my messy mind

a newsletter and my little protest

Sherri — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 19:02:17 +0000

i have only used the little newsletter feature offered by google friend connect once before…

i did it today…. again…. friend connect is going away… bastards…. i think it’s quite possibly a case of discrimination against those of us who are non-blogger folks… in case you don’t get the newsletter i sent out, here is what i said:

Well, the end is near….

no! not my end or the end of my blog … heaven forbid!

the end i speak of is Google Friend Connect…. they are banning those of us who are non-blogger sites effective March 1st…. bastards!

this puts a real kink in the system i think…. and i view it is a control maneuver… i’m not going back to a blogger blog… they jacked with my stuff…. lost much of my writing (thankfully i kept backups)… and many comments… why in the world would i go back to that stress? moving to a self-hosted site was the best decision i have made for my little spot on the interwebs….

anyway, thanks for reading and commenting and visiting…. i hope that you’ll make the switch to following by RSS feed or email options…

for those of you who have had enough of my particular brand of brain dump…. i hate to see you go… but i know nothing lasts forever….

in the meantime, those of you who are also self-hosted rebels such as myself… i’m busy signing up for your rss feeds….

and you know what? just to be hard-headed – i might do that for all the blogs i follow… maybe i will stop using friend connect to follow any blog and do everything via rss feeds…. my own little personal protest ha!

(the one thing i will miss about friend connect is that i won’t know who’s following via rss…. i like that part of the friend connect thingy)

wishing you peace, love, and fuddruckers!

sherri

pretty snazzy for a newsletter ha! not….i will not set up a page on google + because it doesn’t work the same way… no feeds and it’s just one more place to have to visit to keep up with blogging… won’t do it… can’t make me ha! i do have a facebook page though…

how much you wanna bet that one day google will take over facebook too?

the whole point in putting this here is so that you will know what is happening when my cute little mugshot disappears from your friend connect… i’m following but by rss instead…. i’m protesting!

oh! big p.s. if you are new here…. since i won’t be able to see who you are and click on your image and find your site…. you’ll just have to leave me your link when you leave a comment so that i can find you

cindy, the yo-yo woman

Sherri — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 22:58:11 +0000

on my way to work each day i have passed a woman who was homeless… she always had a yo-yo in her hand… she was always smiling….

i would give her my loose change in the mornings…. a few times we chatted… her name was cindy… she was very well spoken, seemed to be well educated… she would ask about my job and such…

one day last week i started seeing R.I.P. on her corner…. and i haven’t seen her in a week or more… the others on that corner have been there… but not cindy

today i saw this….

rest in peace cindy

her friends put this up for her… they had her yo-yo-s… they had her shoes… there were others that brought flowers… and around the base of the street sign was her ball cap and an MRE…

i never found out if she had any family… i never found out what sort of work she did… i don’t know if she was ill or any of that…. i don’t know how she died….

the media doesn’t print stories about the homeless dying… unless it’s a tragic gruesome story…

her friends on the corner miss her… there were several who lived under that bridge… it’s an overpass… they have little beds in the cubby holes up top where the concrete beams meet the slope of the hill…. they’ve been there for as long as i can remember… they are a family

i miss seeing cindy with her yo-yo’s and her smile….

a good day

Sherri — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 22:20:00 +0000

coach has been working on some of the projects around the little tin can today….we went to the home depot and the walmart to get a few materials that he was in need of…. and while he was working, the electricity was shut off…. so i got my camera out to entertain myself….

she cried

Sherri — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:41:17 +0000

after the longest few minutes she could remember in a long time, she finally just floored it… leaving the driveway and the monster behind…. in her mind, somewhere in the abyss, she knew this was the last load… it wasn’t everything… there was no way she could have gotten all the precious things of her life… but she had the most precious thing… her child…and her safety.

