<-------NICE PICTURE!!


FACE READING:

LEFT SIDE: Happiness, determination, Mischief

RIGHT SIDE: Calmness, love, affection.

When I post up a picture of my double barreled shotgun lighter next to my Beer can welder and my tape measure lighter....you will understand my hapenis.

I love christmas, having everyone together, watching my children.

I love searching for presents that i know everyone will like, I love being able to give,

This year I am away from some of my chilodren and Mum and Dad so it's not the same, but I have my other children and watching them getting ready for an American Christmas instead of a hot summer Christmas is pretty cool

Do you have control over your life? Are you naturally opposed to the established order? Where do you belong?

Do you like s'mores?

I'm currently reading a book called, Sweet Temptation and I've gotten to the part where one of the heroines loses her mother to cancer... And this is where I'm tempted to stop reading because not only can I not stop crying, but I'm dreading the happily ever after of her finding life after death.

Which brings me to this:
1. Five years ago, I lost my mother and then five more members of my immediat family during those five years. I've found that everytime I hear or even read about death, whether real or in the pages of a book, I take it very personally, as if it's happening to me all over again. Does that happen to anybody else?

2. Is there life after death, and how does one go about obtaining it? I'm not talking about merely existing, but living in every sense of the word.

I'll leave it at that because I'd hate to start sounding like a whiner, but just out of curiousity, who has loved and lost and is now trying to live again?

I've been through loss again and again.

My first experience came when I was only 6 or 7 years old: my grandmother died after a long battle with lung cancer. It feels odd thinking back and realizing that understood the concept of death at that age. Even more odd, I didn't mourn for her so much as I mourned for the pain it had caused my father.

My closest uncle died when I was 11 years old. Then one of my neighbors (a close family friend). Then both my grandfathers, another uncle, my remaining grandmother, a close friend of mine, and just over a year ago my mother too. Just two weeks ago, a friend of mine committed suicide. It was sudden, and no one seems to know why he did it.

You learn to deal with it. Each person must find their own way to best handle it. There isn't one surefire way - each person means something different to each person whose life they have touched. It's a very personal process...

The one thing I have learned - and it came as a sudden shock one day - is that forgetting the deceased is the most horrible part.

I was in my freshman year in college, first semester, when I realized I no longer remembered what my paternal grandmother looked like. I couldn't remember the sound of her voice. All I could remember was that she had accidentally broken my Hamburglar glass one day, and she was very apologetic about it. Some 12 years after her death, I suddenly felt the grief of her passing all over again. From that point on, I went out of my way to honor her memory by learning about her Irish roots - history, music, genealogy....I made sure I could never forget her again.

Perhaps that in itself had a special purpose and meaning. It was only a few months later when my maternal grandfather - the one I was named after - passed away. Everyone was worried I would take it quite hard, but perhaps Nana (my father's mother) was looking out for me. Because of her, I learned the big secret to handling my own grief: never forget. Since then, I have always managed death well. I also always make sure I have a way to maintain some link or bond: memories, heritage, heirlooms, shared knowledge and interests, etc. Whatever the connection, it inevitably leads me to some form of self-improvement by spurring me to learn something new. And that allows me to know that the ones I've lost would be happy because even after their passing they are still helping me to learn and grow.

So maybe the experience I've just shared will helped someone else to understand how to handle their own grief.

Kruppa, I too believe this statement, but this is where I am having trouble. I know Rick would want me to be happy, living life to the fullest, and letting no one hurt me. But my catch 22 is that everything in the past four years that brought me my greatest joy was something we did together. I am not sure I know how to find that again without him. I know I have to re-learn this stuff. I love hockey, yet every time I have gone to watch a game I am always looking for him over by the penality box. Every tv program we watched together brings tears to my eyes. What is the point of comming up with a witty comeback, a gracefull slap-stick stumble or a side splitting joke if he is not here to share it with? And yet, I am also hurting that I have let him down by still being sad. Again I am a disapointment to someone. OP I wish I could help or offer a suggestion, but right now I am in the same boat.

Unfortunatly in this society we live in, grieving = loss and loss = not being worthy. It is almost like being an untouchable in other countries. Shunned and even more alone with nothing but thoughts of your lost loved one. People tell me, get out, socialize, do something. Who has the time or money these days? I sure do not. So what now? Picnic at the park feeding the geese? Great, a romantic picnic without your loved one with you. (LOOSER) How about a comedic movie? Sitting all alone and no one to elbow when the jokes are too lame. (Looser sitting alone in a theatre, where is the long raincoat?) Volunteer at a retirement home,read to the elderly. ( Sure and get attached to someone else that will leave you when they die?) Hell I can't even go to the grocery store without thinking of Rick. His favorite foods or the ornery things we did while shopping. Shoot, I can't even be in the frozen foods section without crying. People think I am nutz. God if only there was a switch to turn this emotional stuff off I would be eternally gratefull.

So untill that switch flipps off of its own accord, I mingle, do my school work and work till I fall asleep in my chair.

A public school in Toronto has put a ban on most balls their kiddos toss around during recess because school administrators have deemed such projectiles dangerous. Well hello, wittle wussies.

Hey, I’ve got an idea: Maybe we could get the overzealous Canadian ball-banner to take Holder’s job at the DOJ. Think about it. Given this Canuck’s proclivity toward protection I bet he’d make certain that thousands of AK-47s would not be purposefully given to Mexican drug cartels (which they could later use to kill our border agents).

What’s that, you say? Dudley Do-Right can’t serve in the DOJ because he’s not a proper U.S. citizen? Why, sure he can! Obama could help him hop over that hurdle because he’s a specialist at getting around constitutional conundrums. Anyway, I’m getting off track by dreaming. Allow me to get back to freaks who forbid footballs.

Banning balls? Sure, that’s what we need in the 21st century … baseballs, footballs and dodge balls barred from this crop of squashy kids. Are you kidding me? As if North American kids weren’t lame enough already, they now have Nerf balls to prep them for the real world. Hey, Earl Beatty Public School: While you’re busy outlawing hard balls, why don’t you also mandate that everyone in your school wear pink tutus, chartreuse neckerchiefs and signs on their butts that say, “China and Islamic Radicals: Kick Me Hard.”

In this day of Puss ‘n Boots squish, do we really need more softies who don’t have enough sense to avoid getting hit in the mouth by a slider? Getting rocked up in the face by a fastball could be the best thing that ever happened to your stupid kid. Pain is God’s way of telling your lackluster boy to quit texting and watch the game.

I hate to break it to you, molders of young people’s minds, but life—like sports—is dangerous. If you remove potential playground danger from the educational equation then you’ve effectively dulled young people to both the risks and rewards that living in the batter’s box brings.

I'm not running for office here (the crowd cheers for that one) but I think we are now experiencing a couple of generations in our country where work is treated like the enemy instead of a passion toward excellence. We live separate lives from our work as if it was the evil one. I have never, and never care to, treat work as something I have to escape from. Sure take a break, clear the mind, rest up, but is it really the grind that we make it out to be or is that something in our head? When I see much of the up rising that is going on in the separation between the rich and poor I wonder how much of this is our doing? Aren't we the ones who decide if we like doing our jobs or not.

We need to teach our kids how to be positive. Instead of "Oh wait till you have to work" why not "so what do you want to be?". Why not do things with them instead of partying our brains out.

Boy do I have a lot to say on this topic. I'll be quiet now.

That's okay, I always fall for a handsome man in a Stetson and cowboy boots.

is it friday