Effects of Life

               No one can say with any certainty what is going to happen in their future but never would I have dreamed that my thirteen year old stepson would molest my nine year old daughter. As devastating as that was for my family, the thought of sending my stepson back to a nightmare existence with his mother without trying to help him, warred with the thought of what he had done and might possibly do again to my daughter. Back and forth I went about this decision and with my now ex-husband refusing to make a decision between his two children, it left the decision of what to do completely up to me. After much thought, and many discussions with my pastor, and many counselors, and my family physician, I chose to try to help my stepson, After two years of family therapy I found out I had chosen wrongly. This event cracked my family apart at the seams destroying my family forever, or so I thought at the time. The guilt, anger, and self-loathing caused me to break my faith with my God,and my future is now radically different than it would have been had this event not happened.
            By the time that I realized helping my stepson was never going to happen, I was living in Cherrypoint, NC. I had him removed from the house and sent back to his mother and I did not care what was going to happen to him at that point. The kids and I closed ranks around each other. Although he was in the USN at the time, my ex husband volunteered for every temporary duty he could and conveniently was sent off to parts unknown. There were other issues, there always are, but the long and short of it was that we were done as a couple, a family, however you want to look at it, our future was gone. I had lost a boy that I thought of as my own, and my children had lost a brother. Because my husband and I soon split up, they also lost a father. The day I moved back home to Maine, my ex husband stopped being in their life. I realize now this was his choice, but for many years I thought it was my fault. However I wanted to look at it, my life as I had known it and thought it was going to be, was never going to be that way again. My family was in splinters around me and I knew that it was going to be a long time before there would be a return to peace or stability in my life.
             During all the drama that was going on initially we were in Florida and I had my pastor and my church family and my faith, my ex husband received orders to NC and the stage was then set for the final disintegration of my family. When my family finally did split in to pieces, I was very isolated and so angry.  I felt like everything was my fault and I could not handle the overwhelming sense of guilt, anger, and self-loathing. So I blamed God. It was very easy to talk myself into believing that every bad thing was God's fault because He had let this horrible thing happen to my daughter and by extension,to me. No more would I share my burdens with Him or ask for His wisdom and guidance, or have someone who knew how I felt without my having to tell Him. I now had to handle everything that came my way on my own with no one to talk it over with and I had to rely on my own judgement to get me through every situation. I hope that I never have to be that alone and lonely again. It made me realize just how inadequate we humans are to make decisions on our own. There was a rage in my heart that I could do nothing with. It led to behavior that I am not exactly proud of, to say the least, but I do not deny it if I am asked about it. I was not in a place that I could accept my own responsibility in the whole mess and I had to blame someone, so I blamed God. I decided that since God didn't protect my daughter, my family, or my future as I thought they  should be protected when I asked Him to, then I was not going to give Him what He asked of from me either. That left a huge, very deep, very dark void in my life which I tried to fill with all the wrong people, habits, and things. I ended up hurting no one but myself really.Maybe that is what I was trying to do, punish myself for make the wrong choices. I finally crawled out of my pit and returned to my faith but I will always remember that deep, dark place when I was so bitter and alone. I know that I will never make that mistake again because even though I am alone at this point in my life, I am not lonely. I have too many people who care about me and love me and I will always have my faith to turn to to see me through the rough spots that I know will come my way.
             Before this event in my life happened, I thought that marriage was forever. Whether or not my husband was good, bad, or indifferent, he was my Prince Charming and we were going to live together happily ever after. I was supposed to have an old farmhouse with a wraparound porch and an apple tree in the yard. My husband had a job in which he was going to retire soon, we were going to buy that house, the kids would move out in their turn, and I would go back to school full time. I would then get a really cool job. I was supposed to be an accountant, or secretary or even a missionary. My life was all set, my future was assured and I was going to have a fifty year wedding anniversary. Then this happened and all bets were off. I was now the object that I had always pitied, a single mother with no education, struggling to take care of her kids as best she could with all the state aid she could qualify for. It would be another two decades almost before the idea of school could even be contemplated. What I wanted to be then is not what I want now. I would never have dreamed that I would be the wife of a prisoner who is doing hard time. I never thought that I would be cleaning toilets for a living, and living in a forty year old trailer with issues.
              So here I am today and time heals all wounds as my mother kept trying to tell me through all this and I have to say the only thing that I am sure of in my life is that my mother is a very smart woman and I should have listened to her about many different things a long time ago. I eventually picked up the pieces of my life and put them back together albeit in a different order than they were to begin with. I found my faith again and feel blessed that my God is a forgiving one. I am not alone anymore and have found the kind of peace that I needed to make it through life on my own two feet, and I have a whole church family that are there for me and to help me stay on the right track. As for my future, although it is radically different then I thought it was going to be,I own my own home such that it is right on the river. I am in college and I am there on my terms not anyone else's. My children are grown and becoming responsible citizens whatever that really is, and my husband although a bad boy is one of the most honest people I have ever met with a bigger heart in him than almost anybody I have ever met. He can spot bullshit from across the room and instinctively knows more about parenting than I will ever read in all the how-,to books out there. He is the love of my life and beside him all others pale in comparison. This thing that happened to my family was an awful thing, more awful then anything I could ever have dreamed of, but I got through and I helped my daughter through it. She doesn't hate me for which I am thankful for. My husband is coming home soon enough and the future is starting to look pretty good again. I guess my mother was right after all and time does heal all wounds.

