Soul Expression

I love what music does for me. It is THE most beautiful form of expression that exists. Anyone in the world can appreciate music in some way shape or form and relate to it. It may be a different type for each and every person, or some people may like many genres, like I do. There are really only a couple of types I don't care for, and now and then I even find myself listening to it, depending on my mood. The thing I like about music is you can choose a song that relates to how you're feeling at the moment, whether it's happy, sad, in love, excited, hyper, mad, or just relaxed. Then again, it can do the complete opposite and change my mood. If I'm feeling down, and need a pick-me-up I can pick something happy with a quicker beat to cheer me up. I can't think of a reason I would be happy and feel like listening to something sad, but if I wanted to, I could. Many times at night I find my mind racing and it's nice to put on something relaxing like New Age. I love to sing, and had some experience in my younger years, but never really had the guts to fight my stage fright. I was in a couple of musicals in high school, and competed in small groups for regional competitions, however I found myself failing at solo's. I even sang the National Anthem once at my home town tractor pull and was so nervous I forgot the words! Now, I wish I had faced that fear and had someone to support the one thing I loved a little more. One of my favorite pass-time's is karaoke and it seems to be a release for me. I can sing songs that say what I'm thinking or feeling that I couldn't quite put into words myself. I'm sure everyone feels somewhat connected to music in some way, but for me, I feel like it's in my soul, kind of like writing.

Boring Writing

Ok, so I know not all of my blogs or writings are exactly the most interesting thing in the world for other people to read, but I absolutely hate being assigned something to write about that I have no interest in whatsoever. We have an assignment due in this class that is supposed to be a group effort. First of all, that poses a problem since one girl in our group is never in class, or if she is, she leaves early saying,"Tell me if you guys need anything from me. Just message me on myspace." At least the teacher is smart enough to not give the entire group credit if the whole group isn't helping. This assignment is supposed to be an evaluation and comparison of 3 different websites about Libby, MT. This is the most boring thing in the world to me, to have to talk about a website's credibility and whethere it is helpful or not. I guess I just consider it common sense to be able to look at a site and tell whether it's biased or truthful without having to do a bunch of research on it. I am considering only getting the points for being in class and doing the evaluation and losing points for not doing the essay at all. Luckily, I do have a good friend in the group, and he's going to help out. Since he's better at the writing, he's going to do that portion of it, and I will do the proofreading part. What will the other girl do? Probably nothing. She came in today not even knowing what was going on and this is the third day we've worked on it. Thank God for good friends that have higher talents. I guess that's the good part about it being a "group effort". Oh well, I'm sure we'll be able to bull&*$% our way through it.

Getting Fat

During casual conversation with a friend, I mentioned that I was unhappy with the weight I am currently at. He suggested that I write about it, so I am. Don't get me wrong, I don't by any means fall into the "overweight" category for my weight and height. I know that I still look ok and shouldn't complain. The problem I have with gaining weight is that I can feel myself being lazier, more tired and my brain doesn't seem to function quite right. I am still happy with me and my size, I'm not one of those girls that focus' on just being "skinny", that's not my goal. My goal is to stay healthy and fit, I have always been an active, athletic woman and have a certain amount of pride in keeping myself that way after having children. It's not like I've put on 50 pounds or anything like that, we're only talking 10 or 15, but I can still feel the difference, and I'm just starting to feel uncomfortable all around. My jeans are a little tighter, I get hot much easier, and I don't like the feeling of my stomach hanging over when I sit. I understand that there are many people out there who have medical conditions preventing them from staying at a healthy weight, and for those people, I try to empathize. On the other end of the spectrum, the other percentage of us, especially Americans, have just gotten lazy about staying healthy. Then there are those who go overboard and end up praying to the porcelain god after every meal. My point to him was that I was simply trying to say I am lucky enough to be a mostly healthy person in control of my life and my body, and I refuse to let it get out of control. If I'm not comfortable and don't feel healthy, then I'm going to change it. I'm not neurotic about it, and I don't ever expect myself to be a size 0. I'm happy when I'm at an 8 and try for the most part to stay there with exercise and right sized portions. I don't starve myself, or throw up or take pills to make me skinnier. I just put my mind to it, tell myself I will lose weight and control those things. You'd would be surprised at the power of mind and body and what they can do when you believe it. Doesn't really take much work at all. Growing up, there was a family that lived not far from us that had 3 boys. They were my brother and I's only neighbor's and we played with them all the time. Their mother was slightly overweight, could probably have stood to lose 40 pounds or so. Suddenly when we were about 13, their mother and father divorced. Their mother's best friend also divorced her husband about the same time, and lo and behold, we suddenly have a gay couple. Our friends now had two mom's. In a small town, that's no small occasion. You would think the ridicule and laughter would drive them out, but instead it made them stronger, and happier. Their mother lost the weight, very quickly and the next time I saw her, I noticed. We hadn't been allowed to visit for a few months, because of the ordeal, so the weight loss came as a shock. I asked her how she did it and she simply replied,"I got happy."

