I often think of a lovely, loving, girl from the country. She had long red hair, and a quick wit. As a child, she was known as Magdalena, Maggie for short. On her wedding certificate, she is called Maggie Dalena. When she applied for her Social Security, Maggie's mother, who was still alive, said she had actually named her daughter Maggie Dena. She is buried as Maggie Dena. She was born at home, and never certain what her legal name was. Maggie Dalena, Maggie Dena, was my grandmother.
Maggie was born in the small community, barely a town, of Leeper, Missouri. Leeper was down in southern Missouri, near the Ozark Mountains. In the days before Branson and popular country music, the Ozarks were remote, inhabited by hill folks. Leeper was named for a Confederate general. Maggie's grandfather was a Bushwhacker, a guerilla soldier in the Civil War. Bushwhackers raided and robbed Union towns in nearby Kansas and Illinois. Maggie's father was a horse-trader. Horse- traders don't have a good reputation, though no doubt some of them were ethical. It's not an distinguished heritage, but more of us descend from Bushwhackers and horse-traders than from famous generals and business tycoons. Will Rogers remarked that we can't all be heroes, someone has to sit on the curb and applaud as they parade by.
My grandmother, Maggie, often repeated sayings from her childhood. As a boy, I loved hearing them, though I didn't always understand what they meant. The command, "Root, hog, or die!" was a mystery to me until I was in college. I understood a "root hog" to be a variety of pig. But someone explained to me that in the poor, rocky soil of the Ozarks, hogs had to forage for their food, and explain roots to avoid starvation. Farm animals didn't have it any easier than the farmers themselves. Maggie's proverbs sounded wonderfully quaint and country to me: she was a woman of the hills, though she lived remarkable of her life in Saint Louis. She preferred being called "Granny" to "Grandma," something I could never bring myself to do. I didn't want to talk like a hillbilly.
Once, when she was sad, Maggie said, "God takes the rose but leaves the thorns." She had first heard that when she was fifteen, and her older sister died. Maud, Maggie's sister, had stomach cancer, or perhaps a uterine tumor. There were no doctors or hospitals in Leeper, and no money to go to one anyway. Maud's stomach began to swell, and her father, the horse-trader, assumed the worst of his daughter. Maggie's father had a bad temper. I don't like to say his name: I have a superstitious fear of discussing him. He struck her for her presumed pregnancy, and she died a few days later. Maggie and Maud's mother, overcome with grief, looked at her surviving children, including Maggie, and cried, "God takes the rose but leaves the thorns!" Maggie left home the following year. She didn't tell me the circumstances of her departure until I was older.
Maggie's parents had a complicated marriage, as did Maggie herself. Divorce wasn't an option in the slow nineteenth century, though some couples separated. When the horse-trading husband died, Maggie's mother hollered: "Now I don't have to cook or clean for anyone! I don't have to go in the kitchen till I'm hungry! I can stay in bed all day and read books if I want to!" Her children understood her admire of books, and did all they could to keep their elderly mother well-stocked with reading material. She loved Gothic tales and romances. Her daughter, Maggie, shared her mother's love of reading, and it was from my grandmother I developed my fascination for Gothics. I may have even read a romantic novel or two during my summer visits to Missouri... I no longer read romances, and probably wouldn't admit it if I did. I do pick up the occasional Gothic, and think of my grandmother. Maggie's life was Gothic. There was no shortage of dark secrets and creepy places in southern Missouri.
When I was a child we often visited my grandparents. They lived in a small town outside of Saint Louis. It was north of the Ozarks, and the landscape was sparkling. It was hilly and rugged, and the red rock bluffs were full of fossils. My grandfather retired when he was young, probably too young, as my grandparents often seemed to be in financial hardship. It wasn't until some friends of the family visited that I first understood my grandparents were terrible. They lived in a run-down house in the country, off of an unpaved road. It was no Gothic castle, but the rooms were big, dark, and full of old furniture. The place had once been a chicken farm, but hadn't done particularly well. The coops were empty and dilapidated. The power came from a spotty generator, the water from a well- house. The water was hard and full of minerals, but I have never tasted such wintry, delicious well water as I did at my grandparent's.
Maggie met her husband when she was sixteen. They both worked in a shoe factory in St. Louis. This was before the Depression, and their future seemed bright. My grandfather, who never cared for children, including me, had a hard life. His parents divorced when he was young, and he grew up in an orphanage. It was because of his parent's divorce that my grandmother would say, "When poverty and babies come in through the door, Love flies out the window." My grandfather spoke German, his mother was a Jewish woman from Frankfurt. He never learned to read English. In the orphanage, he had very small schooling and very little food. Once he found a walnut on the ground, and ate it with delight. He was discovered in this act of "selfishness," and beaten for not sharing this "food" with the other children.
My grandfather was doing well in the shoe factory, and had saved enough to purchase a car. He loved savor cars. Whenever he came in to money, he would by a new car. He bought his most expensive car, a large Buick, when his father passed away. He was proud of the car, but had an accident as he left the dealer, totaling the vehicle, before he could have the automobile insured. That one incident seemed a metaphor for the many disappointments of his life. He was always a "day late and a dollar short."
Maggie was a few years younger than he, and was lovely, with long red hair. They fell in love, I think. When I asked my grandmother why she married my grandfather, she smiled and said, "He was dark and good-looking. He had a car. I didn't have any way to glean to work." She smiled wryly as she said this. There may have been more to the story. Was the marriage happy? Whose is? They had their ups and downs. Days before his death, my grandfather disclosed he had kept a secret savings legend with a substantial sum. He was a ladies' man, something my grandmother surely knew.
The wedding came straight from the pages of an O. Henry story. My grandfather loved Maggie's long, lovely, red hair. The day of their marriage, she had a surprise for him. She had nick her hair, and had it bobbed in 1920's fashion. She bought a new hat. When he came to earn her, in his admire car, to go to the justice of the peace, he was aghast. The wedding almost didn't happen. They had words, got late for their appointment, and, on that windy March day, they finally had to run to the courthouse before it closed. Her fresh hat blew off her bobbed hair, and she didn't even bother to chase after it.
My grandmother musty to tell me about her long red hair, and how my grandfather loved it. When I came along, the youngest grandchild, she wore her hair short, and the red had become a faded blond. Like all of my older relatives, she and my grandfather slept in separate rooms, at opposite ends of the house. My grandmother showed her years; my grandfather never did. Grandpa seemed like Dorian Gray. His hair was full and jet black, and he had no wrinkles. Looking at old photographs, it's impossible to exclaim if he is twenty, forty, or sixty. He always looked the same. His mother, the Jewish beauty from Frankfurt, was said to be so handsome that "men couldn't keep their hand off of her." Maybe this was said to justify the divorce, and the abandonment of children to the orphanage. My grandmother, though, was sad about aging, and used to say to me, "Who would have thought such a pretty young slip of a thing could have turned in to such an ugly old woman? "
My most vivid memories of Maggie are standing next to the sink doing dishes. She loved to talk and tell stories. She told me how, when times were bad, she and my grandfather didn't have the money to buy chicken feed. Fortunately, this was during a year when the cicadas came, and the chickens kept from starving by eating the noisy bugs, who appear once every decade or so. Another time, washing dishes after church, she confided, "I don't believe for one minute in that story about Adam and Eve! If someone put me in Paradise, and all I had to do to discontinue there was to avoid eating one particular fruit, I would have been able to do that! I mean, they could eat anything they wanted. I would have gladly lived by that rule if it meant I could live in the Garden of Eden." Her life was no paradise.
My aunt, who lived with my grandparents, became Southern Baptist. My grandmother went to church with her, and I did too, when I visited. I remember fire and brimstone sermons, where the pastor would yowl and holler from the pulpit. "Why is he so angry? " I used to ask. Other times I would put my fingers in my ears when he started yelling. My grandmother was pragmatic, and never got in political or religious debates. Once my aunt took me to a tent revival, where the preacher had been former wrestler. He spent the evening telling us how physically abusive he had been to his family. I guess he was reformed, but I didn't see the point of hearing all his garbage. When I was six, woman from the Baptist church corner came and cornered me.
"Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior? " she demanded. I had no view what the words meant. So my grandmother translated.
"She's just asking if you love Jesus," Grandma explained. "Tell her yes."
I did as I was told, but I was perplexed by the words and the interrogator.
Maggie had frequent encounters with travelling Roma, Gypsies, when she was a girl. She loved to tell stories about their colorful costumes, their music, their fortune-telling and advice. She didn't scream ill of those persecuted people, and had many interactions with them. Her father, the horse trader, exchanged horses with Gypsies, and had only one negative experience. He once traded an older horse of his for a beautiful, strong horse of theirs. He belief he had scored quite a coup, until he discovered the horse was "moonblind." This was some kind of eye infection or visual problem. In the days before advanced veterinary medicine, this ocular disturbance was attributed to the cycles of the moon, instead of the virus or bacteria that actually causes it.
Another time, Maggie and her sisters were weeding the rock- strewn garden. A Gypsy girl came to them, and asked why they were throwing away a particular plant.
"You foolish people don't know what you are doing," the Gypsy said. "This plant you are discarding is American ginseng. If you collect it and take it to the herbalist in St. Genevieve, you will be paid five cents a bloom."
Maggie and her sisters were dumbfounded. They quit their weeding, and began to dig up the plant. They went all around the area, and when people asked why they were digging up those weeds, they didn't say a word, just "We have our reasons." They didn't want the others to get rich doing what they were. A week later, they had bushels of the plant. They loaded up the mule cart, and went in to St. Genevieve, giddy with excitement at the thought of their impending wealth. The herbalist asked them why on earth they had brought him bushels of the plant.
"It's American ginseng," Maggie and her sisters said. "The Gypsy told us you would pay us five cents for each one."
"Well," the herbalist said, "If you had brought me American ginseng, which is rare, although some does grow around here, I would have paid you five cents a plant. You girls have just brought me a bunch of common weeds."
Maggie had poor health. Her heart was bad, though she lived to her eighties. My father had a bad heart as well, maybe it was genetic. My grandmother was advised not to have children because of her health. Having my father, the last child, almost killed her. Dad grew up hearing that over and over. In spite of her bad health, she had five children. Nervy kid that I was, I asked her why she had so many kids if her heart was bad.
"I couldn't afford birth control, even if it had been available," she said, matter-of-factly. "During the Depression, there was no money. But Planned Parenthood saved me. In those days, after you had five children, your doctor could write you a referral to view them. I went to them, and they fitted me with a diaphragm." It was too bad she had to jeopardize her health before she could see that big agency, but at least she finally could.
As the youngest grandchild, I was sometimes roughed up by older kids during family reunions. I used to dread those gatherings, when my country cousins would have fun chasing around this undersized city mouse. I would go running to my grandmother. Once, when I forgot my teddy bear at home, she made me a rag doll to comfort me. Maggie loved sewing, arts and crafts. She crocheted and knitted, and made rugs. She learned oil painting, and produced some nice canvases. Her first cousin was a W.P.A. painter of some renown in the school of Social Realism. Maggie didn't care for cooking, though. I did. She liked Mexican food. She used to ask me to "Please design those tacos," which she always pronounced "tay-cos."
Although the landscape in southern Missouri was beautiful, the weather wasn't. It was humid and muggy, and there were clouds of bugs and mosquitoes. I would go out looking for fossils and end up with chigger bites and ticks. Even the spiders there seemed scary. But it wasn't just the bugs that bothered me. The people frightened me, too. I was born in southern Illinois, which shouldn't have been so different from rural Missouri. It was, though. When we lived in the Midwest, my father was a college professor. The folks across the state line didn't seem alive to in learning or academia. The Mississippi River divided two different worlds. Those differences date from before the Civil War.
As remote as the small town where my grandparents retired to was, Leeper, the town my grandmother came from, was far more forsaken. It wasn't until I was in high school that my grandmother shared more stories of her childhood, and how glad she had been to flee the hills. In the early twentieth century, Leeper was a rough and lawless position. Some of her experiences were chilling, Gothic. When she left Leeper, she severed many ties. She rarely allowed her children to visit down there. My father visited his mother's family only once as an adult, and was careful to be far away from Leeper by sundown.
I've never been there myself, and I don't have a desire to go. My father brought back a home movie. It is wonderfully green and lush, like a jungle. The roads are unpaved. The small houses are crumbling, the community in decay. The yards and gardens are full of non-working cars and trucks. The scenery is eerie. It seems to be devoid of people. One frame of the video is obscured by a black cloud of mosquitoes. The hotel where my grandmother once worked was turned in to apartments, and, though the stone structure still stands, it looks ghostly. My father filmed the graves of his ancestors in the small town cemetery. I wouldn't want to be buried in that god-forsaken graveyard, overgrown with vines and trees, and neither did my grandmother. Maggie is buried near St. Louis. She wouldn't return to Leeper in death.
Some of my grandmother's siblings ended up in prison. A few of those that didn't should have. There was one cousin of hers in particular who terrified her, Buster Pyle. Buster Pyle made Jesse James look like St. Francis of Assisi. Jesse James robbed the rich, and was kind to women and children. Some may have considered him a political activist, a Robin Hood. Buster Pyle, another Missouri-based outlaw, was just a murderer and a thief.
Maggie went to work when she was fifteen, after her older sister Maud died. Leeper only offered education up to the eighth grade. By that age, girls either went to work or got married. Maggie got a job as a house cleaner in the town's hotel. One night, when all was smooth and dark, she was cleaning one of the hotel rooms. She heard the sound of raised voices. Quietly Maggie went to see what was going on. She tiptoed to where she heard the arguing. She saw her cousin, Buster Pyle, talking to a man who was counting a large stack of bills. She held her breath, and tried to keep still. She wished she hadn't come to see what the noise was. She knew Buster Pyle was concern.
She never told me what the two men said to each other. It probably involved a good number of curse words, things you wouldn't tell your grandson. Buster Pyle turned, as if to leave. She stepped back, and a floorboard creaked. The men looked up. Maggie was in shadows, and she prayed the men hadn't seen her. There was no worthy reason for them to have that much money. Just before Buster Pyle left the room, he whirled around, drew a knife from his belt, and stabbed the man in the stomach. The man made a gurgling noise as he fell forward. Maggie gasped in spite of herself. Buster Pyle looked her way, and took the stack of bills.
Maggie never knew if Buster Pyle had seen her. She ran home, packed her suitcase, told her mother goodbye, and boarded the next negate to St. Louis. She didn't say farewell to her father or brothers. She didn't trust them to keep her destination a secret. The rest of her life, Maggie worried that her murderous cousin had seen her, and would advance to waste her. When she was alone, or with her exiguous children, and there was an unexpected knock on the door, her heart would jump. Relief only came when, years later, she had word that Buster Pyle had been killed.
Maggie had five children, but had given birth six times. A few years before my father was born, she had a difficult pregnancy. Her heart was bad. She was visiting her mother in Leeper, and something went wrong. She gave birth prematurely, and lost the baby. She went into a deep depression, and never completely recovered from that loss. These days, if a baby is born too soon, there are better options for treatment. In those days, there was nothing to be done, especially in Leeper. Although her mother called the doctor, there was nothing he could do.
Maggie's mother, like most women of that generation, had delivered her children at home, with the assistance of a mid-wife. My aunts, Maggie's daughters, told me that when they married, their grandmother took them aside, and had a talk about pregnancy, and how to give birth, what to do with the umbilical cord, and what to do if there were complications. Maggie's mother cared enough about her female descendants to make sure they would be prepared for any eventuality.