Division of a Paper

     As any student in any college knows, there are going to be times when they are going to have to write a paper and turn it in for some kind of grade. That paper is either going to make or break their course grade. A well written paper has to have three main parts. An intro, with which we "hook" the teacher, the content, which keeps the teacher interested in what we are writing, and an outro, which sums the paper up in a nice neat little package and ties up all the little loose ends. Unless the paper is about little loose ends and in that case they probably won't get all tied up, but left flapping in the proverbial breeze for a good teacher to see.
        The intro is that first sentence,or first paragraph, first chapter, first page, whatever it is to be called depending on the length of the paper. It is the thing that grabs the teacher and says "I know what might interest you," to him or her. It is what peaks the interest, like those warm wonderful aromas in the kitchen right before Thanksgiving.(Sigh) A good intro has three parts to it. A really good quote, question or a startling/descriptive statement. A statement that will grab the teacher by the throat and say,"READ ME", and then the rest of the paragraph says, "I HAVE KNOWLEDGE FOR YOU." The third part should lead the teacher by the hand right into the content of the paper.
        The content of the paper is the fleshing out of what was brought up in the intro. Ideally, there should be three parts to back up whatever the writer is trying to say. There can be more but there really needs to be at least three points. Three little bitty corroborating pieces of information is all it takes to back up what is trying to be drummed into the poor teacher's brain. More than that and the poor guy gets a headache form trying to read a gazillion papers with a gazillion points, less than that and he might still be...confused. Each point should have its own sentence, paragraph, section, chapter whatever the length of the paper is. For example, a book is nothing more than a really long paper. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end; it just has more chapters to back up the points.The points usually being; point one-boy meets girl, point two-boy loses girl, and point three-girl realizes she dodged a bullet and gets away laughing. This is where sequels come in, but that is a different point.When the third paragraph finally winds down, and the teacher realizes there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel, he should be led gently in to the outro.
         Finally, the last part of the assignment, is the summary or the outro. The outro is that part of the paper that sums everything, in the preceding parts up, in a nice neat little packge, if it can be done, making it easy for the teacher to remember what the paper was about. It recaps everything, ties up all those loose little ends laying around. The outro has to be there, due to the fact that the teacher, after having read so many papers and paragraphs, can't remember what he has just read when he gets down to the end of the piles of papers he has to read. This refreshes his memory just a bit. It is a way for the writer to leave her readers with whatever attitude that she wants. It is the last chapter in the book where the heroine is glad she got away, or got married, whichever and can even hint to the sequel if there is to be one.
         Any one of us can write any kind of paper. To put it together with some kind of cohesion, so that the end fits the beginning, and the middle, is what the teacher gets paid to drill into our little heads and what every student tries to do. As long as we have that basic formula down, we can do it in any order that we want to and we can still rest assured that we will at least pass the course. As long as we pass the work in to him at some point, for his reading pleasure, and a passing grade.

