I just wanted to say thank you to all of you. And a special thank you to Lynn for talking me through some things yesterday. I don’t really feel any better, but right now I just don’t have the energy to deal with any of it. I will try to respond to everyone at some point, so please don’t think I am just ignoring you.
So, for right now, I am just going to do my Monday Mission, even though looking at some of the questions I probably shouldn’t. :frazzled:
1. When was the last time you pampered yourself?
Ummmmmm……
2. When was the last time someone pampered you?
People do that?
3. Describe the last time you recall really feeling loved (other than from children or pets).
I refuse to answer on the grounds that I don’t have an answer to this one.
4. Has your use of the computer ever caused any arguments? What’s the story there?
I don’t believe my own use has ever been called into question. I spend a lot of time here, but I can get up at a second’s notice with no problem. HE, however, can sit in front of a video game for 12 hours+ and not get up except to go to the bathroom and eat. I’ve seen it. Many times.
5. What’s the most embarrassing thing your Mom ever did?
Oh boy. Well, the one time I tried moving back with her after leaving for college, I was about 21 or so, Gregory was maybe 18 months. I remember being in her back yard, putting some books in the shed, and she was getting ready to mow the lawn. She was having trouble getting the mower started, and I asked if I could help. She refused, and kept trying to pull the cord with less and less success, untill finally she threw herself on the grass, screamed, and kicked her feet .(uh, yeah, I am NOT kidding you.) There were I don’t even know HOW many neighbors watching. Yikes.
6. I’ve met some adults who’ve never learned to swim, and others who never learned how to ride a bike.. Is there anything that you never learned as a child that you probably should have?
Nothing that I can think of right now…
7. I have no idea who said it (and I spent all of two minutes trying to research it), but “someone” once said, a picture is worth a thousand words. Post an image that says more than words. Or instead, describe a picture you recall which touched your heart.
:LOL: I have the PERFECT picture!

BONUS: What’s love got to do with it?
Not a damn thing, obviously.

Penned by: Tricia | 4 Comments »

This is going to be a monumentally whiny rant, so feel free to just skip it by if you like. I just need to put some of this outside of myself before I explode.
C hasn’t been home other than to shower and change clothes since Thursday morning. I have had enough. I can’t keep letting him embarrass, humiliate, and step on me and these kids any longer. My heart is broken into a thousand pieces. The problem is how do I start picking them up? How do I put them back together when the piece that for the past five and a half years has been one of the biggest is gone? And why do I even allow myself to care anymore when it is so obvious that he has no thoughts for any of us at all? When he would rather lie and cheat and revel in depravity than take his only son to the park, or anywhere at all. When he can’t even be bothered to look for a decent job after being fired from the one he had for pulling a knife out on a customer almost THREE months ago. When he asks ME for money so he can get gas to drive to wherever the hell it is he spends every night. It hurts my heart to watch my little baby be so used to his father leaving and staying away all the time and never taking him anywhere that when he leaves the house, this same baby just kind of looks up and goes “Bye,” and then turns back to whatever he was doing without another glance.
What is so broken and bent within myself that I can sit here and allow this to happen to me with hardly a word of protest? I don’t know what else to do, I have nowhere to go, no place to stay, no money, no job, nothing. And I am so afraid. Sometimes in the middle of the night I search desperately around my house for pills strong enough to allow me to go to sleep and never have this fear again. And sometimes I am afraid one day I will find them. Sometimes I feel like my sons deserve better than to have me as their mother. They need someone who can take care of them, who can give them an environment where they are loved and cherished by EVERYONE around them, where they are never tossed aside like used garbage whenever HE decides he would rather go out.
I am afraid that if I leave here, someone will see that I can’t take care of these kids, and take them away from me. And they are all I have to live for anymore.
Most days I feel like there is never going to be anything that will snap me out of this half-comatose state I have fallen into. There is nothing worse he can do to me, and yet still I stay. Maybe I deserve to be here.

