My writing business, snow, and my son's visit

Sometimes it is better to write a little than not to write at all. I like this blog because I feel like I can write tiny posts without it harming anything.

Some of my other blogs are there for more important purposes, and so I write articles with a minimum of 500 words, and sometimes much, much longer. The pressure to write long articles is enormous because they do better in search engine results.

Today I've set before myself the task of writing 2 articles. One is a revision of an unpublished old article on what to do if your home business gets more business than you can handle. The other - I think will be on parental rights for disabled people.

And now, a prayer:

Heavenly Father, please help me with my writing. You alone know how hard this is for me. You are the only one who watches as I stumble and fall, and you know how much failure has become the norm for me. Please help me today and every day to get my work done and to write articles that are truly useful to those who need to read them. Let me do it all for You. In the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, Amen.

It snowed all night on Thursday/Friday this week and we're expecting a lot more snow before Christmas. In the two years since I moved to Idaho, I've never seen deep snow. I saw deeper snow when I lived in Happy Camp, in California.

It gets a lot colder here, though, and the snow freezes to the pavement, whereas in Happy Camp the roads were usually cleared right away. People here drive on frozen, icy packed snow like it was just nothing.

This is what I saw when I woke up Friday morning. This is what Northern Idaho is supposed to look like in the winter... though too often I see no snow at all. The snow here is only four inches.

When I went into my office (a bedroom in my apartment) I saw that my window was iced over. I'm trying to train myself to take photos whenever I see something awesome... because I know it won't last long. Something will change. The ice melts, or light patterns change. So I snapped a few photos right away.

Once I settled into my office chair, which is a chaise lounge with a card-table desk that goes over it, I saw this sight out that window. The roofs, covered by white, and the icy window slowly warming.

That table is for filing. The little green-topped Truvia jars are what I keep little things in - like rubber bands, buttons, paper clips, etc..

Last week I decided to sponsor a poverty-stricken child in Mexico. I wrote about it on my Prayer-Power blog: Prayer for Children Living in Poverty. I love this little girl and want so much to be a blessing to her and her family, and her town. Her name is Brisia and she's eight years old, of Mayan descent.

A few weeks ago my youngest son came by to visit. I hadn't seen him in over a year so this was a wonderful event for me. I had to walk down to the truck stop on the corner, and he came rolling in with an 18-wheeler.

We ate dinner together at the Subway in the truck stop. This is how he gets his vegetables... something only a mom would spend time thinking about, I guess.

Okay, I'm ready for another visitor. Who wants to be next?

I'd better go do some serious writing now.

Life's Annoying... Fight Back!

Here's a fascinating look at the reality of American life and what to do about it... No Need to Stew: A Few Tips to Cope With Life's Annoyances.

This reminds me of the time my mother opened the door to a children's book salesman. For some reason door-to-door salesmen irritated her beyond belief. The young man at the door shoved a large book in front of her and said, "You can have this free..."

She grabbed the book, said "Thank you" and shut the door.

The salesman stood outside trying to tell her the book was free only if she bought something but she wasn't impressed.

"That'll teach him," she said.

Hey Mom... do you remember that as clearly as I do? I'm still laughing at your audacity to this day.

Mommy Angst

I've been informed by my daughter (age 16) that I'm in big trouble because I'm not perfect (let me count the ways) - obviously an occupational hazard when you're a MOM.

Mea Culpa Baby.

My shortcomings of the day: (1) mentioned that she consumes more than 50% of the ice cream locally whereas she accounts for only 25% of the local consumers, and (2) didn't buy enough when I went to the grocery store. Gee, I didn't have much to spend - could that have anything to do with it?

Now that I've been put in my place by the 16-year-old expert who also believes I should leave my dh because he doesn't do enough around the house... I think I'll have a party. (Looks like a pity-party to me. Please forgive me.)

Yesterday was my oldest child's 32nd birthday. Yes, that means I've been doing the motherhood thing for 32 years and I'M NOT PERFECT YET. Well excuuuuuse me. I think I need to give it up and retire. My youngest will be 15 on June 1. Yay.

I put a "Happy Birthday to Joshua" on my Coast to Coast AM Weblog.

