Mental & Emotional Health

I saw a cute sign on someone else’s blog and at the time, I just knew I would remember where I saw it so I didn’t record it with the saved sign.  But, as it is, now I can’t remember.  So, if you recognize this as a sign from your blog or if you know whose blog it did come from, please let me know so I can send credit where credit is due. 

The reason I was so intrigued by the sign is because is sums up many things I have to say without me having to say a world.  Here’s what that sign looked like…

Well, I sent that photo to a few friends in email and my friend who is a Pharm D and has her MBA, obviously knows a bit about medication and business too, sent me an email back requesting the following sign….so here you go Krystal…

I’m sorry, but some of these are just too good to pass up….what did you think?

Below you will find a photo that I found on someone else’s blog.  Usually I don’t get to freaked out when people discuss anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs unless they happen to be talking smack about the folks who need them.  And, then…then I get terribly bent out of shape and I start to get this twitch in my lip, my brain starts to work overtime and I feel as if I might explode any minute.

So, when I saw this sign, and read the post that went with it, I got a good hearty laugh, which really, it isn’t like me to find this kind of thing funny.  But,the post that accompanied the photo was very much pro-medication if you need it so of course, that makes it a lot easier to get a good laugh. 

As someone who has used all 3 of those drugs at some time or another and just happens to be using the one in the middle now, I can’t help but get a good hearty laugh.  Yea, Zoloft wasn’t very kind to me and Paxil was good while I was pregnant but you know, pregnant women are kind of weird and hormonal anyway.  

Prozac was my friend all the way back in the late 80’s and early 90’s when it first came out on the market.  I remember people were going on Oprah talking about how Prozac was causing people to have these urges to have sex and the people were going out and doing wild things.  I also remember my mom freaking out when she heard this kinds of things.

I gave up on in early 2002 but came back to it about 6 months ago and couldn’t be happier.  It really is a good drug for me.  And, on a side note, if you’ve ever rode in the vehicle with someone who has serious rode rage or been the victim of someone who has rode rage, that sign gets just a tad bit funnier doesn’t it?

Honestly, I’ve always loved going places.  But, not necessarily because it was relaxing and what not, I just love seeing new sights and learning about new places.  But, the experts, whoever they may be, will all say that a good vacation (even if it is one that doesn’t involve actually traveling) is really good for you.  You can have a vacation and never leave your home.  And, honestly, those kind are probably more restful than the kind where you spend all your time sight-seeing, but I really do love to go places.

We’ve found in the past that going to the beach in the off-season is really awesome.  The reason is because there’s just not much to do but relax.  You can let the kids get in the sand and play but the water is usually too cold, unless you can find a place with an indoor heated pool.  And, even still, my kids like standing on the balcony watching the waves crash.  So, thus far in-season or off, that’s been our vacation spot of late..the beach.

This time, I chose to go to Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  Why?  Well, because my children were begging to see and play in snow and we certainly weren’t going to find that on the beach.  The thing is, a few days before we got there, it was in the 70’s.  So, the first few days were really kind of mild.

The first few days the boys insisted on wearing their tboggins and gloves.  They didn’t need them but were so excited at the prospect of snow that they wanted to wear them.  Then, when it did get cold enough that they needed them, the novelty had worn off.  So, we really never saw snow but we did get on top of the mountain and see some fake snow, some skiing and what not but it was a really expensive vacation.

And, now I need a vacation to get over that vacation.  I spent today unpacking our bags, folding clean laundry and doing dishes that we left before vacation as well as putting away the Christmas "stuff".  Tomorrow we will hopefully finish putting away all the Christmas hoopla and get the house back in order.  Wayne goes back to work on Monday and Walker back to school on Tuesday.

So, vacation time is over and it is truly time to hit 2009 with the big guns.  A vacation to get over my vacation…that’s what I truly need.

Now, I"m finally going to close this big series of post that most everyone gave up on paragraphs ago but this is important.  I have been accused of writing something derogatory about another person.  No one seems to be able to provide me with the link to the place where I posted this "bad stuff" and no one can really tell me "what the bad stuff actually was" but that’s that. 

