How Things Are Done In The South!

Yep, looks like one of my family members got buck ass wild with the camera again….

25 On the Lighter Side

This is NOT another meme (esp since I said the last one would BE the last one), however, looking back over it now I realize it’s heavy on the serious side. So these 25 things about me will show the not-so-serious side.

1.  When I was very young I studied tap dancing, baton, and piano, but was never more than average at any of them.

2.  I wanted to be the first female Blue Angel (Navy Pilot), the first female NASCAR driver, and a few other female “firsts” but got beat out ever time, damnit!

3.  I’m the worst klutz on the planet. I broke my ankle just walking across a concrete floor, established the premise that I do NOT chew gum and walk at the same time.

4.  I slipped off the edge of an extremely high waterfall coming out of a cavern. I thought I was fubar, but turned out it was like going down a giant slip-n-slide. Played there the rest of the day.

5.  I should be dead. I should have  been hit head on in the middle of that bridge by the 18 wheeler that came out of the fog 10 foot in front of me. I knew I was about to die, and I closed my eyes, gripped the wheel, and wondered how badly it would hurt. When the hit never came, and I opened my eyes and was somehow “moved”… car and all… out of the way… cuh-ray-zee.

6.  With enough coffee and chocolate I could rule the world.

7.  I believe in performing random acts of kindness just because I can. I like to catch people off guard and make them smile.

8.  I’m a cat person, but have a mini puppy at the moment. Odd…

9.  I’ve been dying my hair since the age of 18. Why? You remember Lilly Munster, or the mom at the end of Poltergeist? Yeah, these silver shocks of hair coming from the temples. UUGH!

10.  I’m a hockey fanatic, but only for live games.

11.  When I was 7, all I wanted for XMAS was a 3 story Barbie townhouse. What I got was a telescope and a microscope. Real ones, not toys. I’ve never been without a telescope since.

12.  I camp out in the darkest fields on the darkest night to watch every visible meteor shower. The sky appears like black velvet with a million glistening diamonds strewn up it, and I make a hundred wishes on a hundred shooting stars….

13.  I am a good swimmer, but afraid of the water if I enter it “unexpectedly” which is why I don’t ski. With my over-active imagination, Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees are lurking beneath the surface, ready to grab me and pull me under.

14.  Aside from the normal pets (dogs n cats) I’ve had a ferret, a skunk, and a vietnamese pot-bellied pig for pets.

15.  I create stained glass pieces, mosaics, and other nifty crafty things.

16.  I’m great at antique restoration and interior remodeling.

17.  I can work with lumber and power tools as well as any damned man. Same goes for most car repairs. My daddy taught me well.

18.  My daddy also taught me how to shoot almost every type of firearm better than most men I know.

19.  I love love LOVE the mountains. Climbing, hiking, river rafting, cave exploring… I love the beauty of nature… and the peace it brings when you leave the house/job/hassles behind for just a while.

20.  My “to do before I turn 30” list included para-sailing and repelling. I still haven’t had the chance to do either one, but still hope to someday.

21.  I’ve been a rock collector since I was about 5 and my daddy gave me a hammer and had me bust open my first rock… so plain on the outside, such beauty inside. Even have my own rock tumbler/polisher.

22.  I am an avid hunter of prehistoric fossils , arrowheads and other native American artifacts. Where I live was once covered by an ancient ocean millions of years ago, and plenty of evidence left behind.

23.  Some of my “friends in high places” head up a few of the states paranormal research agencies, and yes, I’m also a ghost hunter.

24.  I would give almost anything to be able to fully explore the likes of Pompeii, Herculaneum, a lost temple in Peru, or ancient ruins anywhere…

25.  I will always see the world through rose colored glasses. The glass will always be half full, and the possibilities endless. I will probably always see people for more than they are… knowing that if they could look in a mirror and see themselves the way I see them, they would have as much faith in themselves as I have in them.

25 Things about me (and the last meme I will EVER do}

Now, very seldom do I do these memes, however, because I was tagged by a few people I truly adore, I decided to do this one last time. And it WILL be the last!

