Racism is real

Born in the mid-50s, I was raised in a time when even the mention of thinking a Mexican guy at school was cute earned me a beating by my dad and a warning that I'd better never bring any of those f$&@^% Sp**s home and that even talking to a N* would get me a worse beating. I was grounded for befriending a 'mentally unbalanced' girl who dressed in army pants and boots and called herself Jeoff and warned that if I decided to start acting like that I'd get yet another beating. The people of my generation were caught in the crossroads of the stereotypical old racist attitudes and the dawning of the age where we truly believe that everyone is created equally and should be given every opportunity to be happy and successful. 

I am pleased to report that the lessons of our parents' generation did not take well with us.  Thank God!!  

Through the miracle of Facebook I've reconnected with lots of the people I went to high school with.  Of those, several married someone with a different skin color, more than several have children who married someone with a different skin color, and almost all of them have beautiful grandchildren.  

In a time when the mainstream media and the radical left is doing its dead-level best to divide us, I encourage you to actually take a look around at your real world experience.  If all you see is a sea of the same color skin then you might need to consider broadening your perspective a little.  But I'm betting that as you start really looking you'll start noticing that we are not as divided as they'd like us to believe. When was the last time that anyone in your real world made any kind of disparaging comment about anyone's "race"? (By the way, we are all one "race" -- the human race!  I still don't understand why somebody started using that word to describe different skin tones.) 

 Then I challenge you to speak up, push back, and stand strong against the enemies of this country who are trying so hard to use skin color to take us down.

Peace, love, and strength to you all.

All I want for Christmas.

Larry Gatlin and Billy Dean Nailed it!!

Love this song and I want to always be able to find it, so I'm sharing it here because Facebook seems to be filtering it out of the notifications to my friends.  Maybe they won't be smart enough to catch it here.

The song is titled:  An American with a Remington.

Enjoy!

Dear Worthless Gutless Coward...

The Very Last Time ~Author unknown

THE VERY LAST TIME

From the moment you hold your baby in your arms you will never be the same. You might long for the person you were before, when you had freedom and time and nothing in particular to worry about.
You will know tiredness like you never knew it before,
and days will run into days that are exactly the same,
full of feedings and burping,
nappy changes and crying,
whining and fighting,
naps or a lack of naps.
It might seem like a never-ending cycle.

But don’t forget….
There is a last time for everything.
There will come a time when you will feed your baby for the very last time.
They will fall asleep on you after a long day,
and it will be the last time you ever hold your sleeping child.
One day you will carry them on your hip then set them down,
and never pick them up that way again.
You will scrub their hair in the bath one night,
and from that day on they will want to bathe alone.
They will hold your hand to cross the road,
then never reach for it again.
They will creep into your room at midnight for cuddles,
and it will be the last night you ever wake to this.
One afternoon you will sing “the wheels on the bus” and do all the actions,
then never sing them that song again.
They will kiss you goodbye at the school gate,
the next day they will ask to walk to the gate alone.
You will read a final bedtime story and wipe your last dirty face.
They will run to you with arms raised for the very last time.

The thing is, you won’t even know it’s the last time until there are no more times, and even then, it will take you a while to realize.

So while you are living in these times, remember there are only so many of them and when they are gone, you will yearn for just one more day of them.

For one last time.

-Author Unknown~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'd love to get to take credit for this, but I'm just sharing it here so I'll never lose it again. And, of course, to provide you with some more food for thought.  It's a perspective that I'd somehow missed in all these almost 60 years of being.  Odd how the simplest truths hold the most power.

LIKE/SHARE Lola's Hope - Stop Shaken Baby Syndrome if you know all too well how fast your little ones are growing.Peace, Love, and One more.Damama T   

Happy REAL Mother's Day!

My daughter and I are living proof that, while a sweet thought, this is at least partially untrue.  True: You will never get another *birth* mother (in our cases, basically an incubator that ultimately failed to function correctly). False: You CAN HAVE ANOTHER MOTHER! You can be loved and taught to give love. You can be cherished and learn to cherish. You can be blessed and pass those blessings on as a legacy that the original 'mother' couldn't even comprehend let alone enact.   

