Wedding Gift OMG

First of all, This was posted this morning, and I fell back asleep to it.  I love it, and I wish it was longer.

Secondly, I actually got a wedding gift from a family member.  This family member’s daughter in law messaged me and said she sends the same towel set to anyone getting married and she does the ordering for her mother in law.  She asked me what color I wanted and I said olive green.

 They came yesterday, and I was absolutely shocked not only at the sheer number of towels (There are three missing from the picture, because we had already decided to bathe and use them), but at the fact that I got a wedding gift at all.  Believe me when I tell you, I never expected anyone to be supportive, let alone enough to actually send me a gift.  It truly does feel like I have stepped into a parallel universe where me in a relationship doesn’t enrage everyone.  They are good quality towels!  And I was just thinking, I need new towels.

Insomnia on Days Off and Accomplishments

I only worry about insomnia when I have to work a long day.  During days off and shorter work days, being tired isn’t a big deal, especially since Kevin drives. Last night, Kevin went to bed super early, and I went through all of my fabric scraps. I was able to make a ton of these blocks for denim chenille quilts for when I make an Etsy shop- I made enough for one and  a half 6by 6 quilts. If I just pick up a half yard of navy blue at Walm next time I’m there, I can finish the other half. I also made my scraps into crazy quilt blocks, all pictured below. 

At one time, I was going to make a “skirt out of ties”, but it was a fail. I got the ties on 25 cent day, and they’re all torn up now. I lost interest in that. So I just threw them away. I don’t like being reminded of fails. 

While I worked, I watched the HULU docuseries called “The Devil in the family” about Rube Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt. Now, I had heard their names in the news a lot over the past couple years, but never took the deep dive. I worked with kids for about 20 years, and had one therapist suggest that I had “complex PTSD” from it all. I knew that it involved severe child abuse and wanted to wait until I was ready. When I saw that one of my favorite YouTubers, Alyssa Grenfell, posted a Reaction, I decided it was time to.  I had already renewed my HULU Subscription due to the Octomom docuseries and the fact that the final season of the Handmaid’s Tale is on the horizon. So I just logged on and watched it while I did scraps. 

It was funny to me how much Jodi Hildebrandt reminds me of my now 92 year old radical feminist aunt, whom I often refer to as my “evil aunt”. They had a lot of similarities. Then, I saw that her niece was interviewed. As horrible as my own evil aunt was, at least my mother never sent me to live with her!  If she ever did, then perhaps I would also have escaped to a neighbor’s house with duct tape around my ankles. My aunt did want to send me to the so called “troubled teen industry” though. When I got my first job in a daycare at age 16, she thought it made me want to get pregnant. It actually did, but it’s not like I was trying to. I didn’t even have a boyfriend until I was 18, and even then didn’t actively try to conceive. She actually called a place and told them about me, probably exaggerating the whole time. 

They told her to have my parents call them. She was just my aunt and didn’t have the authority to actually enroll me in anything. So she told my mother, and my mother responded that she wasn’t worried about me getting pregnant, because no one would probably ever want to be with me anyway. I didn’t even know about all of this until years later when I heard it from another cousin. We all have our own stories about her. When she dies y’all will know because the post will be titled “Ding Dong the witch is dead”. Seeing details about Jodi Hildebrandt makes me so glad my parents, despite major faults of their own, kept her mostly at a distance. She did live with us for a while, but not long enough to brainwash my parents into chaining me up. Thank goodness. 

 

Tidbits

 First of all thanks, Kathy G!!  I had absolutely no idea they put you out for a colonoscopy. That’s actually really good news. Such a relief!!  With that being said, why don’t they put you out for gynecological procedures as well?  I’ve had two IUD’s and I’m not going there right now- it’s an enormous debate online whether women deserve anesthesia during IUD insertions. 

Secondly, I finished all the sewing on a rainbow denim chenille quilt that I want to list for sale whenever I make an Etsy shop- 

Of course it’s not done, I still need to do all the clipping. I usually do that if I’ve woken up too early for work and am waiting for whatever Kevin declared “time to leave”. It’s different every morning due to start time and distance, but it is always at the crack of dawn!!  

I have others that are basic blues that I don’t think I’ve ever taken photos of. They need to be clipped as well. I also have a white themed one with white denim:

 

It’s all white denim on the back. I have so much white that this might be king size. 

I’m also going to charge a little more for the rainbows. They require more thought. 

Thirdly, I’ve gotten depressed reading the subreddit Find a Path. Not sure why I’m on there- I’ve pretty much found my path or paths. I just feel sorry for people who feel so lost in life. Especially when they say something similar to, “I’m 22 and I’ve completely ruined my life!”  And it’s something really minor that I also would have catastrophic over at age 22. I feel like Eminem in the song Not Afraid. When I want to tell someone everything is going to be ok, I feel like the first 23 seconds of that song. “It’s been a ride. I guess I had to go to that place to get to this one. Some of you might be in that place, you’re trying to get out. Come follow me. I’ll get you there.”  

Also, since Mariam on TikTok reminded me that today and tomorrow are Purim, I decided to watch my favorite movie version of itEsther. Warning, if you decide to watch the movie in that link about Queen Esther in the Bible, there are a ton of ads!  But it’s free! 

Colonoscopy Advice

 

On April 1 at 3:40 pm, I’m seeing a gastroenterologist (who, in his online profile, seems like a really nice guy but you never know) for a consult for a colonoscopy. 

Last year, I lost my cousin Kathy to colon cancer. Kathy had been sick as a dog for at least two years. At some point, she was scheduled for a colonoscopy, but didn’t go. She went through the “prep” the previous day, and then just didn’t go to the actual colonoscopy, because according to her, the prep made her feel a lot better. “I must have shit out whatever the problem was,” she had said. 

In December of 23, her adult daughter came for a visit and immediately stepped outside to call paramedics. She had looked that bad. They took her to the hospital, and discovered colon cancer which had spread as to her liver and somewhere else. She died at the end of January. It was devastating. 

Sometimes, people on hospice will become reclusive and not want to see or speak to anyone. This is how Kathy was. My mother didn’t understand, but I did because of my previous work as a CNA. Even though they were aunt and niece, they were more like sisters. And Kathy had the type of personality that it didn’t really surprise me that she’d not wanted to see or talk to anyone at the end of life. 

