Catch The Rainbow

My name is DW and I LOVE COLOR!!!

 

I love rainbows.  A lot.  So much so, someone once asked me if I was gay.  I’m seriously confused.  How can liking rainbows make me gay?  If I were sexually interested in women, THAT would make me gay (maybe), but liking rainbows?  NOT

AND rainbows are supposedly “girly” (like kittens, puppies and unicorns…give me a unicorn with a rainbow horn and my brain just might ‘splode).  Aren’t I *supposed* to like them?  I *am* a girl (shut up!  Am so!)

Admittedly, I’m not overly feminine.  I don’t dress like a fashionista (I go for comfort and function).  I rarely, if ever [anymore], wear make up.  And my idea of “doing my hair” is running a brush through it in the morning and then pulling the front back in a clip.  But when the occasion calls for it, I *do* dress up.  And most times enjoy it.  But I “dress up” in comfortable fashion 😉

I have a large [golf] rainbow umbrella.  I use it a lot.  I brought it to work and someone asked me if I was gay.  Um, no.  I just like color.  I especially like rainbows.  Besides, golf umbrellas tend to walk.  And I work in a very male dominated profession.  Men don’t do, “small” umbrellas.  They ALL have the big honkin’ golf umbrellas.  And they have no qualms about “accidentally” picking up the wrong one and then just adopting it because it’s too hard to figure out who they stole borrowed it from.  A man’s gonna take one look at my bright, cheerful, full of color golf umbrella and go, “um, hells no.  I’d rather get wet.”  Umbrella safe.  Huge smile for me?  Mission accomplished.  🙂

I was actually thrown by the “accusation” and was overly aware of my rainbow obsession for the longest time.  WHY?! 

I haven’t a freakin’ clue. 

I’m not gay.  Even if I was, what difference does it make.  I love me some rainbows!  And I’m going to show my Rainbow Pride from here on out!

***My son is NEVER going to want to be seen in public with me again!***

mwahahahahahahahaha

>:)

Lost

I haven’t practiced the craft in a long time. I’ve felt lost and diconnected. I love the beauty and the ideals. But I haven’t been able to motivate myself to try again.It just dawned on me that I lost my heart for it when I lost my Bonnie, my kitty.

She really was my familiar (we chose each other; I went to a friend’s to get the black kitten and that little black furball took one look at me, charged up my arm and perched on my neck; with her head in my hair).  Has anyone else lost their familiar? How did you find your balance again? I can’t believe how lost I am without her 😦

Heartbroken Post

I’m heartbroken over the tragic events from Sandy Hook, CT. I’ve been obsessed with reading about it. I don’t care about the monster who did this. I’m broken over the loss of so many little lives. Proud and broken over the loss of the brave, heroes trying to save so many little lives.

I don’t understand. I don’t think anyone will EVER understand.

Why? That’s all I can keep asking. Why?

I feel like I have no right to be heartbroken over these losses. I don’t know any of them (although, I had a scare with a few old classmates that live in CT, one living in that area). As a parent, I can imagine myself in that position and it scares the shit outta me. What the hell would I do in that situation? What would my kids do? What would my family do? What would my friends do? I have several friends in the education community. I know every single one of them would stand between danger and my children. But does that make my children “safe”? Does it ease any of my fears? No. I trust the people with the lives of my children, but that doesn’t mean I don’t worry, about all of them. I thank the gods every day that I have such wonderful people taking on the role of parent, when I can’t.

I’m lucky enough to be able to hug my kids tightly. Kiss their sleepy heads and rest my hands lightly on their backs…to reassure myself that they’re fine.

I love them with my whole heart and soul.

But my heart is a bit battered with the knowledge that there are parents that can never do the same. I don’t know WHY I feel like I can imagine/feel their pain, but I do. I really, really don’t want to, but I can’t help but hurt.

No one should have to bury a child. No one.

Angels too soon

Terror Behind the Walls

Took The Boy to Eastern State Penitentary for Terror Behind the Walls.

We had an AWESOME time.  Good friends.  Good frights.  🙂

You couldn’t take any pictures inside of the prison, but outside there were some interesting characters…

Like this gargoyle (BAD picture…and that was WITH flash)

DARK picture of the gargoyle. I’m so bummed it didn’t come out better 😦

He was ALIVE!  The make-up/costuming was outstanding!

After we scared ourselves, we went to the shop and bought some t-shirts and such.  While waiting for ME to get out of the damn store, the ladies found a new friend.  So, one guy grabbed my purchases and I jumped into the pic with them 🙂

CPS trying to kiss the zombie…but somehow grabbing his unit in the process! LOL

He was so cool, The Boy had to get a picture too…we had no idea the skull was a flip-top!  LOL

A Boy and his Zombie

All in all, it was a great time.  Been a long time since I’ve gone out with a group of friends.  Nothing like Samhain to bring me out of my hermit-like existence. 😉

Having WAY too much fun with the Walking Dead

AWESOME Weekend!