And, this person is now threatening bodily  harm on me.  I haven’t blogged about it.  It’s been an ongoing situation for about a month. Everyone who knows about it has suggested I contact the police.  However, I know from previous experience and from my lawyer from daycare, there is nothing I can do about this person unless they actually cause me harm.  So, if you find yourself telling people that I have contacted the police and then making judgements about my actions, you need to get affirmation that what you have written indeed true, lest you find yourself telling things that definitely aren’t true.  And, honestly, if you really believe any of the crazy stuff and feel so certain that it is true that you would stand on the street corner and gossip about it, discuss it over dinner with your family or blog about it, please make sure you are re-telling it correctly, lest you cause more harm than good.

So, for those of you out there who know about the situation, just know that I am doing the best I can to remain calm about it, but please, if you don’t have all the facts straight, please don’t reproduce the information that you think to be correct. 

And, finally, I suspect that no one can tell you what they would do in this situation unless they found themselves in this situation.  But, I can promise you one thing that I know no one would appreciate under these same circumstances…..being made fun of, being ridiculed for the manner in which they have chosen to handle it.  No one wants to be discussed in an untruthful manner and without first hand experience, a big part of what has been said in my situation came second handed and was untrue. 

Please, I ask you, be careful.  Learn to listen.  Learn when to be quiet.  Learn when to write.  Learn when to simply think.  But, when the decision to write arrives, make sure it is the truth that you write and not second hand knowledge. 

*Stepping off of my soapbox.  I’m very sorry to bring the New Year, 2009, in with such serious and somber topics, but something’s just needed to be brought out.  And, finally, when the sun goes down at night, and you find yourself laughing at someone whose writing has been exposed, then it would probably be a good idea to go read what you’ve previously written yourself and decide then and there if you truly want to your inner writings, your inner thoughts, the workings of your mind, etc to be exposed.  Because trust me when I tell you, people are vengant and people will do to you exactly what you’ve done to them.  And trust me again, a glass of cold water in the face feels like a glass of cold water in the face, regardless of who’s tossing water from the glass and in which direction it is going.  Simply put, for those of you by the water cooler chatting about this situation, don’t be surprised to hear your own inner thoughts being discussed at the snack machine while you stand by the water cooler and giggle yourself.

**OK, completely stepping down now.**

Anyway, I just want to say that I am no idiot.  I’ve made the horrible blogging mistakes of calling the grass orange.  I’ve done my best to repair that wrong and I have no ill feelings toward the grass for expecting me to clear up the matter.  And, I’ve made mistakes by using humor that simply wasn’t understood.  And, I’ve made mistakes in my choice of words sometimes, possibly saying that the ugly grass is orange.

So, what I’m saying is this, a bad choice of words, the bad use of an adjective like "ugly" and the pure unadulterated lie in situations like purple sky’s and orange grass are simply not even on the same page.

So, some people live by the philosophy that "this is my blog and I’ll say what I darn well please on it and I don’t care if it is offensive to you, Mr. Purple Sunshine or Mrs. Orange grass".  And, others like me, prefer to keep things calm and cool.  People make mistakes, people make bad choices when it comes to calling the sun purple or the orange grass ugly. 

This particular kind of of mistake is more what I refer to as a blooper.  A slip of the tongue if you will.  The other is lying. 

You see, that is a third application to the whole subject.  But, the bottom line is this, it is my blog, I will post what I want and when I want and I expect each and every blogger out there to do the same.  However, I expect any misuse of adjectives by me or any blogger elsewhere to be corrected when brought to the attention of the author.  No real apologies needed unless you are a true southern belle like myself and feel it is necessary, but, it is plainly excusable.

But, to lie about someone and then say, "It’s my blog I can write whatever I want and if you don’t like, then don’t read it", well that teeters on a bad attitude in one sense and even starts to spark the thoughts of words like libel and slander.  You can’t just go around telling your story the way you want to tell it when other people are involved especially when you aren’t telling the truth.

