Thank You, Soldiers & Veterans

THE FINAL INSPECTION

The Soldier stood and faced God,

Which must always come to pass.

He hoped his shoes were shining,

Just as brightly as his brass.

"Step forward now, Soldier.

How shall I deal with you?

Have you always turned the other cheek?

To My Church have you been true?"

The soldier squared his shoulders and said,

"No, Lord, I guess I ain't.

Because those of us who carry guns,

Can't always be a saint.

I've had to work most Sundays,

And at times my talk was tough.

And sometimes I've been violent,

Because the world is awfully rough.

But I never took a penny,

That wasn't mine to keep.

Though I worked a lot of overtime,

When the bills got just too steep.

And I never passed a cry for help,

Though at times I shook with fear.

And sometimes, God, forgive me,

I've wept unmanly tears.

I know I don't deserve a place,

Among the people here.

They never wanted me around,

Except to calm their fears.

If you've a place for me here, Lord,

It needn't be so grand.

I never expected or had too much.

And if you don't, I'll understand.

There was a silence all around the throne,

Where the saints had often trod.

As the Soldier waited quietly,

For the judgment of his God.

"Step forward now, you Soldier,

You've borne your burdens well.

Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,

You've done your time in Hell."

~ Author Unknown ~

Happy Anniversary to Me!

Tomorrow is my one-year anniversary.

One year ago I made a poor decision.  The decision resulted in many complications in the life of my loved ones, children, and friends.  Unfortunately the consequences could have been fatal.

To celebrate life, today I choose to remember my unsuccessful decision from a year ago and honor how far I have come in my journey for balance and wellness.

(Photo: Larry Poncho Brown)


One Year Ago Today:
Many of us have been told, “Your problems aren’t that bad. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!” or, “If you only took 15 pills, you weren’t really serious.”

Unfortunately, I was serious.

I swallowed pills. LOTS OF PILLS. As I laid in bed, I began to reconsider my actions. The wee ones had stayed the night before at the in-laws and were still there.  I stumbled downstairs and attempted to wake my sleeping husband. I said, "I think I made a bad decision." He was quite groggy and I wasn't sure if he heard me, so I shook his shoulder and said, "I may need to go to the doctor. I just swallowed a couple of pills."


Husband jumped up from the couch and went into serious panic mode. By this time I was feeling very light headed and tired. The room was spinning in pleasant circles and I was relaxed. I remember laying down on the couch and slurring, "You know what? I think it's going to be okay. I am just going to sleep for a while."


After that, my memory of the next 48 hours is sketchy at best. I have been told that Husband called my mom, who came over to our house. Since I was barely coherent, Husband carried me to my mom's car and stuffed me inside. Mom drove me to the hospital where I was whisked into the ER for evaluation.


I was committed to the "behavioral health ward" for observation and treatment. I have just returned home from the hospital and here begins the journey towards wellness...


Why did you want to take your own life?


This question is probably the hardest to answer. My problems at the time seemed insignificant, so I brushed them aside and hoped they would go away. I was in denial. I thought that by brushing the worries aside, instead of confronting them, I was somehow getting rid of them. But I was merely storing my problems in a little box in my brain -- and one day that little box become full and I guess it finally exploded.


Deep down, I don’t think I really wanted to take my own life. I wanted people to see that I had problems. I didn’t have the courage to simply put my hand up and say "I don't know what to do anymore."


I thought to myself: How can I possibly go up to a loved one and say, ‘I’ve got problems and I think I’m going to kill myself because of them’? I was embarrassed. I certainly didn’t want people saying that I had psychiatric problems.


At the threshold of suicide, I sought to understand the extreme limits of my ability and willingness to endure my emotional anguish and still remain alive.


There is "a realm of experience that is ruinous, where ceaseless pain suffocates the spirit and consumes the will to live". These were the moments when I began to consider the possibility of suicide. Faced with the crazy swirling of all the feelings, thoughts, and actions...


