Where Have I Been?

Honestly, I didn't know anyone was looking for me over here on the blog :) It's nice when I get an email saying something along the lines of "Hey, is everything ok? I have missed your blog updates!" Most days when I was blogging regularly, I wondered if anyone even read what I posted. Apparently, at least one of you does, and I appreciate it! ;)

So, since I have not posted for several months, I could do a standard old "update" post telling you of my adventures with my new role as mom-of-a-highschooler, the excitement/trials/crushes on boys of my daughter's high school marching band time, my general enthusiasm of high school football games (LOVE THE VIOLENCE!), news at church including a women's conference that I am SUPER excited about, and general life stuff. However, I'm choosing to go against the grain here and not post about such things at his time. (There is always tomorrow, and those things give me fodder to post on in a day or two, as I strive to get back into the swing of blogging on a more regular basis)

Today, I chose to post about friendship.

I have been blessed in my life to have very good friends. Some friends come for a season, then move on. Some friends never become more than casual friends to socialize with. Some friends come in family roles, like sisters. (I am extremely blessed in this way, having the world's greatest sister!) Other friends come by proxy, such as the wives of my husband's friends. But then there are the other kind of friends....

Once such friend is my best friend. She lives about 5 minutes away. We met when we worked together in a little cafe nearly 11 years ago. Through the years, she has been there through the ups and downs, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the hilarious. :)  One such hilarious time involved us visiting a mattress store, where she proceeded to bounce on the bed to see how firm it was and managed to launch herself off the end of the mattress with her skirt up over her head. The good? Lots of long lunches at Cracker Barrel....therapy for me! Laughing together over things only we, with our warped senses of humor, find funny...like weird names in obituary listings. Shopping at discount places to find killer deals--including one joint where I was lying in the floor to see if the earrings I chose would get caught in my hair. And eating.....lots of eating......The bad? Tough times in my marriage, the death of my grandmother, my surgery last year, my husband's battle with depression, financial lean times.....you get the drift. She is a true friend, one who loves me like I am and prays for me through it all!

The other friend is a long time friend...going on almost 30 years now. We met in church, waaaaaaay back in the day. We too shared and survived things like death of friends and family, school drama, church drama, high school crushes, marriage, divorce, birth of our kids, job issues, military life, the loss of beloved pets, periods of questioning what we truly believe in, and parenting.  There is one weird thing about this friendship though, sort of a sixth sense when ti comes to each other. It's a connection that tells us when the other is going through something, and even if it has been months or years since we last talked, one email or phone call has the connection re-established and it is as if no time at all has passed. It was this dear friend who emailed about my lonely little blog. Hope you are happy now! ;)

I am so thankful for friends, both new and old. They make life so much better! There is a saying....."Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold." Through Facebook, I have connected with many friends from high school and military life. It's a great thing!

So to all my friends.....I leave you with this thought from Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed.  If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.--NLT

I am so thankful for each of you!

Bloggy Direction

I am in a funk.
I am in a funk with blogging, scrapbooking, and most heartbreaking of all, cooking.

I love to do all these things, but somehow, I just have no motivation to do ANY of them. Is it the back to school thing? Is it the heat? Is it my mounting sleep deficit?

I am trying to rationalize why I do the things that I do. I cook because I love to eat, I love to see my family enjoy a meal together, I love to try new recipes and see how they work out and it is something that comes easy to me. I truly love to cook and bake, and have been doing so since I was about 8 or 10. But in recent days, more often than not, it has been a lot of sandwiches and take out pizza.

I love to scrapbook. I have scrapbooked since my daughter was 2, so over 11 years now all total. I have a room all to myself to work in, and I have tons of happy supplies that need to be used before they dry rot.  I love preserving memories for future generations, and I have boxes of great pictures. I used to walk by the door to my scrapbook room and hear the paper, ribbons, and adhesives call to me....."COME PLAY!!!!!!!!!"......now all I see is my cat sleeping on my desk and the vacuum parked in front of my sewing machine.