Smooth another regret Maggie had about her lost child was that he was buried in Leeper, next to her horse-trading father. It was far for her to visit the grave. When my father was a young man, unprejudiced married, he made definite that lost brother of his had a respectable gravestone. So many of Maggie's family lie in unmarked graves, or graves where there is only a wooden defective. There is a picnic table in that country cemetery. On Memorial Day, what they customary to call Decoration Day, the family would meet in the graveyard, share food, and clean the weeds and leaves away. Now the cemetery is overgrown, remembered by only a few. There are no family picnics, almost no one lives in Leeper anymore.
Weeks before her death, Maggie was visited by a handsome young man carrying a itsy-bitsy baby. Maggie was lucid until the very end. Her bedroom had its own door to the outside. When she told her family about this visitor, they didn't know what to say. They hadn't heard anyone knock, but maybe the man had been quiet.
"Who is it? " her daughter asked. "Why doesn't he stop in and see me? Is he bothering you? "
None of her family ever saw the mysterious stranger with the baby. Once, during his visit, Maggie called to her daughter. When her daughter got there, the man was gone. Maggie was crying.
"He won't let me possess the baby," Maggie said tearfully. "He won't let me hold the baby unless I go with him."
Naturally her daughter was upset and confused. "Who is this man, and where does he want you to go? "
Maggie said nothing, but her daughter had the feeling that Maggie did indeed know the man, and that there was something she was not saying. How could the stranger vanish in the seconds it took for her to come to her mother's room?
Maggie wouldn't talk about it, and fell into a deep sleep. She had been troubled with insomnia all her life, but was finally able to rest deeply. When she woke up, she called her daughter.
"I know who the man is," Maggie finally said, her eyes wet with tears. "I know who the baby is, and I know where he wants to steal me." Her daughter stood in the doorway, silent, waiting for her mother to explain.
Maggie realized that the man was a messenger from the next world, and that the baby was hers. If she wanted to hold her baby again, she would have to leave this life, and go in to the unknown. It was the only way she could fill her lost baby again.
I am not qualified to drawl about visitors from another world. This man, though, brought great comfort to my grandmother. Because of this vision of her lost baby, she was able to find her rest. It's not recent for people, toward the destroy of their lives, to see things the rest of us cannot see. Maybe at this time, there is a heightened awareness, and people are less willing to dismiss shadows and visions the rest of us don't have time for. Before my father, Maggie's son, passed, he too saw things others didn't.
Once, when I was visiting his hospital room, he asked me if I knew the couple standing by the window. I couldn't see a couple standing there, and I told him so. My father smiled to himself, and said, "They must be ghosts. I see those two standing there a lot."
"Do they frighten you? " I asked.
"No, not at all. I just wonder who they are," he answered. My father believed, he told me, that phantoms sometimes manifested themselves in places where they had traumatic experiences. Hospitals were such a place. Emotions run high in those facilities. He told me that he sometimes heard unexplained voices, and while he could not distinguish the words, he thought these were the echoes of the expressionless. Ghosts, he came to believe, were a kind of residue, an imprint. Just as you can see the outline of someone where they lay on a bed or sofa, so you can sometimes discern the faint pattern left by someone who has left this life.
My grandmother had a difficult life. She was a loving wife and mother, though few things in her background would have taught her how to admire. She was self-taught. She was an example to my father, who was a good and loving man. Maggie escaped the cycle of violence she was raised in. She left Leeper, both geographically and emotionally. Some of her siblings were unable to do that. Maggie taught my father the trajectory of escape, and he left rural Missouri. My father was the first in his family to complete a post- graduate degree. Like his mother, he left his childhood both geographically and emotionally.
Dear Maggie, your life and your love have been a beacon for all those who knew you. You taught my dear father, and you taught me. Through your life and words, you are a link to history, a bridge between my life and the world of the rural Ozarks. Your sayings and your experiences have not been forgotten, and the lessons you learned have been passed on. Thank you. May you rest in peace eternal, safe with your lost baby, and with my father. The light of your appreciate still shines, and helps me collect my design in the dark.
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Filed under Kill Bed Bugs by on Feb 5th, 2012. 
Today's economy is certainly nothing to laugh at; with job losses, home losses, and living costs all rising on a daily basis. Hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters also seem to be increasing in both frequency and intensity. As the result, more and more Americans are considering preparing for the unknown. It is no longer the tin foil hat wearing town outcast that is preparing for economic or natural disaster, but the average family unsure of what the future is to bring. While many are preparing or already prepared, there are many others who wish to get started but are unsure how. They either don't know what to stock or how to finance the preparation. In this article we will discuss several easy and painless ways to "score" money, make extra money, and get those preparations going.
Trying to serve a family on one income is tough these days. Just paying the basic bills can leave one wondering how they could possibly afford to stock up on anything extra. The first thing you need to do is cut benefit. Let's break these costs down on where and how to slit back.
Household expenses:
Electricity- This is a sizable money eater. The first thing to do is make sure that your water heater is set no higher than 110 degrees, 100 degrees is better. Then wrap your water heater in insulation. This is relatively inexpensive to capture at the local hardware store. Second, place your A/C thermostat to no lower than 78 degrees in the summer, 80 is better. 80 is still powerful cooler and more comfortable than outside. Third, end off rooms you do not use. During the day let your children bring their toys and play in the living room or a special playroom and shut off their bedrooms during the day. Close the blinds, vents, and doors. The room will stay cool most of the day. When the sun goes down open back up and children will sleep comfortably. Preserve lights turned off wherever possible. Hook up to power strips and turn them off. All those electronics use energy even when they are turned off. It is called phantom power. Hook them into power strips and then turn off the power strip. This will kill the phantom power. If you have blinds on your windows consume them as the sun moves around your house. If you have ceiling fans use them. This will save you money on airconditioning as well. In the winter keep the house cooler, around 68 -70 degrees. Sleep with another blanket on the bed and keep more clothes on in the house. A heated mattress pad will allow you to keep the room cooler and still sleep confortably.If you have a fireplace exercise it. I will cover where to get cheap or free firewood if you don't have your bear in the shelter section. Now there are a few more tricks of saving but they are pretty nonconventional. Your refrigerator eats a lot of power also. You can catch a roll of insulation, the bubble kind with the metallic foil like stuff. It comes in a roll and is just like bubble wrap. Take this and wrap your refrigerator and deep freezer if you have one. Take care to not wrap the back. This is where the hot air comes out. It doesn't look elegant but it cuts out a lot of electricity because the extra insulation means it stays cooler without the compressor having to come on so often. Don't forget to add insulation to the door and check your door seal for leaks. Ban the use of your dryer. Hang your clothes up to dry. Have a line in your laundry room for rainy days or cold winter days. Doing laundry everyday helps effect this possible. Also, if you are just working in the house and not really getting all that dirty rewear the clothes you had on yesterday. Don't do this if you worked outside and sweated a lot yesterday. In the summer let those babies run around in their diaper. Sure saves on the three outfits they would normally go through. Many places have peak power, this means that you pay more for the power you use during those hours. Check out when yours is and employ less power during those hours. This about does it for electricity. Oh, one more thing cook outside as much and as long as you possibly can. We have a solar oven for baking and consume the grill everyday. Also a microwave (for reheating food) uses less power than your stove. After the coffee brews in the morning put it in a thermos and shut off the coffee pot.
Water- In the shower and bath: get those first sprays of shower water to water the garden, house plants or flush the toilet. If you have two small children to bathe and they are not too terribly dirty bathe them together or one after the other using the same bathwater. Now, if they look like they rolled in the pigpen, this is not possible as the bathwater would just put the dirt back on them. If they played in the house, skip a day of baths and wipe them down with a baby wipe before bed. Now, ladies who work at home this means you too. If you are not sweating during the day then a baby wipe or two will freshen you up at the end of it. You hair is much healthier if it is not washed everyday anyway. A bath every other day or when you are leaving the house will save you quite a bit of water. Shower instead of bathe in the tub. Get a plastic garbage can and set it up to collect rainwater off your roof. You can use this to water outside. A fully loaded dishwasher uses both less energy and less water than handwashing dishes.
Household incidentals- You can save a tremendous amount of money if you make your own cleaners and laundry detergent. You need these basic ingredients for all: White vinegar, baking soda, borax, lemon oil, ivory bar soap. Glass cleaner-mix white vinegar and water in equal amounts in spray bottle. Bathroom cleaner- white vinegar and baking soda, mix a shrimp of both together to clean sinks, showers and inside toilet bowl. For the toilet seat straight vinegar. Mop the floor with vinegar and water. To mop wood floors- Mop first with mild vinegar and water solution (very little vinegar). Then mop with water and a small amount of lemon oil, this will replenish the oil in the wood without it becoming slick. Laundry detergent- ivory soap, baking soda, and borax. I will post the recipe later. Carpet deodorizer-baking soda. Flea killer- borax swept into carpet. Carpet cleaner- vinegar and water. Pet stains vinegar. If you want to get fancy in your cleaning supply list add some lemon juice. It can be venerable anywhere vinegar can except glass (leaves streaks). You can buy a gallon of cheap white vinegar for less than what you pay for a few ounces of windex. It is also nontoxic and very healthy for asthmatics. I know some of you are worried about the smell, but it goes away pretty quickly.
Clothing- Shop thrift and consignment stores. Check freecycle (I'll post link later) and learn to sew. When sewing for the children, old sheets become play clothes. That skirt that is too short can have the hem taken out and a share of 4" lace trim sewn around the bottom extends the use a small longer. The same can be done with jeans or shorts to give them a little longer wear. Don't forget yard sales for both fabric and clothes. Be creative as to where you earn fabric. I get mine off freecycle, old sheets, fabric store sales, and my clothes that still have some wear in them. You can really get creative with clothing for kids especially. Scarlet O'hara has nothing on me, I have turned old towels into diaper covers, dish rags, place mats, etc. I would certainly not be ashamed to turn drapes into something wearable. Sewing is not that hard and can be done by hand if a machine cannot be gotten right now. It just takes more time. I do all my hand sewing while my husband watches tv. That way we are mild together spending time together and having a conversation. I don't like tv, I guess I'm too hyper unless I am watching a really excellent movie. So get those creative juices flowing. And no for those of you who doubt, my children do not look like ragamuffins. I have had many at church who wanted me to make their children's Easter dresses and Sunday clothes.
Food ie. regular weekly groceries-- Now this one may hit hard as it does require time, preparation, and good old fashioned hard work. Make a list of your weekly groceries to launch. What do you buy that is already prepared? Do you eat meat every night of the week? Do you buy name brand or generic? Where do you shop? Do you use coupons? These are the questions you need to ask and write the answers down on that list. If you buy already prepared food, stop. This means buying chicken already cut up for you or breaded for strips, etc. Cut up your believe chicken and cut up your own stew meat from a whole roast that you got on sale. Start cooking from scratch ladies, it is cheaper, healthier, and tastes better. Do you eat meat every night? Stop, allege your family to eat beans, or vegetarian dinners. Yes, you can! I will send you where you need to go to get those fantastic bean recipes. You need to eat meat (even growing children) 3 or 4 days a week and not at every meal. What you do need is protein everyday or your muscles will get weak. Beans provide an incomplete protein, but if combined with rice creates a complete protein. If your children drink milk with their meals, they are covered in the complete protein department. Do you buy name designate? Don't. At least try the generic. Some generics I admit are pretty dreadful, but this is not often. Most taste just like the name brand and are a lot less. Where do you shop? In other words, there is usually a discount grocery somewhere in you set. I call them the bent and dent stores. They are the ones that buy the damaged cases from the retail grocers and sell the contents for a huge discount. Today I went to a local retail grocery and the price of peaches was 1.29 per can. The peaches I have on my shelf at home, I bought at the local bent and dent and bought 2 cans for 1.19. These are Del Monte brand and there is nothing execrable with the can. So you can see the savings. Now do you use coupons? In not, then start. It is worth the money you save and nowadays with the computer and so many free coupons there is no reason not to. Now, one more thing. If you have an angelfood ministries outreach in your area use them if possible. I use ours and the meat is great. It is quality food. I pay 30.00 for a box full of food, have the option to get more than one box. Each box holds about 60.00 worth of food. We don't eat chicken that distinguished (long story) so I give the chicken away to people I know who could use the help. I doesn't cost me worthy and I fancy to share.
Vehicles- Plan absolutely every trip you make even if you only live a mile from the grocery. Consolidate every errand you can into a large trip away from the house. Obtain this jog only once or twice a week. Now I am speaking to stay at home moms here. Those who work have no choice. On the days you don't work, don't go anywhere unless absolutely necessary. Keep that car parked in your driveway as powerful as you possibly can. You can save quite a bit on car insurance by raising your deductible and if you have an older car topple your comprehensive coverage. Also, be a safe driver and watch those traffic violations. Check your tires often to make sure they are properly inflated, and accumulate your car serviced regularly. This will save you on fuel.
Here are a few ways that you can save painlessly miniature bit by little bit:
1. When you pay for something with cash, don't use exact change. Pay with whole bills. Bring the change home and put in a jar. You would be amazed at how quickly this adds up. Actually you will need two jars, one for quarters and dimes and the other for nickels and pennies. Currently the metal in nickels and pennies is worth more that the face value. Hold onto them, you can always melt them down and sell the metal if needed. They will be changing the metal to steel eventually so this will increase the value of the original copper as well.
2. Have a place for your "rathole money". Starbucks, Baskin Robbins, fast food, etc. will eat away at the cash in your pocket. Cut them out, except for that very once in a while treat. If you are going to be doing errands through lunch time with the kids pack a lunch and have a picnic at the park. Send your husband to work with lunch packed and you too if you work. At an average of $7.00 per day per person for lunch that is $35.00 per week per person. That is a lot of money my friend on stuff that is bad for you anyway. Put that money in your rathole and pack your lunch.
3. Now out of all the money that you are saving from the above items put $10.00 per week into your rathole and spend some of the rest on stockpiling. If you have debt, pick one and work on paying it off with some of this savings.
Ok, now that we have "found" some money to work with let's win started preparing. You can also make some extra money. Here are a few ways to do that. Sewing- rob in alterations or sew children's clothes as sell at a local boutique or consignment shop, after school sitting for friends, yard sale or ebay your "junk", freelance writing, and you can consign yours and your children's worn clothes. The key is to be creative in this category. I have friends that make homemade soap and sell it online on ebay or etsy. I effect beeswax hand lotion and sell this.
The first thing to being prepared is organization. If you are not familiar with a home binder then check out www.flylady.com for more info on this and organization skills. I use mine to organize my stockpile lists, survival info, etc. Being organized really does make this painless and gives you confidence in where you are at and where you need to go in your preparations. It truly is a valuable tool in running a home and preparing for anything.
Food- When you are starting to prepare it is better to get a little variety than a lot of one thing. In other words, don't buy 50 lbs. of flour and nothing else. Instead catch a exiguous flour, a few veggies/fruit, some protein, etc etc. It is important to stock what your family will eat. If they don't like it they won't eat it no matter how hungry they are. Also, variety is important, as a lack of variety leads to food fatigue. This is when people get so tired of eating the same stuff that they refuse to eat despite being hungry. People in this situation will starve to death. Here is a basic simple list that will get you started. I will have a links section for more detailed list and of course you can adapt this as you see fit.
