MUSINGS

Did you know that's the name of my ex-husbands book?  He'd begun writing and compiling poems around the age of 17 with the specific intent to publish them someday.  He was able to snag an independent publisher right around the time I got out of the military and had a few hundred copies put out into the world.  Since we met at 21 I was a common theme in some of the poems, either myself or life in general.  Teen angst turned young adult passion.  It was nice to know he dedicated that work to a woman I had no idea he was seeing during and after my enlistment. A decade ago I was reeling.  I don't remember Christmas that year...I have a vague vision of a tree in the house and I think by that point a former friend and her son had moved in with my daughter and me.  I don't remember how I/we celebrated...I have no idea if I went up north to be with my family, but that seems like the logical assumption.  I only remember feelings.  Dread.  Lonel...

So I bought a farm. Like, a for real working horse ranch.  It wasn't planned, the deal just happened to present itself and was too good to pass up.  I jumped on it like I tend to do, all four feet, all at once. Honey was feeling more cautious about it but he could see all the potential.  After some careful negotiation and some liquidation on our part, we dove in. There's a massive part of me that wants to quantify everything I want to say...but I need to just put this out there without the justifications and explanations. A few weeks back I witnessed a bit of family reality.  One of Honey's quarter horses was ill and we didn't know.  We'd bought feed about a month prior and didn't really notice that she was in a declined state.  She seemed lean but not unhealthy.  Fast forward to his father coming to him angry and disgusted believing that the horses were not being properly fed.  We go out to the field to discover that she was in very bad sha...

Public school is getting started everywhere and university will be right behind it later this month.  My Girl will be headed to her own dwelling in a few days....another bird out of the nest.  While I am worried about her, I know she'll be OK.  She's got a strong foundation and a safety net should she ever need it.  I believe in her need to be an individual and try to do life on her own terms, I can't begrudge anyone their independence.  Honey asked me the other night if her father knew she was moving out..I told him I have no idea.  She doesn't talk about him at all these days, he's just a passing thought.  I know they keep in contact, he sent her a magical $50 gift card for school stuff.  Yeah I know, that's petty.  It's not the gift it's the consideration.  Screw that.  She's headed to university where she will be in charge of her own everything....life is not cheap.  You want to help?  Offer to pay her car insuranc...

It's been so long since I made this a regular thing, I have almost forgotten how to spill it.  Something in the last year or two flipped in me that made me not want to type anything out.  Kind of a self censorship because I began telling myself that I shouldn't be putting all the things out there the way I have in the past.  Then it hit me in the last 24 hours that when I was typing the BS out of my head, it was much easier to manage.  It's irrelevant to me if anyone else reads it, it was always about clearing the cobwebs out of my own head.  So why'd I stop? We're still tending wounds as the year winds down.  Wounds of all sorts and kinds: physical ones, mental ones, internal and external.  There are going to be some lasting impressions once all of this dies down.  If last year was a roller coaster, this year must be a drop ride.  Ya know the ones, they take you way high in the air, let you think you're safe and then suddenly it lets go an...

I've been trying to 5 months to get this written out.  I've erased.  Deleted.  Changed text and title repeatedly.  I don't know where to start or what to say.  Do I mention that I didn't color my hair for the first 3 months of the year?  It was natural walking into this year?  Like a rebirth?  Do I mention that this semester of school was neither good nor bad...it was just, there?  Do I mention that the trials so far have been rough but manageable? We are indeed in a time of change.  The world itself and in my own little home.  Without going into too many personal details, our household has been hit with some major medical whirlwinds in the last 9-10 months.  My sweet Girl has a definitive reason for her tiny-ness, she will need medical monitoring for the rest of her life.  Honey has followed suit with some common but life changing ailments of his own.  Like I said, rough but manageable.  Getting into my own cr...

Right now the universe is giving our home a hell of a ride.  Torrential rains are leaving a lasting impression on everything south and people are losing what they worked very hard to maintain.  It's heart-wrenching to watch.  I have been able to donate a little bit, not as much as I'd like but it's what I could do so I have to be OK with that.  Unfortunately Honey and I have our own battle to fight with an ancient leaky building and no funds to do a proper repair.  We just have to wait for the rain to finish what it's doing so we can try to address it as best we can.   There has been many a night in the last few years that Honey and I both have looked at what was dumped in his lap and asked..."what did I/we do to deserve this?"  He certainly didn't ask for it, in case anyone was wondering.  But..he's got it.  It's there and it isn't as simple as ditch it and walk away nor is it as simple as drain a bank account to fix one problem out of 50...

I've been told that we, people, undergo significant change every seven years.  I've gone back over my life several times to see if I can pinpoint any of those changes.  I suppose if I look hard enough, I can.  Childhood was childhood, but by 21 I was married with a baby on the way...by 28 I was exiting the Marine Corps, by 35 I was divorced and remarried...So yeah, I guess there's validity to that statement. It seems like this particular round the changes just keep coming.  I'm typically not one who is daunted by change, even if it's big.  It seems like the last 5 plus years have been a steady stream of....different.  From having to learn a new way of life to my body completely betraying me (thanks neck!), the constant shift in my world has been a little rough.  After the ex left I expected my friend circle to change and it did.  Most of that was a welcome change, I figured out who was toxic and who was good for me.  Back during my former l...