Really, you can’t.  So, my challenge to you Internet’s, if you have offended someone in 2008 with a bad choice of words (or just adjectives) or you have posted or commented somewhere and put up mis-information that you KNEW was wrong when you did it, make 2009 the time to go repair that. 

It’s a hard thing to do, but knowing that you’ve righted a wrong is way bigger than anyone’s ego.  Trust me, I was the offender in a a couple of situations.

And, with that, I want to say, if you think I’m talking to you in this post, you may or may not be correct.  I’ve been blogging for almost 9 years in one way or another.  I write on approximately 8 blogs a day and comment on close to 30 or 35.  I understand blog etiquette.  If you blog and you don’t understand how it works, ask someone. 

And, if the idea that I make money off of my writing is offensive to you, I’m sorry, but I ran up on this quote and it basically sums up how I feel about the issue of monetizing blogs…

“It should feel genuinely good to earn income from your blog — you should be driven by a healthy ambition to succeed. If your blog provides genuine value, you fully deserve to earn income from it.” (Steve Pavlina)

Let’s just put it this way, as quotes seem to go, "if you can’t  say something nice, it is probably best not to say anything at all".  I’m going to end this post with a very important issue regarding this whole subject.  Internet trolls, stalkers, what ever you choose to call them are real.

If you have the occasional troll and you know there’s no harm intended, then ignoring seems to be the best course of action.  If you have an Internet stalker on the other hand and you feel that you are in real imminent danger, then by all means, take the necessary precautions.  But, if you don’t know all the details of a situation like this regarding someone else, don’t post about it and magnify the problems.  And, finally, if you think for one minute that you are immune to being outed to your family, your friends, you parents, you employer, you need to think again.  And, if you post any situation on your blog but simply can’t seem to find a way to put your finger on where or how you received your information, it might be best if it is left un-written.  Because trust me, if you post about me and I know part of it isn’t true, you can be damn sure I’m going to be asking where you got your information.

Furthermore, if you don’t know what it means to be "Dooced" then look up the word Dooce, because it reads something like this…

"To lose ones job (fired) because of something you have publicly posted in a blog. The most common usage of the word is dooced (eg. she was dooced). The word dooced was coined in 2002 by Heather Armstrong, a Los Angeles Web designer who lost her job after writing about work colleagues in her personal blog, dooce.com."

And, while some of you sit back and laugh because someone else has been "dooced" (and not necessarily in a job situation but in a friend, family, spouse, etc,) beware, someone is probably plotting your own demise while the laughter rolls from your belly.

You know, the other old saying, ‘What’s good for the goose is good for the gander"  and let me tell you something, I’ve been the goose and I’ve been the gander.  But, I’ve learned my lesson. 

Be responsible for your actions, take responsibility for the words you put on the Internet.  Think about the consequences.  Think about how it looks and feels to outsiders.  Yea, just try to think first.  Like I said, I learned that the  hard way.

To Be Continued…..Part Three - coming up next

Stolen directly from Mother Goose Mouse is the following paragraph…

"I know that yesterday I was supposed to be all introspective, being the last day of the old year, and today I’m supposed to be looking forward to the new year ahead - setting goals and making resolutions - but honestly, I’m just glad for the status quo.  If, at the end of 2009, I’m still in the same place I was at the end of 2008, I’ll count myself lucky."

And, so, I spent the majority of the day trying to figure out exactly how to put into words what my brain is churning around, fermenting, maturing, and finally distinctively juggling around in honesty.

So, I figured, the best place to start was with some quotes.  I’ve been compiling them on and off all day..they are in this post but not necessarily in any order. 

What I want to talk about is blogging.  Yes, blogging.  What is blogging?  What does it mean to say, "I’m a blogger" or "She/He is a blogger?"  Is that a negative set of phrases?  To me it isn’t.  Well, wait, to me it hasn’t been in the past.  But, I have a few thoughts on what it means to be a blogger and some quotes to go with it.  I saved this post for January 2nd because I didn’t want it to muddy up my page for New Year’s Day.