Suicide attempts cannot be understood by isolating any one moment in time that leads up to "the event". Instead I look at it and consider: What frightful clash of internal and external forces could cause a person to consider self-annihilation a feasible and reasonable option? What abandonment of hope could challenge my basic innate instincts toward self-preservation?

The story of suicide begins with the feeling of an unbridgeable sense of alienation, and a deep need to hide your pain. Withdrawal begins and then deepens -- gradually, almost imperceptibly. Eventually, the person who was once there is no longer present... she only goes through the motions of living. Hiding behind a facade, feeling isolated, and vulnerable to the urgings of suicidal thoughts. When left unchecked, the thoughts entice her to one fatal choice.

I am lucky that I survived that nearly fatal choice.  My precious wee ones and loved ones did not need that fateful choice to be successful...

I now know they need me here.  I think of all of the wonderfulness I would have missed had I exited the stage.

Photo Friday: Week 21 - Temptation

It's Photo Friday -- a day late.  This week's theme is "temptation".  Now, this theme could be taken in a million different ways.  I think everyone has their own weaknesses and addictions.  My personal temptations include some things that aren't easy to photograph... the sound of my wee one's giggles, the smell of lilacs in spring, the taste of sun-ripened strawberries fresh off the vine.  However, enough of my rambling.  I feel like I lack creativity for the photo challenges recently.

Temptation On A Stick (all state fair food is awesome as long as it's on a stick!)

Temptation In A Bottle

Temptation To Live In the Past

Please hop on over to Trina's blog (click her button below) to see the other Photo Friday submissions.  It's so fun to see everyones ideas of each weeks theme.

You Know You Are A Mom When...

* you reach into your coat pocket, you pull out a Matchbox car, purple crayon, My Little Pony barrette, and used tissue before you fish out your car keys.

* the only writing utensil in your purse is a red Crayola marker.

* your spouse calls your purse your "five-day bag" because it's so massive and holds so many "I-may-need-this-someday" things.

* you only have Scooby Doo, VeggieTale, and Dora the Explorer bandaids.

* you where above stated, children bandaids to your professional place of employment.

* in a pinch, you are willing to wipe your wee ones snotty nose with your bare hand -- and you don't gag or even think twice about it.

* your idea of a relaxing Saturday morning includes grocery shopping without the wee ones.

* Perkins or Applebee's is considered a "fancy" restaurant.

* you consider it a major accomplishment to get out of the house in the morning with a clean shirt free of children's bodily fluids or latest meal.

And last but not least,

* you sing along to the VeggieTales CD in the mini-van AFTER you've already dropped off the wee ones.

Still Here

So the world did NOT end today, as predicted by some apparently very wise scholars and obsessive fanatics.  No offense intended but this did not surprise me.  I guess I subscribe to the religion that believes the Bible clearly states that no one will know the exact time of Jesus' return and if that logic is true, no one will be able to predict the date of the end of the world.

With May 21, 2011 being predicted as the end of the world, or the beginning of the rapture, I had a fascinating conversation with my bestest friend, who does not happen to believe in Jesus, or the conventional concept of heaven, hades, rapture, satan, etc.  She asked me: "If Jesus were to come back to Earth in human form, what would he look like?"  It was a thought-provoking exchange that really got my imagination moving.



Would a present-day Jesus look like? A corporate executive in a power suit with his smart phone always in hand? A beatnik rejecting materialism and embracing subculture ideas? Maybe a hip-hop DJ with his blinged out 4-carat diamond stud earring?  A retro-ish man seeking revolutionary change?  Perhaps a Harley-Davidson motorcycle guy looking rough around the edges?

What would your Jesus look like if he were to return during our life time?

Photo Friday: Week 20 - Anger

It's Photo Friday!  Week 20's theme is "Anger".  I couldn't resist sharing a great example of my son's un-necessary burst of energy.  We were happily cooking dinner together and he wanted to tear the lettuce for salad.  Unfortunately, something tipped him off and it resulted in him standing on the kitchen table, wailing at the top of his lungs and perhaps flinging a bit of lettuce around as I dove for my camera.