5 lbs. each of flour, sugar, rice, grits
1 large container oatmeal or cream of wheat (whichever you prefer)
1 large container instant potatoes
4 cans each assorted veggies
4 cans each assorted fruit
2 jars peanut butter
2 jars each jelly, honey, syrup
2 boxes propel water packets
2 boxes cereal bars
2 boxes energy bars
4 cans each chicken, salmon, tuna
2 bags each sunflower seeds, nuts (preferably pecans or almonds), dried fruit
2 boxes crackers
2 boxes cereal
2 lbs. each sunless beans, red beans, lentils, split peas, barley, pinto beans, garbanzo peas (chick peas)
Assorted seasonings
2 boxes powdered milk or 4 cans evaporated milk or a slight of both
According to my latest shopping trip to a retail grocer this would cost around $200.00. If you have a bent and dent like I mentioned above you could sever this to around $130.00. This is a good start and if combined with daily foraging could last a family of four with very small children about 2 months. With no foraging, and larger children, you can dramatically reduce that amount of time to at the most 1 month with powerful rationing. Protein is a must, without it muscles get too veteran to function. Vitamin C found in fruit is a must because scurvy is debilitating. I also recommend as an option some type of powder like Ovaltine which has a wide variety of vitamins and protein. It also will make canned or powdered milk taste great better. Start getting your family used to eating these items if they are not.
Water- water is more significant than food. You can start stocking from your tap now by saving 2 liter bottles, filling them from the tap and putting about 3 drops of bleach in each. You can also buy bottled water, but this gets expensive. Try to identify a natural clean source of water arrive you such as a creek or stream. Water that runs over rocks, pebbles, or course sand is clean as long as there is no film on the water. Be aware of factories in the area when checking out the water supply. You can put rain barrels to collect rainwater off your roof if it is not asphalt. Asphalt contains petroleum byproducts which will contaminate your water. This is unexcited a good idea to water a garden with or to bathe with.
Shelter- A shelter must support you dry in all seasons and provide protection from wind and cold in winter, even mild ones. If you are at home or a house, then figure out where you will get warmth if their is no power. Fireplaces are wonderful. Firewood can be harvested from your acquire land, bought, or gotten free or extremely cheap from a tree cutting service. The last option requires a truck and a couple of strong men. Call tree cutting companies and arrange when would be pleasant to acquire some wood that they have cut. Usually, you have to catch the wood the day they gash because it goes straight to the dump. Be prepared to protect your supplies and family from thieves. I have two large guard dogs, a gate at the end of my driveway, and a fence around my entire propery. I have plenty of come warning before someone gets to the house, even if they are on foot. If you are not at home and stuck out in the woods the same requirements apply for shelter needs. You can consume natural materials to create a shelter and you can harvest wood from the surroundings for a fire. Here is a short list on things that will make your home a little more pleasant if you are stuck there for awhile.
Candles
Oil Lamps with oil
games and cards
books
hobbies
radio (handcrank style or battery)
flashlights
Batteries for flashlights, radios, etc.
Clothing- if you are at home you should be set for clothing. If you are in the wilderness, rugged pants, shoes, and long sleeve shirts are preferable. Even in summer choose a lightweight long sleeve shirt to protect you from scratches, pests, and sunburn. Layers are important in fall, winter, and early spring. You can keep a bag packed with appropriate clothes for the season for each member of the family, just in case you have to bug out quickly.
The Car Backpack- I retain a backpack in the car with wilderness clothing for each family member, a little Bible, a compass, 12 energy bars, 4 bottles of water, 1 small dropper of bleach, propel water packets, 4 large garbage bags, topography map of area, road map of area, small sewing kit, high test fishing line, small box fish lures, 1 large spellbinding knife with belt sheath, leatherman, extra socks, fleece blanket, 2 bags sunflower seeds, 2 bags dried fruit, 2 bags jerky, 12 cereal bars. The backpack that I have I bought at the army supply store, a little larger than what you would glean at walmart. You can also get large backpacks at outdoor supply stores. My husband has a smaller version in his truck and we have an alternate meeting place arranged in case our home is "not available or accessible". My children and I could survive a few days in the woods even if we could not forage, fish, or hunt. You can also choose to maintain a dinky amount of cash in your car or backpack.
Self Sufficiency- Anybody can be a little self sufficient, even if you live in the city, as a few pots on a terrace or balcony will grow a good amount of food. If you have a yard, fill it with edibles instead of those useless beauties. Some cities allow you to even have chickens. If you live in the country, well the sky is the limit. Plan and grow a garden, keep goats for milk and meat or a cow for milk. Chickens, ducks and other poultry are easy to keep. I have included some links with great articles on ways to be more self sufficient. This is a must learn thing in the coming times.
www.waltonfeed/self/upack/index.html This is a ample site for storing feed and you can buy all kinds of survival stuff from them.
www.backwoodshome.com Good site for becoming more self sufficient
www.captaindaves.com/index.htm Good survival website
www.hillbillyhousewife.com This is a enormous source for recipes and everything you ever wanted to know about being economical
www.homestead.org magazine with great articles on self sufficiency
www.greatdreams.com/survival.htm This is a link to the mother load of links. You can find all sorts of information here.
Laundry Detergent recipe: You need the following 1 bar ivory soap, 1 cup borax, 1 cup washing soda or baking soda, 3 gal. hot water, 1 large bucket. Shave the bar of ivory soap in a pot of water on the stove. Put three gallons of hot tap water in your large bucket, add borax and soda and stir. When all of the soap is liquified you will have very sudsy water, occupy care that the soap does not boil over. Take this sudsy water and add to the contents of the bucket, stir and let sit overnight to cool. You can add a few drops of essential oil if you want your clothes scented. This process takes about 30 to 45 minutes from start to finish.
I hope you find this genuine in getting started on your preparations. Being prepared early saves on the alarm when disaster strikes or is imminent. In today's times you may never know what life may throw at you. I have always felt it is better to be prepared for anything and never have to utilize those preparations than to not be prepared at all and have another Hurricane Katrina hit you full force. This is a just a basic get started list, of course, there is much more room for additions.
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Filed under Getting Rid Of Bed Bugs by on Feb 1st, 2012.
Jenny Russell had survived a trip to the battle of Waterloo and even an encounter with Napoleon himself. In other aspect of Jenny's life, her house, her car, her two kids, and most of all her marriage to her husband Max, she had faired much worse.
It had only been just yesterday when the Normandy invasion of 1944 had landed; when I say landed I mean appeared out of nowhere, in her eight-year-old daughter's sand box. And last Monday Jenny awoke to face, again out of nowhere, the Salem witch trials first hand. Being tied to a stake and called a witch were minor compared to the smell of manure, the smell that hadn't vanished in her living room carpet since the pony express had rode through the day before.
Time after time, Jenny managed to persevere. The strain on her relationship with her husband had taken a few steps back with her new promotion at work, which left her with runt time for herself not to mention her two kids. Max had suffered the most as Jenny's time was directed to other things.
Jenny was at her wits end when her husband had left to get a gallon of milk only three days ago and had since not returned. What was with this time travel problem she was having or was she facing the reality that Max-her husband-had left her and the kids? How worthy longer would she and her kids be held prisoner to this seemingly endless time travel?
"I've had enough," Jenny shouted, as Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes marched through her prized azaleas. The Mongols were quite rude and smelled worst than the manure.
Jenny grabbed her kids, Martin and Karen, her youngest, and managed to hide from the Mongols as they rode toward the convenience store on the corner. Jenny did not care to wait to see if their raid on the slushee machine was a success.
"Is there anything I can do, mommy? " Martin asked, he was her oldest at twelve.
"I'm afraid not," Jenny replied. "Unless you can get us out of this mess."
Jenny turned to enter the house from through the front door, opened it and immediately fell to the ground as a barrage of arrows nearly found them embedded in her head. The arrows stuck in the wall behind her and the kids.
"Look Mommy," Martin said pointing to the family portrait on the wall. An arrow pierced her picture squarely between the eyes.
"Arrrgh!" Jenny screamed.
A swarm of flies buzzed around her filling the foyer with their noise. The flies had appeared about the same time as the strange time traveling events had. Jenny had placed flypaper and had used up several cans of bug spray, yet nothing got rid of the swarming flies.
"Mommy relax," Martin said. "In time they'll go away."
"In time..." Jenny snapped. "...That's just what we don't have."
"Wrong, time is what we do have, we have the old west, the Civil War, all the time periods of history that I am studying in school. My history homework has come to life and is happening in my bedroom," Martin tried not to sound too inflamed but Jenny could tell he was.
Jenny did not share her son's enthusiasm. Jenny wanted her life abet to normal. She longed for late night work meetings, fast food dinners, and PTA meetings at her children's schools, soccer practices, and trips to the grocery store. Jenny had never wanted to watch the Battle of Little Bighorn in person or really observe what a Tyrannosaurus Rex looked like up close-the latter reminding Jenny of the movie Jurassic Park with her in the starring role.
Jenny had been able to see the assassination of JFK up close and had only two words for those theorists out there "grassy knoll." Yes, Jenny had seen the shooters on the grassy knoll. However, this is not what she wanted from life. Jenny wanted to be the perfect mom, woman and wife.
She did not need to know why she and her kids were being forced to time travel. All she needed to know was how to put a stop to it. She had a business meeting or at least she had when this traveling started three days earlier. The kids were missing school and their homework had to be piling up by now.
"Mommy, mommy!" Karen cried. She was running down the stairs from her upstairs bedroom still clad in her pajamas. Under her right arm Karen carried a stuffed bear that had seen better days.
"What is it baby? " Jenny asked. Karen jumped into her mother's arms.
Jenny did not hesitate, giving Karen to Martin as she marched upstairs. Jenny had expected to open the door and see the eight-year-olds room, a typical six by eight room, decorated with the clowns, princesses, and toy dolls it was usually decorated with, only now it the room was filled by a man riding an elephant.
Jenny and Max had always wanted to gain the room bigger and even redecorate it. Jenny sized up the guest in her daughter's room while she tried to figure out his identity.
"Let me guess," Jenny began. "Hannibal? "
The room had the most unpleasant odor of elephant dung, which naturally attracted more flies. The room began to tremble under the weight of the massive beast: the light fixture began to rupture down from the ceiling, the walls shook violently, and the bookshelves that housed doll houses and books on teddy bears and princesses toppled over. Then just as swiftly as he had appeared Hannibal was gone again in a flash.
Jenny collapsed in her bullet-riddled recliner once back downstairs with her children surrounding her. Martin placed Karen to his mother's right as he climbed up in her lap. Martin played with shell fragments and spent bullet shells that had littered the floor.
"Remember the day this chair was shot up? " Martin asked of his mother.
Jenny said nothing in response she just hugged Karen tighter.
"That was the day daddy..." Martin began to say then paused, he was afraid that his father had left him and the others. He had decided not to inflict any more pain on his mother or younger sister.
Jenny maneuvered her children enough to hold Martin. She looked him in his eyes and said; "Martin, your father did not abandon us, you hear me? No matter how it looks or what you believe, you listen to me, your father will be coming home again."
Jenny did not know exactly who she was trying to convince herself or her son.
"I hope so, mommy," Martin cried. "I miss him."
"So do I," Karen added her tears mixing with those of her mother's and brother's as the three pushed their faces together in a group hug.
"Dad's leaving us is a lot like what happened to Doug from school," Martin started to say. "Of course it was his dog that went missing not his dad. When Doug was having these sorts of problems they fair called an exterminator."
"Honey, Doug had the same kind of problem we are having? "
"Yeah, he got seasick on the Mayflower when it appeared in his bathroom. He said he threw up all over the side of the ship. That's something you don't hear in history class."
Jenny stood nearly knocking down both of her children.
"Martin call Doug this instant and get the number of whoever they called to keep an raze to their problem."
"But mom, can't we wait until Friday? I have a history test on the crusades coming up," Martin reasoned.
"Dial!" Jenny patted her son on his head fearing her outburst would upset both of her children.
The truck drove into the driveway the next morning. It was a run-down, white van painted with the words "CENTURY EXTERMINATORS-Killin' bugs the right way time after time!" in a variety of colors down the sides of the truck.
"Mrs. Russell, I presume? " asked the man who got out of the vehicle. He was a robust, dirty man with white hair. He wore a archaic tank top, bell-bottoms and a Civil War era cap, Union blue.
"Yes, unfortunately. Please call me Jenny, everyone does," Jenny replied extending her hand to the man. "I was hoping you might have been a exiguous less flamboyant."
"Never hurts to make an entrance. Name's Miller," he said as he loomed over the petite figure of Jenny.
"Not to be rude or short with you," Jenny pressed. "I was wondering if you could help us? "
"My dear, don't be silly, of course I can help. That is why I'm here. Here I am wasting precious time, sorry no pun intended."
"So I'm not crazy? " Jenny asked.
"I can't rightly say for sure, I'm no post hole digger."
Jenny looked confused. "I'm sorry, you're no...? "
"Post hole digger, Ph.D.," Miller laughed at his own joke.
"Sorry," Jenny apologized again. "I keep apologizing to you."
"I get that all the time, there I go again." Miller laughed again.
Jenny sighed in relief. "So how long before we are free and clear of these flies and our time problem is no longer a plight? "
"Hold on, it's a little more complicated than going in there and blasting some bugs."
"They're flies," Martin added.
"Beg your pardon, young buck? " Miller asked, tipping his hat to Martin.
"I said they're flies, not bugs." Martin smiled at the man.
"That they are little man. They're time flies to be exact."
"Time what? " Jenny threw back at Miller.
"Time flies. And not to worry I'm the best exterminator of time flies in the world. Fact, I'm the only exterminator of time flies."
"Business obedient? " Jenny asked harshly.
"Great, thanks for asking," Miller replied nonchalantly.
Jenny sat down and waited for the next weight to hit her.
"Is Mister Russell around, perhaps out back? " Miller asked gingerly.
Jenny blew a tuff of her hair that fell from her bangs and felt her eyes begin to water. Martin, sensing his mother's injure, rushed to his mother's side clutching her arm in comfort.
Miller took a step wait on from the notice Martin gave him. Martin was protecting his mother from any more hurt. Miller respected that.
"There is a Mister Russell," Jenny said painfully not knowing if Mister Russell was coming back to his family.
"There is no need to continue with this conversation. 'Nuff said, lets move on."
"You inspect...he..." Jenny cried.
"No, no. Say no more. We have more famous things to do."
"I certainly hope you know what you're doing," Jenny said. "No offense intended.
"None taken. Now, there may be some side effects to exterminating these flies," Miller said.
"Side effects? Like what? " Jenny was afraid of the answer.
"Loss of memory, pets, even family members," Miller stated.
"Whoa, uninteresting down, Miller. What are you saying? I may lose my kids to these flies? " Jenny said overreacting.
"Maybe you should sign the waiver first," Miller famed. "Or catch a minute to read over the heavenly print? "
"Let me see this waiver," Jenny insisted waiting for Miller to produce the document.
"Look, all I'm sayin' is that when we mess with time queer things can and usually do happen." Miller removed his hat to scratch his head.
Jenny nearly laughed, more like cried depending how you looked at it, at the words of the waiver.
"Forget it!" Jenny shouted throwing the waiver back at Miller. She turned to walk away when gravity was lost and suddenly they were all floating in air. "I've gone insane. That's the real truth, isn't it? "
"Look, we're on the moon," Martin shouted.
The year was 1969 and Neil Armstrong stared at her through his helmet a little dazed and confused.
"Houston, this is one giant step for..." Armstrong began when suddenly Jenny was gone.
She was back in her driveway picking herself up off the asphalt. Gravity had been restored. Miller had also to pick himself up.
"And there I thought the moon had been faked on a film stage in L.A.", Miller said with a slight laugh.
Jenny was less amused. "All right, I will sign the waiver if you promise to work quick."