“I believe the term “blog” means more than an online journal. I believe a blog is a conversation. People go to blogs to read AND write, not just consume.” (Michael Arrington)

This next quote probably sums up each and everything I want to say, but you know me,  have to add my 2 cents in with it.  The quote goes like this:

“Breathe. Know that the Internet has no eraser.” (Liz Strauss)

So, what exactly does that mean.  I’ll tell you what it means, it means, that once the words are put out there, you can never take them back.  You can never right a wrong and you can never deny your authorship.  So, naturally, common sense has to be employed lest bloggy-drama exist and persist and no one is happy. 

Where am I going with this, well, a couple of places.  One is to say, I’ve been guilty of expecting the eraser to work on the Internet.  And I found out the hard way that it doesn’t.  I’ll leave that as it is. 

The second part is this, just because it is my blog, does that give me the right to write whatever I want and then say, "well if you don’t want to read it, don’t come to this URL"?  I mean, is it ok for me to tell you that the sky is purple and the grass is orange, knowing full well that this is not true.  But, if you call me on it, do I have the right to be pissed because…you didn’t have to read it if you didn’t want to or do should it be the other way around, the person doing the misrepresentation is the one who should be angry?

That’s correct, I didn’t have to read it if I didn’t want to.  But, what if I happen to be the Sun or the Grass and a blogger has just posted this false information about me.  Do my rights then start to have meaning?

I’ve always lived by the thoughts that "your rights end where mine begin".  And, your right to blog about the sky being purple when I am the sky and I am clearly not purple really leads me back to that.  Your right to write that statement ends where my right to correct the information begins.

Is anyone still reading this?

To be continued….part two coming up soon…

So, now, we know that Angie is married to Stan and she is a mean heifer.  We know that  one of my cousin’s doesn’t speak to me because mean Angie was mailing my posts to people anonymously just to start trouble.  We know that Angie also anonymously mailed a post to Sue who is married to my cousin Bob and she got over her mad spell.  And, we know that Barbara, another cousin who received an anonymous snail-mail copy of one of my posts saw the humor in my post and never got mad in the first place.

That brings me to Jim.  Jim is a man who strolled into my yard a few weeks back, accusing me of writing about him on the Internet.  Now, Angie had to be the one who told Jim this information, she has already proven herself to be a mean heifer, remember?  Anyway, Jim said that he knew I was writing stuff about him on the Internet just like I did the one cousin that doesn’t speak to me and Sue. 

I told him I had not wrote anything about him and he needed to get lost.  His statement was "if you aren’t going to do anything about it, then I will".  I did not know nor did I care what he meant about it. 

Later another cousin, Stephanie told my mom that Jim said he was going to "burn her out."  And, then after that my mom came to me because she knew I was hanging out at home during the day with the doors unlocked.  Sometimes I would even nap without locking the doors.  My mom said that Jim was telling everyone that he was going to "get her" and my mom was really upset. 

So, anyway, Jim has been telling all over town (which isn’t a very big place) that he is going to "get me" for what I did.  So, here’s where it gets emotional….AGAIN!

Yea, it was emotional when Angie mailed the first post where I wrote something that I shouldn’t have, and it was even more emotional when Sue received her letter in the mail and confronted me.  And now, now this has plain got out of hand.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned…because Jim is just the kind of person who would do something mean and cruel to me……..

So, while I’m vacationing, I have a camera in my front window and it is set with a motion sensor which is hooked to the computer and sends us pictures of whatever is moving in our front yard.  But, of course, if he "burns me out" then I don’t figure a camera is going to matter too much. 

And, so goes the roller coaster……

I’m a blogger.  And, sometimes just saying that makes other people cringe.  And, I was an unknown blogger until about 2 years ago when someone (we’ll call her Angie) who happened to be married to one of my cousin’s (we’ll call him Stan) started anonymously mailing copies of my blog posts that involved other family members.  Yea, cruel heifer.

The first person she mailed a post to hasn’t spoken to me in 2 years.  My mom did ask me to go apologize to her (right after mom was diagnosed with cancer) and I did and she accepted my apology but she still doesn’t speak or even look my way.  Let’s just say that she had every right to be mad at me.  The things I wrote were wrong.  And, I’ve told anyone who questioned me about it that I was wrong.  Period.

