Judging others

I am going to write about a post this morning.  A post about fat poor women.  Such vile and ignorant comments followed.  I posted a reply about how hard it is to be poor and fresh fruits and vegetables are too expensive for ME and I am not 'poor' like the people mentioned in the comments and the post.
I wish I were more like my sister.  She seems to be able to stay cool and calm and responds clearly and concisely.  She doesn't seem to let the comments get her flustered.  I can't.  I get myself so worked up and upset.  I keep mulling it over in my head trying to figure out why these people are so mean and judgmental.

I hear so much from so many people about how lazy poor people are.  They just lay around sponging off everyone else.  They have cell phones and internet and omg!!  CABLE TV!!  Why do you care, I think.  So fucking what.  Why is it your business.

So then I try to explain it to them.  What it's like to be poor.  Oh, walking is FREE!  Get off your lazy ass and walk.  Stop buying candy bars with your food stamps and then buying beer and cigarettes.  Of course... EVERYONE on assistance is doing just that.  I didn't do that.  I guess I take it personally.  I have been on food stamps.  Oh... but you are different.  How... How am I different!!  You know that most people on food stamps are white and have a job.  Instead of pissing and moaning about how lazy poor folks are, why don't you get mad at the real problem.... Walmart and other corporations that pay as little as possible and then tell their employees to go apply for food stamps.  Yes, it does happen.  Walmart and it's ilk are the so called welfare queens, not these people just trying to keep their heads above water.

I wish I could just let it go.  I can't.  And it will ruin my day thinking about the rude asshole comments these faceless internet users are saying.  I don't know them.  Why should I care!!  But I just want to cry, as if all their rude comments are addressed to me.  Well, you need to stop buying junk and buy healthy food.  It's easy!  I do.  I can get meat for $4.99/lb and buy organic etc...  and make great healthy meals.  I walk.  I can do it.  You are just making excuses!!  First of all, let me stop you right there.  There is no way in hell I can afford to pay $4.99 for a pound of meat.  We don't buy fucking pork chops because of how much they are.  I try to buy a chicken which at Aldi is $5 or $6 and make chicken and chicken stock that I try to stretch as far as I can go.  I'm lucky if I can afford the 80/20 crappy ground beef instead of the 75/25 one.  I don't buy ground beef though.... I buy ground turkey because it is cheaper.  I buy whatever I can try to get to stretch for as long as I can.

Well, just eat less meat.  Sure.  Less than I already do, you mean.  When we take two pieces of chicken and stretch it for 5 people.  Should I eat less than THAT!!  Believe me, I do everything I can to try to eat healthier while trying to feed  3 kids and 2 adults on less than $100/biweekly.  And I'm one of the lucky ones.

Oh, when I was a kid we could eat healthy and always had plenty of healthy fruits and vegetables.  Sure.... When was that!  I don't know if you realize, but what you could buy 'when I was a kid' is a lot more than you can buy now.  I cringe at Aldi when I spend $50 on half a cart of food.

I am at home.  So I can do more than most others can.  A lot of these lazy people you speak of work at least one low wage job.  Probably 2.  Maybe even more.  They don't even have insurance.  Oh, sure, maybe they have 'insurance'.  The kind where you have to pay thousands before the insurance company has to pay a dime.  At least they now have to at least cover preventative stuff.  But so what.  You go to get a mammogram and find out you have cancer.... who can afford to do anything about it!!

I can't afford 'healthy' grass fed beef or organic this or gluten free that.  I buy rice and beans, make my own tortillas, cake mix, hot chocolate for the kids.... I could go on.  And I get razzed about all my DIY stuff from my family.  I feel sometimes like a joke.  But to do that I have to buy stuff upfront. When I make laundry soap it costs about $20 for the stuff.  But it lasts me months.  But how many have $20 to pull out of their budget for that!