             

My Own Type of Research

     Research is one of my favorite things to do, as long as it is the, "hands on" type of research. I have always been a most curious creature. From the time I could stick my nose into something, that is exactly what I could be found to be doing. My favorite question growing up besides, "What is in the refrigerator?" was "Why?" At present I am trying to learn something about wine. I have started to read  books, pamphlets, and backs of wine labels, Mostly I am working my way down the wine shelves at the local grocery stores. Considering the fact that I drink about 4-5 bottles of wine a year, it is going to be awhile before I can safely assume that I know anything about wines at all. I began my research with red wines. I like beef and it bleeds red so I bought red wine to go with it. Apparently that logic worked because the back of the labels on the wine bottles agreed with me. Continuing on with that logic, chicken, fish, and pork were paired with white wines. That worked out pretty good as well. I originally started with the cheap end of the spectrum in wines thinking that one wine maker was just as good as another, however that thinking was a big mistake. I realized it the next morning when I felt absolutely awful. I also shied away from the boxed wines as they reminded me a lot of the Boonesfarm mistake and I did not want to go there again. Ever. Having a completely biased opinion of my home state, and believing that everything good comes from home I searched online for a number of wineries in the state and found a list of them. I then nagged my local grocer into ordering some of them, and although they cost a bit more than I really want to pay, there are some really good wines that are grown and marketed right here in Maine. I sample wines alphabetically by country according to whatever meat I am eating at the time and so far I am finding that most of the time as far as wines go, I am making good decisions about them. Enjoying how a good wine well chosen, compliments a dinner, I have begun experimenting with the dessert wines, and have become obsessed with finding the perfect wine to go with chocolate anything. It may take me awhile but I really liking doing the research. I also am starting to throw a little wine into my dinners as they are cooking, I find that works as long as I am not heavy handed with it. I look forward to doing actual field work this coming summer to increase the knowedge that am acquiring on a bottley basis.

Crocheting the Memories of My Life

 

     Learning how to crochet, for me, has been an ongoing experience since I was a little girl when I  learned the craft from my grandmother. Crocheting is a very old art form that has been handed down from mother to daughter for many generations. Sometimes skipping a generation or two but always making a raging come back. Beginning to learn any hobby requires a little thought on the part of the person learning the hobby. I remember first having to tell Grammy that I wanted to make a ribbon for my hair and it was from that first learning project that I learned a hobby that created some memories that were to last me a lifetime.

      To begin to learn my new hobby, I first had to talk to my grandmother and find out what would be best to start with.  In my case, I wanted to learn how to make ribbons for my hair. Grammy had showed me how to make them every morning, laughing when for some reason my eyes couldn’t keep up with her flashing crochet hook. Crocheting has one needle verses knitting, which has two. The hook in crocheting is identical to that of the one in  lace-making except in lace-making, or tatting as it is also known, you need the Hubble telescope to see the end of the needle and the threads. In crochet the needle is at at least 7 or 8 inches or so depending on the maker and can go to a foot or more. It has a small hook on at least one of the ends to catch the yarn and pull it through the loops held on the shank of the needle.

     Now that I had decided to learn to make ribbons, I then needed to know what else I would need to make them. The crochet hook is the first thing that came to my mind that I needed. It could be made of any materials from plastic to aluminum or anything else in between, and ranged in sizes from A to Z  with the standard size being G or H. For my purposes, a hook size G, made of aluminum,( which is my preference for crocheting simply because it slides through the yarn most easily), is the only equipment that I needed. As far as materials go, I would need a ball of yarn.  Yarn can come in as many colors as are in the rainbow, it really depended on what color my outfit was. My standard outfit was jeans and a tee shirt/sweatshirt.  So, for a color, I  chose a medium blue. Yarns also comes in many weights which is how one tells which one to use for what, the lighter weights are for decorations, children’s and baby clothes. The medium weights are for adult clothes, Afghans and crafts, and the bulky weights are for sweaters, shawls, and rugs. This is a very general guideline and can be subject to the whims of the pattern creator.

