Choices

I've been going to church lately. The people who know me would never suspect me of something as crazy as "church-going," but rest assured, it's a Universalist Unitarian church. It's as benign as they come, as far as judgment goes. Anybody can believe anything, including nothing, and still be accepted with their views respected.

I love my church.

On Sunday, the service was about love, since it was Valentine's Day. There were several speakers during the service, talking about their personal experiences with love from different perspectives: love of a parent, love of a child, love of a spouse, and love of others. The woman who spoke of the love of a spouse struck me the most. She was from Iowa, as I am, and moved to Riverside with her husband, an engineer. She is college educated, but chose to stay home and raise her children. When their children were older, she and her husband started their own business, and began working together. I've been thinking a lot about her story today because I had a really crappy day, and she had some interesting things to say about love, especially as it pertains to her marriage to her husband, which has lasted more than 50 years.

She said that it's all a choice. Love is a choice, patience is a choice and kindness is a choice. Likewise, hate is a choice, shortness of temper is a choice, and sarcasm is a choice.

I don't know if love is a choice when it comes to our own children, but it certainly is a choice when it comes to everyone else. And patience, kindness, hate, shortness of temper and sarcasm are choices no matter who we're talking about.

Boy, did I make the wrong choices today. Shortness of temper was my downfall. I suppose hate counts too, because I really hated my vacuum cleaner today. Even more when my husband came home and it worked fine for him. He thought it was a conspiracy...

For me, shortness of temper leads to anger. Which makes it so I can't sleep, I deepen the wrinkles between my eyebrows, and grind my teeth. My husband is the PERSON who bears the brunt of it, but my dogs are effected by my anger, even though it's not directed at them. I don't like to say "I lost my temper," as if it wandered off somewhere. That's just a cop-out. I prefer to be in control of my own emotions, although anger hardly seems to be the right choice for having it together.

Now, I'm not generally a raving lunatic. I just had a bad day, and let poor choices get the better of me. It happens to all of us sometimes. But instead of letting this really crappy day and my really crappy reaction to it linger out there in space, I'm going to do something with it. I learned a little bit, that I hope to put into practice tomorrow. Tomorrow, I want to choose love. For me, when I choose love, patience and kindness come along for the ride. I'm going to choose love, so I can cut myself a little slack and just roll with the punches. I think everybody in my life will be happier then.

My mom always used to tell me, "Patience is a virtue." That REALLY used to piss me off. She was right. But it's a moral excellence that is chosen by the user. Not one that just falls in one's lap.

Goodnight.

Wow.

It's really been a long time since I last posted. I am terrible about keeping a journal. There are even big gaps like this in the ones I used to keep as a kid.

It's Valentine's Day, and it's 2010. It was a decent day overall, but a big fight leading up to the day, and promises left unfulfilled leave a sort of void. Even so, I'm very thankful for my friends and family. Don't want this post to get too dark here.

I've been married for almost 2 years. I'm still at the same job and Goober's ashes still sit on my bookshelf. I still miss him like crazy, by the way! I still drive the same car, but we bought a house, I quit roller derby and I've gained 40 pounds. That happened the last two times I quit smoking.

I was going to delete all my old posts, but I read some of them, and thought about how much happier I was then than I am now. Even though they aren't directly related to my current purpose, they are part of what got me to this point...Then I was going to delete all the posts about Mark, the guy I briefly dated back then. But the story about the cat taking off with my steak was pretty funny. I'd forgotten about that!

Tomorrow is the last day of a substantial vacation. I'm going to go to bed now so I can enjoy tomorrow.

Quitting-Week 1

I decided to use Chantix. It blocks the receptors in your brain that nicotine attaches to. I tried smoking on the first day, but it didn't do any good. So I just stopped. There's still anxiety and all that, but hadn't been so bad...until yesterday. I had a melt down yesterday. Totally. I was a disaster at work, Steve got home from a week away and I was a mess. I was evil. The Chantix hasn't built up in my system long enough yet. They recommend that you smoke through the first week of smoking to let it build up...I didn't, and by day 5, I was about crazy. My poor students...my poor fiance...

I bawled, I screamed, I broke stuff, I couldn't breathe, I bawled again, I screamed again, I broke more stuff, I couldn't breathe again, and that was only in the first 10 seconds. I had some SERIOUS mood swings going on.

So, when Steve walked through the door after being gone all week and said, "Hi, honey," I started bawling and said, "WHY CAN'T I EVER DO ANYTHING RIGHT FOR YOU?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!" and stormed out of the house.

He didn't know what hit him. Poor guy. He's trying to quit too. I'm going to drive him to drink!

Tito is kind of my knight in shining armor too. He's always there to cuddle, snuggle, and give me lovin' even when I'm not doing so well. I love my puppy.

I KNOW you can't wait for my next installment!