She was also deathly afraid of doctors, and that’s why this was never caught early. As the last year has gone by, I have realized that I am exactly the same way now about doctors. I cancel appointments.  I have exactly the same fears she did. There was one doctor who wrote everything Kathy’s was going through as “anxiety” and just giving her Paxil. My mom originally wanted that doctor sued. But you can’t, I said, you aren’t immediate family and she ditched her colonoscopy anyway. My mom doesn’t remember her saying “I must have shit out whatever the problem was.”  She selectively remembers things. That happened. I blow my mom off when she claims to not remember it. 

I don’t want to end up like Kathy, and I’m seeing so many similarities between me and her. 

I know Kathy could have had many more years on this earth, because her mom (my mom’s sister) is still alive and kicking and will turn 95 in June. Not only that, but she’s been smoking for about 80 years!  

It completely grosses me out to think of having a colonoscopy, and I do NOT want to freak out and ditch the appointment, and I want to go through with it no matter how awful it might be. 

So if anyone has been through a colonoscopy before and can give me some advice in the comments, that would be great!  I feel like people don’t really talk about any other cancers except for the ones that are female specific (breast, cervical, ovarian, uterine, etc). Then people with every other kind of cancer (men AND women), it creeps up on them in stage four when they all along had no idea something was wrong. My daughter is 17 and “wants three kids someday”, so I need to be around. Please tell me what to expect in the comments.   I have a feeling it’s not as bad as it seems, although I don’t have experience so I could be wrong. 

Songs Affiliated with Places

 I actually don’t know what my mom has against “Rocky” (Sylvester Stallone), but she will get pretty blunt when she doesn’t like a celebrity. I’m apathetic to Rocky, but if she hates someone I like, I tune it out, which results in tuning it out even when she’s ranting about someone I’m indifferent towards. It becomes habit. 

Today, I thought of all the times that I got certain songs stuck in my head only because I was in certain places. Probably three years ago now, I drove to Illinois to make a faster way to obtain a copy of my birth certificate. On the way home, I spent the day in Memphis doing the side jobs on the apps there. Don’t you know, I had Walking in Memphis stuck in my head the entire time I was there. One of the top comments in that video used to be, “I got robbed in Memphis.” With thousands of likes, but it seems to be gone. I didn’t get robbed in Memphis thank god’s, but I thought it seemed like a police state with so many cops everywhere. And real cops too!  Not security guards! 

He Used to Meet Me on the East Side gets stuck in my head whenever I’m on the east side of Houston. Every town has an east side. So this would probably be the case no matter where I lived. 

One time someone mentioned that they were from Cuba, and all day long, My Heart is in Havana got stuck in my head. 

And today, as I did inventory in convenient stores in very bad parts of town. I had Elvis In The Ghetto stuck in my head. Several people came in that seemed to be on drugs. The bathrooms said “out of order” and when I told Kevin that I had to go pretty bad and might go across the street, he was like “They aren’t out of order, they just don’t want crackheads in there. Just ask the manager for the key, he’ll give it to you.”  Oh! Ok!  The bathroom worked for me! 

I also want to mention how the top comment in all of those music videos I linked to is “Who’s here in 2025?”  Makes one feel old!  

Funny from my Mother

 On the radio this morning, I heard that the former mayor of Houston, Sylvester Turner, has passed away. When my mother sent me her daily text with the word “Kalimera” (good morning in Greek), I responded- “Kalimera, did you hear that Sylvester Turner passed away?”

She responded that she had not heard. Then went on a semi mini rant about how “ugly and stupid looking he was” and how much she didn’t like him. I kind of thought that was weird. Mayor Turner was just an average looking guy. And when my mom dislikes someone in the public eye, she’s quite outspoken about it. I had never heard her say she didn’t like the mayor. 

About an hour later, she sent me another text saying, “Juat reread your message.  Sorry, I thought you meant Sylvester Stallone.”  I burst out laughing. 

Easter Wreath

 

Today I made this Easter wreath. I really only like celebrating Easter on years when Greek Orthodox Easter falls on the same day as “regular Easter”. That is happening this year!  Several months ago, I got all these styrofoam eggs from a garage sale for $1. I first wrapped the wreath frame with purple scrap fabric I had and then kept spinning it around, hot gluing the shit out of everything. The purple lace came off of a piece of lingerie I got at the thrift store’s 25 cent day. I might still trim some of the hanging lace and move it to other areas of the wreath, idk. It’s already up on the door anyway. 

Dress!!

 I saw signs on the road here in Waller for a clothing consignment boutique/ used clothing. It was in a strip mall. Not noticeable- which is probably why they put up neon signs. I went in and found this for only $15!  He let me try it on and it fit perfectly!  I’m going to cut it a little, as it’s a little long. I’m so relieved that I found something suitable to get married in. 

I’m also suffering some bad insomnia. We have to do inventory at six convenience stores this week- two each day Monday through Wednesday. So I really hope to God I can sleep tonight, or else tomorrow will suck. 

Seed Balls

Seed balls are a type of permaculture gardening that I learned about in the book “Food Not Lawns” by Heather Flores. Heather described seed balls as “one part seed mixture, three parts compost, and five parts clay”. I made them this way with my daughter in the spring of 2011 when she was 3 and a half. They produced a lot of squash, radishes, pea pods, sunflowers, and even our own pumpkin for Halloween. The pumpkin was very hard to carve though, and my father had to do it with the electric knife. 

These days, I ask for “clay” in gardening stores and they don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m not sure what I used as clay in 2011- probably some dirt from the ground that looked red, which I sifted. I don’t remember exactly. 

But this year I bought this mix on amazon. I got seeds for three different kinds of squash, cilantro, spinach, and catnip. I started them in pots because my 88 year old father in law likes to just randomly ride the tractor around, and last year he unknowingly killed all my seed balls. We didn’t tell him, of course I just let it go. It was funny, because one of the main reasons he liked me was because I asked if I could have garden space. 

On my inlaws’ property (where we live in the guest house), there are about a million pots lying around. I used some of them for these seed balls. When they grow big enough, I’ll put them in the ground.  That way when my father in law enjoys his tractor rides, they’ll be easier to see. 

