Revolution afoot??

If you have ever wanted to do something good for your community but haven't known how you could help, now's a good time to get involved.

About a month ago, the citizens of Enid voted to pass a bond issue that would be paid off in 20 years. The money comes from our property taxes and was going to add about $15 a month to the property taxes to get this thing paid off. We all pretty much felt like that was a doable thing. THEN this week, the City Commissioners passed a decision to pay it off in 5 years instead - that means a LOT more than $15 a month now. They say it will save a lot in interest in the long run. You know, that's great, but that's NOT WHAT WE VOTED ON. We voted on paying it out over 20 years.

The fact that they can make these kind of decisions without bringing it to the people is just wrong. That's called a DICTATORSHIP. They claim that they talked to a vast number of people - bullshit, they did not. They claim they surveyed people. Really? No one seems to have gotten this survey...

People say "well, you should go to the meetings if you don't like it". BS again - in a normal city , maybe. But I've watched those meetings. I've seen people get up and give very impassioned speeches and then the mayor will cut in and say, "You have three minutes". Then when they are done, he grunts and says "Next!". He could give a shit less about anything anyone has to say.

There is a small faction of people that are doing the research necessary to recall the mayor and the city commissioners. I don't know that this has ever happened in Enid and I imagine that's why they get away with it. We have to show them they cannot be shady and lie like that. We cannot back down from their Nazi antics. So if you are presented with an opportunity to sign a petition to recall the mayor or the commissioners, I hope you will take it.

As I mentioned, the research is being done and there have to be a certain number of signatures and then they get presented to the city clerk for authentication and then there has to be an election within like a month. What sucks is that they way I understand it, the mayor's name goes right back on the ballot, so we have to have someone willing to run against him. If no one will run, we get the same crappy treatment we've been getting.

I realize these people volunteer to do this and they may have had good intentions when they went in, but you CANNOT go against the wishes of the people like thay have done - they are why people hate politicians. They are why the city council in Enid is likely to never be trusted again. So please, exercise your civic responsibilities and get these people OUT.

Laundry is the Devil and Other Random Issues

What the hell happened??? Who came into my house and threw up dirty clothes every where I look? Jeez. Every time I get all excited about having the laundry caught up, I find a pile of sweaty soccer clothes or an errant sock somewhere. I go to take them to the laundry room and discover the hampers full again. I freakin' hate laundry. A lot. Like I would rather shoot myself in the face.

I swore that I would quit telling people my ideas because every time I do, someone steals them and makes money and I just get cranky. But I was just thinking, why don't they make beer in 2 liter bottles? Do you know how cool that would be? I mean, you can get pitchers of beer - a 2 liter would just be like a pitcher to go. That would kick ass. You could put it in the fridge and get as little or as much as you wanted. If you just wanted a few sips, you wouldn't have to open a whole can and then be forced to drink it so as not to waste it. Ima suggest it to someone...

I'm also trying to figure out what maggot crawls into my kids' brains JUST at the time the judges on American Idol start to talk that makes them all four ramble about asenine shit and ask me absolutely pointless questions at the same time. I know they do it on purpose. I think it's a team effort to see if my head will explode. Speaking of AI - DUDE - David Archuleta did not do well and that country version of Eight Days a Week was just creepy.

Which brings me to another thought. People always get mad at Simon. I mean, I get that people don't always like to hear what he has to say, however, he's almost always right. Seriously. if you remove all emotion from the situation (i.e. you got sucked into the contestant's story about her mama died and her baby has penumonia and she's on welfare so you feel bad for them) and look at the facts of the performance, he has an alarming accuracy rate. But people just hate him. I don't get why people are so adverse to hearing the damn truth. I guess the world has become too politically correct and people have just lost all sense of dealing with reality - it has to be all covered up with fluffy bunnies and they have to glitter blown up their ass all day or something. I say this because over at our Ghost Diva blog we get called mean all the time and accused of attacking people. Well, that's just stupid. We tell the truth about things or we call people out for being stupid. My theory is if you don't want to get called an asshat, don't be an asshat. To me, that's really not that hard. It's like people that bitch about going to jail. P.S. - don't buy crack. It's not that hard.

