Archives for 2005

As promised, I said I would delve into something that stuck in my head – “always the joiner.” I wonder in what context I should take that. I’ve been trying to reflect back on what I’m joined over the past years. Three years out of high school, I joined the Air Force and went into a career field that had recently been opened to women. I joined a couple bowling leagues while I was stationed on Okinawa. Then I got out and went back to the states. Went to the cold north – North Dakota. Didn’t do much of anything there – was busy raising a two year old, a newborn and trying to stay warm. Headed to the Deep South in 1983 and decided to go back to school in 1984. Troy State University at Montgomery was no Boston University but at least I was ready for it. CLEPed Math, College Algebra, Biology and Physical Science and my Air Force training gave me enough additional credits to knock out a years worth of credits before I even cracked a book. After my first year of attendance, I was invited to join Gamma Beta Phi – a National Honor Society. Looks like I managed to go three years without joining anything. 1985 I was elected Chapter President and held that position until 1988. In 1987 I was also elected State President and held that position for 3 terms. Then in 1988 I was elected to the National Executive Committee – a position I held for three years. I finished my degree in 1988 and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a double major in Psychology and Sociology. In 1985 I also went back to work full-time. It kept me busy.

I’d started my Masters program right after finishing the Bachelors. Had Megan during the Summer Quarter – I have fun stories about timing contractions in class. I had gotten a great job with the VA as a Vocational Rehab Specialist; I was down to my comps and one class – an elective – when we moved to Maryland. I was back to being the full-time mom. Life had turned upside down.

After nine months in Maryland, we moved in with my sister in Virginia. That was a long six months with three kids living in her basement. At the end of the school year, the girls went on to Georgia to be with their dad. I honestly didn’t think I could keep up the emotional support system – long story here too. I delayed my joining the girls in Georgia while I sorted some things out.

Got the girls into school in the fall and I resumed being a full-time mom. Started back bowling since the oldest daughter, Vanessa was getting really good. I already had been taking her to a variety of youth bowling events starting back in Maryland (she had actually started bowling when we lived in Montgomery). I continued to take her to tournaments throughout Georgia. I got bored and got a part-time job at the bowling center.

Guess I should have just stayed home. Things just went down hill in Georgia. The now ex traveled all the time and many of the self-reflective lessons from college were starting to make sense. I finally admitted how unhappy I was and in 1997 I got divorced. And that is yet another can of worms.

I could continue on with some of my latest joinings but I’ll save that for another day. I consider my joinings as accomplishments but I suppose they reflect more on the “follower” side of me. I’m not a trail-blazer; I suppose some would even try to say I can’t stand alone on my own two feet. And now you’d say I’ve rationalized this to death…

More garden pictures have been added. I think I have 4 plants left to get in the ground. Then I need to put some edging down to divert the water runoff.

I created a section called recipes. When I can find the time, I plan to add my favorite recipes. Sort of a repository, so to speak.

I called the Gamma Beta Phi National Headquarters today. I was trying to find out how to replace my membership certificate and my Certificate of Merit. The last name was misspelled at the time – sort of a moot point right now – when it dawned on me we are talking about events from 15 to 20 years ago. Okay, that’s depressing. That got me thinking even more and made me start wondering if I am a Manic Depressive. My mood swings can be pretty wide ranging. Most of the time I seem to be pretty chipper and in good spirits but are the “highs” too high and the “lows” too low? No drug reference intended there. Some of the things life has thrown at me lately have been pretty tough but I seem to muddle through them. Then I laughed, and told myself you need to throw Schizophrenic in there because here you are “talking” to yourself in a blog. Think about it, who else is really reading this? Megan stops in on occasion – so would these be my “Letter’s to Megan”? Looks like the world will never know my deepest, “darkest” thoughts. Then who knows who might be reading this – I’d better not say anything negative about the day job, it might be held against me. Oh no, did I just add Paranoid?

So should I add coded messages? Start a hidden blog? Are you kidding me? If I had that kind of time on my hands, I could go back to school. Or at least find another part time job 😉

Well at least the few, people who stop by can see “what she was thinking” at some brief moment in time – or at least until the ADD kicks in and I get bored with it.

The subject of funerals has come up more than once in the past few days. It got me thinking about a couple of funerals that have caused a lot of pain between family members. It wasn’t caused by the person’s passing as much as it was by the way it was handled after they were gone. And then I was asked today – if something happened to me what did I want done. I replied, “what ever you want.” I’m thinking if I make it clear it’s not what I want, but what those left behind want, maybe it will prevent any problems like what happened when Megan’s grandparents passed away. As with everything there are always two sides to the story and this in mine.

Megan’s grandfather passed away in 1984 before she was born. Her aunts got together and purchased a new burial plot and made all the funeral arrangements. It was difficult for us to assist because we were a military family stationed away from home. Megan’s father was pretty upset by the whole thing because he thought it was his father’s wishes were to be buried in the family plot. Of course, assuming we could afford a portion of the funeral costs without asking us first didn’t go over very well either. Comments were made about use buying a new car – we had traded a pickup truck for a station wagon – kinda hard to have a booster seat, a car seat and two adults up front on the bench. The seat we put in the back just wasn’t working out. But that’s hard to understand when you’re grieving. So we dealt with that and tried to make up for it by buying Megan’s grandmother a car for Christmas. Granted it was just a little 4 cylinder Escort but it made her so happy. She drove it until she couldn’t drive it any more.

Megan’s grandmother passed away in 1996 – I remember it because it happened right at the time I was scheduled for my hysterectomy. Again, the aunts scheduled the funeral without checking with us. The funeral was on the Friday I was scheduled to have my pre-operative/pre-admission testing done. I had told Megan’s father to go ahead and take the girls and go – it was just a bunch of lab work that I had to have done, I would be fine. Of all the times to tell me, I get told that “I’ve never been there for you and I think I should be here for this.” Upon years and years of reflection, I wonder if it was an excuse to avoid the funeral or his sister’s. We did go up that Saturday to visit the grave and to see Megan’s uncles – but the aunts where no longer speaking to her father. Maybe it was still the gravesite thing. From what I understood some of the children that had passed away were buried in the original family plot. Perhaps that’s the foggy part, but my pre-operative testing being used as an excuse to not go to Megan’s grandmother’s funeral will forever bother me.

So from all of this, maybe I shouldn’t let the family members decide where to bury me. I keep kidding that they should cremate me and scatter my ashes in a rose garden.

Updated: I figured out what I was doing wrong. Think I should be using an external style sheet. Geez, wish my little app had a spell checker – oh well, it keeps me on my toes.

I’m redoing the pages for the blog – which means I have to convert the index page to PHP from HTML – so bear with me through the errors you might find. I have too many ideas and not enough time.

Too many thoughts running through my head too – wish I could put them all down, but then this is the “World Wide Web”. Guess I should Google the name again and see what comes up. Wonder how the Spanish professor is doing? You’ll have to Google my name to see what I’m referring to.