 

Planning a Wedding 💒 👰🏻 🤵‍♂️

 With our marriage license in hand, the courthouse gave us a list of 8 judges that could marry us. We have between 3-90 days to get married before it expires. With a slow work month ahead, our first step was to call our CEO to ask about work ahead and potential days off requests. I made him wait until I got home from my errands to talk with her and put her on speakerphone- she’s known for over a year that we are a couple, but didn’t know we were engaged. I wanted to hear her tone for myself. I care what she thinks. I just do. I’ve only met her in person once, and over email weekly. When Kevin told her we got our marriage license yesterday, she seemed overjoyed. Her tone was as positive and bubbly as could be. I was super thankful for that. Then we decided that the best day to do it would be Monday, March 24th. Since we are getting married at the courthouse, it has to be a weekday. She talked about what accounts wanted what days and such. But when talking about our wedding plans, she seemed overjoyed. 

Then Kevin went for a walk in the park, which he tries to do daily. I started calling the 8 judges. One would be out that whole week, the next one would be in a lengthy trial that entire day and wouldn’t have time. Calling these judges was a little depressing, because of all the negative things mentioned in the recordings. If you have a class C misdemeanor, press 1. For evictions, press 2. For jail press 3. If you have a ticket or whatever else kind of violation press 4.  Finally, if you’re getting married press 5. Jesus Christ, I thought. Imagine grouping getting married with crimes, evictions, and jail. It started to seem like none of the judges could help on 3/24, that is until I called the 7th one. 

His secretary answered and said she was transferring me to the judge, because he does his own scheduling. He seemed like a very elderly hillbilly and such a nice, easygoing guy. He was completely free on the 24th and let me pick a time. I asked him, what is it going to entail?  Do we say vows?  He told me, “It’s your wedding, you can do whatever you want!  You can write your own vows if you want!”  I said, “I really want just very traditional vows.”  He replied, “Ok, I got some!”  Then he asked how many people we are bringing. Since Kevin and I are kind of old (I’m 46 and he’s nearly 60), it’s not like we want a grandiose affair. No one is coming to Texas to watch us get married. I said so far, it’s both of his parents, my mother, my teenage daughter, and possibly two or three of our coworkers and possibly my one and only local friend and her husband. He said that sounded pretty good, and then he said, “Y’all are going to have to bring me fifty bucks! Can you swing that?”  I told him yes we can pay $50.  The judge then said “Ok I need some beer money!”  I said thank you several times before hanging up. It’s 16 days away and I honestly am going to call and confirm in about a week or week and a half because he seems like he might have dementia. I might talk to the secretary that answered the phone too. Like, we’re still on for the 24th right?  Either that or he was drunk. At least he was a nice guy. 

Then my order from amazon came with my dress and my daughter’s dress. They were not the dresses posted below. They were different. Mine in white and hers in green. Hers is cute, but mine is an enormous Nope. There’s no way I’m getting married in this dress. It looked like very nice polyester fabric and a nice pretty and modest design in the pic, but in reality, it’s t-shirt fabric and looks like a combination of a hospital gown and the child brides in The Handmaid’s Tale. I need to buy one in person. I’m never ordering clothes online again. 

I’m not going to return this dress though. I’m actually thinking of tie dyeing it and wearing it over the summer when it’s over 90 degrees. 

I discussed this plan with my cousin/best friend who’s not coming because she lives in Chicago and is a psychiatrist. (Has to work and I didn’t go to her wedding anyway).  I told both her and my daughter NOT to tell my mother about my plans to tie dye this dress for the summer and buy something else to get married in. My mother would purposely misinterpret as, I’m walking down the aisle in tie dye. My cousin/best friend agreed. She then semi seriously said “You would rock it though.”  I said yes. With a rainbow veil. A row of tulle in each color of the rainbow hanging from the tiara. Could you imagine?  And like the 80’s legend Rainbow Brite, I could have a bridesmaid/friend wearing each color.  We cracked up at the idea. I do not have seven local friends, though, even if I did want to pull off something that ridiculous. My mother would die. 

Tomorrow I don’t feel like doing anything. I want to shop Sunday for something to wear to my courthouse wedding.  It doesn’t have to be white. Maybe I’ll even feel like it tomorrow. I’m exhausted. I’m not only getting married, I have a kid who’s graduating from high school, wanting to move in with me upon her 18th birthday and wants to travel with me and take me on a tour of the university she’s attending next year. AND my mother is turning 80.  My life is shifting a lot. A lot a lot. Graduation is May 23, mom turns 80 May 30th, and my kid turns 18 on June 11. 

Then, after all is said and done, I turn 47 on July 17th. My godmother died of cancer at age 47.  I was 12 when she died. She was the first person I lost. Approaching the age she was when she passed is giving me existential crises. She was 47 years and 4 months when she died. It’s hard to imagine that when she was my age, she was at the end of her life and I now feel like I’m just getting started. When she died, it was hard for me to cry, because she looked so different in the casket, and since I was only 12, it was hard for me to comprehend. I was also struggling immensely in grade 7. My mother used to tell me that I didn’t care about my godmother dying. Well obviously I did care, because it’s affecting me still, all these years later. When my mom was pregnant with me, my godmother asked to be my godmother. My parents didn’t have to ask anyone- she and her husband just volunteered. In my baptism picture, she looks so happy carrying me, and I was super cute in my extremely long white dress and white bonnet. I can’t find that picture, and I don’t think I would ever want to. Fixing up my daughter’s room feels similar to setting up a nursery for a new baby. I’m planning a wedding, I’m working, I’m in love, I’m mostly healthy.  It’s a form of survivor’s guilt that I feel like I’m getting a second chance in life when she was on hospice at my exact age. Then worry creeps in that maybe God will punish me for finding happiness again and take me too at age 47. That fear is a symptom of anxiety. It’s the reason why Kevin has been prompting me to listen to Joel Osteen. But no one knows how much time they really have, so I make sure I always tell my daughter how proud I am of her, how much I love her and how glad I am that I had her. I tell Kevin I love him regularly and I thank him semi regularly for everything he’s done for me. I sometimes try to make sure I convey to my mom that I mostly forgive her for the abuse she put me through as a child and that I still want *some* contact with her even though she has friends with adult kids who are no contact.  None of us know if we’ll die tomorrow or 50 years from now, but if I do then I’m just thankful for where I ended up in 2025. I Was Here. I have had a very rough life, but a lot of happiness and success. If I get some more time unlike my godmother, let’s see what unfolds. 