I know maybe we could make better choices for where our money goes.  The credit card payments don't help.  But I don't use them anymore.  I pay extra when I can.  But it's there and that's that.  We don't have cable.  We have inexpensive cell phones and no landline.  We have the internet (Shock) which is not a luxury but a necessity.  We struggle, just like everyone else, and we are better off than a lot of other people.  So when someone bemoans all those lazy poor people I get mad.  I just want to cry because I was never lazy.  It's hard being poor.  You have to work so hard just to keep your head above water.  And it isn't cheap.  You can't buy in bulk so you pay a lot more for everything.

When my daughter was little and we lived at that motel, I made $300/week.  Wow, that's a lot isn't it.  Sounds like a lot.  Until I paid $100 for the room, plus $5 so we could have our mini fridge from rent a center which we paid for weekly also.  Then I paid $100 for the sitter.  Who smoked in front of my kid and I had to take her to the doctor weekly because she had respiratory problems all the time.  But I couldn't afford anyone else.  Then I had to pay for gas....  To drive an hour to work and an hour home every day.  Do you know how much money I had for food after that?  NONE!  My then boyfriend was working on a house for us to move into.  If we didn't have that I don't know if we ever could have gotten out of that.  I can tell you that fruits and vegetables and healthy food were not on the menu.  I remember eating a lot of peanut butter on bread.  Anything decent we had went to our daughter.

Yes, I gained weight when I was pregnant.  And I couldn't seem to get rid of it after she was born.  Then when we moved again back to our single wide trailer we had lived in before the motel, that was another fun time.  As we paid $400/month just so we didn't freeze to death.  As our propane heat seeped out of every crack every window.  Thank god for heap for helping us.  Thank god for community action who replaced our windows, though the new windows were just like the old ones and didn't seem to help much.  We insulated, we tried everything we could to keep the heat from escaping.  But it was fruitless.

I think back to that and remember how close to homeless we were.  And then the fire happened and we lost everything.  You realize how little stuff means in that place.  That place of only having the clothes on your back and just being grateful no one got hurt.  I was so happy when our dog and cats were found wet, huddled under the trailer together, but ok.  And then my family came like angels and helped us.  Helped us get back on our feet.  We turned a terrible thing into a positive and now have our house sitting on the buried corpse of the trailer.

My husband works.  He works his butt off and we pay taxes.  We have more than paid back all the assistance we got.  Yet I still feel that glare....  every time I hear comments about those lazy poor people.  I feel it as surely as if they were talking directly to me.  Every time I go to the store to buy groceries and feel that lurch in my stomach at the register, counting in my head how much I have left to get whatever I need I think of how lucky I am because so many others have it worse.  They are the ones who are truly struggling, in the face of such vitriol.  In the face of such unabashed anger and hatred as I see displayed by so many.  They are just like me.  I am just like them.  And every time you malign them, you are maligning me.  I hope you see my face when you do,  That you are saying those things to me.  I am not different.  I am just like them.  It is me you are calling lazy.  It is me you are calling a welfare queen.  It is me.

Missing loved ones

I sit here in the wee hours of the morning unable to sleep, and I think about my mom.  I think about her most, I guess, because she was the hardest loss.  I was only 12 and I couldn't understand the concept of someone being here one minute and then gone the next.  I still needed her, and truth be told, I guess I would have still needed her now.

                                                 

I like to think that my mom is up in heaven, sitting at our dining room table playing gin rummy with my grandpa, Eleanor and my sister Margie telling everyone what Aunt Eleanor's cards were.  Now I picture my dad there, drinking his coffee and telling everyone all his stories.  Midge is there too.  I think she and Mom would have been friends; Jimmy our dog, and Fifi our cat are there too.

I like to think they are all there, fully knowing that this heaven thing could just be something we make up so that we can feel better about that gaping hole that is left in our heart when they are gone.  I want to believe it so bad, because then it makes it bearable.   Those times I wonder what my mom would think of the job I'm doing.  At holidays when I think about my dad in the room with the kids, or opening his presents so slow so he doesn't rip the paper.  Those moments when their absence is so apparent.

Everyone loses people they love.  There is no avoiding that.  And most days I am fine.  But then there are days when you feel that pang, and wish that you remembered that person in the picture.  I grasp onto those things that prove they were here, that it wasn't just my imagination.  The blanket my mom made for me, pictures of my dad the memories of which are still fresh in my mind.  Visiting with Midge's sister Judy.