And blogging? I used to feel like I could write every day. I used to have something witty and/or funny to say, or something that seemed worthwhile to share quite often. Now? I just feel like blogging is another thing on my to-do list.

So what about you? Do you blog? Sew? Scrapbook? Work out? Knit? What is your passion? Why do you do the things that you do, and what KEEPS you doing them?

Once Upon A Time.....

...there was a little blog. And it was a very good, sweet blog indeed. It was patient and kind, never too demanding, and always there when I needed to vent to someone.

And now, the poor thing is pouting.

My poor little blog is so neglected.

In all honesty, it has been a whirlwind of activity these past two weeks. We have had a ton of work to do on some rental property we manage, getting it ready for new renters, and in the evenings? Well, we have had something scheduled EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.

Throw in that I am still not 100% after surgery the end of Feb (I know.....it's taking a lot longer than I thought too).

My recipe for my life right now woudl read something like this:
I shall call this recipe : Life in A Blender

In a standard blender combine one hard working man who is gone 6 months of every year, one very sweet  almost 13 year old girl, and one over the hill Mom.
Toss in 3 cats.
Add one truck that needs a transmission job, two rental properties in need of repairs, one school year that is winding down s-l-o-w-l-y, 48,000,000 tons of dirty laundry, band concerts, dance practice, clarinet lessons, youth group, dance performance, Church, Facebook, at least 2 family members in crisis at this point, My mom having heart cath, my cat-nephew spending a week in ICU at his vet (poor baby!), my niece is getting married in Baton Rouge in just a few weeks[insert that aforementioned almost 13 year old is a bridesmaid here], the two hamsters we are rodent-sitting for a week, and a yard that needs mowing almost every other day due to the deluge of rain we are getting.

Blend on high speed constantly for two weeks or longer, until Mom is a train wreck.

Serve half baked, just like the Mom.

Have a good week! Stay Sane! :)

A New Friend =)

The coolest thing about blogging and Facebook is friendship. I have reconnected with many people from my school years and early childhood, old church friends, past military families that we served with, family friends that I had lost touch with, and along the way I have met many new friends!

One of the blogs I follow is called Hippy Chick. I am not sure exactly how I found this blog, I think it may have been through "Savannah Scrapbooking" or "Want What You Have" but I am not sure.
I was immediately drawn to this blog because it is quirky, funny, warm, witty, creative, and always has something new. It is the blog I wish I had because it is updated frequently and makes me smile.

Over the past few months I learned that the blog author lives about 45 minutes from me. Imagine that! About a bazillion bloggers out there and I find one practically in my own backyard! We emailed a few times, and talked to getting together face to face, but it didn't happen.

Until Saturday. :D

My husband and I ended up in Angela's town, and I facebook messaged her. We texted just about all afternoon, and ended up meeting for dinner. Her daughter is so adorable! Unfortunately, her hubby was worn out from work and couldn't join us, but that is what next time is for!

She commented on her blog that it was like we had known each other forever, and I felt the same way. It was super cool and I can't wait to see her again!

Here is to the start of a beautiful friendship, in real life, not just online :)

Another Point of View

Remember a few months ago when I posted about the issues my daughter was having with being bullied at school? Well, tonight's youth group message really hit home with my daughter and she told me she wanted to blog about it. 


She has her own blog, and she will post this story there tomorrow, but I invited her to be my guest blogger tonight. Here is her story. Please comment and let her know what you think!

Tonight, our youth pastor was talking about friends. True friends, cocky friends, temperamental friends, etc., etc., etc. It made me think of the first half of the school year. Most of my class was kids whose parents could no longer afford private school or kids who went to the elementary school next door. Well, I was one of few kids from Pooler.

Everything was fine for a while. Breaking the ice, making friends, learning about people, and the like. I met a girl, lets call her Pop A, she was from Pennsylvania, and so I understood the left out thing. We became good friends. I hurt my knee, and they wouldn’t let me go to school because of the medicine I was taking. So, I come back to school, I think Wednesday, she wouldn’t talk to me. She wouldn’t look at me, talk to me, or even acknowledge me. Before I go on, let’s define friend. According to dictionary.com, friend, noun, means a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard. Ok, moving on.