Dress Possibilities

I’m leaning towards something like this if I get married at the justice of the peace.  I always wanted one of those tiaras with crystals sticking out.  The same dress and tiara in green would be for my daughter.  

Kevin wants to get married at my mother’s church, but they’re going to ask him for a certificate of baptism.  He doesn’t have it, even though he was baptized.  I guess I’d have to wear something fancier if I got married in church, but aside from the baptism certificate rule, there’s too many rules to get married in that church that I don’t think we could fulfill.  

I just want to do a small ceremony.  It’s hard to plan this after so many years of being told I have to be an independent woman and not need/want a man.  I was always told not to want this, so it’s kind of hard to visualize what I would want now that it’s happening.  We told our boss and his wife today.  They seemed ok/happyish.  

 

Ring 💍

 So that’s the ring I picked out. I love the white color. I want to wait until I get my nails done to take a picture of it on my hand. Kevin is wearing my dad’s. 

I announced my engagement on Facebook, and the responses were 92% positive and 8% negative. Despite the negative reactions being by far the minority, I still deactivated both my facebook and instagram accounts. Im laying low for a while and feel like I'm disappointing everyone. More on that later. Maybe. 

I tried looking at wedding dresses, and they’re all huge Nopes. I never wear sleeveless ever. Not going to start now. Let alone low cut stuff with obvious cleavage. I’m leaning towards a simple Greek goddess costume from Etsy. It has nice sleeves. Not sure I even want a wedding at all. I’d rather go to the JP 👨🏻‍⚖️ 

I did them all myself !!! 🚗 💨 🚗 💨

Today my car reached 200,000 miles. 

I did most of all of them myself!! It had less than 20K when I bought it.  

Disclaimer: “Maintenance required” simply means it’s time for an oil change. The last time I got one, they put a windshield sticker stating to get one when I hit 200,300. 

When I was pregnant, one of my coworkers gave me a book called “Oh the places you’ll go” by Dr. Seuss. I mean, it was for the baby. But I obviously went to a lot of places in this car. Between 2020-2022, I did retail audits all over Texas and 9 other states. I did spend one day in Memphis, but did not venture east into the rest of Tennessee. I left Memphis after doing some 10-12 audit jobs there, because it seemed like there was a police state. Cops were everywhere, and it made me nervous. Sometimes I say “all over nine states”. That has truth to it if you include Texas. Tennessee was technically the tenth state. 

Yesterday something else higher happened. Kevin asked me to marry him, and I said yes. We are shopping for rings today. I knew it was coming, and I knew 200K was coming on the car.  But I didn’t imagine they’d happen the same day. 

20-25 years ago, most people in my life were vehemently opposed to the idea of me ever getting married or having a family. Miraculously, that ended last year when I moved in with Kevin. I surmised that it was because I was by then 45 years old. No one is going to try and boss a middle aged woman around the way they would boss a woman in her early 20’s around. It’s a lot nicer without all the hate and drama, but at the same time- is it going to be the same for my daughter?  Does she have to wait until she’s 45? 

I don’t know. The very few people I’ve told so far have been happy, but I haven’t told anyone that wouldn’t be. 

 

Beautiful Dance

 I’ve listened to and watched this video a lot in the last couple months. It’s a group of teenagers doing a Circassian dance. It reminds me of when I was in Greek dance groups for Greek festivals in the 90’s. By “Circassian”, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe they mean the part of the former Soviet Union that is right on the cusp of Europe and Asia. 

Just like when I was a teenager in the Greek dance groups, I tend to love the female parts of the dance but dislike the male parts. I’ve always thought in this kind of dancing, the women look very beautiful and graceful, whereas the boys look almost ridiculous. Someone in the comments (if you click on “translate” since most comments are in Russian), say they look like “courting birds. Lol they do look like courting birds. Do birds court?  I don’t know, but I always loved how in Circassian dancing the women look like they’re floating. 

Here is their dress rehearsal in a dance studio. It’s catchy. 

Rest and Reflection

 Kevin and I are in the middle of six days off. We worked long days locally Monday through Wednesday last week, and have been off since Thursday. We don’t have to work again until Wednesday. 

The last time we had six days off in a row, we had a hard freeze, and it snowed. It’s freezing this weekend, too, but it’s not snowing. On days like this, I can’t believe I ever entertained the idea of moving back to Chicago. Never would have survived! 

I didn’t do anything productive today except for grocery shopping. I’m on a specific diet/eating plan (more on that later, maybe). I got a tax refund of over $500 that posted today, so I went to both H-E-B and Walmart and bought all kinds of stuff on the green light list for this diet. 

I’m also suffering from writer’s block, even though I know how to combat it. I usually combat writer’s block by making lists. List things that happen in this scene, list things that happen in that scene, etc. I even bought my favorite Astrobright colored paper for the lists at Walmart  

But I can’t bring myself to do it in this weather!  I am not creative enough to do any sewing or crafts, either. My sewing machine had been sitting there with a broken needle for almost a month. I changed the needle today with a package of needles I got also at Walmart. But that’s about all I can do in that department!  No muses today!  No creativity whatsoever. 

Kevin and I just watched movies all day. We mostly watched Pink Panther movies. I forgot how funny those were. I had a toy of the pink panther when I was little- that was all I had remembered. I fell asleep in the middle of the first one. Woke up to pee and kevin was already mostly through the next one. 

This is Crazy.

 

Today I checked my credit alerts and discovered that my credit score is now back over 700. This is the first time in nearly a decade that it’s been over 700. Before I went to college, it was often as high as 800. But college debt absolutely ruined me at the time. 

Recently, I paid off two accounts. One was an actual student loan, and one was a credit account that was used for books and a laptop at the time. The last time I checked it, it was 684. I knew paying those two off would bump it, but I thought over 700 was impossible with four student loans still remaining. 