I try not to let myself cry.  We all have to make that journey at some point.  It's hard to explain to a 4 year old, 8 year old and 15 year old.  I look at my oldest, Emily, and think about myself at that age.  How differently her life is than mine was.  And after everything I have gone through with my girls, I wish I could say I am sorry to my mom for all the trouble I caused her, and for all the things I said to her.  I always tell the girls that when you say things, you can't always take them back.

The world goes on, and I will get back to that place again, where life takes over these moments of sadness.  And when my girls ask about Grandpa and Fifi, I will tell them about that place called heaven, where the ones we love go and watch over us.  Do I believe it?  I have to.  I want so bad to believe it, and for now it's the easiest way for them to understand that which cannot be explained.

Yes, I miss my mom and my dad, my grandparents, Aunt Eleanor, Midge, and my beloved pets.  I was lucky to have been able to have them with me for a brief period in my life.  Each of them helped to make me who I am today.  They have left an indelible mark on me and helped to shape the person I am today.  And that means they are still helping to shape my children's lives as well.

So I will end this as it began, with a dining room table and a game of gin rummy.  Smoke lingers in the air as Rosalie, Carl and Eleanor take their turns putting down their pennies for their bets.  David sits with his coffee, telling everyone about his travels.  Midge holds her cigarette in her fingers as she prepares to take a sip of her tea.  And Margie runs around the table with Fifi and starts calling out numbers.  Eleanor is not amused.  And Jimmy lays in the doorway, making sure that no one can pass by without having to get by him.  And there is joyous laughter amid the voices as the scene fades to black.

Gratitude

Gratitude.  It's something we oft forget to think about in our daily lives as we make our way through the days.  Screaming and fighting kids who refuse to pick up after themselves can make a person quite grumpy and wish for a place to steal away to.  It's hard to remember to be grateful when you feel so frustrated.

I know I myself try to find the silver lining in things, but it takes me a bit sometimes.  When you go out in the world and see people with their fancy cars and beautiful houses, and they are going here and there, it makes you long for things you cannot have.  Long for things you haven't even been thinking about wanting or needing.  It can make a person feel depressed and wanting.

Things aren't always as they seem though, from the outside looking in.  You see the shiny cars and fancy things, but you don't see the endless hours of working and the pile of debt hanging over someone's head. You don't see the other things in that person's life that you may not envy at all if you knew about.  We all have a face we show the world and you are seeing that public face without any idea what lies behind that mask.

And just as you are pining for the things you see others having, someone is looking at what you have and wishing they had it.  Who knows, even the person you are envying may be envying you.  And if you look back over the years of your own life and circumstances, you might find that the you from back then wanted what you have right now.

Fancy things are not the stuff happiness is made of.  When I stop to think about it, I can realize how lucky I am to have the things I do.  No one has a perfect life, but I know that I have a home, a husband who loves me and 3 beautiful, annoying, sarcastic kids who drive me crazy and leave a mess everywhere, but will almost always try to cheer me up when I am down. Who will give me a hug and do the things I do for them when they are hurt or sad.  

I love my life.  It might take me a bit, but I realize that I don't even want most of the things I wish I had that others do.  Sure there are things that I want, but they aren't the things themselves, but the things they represent, like being able to go out for an anniversary.  Having someone treat your birthday as something special even if you don't.  These are the things I really want.

But I do get those things, even if it is not in the traditional way.  Instead of flowers, it is a bed made, so I don't have to do it along with all the other things I have to do in the morning.  It is all those pictures of me with a sun shining above me that Abby gives me with a big smile on her face.  It is the way Ashley can be so nice and helpful when I need it.  And it is the way Emily seems to prattle on incessantly about whatever seems to be all she thinks about this week.  

Life is a funny thing.  There so many things in my life that I had once wished were otherwise, but I realize that without them, I would not be who I am right now.  I would not be as lucky as I am right now.  I am grateful for the things I have.  So many don't have a home, a loving spouse and 3 kids who love me so much.  I realize just how much I would long for these things if I didn't have them.  And once I realize all the things I have to be thankful for, I don't feel so wanting.  I feel gratitude.