Speaking of kids...

Speaking of kids... my second daughter's birthday was on January 14. For some reason that morning I started my journaling (I journal in a notebook regularly) and this poem insisted on being written:

Happy Birthday Naomi! - You're 24 today. :)

Even though you're far away
You know I think of you every day.
I wonder what you say and do
And is the world being good to you.
I wonder if you're happy now.
If you are, please take a bow.
But if your heart is sad and blue,
Remember the love I have for you.

...
Anyhow, after writing all that sappy stuff I tried to decide what to do with it. You see.. Naomi is my child who decided years ago never to talk to me again. She was raised by her father and his girlfriend, doesn't know me hardly at all, and apparently believed some brainwashing the barren g/f did in order to have "a child of her own." Long sad story... which I'm tired of relating.

So I was trying to decide what to do with my birthday poem. I thought about posting it here or on one of my websites just hoping someday she might find it. I thought about leaving it in my journal only just in case she might someday read that. Then I suddenly decided to send it to my oldest daughter and ask her to forward it if she had the heart to. Well, guess what - she did it! I'm so happy. Naomi may hate me, despise me, whatever... I don't know. But I do know that 24 years ago on January 14, 1981 I gave birth to her. It hurt one hell of a lot - in fact that was my most painful birth of the five. I loved her from before her birth and still to this day love her and I've never stopped. So on January 14... I feel the day belongs partly to me. The poem, to me, felt like a gift from God. It was that spontaneous. I even had a good cry over it, and usually I hate crying, but this felt good.

My Oldest Son

I had a mini-miracle experience yesterday.

I've been worried about my oldest son. He is 31. He lost his long-time room in San Francisco and called me around Sept. or Oct. to tell me he moved into the Salvation Army.

So on Thanksgiving I phoned him and discovered his cell phone was cut off. Then I emailed him through his band's website and got no response. Then on Christmas again I tried to call. No response!

So yesterday I finally got a pretty card out and wrote him a note.... sealed it and addressed it to the Salvation Army address. Guess what - a couple hours later, before I even got to the post office with my notecard, he phoned me and gave me his new phone number and address.

How cool is that? I don't know if I have a psychic connection with him or if this is God's way of telling me to take action and He will take care of the rest.

Now I need to send him what I had for his Christmas gift... won't he be surprised.. :)

Moving

I can't believe I'd even consider moving from my wonderful home in Happy Camp... but we are really thinking about leaving sometime during the next year. The main reason is because our teenage daughter doesn't have any friends here, plus she's nearing college age and needs to settle into a college town before that time comes. We would like to stay near her during her early adult years. She's even talking about staying in our home past the age of eighteen. My son will probably want to do that too, though we haven't talked about it. He's 14 and I don't think he's even considered moving away from us eventually.

So my daughter's choices of college towns are Eureka and Santa Cruz... both very nice seaside areas to live in. We're planning to move to Eureka because its closer to where we now live. Plus we like what we've seen of it on our many visits there.

I'm sure only a person who's lived in the absolute boonies (like where we are now) could appreciate what we see in the town... in terms of advantages. Here we have no choices... like there's just one grocery store, one pizza place, one clinic, etc. But in Eureka we'll have so many things available to us, its mind boggling to us.

The only problem is.. we don't want to get rid of our pets. I know if we were willing to do so I could get a rental there right away and be moved, but we won't let our pets down... they love us and don't deserve to be abandoned to strangers. I don't want to break their hearts.

So, knowing that finding the landlord that will let us move our pets into their house will be like locating a needle in a haystack... I've decided to advertise for a home by making a new website that will show who we are and list what we're looking for in a home. I'm going to make the website structure and my daughter will be installing the detailing.

I've already offered her a part time job in my web design business... she's so good at site design already and I like her style!

Thanksgiving

We had a great dinner yesterday. It was just the four of us... me, Keith, and my two teenagers, but my daughter and I had a lot of fun cooking it together, and Keith and Aaron helped the day before by cleaning the house. Because everyone helped prepare for Thanksgiving, everyone turned out being happy about the dinner. Besides, it was great food. The turkey, dressing, everything turned out great. We had two kinds of salad, two kinds of potatoes.. and so much more. We even made two homemade pumpkin pies. Now we're looking forward to making a Christmas dinner that's even better.