I’m also about a month ahead on my car at all times since about a year ago.  I pay it as soon as it cycles.  

Their calculating system over at Experian must be different now than it was 10 years ago. They must be more forgiving of people who were just doing what they were told. 

Tumeric Lattes

 

A long time ago, I attempted to make Tumeric lattes, but they were a fail. That was years ago- so I tried again, and they were amazing. My daughter and I had ours in mugs served hot, and I put the rest into this empty reused bottle. 

It’s good cold, too. Now I’m just looking at it, and I’m looking at the three nearly ripe bananas I have and thinking the two items in a blender would be a good smoothie. 

All I did was simmer three cups of almond milk and added two tsp of Tumeric and one tsp of cinnamon. 

Photo Dump and Personal Changes

 I feel like I’m changing a lot. I can’t explain it. It’s not a bad thing, it’s a good thing. I’m more at peace. I no longer have anxiety that I’m going to die prematurely because I found some happy for the first time in 10 years.  I also feel physically better.  I lost about another five pounds, and I feel recovered from the sheer exhaustion I had in December and January. The only negatives are that I have more severe perimenopause symptoms. I’m not just getting hot flashes, I’m getting hot and cold flashes. I have extremely dry skin, and cycles closer together than normal. I just have to tell myself, at least I don’t have to wait until after 50 for this crap. My daughter is spending more time here in Waller with me and Kevin now that she’s almost 18. It’s a little nerve wracking that her spending more time with me by choice will send her stepmother into some meltdown, but at the end of the day, what is she going to do?  Not let me see her for four months?  My tech savvy child?  Not a chance. I will be taking my daughter to her future university in San Marcos, Texas the last week of June. There’s going to be a parent orientation, and then we are going to do something fun. Not sure what yet. I don’t know how else to explain my recent enlightenment, so here’s a random photo dump  

Sounds like my mother and my aunts talking to me my whole life. 👍🏻. 

No offense, but there’s too many people doing this ⬆️ these days. 

I felt like this in December and January. 

Starting to no longer feel this way, for about the first time in my whole life. 

This reminds me of when I worked at the children’s museum. 

My daughter dressed as a banana on Halloween of 2007. 

Learning and Unlearning

 Kevin and I had a conversation yesterday about what parts of our K-16 schooling were beneficial and which weren’t. We both have bachelor’s degrees, and that’s what I mean by K-16. From kindergarten until we got our bachelors. 

I don’t remember it, but I was always told that I learned to read when I was 3.  Recently I asked my mother how I did that. I didn’t tell her this part, but I really couldn’t picture her sitting me down to teach me. She said that I learned by watching Sesame Street every time it was on, and if I asked her what something said, she told me. When I went to kindergarten, I was ahead of the game.  However, it was all downhill from there. I always struggled in school. I always got bad grades and behavioral points. I was also extremely shy and never spoke to many people.  This caused me to be overlooked a lot.  

My psychiatrist diagnosed me with ADHD when I was 43.  I often wonder what I would have been diagnosed with if I’d gotten any sort of real help whatsoever when I was a kid. But I didn’t, because any mention of me needing any sort of external help (be it counseling, a learning disability evaluation, tutoring or even summer school) sent my parents into shouting rages and screaming matches. 

When I graduated from high school, I took math placement tests and scored at middle school level. It was as if I had never been to high school. The guidance counselor there asked me how I graduated. I told him I didn’t know. My high school in Arizona was very wealthy and had a lot of funding. It didn’t matter. 

As a freshman, I still lived in Chicago and went to a Christian school. I don’t remember math that year at all. It was probably just freshman algebra. We moved to Arizona on the last day of my freshman year and I went to Mountain Pointe High School in the Ahwatukee foothills area of Phoenix. Anyone who knows that area knows they have all the funding they need. I had the same math teacher for sophomore and junior years. He obviously never looked at anyone’s homework. Before tests, he’d review, and his reviews somehow made me memorize some other way to get the correct answers. Either that or he just passed people without giving a shit, but I never had a clue what was truly being taught there. In my senior year, they told me I didn’t need math. I had enough to graduate. But then once I got to community college and they tested me at 7th-8th grade level, I was forced to take two years of remedial math and pay for it myself. 

I think “maybe” those remedial classes were helpful, but there’s no way to know for sure. We all “do math” all day every day, and maybe I just exist in this world doing it all my own way instead of how it was taught. 

A class that I always “did well” in was Spanish. But like I’ve mentioned before, I “know all the words” in Spanish, but absolutely cannot have a conversation in it. So did school help with that?  I don’t know, did it?  If I wanted a bump in that area, I’d have to travel somewhere that only speaks Spanish and I’m just not going to. I use it here and there in public if I am communicating with someone who only speaks Spanish, but it’s always very basic things that are on signs everywhere anyway.  

In high school, I didn’t take chemistry, because I took anatomy and physiology. In community college, I took medical terminology. Then I became a CNA.  Those things helped with that, somewhat. If I ever want to go back to caring for the elderly, I don’t think I can lift people like I used to. I can lift kids but not adults. I used to be able to do it easily. I don’t know what happened, maybe I just got old. Luckily the last elderly person I cared for was able to walk, even though she used a wheelchair. She could get up and get herself from here to there, I’d just hang on to her arm. That’s the extent of what I’m probably able to do anymore. The job I have now pays way better than that anyway. 

The classes that I took that were most helpful in my life were the ones I took because they were topics that interested me. I took five sewing classes at that community college, and I love to sew. A year or two ago, I took a real estate class for fun, and it was right after I started dating Kevin. The things I learned in that class helped me to “get” him out of a homeownership situation that was a nightmare. He just didn’t know there were investors out there that will buy anything. I didn’t either, until I took that class. He always tells me that I saved him from that townhouse, and that I’m his hero. If that’s all that will ever come out of taking that real estate class, then it was more than worth it. Luckily, we were already saying “I love you” and had decided we were boyfriend and girlfriend before that happened. (I’m sure you know what I mean). 