So, I text her and we had a nice chat. Sorta how it went:
Me- Hey, what’s up?
Pop A- Nm. U?
Me- Same.
Pop A- Cool.

This is where things fell apart.
Me- Why won't u talk to me?
Pop A- Because
Me- Seriously, why.
Pop A- Well…
Me- What?
Pop A- I’m cool and you’re not.
Me- Oh

I went crying to my mom. She told to say something like, “Well, I guess we’re not friends anymore. But, I want you to know I care about you.” So I do that and she said ok. It ended up that we’re not friends, we’re classmates now.

After that, things started happening. Some examples:
-Pop B&C sitting in front of me, look towards me, whisper, and laugh
-Pop D (I only heard a snippet of this one) whispering with some others and I hear her say “like those” pointing at my shoes and laughing.
-Pop E (I had a Hannah Montana lanyard, “kids” shows are put down extremely) Hannah Montana? Laughs and gossips with others.
-All pops- our lunch table was divided. Pretty much into these groups:
*Boys (except for 3 pop boys)
* Pops
* Me and my two best friends.
-So, once my friends and I wanted to see why they were all laughing, and joking and just being happy. So we sat with them. Everyone became silent, ate, a few whispers, and just looked at us. We got the message and never sat there again.

Things like this kept happening. I cried every afternoon. I begged my mom not to make me go to school. My mom finally talked to teachers, counselors, vice principals, everyone.
We had a meeting. It was a Wednesday or Thursday, and I was called in. I could only recall two events before I broke down. They decided to move me. I expected the next day or Monday to be moved. No, they moved me in this period.

In my new homeroom, I walked in and everyone thought I was replacing a girl everyone liked. Well, that was solved. Then 3 boys thought my name was Deborah. Deborah? My name starts with an M!

Ever since then, I’ve had few problems.

A Must Read!

I have several blogs that I follow. Two of my favorites are Jamie's blog at www.savannahscrapbooking.typepad.com, and Heather's blog  at
http://blog.wantingwhatyouhave.com


Heather's blog is mostly about how to be content with your life by living simply, with detailed hilarious accounts of her daily life.

Jamie's blog is a laugh a minute, quirky and endlessly entertaining ramble of all things in her wonderful life in Dhu Land. (I secretly wanna be her when I grow up)

Last night I flipped over to Heather's blog and was shocked and sickened by what I saw. She reported that by following stat counter (www.statcounter.com), she learned that some sick, perverted, twisted person had found her blog in a Google search by searching "little kids naked".

She wrote a very real and honest account of how this made her feel and the methods she used to report this scum sucking pervert to the proper authorities. I quickly jumped onto stat counter and set up an account for myself.

I urge you to look into it for yourself, especially if you post pictures of your children on a blog or other public forum. It is a scary, ugly world we live in sometimes and we MUST protect our kids. Sadly, technology is so far ahead of legal measures that it is up to US to do what we can to stand between our family and some low life jerk who wants to get his thrill by looking at our kids in bathing suits or precious newborns in a bathtub. Makes me want to barf.

Pages to turn

My poor blog is so neglected. I feel like such a bad mom to my blog. Is there an agency out there like Blog Protective Services? If so I am pretty sure they will be knocking on my door and confiscating my keyboard any moment. Just seems like life has been so complicated lately.

Most people, with the exception of close friends and church family, did not know that I was having a hysterectomy until it was all said and done. I had been so sick for the past few months, even a year or more, that I was really hoping that I would feel a hundred times better after surgery.  Maybe that day is coming, but it isn't here yet. I do feel better, but I am still not me. I get tired very easily, and I can't seem to think clearly. Dragging myself through the day is about all I can do most days, and even then I feel like I am only doing most things half way.