there were so many things left behind… she thought maybe she could go back in a few days, with a truck and some help, and get the rest of her things… her clothes, some furniture that belonged in her family, some heirloom knick knacks… her baby girl’s things.. toys, crib, clothes… and pictures… oh the pictures…

she drove down the highway trying to see through the tears, through the pain. she tried to stay on the road as she comforted her baby… poor girl was crying so hard. so much confusion and anger hung in the air. there was only one place she could go – it was a place she knew she would be accepted and loved, sheltered and protected.

her father was waiting for her. of course he would take them in. of course he would help her. he even gave up his room for her and the baby… he moved to the couch. she felt so guilty about the sacrifices that were made for her. and again, she tried to think of her options… there weren’t many, if any at all.

the last load was taken into the house. she and the baby tried to get settled into the new room. so calm – it was painted a light blue and there were shutters on the windows. she laid on the bed and cried. and cried. she wondered how long it would be before the monster showed up. she thought he would be there soon – he was not a man who would give up the fight, even if it was a fight that was already over. when she left him in the driveway, she knew it would be his ego that suffered, his machismo… what would his friends think? he let his wife leave with the child. he allowed her to make a choice without his knowledge.

so she cried and wondered. a day went by…she heard from a friend who had gone to check on him. he was found passed out on the living room floor… and a large fire burned in the front yard. all of her things. burning. the clothes, the pictures… and all the baby girl’s things too… her crib, her clothes, her toys… who would do such a thing? how could he burn his child’s things?

a week went by…no news

a month went by… still no news… she hadn’t heard from him… she hadn’t seen him… what sort of father would stay away from his child like that?

about six weeks after she left his driveway, he called…..

the last load

Sherri — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:27:19 +0000

as she went back in for the last load of her stuff… well, the last of the stuff she could manage to get in her car… she felt such a sadness. yes, this is what she wanted (and needed) but even so, it was an ending… a failure… the end of a chapter. such a short chapter in her life… how could she have let this happen? so young, so abused, a child on her hip… and leaving.

she had planned this moment for a year. she knew it was coming. and she thought she was completely prepared for it. she had gone to school to become financially fit… she was going to be raising her child alone. the one thing that kept her going through that year of school was the proverbial light at the end of this tunnel… the tunnel of hell.

there was no way she could allow her baby girl to be raised in such an environment… booze, abuse (verbal and physical), rape, disease…a total disrespect for women…the constant demands of the “bitch”… where’s the dinner bitch? mow the lawn bitch… fix the sink bitch… wash the clothes bitch… get the beer bitch (one would’ve thought her mother played a cruel joke on her and named her bitch)… most of these tasks around the home were normal day to day things… the routine of running a home. but when something is demanded of a person in a brutal and abusive way, it changes things. she was made to feel as if she was as dumb as a rock… she’d heard it so many times… she was an idiot, she was stupid… and you know? when a person hears something like that over and over and over again, well it’s only natural that at some point, it is believed. surely it was true. right?

i wonder what the long term impact is on a person who has been berated like that… does a person have to be told only one time that he is dumb to cause a life long impact? i think so… especially when it is said by someone a person loves, trusts, looks up to… and what of children? how easily they are influenced by what the adults tell them… they trust that the adults are going to teach them and love them… and when a child is taught that they are dumb it sticks… very hard to overcome… to this day, i doubt myself...

school showed her otherwise. she learned what the teachers threw at her with no problem. no studying – who had time to study? raising a baby, working part time and going to school full time… not to mention the pickled husband that was constantly berating and humiliating her… even with all this in her life, she was able to graduate from the program with honors. she had proven to herself (even if no one else noticed) that she was not an idiot… in fact, she was quite smart.

as she packed the last of her things into the car, she cried. no one knew she had planned this. no one knew that she had been living in a home of abuse and alcohol. she was incredibly embarrassed by the whole thing. most of her family had such high standards that this would just simply not be acceptable. but what else was she supposed to do?