***WARNING:  Picture intensive post ahead***

Best weekend I’ve had in a LONG. TIME.

Started Saturday with a bonfire at my mom’s house.  My brother used to have one every year, but I’d never been invited before.  😦  Well, seeing as this one would be the LAST he’d have, we all showed up (well, all except the Prince of Darkness…he said for DC to call him when my sister and I left.  I stayed till the bitter end >:) )

I LOVE fire.  Love, Love, Love it!  So this bonfire was right up my alley.  DC had gathered a pile of sticks and twigs and such from the yard…It was a rather substantial pile (hard to see from the pic, but the pile was taller than my brother!)

The Ever-Growing Pile

We had also had a pile of papers, books, furniture, boxes, etc. that we’d found around the house that we would have trashed, but decided to burn.  Burning is always a fun thing 😉  I don’t have a picture of that mess, but lets just say we emptied one whole shed, half the garage and probably 3-4 rooms in the house 😀

DC doused the pile with some gas and then doused the torch.  We lit the torch and then the fun began!  Lemme tell ya, that fire was AWESOME!!!  Oh, it was just beautiful…

 

FIRE!

 

We reunited with some old friends and made some new ones.  Even Peanut made a new friend 😉

Peanut & Adorable Girl (and Mona)

 

We stayed until about 1 am.  Peanut was BEAT by the time we got home, but he gave me no guff.  Carried in what I’d asked him to and then went straight to bed.  I’m hoping young, Adorable Girl, is having a positive effect on my Peanut!  🙂

Sunday I had planned to take Peanut to The Walking Dead Safari at the Valley of Terror.  I think I may have been as excited, if not more-so, than Peanut! 

It wasn’t until we’d gotten there, that I’d remembered taking him and my nephew there before (when they were little).  We only picked pumpkins and played on the hay bales then tho.

We got in line (behind 3 Air Force soldiers!) and bought our tickets.  Even got a discount.  😉

Tickets!!

While we waited for dusk, we wandered around a bit.  I walked up to one of the trucks (a military deuce and a half!  OMG!  My military-loving Peanut was in his glory!) and asked one of the gentlemen if I could get a picture of Peanut in front of the truck.  He did us one better and told Peanut to climb aboard!

Woo Hoo!

FINALLY it got dark enough to load up the trucks!  Unfortunately, we were *just* cut off for the first run.  We did make the second truck tho.  OMG we were both so excited sitting on the trucks with our guns (paintball, filled with glow-in-the-dark paint balls…how freakin cool is that?!)

Ready to hunt zombies!

O.M.G. Was that an experience!!  Two of the Air Force soldiers were on the truck with us and were screaming “LEFT SIDE!  LEFT SIDE!” or “RIGHT SIDE!  RIGHT SIDE!” to get us to shoot (we were right side 😉 )  Those poor zombies were COVERED in paint!  And I couldn’t tell you how many head-shots they took.  LOL  Peanut is a pretty good shot.  I’m no slouch myself 😉  But, I conserved my ammo a bit more than he did, so I gave up my gun to him about 3/4 of the way through.  LOL

We enjoyed ourselves so much, we bought two more tickets and got back in line!  LMFAO.  The ticket guy was so cool, he let me keep our tickets the second time around because I scrapbook 😀

By this time, it was a LOT darker, so a tad more fun to hunt.  It never occurred to me to take pictures while on the hunt, so I snapped one at the last minute :-p

Glowing corn field

They weren’t hiding in this pic, but corn fields and woods were favorite hiding grounds of the zombies.  A few even got pretty close to the truck!

We got home about 1/2 hour late for the Season 3 Premier of The Walking Dead.  However, thanks to the wonders of DVR, we were able to watch it at 10 instead.  Talk about a zombie invasion!  We had a zombie-filled day and it was AWESOME!  (ooh, just noticed they have more webisodes…*squee*)

All-in-all, it was an awesome weekend!  I don’t think I’ve had that much fun in years.  🙂

One Year (and Two Days)

I’m a little late with this, but it’s been a rough couple of days…

Sunday marked one year that my mom was gone.

One year.

How the FUCK did that happen?

Sometimes, it feels like just yesterday, and others, it feels like it’s been forever.

Obviously, I still cry.  I cried on Sunday.  Yesterday, I finally removed my ICU nametag from the roof of my car.  I couldn’t bear to do it.  I still have my “spider butterfly” hanging on my visor (my mom had given my sister and I butterfly hair clips, black butterflies with silver spider webbing on it.  We wore them to her memorial service.  Halloween and butterflies.  Definitely and homage to mom).

