Listen up people. "The Holiday" has a name. It's called CHRISTMAS!!!

Nothing bothers me more at this time of year than the dreaded X-Mas season. I am stunned that the 30% of non-Christians in America have a louder voice than the 70% of us that believe in Christ. How is it that people can be offended at the fact that we want "the holiday" to be centered around Jesus? Do they not understand that without Jesus there would be no "holiday"? What do they think Christmas is exactly? Well you know what.....I'm offended too. I am offended at the word "X-Mas". Is that what people think? It is okay to replace Christ with an X. Really? And why are we as a vastly God believing society allowing "non-believers" to dictate to us how to celebrate the birth of our Savior? It just ticks me off. It's all about buy, buy, buy....spend, spend, spend. Lets see how many presents we can stuff under our trees. No more do you see Christmas carolers going door to door, neighbor helping neighbor. Even our children's "Winter Musicals" programs, cannot have traditional Christmas carols like "Away in a Manger" or "Silent Night". It's heartbreaking and frustrating all in one.

I don't know about you, but I for one love the CHRISTMAS season when you peel away the layers of commercialism and such. So Merry CHRISTmas to you all.

Managing Conflicting Emotions

How the heck to you do it? I am in such an emotional tug-of-war right now that it is driving me crazy. And I feel so guilty about it that I swear I am giving myself an ulcer.

It's no secret that I don't like living in Texas. I grew up in a very small town, where everyone knew everyone and you were related to almost everybody. I had my parents and grandparents, I had all my aunts and uncles close.....and a couple of dozen cousins that I could play with whenever I wanted. I had a VERY close relationship with my grandmother. She was my hero and one of my very best friends. I would live at her house in the summers and spend as much time with her as I could. It was an amazing relationship and one I treasure now more than ever. My grandma passed away 8 years ago.

Living here in Texas we have no family. Everyone is in Canada.....for both Ross and my family. His mom, my parents, his oldest son, my siblings, and our nephews.....all in Canada. My kids don't really know their cousins and haven't seen their grandparents in over 2 years. I HATE THAT!! I want my kids to have the same close knit family ties that I had.

I love my husband, and I have followed him everywhere since we've been married. And, we have moved.....A LOT!!! He loves living here. His business is taking off like crazy, the kids are thriving and doing really well too. So, why am I so unhappy? Am I just being selfish, because I miss my family and want to give my kids what I had? UGH! My brain is hurting. I wish I could just be happy with where we are, but I'm not. And I can't explain that to my husband, because he wouldn't understand. He didn't have the same type of childhood that I did. His family wasn't close and didn't care if they ever saw eachother. This is so much easier for him to deal with. I don't have "friends" here. I mean, there are people from church that I communicate with occassionally, but are they really my "friends" in the sense of a sisterhood bond that most people equate with close friends? And can I ever achieve that with people? Again, my husband doesn't understand the need for friends. He is my best friend, and says that's all he needs and doesn't understand why I have the need for other friends. Maybe it's a woman thing, a type of bonding instinct we have that men don't. I don't know. Ugh, why is life so complicated?

Tag! I'M IT!

I've Been Tagged!!!
The rules:
A. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.
B. Each player lists 6 facts/habits about themselves.
C. At the end of the post, the player then tags 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.


1. When I was 18 months old I had a horrible accident causing a head injury that paralyzed me on my right side for 2 weeks. If you don't believe in the power of priesthood blessings......man, will I set you straight. I was only given a 10% chance of survival....and to this day cannot take part in any activity that could cause another head injury.

2. I do everything backwards. Like reading from a list.....I always start at the bottom and work my way to the top. Or when I'm searching through pages for names or pictures.....I always have to start at the back. I don't know why, but when I start at the top or the front, I get REALLY frustrated.

3. Growing up I always wanted to be a journalist, but my parents pretty much pushed college on me when I wanted to take a year off after high school graduation, so my dad enrolled me and had me major in early childhood education. I dropped out after one sememster because it just wasn't what I wanted to do.

4. I am homesick on a regular basis. I don't like living in Texas and wish we'd never moved here. I have to talk to my mom at least every 48 hours or I get really moody.

5. I'm addicted to energy drinks. I can't go a day without one.....even though I know they've ruined my teeth and will NOT help me lose weight.

6. I have a photographic memory. I remember lyrics to literally thousands of songs. I still remember the address and phone number I had in 2nd grade, and I can name every person in every class photo I have from school. I even used to help the mailman when my husband and I managed an apartment complex....he would phone me to see which suite tenants were in if the letters weren't addressed properly.

I'm not exactly sure who even reads this blog.....so I tag whoever reads this and hasn't already done it themselves.

So have I always been an idiot.....or is this something new??

I've been working for the last 3 years for my husbands company, and I have to admit that the experience has opened me up to an entirely different side of myself that I wasn't aware existed before.

The number one thing I've realized? I am not an especially smart person.

I'm a friendly person.. I'm a wordy person... I'm someone who beats myself up over every mistake until I'm pretty sure I'll give myself an ulcer by sheer will alone type person...... but I will not be inventing an improved wheel or discovering the cure for the common cold anytime soon.