I guess some people are kind of freaked out or maybe even put off at my bluntness sometimes, but for one thing, I really don't know how to bullshit well enough to express it any other way than the way it is and I'm OK with that. I don't mind not knowing how to kiss ass and be fake. I take that back, I know how to kiss ass if I have to, but it's REALLY, like physically painful, hard for me. Sometimes if you mean what the fuck, you have to just say what the fuck, you know? What's the point in saying "oh my gracious" other than to simply not offend someone else? It's not like I say it at church or something. Sheesh. My point is I wish people would a) lighten up and b) deal with the truth in real words sans glitter up the ass.

Carry on.

(I'm serious about that 2 liter beer bottle thing...)

Speaking of Hookers...

OK, OK, so I have been AWOL for a while. I apologize. I say that like I have readers, lol...
Anyway, things have changed a lot over the last few months. I left my job in November for financial reasons that caused a lot of stress and I got in a huge funk for a while and didn't want to talk to anyone or write, but I'm over it now. If you recall, I left my job that I dug back in March of last year to go to this other job and well, it wasn't the best decision I ever made. However, I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, so I know things will work out OK. There is actually a chance that I may be going back to aforementioned job that I liked in the near future and that would be great, even if it's just doing some contract type projects for a while. I loved that office and I truly enjoyed my boss and thankfully, he was very gracious when I met with him to tell him he told me so. Instead of saying, "yeah, I told you so," he told me a story about something similar that happened to him, so he understood my situation and he was like I said, very gracious and kind.
As always, I have too many ideas sometimes and one of the latest ones has lead to another little business venture. I am a "red dirt" fan and it relates directly to that lifestyle of music. I say lifestyle because it's not so much a genre as it is an attitude. It's about not selling out and being true to yourself and being real. Generally the kind of music that falls into that category is a cross between country, rock, folk and blues. It's hard to put a label exactly on the kind of music it is because one song might sound like an old Hank Williams tune and the next one might rock your socks off. Anyway - I became friends with one of the guys that plays at a local bar here and his girlfriend and I had this idea that I pitched to her and she liked it, so we're starting a line of tshirts and other various apparel items geared toward female red dirt fans. I'm not going too public with it yet until I actually have a product in my hands, but it's in the works and I'm getting excited about it.
It feels good to be hopeful and excited again.
My husband won a trip to Cancun in April and THAT is also extremely exciting. We're talking about doing the zip line through the jungle thing. I figure after living through that whole ropes course thing, I can hack it.
It also seems that there are some folks that want my friend and I to speak at some up coming conferences in the fall. One is in Las Vegas and one is in Philadelphia and is directly linked to a TV show on A&E, that ought to be fun. Some crazy people also saw fit to give us a radio show on Para X radio, so that will be interesting and maybe even somewhat entertaining. We start that this Wednesday evening.
So, life seems to be getting back to normal after a very long time of sucking and I am so thankful for that. I was beginning to wonder...
P.S. - I hope David Archuleta wins American Idol this season.

Dance, Monkeys! Dance!