When I read through the 25 things my friends had written, I was amazed to learn so much about them. They didn’t add “fillers or “fluff”, and seemed to me they really shared parts of themselves, and I must say, I was pleased to learn so much about them that I didn’t have a clue about. So, with that, I will try to be as equally forthcoming.

**Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

1. My given name at birth was Jean-Marie Josephine, but I was adopted and my name was changed to Twila Marie.

2. I was adopted by my birth aunt/uncle, and the result is not a family tree, but a crazy ass vine. My birth mother became my cousin, my grandfather became my uncle, and my uncle became my dad.

3. When I was a baby, I had pneumonia so bad I almost died, and it weakened my lungs, I have asthma and I’ve had a lung to collapse “just ‘cause”, and yet I smoke. (but really DO want to quit).

4. I attended Catholic school even though I’ve never been catholic, and have attended private Baptist and Non-Denom Christian Academies.

5. I have been going to college off and on since 1987 (times off for marriage, a kid, divorce, work, life in gen) and still don’t have a degree. I’ve changed my major three times, and even though I’m a senior at ASU and like what I’m going for, it’s still NOT what I want to do.

6. What DO I want to do? What I’ve always wanted to do… archeology. It’s my passion. When my mother was alive she wouldn’t hear of it. I should have changed it the day after she died. I thought about it, but felt the guilt reaching from the grave.

7. When I was 13 (1980) my sis was married to an ex NASA man (Apollo 11) and he was a leader in computer tech back then, resulting in my first pc, the Tandy TRS 80. This started my love of tech.

8. When I was 16 I went to live with sis in SC and audited summer classes at the college where the bro-in-law taught. There he taught me robotics, and I had one named “HERO” that I was responsible for programming and demonstrating at events. Tech geek status engrained forever.

9. I met the first person I ever truly loved then, and ended up breaking his heart, and I’ve never forgiven myself for it.

10. I was paid back for hurting him by falling in love again, and losing him. I came back to Ark to visit my parents for Christmas, and he died while I was gone. Heart murmur. I never went back to SC after that.

11. When I was 19 we found out dad had lung cancer. Promising I would not let him go to a nursing home, I dropped out of college (the 1st time) to care for him. The doc gave him 3-6 months, he lived over a year.

12. When my father could no longer bear the pain of the cancer (it had paralyzed one side of his body), he took out a snub-nosed 38 and shot himself in the forehead. I was in the next room with my mother when he did it. I was 20 yrs old.

13. My mother made it through the funeral, but collapsed that same night while walking through the kitchen. She simply…shut down… and never came back to me. I spent the next year taking care of her, still keeping my promise to my dad. She died 13 months after my father did… of a broken heart.

14. I always wanted a marriage like my parents had. True love. I never once saw them have an argument. When I was 18 I told my mother this, and she just laughed and laughed, and said “well of course we had disagreements, and even a few arguments…we just never had them in front of YOU”.

15. Between the deaths of my father and mother, I married the man who would become my son’s father. Everyone kept telling me it was the thing to do. He would HELP me. As soon as he HELPED me spend my inheritance, he was gone.

16. I married my 2nd husband after living with him for 3 years. Within a week of marriage he hit me for the first time, and told me that since I was now his wife, I had no right to my own opinions because everything I did reflected on him, so he was God.

17. It didn’t take but a few beatings for me to say “I want a divorce”. His answer was shoving a sawed off shotgun into my chest and telling me “You will never leave me, and I will never leave you! I will kill you first, and then myself, and you’ll be buried next to me, and spend all of eternity in Hell with me, but you will NEVER be rid of me”

18. My son’s grandfather was chief of police at the time. The next beating and a call to him ensured I WOULD be rid of him, and I was.

19. I was left with no money (wasn’t allowed to work) and no car, and all the bills with a child to care for. I turned to meth, and it paid the bills.

20. Until my cousin got busted for drugs, and he set me up to save himself. I went to prison for 2 ½ years, losing my child, my parents home…everything.