moving day was chosen because of one big thing – he was at work. he was gone. he wouldn’t be there to hit her, berate her, block her way…. perfect day for moving. the girl was young enough that she wouldn’t remember any of it. once everything was mashed into the car and the baby was buckled into her car seat, she backed out of the drive. and in that one moment, the world crashed in on her. he was home… he was pulled into the driveway and parked right behind her… the monster was there.

tears, dread, fear… all rushed into her heart. funny what babies know… the girl began crying… she sensed the danger.

she put the car in drive and began pulling forward to leave…. the monster attacked her car… screaming, ranting… he beat the car… he jumped on the car… he threw rocks at the car… he tried to block the car… she just kept driving forward… slowly… she didn’t want to hurt him… he deserved to be run over…flattened in his own driveway… the bastard.

but she was not that kind of person. she hurt for him.

what’s the story

Sherri — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:45:08 +0000

(none of the photos in this post are mine…they are all pilfered from other sites mostly because i’ve been lazy and haven’t gone out to do any lifestyle of austinite photographs… keep saying i will … if you click on the image you will be magically transported to a larger image of the photo showing the URL that i pilfered from…)

first this morning i had a meeting downtown….

our headquarters is on 6th street…. coolness, i know….

always lots of interesting folks to look at… night and day… of course nighttime on 6th street is pretty spectacular when it comes to people watching… you just never know what you might see…over the years i have spent a great deal of time on 6th street… back in the day, this was the most hoppinest street for live music in texas….

borrowed image

the city would block off 6th street from I-35 all the way down to just past congress… it was all foot traffic… musicians, artists, and freaks… fun stuff… the nightlife down there was amazing… great music, great food, great people watching…

borrowed image

more recently, things have changed somewhat… i haven’t been in some years at night but i don’t think they are blocking off the street anymore… many of the clubs have moved to other locations around the city… it’s just sort of lost it’s magic…

but it’s still a great location, 6th street… many clubs remain… everything from stand up comedy, to cover bands, to follies…. tattoo shops, head shops, eateries, and other cool shops….

borrowed image

but at 8:30 on a wednesday morning, i was truly not prepared to see what i did…

a mother… a large woman… with her two children following her- maybe 4 or 5 years old, walking down the sidewalk… okay, not so odd you say….

but when you consider that the woman was wearing nothing but a dirty t-shirt and panties… and her children were wearing pretty much the same thing… no shoes on any of them…

just walking down 6th street…. downtown austin… how odd….

the homeless folks are easy to spot… they have carts, bags, backpacks, blankets, signs, cups, and other paraphernalia….

this woman had nothing… t-shirt and panties… that’s it….

i have to wonder what the story is?

*could be a good creative writing prompt…. making up this woman’s story… hmm

infinity

Sherri — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 03:45:45 +0000

some of the spam i seem to attract is rather interesting….for example:

i’m not sure how these particular pervs find me… or why they choose to attempt this crap… but i have to admit that each time i click on that little thingy that says spam 6 i sort of chuckle a bit…

i was thinking tonight … (scary i know)

i’m sure ready to reach that point in life where my pregnancy alert system is disabled…. i mean, really… does that junk still need to work? i think there needs to be a switch that allows us to disable those systems when we no longer require their use….makes perfect sense to me…

i was speaking with a someone at work today… i walked into his office and said “happy valentine’s day” with a smile on my face…. he sort of “ughed” in my general direction… i mentioned that i was just spreading the cheer…. lol he let me know that his girlfriend picked today of all days to start a fight…. so during our little meeting they are text arguing… (she lives in another city…) and by the time our meeting was over she was sending the apology text… his reply?