The second person she mailed a post to is also the wife of a cousin, (we’ll call her Sue and my cousin is Bob) and Sue was pretty upset at first but she got over it and Bob didn’t even think anything about it.  What I wrote that time was meant to be funny, I thought it was funny…apparently Sue did not.  Basically she wouldn’t allow her 9 month old son to be pushed in his stroller into my yard because me and the boys had been struck with pink eye the week before.  What I said was, "what did she think we were going to do, lick his eyeballs?"  And, so, Sue was mad and Angie was mean. 

The third cousin (we’ll call her Barbara) found what I had to say humorous and it was written to be humorous.  Basically Barbara allowed me to witness the birth of her second child.  And, she really made it look so easy.  She made pregnancy look easy and she made the recovery look easy.  And, everyone who knew me understood that pregnancy, labor and c/section recovery was anything but easy.  And, I made the statement that "Barbara just spits those taters out and gets on about her business".  And, like I said, that was intended to be a compliment.  She made it all look so easy.  She wasn’t mad at all…..

To be continued…..

Yea, you read that right, the Roller Coaster Christmas!  We arrived at my Grammy’s late - they had already started eating.  We were there exactly an hour and ten minutes.  That involved eating, cleaning up the mess, watching Grammy open her gifts and getting in the car to leave.  Period.  One hour and ten minutes.

Fast forward to the fact that we sat around home chatting (me and the husband) until we realized that we hadn’t done Santa yet and it was…er…midnight.  We knew the kids would be up early so we got busy.  We assembled and wrapped Santa gifts, wrapped one another’s gifts and then opened our personal gifts to one another.  That still left a couple of gifts under the tree that belong to other people.

Fast forward to about 3:30 AM and our door flung open and two little boys were gleefully playing with all the unwrapped gifts that Santa had left.  Even the gifts that didn’t belong to them had been opened.  Lovely, eh?

We put them back in bed and went back to bed ourselves.  I woke up at 8:30 and Wayne was in Walker’s bed and both boys were in the family room having a blast playing.  To satisfy the photographer in me, we made them sit down and Wayne handed them each gift, one at a time and I took a picture.  Whooopie!

Then it was time to start cooking.  We were having one guest for lunch.  I went in search of the ham we had purchased a week earlier.  It was no where to be found.  Wayne reminded me that we didn’t make it home with our milk that trip to the store either so….it was likely that’s where our ham was.

So, what would we have for Christmas dinner?  Fried wieners?  Wayne went in search of a canned ham.  Nope, most convenience stores don’t carry those.  As a last resort, I called a cousin that I know always brings my mom a ton of food after Christmas….yes, she did indeed have enough for 3 extra adults.  And, so Wayne went to get it.

Our guest arrived, we ate, we laid lazy and we went to bed. 

EMOTIONALLY DRAINING….EMOTIONALLY A ROLLER COASTER RIDE FROM ….yea, from HELL!

If you participated in the contest here on my blog, please shoot me an email indicating whether you got your prize or not so that I can double check everything and hopefully get everything taken care of before I leave on Sunday for a short vacation.

I’ll have my laptop with me but I’d rather get this all taken care of before I leave.  I so what to recognize all the sponsors one last time before I end this….if it weren’t for the sponsors…there wouldn’t be a contest….

Glow Mama

Adorn Me Jewelry

Happy Panda Baby

Mom on the Rise

My Sweety Room

Lisa Leonard Online

AK Designs Studio

Plain White Press

Treasures Par Avian

DesignsbyRS

Stacey Kannenberg & CedarValley Publishing

Susan K Jewelry

Busy Body Books

Skin Care RX

List Plan It

Kllycat

Coco Zen

Heidi at Silpada

Tiny Prints

Bella Button Designs

Charles Orlando

Bustling Baby

Bitty Bum Boutique

Unbridled Books

Brain Child Magazine

Mom Spark

Analiese

Family Travel Gear

Knowledge Adventure

Jewelstreet

Miss-Britt

Shops at 24 Seven

South n France

Peachbutt Designs Studio

Eclectic Candy Cane Cards

Just Bubbly

Eebee

Jimi

Sunshine and Ravioli

Mama Mio

Pretty Cheap

Little Brown Pen

Usborne Books

Motive

Mommy Bracelets

Oranje

My Precious Kid

Sara Bennett

Thanks again to everyone!  Merry Christmas!  Happy New Year!