So, on Mother's day, rejoice in and celebrate not the woman who gave you birth, but the woman who gave you LIFE, LOVE, LAUGHTER, TIME, TEARS, and TROUBLE because SHE is your REAL mother. And count yourself twice blessed if she happens to be both.

Much love to all the REAL mothers out there doing it the hard way day in and day out.   ~Damama T

Photo credit to Facebook's Hot 98.3 https://www.facebook.com/Hot983Fan?fref=photo

What a mom says.

I hear women say all the time say that their mother’s voice rings in their ears. Sometimes that’s a good thing, but more often than not there’s a bad connotation to the comment. And I remember when, as a young mother myself I’d hate it when my mother’s words come out of my very own mouth.  As I get older, though, I have come to realize that what I heard her say and what was really spoken may have been worlds apart. 

When a mother says “Be careful”

• At 5 her kids hear “Mommy loves you and wants to keep you safe.” 
• At 13 her kids hear “I don’t trust you to make wise decisions so I have to control your every breath."
• At 22 her kids hear “When are you going to grow up and learn to take control of your own life?”
• At 45 her kids hear “Here’s some advice. Take it or leave it.”
• At 65 her kids hear “I need you around to take care of me.” 

And all the time what she’s really saying is “I love you so please don’t leave me because I’d be lost without you.”

So the next time you get irritated at something you hear your mom say, please stop and think about what she really meant. You just might be surprised...

Peace, Love, and BE CAREFUL!

Damama T

Damama's Use it or Lose it Advice on: STRESS

My Facebook friend and former high school classmate, Cindy, shared this picture this morning and, as this particular saying usually does, it set me off a bit. I fully understand that it's supposed to be a positive, uplifting thought, but it truly is one of my least favorite quotes. I think it should be Too blessed to be TOO stressed. To me, the way it's written sets up people who do feel stressed to feel like faith failures. So, in my opinion, the normal version is a failure. Even Jesus felt stress in the Garden. He felt anger at the Temple. He also felt sadness, loss, fear, uncertainty and the whole gamut of normal emotions. Those emotions are necessary for humans to be well-rounded, whole beings. Without feeling, acknowledging, and dealing with them we can never truly feel the joy that being free of them brings. And we can never learn to fully rely on God's love and strength because if we don't falter we won't need him to hold us up.

OK, off the pulpit now.

Wishing you Peace, Blessings, Stress, and God's abundant, uplifting Love!

ExerWHAT???

For those of you who don't know, I've joined a great online weightloss community. It's called FAST TRACK TO FAT LOSS. And since you can't see my blog over there without being a member... and if you need to lose weight the healthy way you SHOULD be a member. I've lost 9 lbs in 2-1/2 weeks! And I'm never hungry!... I thought I'd repost todays here... It was just too funny not to share. (OK, so the lack of sugar in my system may be making me a leeeeeetle bit punchy, but whatever... you be the judge! LOL!)

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There seems to be an epidemic of epic proportions running rampant around here. Everywhere I go here in FastTrack (FT) somebody is talking about this exer-whatever thing. I seem to remember hearing something about that years ago, but it has been a LOOOONG time. I do remember that it was something we did in P.E. in grade school. Come on -- you remember those days!

"PEOPLE! QUITE DOWN AND LINE UP! You, there next to the fat kid, tie those shoes before you trip and break something. OK. Ready, JUMPING JACKS - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, come on fat kid, keep up! 8, 9, 10."

By now all the overweight, out-of-shape kids were huffing and puffing, the jock sporty types were snickering and the rest of us were wondering how to switch places with the kid next to our best friend without the coach noticing. And actually that wasn't something we really had to worry about because the coach never noticed much other than the irritating (coaches thoughts, not mine!) fat kids huffing and puffing and which jock sporty types would do best on whatever team was currently being formed.

After another three to five sets of some boring Jack Lalanne-isms we'd be released to do our own thing. Ummm... fun?? Not usually. The boys would wander off to one side of the gym and pick teams for dodge ball - fatties on one side, jocks on the other. It was a massacre! Never underestimate the strength of a fat kid with a chance to ping a ball off of some snotty jock's groin! Nuff said about that...