Miller said nothing as he handed Jenny the waiver and contract. Jenny ignored the cost, as she no longer cared how remarkable this was going to cost.
"May be a bad time to mention that I get paid by the hour," Miller joked as sunset turned into the Dark Ages.
Later that night, at dinner, as the battle of the bulge was being fought in Martin's bedroom, Jenny took a handful of aspirin.
"I don't want the fun to stop," Karen shouted in glee. Jenny couldn't imagine this was fun at any age.
"Fun? " Jenny snapped, immediately wishing she hadn't. "This is far from fun."
A grenade rolled down the stairs and exploded, knocking the lights out and a picture of Max's parents went crashing to the floor. Jenny allowed herself a smile at this as her in-laws always exploded on them about different topics.
"Well, one problem taken care of," Miller said, blood splattered across his shirt.
Jenny ran to him. "Oh my god, Miller, you've been shot!"
"I have? " Miller said, as he looked himself over. "Oh, the blood. 'Fraid it ain't mine, darling. Had to patch up a grunt who took a nasty mortar hit in the gut of all places. You know I was once an army medic."
"What dilemma did you say you fixed? "
"Our time problem."
"Excuse me? " Jenny replied. "But isn't World War II still being fought in my son's bedroom? "
"Yes, precisely my point."
"What in the blazes are you saying? " Jenny screamed. Jenny's scream sent Karen running for Martin's arms.
"I have established where the portal is," Miller proudly announced.
"So we won't be going back in time anymore? " Jenny took a stab.
"Not exactly, now you understand I haven't eliminated the flies totally," Miller said coyly.
Jenny's screech could have broken several dishes but didn't. Once she calmed down and comforted her children she turned back to Miller who was standing, rubbing his ringing ears.
"Listen, it's the first step. Remember, I'm a professional. I've been doin' this for years."
Chamberlin County Fire and Rescue were very confused and not the least bit amused, although quick in their response time, when arriving to set out the napalm fire that scorched Jenny's backyard.
Jenny gave up supplying explanations and just listened to the firefighters go on and on about the dangers of napalm.
"You're fired!" bellowed Jenny at Miller.
"Wow, where's the fire little lady? " Miller said before looking out the window to see the fire trucks pulling away.
"No more excuses, I want results," Jenny snapped.
"C'mon, don't look at me like that," Miller, laughed. Jenny did not.
Miller said nothing else as he methodically went back to work.
"You're upright, Miller, this is definitely better," Jenny, replied trying not to lose her temper. Standing in her laundry room, or what was left of it, were President Nixon and an entire camera crew. Jenny's washer and dryer now held up the president's desk in the oval office.
"Well, I'll be..." Miller said. "Old tricky Dick, himself. Gotta love him."
"Hey, isn't this his resignation speech? "
"Sounds like the one."
The time flies then buzzed around Nixon's head and he was gone just in time too as a mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex burst through the wall and snapped up the washer and dryer.
"Wonder if the warranty covers that? " Miller asked.
Jenny pulled him away so he was not lunch for the T. Rex.
"When am I getting my life back, Miller? "
"Soon, promise."
"How soon? "
"All we have to do is tent the house."
The tent over the house was extremely unnerving to Jenny, it could have been that she and the kids were quiet living inside of it at the time of the fumigation, Jenny was too tired to discuss it.
"This is a can't miss dilemma solver, you'll see," Miller said cheerfully.
"Then why didn't we do this in the first place? "
"Calm, we must listen," Miller replied ignoring the question.
The next morning, Jenny awoke to the sound of her alarm clock. A sound she had opinion she would never miss hearing. She was wrong. She hopped out of bed, raced to check on the kids, they were sleeping in their beds, safe and in no danger of being eaten, crushed or shot by history.
Room by room she inspected there was nothing out of the ordinary.
There were no battles in either kid's rooms, nor were any dinosaurs chasing the local dogs. Noah had finally vacated her shower and there was no oval office in the laundry room.
A knock on the front door, Jenny opened it and saw Miller standing there smiling.
"You did it," Jenny exclaimed.
"We did it, and thank you." Miller blushed.
"No, thank you." Jenny gave Miller a hug. He blushed even more.
"If you ever have another problem like this again, just look me up," Miller said handing Jenny the bill and his business card.
"I hope I never see you for this reason again," Jenny laughed.
Later, while Jenny was still cleaning up from her and her kids adventure the front door opened and someone walked in.
Jenny rushed to the door with an arrow that had stuck in picture. Max, her husband, stood there holding a gallon of milk.
"I'm home," he announced.
Jenny eyed him then hugged him mightily. Martin and Karen were down stairs in a flash and immediately on their father.
"Where have you been? " Karen asked.
"I just went out to obtain some milk, you guys act as if it has been years since you've seen me."
"We're unbiased glad you're home," Jenny said squeezing her husband.
"Boy, it does seem like I've been gone for some time," Max said.
They then made their device to the kitchen. Jenny began to sizzle some bacon as Max reached for the door to the refrigerator. As he was placing the new jug of milk into the freezer he noticed on the label.
"This is truly exclusive," Max noted.
"What's that? " Jenny asked.
"This milk is outdated already, I swore I picked up a new one."
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Filed under Getting Rid Of Bed Bugs by on Jan 30th, 2012.
The challenge of this book
The challenge of this book is to get you to read it. It is not a elegant book it tells it like it is. The chronicle does obtain funny at times and I try to lighten it up as grand as I can. But it is met to make you look and pay attention to your children and all the children that are not yours also. Yes it tells my story but who am I really, most likely you do not care. It is to make you understand that today is the same as 20 years ago or even 30 or 40 years ago. Deviants are still out in just as much force as they were all those years ago. It is a challenge to them to practice their craft undetected. To prove to you and I that they are smarter than us and can still practice their craft in open waters and not get caught. Do not fool yourself they are grand smarter than you will ever know and very few of them find caught. So few that todays children will be just as ruined as you and I.
As I write this the supreme court struck down a ruling to kill child molesters. I have to ask myself why, a molester is a killer. Just of another kind. They remove souls before the victim is dead at least the grim reaper waits till you die. How do I get you to pay attention or for that matter get this published so at least you can have the choice to read it. Am I any different than the other billion or so raped and molested adults who have suffered their entire life. Yes I am. Here is why I care I care enough to assert for free where ever I am called. I care enough to step in and design myself heard in a bad spot. I care enough to die for your child, for any child anywhere who needs me I will be their. My whisper will be loud and strong and clear. Dying for my beliefs is not a problem to me and never has been. I have stood in front of men with guns to achieve a child thankfully I have never been shot atleast by him, but none the less I have stood in front of a gun blocking a child not my absorb. Thinking if you pull that trigger and shoot me in the belly I will break your neck before I die.
I have stood between a woman and a man who was going to beat her shaking so uncontrollably worried he would notice and he did not. All he saw and heard was me saying hey hit me. I am 5 '8" 200 pounds I am a match for any man and I really do not like to many of them.
How do I get you to take part in this. How can I make your voice as loud as mine. How do I get you to stand in front of a man with a gun and have the courage to die for anothers child. How do I pick up you to pay attention and see things that are not correct and quiz it. Make yourself heard. This book will not inspire you to do such a thing.
And because you do not do it does not mean you are a coward. Quit simply it means I am not that bright and never have been the brights bulb on the chandelier very far from it. I am the kind of person who acts and does not think and believe me im not sure it is the best way to be but Im salubrious with it because all I ever wanted to do was make a difference and I know I have. But not enough times. When I die Im sure they will say she was stupid but then they will also say was that really a woman. So what the hey.
Until my youngest daughter was 9 I could not wash any of
my children below the neck. I was so afraid all those
years that BOB lived within me.
My kids have looked at me many a time and wondered and down right asked if I took the little bus to school. I said only in math. Oh and also science and top-notch grief algebra. But I did like art and drafting I got kicked out photography when the FBI paid a visit to my house and a few others. But what the hey we were kids not smart enough to think about being full time criminals or counterfeiters. To us we were just taking pictures and it was neat. So yes I do have an FBI file but then so do you you just do not know it as do most people from the 60's to the late 70's it was fair that time period. Any of us could have been russian spies. You know the whole blond hair blue ogle thing. And of course I have brown hair and brown eyes with olive skin. As you would guess not native to england but other countries that did not sing english. But of course I pronounce english well I speak southern english and am proud of it. But I do not deem the south will rise again.
So enough of the stupid stuf serve to my challenge How do I get you to be that person. I will have to suppose you about uncle BOB. And of course uncle BOB also has an FBI file as he had a friend he worked with who was arrested for selling secrets to the russians. Hey what can I say it was the 60's and the 70's I guess the russians paid good because their sure were a lot of people arrested during that time.
But uncle BOB was smarter than the FBI he never got caught not by them not by my mother not by anyone. He had honed his craft and his ability to lie beyond anyones dreams. I believe he also was working for the russians how else could he have been so good at lying.
But wait could it have been the Russian master plan send in the early 20's and 30's a boat load of child molesters over here. Have them work and hone their craft all those years and end entire generations of americans. Ya thats it my goodness they were much smarter than originally thought. Because after they did that who would need to invade a country where the children would kill their parents and their offspring.
Maybe I should have worked for the FBI (yeah right) wrong.
Bob of course a man who did not believe in GOD and working for an aerospace company that built rockets and other multimillion dollar wastes of yours and my money. Used to tell his story about aliens. He used to say if their were aliens why would they come here. It would be like us going to the moon and finding a herd of cows. Why would we land we would just radio wait on that their was cows on the moon and fly away. Then arrive back and kill them later.
Let me give you and the US government my take on aliens whether they cross the border or fly here from a distant galaxy. First off stop wasting my money and Social Security benefits on people who do not speak english. Second I do not care if their is life on other planets. Let them come to us because if they do they are much smarter than us and if you found them you would just want to go to war with them over the moon or mars or even the sun. Please give up this whole have to rule everything thing it is a waste of the most precious thing we have our children. I did not make my children so you can kill them. Now for every person who wants to rule something go fight for it by yourself.
Because in this country you will find an underlying core of people who will stop you when you get to them. Do not send my or anyone else's children to do your dirty work be man enough to stand toe to toe with the ruler of another country and slug him in the face and knock him out or get knocked out either is fine with me as long as no child gets afflict for you. Because one day the mothers of this country will rise up and fight for our children and when we do it will get ugly.
We know where to hit yall(lol)
Can you imagine if any of our past presidents actually got in a fist fight with the other guy. Yes fighting is unimaginative but a one on one fist fight with the other guy. Id pay to see that and vote for that guy. After all a drunk guy in a bar fight can usually hold no grudge after the fight the other guy is his friend then. Im sorry Pres. Carter but I would have had to put my money on the other guy. But then if your brother billy had been the pres. at that time it would have been a good fight and funny also. Ya know the whole guy thing. Imagine how many children would have their mother or father and how many parents would have their boys or girls. It would truly be a titanic world to live in then. Because it would all be figured out and mothers would teach their sons much different.
Once again im going to pick on past Pres. Carter the whole volunteer building homes thing and raising money. The whole habitat for humanity thing goes against everything a pres. does. What are you trying to do make the country assume? That you are a capable guy. For GODs sake you were the pres. of this country you on more than one occasion gave the order to extinguish a family in another country. Do you believe because you did it in another country if makes it Ok. War crimes acts are a funny thing can you imagine an American pres. or vice pres. being arrested in a country who indicted them for war crimes.
My mother one time beat up the neighbor for dragging
her child by the hair. That child was me.
People think about this our pres. can not go to certain countries without the fear of being arrested and tried for war crimes. George W Bush and other high ranking US government officials. What does that tell you about what they do as a job and former Pres. Carter acts as if he did not do the same thing. Maybe for him it is about atonement.
Sorry for getting off track I tend to do that. Ok back to saving the world. First off why do we need to go support to the moon? This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of and again a waste of my Social Security. Almost 50 years ago we found out their are not even any cows their much less air or water which happens to be a very vital thing for humans. We found out then their is nothing we can do their.
Then reflect about this what if we do do something their. What is that called terra-forming or something stupid like that. What if you make it so somehow the moon crashes into the earth because you changed something that was not supposed to be changed. Now give me a break Mars a planet so far away we can not pick up their and get back. I contemplate mars is like 250 million miles from earth. How many years does it assume to get their Huh all I know is this it takes way to long to fly to Australia forget 250 million miles from earth. Australia is like 5000 miles from where I live.
So guys give it a rest yall have spent way to much of my social security on mars. At least the moon I can recognize at night. It is dead and will always be dead. And yalls ego's can not bring it back to life.
Then their is that other stupid thing. The space site. what are yall thinkin here. Did yall gawk star trek one to many times. Are yall thinkin it is going to be a space port. For what? It is not big enough to be a factory and never will be and everything yall experiment with their will never be able to be mass produced at least not up their. Every year billions of dollars are wasted for things not on this earth and in space. I as a tax paying dilapidated want to know why yall waste all this money. For things that will never come to be. The thing will never be able to hold more than three people. Because the escape vehicle can acquire no more than three people.
Imagine how much money would be saved if these programs did not exist. We do not really need then anyways. How much less of all the bad stuff would be out their that ruins this planet. I say keep those scientists to world saving the earth because it has a few main life supporting ingredients needed to keep life going here and keep the earth from becoming mars.
A funny thing to think about. Each country on the space station doing secret experiments And hiding it from each other. Now that is a funny thought. Or if one country gets exasperated at the other and the other has the bathroom up their. Or one day a Russian and US space walkers are doing a walk and we go to war. Someone is not coming back from that situation walk. Inter government cooperation funny one.
One more stupid space thing. That telescope whatever it is called hubble or something like that. I get my pictures at walgreens for like six bucks. Who in their apt mind pays like 4 billion dollars for a narrate. Now granted one of them was really attractive but 4 billion dollars worth no. Let that stupid thing fall out of the sky at least it will be fine burning up in the sky and we can see it. It cost like 20 million dollars to fix it never mind if our most precious resources die going to it or coming back from it. It is not worth one human life nothing in dwelling is worth one human life and we have lost more than one already.
But is it not so like egos and man to do things without having the answers first. Here is what I say I set aside my life and money where my mouth is. Before you can fix anything you have to know how to fix it. Right here everyday we are confronted with such things as global warming poverty dying children aids and host of other things. Lets fix this planet first we are a mess and getting worse so others can explore places we can not live. If terra forming is what you want to do we have more than a few deserts on earth that could use terra forming. The government is supposed be for the people and by the people. How is mars for the people?
Here is what's for the people. Laws that really work punishments that fit the crime. Holding ourselves to the same standards that we inquire of of everyone else. Being accountable for our believe actions and excepting responsibility for things we have done wrong and the people we have wronged. Trying everyday to make a difference in the best way we can.
Okay on to the aliens already here.
I do not know what to really say here. But im clear as I write it will come as it always does. Okay lets look at this with commence eyes not rose colored glasses and not x-ray specks either. What has happened and will continue to happen is loyal simple.
America has had terrorists for a very long time why are yall timid now. I was born in California. In 1959 I was in school from 1960 something till 1977 Those of you on border states other than california also know this. Mexicans did not just start coming here on 9/11 as a child they picked in the strawberry fields of california. They lived on the ranches and worked them this is nothing modern and still happens today. Their are just far less strawberries fields.
By my recollection we have allowed them to live here for 49 years. We have allowed them to form their gangs which in my opinion are also terrorist organizations. We just gave them another name. Do not be fooled in countries like england IRA is a terrorist group. How many members define a gang a cult or terrorist cell. Their was three men living in San Diego they called them a terrorist cell. I would say roughly half the population of california is mexican if we went to war against Mexico today they would lift california no problem except for maybe the red neck parts.