Penned by: Tricia | 9 Comments »

Wow, lately I haven’t really felt like doing any meme’s. It takes too much energy that I just can’t spare. Like posting this post. So I’ll just write a short one for now.
Well, one good thing happened today. I managed to figure out what was going wrong with the skinning, thanks to my sweetie-pie Rosie. Seems that for whatever reason, my editor was adding a weird little character into the php code. Which is bizarre because I use a LaTeX editor specifically built for writing all kinds of code, but I think it might have been because I copied and pasted right from the tutorial website, and sometimes my editor doesn’t like that. *shrug* Oh well, in any case, I have it working now (yay) and as soon as I can find the time to code all of my pages to reflect the change, I will officially have a skinnable site! Go me!
At least I can do SOMETHING right. :frazzled:

Penned by: Tricia | 2 Comments »

Thanks so much for everyone’s offers of help with the skinning, I think my host and I have determined that it is a server-related problem, and hopefully by the end of the week she will get on tech support’s butt to figure out what exactly the problem is. Sooo…I might not be a coding loser, but then again, we have no way of knowing yet, do we? :nyah:
I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. I just feel like crawling into my bed and hiding from the world. I didn’t even take the babies to playgroup today. I was going to, was on my way out, actually, then I couldn’t find my keys, and by the time I found them I just didn’t feel like going, then I sat on the couch and burst into tears. What the heck? I haven’t even been able to cry in literally months, and something like this makes me lose it? I know I have been suppressing a lot of stuff lately, but I guess I didn’t realize it was bubbling this close to the surface. I haven’t even called to get myself back into couselling and back on medication. The phone is one of my worst phobias. I am extremely uncomfortable just picking up the phone and calling someone, even someone I know, but it’s 20 times worse with someone I don’t know at all. I suppose it’s a part of the bad social anxiety I seem to be afflicted with, but I am having the hardest time just accomplishing the first baby step, which is the medication that I KNOW will help even with this issue. Then, the more I avoid the issue, the more I berate myself for not doing it, which makes me shy away from doing it even more. :huh: Sarah was saying something very similar to this, maybe that’s what got me thinking about it. It is such a weird, vicious cycle, this depression, and someone who has never experienced it can never possibly understand that it is NOT possible to just “get over it” or “get back up and keep trying” over and over again. Little things knock you on your ass. And you can’t even explain why. You feel so worthless and small that nothing anyone can say can make any difference. You feel like making a hole in the blankets and burrowing in to sleep forever.
Gee, I am not really sure where this post came from. I don’t really feel any better, I just had a compulsion to put something in this empty MT box.
Oh, and even though I already told her yesterday on the actual day, Happy Birthday Kari!

Penned by: Tricia | 4 Comments »

Sorry for not having updated. I didn’t even realize it had been so long. I don’t have anything profound to say, so I will just give you some updates. :bubbles:
I spent every spare second yesterday trying to figure out how to skin my site, only to end up feeling like the biggest coding loser ever. OK, so I know it’s not THAT bad, and I think I may have even figured out the problem, and am waiting for an answer now, but it was still something to knock me on my ass and humble me after how proud I felt for adding the smilies. I even have two additional graphic schemes for the site all ready to go. Here are screenshots of them:
 
Anyway, my weekend was pretty ho-hum, went summer clothes shopping for the kiddos on Saturday, then I took them to see The Scorpion King. Lawd, The Rock is hot. I suppose it didn’t hurt that he ran around half-naked almost the entire movie. :LOL:
And actually, the movie wasn’t all that bad either. I am a huge fan of the Mummy movies, and I think they did a good job of fleshing out the story of the Scorpion King. Of course, I LOVE action/adventure movies, especially ones set in the past, and I also love movies with that slightly mysterious “B” quality, so this was just about perfect for me.
We felt an earthquake here on Saturday morning, too, or so I have been told. I slept right through it, but apparently in originated in upstate New York, and radiated all the way to Baltimore. Yikes. C said the whole building shook and creaked for about 15 seconds or so. Thank goodness it wasn’t stronger, because this building would probably fold like a deck of cards!
And what the heck is up with this weather?? Last Wednesday it was 95 degrees, and yesterday we had sleet and freezing rain??? I don’t even know WHAT to think about that one. I just hope it settles down a bit, and I am praying to every god I ever heard of that the summer won’t be too brutal this year, especially with all of the concerns about Gregory’s heart. (Speaking of that, we FINALLY got to return the stupid heart monitor, and he goes back to the cardiologist in early June. I am hoping he gets a clean bill of health.)
That’s about it for now, hopefully I will be back later, because I have been sufficiently inspired by the sublime Su(zi)e to ponder posting a book review.