“she won the boyfriend lotto and she knows it” hahaha …. greatness!

coach and i went to dinner tonight at one of our favorite restaurants… a mexican food joint… and normally we have really good food with really good service there…. um, tonight? not so much…. it was busy, but not busier than a normal night… took our waitress ~~(if we could actually call her that)~~ more than 20 minutes to bring us our drinks… then at least another 20 to come back and get our order…. people were coming and going all around us… folks who ordered after us where paying their bills… when FINALLY our food is served….. luke warm… hell, worse than that… my dinner was room temperature….

now, i thought of complaining… sending it back to be zapped… but that would’ve taken another 20 minutes at a minimum and i just didn’t have the patience for that

i love my valentine….

i love him infinity

he completes me… i know, cliche

he helps me and cares for me

he listens to me

he seems to be proud of me and value my thoughts, ideas, and opinions (that’s a huge thing)

i am the queen of his 5th wheel ha!

and i come in a really close 2nd to football….

for you studmuffin… you rock my world

no particular thoughts going on here

Sherri — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 23:58:04 +0000

i’m finding more and more people who are deciding against taking DMD’s (disease modifying drugs)… and they are all reporting that they feel BETTER off the meds….and now if only my face would freakin wake up!

this is something i’ve contemplated off and on for the past several months… such a tough decision to make… and my decision impacts all of those around me… especially coach… i mean, if i make the wrong decision – either way – he has to deal with it

the weight watchers stuff is actually working… imagine that… i’m down a total of 4 pounds since i started with them… slow and easy… and i haven’t felt like i’m being jipped out of any food i have wanted… i’m getting the hang of the portions… and thanks to the wonderful side effects of my little pink energy pills, i don’t have much trouble with feeling hungry….

i wish there was money in advocacy… i don’t mean like a little trickle of cash here and there…but a salary… i think i would enjoy it… i love public speaking (bet you wouldn’t have guessed that one), i love to write and do research… i enjoy talking to folks most days… in the past few months there have been various people in contact with me about such things… but there’s just no money in it… and i have to work…. have to… and work zaps me so there’s not much energy left to really dive into doing any real advocating….

i’ve been feeling rather blessed in my life for a while now… history tells me that this generally means someone is fixing to take a big smelly doo-doo in my world soon… you know, when things get too good or too comfy well, it seems the universe has to throw some wrench at you….

pass the red bull!

inhabit your body

Sherri — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:07:09 +0000

Inhabit Your Body

As we inhabit our body with increasing sensitivity, we learn its unspoken language and patterns, which gives us tremendous freedom to make choices. The practice of cutting thoughts and dispersing negative repetitive patterns can be simplified by attending to the patterns in the body first, before they begin to be spun around in the mind.

- Jill Satterfield, “Meditation in Motion”

ice and stuff

Sherri — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:56:30 +0000

as i sit here this cold arse morning, enjoying the pseudo warmth of the tin can, i realize that life is pretty darn good… it truly is. i’m a lucky girl….

coach went shopping this morning, running a few errands…. and he came home with my valentine’s present…. good thing i gave him shit about the importance of being a husband and giving gifts it paid off nicely…. i was presented with pearls… one of my favorites…. earrings, bracelet and necklace…. good job coach!

guess now i have to go buy him something lol

there is ice falling from the sky right now… um, hello? wasn’t it just like 76 degrees? and isn’t it going to be 70 tomorrow? this crazy arse texas weather allows no time for adjustment at all…. just when i start getting used to the heat, i am given freezing temps… oh well

we had our 2nd football game of the semi pro season yesterday… bless their hearts… we lost 12-28… i took enough pictures to fill a finely bound coffee table book… here’s the link if you are interested…. way to many to post them here and many of you most likely don’t give a shit LOL

mri’s are scheduled… february 28th… thoracic and lumbar… lucky me

oh…. fun stuff…. i got a phone call day from an advocate for MS… she is just getting started and she has some great ideas and wonderful plans in place… right now she’s on facebook but will have a website soon…. she was so kind and fun to visit with… the name of her organization is MS UpClose… the idea is to have a forum for patients and physicians to talk, interact… honestly… she is requesting those living with MS to submit short videos…. she is going working on a project where they are going to spend 12 hours with someone living with MS and video it… she has great ideas…. if you are so inclined, it would be great to visit her site… i’m going to throw my support her way… i think she’s on the right track here….