Bewilderment Avenue

Remember that road sign... Linda Jo Highway? (See two posts below this one). Well, I think I've already come to Bewilderment Avenue. It happened like this. My daughter finally got a blog going this year. I will not give you the link because its a privacy issue. But I'm happy to say she's been writing extensively and I'm very proud of her somewhat profane efforts.

Anyhow, she managed to get the attention of her father (who hasn't seen her since she was three months old) and her paternal grandmother. So after about a month of visiting her site he finally started emailing and imailing with her. She was happy about that. Then a few days later he started badmouthing me and saying he wanted to sue me because he thought the kids weren't educated well enough. This quick judgment call was based on him quizzing her in imail on what she knew about World War 2 and the Constitution.

My daughter responded by calling me into their imail chat on MSN. This was the first time I'd chatted with him in years. I exchanged a few emails with him a few years back but other than that hadn't talked to him since we separated in 1989. And instead of being friendly he was attacking me and threatening to sue. And he claimed to be paying child support even though we didn't receive it. Hmmm.

Then a few days later I imailed him, we got through some anger and eventually agreed to work together for our kids' best interest and not to fight and sue each other in court. So I went to see a family law attorney in a town two hours distant from our home. Then I wanted to imail him to tell him what I found out, and discovered he's blocked me on MSN.

So this is Bewilderment Avenue. I've got no idea why he's cut off communication but I will guess it has more to do with his own failings that with ours. And by the way, the Family Support department says it hasn't received that child support he claims he sent and they're doing the research to see if it went to a different county or to the state.

Fish? Or Miner's Lettuce and Pine Needles?

Today is my youngest child's 14th birthday.

He just got back from a fishing trip. Now, there's something I never wanted to do. Fish. Something about the look of dead fish doesn't seem appetizing to me. But to each his own.

I was happy he went fishing with his friends.. and one of the friends' father. Out of the group, my son is the only one who doesn't know his father. Its not like we mope around being sad about that all the time, but I thought it was way-cool that he got to go on a fishing trip with someone else's father so he could see what it was like.

I also am happy he's learning to get food. The way the world's going, he might need that skill for survival someday. If he can go to a lake, kill a fish and eat it he would be more likely to live through disaster than someone like me who would try surviving on miner's lettuce and pine needles.

What Aaron Likes To Talk About

Long day - and I'm still not done. Aaron wants to talk. Mostly its about going over jumps on his bike. He never seems to tire of talking about that. Or anything, for that matter. He's a very verbal person. Age 13. He goes out to visit friends almost daily. They just love the way he knows how to fix their bikes and he appreciates being with others who want to talk about bikes all day long.

Diet, Blogger Hoodie, and Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

Since my diet started on June 2 I've lost 25 pounds. I'm still going strong with that effort! Unfortunately I've got another 75 pounds to lose, but knowing I've done it once sure encourages me to know I can do it three more times!

I had a nice surprise yesterday when I went to my blogger pro account - I found out they cancelled the payment part of the service (though I still get all the pro goodies) and they offered me a free hooded sweatshirt in gratitude for my monetary support of their service! YAY! I am so thrilled and awaiting my blogger.com hoodie with not-so-mild anticipation. Just in time for winter!

Hey, it will look good on me too considering I'm losing so much weight. :)

We had a great vacation to Santa Cruz and the SF Bay Area in August. We saw almost all our family members and spent two days having fun on the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk. The kids loved it. Did you know you can take a virtual rollercoaster ride at their website? We went on the Giant Dipper three times. It was wonderful.

And by the way, the safety bar on the roller coaster was so tight on me I theorized that if I hadn't lost so much weight just before going there, I wouldn't have been able to ride. And that would have been so sad....

