complain, he feels he has completed his life's work...I do not, his wife does not, and his children certainly do not....but we have no say. I have spent all this time and all this energy to tell you one little thing.....Peace.....Pray for peace....Pray for my 'brother' Steve. He has found his peace...we are working on ours. God bless.....it's good to be home.
P.S I have tons of pics and movies...but I'm using dial up so....when I get the time.....smooches

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

4/16/07

May the light from your souls illuminate the path to Heaven....God bless and keep you!





*special Thanks to HokieNation!

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Where have you been?

Seems to be the question of the day. Truthfully, I've been right here....working my butt off! I have been doing everything doubletime so that I will have all my work in place before I start my sabbatical. I can't wait! I finishing the school thing.... a new degree in Human Services Management. I've decided I am a terminal student. :) Well, anyway between school and trying to get all my ducks in a row and running myhousehold, and being there for my loved ones and friends...well, let's just say, "I got a full plate !" Oh and I forgot the best part.....I am so homesick I can't breathe. I need to see dogwoods and my mountain, and green alive things and the lake...and feel the sun, actually warm on my face. Oh and this is the funniest thing. I greew up in a little place in the Blue Ridge Mountains called Hardy, Virginia. It a lil town, half in Bedford County and half in Franklin County. We have a Post Office, and a rescue squad, volunteer. We have a couple little mom and pop stores and businesses. It's the kind of place that when I drive into town, everybody waves at me and yells Yipeeee, Brenda's home! Now this is the really funny part.....this week....Hardy got it's very first........ TRAFFIC LIGHT! I can only think of 3 roads that even intersect....I laughed so hard. My dad then told me that they were on each end of the railroad bridge on Hardy Road. they are doing some contruction on the bridge so they put lights ar both ends so that traffic will have to stop to allow use of a single lane. I can see why they put the lights there. A mile below that bridge is the marina on Smith Mtn. Lake and more than once I've met a drunk pulling a $100,000 bass boat on my side of the road, or at the very least, in the middle. Anyway I can't wait to see them and smell......smell the air, smell the lake. Oh if I keep this up, I'm gonna cry. I saw a new movie, the Kite Runner. I went out and bought a basket full of copies....I'll be sending em out! It has come the closest to hitting what I feel about being alive, a human, and what it means to be committed to another person in whatever capacity, family friend or lover. So I've rambled on for enough tonight....til next time....smooches

Sunday, March 23, 2008

I wanna be beautiful....

I want to be beautiful.
Make you stand in awe.
Look inside my heart, and be amazed!
I want to hear you say.....
Who I am is quite enough.
Just want to be worthy of love
And feel beautiful.

You make me feel beautiful.
You make me stand in awe.
You step inside my heart, and I am amazed!
I love to hear You say...
Who I am is quite enough.
You make me worthy of love and feel beautiful .

~Bethany Dillion
lyrics of 'Beautiful'

Saturday, March 22, 2008

My toast!

'Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with.’
Guess what? It’s toast time! This past year can only be defined by me as a year of loss. It actually started a little more than a year ago and it’s been like the domino effect. Last week as I wrote another eulogy for someone that I just loved, I fell back to my ‘It’s a wonderful life’ principal. I have 3 basic tenets that I rely upon to counteract my initial evil response….I know you‘ve all seen my EVIL!! But I have the ‘Golden Rule‘…that would be the ‘Do unto others’ one, the second one is ‘Shit happens for a reason’ or ‘ if a door closes then a window opens’ and the ’Wonderful Life’ principal which states, ’ you impact lives, positively or negatively is up to you!’ That’s why in the eulogy I said that I no longer mourn that I never got to say goodbye, I celebrate the chance I got to say hello. So in keeping in this vein…..I fool myself into thinking that I am a strong independent woman, who must face adversities alone, and nothing could be farther from the truth. I have faith in myself, not only on days when everything is going great and I’m winning and nothing seems impossible! But on days when the whole world looks lousyand I'm losing! The road ahead seems too hard and everyone I meet takes a swing at me. I find myself wondering if I'm brave enough, smart enough and should I even try.But no matter how many people discourage me…doubt me…laugh at me…think me a fool…and don't let me listen.I keep hearing another voice echoing mine and telling me,'You can do it and you will! You’re better than that!” And that would be you, my friends, at my back, whispering in my ear.If I think that nobody else in this world gives a darn or believes in me, and all I have is myself.Or the times when I doubt my own abilities, and I’m discouraged and on the verge of despair,And I’m trying hard to hang onto me. I turn to see one of you there with a pat on the back, a hug, a word.I don’t want to quit, not ever. It’s not in me! And besides I know…You’ll never let me.So……I raise my glass…to toast you all!!To the ones I can call and say…‘ya wanna do lunch in 5 minutes? I need to talk.’ And you drop everything to be there for me. to the one I can't be on the phone with for less than an hour EVERYTIME we talk...even if it was five minutes since we hung up!!! To the one who answers every one of my goofy email with a response telling me how ‘deep’ I am…I’m such a loser I never get tired of it! Hehehe! Thanks! To the ones who know that my heart is dangling on my sleeve and you never take a jab at it! To the ones who welcomed me onto their home and family for a weekend and made me feel as if I had always belonged there. To the one who always greets me....Hi Beautiful! to the ones who make me worry about them...cause I know they would be worrying about me! To the ones who try and beat me to say 'I love you' first. To the ones who challenge me to raise my own personal standards. To the ones who think I’m a QUEEN when I feel most like the court jester. To the poor dears who now must occupy my space and listen to all my ISSUES, rants, tirades and soliloquies. You are good sports to know that I will be back to NORMAL as soon as I vent. Finally to the members of my family…both by blood and by my usurping you by imminent domain into my family…..I love you…I talk to you even when you not here. I treasure your role in my life, past, present and future. I wish I could be a bigger part of your lives and that you could be a bigger part of mine….but such is life. Know that I miss you.Because of you, my friends, I venture out to overcome my fear of rejection. I have gained strength and fear being hurt less and less or maybe I just feel more capable to face the hurt. I am coming to terms with the changing relationships with my sons and not feeling so LEFT OUT. Well, finally to the ones who emailed me this morning….nearly panicked…because my toast was not in their inbox when they awoke this morning…..now that makes me feel loved….I have the best support system a brash, loud, sassy Southern born lass could have ever dreamt of, in even her wildest dreams!Happy St. Patrick’s Day……have one for me! Or join me…..I think I found the perfect place in Boston...reeking of beer and history!…. SMOOCHES

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

How my mind works!

I sat down to write some reflections that I am going to give as a eulogy at a memorial service next week and guess what......it morphed into my St. Patrick's day toast.....:) Ewes guys wil love it! (I hope!)

Monday, February 18, 2008

catching up......

I thought....I was gonna write a lil regularly here and BOOM......don't time fly when you're having FUN!! So I'm catching up....kinda...I wrote a couple of entries...but I didn't publish them cause I was ranting...angry and not nice...I would never publicly humilitate SOMEBODY, regardless of what they might think!...ok so I'm having the post Valentine's day blahs...whose stupid idea was this idiotic holiday!? Could anybody have set men up to fail so successfully? (also why I added the new song!) Hey I took care of all my Valentines.....ok most of them are children.....or people I think of as my children!! I'm going hear it for that one. So anyway.....I got a marriage proposal for Valentine's Day....and I was so tempted.....really....just throw some clothes in a bag and take off for a brave new world. I have a confession to make.....I am a runner.....I have always put as much distance between me and whatever hurts me....with the exception of lately.....and I'm feeling it.....I wanna git! But it always comes back to that's why I'm here now.....my biggest run....my most regretted run, but the move that has defined my life. So I'm planning my short track getaway.....:) What else? I'm tired of the election already.......I HATE POLITICS...in case anybody out there didn't know that! It might as well be 'actors' vying for the Oscar ....the category... Spouting Shit in the most believeable manner so as to dupe the Public! It is so sad that is comes down to who you think is lying the least. All I can say is......Spin will make ya puke! Just like when you were a little kid...spinning in the yard....Rawlph! hehehehe!
So the weather sucks......the 500 left something to be desired.....all I've been doing is working and plotting my next trip to VA. Before I sign off on this one...an MB update....she's having surgery on Tuesday...another shining example of how this State has NO RESPECT for the people who works for it......too busy chasing around dumbasses asleep at the circus!! Let me leave this link for ya......
Sleeper at the circus!

But remember MB in your bestest thoughts......we miss her and pray for her safe recovery every day!!! smooches

Saturday, February 2, 2008

heart broken.....