Honestly why are we wasting our time. California is not that great it has earth quakes. It is hot as hell and as the song says it never rains. And if the earthquake people are right it is going to fall into the ocean anyways. Their are lots of people and companies who have hedged their bet by buying property on the other side of san andres fault in hopes of it becoming beach front property one day. All we have to do is give it back and wait because most of mexico is also as low as california and if it does fall in the ocean the ocean will rise and end most of them.
Here is the other thing it is not that person walking on foot across the 125 degree california desert that we need to worry about. They die everyday crossing the california desert for a better life. Its the guys in vehicles that can with stand the hot california desert. They are the ones with the money. We never enforced it why worry now we did it. For years the border states have complained to the US government about this plight it fell on deaf ears till 9/11
Fences give me a break our dog digs out all the time. A moat in Texas they have the rio grande river they swim it everyday hence the name wet back I think that river is in Texas im not exact good with geography sorry.
Once again every year billions are spent trying to keep people out of this country that at one time we did very little to keep them from coming over here. We are simply reaping what we sow and it hurts and is bleeding. To us mexico is like the moon with cows they really have nothing we need or want except mexican food and we have taco bell already. It is pretty noteworthy a lawless country and does not allow people to prosper within its gain borders.
Who in their accurate mind would choose to be singled
out made fun of harassed beat up or even
killed because of the sexual orientation
You behold their children have the same thing our children have the american dream. We gave it to them when we paid them and they sent it home to mexico. Once again stop wasting my social security on problems that can never be solved. Figure out how to create it work it is to behind to send them home.
Heres my solution take the damn fence down. In some places on the border their is no fence at all why exertion about it anymore. Stop the bleeding. Whether we like it or not we have done this it is taking way to much effort and money and is doing nothing. They dig tunnels people. Americans profit from bringing them here and from them working for them. I have a friend who owns a business in california. Here is what he says.
He employees nothing but Illegal aliens. They dont care they are not coming here to pick up them and he is right. He owns a business in L.A. a place where INS sweeps the bus stations. But they never sweep his business he has been doing this for over 30 years and they have never once been to his business. Even though former employees have called what is now known as ICE.
One trusty big jam is this even though you were born here does not mean you fly the american flag or even believe in it. But if you were born here and fly a flag of another country in your yard you can work for the american government. In order to make a difference in anything you have to believe in it. And befriend it 100 percent not 50 percent or even 75 percent.
I stand by my flag I proved it some 28 years ago that I will die for the stars and stripes. Have you? You will never burn an american flag in front of me.
We are one country the United states of america not the USA and everyone else. People approach here to live a life they can not live in their own countries that is fine. Open the borders let them come in make them encourage. Make them pledge to one flag the one they would die to live the life of. Nobody is trying to sneak into mexico or for that matter canada. Our flag is red white and blue and to those who have served it means something. And if the american flag means nothing to you then go home.
Our sons and daughters have to serve so if they want to be here they should have to serve no matter what their age. They should have to wait on and make what our soldiers make and live like they have to live and fight even if it is against their possess country.
This is the only device they should be allowed to be here. It hurts me to think our boys and girls serve so they can live here like I do.
Wow I hope I made myself sure on that one.
Thats what I think about that yes it is full of emotion Might need a smiley face.
Do you know an Uncle BOB?
Intro
First lets start with fully 1/3 of the proceeds from this book if it sells will go for me to move to my speaking venues since I do not find paid to speak and fund it with my own money. It is my hope that this book will allow me to reach many people who I could not approach before.
When you write a book such as this you have to decide am I doing this to hurt someone or even an entire family. It is very easy to get lost in the whole revenge thing. And what better way to score revenge. Then to write a book and name names and families.
I have been asked to write a book about my life. I have often wondered what would I write and who really wants to know about a child who was born both boy and girl. Does anyone really want to read this stuff. People assume if you are both boy and girl you are that plan because you want to be. People say you can determine to be one I tried. Through out this book their will be little parts of me telling you how hard it was to be one.
A friend asked me one time if I was writing a book about my life. I sent her assist an email With LOL in it. I have learned through the years that even though I know how badly I have been damaged. People look at me and see what they think is a strong person. A rock. They could not be farther from the truth. I have spent my entire life on the edge always afraid of what may lurk deep inside me. I have spoke at hundreds of gatherings both at schools and businesses. I have tried to educate any and everyone who would listen.
I told that friend of mine their is a point in life where it no longer becomes about one person. It becomes about the silenced the dead the dying those who's souls have been stolen by these people. Looking into the empty eyes of another because of what a sex crazed person had done to them as a child.
No this is not about revenge yes I have named names but only first names. Yes I have named cities where this person lives and where this person worked. But the truth is. Nobody in his family will read this as their is only one sister left. And his brother is a man with grown children. Plus I have changed a few details about myself.
It is written to benefit those who will read it and put it into action. For those mothers who just do not know what is happening. For the grandmothers who will most likely read it and pass it on. if you have read this book pass it on just give it away. To someone anyone most preferably a mother. Help a child pay attention you can never be to aware.
Do you know an Uncle Bob
What I am going to tell you is a true story and his name was uncle BOB well Bob but he was an uncle.
But what I first want you to know is I am a grown adult and am very well aware of what saying what I am about to say can do to a persons life and would never ever perform up a lie to hurt another for any reason. I would not knowingly or with any type of ill intent set out to demolish an innocent persons life.
It is a look at a child molester and rapist to explain you just how common he was and is today. Uncle Bob had three sisters Lena bell Arla and Charlotte and two brother they called them Jack and buddy. Uncle Bob was and composed is a child molester and a rapist. Bobs brothers jack and buddy. Jack had two children jeff and shanda, Bobs sister charlotte had two children Gary and stephen, Arla had two children Stephan and celeste, Bobs sister Lena have an adopted boy. Buddy had a daughter I forget her name she was a nut. Bob had a lot of choices besides his adopted child and one bio daughter Michelle.
Bob worked for a mammoth aerospace company in Redondo Beach California. He built such space craft as the moon hopper and the rover. He also worked on the star wars program. He loved to purchase pictures and go down in broken-down mines with his brother Jack. He had a darkroom in his garage where he played with cameras and children namely me. He seemed to be very smart and he was (hence) the word deviant.
deviant |ˈdēvēənt|
adjective
departing from usual or accepted standards, esp. in social or sexual behavior : deviant behavior | a deviant ideology.
• chiefly offensive homosexual.
noun
a deviant person or thing.
ORIGIN tedious Middle English : from late Latin deviant- 'turning out of the way,' from the verb deviare (see deviate ).
deviant
adjective
deviant behavior aberrant, abnormal, atypical, anomalous, irregular, nonstandard; nonconformist, perverse, uncommon, unusual; freakish, exclusive, odd, peculiar, bizarre, eccentric, idiosyncratic, unorthodox, exceptional; warped, perverted; informal kinky, quirky. antonym normal.
noun
we were seen as deviants nonconformist, eccentric, maverick, individualist; outsider, misfit; informal oddball, weirdo, freak, screwball, kook, odd duck.
Outlandish DUCK, ABNORMAL,IRREGULAR
Bob did not believe in GOD he was a self proclaimed atheist. Good way for a man like him to be.
People looked up to Bob thinking he was a very smart man. They objective never knew how smart Bob was. At a time in life when men at his work were being arrested for selling secrets to the russians. He was perfecting his craft learning how not to get caught. How to accomplish it look like a rope a dope. A boxing term for showing one thing and doing the exact opposite.
For most purposes he seemed to be like all other men except he had a thing for animals namely dogs and his step child. Nobody ever knew what was hid beneath him and inside him. He knew before he even started he had to have a plan. A way to discredit a child if accused. So he like so many other deviant's set out to make a child look like a liar no matter what. That is a opinion and is why and how they act as they do.
Even today he is polishing his skills. How does he do it? Who does he settle? It is simple the best targets for him are unnerved children early to late teens. In trouble in school most likely trouble with the law and never believed these are his perfect targets. He looks for single mothers desperate for some sort of relieve in their lives. Usually troubled themselves drugs alcoholics working as a waitress making very little money. Willing to accept all he has to offer them.
It is surprising how well they perfect this. How easy they conception and attack a child. How normal it all seems. How nobody ever suspects a thing. Smart I do not think that smart truly is a suitable enough word to describe how they work. Smart implies they did something well or good. But they are beyond well or good. I would use words like bright masterful cunning. They put up such a front they make you reflect that they hate this child even striking it with their balled up fist as to show hate and disdain for the way this child acts. Making this child afraid that they will ruin it and the mother also. All the while when the mother is gone and he is alone with this child who wants this person to admire it and will do anything to feel like this man loves him or her.
The worst part is this. The child most likely to young to know about sex and what is right or wrong. Goes on with the game not everything about sex hurts as a matter of fact after time nothing about sex hurts.
He moves them into his home takes them on vacations wines and dines them buys them cars all the time having his way with their child. They are to grateful and to blind to see what he is doing. He offers to take the children places and do things with them like camping with daddy in a tent alone out in the woods. Where he is safe if something goes wrong their is no one to say yes he did accept a child with lots off problems and a mother who is not listening or does not believe him or her. Good old uncle Bob would never do such a thing. Good stale uncle Bob a deviant a pervert a soul stealer.
If you ask his family he is the perfect man. If you ask the right person say me he is a liar and a deviant. Not caring who he hurts as long as he has a toy and a child.
I watched BOB for years and listened to him and my mother. I never let him arrive my children. I listen to him and my mother as I said. And sometimes thought ya know maybe it is all just me. Maybe I had a dream of being held face down on the bed face stuffed into a pillow and a penis being rammed inside me. Maybe Im wrong maybe it did not happen at all. Maybe one of my friends told me what their father had done to them and I was making it mine.
Then I remember I was only 10 and did not yet know what a penis was for or anything else about them. It was the early 70's sex was not a talked about thing in our house it was hushed taboo not spoken about by my mother.
I had not reached junior high school yet and had not had sex education yet. So if I did not know what one was yet how could I have ever had that kind of dream. It is then that I know my mother was wrong. On her death bed she told me your father would never hurt you. Why did she say that I had never told her what he had done. It is then that I realized that my mother must have known. And if she did why did she not kill him? Why did she not stand up for her own child? Why did she just let it go? Why did she not tell my father?
Better yet where was my father and why did he not like me enough to make sure I was not being hurt. Heres to you Jerry when they called me to give blood because we were the same I gave for you. I guess I loved you more than you ever loved me and I have no memory of you. You are my only parent and the grandfather of my children and still you hide(in phoenix)
You may say why does she mention Jerry? Here is why mothers listen up and listen good remember this one thing if you remember nothing else from this book. Even though sometimes real fathers do distress their families. The occurrence of a accurate parent hurting their own child is remarkable lower than a step parent. Im not saying all step parents hurt their step children Im saying the odds are far better for your children that if you do divorce and have another man in your children's life watch him it does not matter boy or girl their are a lot of men out their who have been raped by a parent and nobody ever finds out because they are to ashamed to tell.
Now How much can I really enlighten you about uncle BOB. To tell a lot about him and his actions would be saying I turned out just like him and I did not. And as I say if you have never robbed a bank and gotten away with it you might not want to try because you will most likely get caught.
Here is what I can tell you he was very average for the time. You say very average what the heck is that. If you did not know what he did you would never expect that he was that type of person. He never gave any clue's that I know of. He blended in like one of those lizzards. But of course I made a point of not being home when he was and was known for being gone from sun up to long after sunset when my mother came home and even then it still happened in his darkroom. One thing I can mutter you I have lived my entire life with fear. Fear that one day BOB would show his head and I would act just like him and hurt a child. I have not and have never had the thoughts. But I have had the nightmares but thats another chapter and maybe another book on dreams and their meaning.
But none the less that does not take away the fright. The stale saying you lie down with dogs you gain up with fleas was coined for a reason and is true. well I am a simple person and have to believe their are people way smarter than me in this world. And the one thing they say is if you were molested you will molest. I do not yet know if that is right but as of today it is not. But I still live with that fear and on my death bed I hope I can say that is one statistic that is wrong. And that I am living proof well I would not be then but when I lived I was living proof it was wrong.
Anyways back to BOB objective your average guy to most people as a matter of fact all people but me. Even today my family thinks me a liar. And that I just want to get back at him for some reason for which I have no idea. People do not understand in my mind their is no price high enough to pay for what he has done. And why would I waste my time with amusing lies I am grown and certainly understand what saying this means. It show's you these people work long after they have committed the original crime to hide it and will work their angle their entire life to stay hidden. As I stated brilliant cunning masterful!
If you had ever met BOB without reading this book and knew who he was you would never suspect never.
In the beginning
Somewhere deep in the pages of all of this book is me. I wish I had someone to thank for all that has happened in my life. Or someone to pay respects to for me being me. Or even someone to blame.
Their is no one. My mother a woman born on the streets of Detroit tough hardly a woman any man would choose to mess with. Died in the fight of her life. I loved her but she hated me.
My mother taught me to be tough. She taught me how to fight and stand up for me my mother knew my life was going to be hell. My mother one time beat up the neighbor for dragging her child by the hair. That child was me.
My mother had always taught us to respect our elders and we did what my mother taught as we knew she would kill us. She coined the phrase long before Bill Cosby did I brought you into the world I will acquire you out and we believed it. While my stepfather was busy bugging our rooms all she did was ask and got the answer first time. I never shared a room. I always had my beget room. While my sisters had the same room. It was much cooler than mine but of course i did have Elvis.
Their was never any question as to would the punishment fit the crime it never did. At least thats how we felt. But then I grew up in a time where mom came with the belt or the cord and you knew it was going to hurt.
So you knew always do what mom says and never sass back. You knew if she was mad it was going to hurt. So we did our best not to get caught.
All that being said one day the neighbor told my mother as he was dragging me by the hair that I had told him to @##@ off. I am here to tell you that never happened and my mother never questioned as to if I did say it. She knew I knew that I would be punished beyond belief if I ever said that word. To this day I do not and never have said that word. Or the half past a freckle joke soap is not a good thing. I can still remember the taste of that soap almost 40 years later.
She told him that I would never say such a thing and to let go of her child. He did not at least until he was falling to the ground. With one punch my mother had knocked out the neighbor. Did I mention my grandfather the late large was a boxer. And a pool shark he taught at the cue club in vegas. He was the best. He knew Sammy Davis Junior that was way cool to me.
When I stare in the Mirror I see my mother. My mother was cold to her children pretty much without emotion. Why I do not know but I think its because she had lost a child. My what would have been older brother Steven. I so wish he had survived i would like to have an older brother. I am not cold to my children
My father I never knew him. I have no memory of him. He is alive and lives in Arizona somewhere. One night support in the 1980's I got a phone call. She never said who she was but said my father needed me to donate blood. As he had been caught by another man sleeping with that mans wife and he cut his throat from ear to ear. The next day I did but I never heard anything else. He obviously knew where I lived and my phone number. To my Father Jerry in Arizona I love u. He conventional to live in Houston I think.
The only man I knew as a father lives in Garden grove ca. and still does he is a child molester. Uncle BOB To him I say thanks for all the memories and fear.
In the beginning how do I start in the beginning. My doctors have told me I have blocked out all of the bad stuff. Well if that is true then your mind objective makes up more bad stuff. I have blocked out to me most of the qualified stuff or my life as child is much worse than I ever view or remember.