Life, Money, and the Atkins Diet

Sorry I've neglected this weblog! Here's stuff I've been doing lately:

1. web maintenance work - a lot of it
2. enjoying my kids more now that my daughter's out of school
3. a new diet and exercise program
4. rearranging the house to put all my clutter in the back bedroom
5. enjoying our new used car and taking a few out of town trips

After a tight-money month, Keith and I sat down together yesterday to look at July's budget. We talked about where to cut corners. There won't be room for any extras but we'll get all our bills paid this time. Last month we didn't due to what we spent to take that car out of the car lot. Now we have to catch up...

The good news is that we're going to have plenty of money for food (we always have that, at least)... and for me, food will be on the Atkins diet plan. This drastic measure will be taken because I dieted on a conventional plan all of June and didn't lose even one pound - a real disappointment. I've come to the conclusion that my body's addicted to carbohydrates and must be weaned off them. I'm starting Atkins induction on July 1 and am reading the book now:



The book is well-written and easy to understand with short chapters. I'm enjoying it...

What I've learned so far is that I've been eating so many carbohydrates, my body is running on them and not burning off stored fat. The stored fat comes from eating too many carbs too... because the liver converts carbs into fat if there's too many. The solution is to slow down to 20 grams of carbs daily until the addiction is broken, then add a few more into the diet. Yes, the body does need some carbs, but not in the great quantity we have in the typical American diet. This is a main reason why obesity has become an epidemic in this country.

Peaceful Day

This hasn't been a very eventful day. I made a to-do list and got only about half the things done. I've been indoors almost all day - except for the time I spent writing in my journal, out in the meadow. Ah well, at least I got some housework done. My daughter wanted her ears pierced and I did that, and then she surprised me by cutting her hair. It looks nice.

Mom Was Here

Today my mom left - I think it was too hot here in the Klamath River Valley ... or maybe there just wasn't enough to do. Too bad she didn't get here a few days earlier when the temperatures were down.

After she left, Keith and I walked from here all the way to the other side of the Elk Creek Bridge and back, for exercise. We both need exercise so much. It used to be that we walked together all the time, when we first moved here... but when I got sick and had to have the hysterectomy last year, we quit and we're both so out of shape now. He needs to walk because of his diabetes and I need to walk because I'm overweight and because of high blood pressure... so hopefully we'll keep walking every morning now... at least, that's the plan.

I also finished chapter three in The Artists Way. This is like the third time I've done chapter three but probably the first time I actually did all the tasks. Instead of trying to keep up with the one-week schedule, I'm just going at my own pace.

Later we went on a tour of a few river access places we've never been to before. One was China Point. It is still a bit smoky here. The smoke is coming from the Florence/Biscuit fires in Oregon.

Going to China Point helped get my mind off the misery I was feeling because of my mom leaving.

Flash! Mom!

I learned to do flash today! I'm so thrilled! I put it on the Chamber of Commerce website.

My mom is here visiting me from Texas... it is really nice to have her around. She's actually staying in the campground on the other side of the river.

Learning More About Webdesign

I've been busy working on my webdesign site. Tonight I'm studying CGI/PERL to use with the request form. I know there's other ways to do forms, but this is the only book I've got on it and besides, my current server doesn't offer PHP or ASP... at least not to lowly people like me who don't pay much.

Anyhow, I'm so glad to have the site nearly done. You can look at it now - but don't laugh - if you want to make constructive, polite suggestions, that would be welcome. :) Sorry you can't use the form for that since it isn't ready yet.... but there's always email. If you have Netscape Navigator 4.7 for a browser - don't bother looking at the site because the inline frames won't work for you and I haven't set up any other options. I would suggest an upgrade... try http://www.mozilla.com for a change... for example.

So... I plan to go to Yreka on Monday for my business license. I'm taking my son ... Aaron wants a video game and I want to buy him clothes. My daughter needs school clothes. Her friend predicts she'll last two weeks in school before quitting. We'll just have to see about that. I remember in third grade she lasted just one week before all hell broke loose ...but she wants to try this so in the interests of her having the kind of educational experience she wants, she's going back to public school this September.

Let Parents Know Their Rights in CPS Cases

Disclosure of Parental Rights Petition

I have just read and signed this petition.

Please help by signing this petition. It takes 30 seconds and will really help.

[Update: Petition is closed but you can still look at it.]