Magnetic Monday or TMI Tuesday

First of all I know it is Tuesday, what else is new, I am a day late and a dollar short.
Second I cannot really explain this magnetic poetry, I think it was created by the following person residing in my house. It is probably an attempt to gain world domination, beware.

Who knew Dr. Evil was so buff under that lovely suit he wears?

Still Smiling

I realized I forgot a birthday this month, my brother, Bill. He has been gone a long time, but I think he is making his presence known lately. Little things like finding a poster he and my brother Sam painted my mom for mother's day, my nephew taking his picture down from the wall.

I think I was in 6th grade when my parents decided to become foster parents. My mom said that her family always took in her friends that needed places to stay as a kid and she wanted to do that too. So this teenage boy a couple of years older than me came to live with us. It was immediately apparent that this wasn't the kind of kid I would hang out with in school. I recall being at war about accepting him in, and losing my place as oldest. We would get along and then fight just like with my real brothers and sisters, but it was always a more tenuous relationship than I had with my younger sister and brother.

He got in some kind of trouble, I don't really recall what, but the result was he went to live in a group up in northern NM. We would go for weekend visits and I remember going to his GED graduation in Espanola. When he aged out of foster care he came back and lived with us. It was okay for a while, but eventually he started drinking and the alcoholic gene ran strong in his family. One night he was in very strange mood, locked in the room he shared with my brother blasting metal, my parents were out somewhere and I found a bottle of vodka in the freezer and of course mentioned it to them when they got home. The evening ended with him punching my dad, a scuffle and him being kicked out. My mom helped him get set up at an apartment and he still came to family functions. He would straighten up for a while and then he would start drinking again. He started going on binges where he would lose memories of a whole week, doing things like selling his car and having no memory of it. Still practicing tough love, they didn't bail him out and pay his rent when he had nothing left, and because of the past incidents they didn't let him move back in with us. I recall giving him a hard time when I went to go pick him up for Christmas dinner about it. You know in my self rightous 16 year old girl way, overall I was probably a jerk. He ended up living with his paternal grandfather, who I guess was a piece of work himself.

I still vividly remember coming home from a school trip in early January walking in the door and knowing something was terribly wrong. He had decided enough was enough and ended his life. I was pissed, how could he do that to us? He really had screwed up this time. Guiltily, and quietly, I also felt relief for him. Despite the fact that I had always been told suicide was wrong, I had seen his desperate struggle, his fear of never being able to break free of his family curse. I wondered if he was better off.

Watching my mother struggle with his choice, and her feelings of what else could she have done was hard. While she never hit bottom, I knew it nearly killed her. Years later when discussing another suicide, and when I encouraged her to offer comfort to the mother, she said something to the effect that her friend had lost a child while she was just a foster mom. I asked her if she had really loved him any less than us, because I don't' think she did, many people would have given up when he left for the group home.

You want to know something, I can't be sure I ever called him my brother all those years ago. I probably always referred to him as my foster brother, keeping some distance from him. Something that still cuts me to the quick today. I can forgive myself for being what I was, a teenage girl who had this kid living in her house. I don't think I was cruel, but not always as nice and giving as I could have been. Yet it is hard to recall my actions, and not feel ashamed, through the eyes of a more understanding adult.

The grief has found me throughout the years. The first time I went back to the same funeral home for my boyfriends grandmother a few years later, the tears I barely cried at his funeral found their way out. When a girl in college was freaking out about a suicide and grieveing for a kid we didn't even know, I was angry people made such a big deal about suicides. (Bill's was the second in a week that year, we think he partly did it because of the first.) When I went through my own worst depression and was thinking of how I wasn't so fond of life anymore, and there was no hope of recovery, the first hand knowledge of how much pain I would cause my family,helped me from doing anything rash.

Today I feel sad at all the joys in life he has missed, because I am sure if he was here, he would be involved in birthdays, holidays. I wonder what his kids would look like. I would be ribbing him about being old and almost forty.