Ecstasy

So, sitting at home today, I found myself watching a show on the History channel about hippies. Knowing alot of free love individuals myself, I was curious to really get more information. In the second hour of the show, it begins focusing on drug use and hallucinogens. One of the main topics was on the drug ecstasy. I know that this is a popular drug nowadays that I hear alot about and have noticed the rise in use in the last few years. Even among people you would never expect. From the rich soccer mom down the street, to the 8th grader in the same school as your kid, it seems like almost everyone at least knows what it is, or has tried it at some point. However, what I found myself interested in with this program was the history of where it came from. It was originally patented by a company in Germany as a dietary supplement to help lose weight, but after the patent, it was never produced. Somewhere along the line, the formula got out, and it was experimented with by the US Government on animals as a possible truth serum for chemical warfare. The drug was originally legal, and was used quietly, but fairly widespread in therapy sessions that were 5 hours long called Adam sessions. Psychotherapists were finding that one of these sessions was accomplishing as much as a whole year of therapy without it. Mostly used in couples counseling and family sessions, the effect of it gave people a feeling of closeness and trust in each other that is generally very hard to achieve and takes much longer periods of time. The way it works is that it releases loads and loads of seratonin into the brain, which is of course the chemical that gives us that happy feeling, and the cause of depression when there is a lack of it. There are of course side effects, but it seems to me these side effects can be handled in a short amount of time with only about a day of recovery, which really just includes rest and sleep. If handled properly while actually on the drug, it can be very safe as well. I'm sure you've heard of people overdosing and dying by overheating while taking ecstasy? Well, those are the people who began to abuse it and were not safe. You must apparently keep yourself very hydrated and fairly calm, because the rush of seratonin in the brain can raise your body temperature, so if you're dancing around like a lunatic, and not drinking anything, then of course, you're going to overheat. In controlled settings, there were no such side effects at all. Only a lack of seratonin the next day after the drug wears off, leaving a feeling of sadness for a few hours, which is quickly recovered with sleep and rest. The drug was even SO legal, it was marketed in bars where you could buy it over the counter in a paper cup. However, this was apparently the downfall of it, as most street drugs, it was abused, so the positive effects were overlooked. The public got scared and of course the government took over. The hearing that was held presented both sides of the case, and the judge actually ruled that it stay legal, but he was overruled by the DEA. My point is that I was shocked to find out how many illegal drugs were once legal, useful, and started out with our government experimenting with them. So, can we really blame the drug problem in our country all on ourselves and the people out there who use them? Or should we blame the originator? I'm beginning to think twice. As one man said during the program, ANY drug has the potential to kill you. The difference in harmful or helpful is the amount you take and which strain you are taking. Squeeze a couple bottles of aspirins down into one pill and take it, it will kill you. Yet one aspirin can cure a headache. Further yet, the illegalization of all these drugs has not stopped drug use, just made it more of a high to get it. Secondly, since they are not being manufactured according to original patents, they are becoming more dangerous as people find ways to make them at home with synthetic materials, making them even more poisonous. I'm not saying that I agree taking drugs is ok, I'm merely putting a little truth out there that maybe more people should know. ALL drugs are a poison, but I do agree that people should have a choice whether to poison themselves or not. Our jails are filled with people on first time, non-violent drug offenses, and there's no room for rapists and child molesters. Maybe we should cut the consequences down a bit for those who didn't harm anyone. Then some of course would argue that by allowing those people, some of them distributors, back out on the street, someone down the line of that dealer's customers will eventually hurt someone. So it's kind of a lose-lose situation. Just some food for thought, that's all.