The girls, having exhausted themselves, would retire to the bleachers and gossip. Usually about the other girls. Loudly. Rudely. Always in cliques. Always better than the others. And then there was my group. We really didn't care what the other girls thought. We dressed how we wanted. We ate what we wanted. And there was only one exercise we were truly interested in doing well... the one that OBVIOUSLY worked WAY too well for me:

Stand straight, palms together, chest high, elbows up, and PRESS and PRESS and PRESS all the while repeating:

"WE MUST, WE MUST, WE MUST DEVELOP OUR BUST. WE MUST, WE MUST ..."

Yeah - Take a look at my BEFORE photos and you'll see why I think maybe I was a little TOO into this activity. Aaaaanyyyywaaaaayyyy....

So now here I am, 40 or so years later and every time I hear the term Exer... that's as far as my mind can get. It just shuts down... Ain't doin' it. Nope. Nuh-uh!! Yes, I went to the gym faithfully 3-5 times a week for nearly all of the past two years. I walked treadmill hills until my feet blistered, but I was talking to my friend all the while so that wasn't the E word. I pulled handles attached to varying sizes of metal rectangles until my hands blistered, but that wasn't the E word either -- at least not the way I did it! HA! We played racquetball a bunch, but ... ummm hellooooo.. PLAYED - not exer-whatevered.

One might think that with all that activity going on I wouldn't have ever needed to join FT. Again with the, "go look at my BEFORE pics" and tell me how well all that activity worked out for me. IT DIDN'T! While I will admit that I felt better and was a lot stronger, I lost no weight. I lost no inches. All I DID lose was the will to even THINK about going back to the gym.

You see, for me, the act of being that active does something HORRIBLE to my appetite. The stimulation is so much that I am RAVENOUS and all the food that I consume counters out all the work I do. So, for now I ain't gonna do anything more strenuous than:

• Parking at the back of the lot instead of in the 3F spots (Four Front Fatty spaces - seriously, have you ever really watched? The people who circle and circle waiting for one of the first four spaces nearest the door on any aisle are usually ummm... rotund?? OK, so let's just say it... we're FAT! )
• Dancing around to music while I clean the kitchen or do laundry
• Doing kegel crunches at stop lights and during commercials, or ... and this IS my favorite...
• Cracking Hubby up by immitating the skinny-armed biotches who model the propper method to .... ummm... thrill your guy??... on those Shake Weight commercials. (There are men far and wide screaming at the TV, "Hey, baby, come on over. I've got a REAL weight you can shake!!") AACK!

And no, don't anybody... ANBODY... DARE say "Well, all that stuff is exer..." I WILL come find you so I can EAT YOUR LUNCH AND MINE! And speaking of lunch...

Y'all have a GREAT Thursday, now. OK!!!
TTFN!

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OK - so that's my current ranting for the day over at FT. I sincerely hope that you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it. Ah, the memories!! I also hope you consider looking into this program. It is changing lives. Mine included.

Peace, Blessing, and E.. don't say it!!!!!... to all.

This friend is NOT welcome!

She's baaaaack... I really thought I'd found a way to get rid of her for good this time. It was hard getting her to leave in the first place, we've been such good friends for so many years. Back in the day we were virtually inseparable. Together we managed to get into more trouble!!

We'd sneak off together to the antique shops spending hours just milling around looking for that one thing that would not let us walk out of the store without it. We'd go to the movies and split a huge bag of popcorn and a coke. Some days we'd just pile up on the couch watchng old movies, eating ice cream and potatoe chips. It was she who, during one particularly slow, boring movie, introduced me to the wonder of pickle and potatoe chip "sandwiches". Chip-pickle-chip-MUNCH! MMMMM taaaastyyyy - especially when washed down with a big old, ice cold glass of coke. Fun times.

But then something in our relationship changed. I started realizing that with us having so much fun there were very few adult-type responsibility things getting done. The laundry piled up. So did the dust. And the dishes. Hubby and I'd go out to eat most every night because she and I'd been goofing all day and I just wasn't up to cooking. I did notice that I'd gained a few pounds. But, HEY, my makeup and hair looked great so it couldn't be all THAT much, right?