Tiny update

My cat, Goober, died this summer. He's in a box on my living room shelf, because I don't know what to do with his little ashes. I miss him...

Several months later, I got another cat. It was a little too early, but we're all adjusting well.

This school year is almost over and I started my master's degree.

I'm getting married in June, and my t.v. still doesn't work...

That's about it;)

It's been a long time since my last confession...

Yes, yes it has.

Well, life is good. I'm happily single, REALLY busy, thinking about buying a condo, planning on buying a motorcycle, and still doing derby.

I saw 300 last weekend with Crazy Random Musings, her husband and her brother in law. We were going to grab a bite to eat, which I intended to snarf as quickly as possible before the movie. Crazy, who I might add, is ACTUALLY crazy, decided we were going to "sneak" the food in. We had two huge to-go containers that she put under her sweater she was carrying over her arm. I'm not sure if it would have been POSSIBLE to be any more obvious. In fact, I'm pretty sure not.

We were making our way to the theater, when her plan suddenly collapsed and the food went tumbling to the ground. It didn't fall out of the containers, but the cheers from passers by surly didn't help us stay incognito...As we went into the theater, the security guard was eyeing Crazy suspiciously. As we walked by, I half expected him to tackle her, demanding she discard her contraband IMMEDIATELY. He just looked. We got into the complex realizing we purchased one ticket for the correct movie and three tickets for the wrong one. So we stole into the illegal theater for the movie we actually wanted to see, and we were off. The theater was packed. My pad thai stunk to high heaven. We were fugitives, and I was definately sweating. My god, we could have been kicked out, banned from the theater, or WORSE!

In any event, we watched the movie without incident. Our neighbors didn't turn us in to the po-po, the little movie people didn't confiscate our grub, and the movie was cool.

Love y'all!

MUAHS!

The time I got robbed:

Well, party people, it's back by popular demand - the story about the time I got robbed in San Bernardino. It's come up in conversation with a couple of folks, and they've asked about it, so instead of retelling the story, I figured I'd just post it.

This happened in November, I think.

I was BRAND NEW to roller derby. I hadn't been to more than a couple of weeks of practices. In fact, during the previous practice, I hyper-extended the ligament in my left knee, and was hobbling around. For some reason, I thought practice started at 8pm, when it actually started at 8:30. Bruce, the owner of The Stardust, where we skate, had a private party inside, so I had to go back out to my car and wait.

I was taking my time getting back to my car, talking to my friend, Leroy on the phone. As I was sitting down in the driver's seat of my car, I heard foot steps running toward the car from behind me. I thought it was one of the other derby girls running for some reason. All of a sudden, this guy wedges himself between my car door and the door frame so I couldn't close the door and says, "Give me your money, bitch, or I'm going to stab you." He was holding a screw driver to my neck. I lied to him and said, "I don't have any money." I was still on the phone with Leroy at that point. He heard the robbery happen until then. Then the guy said, "Then give me your phone," and he snatched my phone out of my hand. He said, "And give me your keys." He started to take my keys out of my hand. I had my personal keys and my school keys on the same key ring that night. He grabbed the keys, but I wouldn't let go. He said, "Bitch, give me your keys. I'll stab you."

I said, "Oh, HELL no." I yanked my keys back, and I grabbed onto his screwdriver and said, "If you reach in this car one more time you mother fucker, I will kill you." Then I hopped out of the car and started chasing him. He ran faster than I probably could have run if my knee WASN'T injured, but I still had his screwdriver in my hand. I was so pissed off, I threw it at him. I know. Stupid idea. But I was mad. I nailed him in the back of the head. He picked up his screwdriver and kept running. I ran back to my car. I was going to get in it and run him down. The other derby girls made me go inside and call the cops instead.

I learned a lot about myself that night. I didn't think I could kill another human being, which is why I've never learned how to shoot the gun I own. I figured that I had better keep it locked up, otherwise I'd be one of those idiots that hesitates and gets shot with their own gun. I don't ever recall actually wanting to kill someone ever before, but if I had the opportunity, I could have killed this man. When he threatened my life, a switch flipped, and I wanted to hurt him. I learned that in a situation where it's either them or me, I choose me. Period. If it comes down to an issue of survival, I know I can kill without hesitation.

Not long after that, I learned how to shoot my gun. I plan to get certified to carry concealed, and I plan to get certified to carry a taser. If that fucker EVER messes with me again, he'll get the surprise of his life.

Midlife Crisis

Yeah. I had one today. I freaked out. Went crazy. I ALMOST bought a cherry red Corvette. But, I thought about it and decided that I'd stick with my old fart tan Buick Le Saber that I bought from my grandmother. Yes. I am so hip it hurts.

But anyway, I'm sitting here getting my t.v. fix online before bed. Goobie is on the right, purring as he snoozes, Tito is on the left with his little face tipped up toward mine.

I gots me a great life, y'all =)