I also really always liked philosophy class. BUT. A philosophy class in any school today will only tell you about a handful of white guys who lived 200 years ago that were the “first philosophers”. Were they though?  Human beings have been around for about 300,000 years. My old Christian school lowered that number to only about 10,000 years ago because they were Bible literalists. But still- no matter how many thousands of years ago we’ve been around, did “philosophy” just start 200 years ago with these old white guys?   No. Our ancestors have been philosophizing from the beginning. It’s human nature. I would argue that every single person who’s ever lived on this earth has done it. Maybe not people who died in early childhood. But it’s just part of who we are, and it’s represented wrong in textbooks. That’s my unpopular opinion!  

So the only classes in school that ever helped me were MAYBE remedial math, MAYBE Spanish, and definitely sewing and real estate. Also my CNA class definitely helped.  (But I actually got paid for that one, it’s a long story). 

I believe I’m pretty scientifically illiterate, but definitely not as much as someone who say, goes to the pediatrician and demands antibiotics for their child and doesn’t understand that antibiotics won’t work on a virus. I’m not that scientifically illiterate. I just don’t 100% “get” the scientific method. I’ve worked with kids a lot, and I saw the scientific method once compared to a baby or toddler exploring the world around them. That made a little more sense, because I had so much experience working with kids.  But I still don’t understand really how research works or “peer reviewed” anything. Once I finally made it to the university in my 30’s, methods in research was another class I basically bull shitted my way through, just like sophomore and junior high school math. Scientists will act like they know everything, when clearly (I guess?) the point of the scientific method is that you don’t. 

All of this and more is why I consider myself an unschooler at heart. I just believe in everyone finding their own way, learning as they go in whatever way is best for them, and having choices. I don’t like the educational system very much, but I do support anyone who wants to go as a choice. Kevin told me his grandmother paid for his college education, but if she didn’t, he would have never gone. I’m jealous of that. I was told, you have to go, and you have to pay. When I was 18, I didn’t know that I suddenly had choices. If Kevin’s grandmother had been unable or unwilling to pay, he’d just be in the exact situation he’s in now, and that’s ok. 

A lot of people who’ve gotten burned by higher education will kvetch about it online, and then people will always argue “what about the doctors”. It’s tiring. 

My cousin/best friend is a doctor. She has never told me her student loan balance, but she has said that it’s equal to her mortgage. I just don’t think that’s fair. Doctors must also do residencies that do not pay well. My cousin/best friend said you can defer paying your student loans for two years during residency.  But residencies are four years. She responded, “Actually most are 3-8 years.”  Ok, but you still only get to defer paying for only two?  

That’s wrong, imo.  If that keeps happening, we’re going to run out of doctors. 

In the end, I just want to keep doing what I need to and what I want to do, and learn along the way. Sometimes graduations are seen as the “end of learning” when there can really be no such thing.  It creates a false monopoly on learning. I’m actually not even sure my daughter fully realizes that you learn all the time. I’ve preached it to her, but I’m 50/50 on whether she’s noticed it in her own life or not. 

MIL from hell.

 My coworker had two married sons and just seems like she must be the mother in law from hell.  She calls both her daughter in laws whores, treats her biological grandchildren A LOT better than her son’s stepkids, and is actually trying to set one of her sons up with someone else. She must be going through something, because she’s also become sort of evil at work. I was venting to my mom about it, because it can often be triggering to hear a lot of these conversations. We carpool long distances very often, and I just- need to always remember my earbuds. 

My mom started talking about what a mother in law from hell my paternal grandmother was. I asked right away, “But did she ever try to set my father up with someone else?”  My mom paused. She said, “Well no, I’ll give her that.”  

My paternal grandmother died when I was 15. I have two first cousins on that side that are younger than me, and I distinctly remember her telling the three of us not to name any of our children after her. She was superstitious and thought that if anyone was named after her, then she’d also inherit her bad luck. She literally told me and my two younger cousins, “I will haunt you.  I will haunt the hell out of you if you name your kids after me.”  So what did one of those cousins end up doing? Name his daughter after her. I asked him recently, “… Don’t you remember that conversation?”  He said he didn’t. He wouldn’t believe in haunting anyway, even if he did remember it. 

I also thought of the fact that my paternal grandmother had a lot of similarities with my daughter. My grandmother grew up speaking both English and Greek fluently, which made her truly bilingual. It’s not like she had a “first language” and a “second language.”  She was born into a household that spoke both equally, but she also obviously had some undiagnosed learning disabilities.  She would get unnecessarily irate if something wasn’t spelled how it was pronounced, and INSISTED on spelling things exactly how they sounded. 

When my daughter was learning to read and write, she was exactly the same way. I remember her learning about the letter K being silent. She argued, “That’s dumb, why even have a K if you aren’t going to say the K sound?”  I told her I didn’t know, that’s just the way it was. I told her, “it’s just for writing. When you speak the word, there’s no K. When you write it, there is.”  I started panicking a little because it was exactly how my grandmother would argue about the same issue, and I thought, is my daughter going to go around the rest of her life now spelling knife “nife”?  

My mom agreed that my daughter was the same way as my grandmother in this department. But then she added that at least when we would explain English language oddities to her, she would just accept it and let it go. My grandmother spent her whole life insisting on things that were just wrong, and it often made her look stupid. I mean, my daughter wouldn’t always instantly let it go. But she doesn’t remember any of these conversations.  

I hope that someday if I ever get a son in law, I’m not like that at all. I hope he’ll be like the son I never had. And if he comes with kids, I’ll be an instant grandmother, even if my own daughter ends up giving birth. They’ll all be treated the same way. I’m not going to brag about it either. Some people do- you ask them how many grandkids they have and they’ll say a number but then they say how many are their kids’ stepkids “but I count them anyway” and when people say it like that, it gives “I want pats on the back vibes”. If my daughter ever has any combo of step, adopted, foster, bio etc kids and someone asks how many grandkids I have, I’m just giving the number and that is it. Because that’s all it will be in my mind. And I’m never definitely ever going to try and fix her up with other guys if she’s married. Good lord. 

Back to Corpus Christi

 We spent three days in Corpus Christi last week, then had three days off, and are now headed back for another three days there. I call it Galveston number two. 

It always reminds me of when we watched “Under the Tuscan Sun” with Diane Lane. (Where Diane Lane’s character buys a run down house in Tuscany on a whim.). 