In a moment of sadness, my mom wondered if being a foster parent was a mistake. I told her no. While it was hard, painful and often not beautiful, it was the right thing to do. Malathionman wrote an excellent post about his kids, who are adopted from the state. His post reminded me of how worthwhile these parents are. Yes it hurts, and the struggles can be awful, the outcomes often not ideal, but can you imagine if he hadn't made that rash mistake? I have hope for Alissa, Austin and Sarah. You may not be able to make all there problems go away by loving them, but you are still blessing them.

Tonight we made had a as scrapbooking event at church the theme was family. One of the best albums I saw had pictures of a now broken family and this quote... “Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.” Dr. Suess*

Scandal: Stork bribes Santa to provide stimulating gifts to young couples

When I was pregnant with Zach was the first time I noticed this phenomenon. There are a lot of birthdays in September. It turned out that it wasn't just likely he would be born on someone in our families birthday but more than likely more than one of their birthdays.

For instance
9/11 two aunts
9/14 my sister in law
9/16 my husbands great aunt and great uncle (married, on that day too, isn't it sweet.)
9/17 an aunt, uncle and friend
9/18 two cousins
9/21 grandmother and friend.

There are more, that I am forgetting I am sure. In fact every year when having his birthday, there are sure to be conflicts with someone else's party usually not even on this list.

Why are there so many birthdays during this week in September. It all made sense once I realized this one little fact... Conception date for 9/17 (Z's birthday) 12/25. Before that, I had never realized that Santa and the Stork were in business together.

The blog where I explain my absence.

Max started Preschool....

Despite the unsure look here, he had is jacket off was busy playing and barely says bye to momma.

I also placed an newspaper ad for my mom's youngest sisters fiftieth birthday. I won't show it to you, I value my life and hope she doesn't find my blog and have written proof I am the one who placed it, even if it was at my mom's instruction.

Sarge had to visit the vet again, to get his stitches looked at, slow healer that dog.

Oh and I helped a friend move, you know with that last little bit that takes forever! I hate that, but boy I was tired. I should do that every day I would be skinny minne, well if we did not eat monster burritos at lunch since we were working so hard you know.

It was also homecoming in our football crazy small town. Ever seen Friday Night Lights?
You have seen us then.

I helped paint this sign for my aunt's class reunion. And one for the other side.

This is my other aunt's float, also having a reunion, with a sign I had nothing to do with. Too bad it is a nice sign.

Zach turned 6. I made him a clone trooper cake.
I find my lack of cake decorating skills disturbing.

He got his clonetrooper helmet. Yeah Nana!

Great Grandma turned 85 and we had a big party for her. She is the one in the bonnet, my aunt (left) and mom will kill me if they think I am suggesting that they are 85.
This week has less going on, but still promises to be insanely busy.

Jane how do I get off this crazy thing....

Fright Night

Last night my heart was pounding, I was out of breath and I was shaking hard enough to rattle my necklace. Why? I was practicing the song I was singing for church. My boys were goofing off on stage around me, I couldn't concentrate and it my full attention was not on the task at hand. As I shuttled the boys off to their respective classes, I wished I had never been put on the list to sing a special, even if I landed on the least coveted spot of Wednesday night, the least attended service.

I blame my mother for being on the special music schedule, she thinks my sister and I sing like angels. She really wants us to sing for her in public. In my high school days, singing in front of people was no big deal. I even sang at a few large talent shows in front of several hundred people, sure I was kind of nervous, but nothing like last night. Back then I do recall her pushing things too far in my opinion, asking us to sing everywhere we went, even family functions, I always felt like a show off, often refusing.

Down the road in life after high school, although I kept singing in choirs, I quit singing solos after a embarrassing botched audition in front of a large group of professional singers. In the last ten years, the only times I have sung in public was my grandparents funerals. Nightmares of singing plagued me the night before my grandfathers funeral and vowed to never ever do it again. However I couldn't refuse when nanny joined him earlier this year. As bad luck or fate would have it, it was open mic night at church a few nights later and we repeated the performance for my mom's benefit at church. Then again for my other grandmothers benefit at her church. That is how I ended up on stage last night, someone sweetly added me to the special schedule after that.