I am almost inconsolable....I have a friend...I love her very much..her name is MB! She is the type of friend that I always wanted to be....she's your cheerleader, she builds you up, she is always smiling....she finds the UP side way before I can even think about it... and even when we were both in 'competition' with each other it was a 'lovefest'.... it was never a matter of who was better or the best. I have traveled with her, worked with her, socialized with her and some of my best memories are such because I see her smile in my mind. Now don't get me wrong...I hate to see bad things happen to anyone and I have a reputation for 'wearing my heart on my sleeve.' When I'm happy the whole world knows it, but guess what...the whole world also knows when I'm pissed, sad, depressed...whatever...I am a package deal! But as I told Kell.....I would rather cry because I feel....than to not cry because I feel nothing.....then I might as well travel thru this life as an android. But when something unexpected happens....MB...I love her so much that the thought of her being in the mildest of distress breaks my heart and makes me sob.....
Late yesterday afternoon as I sat in my office, Mark came in to tell me that a medical emergency had been called on MB. Yesterday sucked...the weather here was like a frigid hell.....sleet...frozen rain...ice...and sure enough...as MB was finishing up her day and lugging all her paperwork to her car...( for paperwork see previous entries...YUCK) she slipped. She fell in an ice covered puddle and shattered her arm. She found herself alone...in bitter elements, injured, she saw our boss' Sandy's car. She managed to get her phone out and she called Sandy for aid. She tried to get to MB as fast as she could and as San tried to help her, she fell also...but she was not injured as badly but bad enough. But YEAH!! for Sandy...and here's hoping the back feels better fast!!! As Sandy described the scene to me of MB...in the puddle, of her trying to prevent shock and then of being loaded into the ambulance as she was screaming in pain...I just balled...the very thought of her being in pain and alone, especially to that extent, caused me such agony I could hardly speak. It was finally stablized and casted by 4 am this morning, but she has another surgery to repair and be pinned, so she is looking at a long recovery. I found it amazing this morning as I listened to her husband Don telling me how thankful he was that it was just her arm...she could have just as easily hit her head and been unconscious and suffered exposure and not even had made it to see the sun come up this morning. Maybe he knows something I don't....she's in pain still...but we still have her and she knows she is very loved.....remember my friend MB in your best thoughts and prayers....smooches

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Franklin County girl

Brooks and Dunn says "you can take the girl out of the county but you can't take the country out of the girl!" HOT DAMN..it's the truth! I was sitting here listening to 'Flies in the Butter' by Wynonna....it's a song on the player at the bottom of the page. Well, all I can say is that song moved me to tears cause I grew up on mostly at my grandparent's place in Hardy. It was rambling acreage with no comforts. Well, electricity...but no running water and an outhouse. But my grandmother had 19 grandchildren...11 are girls...more than cousins...we were raised as siblings. There was always at least 8-10 of us who stayed there weekly every summer...all of us on the weekends. We slept 3 to a bed. We bathed in a galvanized washtub that we filled by hand from the branch. We had stumped toes, poison ivy, bee stings, mosquitoe bites and great tans. Hey we were cheap farm labor..we cooked, cleaned, moved, fenced, milked, gathered eggs, made jelly, ground up sausage, stacked hay, picked flowers, baked mud pies, chased lightening bugs, rode horses, fought with each other and loved each other.....I oft think what looking at my grandmother thru adult eyes would look like....I was barely into my 20's when she died.....I hated her then...I wonder if that would have changed...but the images in this song....rouse a strange mix of feelings in my heart....I loved her...I didn't like her...but I learned much at her dress hem!

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

I'm me...

Something happened today that reminded me that the only thing that I can control in this life is me. And I am amazingly consistent in my responses...I'm almost back to myself because I feel that burning in my stomach...that which I need....I NEED....I WANT....the familiar pangs of an addiction that I nurse.....a crushing craving for something that I will never have.....even Betsy saw it today I think....a flicker in my eyes... something.... a catch in my breath........but what she said made me laugh......for it's the thing I most desire and my greatest fear all rolled into one thing...for to get it...would be to lose it forever..I know this in my heart and in my soul....I have know this truth from the beginning......because I have seen nothing capture it so far and I suffer from no delusions that I can claim this beast ....I can run with the King of the Jungle if he lets me....but I have always been left in a state of wantoness...hunger......I get only the crumbs that fall and roll out of sight and the truth be known....those crumbs sustain me.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Oh this is PRICELESS!