21. When I got out of prison, I had nothing but the $100 check they give you when you leave. I didn’t even have clothes, and had to wear my prison uniform into my local bank to cash the check. That was 10 years ago.

22. I got out, got a job, got my son back, worked days and went to college nights. I met a man in my church I thought was the answer to my prayers. After living with him OVER A YEAR, I found out he was a registered sex offender in another state. So yeah, that ended about 4 years ago.

23. I still want what my parents had, but I don’t believe it exists in this world anymore, and even if it did, I doubt I would ever again believe in a man enough to find out,

24. I’m still single, still raising my son, still working, and still going to college when I can. I barely make ends meet, but I’m doing it on my own terms, and I can live with that.

25. I still believe in goodness, kindness, compassion, honesty, laughter, and doing whatever I can to help others, and to make them smile and laugh. It is a driving force, really… because I know how much life can hurt… and I know how much a simple kindness can take so much of the pain away.

**To pass this on, && go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app, then click post.)

Someone wrote a song about ME? Hot Damn!

Apparently Anthony Smith set my bio to music, so you know I just HAD to share…

Desiderata

written by Max Ehrmann in the 1920s, I find this to be was of the most eloquently understated things ever written…. simply beautiful and inspirational…

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

A Strange Animal: An Essay On Love

My love wrote this for me, and I found it so beautiful, I want to share it.

From Idaho~

Hi baby,
Wrote something today, hope you like it. I just felt inspired…Truth is you inspire me.

A strange animal

Life can be a strange animal. People don’t generally realize that contrary to the illusion of control most of us strive to maintain, we have little control over our destiny; our end result is something that none of us can fix. Sure, we can struggle with the invisible forces that exist, and some people actually think they are in control; I suspect that illusion is a comfort mechanism granted by powers way beyond human understanding. Without this internal illusion of control I believe the intellect would crumble and surely destroy us by way of insanity. It should be realized that all things are subjective and open to interpretation and this expressed opinion is what I have come to believe as a truth after experiencing life for only four and a half decades. Greater understanding may be waiting for me just around the corner.

It is my understanding that these powers (as I call them) do reason with and seeks to communicate with the human condition. The manifestation of this interaction takes many forms and detection is purely a personal event uniquely individual to the person that makes contact; this is because the human condition is geared in such a way that we all see what it is that we want to see, and no two people experience an object or event exactly the same way. It can be an extremely difficult task to convince someone that what they know to be true isn’t true at all, and dealing with such a paradoxical power can harvest great rewards as well as great tragedy.

I have found that in my short and sometimes trying life history, and through no doing of my own, an intense absorbing, a very recognizable interplay with this power (as I call it) has been impossible for me to escape. It has allowed me and denied me many things in my life; but truthfully stated I have always received much more than I have ever been denied. The sense of protection from life’s indifference is deeply rooted inside me on all levels and completely undeniable within my heart; I belong to this power and it has my best interest somewhere in the forefront of all that it does. I need not understand this event to know that it is true, and if I am wrong then I have lost nothing in my belief, but only gained greater understanding if and when proof is made clear to me.

After all that I have experienced in life’s greatest gifts; I stand at a doorway and it has been given to me, this power to keep and recognize as my own. With it a final resting place of contentment, of peace, with tranquility of body and mind. A place that I have never been yet has always been inside of me. This flower that unfolds to its greatest bloom has found after all things, love. It has been given to me from within you, a perfect gift to lift my soul. Through you I have finally seen all that I can ever be, a gift of love. This gift is yours to keep. I love you Twila.

**I love you too, Idaho!**

Just Another Day…

Because I’m planning a 1,900 mile excursion at the end of the month, there a quite a few things I need to get done around the house, to ensure everything is safe and secure until my return. This included re-roofing my  storage building, the shingles of which had melted due to a horrific fire that destroyed a rice mill behind my home.  Later, high winds removed a few  shingles as well, and of course it had developed a few leaks, one of which had the downpour of a spigot.

So I get some “roll roofing” which of course is super easy to use.  I just need to rip off the old shingles, roll out the new stuff, and “viola”. Simple, right?