I know singing at church isn't really about me, it is about praising God. Technically if I am tone deaf and off beat but my heart is really in it, aren't I pleasing him? My internal Simon Cowell plays back all the bad comments I have ever heard. Why does she think she is so special? Who told her she could sing? Boring, didn't like it, get yourself a real job! Comments not made about me, but I cam imagine in them in a heartless british accent. I ask myself, who do I think I am? I am not Godly and good, I yelled at my kids yesterday, am behind on bills and in general a terrible sinner.

It is very hard to let go and experience the joy I find in singing at home or in choir, when I am by myself on stage. Whether happy or sad, I sing songs and feel uplifted, overjoyed and can lose myself and come out a better person. One of my favorite lines in a song ever is Some midnight hour, when you find yourself in a prison in your mind, SING OUT IN PRAISE and Bless his name. (I Bless Your Name, Elizabeth Goodine.) Which is a reference to Acts 16:22-40. I love that line because it embodies how I feel after I sing, even when my world is crumbling around me, I can release all that negative energy and feel renewed at the end. But that is at home, in my kitchen, usually when I am by myself.

I am afraid I will get so scared of being on stage that I will forget the song I am singing despite the words being on the podium in front of me. I tried to find a few minutes after that heart pounding rehearsal to sit down, relax and pray, not for me that increased my anxiety, for other people, so God could put his hand on my back and tell me it is okay, and for me to believe it.

By the time I went up to grab the mic, my heartbeat was calmer, I had my breath back. When I started to sing I looked around and my nerves ramped up, I heard the quiver in my voice. I saw the beads on my necklace shake violently as I drew a breath. I closed my eyes and shut out the room and just sang. As I got to the last verse, I almost forgot where I was and I was just singing, and I meant it.

Oh Cleanser of the mess I made,
With everything at your feet laid,
I watch as all my cares erode,
And from my soul these words explode

How wonderful your mercy is,
How awesome are your ways,
I come, I come,
To worship you
For all you've done

(For All You've Done, Clint Lagerburg)

Political Prowess

Maybe it is my age, I find some topics starting to interest me more. History has suddenly become fascinating, I have read a few history books lately, there was no teacher requiring them. I know, I am worried about my ears sprouting hair too.

Politics have suddenly taken on a new interest as well. Of course this race is making history with a woman who was a serious contender, a black nominee for president. Now we have a woman vice presidential candidate. Regardless of how you feel about any of the above people, it is an exciting time in American politics. Now I am checking my nose hair, can you see it?

There is a good reason I have never even been tempted to write a political minded entry. I don't consider myself well informed enough. I try to stay well informed and yet without being an expert in economic, foreign policy, etc it is hard to sort through all the opinions out there and make a judgment. I have a political opinion? Quick are my teeth falling out?

Which takes me on a quick tangent. One of my main complaints would be that the most media outlets seem biased one way or the other. I am sure most of us can figure out what party most reporters belong to. Now granted my journalist education took place in the late 80's and early 90's but I recall being told to be unbiased. I am guessing that isn't taught in Journalism 101 anymore. Now I am grumpy about the press. Did I just find a wrinkle?

Most often in my voting, I have tried to be informed about the candidates stance on the issues that were most important to me. I have also went with my gut, because I try to ascertain the character of the person. I haven't even remotely decided in this election. It is extra hard for me, I am registered as an Independent, don't vote the party line and in terms of my ideals can neither align myself with Democrats or Republicans. In the last presidential election I voted Libertarian because I just could not stomach voting for Bush or Kerry. I considered it a protest vote. Oh good, I did the immature thing and threw my vote away, that sounds young.

So what is a liberal republican or a conservative democrat like myself to do? I am not sure yet, but it has been an interesting year so far.

** Update, Maybe I'll become a Republicrat.