I want my mom back.  It’s true, you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone.  She annoyed me (she was a mom, duh).  But she was always my go to for a pep talk…although hers were usually acidic lol  My mom pulled no punches.

It’s weird going through her house and incorporating some of her things into my home.  I can see my mom cringing at the disaster my house has become trying to find homes for everything.  LOL  I would ask her to come spend a few days, usually to watch the Widget while I was traveling for work.  Or just to spend time with us for a few days, and whenever I wasn’t around, she’d clean.  I’d come home and wonder if I walked into the right house!  It must be a mom-thing.  She would get offended if we came to spruce up a room or two at her place.

Like the time we wanted to move her from my brother’s old room ACROSS THE HALL to the room my sister and I used to share.  All we were going to do was paint it, vacuum and put her stuff in there.  She deserved a bigger room (she had traded rooms with my younger brother a few years ago…”all I do is sleep there” *sigh*).  She’d also be closer to the bathroom.  (The room my sister and I shared was actually considered the Master Bedroom, but my mom and dad chose the room at the top of the stairs so they could be the first line of defence against an intruder – and to stop anyone from trying to sneak in/out!  LOL)  She fought us tooth and nail and told us that she felt like we were judging her and saying she was a lousy house-keeper.  Oy

I miss her.  I miss her hugs.  I miss the way she used to stroke my hair when I was upset and laying on her lap.  That’s one of my earliest memories.  Laying on my mom’s lap, sleepy/sad and saying “do dis” and I stroked my hair back from my temple.  She always did that if we layed in her lap.  I do it to my little one (and friends’ little ones).  It’s very comforting.

I miss it.

I miss her laugh.  I miss the way she would snort when she laughed too hard.  Or fart.  LOL  She’d fart from laughing, go “I tooted!” laugh some more and fart some more.  It was hilarious. 🙂

I miss the way she’d call me on the phone, babble a bit and then say she was gonna let me go.  And then go, “ooh, one more thing…”  She’d do that about 5 or 6 times in the course of one phone call.

I miss the way her face would light up when the grandkids walked through the door. 

I miss the way she’d get embarrased at an off-color joke.  For all her years, she still played the “innocent”.

There are so many things I will miss…I’m not always sure how to handle the grief.  I mean, I was so little when my dad died, I have no idea how to handle losing a parent.  I know it’s a part of life.  A part of living life.

But it sucks ass.

Dirty, smelly, hairy ass. (she’d have laughed at that and then yelled at me for it).

I miss you, mama. 

I’ll always miss you.

</3

Angel Kitty :-(

We lost our baby S’mores yesterday.  She’s always been sickly, but didn’t show any sign of decline.  But when I went to feed the cats yesterday morning, she didn’t come running, like she usually does. 

S’mores loved chicken. So much that she OPENED the oven and climbed in to get it (it was in there cooling after dinner)

 

“Where’s S’mores?”

I went looking for her…and found her on the dining room floor, in front of the heater. 😦  I don’t know how long she’d been gone, but I felt awful (and still do) that she was alone for that passing.  I mean, I know, everyone/everything dies and the whole process IS a solitary one, but I’d liked to have been there to maybe alleviate any suffering.  😦

I was fine until I wrapped her in a towel and put her in her box.  Oh, I lost it, big crocodile tears and hiccuping sobs.  Thank goodness it was early enough in the morning that no one could see me.  I was an absolute mess.

Later that evening, when we got ready to bury her, Peanut told his friends that “Queen Nar-Nar” (don’t ask, have NO idea where that nickname came from) had died.

OMG, I can’t express how wonderful these kids were!

They insisted on digging the grave, made a “headstone” and had everyone sign it, bought flowers and had me play Amazing Grace from my phone.  We put trinkets in the box with her and they proceeded to fill the grave.  It was so sweet and really helped lift Peanut’s spirits.  He was SO heartbroken 😦

RIP S’mores.  You will be very missed.  </3

S’mores’ grave, flowers and Peanut

Goofy Dreams

No, not a dream about Goofy.

I had a weird effin dream.  My friend’s daughter was playing in my yard.  Apparently, I was working on something that could hurt her and had told her parents to keep her out of the yard, because I didn’t want her to get hurt.

Well, she played in the yard anyway, tripped and started to fall on SOMETHING (I have no freakin clue what) that would impale her if she landed.  I dropped what I was doing to catch her and in the process sliced my inner thigh pretty good. 