Penned by: Tricia | 11 Comments »

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about friendship, and all the many different forms it can take in our lives, and how I feel about some of those forms. Yes, there was something that happened that brought this rumination on, but more on that in a moment.
Fair-Weather Friends
We all know them, we all have them. When you have money or something else that they want, or when you are in a happy-party mood, these friends are great to have around. They act like your closest pal. But the second they ask to borrow some money or whatnot, and you proclaim you have none, watch how quickly they fade into the walls. Like cockroaches. And don’t ever get depressed or feel unhappy. You are pretty much guaranteed never to see them again. Now, I can understand backing off if things get uncomfortable for you, and watching and/or giving support from afar. I think we all need to do that sometimes with some of our friends. So I’m not talking about those kinds of situations. I had a friend once that faded away when I was going through a very dark time, and had to live in a homeless shelter for a while with Gregory. This was shortly after the incident with my mother, and I was due to receive the rest of my money that was left, but not for about 6 months. When I finally was able to leave the shelter, and get my own apartment, I still did not hear from this person. Wouldn’t you know it, not even 3 DAYS after I received the money I had been waiting for, who do you think calls? And not to chat or see me. But to borrow $200. Nice. I wouldn’t give that person any money if they licked my left nipple to get it.
“Best” Friends
The older I get, the more immature and silly and “middle-school-ish” this whole “best” friend thing seems. But maybe I am bitter. I have never had a TRUE best friend. At least, not anyone that ALSO thought I was THEIR best friend. But now, I don’t even know if I would want to be constrained to just one “best” friend. No one person is best at anything, in any case. Everyone has fights, tiffs, arguments, disagreements, whatever you want to call them, and how tedious it must be to demote and promote said friend over and over again every time one of those unfortunate events occurs. *chuckle* So, anyway, my take on the whole thing is… I have FRIENDS. I have good friends, I have a very few, and maybe even just one, very close friends, I have close acquaintances, and not so close ones. But they all fall under that one category, or “label,” if you will, of friends. And I love each and every one of them, not only for who they are, but for how they fit into my tapestry of life.
“I-Net” Friends
This is an interesting category. Full of fly-by-night one-comment-wonders; people who link and unlink you on a whim using their own unfathomable rating of your “net-coolness-factor;” people who link or unlink you based on who else has you linked; people you chat with and find a real connection with for days or even weeks, who then proceed to disappear into the plasma of the internet fabric, never to be seen or heard from again; people you get close to, then find out everything they told you was all a big lie, some pathetic kind of game to them; people who get close to you then proceed to turn around and tell all of your other friends all of your secrets, and try to turn everyone against you. Then there are the real gems. The true friends. If you blink, you will miss their passing. Hold on tight, don’t let go, and treasure them. I have met every one of these types of i-net people in my six years online, but the gems, few and far between thought they may be, far outweigh the others. I have even been lucky enough to still know and be friends with two people I met wayyyyy back in 1996, in my AOHell days. We might lose touch every now and then, but we always seem to find a way to each other. I also have awesome friends from IRC that I have known for years, who for the most part seem to be devoid of much of the “drama” that goes on in other parts of this little world. Then there are all the new friends I have been meeting in recent months, who have managed to restore some of my faith in friendship. And I look forward to many more years of getting to know these beautiful people.
Opposite-Sex Friends
Ah. Here we come to the crux of this essay. I found a great little site today over at Sed.Non.Satiata. Go visit her, she has some very succinct things to say about a variety of subjects, but one thing jumped out at me as I was reading:

As I was saying I have quite a few male friends, really close friends, close as in we tell each other everything close, hang out all the time close, would do anything for each other close. We’re, you know, FRIENDS. And then they either get a girlfriend or their current girlfriend gets jealous and the next thing you know, suddenly, usually without warning, you’re not friends anymore.
I understand when people don’t have anything in common anymore and they just kinda stop hanging out. That doesn’t even phase me. But this…this is insulting.
My question is this: Was I just a surragate girlfriend? Someone to provide them with all the female things until someone came along that they wanted have sex with and then I became useless?