I've been waiting all day to put this down! Don't read if you're eating, just finished or just about to start eating!!! I have always been considered to be 'bright' so early on I realized that there were 3 ways that things occur in this world....the EASY way...the HARD way...and the BRENDA way....which is the HARD way to the 10th power. Don't get me wrong...I'm not whining...much...it has made me very appreciative of my successes and especially my failures....and it has made me very proud of who I am. It has also given me a peculiar sense of humor. In situations where most would literally die of embarassment...I have sat right down on the floor and laughed out loud at myself...and that is exactly what happened this morning. I awoke at 4 am, surprized at how well I felt, considering how sick I had been. So I decided to get my ass up and go to work...I work for the state 'government' and it's the end of the month....and there is no END to the 'end of the month' paper work....you have to submit reports on everything from the preceding month as well as make sure that all the systems are in place to collect and collate whatever data needs to be collected for the next month's report...it's a vicious cycle. But I digress... I decided to get up and put on my game face...everyone knows I've been sick so I show up the picture of competency and efficiency. I shower, do my hair, my makeup...I pick a black cashmere sweater over a black and grey houndstooth shirt....black knee high high heeled boots and my wool black and grey wrap...purrrrfect! I am beautiful and all business. I even kiss at myself in the mirror....could I be more of a goofass? So I have been sick...respiratory...very congested...chest...sinus....pressure is gone but my rib cage feels like I have been a tackling dummy for the Pat's practice all week. So I make myself some oatmeal and take a couple of bites...downing about half a cup of coffee as I decide to run out and start my car. I head down my deck steps toward the drive when I see my neighbor Steve walking his 'baby' Consuela at the end of my driveway. I open my mouth to say..."Hi ya Honey!" but no words come out...as soon as I attempt to speak a wave of nausea washes over me and I PUKE ALL OVER MYSELF! Not just the couple of swallows of oatmeal that I managed to get down but yards of phlegm...mountains of it....I guess it had to go somewhere...but all over me....even on my boots....all I remember before collapsing into a heap of laughter is the utterly horrified look on poor Steve's face.....ok so I know this is gross...but is so typifies my life...He runs to me thinking I'm having an aneurism or something and I am laughing uncontrollably. He starts laughing as I attempt to tell him I'm fine...I go into my house to find my son looking at me puzzled then he starts to laugh. I hear him...'Only you' as I re-shower, redress in a champagne colored pantsuit and get to work 15 minutes late with 'wash and wear' hair and some lipstick. Everytime someone told me how great I looked...I just laughed and said..."ya should have seen me the first time!" But the best had to be the single red rose on my doorstep when I got home from work. The card read....'I've never seen anyone vomit so beautifully' Mi vida Loca!

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Happy NEW Year??

I have putting this off for about a week now..hoping against hope that this feeling would go away. No such luck! With the exception of the 5 days that I went into the witness protection program.......this year has just SUCKED so far. It started off very well...great New Year's Eve party at Neil's, I remember thinking at midnight...this is going be my year....8 is my lucky number...but was I wrong! I wanted to put the losses I've felt thru all of 2007 behind me and 'build a bridge and get the FUCK over it!!' I'm seem to be at that age where people I know are starting to die. That is almost easier to deal with than the ones who just ignore me. I got back 4 christmas cards as undeliverable...so I take that to mean...I moved..fuck you...I don't care enough about you to let you know where to send the card I get from you EVERY YEAR! Nice. ok...I'm whining...I really haven't been preserverating on it that much...but it hurt me. I'm still not doing so well with the boys just not needing me anymore...a mom with no one to mother is a sad thing to behold...my curse for raising such independent people...(Gregory suddenly doesn't want to discuss things with me)..so I'm left with these gaping holes in my life. Add in the losses I've suffered lately.....I still have not gotten over the shocking death of one of my dearest friends, Davey...everyday I miss him so much and I look for him everywhere. I found one of his socks and I just started crying.....He died on his birthday and I still haven't moved his present, it's right on my backseat of my car...I'm not sure what to do with it!! I was going to take it to him...I never got the chance. I think about all the damn presents I give all the time...why is this one sticking with me? I think I'll give to his brother Lou. It has really just magnified an ongoing problem I have.....that I want what I want and I WANT IT RIGHT NOW.....this theme just rears its ugly head all the time and I become so selfish....I know you all swear you don't see it but I do, and I know you do too...you just like to be nice to me!! So in 27 days...I've been to 2 funerals...in the same week...two friends of mine that I thought were in a very committed relationship have split up and being emotional support for one of them is killing me....16 years they were together and you know what I think on that subject...but watching G breaks my heart and makes me unpack my Samsonite....my oldest son is having some sort of issue and I can't help, he won't elaborate on what is going on...so I can't help him.....and that would be a character flaw...I FIX THINGS....I TAKE CARE OF PEOPLE....that's what I do.......then the frosting on the cake....I'm sick.....I mean I'm fucking sick...me and Boscoe have just been laying in bed......I missed Betsy at River Falls and the Pitcher's Pub....I have only been sitting upright for 20 minutes and I'm about to faint....I'm watching it snow thru the bay window in my kitchen...big flakes...like someone shaking a snowglobe...or better yet...an etch a sketch....erase it all and let me start all over.....hey I can dream can't I? Well anyway...now it's out....now it can get better!! Right??...right!!

 

Free Web Hit Counters
Rent DVDs Online