So, I lived

I know at some point I posted that I was applying for the Leadership Greater Enid thing, but I don't remember if I ever said anything else about it. My application was accepted and the first big thing was this weekend. We left yesterday morning and headed to Camp Redlands by Stillwater to participate in some team building stuff and a ropes course. The morning was the typical warm fuzzy getting to know you stuff and it was fun. But there was one exercise that made me want to shoot people. We already knew about my lack of patience, so that wasn't a big surprise, lol.
The afternoon brought the ropes course. I was fine on the ground but when I got up there - yeah, not so much. I had to climb up a pole which wasn't as easy as it looked, then had to walk across a log (way up in the air, by the way). Then I had to climb up to a small platform and walk across a cable while holding on to cables on either side of me. Um, that sucked. A lot. They were flippin' wobbly and I was thinking I would never make a good Indiana Jones at this point. So here's where I became terrified. I was shaky which just made the cables shaky. I made it across that and then the next one was even worse. It was loops made of cables that we had to step across, so you get one foot out there on one and one foot behind you on the other and let's just say, I didn't think my legs would split that much. Jeez. That one was the worst and about half way through it I was ready to bail. But I was thinking to myself, "I cannot quit. I have had 4 babies. I have spent the night in haunted prisons and tuberculosis sanitariums. I can do this. Plus, I can't tell Marty I quit." So I caught my breath and went to the end. It was freakin' MISERABLE. The instructor asked if I wanted to come down. Fuck yes, I wanted to come down. But I said not yet. So the next thing was another log, but it was on an incline, so you had to walk up this log and at the end, jump across NOTHING to another platform. Did that. Then the last thing was a cable that you had to go across sideways while holding on to some flimsy ass ropes. I just closed my eyes and went. I opened my eyes and thought, wow, I am as high as the trees. It was pretty cool, but I was still dying. I got a few feet from the end and my guiderope felt like it was stuck and I was like, crap, I'm at the end and can't go anywere, but I made it to the last platform where they unhooked me and hooked me up to a zipline. He said, "OK, just push off whenever you're ready." HA. I wasn't ever going to be ready to bail off of a platforrm 30 feet in the air. Was this guy new??? So I sat there for a minute, glad I hadn't once uttered the F word or wet myself, closed my eyes, and bailed off and went zooming off into the trees. WHEW. I shook for like an hour after that and was seriously fighting the tears because it was THE most horriffic thing I have ever done. But I was glad that I did it. I would have been so mad at myself if I hadn't. Plus Marty would have given me shit, and that was a big motivation :).
So for the warm fuzzy what I learned from this - that no matter how much I think I just cannot go one one more inch, I can manage to eke out more. Hell, now I've had babies AND completed a ropes course. I'll take having babies over the ropes any day. Without drugs even.
It was nice to have some of my friends and my dad there encouraging me. I made the comment that had it not been for them I wasn't sure I would have made it. I guess that's the whole point - to trust people you don't know, but I don't know that I could have done it. A lot of the people there didn't know anyone else, so I felt incredibly lucky to have people that loved me there, let alone people that I knew. Everyone was like "you did great" and all that and I was thinking yeah, if you call shaking like a leaf and wanting to cry like a little girl great, OK. Someone made a comment to me about me having a lot of self confidence and I can tell you that up there I was feeling about as unconfident as I ever have. I wish I hadn't freaked out, but it did refresh that mind over matter is what it's all about. That's something I preach and try to live by, but that stuff more or less goes out the window when you're 30 feet in the air hanging on to wiggly cables.
After all that, we had dinner together and then several of us went out for drinks and to watch our Pokes get their asses kicked. Suffice it to say it was a long night and way too much fun. And way too many drinks.
We had a speaker this morning and it was good, but I was SO tired and sore. I have sore muscles in places I didn't know I used. Plus, after staying up so late, I couldn't sleep, thus I was exhausted today. We got home and I crashed for about 6 hours.
I had a good time, met new people, made some new friends, and challenged myself to do something I didn't think I could do. The whole thing was a challenge on a lot of levels - you have no idea what you will do in that kind of situation until you are smack in the middle of it. I'm glad I did it.
We were encouraged to journal about it, so there ya go.

Wanna be a pin up girl?

So, it's not enough that I already have too many ideas and projects, I had to add a new one. I want to take pin up girl photographs! They're smart and sexy and every size woman can be a pin up girl. I believe it would be very liberating and a great boost to the self esteem of a woman to see herself as a beautiful pin up girl!

Super Nanny can suck it.

I came home tonight to a kid throwing a fit and acting ridiculous. I sent her to her room and she finally went after SEVERAL times of telling her. Then a second one started. She was telling me no and being a general smart ass and when I told her to clear off the dining room table, she threw it all on the floor and said, "There, it's clear." I sent her to her room, too, and she ignored me. I threatened to get the paddle. She said, "Well, can you just spank me and not make me go to my room? Because I'm not going to learn anything by going to my room, so just spank me." I said absolutely not. I made them eat dinner in their room and they spent the entire evening in there. At one point one of them was telling me that being in their room was fun because they had videos and could color and play. So I decided I had to do something to make my point. So this is what happened:
There were only two cars that drove by but she was HORRIFIED and telling me how mean I was. We went in and she apologized and told me she loved me so much and was sorry so much and said she wouldn't do it again. I told her she says that every time and she swore THIS time she really wouldn't. So we'll see. The other one was the one that really deserved it, but she had fallen asleep. She woke up for a minute and this one told what she had to do and she got all crappy and said well, SHE wasn't going to do it. If it hadn't already been dark, I would have taken her sleepy butt out there, too. I'm telling you, I DO AND DO AND DO cool things for my kids and these two have absolutely no concept of appreciation or gratitude at all. They're both very selfish and it's just odd to me because the oldest one is not at all like that. I'm just at the point where nothing I do matters to them, but this seemed to, so we'll see. The one in the picture called me "ma'am" even, lol. I'm NOT a mean mom at all, I'm just at my end with them talking to me the way they do.