It wasn't until Christmas about a year ago that I really started seeing the havoc the friendship was reeking in my life. Yes, I knew I'd gained a BUNCH of weight, but I truly didn't see myself as that out of control. At least not until I dressed up in a pretty new blouse and stood in the front yard for pictures with my nephew's family... O. M. G.! Where did all of that ME come from? After sulking around for a while I sat my buddy down and had a discussion about how life was going to have to be from then on:

No more goofing off ALL day long. I had to get at least ONE positive thing accomplished every day. She didn't like it one bit at all, but I managed to separate myself from her long enough most days to make it. Some days all I could manage was dragging my over-large self to the gym for an hour of exercise. Then she and I'd sit around and whine about how harrrrd it was and get nothing else accomplished all day long.

Finally, I decided enough was enough. She had to go. There are some friendships that are just not healthy to maintain. So my long-time buddy was banished from my life. I won't say that I haven't thought about her a lot over the last several months, but I have been more productive and that has kept me from inviting her back. However, this morning when I woke up she was at the door. I tried to have coffee and then shew her on her way, but she just would NOT leave! I finally got up a few minutes ago and started working in my office, AKA the file cabinet barf center of the universe, that she got frustrated and stalked off. And all I can think is WAAA!! Cry baby! LOL! Today has proven to me that she's a drag! Seriously! So now I think I'm finally ready to say a fond but long overdue BUH-BYE!! to my old friend.

IDA WANNA

It was fun while it lasted, but it lasted too long!

OH, I almost forgot to tell you that I've found a new friend who I think's really going to be a blast. Her name?

IMA GONNA

OK, I'm outta here. Me and my new friend are gonna find the top of this desk if it kills us! If you haven't heard from me by this time tomorrow SEND IN A SEARCH PARTY!

Have a great day, y'all!

Damama's Use It or Lose It Advice on: Things Inquiring Minds Want To Know - Part II: Helping Enablers

In a follow-up to her previous question, Brandi said...

Alright, now I have another question. This one comes from Jon as well as me. What do you do if that person who doesn't manage her money well is your mother-in-law and other people (outside the family) are bailing her out? She of course still comes to each of her children (5) and their spouses for help. We help do her laundry, but we no longer give her any money.

ANSWER: You have no control whatsoever over the choices other people make. The best you can do is to try to talk to them and enlist their help in helping your MIL. I'd set up a meeting with those you know are enabling her poor life choices to make sure you are all on the same page. I'm betting that the story they are getting from her involves something along the lines of "my kids have abandoned me after all I did to raise them and clothe them and put a roof over their heads..." waaaa waaa waaaaaaaa.

Be aware that you will most likely run into at least a few who have codependency issues. For them, helping your MIL is a form of self-medication that will not be easily relinquished. Depending on how well you know them and what your relationship is, you might suggest that they look into their own reasons for not wanting your MIL to get better. A great resource for them might be a book called Codependent No More which I've read and have given to several others. It is amazing what can happen in one's life when one starts recognizing the self-destructiveness of being an enabler. It brings a whole new meaning to the phrase 'give until it hurts'.

Now I have just one question for you: Why are you still doing her laundry? Does she not know how? Is she allergic to detergent? Fabric softener? Ironing boards? Ask yourself this: If she was my 20-something daughter would I still be doing her laundry for her? If the answer shocks you, you know what your next step needs to be: either you read the book and stop doing your MIL's laundry or you just stop doing your MIL's laundry. Natural consequences will eventually kick in and she WILL figure out how to get clean. Or not. Either way it has to be HER decision to either grow up or wither up. I'm betting that she'll choose growing up. (If it's a question of access to a place to do the laundry it would be alright for you to offer to let her come use your machines at your convenience. Just don't do it for her.)

Please note that ALL of this assumes that your MIL does not have serious physical handicap, mental health or intelligence issues that need to be addressed by an appropriate healthcare professional. If so, getting her help now will make your future life easier because her behavior will only continue to worsen without treatment.

All that being said, there is one thing that I know will not change in her life. You love that woman. You may not always like her behavior, but you love her or you wouldn't care. You'd just walk away and let somebody else figure it all out. Some day, when she's healthier, she will be grateful that you loved her enough to do what was best for her when she couldn't do it for herself.

Kudos, my friend. And best of luck on this very difficult journey.

Peace, Blessings, and Peace knowing that love alone is not always enough.