My 40th birthday is this week. I am not looking forward to it. I know it is better than the alternative (LOL) but this is a very difficult time. Most people also did not know that we had tried for years to have another child, to no avail. I had always said no more kids after 30, then 35, then finally I set my deadline as 40. Now, due to health issues, that dream has ended. I am approaching 40 not so much as "old", but more the end of a chapter in my life. It isn't the end of the book, but it is the end of an important chapter.To be perfectly honest, I am really struggling with that. I don't understand how some women can have a dozen kids and can't/won't take care of any of them, while  so many women who would be wonderful mothers struggle with infertility as I (and my sister and most of our family) did.

I am so grateful that God blessed us with our daughter. She is growing into the loveliest young lady. She is funny, smart, talented and gifted in so many ways. She is sweet and beautiful and a real joy to be around. I wish that we had been able to give her a younger brother or sister, but obviously that is not meant to be. I have heard from well-meaning friends that I should be happy with what God gave me and not ask for more, that there are too many people on the planet anyway, that we should be grateful that we have one healthy child and not "test fate", and so much other unsolicited but well intended advice. I am incredibly blessed with my daughter, and I love her dearly. She is everything parents could dream of having and more.

But somehow, even though the surgery was necessary and I know in time I will be so thankful it was done, I feel sort of like I am spinning my wheels in life. And with 40 slapping me in the face, it's tough. I warned my husband and my best friend that if anyone tries to pull any of that "over the hill" or "lordy lordy look who's 40" crap I may just explode. They were both so understanding and I am grateful for their support. I know that turning 40 is not the end of the world, but when you couple it with other major life changes, it feels like it's pretty close. It isn't the age.......it's that I wasn't ready to write this chapter in the story of my life just yet. The worst part is it was written for me.

Guest blogging again.....

Check out my second post as a guest blogger. Please leave a comment!
http://hopeonthehorizon-kimchi4.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-is-sin-part-2by-michelle.html

Guest blogging

Hi everyone,
I want to invite you all to begin following a new blog called Hope on the Horizon. It is written by a good friend and sister in Christ that I had the honor to meet a few years ago. Although the military life has moved her to the opposite side of our great country, we are working together on some exciting endeavors.

Please check out her inspirational blog here. I will be a guest blogger each Wednesday. My first post for her is called "What is Sin", and it is a two part blog. Please read it and let us know what you think! Lastly, post a comment here and on her blog to give your feedback.

Have a great week!

Totally random here.....

A list of total random current happenings:

• Took my daughter and my husband to the circus Thursday. First time for both of them. Pics to come. They both loved it and said they liked it more than they thought they would. I remember going to the circus with my mom as a kid. My biggest excitement was over how much the elephants peed. Still amazed me this week.
• Mom and PaPa are renovating some rental property that Mom owns, the house I grew up in actually. The guy who moved out left it TRASHED and now they are working hard to try to make it livable again. Jamie helped all last week as well.
• Bible study started up Tuesday. Although I was not feeling nearly well enough, I led it and we had a great group. Looking forward to the next 5 weeks with these ladies!
• Marissa had her "friend" Barry over last night. It was great to see them practicing their band music together. He encourages her like no other. They took pics of themselves....more of those to come also. I can tell you the encouraging "friend" role has changed a bit :)
• Sleepover tonight......my childhood best friend and her two daughters are coming to stay. We will watch G Force and eat pizza. They are going to church with us tomorrow!
• My beautiful daughter donated 10 inches of hair today for Locks of Love. She looks so grown up! Pics of this to come as well. 

Thanks for being patient, it has been a crazy week and I am STILL not completely well. I have a doctor appointment Monday, hoping for a good report.
Have a great weekend!!!!!

Another wow!

You won't believe this, but I have been asked to do a weekly guest post on a new blog! I am so excited! I will get to share a corner of the blog stage with an AWESOME and accomplished writer, who happens to be a great friend and a MIGHTY WOMAN OF GOD! I am excited beyond belief! More details to come SOON!

Please pray for me, and for my friend, as we earnestly seek God's purpose for us in this ~NEW~ season of our lives!!!!!

What An Honor!