I was watching it with my parents. 

During this wedding scene (which is a bit of a tear jerker because this couple had some pushback against their relationship), the priest is giving them communion. He says in Italian to the groom, “El Corpo de Christo” and my father blurts out “Corpus Christi!” 

My mom quickly scolded him, saying, “No not Corpus Christi, he’s giving him communion!” 

Then the priest in the movie does the same thing to the bride- gives her communion and says, “El Corpo de Christo” and my dad blurts out, “Corpus Christi!” 

My mom rolled her eyes. I don’t know why she was mad, lol. 

Walmart Lady

 Has anyone seen this going viral?  Not too many people care that the panties are now a dollar. People mainly feel bad for this lady, saying who on earth made her pose for this picture?  And I agree, imagine a picture of you like this going viral, just holding up grannie panties, not a very flattering picture, etc. 

what I’m sort of mad about is that I just paid $3 for some of these. So my comment under the pic was “dammit I paid $3 for these” and got quite a few ha ha’s. 

Memory- Lunch Lady

 When I was in 3rd grade, we ate lunch in our classroom at our desks. There was no cafeteria. The teacher left to eat her lunch in the teacher’s lounge, and a classmate’s mother Mrs. F came to supervise us for the hour or so that we were eating. One of her sons was in our class. 

One day, another woman came to supervise us at lunch time, and we were told that Mrs. F was sick.  About two weeks later, our teacher announced that Mrs. F had died. 

It was a terrible scene. Third graders don’t usually cry loudly like toddlers or preschoolers, but we all were. There were some 25-30 eight and nine year olds just sobbing loudly. It had to have been a rough looking sight. Our teacher buried her head in her hands and cried with us. 

A couple weeks later, her son returned to school.  Probably then about a month after that, he said that his dad got married. Even at that young age, that seemed kind of wrong. It was extremely quick. Fast forward a few months later after summer break was ending, and we were all at family orientation for the first day of fourth grade. Our classmate’s dad and new stepmom were there, and we are ALL giving her the most evil, bombastic side eye ever. I thought of her recently. Now that I’m older, it’s obvious to me now that they were in an affair before Mrs F died 

I thought, if that many nine year olds are looking at you so sideways like that, you know you did wrong. 

My classmate announced on Facebook in 2021 that his father had died from ALS.  How horrific. His stepmom is still alive, and had two more sons for my classmate’s father. ALS sounds like a nightmare no matter who you are. I never told my mom that he died that way. She would have thought it was “what he got”. But really, terminal illnesses don’t work that way. They’re random. 

Friends becoming grandparents

 

I’m officially “old” because one of my bff’s from childhood now has a grandchild. Another one of my bff’s was going to be a grandma, but the baby was stillborn on the 4th of July, 2020. I thought of that baby this past July 4th, because it would have been her “golden birthday.” 

This is the first earth side grandchild of any of my same age friends. This friend of mine has 9 kids, and the oldest is the one that just had this baby. The final three of my friend’s kids were born when the oldest was in high school. She was responsible for the gender reveal every time, and every time, my friend taunted her daughter with “I want to know”. “Wait, no I don’t.” Etc. I find it hilarious that now that her oldest has had a child of her own, she was extremely tight lipped about the sex of the baby. I honestly kind of still don’t know what it is. There’s no bow, so I’m guessing it’s a boy. 

Also- are they dressing newborns like the klan now?  Jeez, honestly I would have folded over the point before taking this pic. 

Student Loan with $0 Balance

 So I just wanted to share this breakdown of my student loan balance. I recently paid off the third of seven loans from my college degree. The first one I paid off was not included here, because it was private and not through Navient (Which is now “Aidvantage”). 1-03 was paid off sometime in 2019. I started making payments again when interest started accruing again in September of 2023. When making all payments, I made sure that I made the balance decrease a little bit. I also made sure that my entire payment went to loan 1-05, because it was the lowest balance. 

Now that I’ve done this, the next loan to tackle is 1-06, because it has the next lowest balance. I’m not sure interest rates matter all that much, because I’m on an income based repayment plan (IBR).  When you are on an IBR, your amortization reverses, and the loan balance goes up and up and up the more payments you make. This is why people really want to smack people when they say “Your education can’t be taken away from you.”  You better believe I wish someone could take it away from me!  This was the biggest mistake of my life, and if getting a college degree is something that you believe in or do not regret for yourself, then my opinion on mine has no bearing on you. Different paths are for different people, but 25-35 years ago, no one seemed to understand that. When my generation was growing up, we were taught that NOT going to college would cause poverty. Not the other way around. People with balances as much as ten times higher than mine have paid them off multiple times over but still owe more than what they took out. That’s why I’m adamant that it just decrease, even if it decreases by $10-$20. If your balance decreases by even very little, you are doing better than most people my age and younger. And my total balance of only $18K makes it possible for me to do that. Most people owe wayyyyy more than $18K. It’s also important to pay attention to one loan at a time. It surprises me that so many people don’t even know that it’s broken up into 5-10 different loans like this. That is because we were all just hurried into signing dotted lines and weren’t told what we were doing. 

If you can manage to pay off the loans within the loans, then if a politician decides to take away IBR, your total monthly payments will be a lot lower than they were when you first graduated. And for people who think loans will be forgiven after “20 years” of IBR- yeah, right when it gets to that point, some politician is going to do away with that too. They lied about so much, how on earth are we supposed to believe that one too?  Many people who have applied for the forgiveness that has something to do with being a public servant (forget what it’s called), I mean so many of them get denied for stupid loopholes. It’s never going to happen. 

That’s why I’m not sure those “6.8 and 3.4” interest rates matter much. The interest just compounds and compounds and compounds anyway. Regardless, for now, the next one being focused on has a 6.8, so if it’s “the right thing to do” to pay off the higher interest ones first, then I’m still doing that.  

These aren’t like regular car loans or mortgages with amortization schedules that have clear plans to pay off. YOU have to figure it out, and that needs to involve not taking advice from a generation that seems like they wanted to see a lot of us fail so they could get a good laugh.  If a genie granted me a wish, I actually would wish for my college degree to get repossessed. That would be a dream come true!  And it would cause my car (the actual necessity) to be paid off in no time, because the student loans also meant a much higher car payment (or at least it would have if I hadn’t had them when I bought the car). 