*I have a Christmas tale to tell of all tales!*

And, in my case, how to make the stomach heal because I’m telling you, that stomach bug was KILLER.  We put our tree up last weekend amid the wedding frenzy.  The boys have been agitating all week to put the ornaments up.  And, well, you see, normally I’m a hard-nose about it and I want it done "right".  But, right in the eyes of a child is so different than right in the eyes of …well…me. 

And, since they were no longer sick and we (me and my husband) are both still struggling, I figured, what the heck, let them hang the ornaments.  I did.  And, they did.  And the results are cute…comical and quite gorgeous.  We have about 500 ornaments so as you can see, I only let them put up the non-breakable stuff and I’ll get the rest later…..but as you can see….they did a pretty doggone good job.

If you will look up really high, you can see a Mickey Mouse head.  Every year I say I am going to have a full Mickey Mouse tree but then I see my ornaments from my time as a teacher and I get excited and want them on the tree as well.  So, it never comes to fruition.  And, so I give you…..the tree…oh and by the way, don’t mind the fact that there’s no crown molding because we just painted and we quit working in the family room to get the Jacuzzi installed and we haven’t gone back yet.  But, we will……just know it took my husband 2 years to finish painting a bathroom…..so I don’t get excited.

But, anyway, here’s the great Ornament Parade…. of 2008…

I dropped our pocket camera and er….I think the blur here might be a good reflection of it’s damage…oops

There are lights on it………so let the decorating begin…

Removing the three that made it onto the tree as Walker brought them home from kindergarten

Getting busy…..

Cramming them all in one spot seems to be the best idea…..

Come on boys, spread them out some…..oh well, just more space for my good pretty glass ornaments…way up high……..

It really is good healing to just sit back and let them enjoy the fun…who cares if it is perfect anymore…..the kids certainly  don’t.

We had the "Stomach Bug from Hell" this week and honestly, I don’t know how in the world my kids were able to handle it so well. They basically spent about 3 hours on the sofa, puked twice and all was well.  Jace did have diarrhea but we thought it was because he drank too much apple juice.  But, when I came down with it on Wednesday night….all holy freak-a-zoid broke out.

We aren’t accustom to being without my mom in times like this either.  Wayne had to stay off of work on Thursday and then he comes home early on Friday double over.  He ended up rolling around in the bed moaning with tears in his eyes.  Trust me people, this 2008 Version of the Stomach Bug from Hell was killer. 

I ran into a friend today who said her granddaughter spent a day in the hospital with it because they thought from her symptoms she had E.Coli because she was passing blood plus she was in so much pain.  Now, I’ve had salmonella poisoning once and E.Coli once and this ranked right up there with them.  The only thing is, this 24 hour bug, well it lasted 72 hours on me and looks like it is going to take that kind of time on Wayne too.  Compare that to my children and their 3 hours…I don’t know how they stood it. 

But, compared to the 3 weeks I was sick with salmonella and the month I was sick with E.Coli (while pregnant)…well, yea, this was right up there with them.  But, on a few happier notes…

Here’s a few of my favorite pics from the wedding and then some pics of the Great Tree Ornament Hanging of 2008 as well….

This is so typical of how I think most Brides and Grooms feel by this point in their wedding…….it’s like can we please just leave now?  But, are they not just adorable?

The groomsmen think she is hot…bahahaha

The groom’s nephew offering up a token of his love, hehehe

The Bride soaking up the attention…the best man thinks they might be crazy….

The ring bearers are simply exhausted….this was before the wedding

The Bride says…."Carry On…I’m resting"

The Bride took all of dad’s money…..