I have followed the blog Wanting What You Have for quite some time. Over the passage of time I have grown to love the author (Heather) and her family and feel as though I know them personally! Heather is in the last few weeks of her pregnancy with miracle child number 3, conceived through IVF, and is needing some time off from blogging so she can rest.  Imagine my delight when she asked me to guest blog for her today! I was so thrilled, and nervous too! I wondered how I could possibly live up to her standards, since she is one of the best bloggers I follow. I wondered what her readers would think. I prayed over it, and the Lord gave me specific direction for the post. Heather emailed to say she really liked it, and I hope you will too. Please leave your comments here and also on her blog here.

The Future of This Blog

After much soul searching I have decided to sort of re-invent my blog. It began as a blog solely about scrapbooking, but evolved over time into much more. I thought about just deleting this blog and starting a new one, but decided I like some of my older posts too much to do that. I thought of keeping it private, but almost no one reads my blog now so that seems pointless. I have decided to do the following:

• I will keep this existing blog
• I will make it public once again
• I will enable comment moderation
• I will not allow anonymous comments
• I will make an earnest effort to regain blog interest from my readers
• I will make every effort to post more often, and to make the posts interesting and relevant to what is happening in my life

I hope that I will gain readers and that blogging will be fun again. I have missed it, and I am angry that I let one bad apple almost spoil the whole bunch with blogging. Funny how taking the high road isn't always much fun. However, my decision is that if I allow the person who hurt me by slandering me and making false and hurtful accusations to continue to have influence over the choices I make, then she has power over my life and I will not allow that.

I am making an earnest effort to allow only people who have positive influence over my life to speak into my life and not allow any negativity. It's time to wake up people, and realize that when God's Word in Proverbs 18:21 tells us that "life and death is in the power of our tongue" He ain't just whistling dixie. The tongue is a very powerful thing, and Paul tells us in James that is the one thing that cannot be tamed.

I may not be able to tame my tongue, as I am human, but I try to speak life over everyone I know and not speak harmful or hurtful things. If I have ever done so to any of you I sincerely apologize for that. I am human...I make mistakes, but I am trying to live a life pleasing to God and in doing so I must surround myself with positive people who speak life over me and I will make every effort to do the same for them, thereby avoiding drama and chaos and negativity in general. This applies to my life in all areas...both physically and in cyberspace.

Thanks to those of you who have continued to read, even through my dry spell, and I promise you I will do better. I am learning.....seeking....and trying.....

Blogging

SO.....I heard from a friend today that she totally hates having to sign into my blog now. I had to make my blog private because someone with no life, morals or home training decided to attack me on my blog and say some pretty nasty and untrue things about me and my family. When I made my blog private, I did it solely to prevent this person from spying into my life and taking pot shots at me and my family out of her selfish need for fulfillment.

Now though, hardly anyone comments on my blog and readers have dropped off so I am in a quandary...should I stop blogging all together? Start a brand new blog? Make my blog public again and hope for the best?

What is your opinion on this, and has this ever happened to you in the past? How did you handle it?

comments

If you are having difficulty commenting on my blog please email me at mom2rissa@yahoo.com.

Thanks!

A New Blog

My husband, Jamie, has started a new blog. It will be a place for him to share what is on his mind. The website is called Da Butcher's Point of View and you can access it here. Although he has just set it up, I encourage you to check it out in a day or two. It is also a private blog, so please send him your email address or a message to sign up.

I am excited to see what he is going to post!

WOW!

WOW! My first blog post on my new private blog! How exciting! :)

I was really hesitant to make this blog private at first because I didn't want to lose any readers, but now I feel a lot more confident and will probably post more pictures and private thoughts than ever before because I know who is reading it. This makes me happy!

If you have any comments or questions about this, please feel free to comment or email me!

Privacy settings

Because I have had some nasty comments lately by people who do not know what they are talking about, I have changed my blog privacy settings to "by invitation only". I hope this is not too inconvenient for you, but please understand that I will not tolerate false accusations and lies about me and my family. Thank you for understanding.