New Ad Shows The Sneaky Ways We Keep Girls Away From Science

I saw this video today and find it very interesting, and it makes sense.  As a woman, I grew up being given dolls and tea sets.  As subtle as it was, I knew even then that it was social engineering.  I am not saying that math or science was my strong suit.  I was always english and reading.  But I have seen young girls being told not to get dirty.

Today it seems even worse.  The pink and blue in the toy aisle seems a sort of barrier.  My own girls have said they couldn't get a toy because it was for boys.  I always tell them that if they like it, then they can get that toy.  It doesn't matter what section it is from.  The only time I tell them not to get dirty is if they are wearing their good clothes and they are waiting for the bus or we have to go somewhere that they need to be clean for.  Most times I tell them a little dirt never hurt anyone.  That's what soap and water are for.

I am hyper sensitive, I suppose, to the things my girls are exposed to.  I always tell them not to let anyone tell them they can't do something.  You can do anything you set your mind to.  And don't ever think you can't do something because you are a girl.

It's like a battle you have to fight as a mother to ensure your kids don't fall victim to the subliminal messages they are exposed to.  From body image to what they can do, there are so many things that can negatively affect them. I don't shield them from everything, but instead choose to address them as they come.  I ask questions when there is an ad about makeup or beauty products.  I explain why I emphasize their intelligence and how they treat others over outward appearance.

Some girls grow up thinking that all they are is what they look like.  I do not want that for my kids.  I tell them they are beautiful, sure.  But I also tell them that they are smart and funny and creative.  If you are always concerned about your appearance, you are basing your self worth on others.  True beauty comes from inside. In my own experience, I find intelligence and kindness to others to be more attractive than what someone looks like.

Sometimes I worry that being a stay at home mom sends my girls a message about their jobs.  I make sure to tell them that they have the choice.  I chose to stay home and raise my girls.  It was very important to me that I be here for them.  They can do whatever they choose.  I encourage them to go out and go to college and experience life before worrying about family and getting married and such.  It's a lot harder to go to college when you have kids to take care of.  It's possible, but I hope they would take care of themselves and figure out what they want for themselves before worrying about any of that.  Because once they get involved with a guy, they will probably put themselves to the back of the line and put him first.  Put yourself first and find your way before that happens.

If I sound bitter, I am not.  I am realistic.  I went out and worked and went to community college.  I honestly didn't really think about dating or any of that.  I was focused on school.  I wasn't the nicest to guys who asked me out, I confess.  It wasn't that I didn't like guys....  I just had something going on and didn't have an interest in that at the time.  When I met my husband I was in a place where he could sneak into a blind spot and somehow got past my armor.  I was done with college and was working.  I wasn't focused on my goals at that point.

It's not that I don't want my girls to get married and live a happy life.  It is because I want those things for them that I try to focus them on what THEY want so that they can go out and reach for it before they start putting others first.  I want them to experience life and find out who they are before they worry about everyone else's needs.  And in a relationship, that is what you do.  You will have a better chance of finding the right partner for you if you know more about yourself and have the confidence to know your worth and to expect to be treated right by people.  And hopefully they will then be able to have a good life, which is all any parent wants for their kids, right?

Summer

As I sit here watching the summer snow float across the yard landing on anything and everything, I wonder even as I had longed for it through the cold winter, how fast summer came.  One by one my girls have finished school.  Emily is now to be a 10th grader, Abby in kindergarten.  In a couple of days Ashley will be done and leaving 3rd grade behind her.  A tired phrase, but still true, how fast they grow up.

It is so great to see a smile on their faces, the sparkle in their eyes.  When they laugh I think of innocence.  I wonder if I ever felt that way, laughed that way.  So free.  I try to record it in my memory for when they are grown up.  As much stress and frustration as I feel as we experience the growing pains, it is these precious moments when they aren't fighting and they are just being kids who enjoy life.