Please hop on over to Trina's blog (click her button below) to see the other Photo Friday submissions.  It's so fun to see everyones ideas of each weeks theme.

Wacky Wednesday

Growing up my very favoritest part of the newspaper, after the Sunday funnies, (because who doesn't love the funnies in full color!) was a column that was published every Wednesday and was called "News of the Weird".  As you can imagine, the column was full of criminals who weren't quite intelligent enough to pull off their heist, idiots who apparently lacked common and sense and children who were trying to slowly kill their parents with their daring acts of craziness.  I loved when the column would include little known and just straight up ODD facts.  I have recently come across a few funky news stories or factual tid bits that I thought would be fun to share.

Not to be confused with high-brow literature... You will feel like you have lost a few brain cells after reading on, but hopefully you'll get a little belly laugh too.



The Undead Are Coming!
May is National Zombie Awareness Month. To help raise awareness, the Zombie Research Society is giving away one free copy of the children's book That’s Not Your Mommy each day of May. Apparently, "Mommy is a cautionary tale that teaches kids how to recognize a zombie outbreak in its earliest stage."

Breaking In or Out?
Chutzpah! Thieves usually pick out easy jobs, but occasionally they go bold -- for example, breaking into the prison at New Plymouth, New Zealand's North Island, in March (carrying off a large TV set).

Wisconsin Takes the Beer
Prevailing medical authority 20 years ago warned that few humans could survive blood-alcohol readings above .40 (percent), but in recent years, drivers have rather easily survived higher numbers (curiously, many from Wisconsin, such as the man in February in Madison, Wis., with a .559). (In 2007, an Oregon driver was found unconscious, but survived, with a .72 reading.) The plethora of high numbers might indicate mistaken medical teaching, or nonstandard machine measurements -- or an evolutionary hardiness in American drinkers.

Repo Man Meets Pastor
"I thought, 'Man, is this what Jesus would do?'" said Akron, Ohio, repo man Ken Falzini, after surviving a short, harrowing ride clinging to the hood of the Lexus he was trying to repossess from a local preacher in January.

Bishop Marc Neal of Akron's Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church, later charged with felony assault, told a reporter he thought it "disrespectful" for Falzini to try to repossess a preacher's car during Sunday services. Falzini said Neal was "laughing" during parts of the drive, which allegedly included sharp zig-zagging at speeds around 50 miles per hour in an attempt to dislodge Falzini from the hood.

Clearing the Air
Some advocates thought the government of Malawi's proposed environmental control legislation sounded broad enough to criminalize flatulence. The justice minister said the section about "fouling the air" should cover extreme flatus, but the country's solicitor general insisted that only commercial air pollution was punishable. The bill was proposed in January.

Unpretty

Tuesday's Tunes brings us an oldie but goodie with a TLC song from 1999.  Love the lyrics and meaning of the song.



Unpretty 
~ TLC

I wish I could tie you up in my shoes
Make you feel unpretty too
I was told I was beautiful
But what does that mean to you
Look into the mirror who's inside there
The one with the long hair
Same old me again today(yeah)

My outsides look cool
My insides are blue
Everytime I think I'm through
It's because of you
I've tried different ways
But it's all the same
At the end of the day
I have myself to blame
I'm just trippin'

*Chorus*
You can buy your hair if it won't grow
You can fix your nose if he says so
You can by all the make-up that M.A.C. can make
But if you can't look inside you find out who I am too
Be in the posistion to make me feel
So damn unpretty
I'll make you feel unprety too
Never insecure until I met you
Now I'm bein' stupid, I used to be so cute to me
Just a little bit skinny
Why do I look to all these things
To keep you happy
Maybe to get rid of you and then I'll get back to me (hey)

My outsides look cool
My insides are blue
Everytime I think I'm through
It's because of you
I've tried different ways
But it's all the same
At the end of the day
I have myself to blame
Me, I'm trippin'

Repeat chorus 2x

Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh(oh)
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh(oh)

Repeat Chorus 2x