The ring and beautiful beading on the dress

Raise your children right……..whatever "right" is…

Gotta be ready…

Look how precious

Ok, I’m putting the tree decorating photos in another post…

And, finally having some fun…

I don’t know how to manage regular stress, never mind the kind that the holidays bring.  Honestly though, I do pretty good with the holidays considering how well I do the rest of the year…or don’t do. 

Last year we owned a failing daycare, were having money troubles there and at home and were simply seeing nothing good anywhere.  I didn’t think anything could be worse. But, the one phrase forbidden in this house…"could it possibly get any worse?" is haunting me now.  

Apparently I didn’t get that memo and obviously said something directly related to that costly statement because right now, right this second, we’ve purchased Santa gifts and that’s all. Money isn’t as tight but it certainly isn’t growing on trees.  My aunt has lung cancer and was just diagnosed last week, a mere 24 or months or so since her brother was diagnosed a mere 18 months since he passed way.  My mom has gone to stay with her in Florida and for the first time ever, Wayne and I are both sick with this horrible stomach bug that the boys had last weekend.

So, you know, somewhere I obviously let those words slip right on out of my mouth because my husband and I are stuck.  We are both "dying" but our children are still in go go go mode.  Someone needs to make a bank run but neither of us are able to drive, Walker has basketball practice at 5 and we are attempting to "forget"about it because…well, neither of the adults in this house are able to take him and my mom is in Florida. 

So, the stress of last season?  That was nothing…..this stomach virus, now it is killing my holiday spirit.  And, the worst of it all, my husband and I played lazy earlier in the week and didn’t do the dishes nor did we do any laundry.  So, the sink is full of disgusting food products and neither of us can stand the smell long enough to clean it up….as if we could stand in an upright position that long anyway.  And, laundry, well, everyone is about to run out of socks and underwear…..

Honestly, I’d find a babysitter except…I’m too embarrassed for allow anyone inside my house.  And, well, who wants to go into a house full of stomach bug germs this close to Christmas just to make a few bucks?  No one I know…

So, let’s all hope that my 24 hour bug doesn’t linger more than say…oh 72 hours and I can get this place in gear this weekend.  OH and did I mention that our tree is up but no ornaments.  That’s right, no one is able to hang ornaments. 

So, how do I handle holiday stress….just be sure you don’t say anything that resembles "could it get any worse?"  because surely, it can.

This post is part of the Parent Bloggers Network and Family Aware’s promotion of Families for Depression Awareness.

Do you watch Survivor? You see, I am a fanatic over this show. But just a couple of hours I had one of my saddest moments watching the show. You see, one of the players, Sugar, had lost her father to lung cancer shortly before going on the show and apparently she cried quite a bit. At the final tribal council. a jury member who was obviously bitter and later professed to be proud to be rude and hateful, Corrine said the following to Sugar:

“You are unemployed, uneducated and a leech on society. The only thing I would give you is a handful of anti-depressants so that when you do cry about your father it will at least seem real”

Do I even have to tell you how furious this makes me. Sugar is a pin-up model. She has been seen in 5 different movies or TV shows and as I billed her weeks ago, will make some really good Marlyn Monroe movies and photos. It is just gonna happen that way. But, even though she lost her father, that comment was out of place. It was rude and hateful and even if Corrine was happy to be rude and hateful, her attitude is unacceptable.

I’m telling you, when I lost my father it was a ten year run of severe depression. This girl is in a freakin’ jungle with people she doesn’t even know and spent the first half of the show on exile island alone. So, I say boo to my absolutely show ever to even allowing that comment to be used, then to make it a glamorous comment on the reunion show was pathetic.

At least the contestant from the show that is a physician seem to understand and see that Sugar was hurting and that she was not as Corrine had described her to be.

And, in all fairness, Sugar was able to give her the happy finger after the comment which made me feel better but to be perfectly honest, I still say boo. Sugar did say that she was almost in need of body guards and didn’t leave home without make-up now as the paparazzi were all over her….and Corrine…well she was busy being boo’d and said she liked it that way. She was even stupid enough to blow kisses at the audience when they boo’d her.

Anyway, I give you….Sugar….