Couponing 101

I have just created a new blog about couponing.  It is just basic info about couponing for anyone interested in learning more about it.  I have included links to some of the sites I go to for matchups and to find printable coupons and also use the database if I am looking for a specific coupon from the Sunday paper inserts. I hope you will find it helpful, and I may post some matchups myself at some point.

Sad day

It was a beautiful day out yesterday.  It was still morning when I headed out to the store. I hadn't gotten a mile down the road when a dog ran out in front of me.  I tried to stop and not hit it, but I couldn't.  As soon as I stopped, I threw it in park and ran out leaving the door open, dinging furiously at me.  The owner and I were both running frantically to the dog who was lying on the road.

 It was a beautiful German Shepard.  And he looked like he was hurting.  I was in shock, mortified that I had hit the dog.  I stayed with him while the woman went to call her husband. I looked at him lying there in the road. He looked like Jimmy, our dog who died a couple of years ago.  I think it made it even worse than it already was.  I was telling the dog to please be OK.  I am sorry!  The woman came back from calling her husband.  She thanked me for stopping.  Of course I would stop.  Who wouldn't stop?!?!  To me it was like hitting a child.

A neighbor across the street had come out to see if the dog was OK too.  She and I helped the woman to drag the dog gently out of the road.  The woman thanked me for helping and told me I could go.  I hesitated, because I didn't want to just leave her and the injured dog.  But she assured me it was OK and I slowly walked to my car.  I turned around and headed back to my house shaking and feeling numb..  As I drove past the woman and the dog, I stopped the car and asked the woman if she was sure I couldn't take them to the Animal Hospital.  She said her husband was on the way.  So I started to put my pedal on the gas and drive back home.

I was afraid to drive anywhere now.  I didn't want to go to the store.  I was very upset about hitting that poor dog.  I'm sure I looked a sight as Bob turned to me out by the camper parked right behind our house. I burst into tears and Bob came over and hugged me.  I told him what had happened.  Then I went inside and unable to sit down went out and washed the dishes.  After I had gotten myself calmed down I resolved that I would go see how the dog was doing in the next day our two.  I was afraid that it would be bad.

Later we headed in to the store with Bob driving and the kids in the back.  I was still hesitant about driving. I had calmed down, but I kept seeing that dog coming out into the road and trying to avoid hitting him.  Bob dropped me off at Walmart and the kids and I shopped for the items on our list while he went to take back brakes or something.  By the time Bob had gotten back we were almost finished.

As we were looking for something in the grocery section a couple of women asked me if I was the woman who had hit the dog on Albion Road.  I froze.  I waited to be called a terrible person.  I sort of recognized the one, but not the other.  She told me she just wanted to let me know the dog was going to be fine.  It was just a broken leg.  A sense of relief washed over me.  I thanked her for letting me know.  That I was so glad to hear the dog would be OK.

I know this story may be trivial to some.  It was just a dog, they would say.  But to me, it was not just a dog. I got upset when I hit a deer once.  Luckily he seemed OK as he darted off.  But I was shaking.  Animals are not just things.  And a dog or a cat....  they are a part of our lives.  To me it is like hitting a child.  I know how it felt when we lost Jimmy.  And I know  how I would feel if anything happened to our dog Zoey.  

Remembering Reinhart's

There are pieces of our childhood that exist in ou9r memories.  Maybe we don't even think of them unless there is a specific reason to do so.  A moment frozen in time that comes to the forefront once in awhile.

Reinhardt's is one of those places for me.  It is a part of my childhood that I have rarely thought of since, unless I happened to find myself out that way for some reason.  It brings me back to Sundays after church when I would get my $5 allowance to take to the store and spend.  Don't be judging my $5.  It was a lot back then.

So, I would take my $5 and head into Reinhart's.  I would stand in front of the wall of candy and stare, trying to figure out what I would buy.  There were so many choices... too many for me.  I would stand there until I was told it was time to go.  Then I would usually grab a Whatchamacallit and maybe a Big Chew or maybe Bubblegum cigarettes.  After standing there that whole time, I would usually get the same thing every time.