     Patterns, in crocheting, are the same as in sewing or anything else really. They are a way for the crocheter to know how to create the item desired. They number in the gazillions and can be as old as the paper they are written on or the thought in your mind. There are only a handful of stitches in crochet but it is the difference in how they are put together that give us the differences in the patterns. For the making of my hair ribbon I only needed two stitches; the single stitch(SC), and the double stitch(DC). I first started by knotting the yarn onto the crochet hook. By looping the yarn over the hook and drawing it through the knotted loop I have started my basic stitch. I continued drawing the yarn over the hook and pulling it through the loop on the hook.  I made this row of single chains about 30 stitches long. This was  called my beginning row or the starting row. When I have about thirty stitches in the chain, I crochet three more single chains and then poke the head of the hook through the middle of the third chain from the shank of the needle. I pull my yarn over the hook twice and draw each loop through the loop on my hook separately. I pull the yarn over the hook again and draw the yarn through all the loops on my hook. That is my very first double chain and I do one more double chain in the same chain stitch as the first DC. I continue putting two DCs in each SC for the next ten stitches. The pattern changes and I only do one stitch in each of the single stitches. Then it tells me to do that for ten stitches. The pattern changes back and I do ten more of the double stitches in each single stitch. Next I do one more row like the second row and I am done. There are loops and curls that have formed on the ends of the ribbons almost as if by magic. I tie the ribbon on my ponytail. My hair was then tied back with a uniquely-mine little hair bauble that I had made myself. This was the very basic pattern that I began learning to crochet on. As my head grew I had to add stitches to the pattern.

     As stated earlier, by varying the number of times you pull the yarn over the hook or the number of times you pull the yarn through the loops, you can vary the stitches. As I practiced and learned more variations of the stitches I have created heirloom quality Afghans for kids, toys for them to play with, accessories for my daughter’s outfits, and decorations for the holidays, all for the cost of a skein of yarn or two and some hours of my time. I now am at the point that my own granddaughter is asking me how to make the ribbons for her hair and I look forward to handing down to her the art form that I learned from my grandmother and seeing all the ways she can create the memories in her life.

The Two Karate Kids

     The difference in the remake of movies is an obvious thing. You can see the difference in the actors, the writing and especially the special effects. They quite often are so different that it is not necessary to remark how different they are. Take fir instance The Karate Kid, in its day it was a really good movie and the remake today is a most enjoyable movie experience. What is not the same however are the moviegoers themselves. Those old enough to remember the first movie were not the same people when the remake hit the theaters this past year; age, experience and physical locations all changed for most people in the twenty six years between the two movies and me especially.  

      The first glaring difference to me with these movies is the fact that a few months before the first movie I was pregnant with my first son. I have to say that pregnancy agreed with me totally and carried through the first few months after having my oldest son. My skin was clear, my hair was shiny, and I “glowed”. I really did. I had many compliments to that effect. I walked around feeling spiritually at one with the world around me, The Great Earth Mother.  With the remake of The Karate Kid, I am going through menopause and it does not agree with me at all. The son that I gave birth to, is now a grown man, married and in the service himself. The hot flashes are making me miserable; the night sweats are intolerable, leading to exhaustion and irritability. Instead of being told how wonderful I look, positively glowing blah, blah, blah, people are asking me if I just got over the flu and do I need to go home and lie down.  My children now actually ask me how I am feeling before the y talk to me. If I don’t answer them they leave… quickly.  Instead of The Great Earth Mother, I am now known as Grandma St. Helen, (watch out for those eruptions).

     The first movie actually was released the day before I married my first husband, the father by blood of my three children. I remember how excited I was to be starting my life as a new bride. I dreamed of happily ever after and that love could conquer all. I was naïve enough to think that marriage was forever and nothing bad was ever really going to happen to me. My husband was going to take care of me and I did not need to worry about taking care of myself ever again. As I watched the remake of the Karate Kid I thought how far I had come in learning to take care of myself. I can drive an eighteen wheeler if I have to, it took me three tries but I have my class “A” license. I can fix a stopped up sink, a screen door and bleed my own furnace, change a tire, and I actually understand what a mechanic is talking about when he is trying to tell me what is wrong with my car. I know how to get something out of a drain, a nose, and a kid who suddenly has amnesia. I have survived homelessness, divorce and the life of a wife with a husband in prison.  

     The final difference in the two movies for me is that when the first movie came out I was living there in Southern California where the movie was made. Southern California was nice and I think there were a few of those beaches in that movie that I actually sun burnt myself on. In the movie you can’t see how very dry the air is, or how the dust coats everything outside and that you can’t touch anything without getting it on yourself. The flowers are bright and colorful and in the morning there is a heavy tropical scent wherever a handful of them grew. I never knew what they all were but boy did they smell nice. In the remake of the movie I was not in Beijing but I was here in Maine in the fall. I will take fall in Maine any day over any day in sunny southern California. California never changes, always dry greens and dusty browns with various colored tropical flowers. But in Maine on any given fall day you have the vivid hues of red, orange and yellow set against a backdrop of the deep greens of the Maine forests and the startling blue of her skies. There is no scenery on the beaches that can compare with a cloudless autumn day in Maine.  At the top of every large hill in Maine you can see what the colors on God’s palette truly are.