Business Matters

One of the most aggravating things to me is a person who owns a business and doesn't seem to know how to run it. Maybe this is why I have always been bad at dealing with authority and had so many jobs, thus deciding to open my own business someday and my reason for going to school. My boyfriend is a diesel mechanic and works very hard every day. Often times he comes home saying he got his ass chewed or that someone else did for some silly reason. He never really went into much detail telling me about this until recently. They hired a new mechanic, (making a total of 3), and started changing the schedule around to suit this. Obviously this is probably necessary, and was starting to work out for the better, or was at least tolerable. Over the course of the last week rules keep changing and everyone has been on edge. One of these new rules is that if one step is forgotten on a truck, let's just say changing a light bulb for instance, you lose a WEEK of vacation. If this happens in two seperate instances you lose TWO weeks vacation, which is all of it for the entire year. Seems a little ridiculous huh? I can understand some kind of punishment for such things, but that's extreme if you ask me, considering he has been at this establishment for 2 1/2 years and only missed one day total for his Grandfather's funeral. I'm not talking one EXCUSED day, I'm talking ONE DAY....period. Never late, and never took these two weeks of vacation in any year. Now, if you ask me this should be rewarded. On top of all this are these "ass chewings" which as I have found out are pretty crude, obscene and definitely not work place appropriate. Cutting people down, calling names, and lots of cussing. Throw in the most normally not getting any breaks or lunches and it just tops the cake. First of all, I know that most of this is entirely illegal. Secondly, I want to walk into that shop myself and let this owner know just what a moron he is. I mean really, you expect 3 mechanics to run hard all day long and get things done in a timely manner, but you're not going to give them a break, lunch, or vacation and on top of that make them worry about losing their vacation and scream at them every day? Not a smart man by outside appearances. This has of course caught up with him, and one of the other mechanics walked out a couple of days ago. This other person happened to be my boyfriend's brother. This was on Friday, and Sonny was scheduled to have the weekend off. Technically without Mark there, Sonny would have had to go in on Saturday to make up for it, but the boss said,"Take some time away, you need it." Gee, thanks boss for letting me keep the day off I'm supposed to have anyway. It's not like he gave him an EXTRA day off. Then today, Monday Sonny calls me and says they're going back to the old schedule and he won't have tomorrow off after all, like the new schedule had planned. I'm just about fed up with dealing with all these changes myself and I don't know how he deals with it. I absolutely cannot stand stupidity and disorganization, especially in the workplace. I can't wait to open my own business and try to do everything different than any boss has ever done for me or other people I know.

Lonely

Well, my kids spent and extra day and night with their dad this weekend, due to spring break. After having spent a few extra 24 hour days with them myself, I was loving it to the fullest, but also looking forward to a bit of a break to have some "me" time. Now, I get them back in an hour, and I have missed them soooo much! I can't wait to see them, and I have even gotten all of my housework and homework done so that I can concentrate only on them. It may sound simple but I have movie night plans to just sit and relax, cuddle, enjoy some popcorn maybe, and watch Madagascar 2. I didn't realize until I woke up this morning, early as usual, even without them here to wake me up, how much I missed them. I guess alone time is good, but when you get used to certain people being around all the time, it seems very lonely when they're gone. Even though I have been surrounded by other people all weekend long and was not totally alone, I still felt lonely. I watched my brother's kids begging him for a drink or snack, or tattle telling on each other, and noticed I didn't have anyone doing that to me, and I missed it horribly. In fact, I even started helping him out with them as a good Aunt should anyway, to take some load off of him and his wife, and fulfill a little part of me that was cryng inside. Children are such a blessing and I don't know what I would do without them.

Recession or Game Night?

I don't pay much attention to politics or the economy really, except for what directly affects me. I know that in the long run it all affects me in some way or another, but I just try to concentrate on keeping my family going so the only things I really notice are gas prices and food prices. If I had stocks and savings and 401K and lots of investments, I know it would affect me more, but for now, it doesn't. I watched a show the other day about the economy and frankly, it's all Chinese to me, I don't understand a bit of it. My life seems to be the best it's ever been at the moment, even when money is short, because it seems money is always short, no matter how much you're making. The one thing I did hear that made sense to me, and that has even applied to my family was sales. They said one of the only things that has risen in gross sales lately is home entertainment. Renting movies, buying home game systems, things like that. When you consider the price you pay to get started for instance, in a gaming console like Wii or XBox, it's a little pricey. In the long run however, do the math at how many hours of entertainment you get out of that and it's a very cheap "per hour" rate. Now think about what you spend to go to the movie theater for two hours and it's much more expensive. For the first time in my life, I recently bought my own Wii, in order to spend more time with my kids, and stay at home more. There are alot of educational games to play, and a great learning tool, that's fun and keeps you fit too. What better entertainment can you ask for? Plus, many of these consoles double or triple as other investments too. They can act as a dvd player, music player, or computer; so you're really not only getting a game system, but many other things as well. So put all that together, and it doesn't sound so shabby, or lazy, or expensive at all. If you ask me the one good thing out of this recession is that many family's are being forced to spend more time at home together getting some quality time, and probably don't even realize what a blessing that is. They're just thinking that they hate the government and worried about what the country as a whole is going to do. I prefer to think about what my family is going to do together the next day, and focus on the happy things. After all, everything happens for a reason, and maybe one reason is that someone has a higher plan for Americans to go back to their roots and remember how much love there still is in the world. Love can be one of the greatest powers there is, and together, we can achieve anything. After all, pioneers survived without TV, cars, phones, computers, grocery stores, gas stations, blah blah blah...you get what I mean.