Maybe that's why a place like that holds such a precious place in our hearts.  A representation of the innocence of childhood.  A place where I didn't have to think about all the things I struggle with today.

When you watch a part of your past disappear in a deluge of flames, only to become a pile of rubble, you feel a sense of lass, and ache that you may not even understand.  As if that physical representation of your childhood has been relegated to the memories of so many, only to become something that fades eventually.

Yes, it is, or was a building.  A store like so many that have come and gone throughout the years.  But for so many it was so much more than that.  It was a place that was part of so many pieces of our past.

I am 41.  It has been decades since I was in that store.  I would imagine so many of us have not walked its aisles in many years.  Yet we watched those flames engulfing it with sadness.  As if we'd lost an old friend.



I apologize if I misspelled Reinhart's.  I tried to look it up but was unable to find it.

Some people just seem to have the ability to find their way around.  They can go somewhere once or twice and remember how to get there from then on.  My husband has that ability.  I don't.  I get lost going anywhere new without my navigation on my phone.

 I got lost just yesterday trying to find a house on some side street.  I looked at the map online and thought I could easily get there.  I confidently followed my directions from my memory of the map driving down main street looking for the street I knew should be there but it wasn't.  I turned around and drove back by looking at the street names.  My gas light was on, so I ended up pulling over and turning on my navigation.

I guess I don't know how to read a map.  Harvester Ave is a street I am very familiar with.  You know something.....  there was another side to that street!  and the street I was looking for was over on that other side of Harvester.  I guess I didn't know that street as well as I thought I did.

I would have probably never found it anyway because my navigation took me this way and that.  One good thing was that I saw a street view of the house, so I knew it when I saw it.  I did what I was there to do and then stubbornly refused to use the navigation to get out of there.  So I drove way out of my way until I found a street I knew and then prayed I had turned the right way.  With my gas light on.  It's ok, I had plenty of gas left.  I did however need to get to the school to pick up my daughter.  Which I did with time to spare, thankfully.

No, I am not a person who can get around without getting myself lost.  Before the GPS I would call my husband to help me after I got lost.  He would ask me what street I was on and be able to give me directions including businesses and roads nearby etc.  Man, he sure has a great memory for things like that.  I get lost going straight.  It took me a long time to realize I could at least use the East/West to have a general idea which way to go.  No, I'll never be good at directions.  That is just one of those things.  I am glad, I suppose, that I at least have a GPS and my husband to help me get unlost.

The Hart of It

I am a 41 year old mother of 3.  Back when I was a person, before I became Mom I loved to do things like write, read books, ride my bike.  When I became a Mom and then a stay at home mom, I sort of disappeared into the background.  I don't really remember much about the me I used to be, but now I am going to try to find a piece of me I have lost over the years.  The writer.

I appreciate this isn't exactly professional caliber writing here.  I am quite rusty, and this typing on the keyboard thing is awkward.  I am used to writing with a pen and paper.  Also, I have to keep stopping because the dog keeps barking and my youngest is calling.  Anyone who is a parent knows what that's like. And it makes it difficult to think.

So, I want to get back to writing.  So I figure a blog might be a good way to do it.  Yes, I know.  There are a bazillion blogs out there and a million mom blogs out there.  But that's OK.  Because I am not doing this to be famous.  I am doing this so that I can just write about stuff and maybe get my brain working again.  This is more a matter of exercise.  I hope I can get my ability back up and running.  I really miss it.


Wanna see one of my old poems?  From back when I used to write all the time?  This seems like a good one since it will be June in a couple of days.

June

A sweet breeze against my face
As the oak fronds fall to pray
I taste the sweet fragrance of a rose
And smile
The soft glow of moonlight
Falls gently upon the world
And a glittering of stars color the sky
A few have fallen to the bushes
As they float around me
I wonder if I caught one
Would it give me my wish?
But they look so much better
Among the bushes and flowers
So I think I'll let them be
And I'll close my eyes and dream
Of this time when life was free
Carefree and full of youth
And I'll smile

I hope you liked it.  Please feel free to offer suggestions for topics to write about or maybe a subject for a poem?  Thank you for reading.