Ok here is how I start in the beginning my friends have said just tell your story and people will listen. I never tell my story it is hard enough to face daily. And on more than one occasion I have found what drugs will just create you sick or do nothing in the way of ending your life. Yes I have tried. Always the wrong meds.
I was born in a time that when a child was born both sexes they took drastic measures. I have wondered about my mothers choices. But then I have seen some butchered adults born both sexes in the 50's and 60's. My mother tried to raise me boy but found out you can not fight mother nature or the natural selection process or natural selection of attraction to another human being. I learned at a very early age sexual orientation is something you are born with you do not acquire it and it is not learned.
Let me stray for a moment from me and my life. As I became and adult I really began to understand things and I want to share them with you. I am not gay I was born both sexes today we are called inter sex people and we exist in many forms. And most of us live our entire lives alone because who wants to be with someone like us. I got lucky in that respect I did not live most of my life alone. I have six children and I gave birth to all of them.
Anyways relieve to sexual orientation.
I want you to assume about a few things.
Who in their just mind would settle to be singled out made fun of harassed beat up or even killed because of the sexual attraction. Now girls judge about this have you ever been around that guy. You know the one he made you swum he made you go Oh my gosh. He said no words to you, you were unprejudiced their and all of sudden you became flustered and had this terrible attraction to a man you did not even know and could do nothing to control the attraction but leave as quickly as you could. Here is some info for you they say a women knows the minute she meets a man by his facial features what type of man he is. Facial features. They say we can tell right away what kind of man he is.
Men do not have this ability. Men do not have the same feelings they never get around a woman and go Oh my gosh and have to run off because of a strange and overwhelming feeling of attraction.
Natural selection based on sexual identity and orientation. They say the strongest steroid in the world are hormones. Some women body builders occupy male hormones to get bigger and men take more male hormones to earn stronger.
steroid |ˈsterˌoid; ˈsti(ə)r-|
noun Biochemistry
any of a large class of organic compounds with a characteristic molecular structure containing four rings of carbon atoms (three six-membered and one five). They include many hormones, alkaloids, and vitamins.
• short for anabolic steroid .
The point is next time you look at a gay man or woman know this it is not a choice and never was. It was the natural selection process we enjoy.
To all of you who say it is wrong and against GOD and The Bible. Let me remind you of this. If you are Christian and believe in either the old or new testament. It tells us before we were born. Our life was written in the book of life everything was known about us by GOD before we were born. Do you honestly think a simple human being threw GOD a curve ball. If you believe a human could do that you do not have to much faith in GOD. If GOD did not want you to be born you would not be period.
More about me
So anyways my mother insistent on raising me as boy. I now know why but thats another chapter. For a very long time I really knew no different. I can vividly remember my first protest to being boy. I was six. I did not want a barbie I did not want a dress. My mother called me her limited boy. I said I was not a boy i was a girl that ended with a slap to the face and a scolding. This would be repeated many times in my life from my mother. Because of course as time goes on the feelings of being self aware grow. As time went on I graduated to my own life my mother could not stop me. But she also would not buy me any clothes I wanted and stopped taking me shopping with her. I can remember telling my mother that girls got all the best clothes because they had flowers and color which at this time boys clothes had stripes. All of my friends were girls I had no sexual attraction to any of them as far as I was concerned I was one of them. I later found out I was not when one of them took her clothes off for me one day. My only thought was wow I will examine like that soon enough. Nothing could be more contaminated I never knew what was coming. I never knew what those pills were until long after they had done their damage to me.
While the pills were male hormones the one thing they never did was change my sexuality. They never made me want to be with a girl nothing did yes I know hormones are mind altering. The only thing I can say to that is that they were not for me. I never had a sexual attraction to any gender for years. My friends would wonder why my mother would allow me and my girlfriends to go in my room and close the door. My mother knew nothing would happen and nothing ever did.
Nothing ever happened till a boy touched me. He was unsure of his have identity and had been raped by a another boy. Now do not misunderstand what Im saying here. By the time a boy touched me i was already being raped by my stepfather. And did not know I was pregnant with my stepfathers child. You see despite all my mothers attempts to make me a boy my stepfather was making sure I would never be a boy. I already knew what that touch felt like. And this boy was my best friends boy friend and I did not really like him anyways and he thought I was a boy. Something I was not willing to explore with anyone was my private parts.
I knew if I did the whole city of Garden Grove and the whole school also would know about me. Life was already tough enough for me. I could go in neither the boyz locker room or the girls I had to change in the coaches office in a closet. I was not edifying in the pool. I lived the first 12 years of my life in horror more that people would find out about me. I was never afraid they would find out what my stepfather was doing. I was afraid some of the boyz would find out and I would be distress. All my teachers knew and one was really bad to me for no reason. His name was Mr. Mendez my mother spot him straight one day but that did not change him and the way he looked at me.
I can remember the horror of the first time I walked into the boyz locker room. Yes Boyz yes they were nekid and yes I saw and wanted to gaze but one big predicament as soon I would take off my pants someone would see I had nothing down their. This alone would get me killed. I knew boys who beat up gay men coming out of a gay bar and just knew they would think me gratified. I remember the room spinning, I remember the shear horror of what was about to happen to me, I knew I was about to faint and could do nothing to keep my legs under me from turning to jello and lights from going out all I remember was it all got dark. I woke in the hospital with stitches in my head and my mother looking very mad. It was on this day I was told I was 12 weeks pregnant with my mother and the whole world in the room. I was 14 my mother demanded to know who's it was I said I did not know. I at this time I knew nothing about how babies were born or conceived. We never had the sex talk as far as I was concerned or knew it was in the water. When I got my period she had nothing to do with me. It was almost like she hated me. She shipped me to my grandmother in Tn. to have my baby.
So you wonder what restroom did I use I learned to hold it till P.E. when I could us the coaches restroom. I got real good at holding it. Till this day I can hold it for 8 to 10 hours I can go to sleep having to pee and pick up up in the morning and go. Even today I face some of the same problems as today more than ever now I gawk more like a man than a woman.
Today I have to pay complete attention to where the restrooms are and if I may run into a child or not either boy or girl does not matter. If I am in a fast food joint and their is more than one stall in the women restroom I can not go in. I may run into a tiny girl whom I may scare the same with the mens. Because of my mother and how I was born I have to produce choices everyday most people never think of.
I still face the very same fear of locker room 28 years after the very first time. I was riding the train one day from San Diego to L.A. union station. I had to use the restroom but the trains was small so I waited till I got to the train station. I got off the train and headed for the restroom. Well im here to roar you if you have been to union station in L.A. you know what im talking about it is a busy position and the restrooms are unbiased horrible you do not dare sit down. as I walk towards the restroom I could stare a line 20 or 30 people out the door of the women's so I thought ok I ll use the mens. As i walked in the smell of urine was so strong it hit me like a train and all of a sudden I could feel my legs giving way. I turned around even though I was only maybe 6 steps in and ran. It was so overwhelming their are no words to describe it. Same stuff 28 years later.
Did I mention I was a marine yup me a marine (LOL)
So after all the stupid stuff of high school I wanted to run and did straight to the marines.I took my son to my grandmother where he stayed till I got out of boot camp. The only place that said hey wait you are not a guy. You are a girl. Ok this was the 70's women we were coming into our own but none the less that does not mean they wanted us in the service they did not. Girls yall got it lucky today they have come along intention since the 70's. Their wasn't very many of us so they did what they could at best it was crude and the instructors were men and did not want us their. The service was for men not for women. Now yall get combat rolls. Then that was not going to happen. Yes they trained us for combat. I remember very vividly throwing a hand grenade or should I say dropping it right on the ground in front of the whole world. The man wrote a great big spastic on my back. I mean give me a wreck. They put a live grenade in your hand and tell you to throw it and that you have five seconds. You never saw so many run so fast to grab a live grenade as it fell out of my hand right on the ground in front of 15 or 20 girls. Im here to tell you those men can move fast. Turns out I was going to have to do that again not amusing not even halt.
So then you recede on to other parts of combat training. Like the slide gas room. This room is designed to humiliate men. They give you this gas mask teach you how to clear it and save it on. Ok no big deal. They send you into this room full of tear gas mask on no grand deal then this man comes in and tells you to take the mask off. Thats when it all hits you. Tear gas affects women worse than men we have more moist places then men and it burns. So you take it off then all of a sudden it hits you, you panic because of the extreme burning in your eyes and nose and mouth not to mention the other place that has been burning since you came in and you opinion stout I get a yeast infection now. so you are in complete terror and can not clear your hide or get it succor on. so you go running out of this room with snot hanging to your knee's yes very attractive and crying because you are burning so bad. And at the thought of you are going to have to do this again and again till you get that cover on and obvious it.
So then comes the shooting of the guns this is fun. All you can see is the instructors face about 200 yards or so away and you shoot him. Then if you miss their is someone down in the ground with a stick and a red dot on it to show you where you hit the target. Edifying exertion do not miss here you are looking for the stick and its like 6 targets away from yours the one you were shooting at and their are a few more who have joined that person making a smiley face and laughing at you. Of course it is guys who else would it be. Then to top off the whole gun thing you get a medal. I was an expert for all of you who know that is the lowest in the marines. They call it the toilet seat and I had one.
Did yall know girls bob when they walk. Never knew that never cared to until they taught us to march. You march until someone says stop and you halt till someone says march. In the middle of a San Diego summer in green long sleeves and no hair and blisters on your ears.
Oh ya that one is funny to. When we first got their we had to stand on these yellow feet markings. everyone had to be their by midnight. So here you are standing their and people are coming in they all have hair. Little did we know the next day we would all be bald and have no idea who each other was. Or even if some of us were girls that was kinda scary.
You learn to field strip an m-16 in less than a minute and put it back together in the dark. You learn how to effect mountains of dreary people then stand atop them. Not really something you want to know but you learn it. You learn it because you have no other choices. Because you have a child one you love that depends on you and you are all you have you are alone you and your child. You do it because years earlier the people who were supposed to love you obvious your fate for you. You had no choice or say so in your early life. And now you are facing odds most people will never understand. You will always be judged for who you are. It will always be thought that you made a choice to be this way.
You will be judged the rest of your life. By your children's teachers by other mothers at school by parishioners of your church by the mothers of your church. By your children's friends parents. Your children will not be able to live a normal life either. Their friends will not be allowed at your house because of what their parents think of you. They will not find to know you to form a real conception about you, they will feel sorry for your children and believe that they are lying about being happy. They will believe your children will be lying about how happy your family is. That their is no method your family could ever be happy that you could not possibly be a good mother. All because of how you look.
Distant memories it is early in the morning and I am awake tremendous. I was watching this movie called recruiters on tv just a few minutes ago. Our country is at war right now. I am eating pretzels from staters the butter ones. So you ask why? Because I like them and I can. I still have teeth.
Back to distant memories. Its funny our mind. Kinda like me and the dropping the hand grenade thing. I remember that very well I can still search for it till this day. I can still feel my stepfathers breath on my neck. Only now it has a sickening cringe followed by a chill to go along with it. I wonder why the good memories fade or is it just mine. So many times memories are portrayed as being these things that are life like. My question to yall are your memories life like. Are all of them as intellectual as they are seen when people in movies are remembering back. I know nightmares are that knowing and frightening.
Never understood
Ya know I never understood people. They spend the 20 or 30 years first fraction of life doing drugs and trying to figure out happiness. I often wonder how many people in their later years of life have realized that if they just let life be. let themselves be they will become who they were intended to be. That instead of trying to force life that they just let it go in its own direction. They would find out very shortly what was intended for them. But no the less they force life their parents force life their friends force life. Then what do you get a person who has no clue. Who was never left alone to discover what they were good. We all know what we are wonderful at whether it be suitable with animals or children. Whether it be writing or singing. Whether you are born to lead or born to follow. Their is a place for everything in this world. We can not all own companies. We can not all be actors or politicians. But we all were born to be one thing and to serve one purpose that is to look after and serve each other. What a world it would be if people were not pushed to be one way or another. I think we would have honest politicians because no one would be pushing for their share that was not really meant for then anyways. If something was meant for you truly meant for you it will come your way without lies without deception with pushing. For most people success does not come their draw until after 50 this is known fact. After 50 we are seasoned veterans of life of plan. A clearer view of what is important and critical is achieved. But none the less we cant wait we have to have it now so we push.
Then their are the people that after 30 or 40 years of doing drugs decide it is time to join the human race. To become a person who contributes who wants more. But they have wasted the best years and will never get them help. They try to initiate over at the bottom in their mid 40s. these are the selfish people. The ones who are out only for themselves they put their family second and are willing to ruin their family to do what they should have done 20 years ago. They fight against over welming odds and most often never do anything but put their family through a financial crisis. On occasion one does obtain it into a new trade but none the less they are at the bottom. Most of their bosses are much younger then them and it never really works. Usually these people have worked a trade such as construction and have never really applied their self their also.
Then they fall back right into that same pattern. Some of them become homeless others try their best to beat the system. Calm others just die. As they have no medical care because even as a young person they could not do something as simple as invest 4 years in the service. Which would have given them simple medical care for their life. And saved them from being homeless.
I see it you see they are today hobo's Yes their are exceptions for example california has the working class homeless and poor. People who think living the dream of being homeless in california is far better than say owning a home in Oklahoma or Mississippi Arkansas. What is this about they live somewhere where their children can not eat a regular meal or have a regular bath or health care. California is awash with people who just want to live in California even if they die on the streets. People in California step all over each to live and call living somewhere where you can ask your neighbor to hand you the toilet paper living. Where a home can not be purchased for 35,000 dollars. Where a one bedroom condo costs 5 million dollars.
Something funny as I write this today Oct.27 2008 the world is the middle of a financial melt down. My thoughts on this melt down. It fueled by one country and its need for greed. Break it down even farther by what I would say is 4 states in this country. Here is the breakdown.
Their are some beautiful places to live in this country. First California is not one. But yet people will a million dollars for a home that say in My home town Memphis costs 55,000 dollars.
I was talking to friend of mine who lives in alpine wyoming OMG a beautiful place to live. One big spot the entire Teton valley which is where Alpine is is just west of the Grand Tetons. The town of Alpine has a population of about 2000 people. It is a small town basically in middle of the continental divide. This location when the early settlers came through was known as starvation valley. Winters are brutally cold and long it is an alpine valley only the die hard live their during the winter. The growing season is short for rancher so ranching even though they do a lot of it mostly potato's isn't as estimable as say like alfalfa. But yet people from California land of sunshine and no rain and even less snow in southern ca. mostly sell their homes take the profit and go up to states like wyoming montana idaho and pay prices for land that are unheard of.
You can go to an alpine valley in southern colorado where it gets impartial as icy where the elevation is even higher as it is the highest alpine valley in the USA and buy land for less than 500 dollars and acre San Luis Rey valley Alamosa Colorado it is equally as blooming their. In Alpine an acre of land only because people from California Movie stars and the likes wanta be's live their is over 10,000 dollars an acre and the funny thing is this in these areas the winny southern california relocators are not liked for driving up the price of the land.
Slipping away
My thoughts on Alzheimer's disease
My thought is this. Now that I am getting older
I totally understand it. Its not really a disease at all
Its people and I would say without really having any
real understand. That it affects more women then men.
Guys yall do not concern like we do. The grand majority of yalls
worries come to an end long before ours do. Yes yall die earlier
But we lose our minds earlier.
Why I say that. Our minds as with our bodies were never met
for the worry that is put upon them. I think it is minds working over
time for 50 years or so. Then it just all starts to slip away.
Little by little now I feel my have slipping away.