It just wrecks your life in ways no one would have ever told you when you were young. Whenever people my age and younger talk about how we did what we were told and this is what happened to our lives, we’re laughed at by the same people that gave us the advice we took. 

Sometimes it amazes me that I made this happen over the weekend- and I did it by returning to a job I had in my early 20’s that I was told to quit and go back to school. And to top off all of my badness, I ended up romantically involved with my supervisor. It worries me sometimes that someone might have a problem with my life now, but I decided if someone does, then I can put on an extremely straight face and say I charge $20K to take major life advice now.  When I told my mom this, she actually said “But some people don’t have $20K.”  I laughed. Did she hear what I said?  I’m just proud of myself for making another one of these read $0. 

Hot Take No One Asked For

 My unpopular opinion is this:

Whenever someone says “no one told them” that motherhood required sacrifice, or that “no one told them childbirth was painful” or that “no one told them” they’d have to get up at night, I actually don’t believe them. I think people that say those things are lying. Everyone tells you those things. 

That depiction of motherhood was everywhere. Personally, it was a lot of the positives that no one ever told me about. TV and movie scenes of childbirth involved lots of screaming. There’s actually an entire YouTube channel of tv and movie childbirth scenes called “Birthly TV”. 

Everyone told you it was painful.  Come on now. 

Senior pictures 👩🏻‍🎓

Cap and gown pics come later I guess?  She picked one of these to be used in the yearbook. I added a picture of myself at age 17 for comparison.  Yes I’m holding up a bottle of liquor in the picture, because it was taken in Greece, where the drinking age was 12. 

 

Spanish Teacher

Not sure why yesterday I was thinking of my Spanish teacher from the University of Houston. At U of H, there were two groups of Spanish classes- one for those that spoke it in the home and one for those who didn’t.  I was in the one for those who didn’t, of course. One afternoon, the teacher pulled me aside and asked me if I grew up speaking Spanish in the home. I said no, I didn’t.  “Oh ok,” she replied.  “It’s just that your accent is so natural.”  I told her that all four of my grandparents were from Greece, and that’s why I could do an accent.  She said “oh ok well just making sure you’re in the right class.”  

This teacher was from Argentina, and she didn’t know what a chimichanga was. Some people in the class explained it to her and she had a look of disgust on her face. “This doesn’t sound too good, this chimichanga.” She said. It made me kind of wonder if “chimichanga” meant some kind of nasty slang in Argentina.

This was about 12-13 years ago. I had a total of four and a half years of Spanish lessons, and the most frustrating thing in the world is to be listening to a Spanish tv or radio station and literally know all the words, but not be able to string them together to know what they’re talking about. 

The best time of life to learn a second language is when you are three years old. When my daughter was three, I sat her down in front of Spanish Sesame Street for this reason, but couldn’t get her interested. I started learning Greek at age 7 and Spanish at age 15. The best way to learn a second language if you’re over the age of three is to go visit a country where it’s the main language spoken, not in a traditional classroom. . This is called instant immersion.  Maybe I’ll try it next time I’m in El Paso. 

We Finally Catch a Break

 Kevin and I are in the middle of six days off. I thought I’d be really productive, and maybe I have. But I’m just tired. We go back to work on Wednesday, which will be in Louisiana until Monday the 27th. 

Yesterday I went to a place in college station called “all phone toys” because he said he could fix the fact that my phone can’t charge. The phone was just dirty. I can hear a lot better out of it now. I also got me a new screen protector and case. My total there was about $75, and I did about $60 worth of side jobs all over the area. 

I also paid $5 on YouTube for a British series called MaryLand, because my celebrity crush of 30 years was in it, and it also looked like a good story. My long time celebrity crush is a British actor named Andrew Knott. A lot of things he was in don’t even look that good, though, so I never rented or purchased them.  This was about two sisters who found out after their mother’s death that she’d been living a double life on the Isle of Man. Andrew Knott played the husband of one of them, and good Lord- the amount of weaponized incompetence in the character he played almost made me fire him as my celebrity crush. (I’m just kidding- it was actually kind of funny.) 

Maryland was very good, though. I couldn’t imagine keeping a secret from my own daughter, though. Or would I?  I never have, unless it was something non age appropriate. But by the time I’m in my 70’s and she’s in her 40’s, I hope there are no secrets. Especially one of the magnitude in MaryLand. 

Kevin and I got into a conversation about Joshua and the battle of Jericho in the Bible. It’s an enormously disturbing story, but I still love this song. I played it for Kevin, and he likes it too. It has a completely different meaning than the disturbing nature of the biblical battle of Jericho. 

I did also have a couple of minor accomplishments. I finished my blog post on why I believe more missing people are actually alive than are assumed. If anyone wants me to link it, let me know. I’m still a little skittish about sharing any of my child advocacy stuff that I do under a pseudonym. Eventually I will though. 

I also started another rainbow denim chenille quilt, but only got rows red through green. This is bigger and may include a pink row, but I'm not sure yet. 

I also made a blue quilt, but do not have pics. The quilts with the blue themes are more boring, but the fabric is easier to find cheap. One of my friends thinks I should have some 7-8 before starting an Etsy shop. That’s the goal. What do you think, should a rainbow quilt contain a pink row or not? 

Another Photo Dump

My mom sent me this picture from her wedding day in 1967.  There is a better picture of this exact grouping of people, all looking at the camera. This must have been taken a minute or so before that one. My mom was only 22 when she got married. What would you say if a 22 year old got married today? 

We bought my mom a lawn mower for Christmas so that we can do her lawn. The people she calls and pays to do it have become unreliable. This will pay for itself in less than ten mowings. She did take a picture of me mowing, but it’s awful. I’m making a face in the picture like I’m constipated. The good thing is that I’m thinner in the pic than I thought I’d look. But I’m not posting it! 

All the buttons I got off of clothing from 25 cent Wednesday's to cut up for sewing projects. 

Perspective

My daughter sent me this, insinuating that I do this. It’s not an age thing, it’s a schedule thing. I really do get up that early.