Of course, I can’t do anything without injuring myself, and this was done when I hit my knee cap full force with the claw end of the hammer when i missed the underside of the shingles I was going after.

After rolling around on the roof for a bit, clutching my knee and screaming like a crazed banshee from the pain, it’s time to “get ‘er done”.   Now then, you should take note of the area of the roof, just above the ladder, and where the roll of roofing material is laying. Apparently, the shingles where the only thing holding the particle board together underneath, and when i removed the shingles…

Yeah,  the roof collapsed, I fell through, and  landed inside the shed. I now know that an elevated plywood floor does have some “give” to it, somewhat cushioning the full body blow, and I had just barely missed landing on my cannon sized telescope.  After a bit more cussing, screaming, and all around really unladylike behavior, I got back after it, cutting out the roof and replacing the wood.

But, it got done, and once again, I survived. I was just driving in the last few nails when the rain began pouring down.  Yep…. Just another day in my life….

Another Ode to Coffee

Caffeine is my shepherd; I shall not doze.
It maketh me to wake in green pastures:
It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses.
It restoreth my buzz:
It leadeth me in the paths of consciousness for its name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of addiction,
I will fear no Equal™:
For thou art with me; thy cream and thy sugar they comfort me.
Thou preparest a carafe before me in the presence of The Starbucks:
Thou anointest my day with pep; my mug runneth over.
Surely richness and taste shall follow me all the days of my life:
And I will dwell in the House of Mochas forever.

~Author Unknown

Deer VS Truck

Got this from my friend in Malvern this morning.   The pictures pretty much tell the story, but here’s a brief explanation…

They were traveling in southern Arkansas, between Mena and DeQueen. Oncoming car clipped a deer and sent it straight up into the air. The deer came down head-first into Clayton’s brand new truck. The deer’s head went thru the front windshield, cutting the head (plus some) off, and landed in Jill’s lap. The body of the deer flipped up, smashed in the top of the truck, and landed in the bed. Clayton couldn’t see Jill from his side, because the top of the truck was smashed in so horribly. He got out of the truck, went around, and opened the door on her side…only to start flipping out, because she was literally drenched in blood. However, neither one of them was hurt. Her parents were following in a separate vehicle and didn’t see it happen…but drove up on it right afterward. I can’t imagine what they were thinking! I know this isn’t a unique experience, but I’ve never personally known anyone that it’s happened to or seen pictures. Crazy!

Changing Lanes on the Road Called “Life”

Did a traumatic experience transform your life for the better?

Have you suffered from the pain of an illness, divorce, loss of a job or loved one — but came out of the experience stronger, wiser, and more in touch with your purpose and passion in life?

Did you feel as though your life was at rock bottom but now you have risen from the ashes a much stronger person from that experience?

For me, it was prison. I live in a small rural town , and after having  my ex husband arrested for beating on me, I found myself uneducated, and unemployed   I turned to dealing meth to feed my child and pay my bills. It was extremely lucrative,  and for two years I “wanted for nothing”. I tried several times to quit dealing… to get a “real job”, but I couldn’t survive on the little income that gave me. Eventually, I was arrested, and served two years in prison. I lost my son, my home… everything. When I got out, I had NOTHING, even having to wear my prison clothes home, and to the bank to cash the $100 check they give you upon release. It changed my life. I remember laying in that cold, hard bunk thinking it would have been better to live with a blanket on a sandbar than to be there. I got out, took the first job I could get, applied to college, and set a different path.

It took me two years to get my son back, and I’m a senior in college now. I have a wall full of academic awards and news articles… among them… my arrest and conviction clippings.  I’ve talked to churches,  a criminology class, and to other groups about  where I had been, and how far I’ve come, and how people CAN change. I’m stronger, more confident, and have more faith than I ever thought imaginable.

My passion? Helping people be MORE than they (or others) think they can be.  People CAN change their lives. There IS a way out, and allow ANYONE to make them feel they are less than incredible.  They just have to believe, and sometimes that starts with someone else believing in THEM. I remind them that while no one ever said it would be easy, I can tell them, it is worth it.