Little things start to leave. I remember all my childrens birthdays
But the years have slipped away now. I had to ask my daughter
on her birthday how faded she was.
You see we are born to die. Yes it is true living on a ranch and being
around animals makes you aware of how proper this is. Life is a circle
on the ranch ever changing and the rancher knows this every year new
babies are born. And every year others die.
They never know they are dying but we as humans we see them dying
we do all we can to keep it from happening. But never the less no matter
how hard we try we walk in one day and they are dead. It is dead and
painless for them. But it is not for us we see it it hurts our hearts to
see a baby animal dying.
It is the same for us we do not see it as we win older we feel
ourselves getting weaker needing more sleep being in more pain.
Then if we are lucky like the baby animal we fall asleep and
never wake up. We are gone if we live alone it wont be discovered
for some time. Till a friend says I haven't spoke to J in a long time. I
wonder if she is okay. I guess this is why we need a room mate
at least we wont stink up the house.
Normal
It is really funny. I never plan of myself as not being just a normal person. I have at times thought I was retarded though. Childhood aside yes I was raped by my stepfather but lots of girls were. Im not even 1 in a million I am 1 in billions who have been silent about what was done. I carried out my plan for life without the family that supported this man. I kept my children 3000 miles away from him. I never lived in fear that he would do to one of them what he did to me. But back to the point.
I always thought I was just normal other Than the occasional passing belief of be retarded. I went to high school had friends graduated and ran like hell. never looked back never wanted to come back. Once again as of today I am 48 years and 77 days old. I have dealt with a lot, I have been through a lot, I am a sum of a lot of well u can imagine. I have served this country and until 3 years ago no one ever said thanks. One person said it was because of me and the rest of the men and women who serve that immigration is a problem. That was many years ago but Im collected thinking on that one. I have birthed and raised 6 children. I have survived cancer I have survived. I often wonder why? Im no one special as a matter of fact I m less than special. As i said I have always just thought I was normal. I mean normal people at least once in their lives try to kill them selves right. No really a brief stupid moment. I have just said I m trying my best to get from day to day. I was a marine and was shot by some guy sitting in the seat of a jet messing around.
Heck I cant even get shot by the bad guys.
Once again I have gone through a lot. But just thought it was part of this thing called life it sucks. Then one day I had a problem. With a man at work while working nights for a newspaper. No I was nothing special just one of the people who build the adds in the paper. A man started doing and saying things about me. The paper did nothing. I filed a law suit against the paper. I got this great attorney his name was Don. 2 months into the case he calls me 3 days before I go into the hospital and says J I m sorry I cant handle your case anymore. I am going back to work for a firm and can not bring your case with me. But I have a friend who wants to handle your case now come on 3 days before I am supposed to go in the hospital for major surgery fair great. So a friend of mine hears I need another attorney. Did you know in california their are as many attorneys as their are hair dressers. LOL Do you assume the hair dressers know something.
So I get out of the hospital call this high faluting attorney. Who's office is 200 miles from my home and he wants me to reach down and meet him. he ask's me my story he ask's about me what type of person I am he just generally spends about half an hour on the phone with me. As we are talking he says to me have you ever considered living with other people like yourself. I am not gay nor am I a lesbian. I am not a cross dresser. I am nothing that would ever offend anyone so I thought I live my life keep to myself and raise my horses. Their is how ever one big problem I look more like a man than woman. but I live on a ranch I work on a ranch I push around 1500 pound horses I throw 200 pound bales of hay. I do a mans job and love it I am a carpenter by trade. yes I am strong stronger than most men. i have suffered from cancer and the resulting treatments. I have survived. But as i said I never understanding of myself any different than the rest of the world. I have a large group of friends who I do horses and birds with I never have any problems with them. So as we are continuing to talk he makes several statements pertaining to me and my life style. He has never seen me nor has he been to my ranch. but already I am doing something wrong. So we manufacture a date for me to come down their he tells me he will send me the directions to get to his office. Then we hang up. it was funny he never sent me the directions and he never entered the appointment in his book. Funny how people are.
So during this time while Im waiting to meet with him I see this program come on tv it is something about prison life in alabama and their is this man on their claiming he is a women. I thought to myself are you crazy you are a man in a prison for men your not a women. Then at that very moment my life had become positive as a bell. When people gaze me they judge I m crazy. They say You look like a guy are you nuts. It was on that day I realized I am not normal anymore I am the side show attraction. And im sure when I die they will be fighting for my body just so the headlines can read it was a she confirmed.
I guess the funny thing is we all consider ourselves to be normal. No matter what what we behold in the mirror.
What is it that defines normal or not normal. Is their guidelines or even a book. I saw a show about a two headed lamb or maybe a goat I do not remember. I wonder if that goat or lamb or wait even a snake thought it was no normal. I did see the one with the two headed snake also. It said that one of the heads was the dominant head but other than that it thought it was a normal snake. This is mother nature here something we have no control over. Get it again we have no control over mother nature and her course of action when it comes to us, animals or the weather.
So many times people think because someone looks different that that difference carries through to all aspects of their life. For example people think that because i was born both sexes that I must carry a desire for each sex. Why is that? Why can I not just desire one sex one person one love. Why because my body is different are my thoughts different they are not. Why can I not have a normal sex drive? Like all other women. Why do people think my fantasies would not be the same as single sex persons. I do not have two heads I have one, one thought pattern one self awareness, one type of opinion. Why is it that when I catch a spatical test or whatever that test is it does not say Boy and girl. Why is it that it reads only one. (girl)
Why is it that people are so afraid of me. What is it that makes you single out people who are different. Or do people just do it for kicks to take the attention off of themselves. Because I can disclose you one thing their is nothing like being singled out on the street corner for no reason by someone you have never met before. Or being cornered by a person in an elevator on a train platform. Their is nothing to give you away you are alone waiting for the train and all of a sudden someone has a problem with you. You have done nothing but yet you are confronted and faced with having to deal with this man. All alone now people say J you are a big girl you can easily defend yourself against anything a man would do to you. Yes this is true but it tranquil does not make things any less scary in life.
All of a sudden this person wants to know are you a man or a woman. The first thing that comes to your mind is what have I done to you? How do you know me at all I have never met you or ever seen you before. Their is nothing like being called a liar because you have not told people what you are. Now I know the first thing you are thinking is why would someone care. But people do it is hard to explain people think of a lot of things. And their is a boy club kinda like the mommy club.
The usual people who gather at the school waiting for children are mommies. We regain their waiting for our children and talk about our husbands,teachers,principles and our children. We talk about the day and things that are worth talking about. We are never to concerned about politics or really anything that does not affect our immediate families or close friends. The weather is sometimes the subject but often not as we do not care to try and figure it out and it is ever changing. This is the mommy club only way to get in and very few men are part of it.
You see then their is the man club a much more elite club. Unlike the mommy club it has no women at all. Where as the mommy club does on occasion have a man in it. Men talk about a lot of things way more than women. They can talk about anything and it does not have to even be part of their life or world. They talk with other guys about guys and girls. They talk about their secretary their boss the girl at the market or waitress or just a girl they saw on the street or bus. Their conversations are way more in depth about these things about all things as a matter of fact. So distinguished so that when they speak about these things they have to be careful. And once what they feel is a traitor is among them they have to recall everything said and think wait did I say this.
Because they know from experience women retain way more of a conversation then men do and are afraid of that very thing. They have to replay in their head every conversation they ever had with me. Now this can be a task in itself never mind anything else said.
My friend says well J I have grown up as one of the boys and the guys excepted me as one. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Conversations are tailored to fit the moment and the presence of a woman never think they are not. With men the biggest thing is how quiet women are when they vow in groups. They think we are talking about them. Because we are in a group talking quietly among ourselves it never dawns on them that this is how women are taught to talk and how we find help among each other.
Being Young
It is tough. Does that saying really make sense? Does it even equate? From the 60's on life and families changed. Who do we blame? Well here is your answer.
Free Love. Not really it was more like free sex and people who choose not to take responsibility for their actions. Their is a time when things are supposed to pass. When we grow up. As we are all on this world to only live once then give blueprint. I remember when people did not talk about who they voted for for president. I remember duck and cover. I remember the blockade and how afraid the country was of nuclear war. I remember the thing on the tv and the sound that it made making everyone pay attention. It was a time when being patriotic did not matter. I remember mothers and fathers in shame because their sons ran off to mask from the draft. They were called draft dodgers. The same people who burn our flag live under the protection of it. People young men and women die so they can burn our flag. Flag burners are cowards. And if given their way would lead us all to death for their stupid beliefs of love not war. Their beliefs would be fine if their were no ego's and people wanting to rule other people. But that will never happen. From the simplest to most extreme. The simplest being men wanting to dominate women. The crude people wanting to kill each other for their religious beliefs.
Peace love free love it is for fools. I wonder if the U.S. said hey ok we give up. We are getting rid of all our weapons. We from now on will be a peaceful country we will have no military and no police.
Which country's do you contemplate would want the U.S. more Canada or Mexico. Forget the rest across ocean's. It will take them a few days to accept here. I wonder which gang's would lay down their gun's. I wonder how many families would fight for what they have worked so hard for and kill to keep their children safe. Law and order the police the military without them where would we be today.
Peace not war free love. It is for people who have no clear understanding of human kind. I once met a man. He was worthless. Why because he had no positive understanding of what a man does. A husband takes a bullet for his family he does not hide in a closet or take his family to the basement in hopes they will not be found. He works his body till it can work no more then he goes on until finally it is his time to give way.
I am from Memphis Tn. Yes the patron state of shooting stuff. I have always said if you want bin laden caught. Go to Tn. Offer the guys a new four wheeler and the best rifle made and a million dollars. They will have him in a week.
Free worship peace not war. We had a man his name was box car willy he lived on southern next to the train track's in a box I do not know if he ever jumped a train or not. But I would assume so. He was a hobo today we call them homeless. I call them lazy.
So let's perceive at being young. And all of thing's that went by the side and were never taught anymore because of free love and free sex. It is no coincidence that in the early years people men and women practiced being what they were to become. As it is no coincidence their were brothels.
Acid rock did it get its name because the bands that played it were not on acid?
Because the people who listened to it were on acid?
Or because of the puny dots on a part of paper that at one time were just candy for children?
Bands were these people at that time impartial normal people doing normal things.
The posters the black lights the color was it supposed to add to the experience of hallucinating.
Did any of this make life better? Did any of it make better people?
Answer no it made drug addicts people who today after 25 years quiet can not get their life together. Today they know how stupid they were. Back then it was the way to be.
I wonder how many people remember Fonzy?
By standards back in the 50's Fonzy was a looser. But he was cool and all the boys looked up to him and the girls wanted to be his girl. A smart girl stayed away from him.
Why do we now have birth control. Because so many parents refuse to stay the course with their children. Today we concentrate more on keeping our children from smoking than we do keeping them from have sex and babies. The slogan say's just say no to drugs. Why does it not say unprejudiced say no to the boy's. Why does it become societies job to keep our children first-rate. like we drill into their heads don't smoke cant we drill into their heads don't have sex. Their are families today that do this and it works. Think of all of the money saved on birth control.
By parents not teaching the things they are supposed to. We are setting our absorb children up to fail beyond belief. Let's talk about the Bible for a second. Sorry I will be as brief as possible. The reason the bible preaches abstinence is because it make's for a better life for our children and us. The thought of someone saving them selves just for you. What does that really do for a person and the one they love. OMG it does so noteworthy that only the people who do it know. It creates trust knowing the person you are with has never had sex with another makes you feel important to that person. That creates a whole different kind of love a much deeper and belief kind of love. Why does it say this because their will be things that happen where all of it comes into play.
Sex leads to living together. Here is what is said by most couples who live together at first. Well if we live together I will know what kind of man or woman he or she is. Wrong living together makes a child grow up before they should. Sex makes a child grow up before they should. It is met to be an adult decision. But our children are allowed to grow up before they need to. Their are decisions that require much more understanding to make and sex is one. Once the choice for sex has been made their is no turning back. Todays young women never say do I want this man to be the father of my child? Do I want to have child with this man? Will this boy be a father at all? As do older women today look at a man who is cheating on his wife to be with them and say will he do this to me? Or if a man is divorced and has children is he in their life does he pay child support or not? All of these things are clues to what lies ahead for this woman and any children had with this man. Their can be no good reason for a man not being in a child of his bloods life. Most men want things to be their draw and if they cant obtain their way they just let the child grow up without them.
Young women today think birth control is 100 percent protection against getting pregnant they never dream or think it will happen to them until it does. And when it happens it is earth shattering and life destroying. As with abortion which some chose they have killed their very own child. Life begins at thought. Today we retain brain humdrum people alive for years hoping they will recover. Essentially these people have no Brain and without a brain they have no heart they will die. If life support is discontinued a child's life support is its mother for nine months without her they die also. Most women today who have had abortions are haunted by the fact that they killed their child they just never tell you that at planned parenthood. This is the best support for not having sex at all never having to end your own child. Or you could wait till they are like 2 years old buckle then in their car seats and watch your car roll into a lake with your children in it same thing.
Of course trust being the most important one. Because without trust you have nothing. Today if a young woman is not taught to abstain she will live to regret it. Her reputation will forever suffer. She will always be questioned and never believed. God forbid should anything ever happen for example she is raped. She hold's little to no chance of being believed because she has a reputation that people talk about and when her friends are questioned. They confirm her reputation.
The reason's for abstinence can not be over looked or neglected. Today's young women have to be brought relieve to and taught traditional value's. if this does not happen. It is plain to see what will happen. A rise in Std's A rise in rapes that can not be proven or prosecuted. A world without value's. You may say wait hold hold just a minute why does it fall on todays women and mothers. Because a majority of the teachers in the world are women. Women alone poses the ability and are trusted more by children to lead them in the right direction. Can a man do this yes he can but with less success. All women are born believers and can believe where men can not. We do not need reason to believe We do not need understanding to enjoy. We believe because of who we are and what we are. Women adore unconditionally no matter what. Women know they need someone to protect them.
This is not thing against men at all. It is however a women thing and success in this area will only come from women.
Making yourself a target.
No matter who you are, no matter what gender, no matter what your sexual orientation is you must never make yourself a target. Hold me I know about being a target. I was one. As a young girl I was my mother. In sixth grade I beat up a boy. In seventh grade I made a boy bleed but only because he wore braces. In the eight grade I broke a boys nose. In the ninth grade a boy paid another boy to beat me up he chased until the eleventh grade then he caught me he was about 100 pounds heavier than me. I made him shout. In the eleventh grade a boy hung around me just so he would not get beat up by the other boys. He was very hansom his name was walter.
at 17 I was tough enough to join the marines. I could stand up to anything any boy or man had to give. All of my life I have been tough. Never afraid to fight never afraid to bleed.
I beat up so many boys that most of them were afraid of me. We had some boys in our neighborhood who liked to drag girls into their fort. Even they were afraid of me. When any of my sisters had a problem with a boy or anyone. They came to acquire me. And where was I sitting alone under a tree. Despite being the toughest girl in Garden Grove. To all but a few I was invisible. Was I magnificent I was average bigger than most girls. I was not afraid in anyway of boys and what they did. I could and would hurt them at their games. They would do things at PE like draw me into a game and try to hurt me not only could I take it but I hurt them.
As a grown woman I have been shot had my teeth knocked out. I have been hit in the succor of the head with a 2x4 and bit the sides of my tongue off. I have faced a man in a flea market while pregnant pointing a gun at my belly. The only thing I could deem at that time was if you shoot me I will break your neck before I die. I have given birth to six children 2 Girls and 4 boys. Are my kids tough 1 of them is fighter.