Right now...I feel like I'm covered in them.  The usual array that show up here and there because I'm clumsy, a deep deep one just below my elbow (makes doing common things challenging), and a fresh one in the webbing between my thumb and forefinger on the same arm as the elbow bruise.  A beaten and battered heart that is taking a lot longer to heal up. So.  This time last year my father passed away.  I didn't announce it to many people, even though I shared the funeral details on social media...most people didn't connect that the person was my own dad.  A little over a month ago my old boss and mentor passed away, unexpectedly to me.  I hadn't seen him in quite a while and didn't know if his illnesses had progressed.  Most recently my former father in law.  He was in my life for the last 17 years.  Ex left the state about 4 years ago, that left me to bring the Girl to see her grandparents and make sure she spent time with them.  A one...

**Disclaimer:  This started out a nice li'l blog about life decisions and whatnot.  Then my fingers started typing and I let it happen.  Enter at your own risk. So here we are.  Another rainy Southern September.  School is in full swing for The Girl and me.  I've got studio classes and she's kicking ass and taking names in her honors courses and trying to maintain a social life.  Things are trucking on with ease. No.  No crash, no "BUT"....things are going as well as they can in a troubled market.  I'm grateful that the Honey is resourceful and works as much and as hard as he does every week.  Having to work for yourself is not easy by any stretch but he makes the best of it.  The oil field tanked early this year and it's made things harder than we are accustomed to but it's nothing we can't handle.  I made the comment to her father a month or so ago that he had a lot of faith in our situation and the man I married. ...

What would you think if someone asked you to protect their child over yours? I'm going to let that sink in for a moment. Now the word "child" is relative in this particular instance.  I don't necessarily mean child, as in small one, but child as in the offspring of another.  An adult is still someone's child, even at 30. A little further into the question:  What if the things the other person's child did directly affected yours?  This person is fully aware of their own actions and believes him/her self to be totally in the right.  The parent could be asking for mercy due to their own personal issues and are somewhat unaware of their child's behavior.  The kind of parent who believes their child will simply change their ways based on a call and a little fussing.  Would you still take this parents request into consideration? Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances that prevent a person from doing what they should.  Family illnesses, tra...

A couple of my people have mentioned of late that my Facebook posts have been less than....jolly.  I'm not a constant presence there.  I post, or share a nifty article but mostly I just run around "liking" other peoples posts or commenting on various things.  It stopped being a thing for me a long while back, but I keep going back because that's where most of my people are.  I chat with friends that don't live nearby and get bits of info on things from time to time. The thing is...I'm not a particularly jolly person.  I'm cynical, pessimistic, and a bit hard-hearted.  The face I put on every day is not a true reflection of what's going on inside me most days.  I've posted lately that I'm just tired of humanity in general and that I'm over living where I live.  All of that is absolutely true.  The followups are attempts at pulling myself out of the irritation and pessimism that I typically live in.  I have to actively try to see the goo...

So, it's no secret that Honey and I were both in previous marriages. Well, as with all things, it takes a lot of soul searching and team work to leave the past in the past and try to build something brand spanking new.  Sometimes it isn't what one past relationship left you with, sometimes it's several things that happened over a series of years.  Honey and I have very different relationship pasts.  His was slow to develop.  It began with a short lived-shotgun wedding, a bad divorce, and ultimately dated similar women with similar motives for years.  I dated throughout high school and college, agreed to a marriage I wasn't ready for and stayed in it for a decade.  We come from slightly different familial backgrounds as well, my parents were married to each other for over 40 years whereas his were divorced and the children split up.  Those who love psychoanalysis will tell you that our relationships with our parents tend to determine our relationships...

And then...she woke up. It's taken a few months.  I touched on but didn't go into details on how my year ended.  Shortly before Thanksgiving, my dad gave in to the disease that was eating him from the inside out.  He passed with my mom by his side and my sister right down the road.  It was hard.  No matter how long you wait for someone to move on, it never cushions the event.  That being said, I went into hibernation mode.  Eat/sleep/school/work/repeat.  Well, it's time to shake it off and snatch that momentum back up. My little family went camping a couple weeks back with some friends.  I'd had a bit of an epiphany prior to the trip in regard to my (our) finances and how we do things.  Me and the other wives got into a discussion about the household checkbook, and how the wives do things vs. the husband.  The women with whom I was talking each had their own methods for handling the bills and the spending.  They ranged from g...

This is a fabulous article I just couldn't resist re-posting.  Originating at HomeSchoolers Anonymous , this gem truly is priceless.  While their aim is at a specific type of man, I know many many others who fit this mold.  Grab a drink, sit back, and have a chuckle, it's worth it! 10 THINGS YOUR [EX]FUNDY ALMOST-EX HUSBAND WILL DO DURING YOUR DIVORCE February 19, 2015 ·   by  R.L. Stollar ·  in  Homeschool ,  Marriage . · The following post was submitted to HA by an anonymous contributor. . 1) Pretend nothing is wrong when you tell him things aren’t working until you start making changes to make yourself happier and saner. And then he’ll snap. . 2) When you suggest finding a therapist, he’ll tell you you don’t need meds and suggest that maybe you should try talking to your pastor instead. . 3) Finally starts listening to things you’ve been saying for months, and abruptly co-opts feminist lingo and tells you that y...