Wow. Get out of my head, girl. I’ve never really been pretty enough or interesting enough or thin enough to seriously hold anyone’s interest for long romantically. But I suppose I am funny, and I am a really good listener, so people, especially guys, kind of gravitate towards me as a friend. I am safe. There is no need to impress me, they think I am probably happy for any attention they give me. Then, poof, they get that bombshell of their dreams, and it’s like I was tossed into the wind like yesterday’s garbage. There have been times when I didn’t even know about a new girlfriend for literally months. And I am always happy for them, so why the secrecy? Most times, I know damn well they aren’t interested in me that way, anyway. So I very much feel like I am a substitute for female conversation or companionship or whatever until they can find something they really like. And most of the time they don’t even have the balls or the kindness to let me know the deal from their own mouths. I am left to assume and watch their actions and end up feeling like shit. Then, when that girlfriend goes their separate way, back the “friend” comes like nothing ever happened. And that’s another thing. Should you ever have a sexual relationship with someone who you KNOW damn well will probably never be anything but a friend? And then continue to do so after you develop feelings for them, and STILL know they don’t and won’t ever return those feelings, but won’t ever bother to tell you, because they are enjoying their free nookie until they find someone better? Yeah. I have been that stupid. I used to think it wasn’t a big deal. Now, I think maybe if you allow that to happen, you have ruined a great friendship before it ever even has a chance to get off the ground, and maybe there isn’t any way to retrieve it. Especially not without talking.
So um…..there is my a small section of my book on friendship. I guess I had a bit more to say than I thought. If you read to this point, I applaud you. Now go give your friends a hug. :hello:

Penned by: Tricia | 11 Comments »

Remember how I said I was going to watch Mulan with the boys the other night? Well, you know, I must not have ever paid really close attention to the songs before, because one song in particular seemed to be written just for me. For real. It’s called “Reflections” and it’s the one that is also sung by Christina Aquilera on the soundtrack. In the movie, Mulan sings this song after she has a little comedy of errors with the Matchmaker, and she has “lost honor” for her family, and she is basically feeling like the constraints of her life are not allowing her to be herself as SHE knows herself to be, and she is always playing the part of what is expected of her.

Look at me
You may think you see who I really am
But you’ll never know me
Every day it’s as if I play a part
Now I see if I wear a mask, I can fool the world
But I can not fool my heart.
—
Who is that girl I see, staring straight back at me?
When will my reflection show who I am inside?
—
I am now
In a world where I have to hide my heart
And what I believe in
But somehow I will show the world
What’s inside my heart
And be loved for who I am.
—
Who is that girl I see staring straight back at me?
Why is my reflection someone I don’t know?
Must I pretend that I’m
Someone else for all time?
When will my reflection show who I am inside?
—
Can the heart that must be free to fly
Not burst with the need to know the reasons why?
Why must we all conceal
What we think, how we feel?
Must there be a secret me I’m forced to hide?
—
I won’t pretend that I’m someone else for all time
When will my reflection show who I am inside?
When will my reflection show who I am inside?

Penned by: Tricia | 2 Comments »

Holy Hot Tamales, Batman!! :batman:
I just found out I was picked for bran-O-phelia‘s Hottie Bloggah Pick of the Day!! Oh, man, first I wanted to crawl under a rock and hide. But now, I feel honored and touched and all gushy-mushy inside. Thanks, man. Go show Branny-poo how much we love her. :lovey:
In other news, it is still hotter than Hades’ ballsack around here (and yeah…that was supposed to be a crass and gross remark…that’s exactly how you feel when you walk outside). Yesterday it was 95 degrees!!! I did NOT even step foot outside yesterday. Stayed inside in my air conditioner all day. Today, it was almost as warm, it hit 80 degrees before 9:00 in the morning. BUT, I decided to be a trooper and take the kids to playgroup, then I had to go cash my meager little paycheck, so I decided to take the kids to the mall afterwards so we could get all comfy and cool. Then I had to go grocery shopping after Anthony went home, and I am completely pooped right now, and I need another shower badly after being outside half the day. Unfortunately, Donovan is STILL up, and is currently resisting all attempts to wrassle him into the crib. And he only had a half-hour nap today!! Arghh. *considers slipping the baby some Benadryl* What the heck, I’ll probably end up giving in and nursing him just to keep my sanity.
:frazzled:

Penned by: Tricia | Comments Off

I can’t believe I forgot to mention that the Story-Go-Round #2 is officially in motion! Part 1 was kicked off in a spectacularly jaw-dropping way by C.C., and continued in wonderfully dark form by the beautiful Lessa. I believe that I am 10th in a line of 12 (oh my, how this has grown!), so we will see how long the story takes to reach me this time, and if I am up for the challenge!
Ohhhh, did you see that? It’s a smiley! You can make them too, right down there in my comments! When you go to make a comment, click on “Use Smilies?” and a window will pop up showing you the smilies I currently have available for you to use, and the corresponding word or symbol you need to type to get that smiley to show up. Thanks BUNCHES to Scripty Goddess for showing me how! If anyone had any suggestions/requests for new smilies, let me know, k?
I am also busy trying to figure out how to skin this darn site. I think I know HOW to do it, thanks to Domesticat, I just have to find the time to fix my style sheets and html in order to implement the skinning seamlessly. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
More later, right now I am off to watch Mulan with Gregory and Donovan. :crazy:

Penned by: Tricia | 3 Comments »

Damn…it’s hot! I feel like taking off all my clothes and plunging headfirst into a big tub of ice water. I can’t BELIEVE it is 89 degrees in the middle of APRIL in New England! It’s almost scary when you really think about it. We seemed to go straight from autumn to summer….no winter or spring to speak of. The ground didn’t even freeze completely this year. This means that there is tons of mold sitting there beneath the dirt that didn’t get killed off by hard frozen earth, and now it is waiting to be pushed to the surface by the newly budding plants. What does this mean? I have allergies this year where before I never ever had any. ARGHHHH. I can feel it in my head, a nasty woolly and “sucked-in” feeling in the morning, my nose is runny, I am sneezing, I have headaches, I am generally miserable. AND I HATE THE HEAT! It is supposed to be 95 degrees tomorrow! I will be safely ensconced in the house with the kids and the wonder that is central air conditioning. w0000t!
In other news, Donovan’s little “barfbaby(tm)” episode seems to be over, and he is back to his usual rambunctious self. I think I ALMOST prefer the quietness that indicates illness to the “throwing self on the floor, kicking floor, looking to see if Mommy is watching, kick floor some more if she is not, if she still isn’t, bang back of head on floor really hard to elicit sympathy, if that doesn’t work, scream ‘Mommy Mommy’ 57 times until she is so annoyed she will pick you up whether she wants to or not” daily tantrums. These coupled with Anthony’s continuous “no one is looking at me, no one is talking to me, how dare these people assume I can entertain myself, the horror” screaming jags and Gregory’s “Oh GAWD I am so bored, sigh loudly to make sure Mom can hear me” eye rolling make for a tired Tricia most weeks.
We went to see a production of Eric Carle’s “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” and “The Very Quiet Cricket” at The Bushnell on Sunday. We got free tickets, but it ended up being totally worth it. It was pretty cute, although The Very Quiet Cricket, which was presented second, began to go on and on after a while to the point of redundant idiocy. No offense to the book. However, I was rather impressed by the inventiveness of the production in portraying the characters through a method of puppeteering I had never seen before. Basically the two puppeteers where actually on the stage with the puppets (I have to admit I didn’t even notice them) all dressed in black, including gloves and masks, and they held the puppets by rods and moved them around. They had a section at the end where the kids could ask questions, and they explained how they did it all. Very cool. The production was done by Mermaid Theater from Nova Scotia. Donovan would highly recommend them. *G*
Anyway, I think I need to go travel to all of my daily reads and more, I have been a tad remiss lately in my reading. I am starting to have so many sites now that surfing them with 120 megahertz is becoming quite a daunting task! Seriously, I have to make sure I have bare minumum of an hour all to myself so I can visit all of about 10 sites. *sigh* SOON I hope to get myself a new computer. *Crossing fingers*

Penned by: Tricia | 4 Comments »