Was I ever afraid never as then and now I am not afraid to die for things I fill closest to my heart. By things I mean my beliefs and my loves.
In life you can never give in. You can never not fight. And you will bleed for your beliefs. Bleeding comes in many ways not just the red stuff.
So you may say how could I ever become a target. It was easy. Worship is a curved thing. It makes everything make sense and nothing beget sense. It defies truth and ignores reason and understanding.
Worship can never be measured it is infinite but yet for some reason it seems to end.
Does love hurt? More than most know.
Today life is the same as it was support in the fifties or the forties or even earlier. What does love involve. Two people or should I say humans. One big problem with the human part. All humans are messed up in one way or another.
Their are basic equations needed to get a healthy child. A mother and a father period. Im sorry but this is how it is their is no man who knows how to be a mother their is no mother who knows how to be a father. Their can be no substitutes.
A daughters first crush is on her father. She is his princess and he will treat her like that. Like wise with boys their first crush is their mother as is evident by the fact that so many men live at home well into their thirties or longer. Their can be no substitute for mom either period. A step parent will never esteem a child that is not theirs like they would their own. They will try but will always know the truth.
If you seize one or the other away you have child who has never learned the love of one or the other. This is very primary as it is usually the daughter. That suffers the most. In a divorce most of the time the children stay pudgy time with the mother. Some times the father is their most of the time he is not. He has become part time. He tries to start a new life as does the mother.
Here is where the real trouble starts. A right titanic problem is this becomes twisted and toxic. Fathers or should I say Men have this urge to procreate and pass on their seed. They also have very tremendous egos im not saying women do not. But a man who is no equipped to be a father early in life or even latter in life. Does not know to stay away. So it twists even more. His princess can never be his princess fully so she will lack the first feelings of savor for him. And if he leaves in the middle of her being his princess all is lost. She will feel as if she can never be loved. Like wise she will have never really learned to worship the good way. This twists it even more. The father will not relent he push's on trying to be who he supposed to be. Then he remarries and another daughter is born. One who for the time replaces the first. Then again the father divorces again. This time he has two little princesses both now left behind. Both feeling unloved and unwanted by the man they love most.
Yet this father continues on in his search for the right woman. All the time only having little to no contact with his two princess who now feel like they never mattered. Can you witness the twist? Can you see what the father has done? Would his daughters be better off with him out of their life completely? Yes beyond any doubt. Because his presence has also create and racked havoc on their mothers not allowing her to focus on them and finding them a father who will at least care for them. So what happens these two young girls grow up to be women. They have no idea of how to treasure they have their version or what they reflect is their version. They have no idea how to trust as the man they trusted most early on destroyed that trust and it never properly developed again. They try latter in life to allow him back in their lives. But he has not changed he is the same. He leaves them feeling more confused because now they are of an age to understand and want their father. But yet he does not want them like they want and need him. Why? because he is who he is, is he a poor person most likely not but often than not yes he is a terrible person. Usually in his late thirties early forties still not settled involved in drugs all of his life and self centered. All that matters in life is that he get this twisted satisfaction he has created. He knows he can call either of them act as if he cares make promises as if he will be their when he hangs up and these two now young women will say I love you and not turn him away. If either of them said never call me again he most likely never be bothered and never call again as it has let him off the hook.
Control
So many try to control the one they love with violence or scare.
Droll thing is control takes neither.
If you want to control someone worship them truthfully and their
love for you will control them. That kind of control
hurts nobody and is welcome by both.
What ? I dont know!
How do you awaken a world?
How do you tell them or get them to read something that is life changing for them and their families?
How do you change the world?
Is it one act of random kindness?
Is it by telling them that 1 in 3 men wears some kind of women's clothing?
Is it by telling them that the average child molester will have touched 128 children in is or her lifetime in an inappropriate draw?
Is it by telling them that uncle BOB is a very smart deviate and chooses his victims from within his gain family pool of children?
Is it by telling a mother and a father never let your children out of your sight?
What? Can I do?
You very quickly learn what life is about as a raped child. The one thing you never learn is how to trust or how to love. The ability to tell the difference between right and wrong is lost forever. The ability to allow yourself to be loved is lost forever. As you grow older you become aware life is no longer about you. It becomes about saving the rest the children who will be forever silenced by these people. As you get older you understand their are literally billions of you out their from the 1960 to now. Today mothers still turn their heads and a blind eye. Creating yet another generation of damaged human being's.
How do I manufacture parents see the best way to keep their children safe from a lifetime of torture.
I dont know I guess life is about statistics and becoming one. Now a days they count everything Now a days they run stories on tv or in the papers they do not have to be lawful just sell.
So how do you build a headline world pay attention.
Heres what we do. Give time forget money give time. Time after time billionaires give money but never time. They form schools start foundations. They perform the world look at them as if they care about the rest of us. Give time. Forget the tax shelters and tax right-offs for donating the millions you make each year. Your money makes very little difference and certainly not as much as your time. If you want to build a school build it here Go to where you want to build that school with camera's pick up a hammer or a broom and give for days on end. Be tired and have sore muscles and blisters on your hands. SOmething to really prove for what you are doing. Your money just pays other people to do what you could. Want to lose some weight spend 3 long summer months on your jobsite building your school without cameras or reporters see how glamorous that is.
When children are young babies they learn to get moms attention or make her listen they have to cry or act up. As parents we learn this never changes and as adults some of still yowl and act out to procure the attention of others. But how do our preteens get us to listen and believe what they are telling us.
Back to Basics.
You just listen to your children see anything different or changes in their ways or people who were never then come aid ask yourself everyday who is around my child. So many times people thing the predator is on the internet when the predator is honest in front of them
Roosters and hens
Have you ever seen the rooster dance? He will dip his wing and skedaddle around to get your attention now you do not have to be a hen to obtain this dance and it is a sweet dance very pretty and very droll at the same time. Peacocks do it also and they are much more laughable as they have a large train and when it is spread they can not witness late them. So you can touch them then and they do not know who it was that touched them.
So what is a rooster? A boy and nothing more but much more funny. If you walk on a rooster he will act like he is doing something even if you saw before you got close and was just standing their doing nothing. All of sudden he is doing something because you saw him, He will even try and eat a stick because you saw him they are so funny. He will point the eye closest to you in the air and open his dance for you and crow. I do not know if they do this with boys as I am never around when a boy is around them.
Now hens on the other hand are only interested in staying away from the rooster as he is aggressive and chases them. For sex they will sit on eggs just so he can not get to them and they know this. If you walk up on a hen and she is doing nothing she will continue to do nothing and not spurious it or pretend to not be afraid she will allow you to pick her but does not really want to be messed with. She will allow you to hold her and pet her and not put up to much of a fight.
Sound like anyone you know?
As I sit here on a early dec morning looking at how low the snow has fallen on the mountains. Eating the eggs my girls have layed and enjoying them.
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To keep your immune system from over reacting, you will first need to figure out just what is causing it to go into overdrive. Here are five immune system stressors that may be contributing to the release of histamines in your body.
Your diet: Adopting an anti-inflammatory diet is one of the first steps to take during allergy season. If you eat foods that are high inflammatory foods, your seasonal allergies can be worse especially if you're already sensitive to a particular food. For me that would be sugar, and that can be a big problem, because I love my sweets. There are two types of foods that can cause an inflammatory reaction that will exhaust your immune system. The first type are the foods you can't digest well; ones you may not even know you have a problem with. The most common food allergies are wheat, milk, eggs, and peanuts. When your body is sensitive to a certain food it puts your immune system into a fight mode so that when seasonal allergies reach along it over reacts because it's still in that heightened status from trying to fight off the food allergies. This will cause your allergies to spiral out of control. If you follow a diet that minimizes inflammation in your body and creates little or no stress on your immune system, then your body won't react so violently to external allergies. The second type of inflammation causing foods affect everyone and you don't have to have food sensitivities, and these include saturated fats, processed foods, and heavily refined carbohydrates. Daniel Monti, MD, director of the Jefferson-Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia and author of "The Great Life Makeover", says to cut out all of these products, especially during allergy season, and instead eat lots of fruits, veggies, and whole (gluten-free) grains. So how can you tell if there are underlying food allergies that are making your seasonal allergies worse? Eliminate one food at a time that you think is causing the problem, let's say for a week or so. Then, on the eighth day, bring that food support into your diet and search for for things like increased mucus, asthma-like symptoms, skin rashes, gas, bloating, heartburn, headaches, fatigue, or mood changes. If you see any of these symptoms, or you just don't feel as well as you did when you were off of that food, eliminate that food from your diet. Keep repeating this process with any other foods you contemplate is causing your problem. You won't explore immediate results once you've eliminated a food from your diet, and two to four weeks may pass before you do sight any relief. Also, if you are allergic to the food, you may be able to add it back into your diet once allergy season is over.
Stress: Research has linked overwhelming stress from work, family, money problems, and unbiased the stress of life in general, to numerous chronic health problems and diseases. But, they have also discovered that stress can make your allergies worse, because the hormones and other chemicals released during long periods of stress, causes damage that triggers the immune response. Your body uses nutrients, including antioxidants and vitamins, to keep your bodys' defenses up against stress. But, when stress becomes a constant thing, the body will need more nutrients to keep it going. The more stress we have, the more likely we are to make very poor food choices and not acquire the sleep we need. When you behold at all these factors, it's no wonder our immune systems are off balance! Getting regular exercise, enough sleep, and practicing mind-body techniques like yoga and meditation, will help you to manage the stress you face every day. Taking a daily multivitamin and eating five to nine servings or more of fruits and veggies a day will also help your immune system to form up the supply of nutrients it needs to fight stress.
Your home: Just like you, there are many of the things that trigger your allergies that deem your home a sanctuary. There are an unbelievable 52% of US households that have at least six detectable allergens, all of which can find their way into your body, this is stated in a report from the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Some of those allergens that can be detected include animal dander, dust mites, mold, scented candles, cleaning products, and cigarette smoke. I rather imagine these allergens don't spark noteworthy of a histamine reaction in a healthy immune system, but if your immune system is hypersensitive, like it is when you have an autoimmune disease, they'll set off a number of alarming symptoms. Luckily, you can eliminate those possible reactions by doing a few simple things. The first thing you can do is to use a saline nasal rinse once a day, maybe twice if you're have a rough day. A saline nasal rinse will flush out any allergens in your nasal passages. You can purchase a nasal rinse in any drugstore or you can make your own by adding a teaspoon of salt and a pinch of baking soda to a quart of boiling water. Let the solution cold to body temperature before you put it in a neti pot to flush your nose. If the rinse burns, then you should add more baking soda. There are four other common household irritants that can compromise your immune system.
-Dust Mites: The key to controlling this little microscopic creatures is to give them fewer places to live. If it is possible, you might want to judge replacing your carpet with hardwood and you also might want to think about limiting upholstered items and fabric hangings like wall tapestries or drapes. To kill dust mites you will want to enclose your pillows, mattresses, and box springs in allergen proof covers, wash bed sheets, mattress pads, and blankets in 130 degree water every week. I also put all my pillows, bed and throw, in the dryer for about 45 minutes, once a week, the heat is what kills them. Now here's a trick I didn't know about, if you have stuffed animals, and who doesn't, every six weeks you will need to wash them in hot water or you can stick them in plastic bags and freeze them overnight to kill off the mites.
-Animals: Pets are one of the largest contributors to household allergens, including proteins found in their dander, dead skin flakes, urine, and saliva. Cats are actually worse than dogs because their dander is lighter and it clings to everything, which makes it more likely to breath in and cause your immune system to "attack" it. The thing about your pets dander is that it can linger a lot longer, so by swapping your carpet for hardwood, keeping your pets off upholstered furniture, and investing in a HEPA air filter, which reduces dander in the air and can earn a difference
-Mold: One of the best ways to reduce mold in your house is to keep the temperature around 68 degrees and the relative humidity about 35 percent; you can engage up a humidity gauge to monitor this. Mold tends to grow in potting soil, especially if it's too moist, keep all indoor plants on the dry side and ban plants from the bedroom, where you spend up to a third of your time. You might want to place a dehumidifier in damp basements or crawl spaces during the summer, which can improve overall air quality throughout the entire house. Now for the last of the household allergens that can send your immune system into overdrive,
-Airborne chemicals. Try using natural cleaning products or better yet make your have. Here are some of the homemade products I use: for my furniture I mix 1/4 c. of vinegar to 3/4 c. oil (olive, vegetable, or lemon), for a general cleaner I will sprinkle plain baking soda on the surface and use a wet sponge or cloth to clean, after cleaning, rinse out your sponge or cloth and wipe the surface until all baking soda residue is gone. I expend this on my tubs and sinks as well instead of soft scrub. For my windows I mix 1/2 c. rubbing alcohol with 1 c. of vinegar in a spray bottle and then I fill the bottle with water until it's full. You will also want to avoid synthetic fragrances in scented candles, detergents, and deodorant; and if you smoke or live with smokers, this would be a good time for everyone to halt.
Antibiotics: You use antibiotics to treat bacterial infections like strep throat, urinary tract infections, and some sinus infections, antibiotics succeed when it comes to fighting bacteria, but they can wreck havoc on the splendid bacteria that live in your intestines. Did you know that 70% of your immune system is stimulated by the good bacteria in your intestine? If you have taken antibiotics any time for anything there is probably a good chance that your immune system is imbalances. Taking a probiotic daily will help in countering any loss of healthy flora, but be sure that you find a mark with self-stable lactobacillus, while you're on antibiotics and for at least three months after you finish your prescription. There is research that supports this regiment: A study published in Clinical and Experimental Allergy found that people with grass pollen allergies who took probiotics experienced fewer allergy symptoms than those who didn't. You might even want to consider taking a probiotic year round for your overall gut health, especially if you're middle-aged or older.
The outdoors: I don't know anyone who has seasonal allergies, who spends much time outside during the allergy season. There are many different types of pollen that are the obvious offenders but there are also other irritants like pollution and diesel fumes, that can act like a chronic irritant on the mucous membranes of the nasal passages and the body has to work harder to eliminate them. To deal with these outdoor irritants, reach for your saline nasal rinse. Here's something to think about if you are wanting to get out of the house during the seasonal allergy time. Most plants pollinate in the morning, which is why the pollen count is higher during the first section of the day. So the best time to do that gardening, running errands or exercising would be in the afternoon. But better yet, a good time to go out is right after a storm. After all, I'm positive that many of you have been told that rain cleans the air and not only that but the pollen count is almost zero. While you can't inquire it to rain every day to wash away the pollen, the next sure map to get your seasonal allergies under control is to tend to your immune system. Strengthen it with advantageous healthy food and plenty of sleep, but the most essential thing is to give it a rest. If your immune system isn't always rushing around trying to keep you healthy, there is a good chance it won't care about a little nose full of pollen and mold spores.
I know from experience just what it's like to have allergies and a compromised immune system. I had never had allergy problems until I was in Austin, Texas and got what they call cedar fever, another words I was allergic to the cedar pollen. I became so sick that I was taken to the hospital because I had stopped breathing because I was so stopped up. Anyway, after I got over that I ended up having allergic reactions to everything that pollenates, trees, flowers, bushes, any thing. I also found out that my fibromyalgia will trigger sinus infections and what feels like an allergic reaction to something. Because I have four autoimmune diseases my immune system is in a constant state of alert and rarely gets a break. It takes me several months to get over an allergy attack where it would take someone with a normal immune system a couple of weeks.
I hope you derive this information helpful.
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