     There are differences in the two movies; the actors, the writing, the budget, and like the two movies you can see the differences in their fans. We are all older and wiser and in different places than we all thought we would be, but just like in these movies we all had to face our bullies and come out stronger for having stood our ground and fought the battle no matter what.  

     

Easy Meals for a Busy Life

 For the millions of people headed back to school this year, one thing is going to be on their minds at the end of their busy days and that thing is going to be,” what to do for dinner”. From the harried mother to the new college student to the new couple down the street, everyone has one thing on their mind come 6:00 PM. And that would be,” I am starving, what is for dinner”?  Years gone by Mom would have a hot meal ready and waiting about the time your brain received the signals from your stomach that it was time to it. Nowadays with everyone’s busy lifestyles, more and more people just do not have the time for the kind of work required for that kind of meal. That leaves everyone with basically three tried and true methods of slapping a meal into themselves and/or their families. If they have a really good job they can eat at a sit down restaurant, if they are really stressed for time they can hit their local fast food store, or if they are feeling the need to get de-stressed then they can order something for takeout/ delivery and relax in the comfort of their own home or the home next door whatever is on their agenda.   

      For the ultimate eating experience, a sit down dinner at the hometown favorite restaurant is the way to go. You know the one, it is right there on the corner of Main Street. It has been there since God was a baby and the cook could have been God’s auntie. He liked her so well that he gifted her with the knowledge of how to cook a homestyle meal, make it look and smell like heaven, and be able to do it in under ten minutes for a better than reasonable price. The restaurant doesn’t look like much but it is where all the locals go when the tourists are in town. The coffee is always fresh and hot and the desserts are what you take to your mother-in-law’s house if she lives in another state (she will never know unless your husband has a death wish).

      A less satisfying alternative is the fast food restaurant. They all have a generic menu; something that started out life breathing, has been turned into paste of some sort, and has the flavor fried out of it. Although not as good as a restaurant it is convenient if you are busy and you only have to throw the trash away to clean up after yourself. It is great if you have a bunch of screaming kids as some of the restaurants have a playland to let them loose in so you can finish a thought while you eat. However you only have to read the magazines at the checkout stand or listen to the news to find out exactly how unhealthy this type of food is, so you really don’t want to indulge in this type of food on any kind of regular basis. 

      A third and final option to getting a dinner without the bother of cooking it yourself is to have your food delivered from the various assorted restaurants that will deliver in your area or order something to take home yourself. Chinese food and pizza are two of the first options that come to mind although larger cities will have other options as well. This method is great if you have guests coming over and no time to cook or you feel like eating your dinner in your pajamas in front of the TV. Order a pizza or a Pu Pu Platter and you are all set. A major drawback is that quite often the food comes to you less than hot and sometimes missing items. It never fails that pizza delivery will be missing the soda that was supposed to come with it and by the time you get your soda the pizza is cold.

      Whatever method gets chosen is largely going to depend on time money and convenience, what your mood is, who you have to feed, and how far you want to go to get fed. If you get desperate enough and all else fails there is only one thing left that you can do to get a hot meal for a reasonable price. Just don’t forget to thank your Mom; she worked hard getting that meal together.   

meta-graf on cause and effect essay

     I chose as my decision to go back to school for the cause and effect essay because it was the first thing that came to my mind that really had three separate and distinct areas that led to that decision. I did not have to work for the decision because it and the reasons were right there. I was lucky in that regard. The subject itself was and still is something that excites me.  I am good and sick of my hand to mouth existence, so therefore I am very passionate about changing it. I find that a lot of my assignments I can correlate to that decision and to the fact of what I want to become. Maybe it is because I am the type of person who lives in the now, with her eye on the future. Crying over spilled milk has never had an appeal for me, so therefore I do not cry and whine that I did not go to school when I was younger , I only choose to try and get through it now and in the process use what little spare energy I have to excel in who I am