As I’m arguing with her parents about why she’s crying and why I had a death-grip on her, I’m bleeding out.  Cold.  Light-headed.  Unsteady (because, come on, doesn’t everyone keep standing after they’ve had their femeral artery sliced?  OY)

Don’t remember much after that. 

So, obviously, I had to do a little research.  Get a load of this shit…

(From Dreammoods.com)

Blood

To dream that you are bleeding or losing blood signifies that you are suffering from exhaustion or that you are feeling emotionally drained. It may also denote bitter confrontations between you and your friends. Your past actions has come back to haunt you…If blood is squirting everywhere, then the dream implies that you are experiencing some deep emotional stress. You are literally bursting.

Well DAYUM!  It couldn’t be more on point! 

Here’s another one…

Hemorrhage
To dream that you are hemorrhaging suggests loss of vitality, loss of faith in yourself, and lack of self-confidence. Also consider where you are hemorrhaging from and analyze the symbolism of that body part.

Legs 

To dream that your leg is wounded or crippled signifies a lack of balance, autonomy, or independence in your life. You may be unable or unwilling to stand up for yourself. Perhaps you are lacking courage and refuse to make a stand.

Ha!  This one makes no sense…

Thigh
To see your thigh in your dream symbolizes stamina and endurance. It refers to your ability to perform and do things. If you are admiring your thigh in your dream, then it signifies your adventurous and daring nature. However you need to be careful with your conduct.

Interesting…

Child

To save a child in your dream signifies your attempts to save a part of yourself from being destroyed.

 

It’s amazing what your brain tries to do while you’re sleeping.

(I have no clue why the formatting on this post is so effed up…)

Can’t……….Focus………..

I have so much swirling around in my head.  And it feels like it’s all smoke and mirrors because I can’t “catch” any one thought.  If I can’t catch the thought, I can’t FINISH the thought and then put into action my perceived solution. 

And it’s driving me bat-shit crazy!!!

And because I’m bat-shit crazy, I’m being a passive-aggressive bitch to MY FRIENDS.  Friends that don’t deserve even half the shit I’m doing. 

*sigh*

I just can’t focus.  Can’t pick ONE thing on my list of “Oh shit, now I have THIS to do???”.  Anytime I do start somewhere, I inevitably fall into another member on the list, and my focus shifts there.  It’s perpetual and frustrating. 

I haven’t been formally diagnosed with ADD, so I have no idea if there are meds out there to help me, but the meds I’m currently on (which are keeping my mood swings in check, believe it or not) are already causing me more sleep issues than I’d previously had.  I’m afraid more meds would just exacerbate the problem, and they’ll be sticking me in a rubber room if that happens. 😦

So…that brings me to my never-ending quest to find a starting spot and STICK TO THE FUCKING THING!

I’m a self-starter and hate being told what to do.  HATE IT.  But in this instance I NEED someone to tell me where to start and what to do next.  And I *hate* that I need it.  I am a stubborn “I’ll do it myself” pain-in-the-ass.  Seriously.  Stubborn gets me hurt (more than just physically).  And I hate having to ask for help.  It was hard going to the doctor to ask for help.  I hate taking meds.  Resent that I need them.  But I do need them, I wasn’t able to “fix” myself.  Apparently, there are some chemicals in my brain that are fucked. up.  Damn it >.<

I am one GIANT condradiction.  Which doesn’t help the situation.  I *know* this.  Why can’t I FIX it?!

Kick in the Teeth

I woke up this morning feeling the same as always, tired, but here.  Got ready for work (nightmare of a process that involved going to the basement for clothes…in my underwear).

Anyway, I got to work.  After finishing my email, voicemail, inventory routine, I jumped on the net and checked FB and some blogs.  Nothing unusual.  Typical day.

One of my blogs sent me into a grief-filled tizzy.  I haven’t cried over the loss of my mom in a good long while.  I’ve been able to talk about her (sometimes in the present tense) and not feel that quick stab in the heart.

Until this morning.

That grief kicked me in the face this morning.  It hasn’t even been a year yet, so I know I’m still raw and sensitive, but Jeebus Crisco!  WTF?!

I miss my mom today.  I miss her everyday, but today…I’m just raw.

I hate feeling raw.  Like road rash on my heart.  You feel the burn, feel the pain, but the size of the rash is too big for a bandaid.  Too big for gauze.  You have to leave it open and raw.  And tread carefully.  Hitting that rash could hurt.

Someone just freakin sanded that rash for me.  Not on purpose, she doesn’t even know me.  But the scabs that had started to form have been picked and irritated and in some spots are bleeding.   😦

I know that rash will never completely heal.  I know that scar will be raised and purple for a good long while.  Scars are a part of living.  It will join the ones that are already there and welcome the new ones with hugs and comforting words. 

But today…today I wish my heart was smooth and beautiful.