And it's not that I'm "stupid" per se... I just seem to lack any shred of common sense.

Ask me where the Carpenters got the idea for the song "We've Only Just Begun."..... ask me to quote every line from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and I can do a one-woman show playing each part and doing a mean Time Warp..... ask me to give my opinion on Stephen King's slow decline from horror to thinly veiled self introspection and I can go on for an hour.....

I am a veritible treasure trove of information on music, movies, general knowledge, strange history, etc....

But do not ask me to remember to check the credit decision on an account or where I left my shoes... because unless I need that decision for something, I'll probably forget to double check it.... and those shoes are gone. They disappeared from my bedroom floor and have been sucked into the same invisible vortex that keeps stealing all of my bras....

The bra thing drives me nuts.. I should have a million of them with how many I buy all the time.... but they keep going MIA somewhere between the hamper and the dryer. I'll go looking for a specific one and it will be nowhere.... like they just disappeared off the face of the planet. I'm half inclined to believe that gnomes are stealing the silk ones to use as emergency parachutes when they jump off the dresser after stealing my hairbrush...

..... because I can never seem to find that either.

Bloody thieving gnomes.

But anyway....working is fun. Making money rocks. I really like my job.

... but either I make some room in my brain by clearing out something useless like the lyrics to all the Shirly Temple songs I sang as a child that I've managed to store in my brain.... or I give up or get fired by my darling husband and get a job more along my mental speed..... like running the Pick-a-rubber-duck-from-the-kid-pool-and-get-a-prize-determined-by-the-color-beneath-it's-butt with some traveling carnival filled with felons living just under the law's radar.


Three questions:

Can I really function in life minus the lyrics of every song I've ever sang?

How can I sit in my office working away at the computer without song after song that I have loved all my life blaring in the background?

Are there even carnivals this time of year? If not I may need to take out some unemployment if I can't get my head on straight.

And remember that I may not have matching socks, but I can kick any of your asses at Trivial Pursuit...

... and Scene It. I rock at those Scene It games... all of them except the sports one.

My brain apparently doesn't do common sense OR Sports.

Sigh.. drats. Foiled again.

Choose you this day whom ye will serve.

Just a warning, you may want to get comfortable as this might be lengthy. I don't know about for any of you, but for me it's also going to be very emotional. The title of this entry comes from a verse in the Bible that so often seems trite or like a no brainer. I would never deliberately serve Satan, of course I serve God. Really? That is not true. I'll be honest with you, even at this very moment, I want to walk away from my computer and not finish this entry because it makes me more than a bit vulnerable and it would be much easier to walk away. After all, if I don't hit publish, no one would be the wiser. I have been dancing with the devil for some time now and there is part of me that doesn't want to give it up. How can that be, you ask? You see, when I give into self loathing and I deny the power of Heavenly Father in my life, I've chosen not to serve Him and in so doing, I'm serving Satan. No one can serve two masters, right? Our loyalty can only be in one place and while I want to serve God, I'm hanging onto the darkness that threatens to suck the very life out of me.

If you were walking down the street and your child was with you, dancing along, singing and enjoying the day, would you gladly hand him or her over to a drug dealer or a pedophile and walk away thinking it would all be ok? No. If a dealer or a pedophile would try to steal your child from you what would you do? You would fight to the death trying to save and protect your child. Why are we often less passionate or intent on saving our hearts/minds/soul/spirit from the attacks Satan tries to throw at us? Heck, I've opened the door, given him the keys to my kingdom and let him plunder me over and over and over again. I can't tell you right now the torment that I've been living in for the last few weeks and why? Because I let him tell me that I'm disgusting to look at, I'm unlovable, I'm stupid, I'm lazy, I'm a horrid mother, I've ruined my kids, they'd be better off without me, my husband deserves better, I destroy everything I touch, if people truly saw the real me they wouldn't like me, and on and on and on ad nauseum. The stupid thing is...I believe it. I believe every word of it and I can spend hours giving you reasons why all of the above is true. I do nothing to protect myself because I don't see myself as worth it. I'm worthless. Just ask me. I'll prove it to you.

Now, I know the scriptures are the perfect, inerrant word of a living God. So, it's either completely true, or none of it's true. That means, Jesus is a redeemer or he's not. Well, I believe He is. I believe He is for you, for my kids, for my husband, for those I love, etc... so then how can it not be true for me? I can tell you why, but that's because Satan is so very good at what he does. He laces the lies with enough truth to make them believable and he hammers away at us mercilessly until we start believing the lie. There is a saying that says what we fear, we create which is almost like self fulfilling prophesy. Well, I have to choose to stand up, make him shut up, and choose this day to serve a Savior that was willing to take the beatings He took for me. He died... for me. Does it mean that I'm going to be perfect? Nope. Does it mean it's going to be easy? Not as long as we live in an imperfect world. Even as I type this, the battle is raging inside me, but for me..... I choose right now to serve the Lord. So long as He can provide me the strength I need, I can do anything.

Mind Rotting Daytime Television

My poor husband tries to be supportive of all my interests. Unfortunately, that doesn't always work out so well for him.

Today I'm not feeling well. So I was curled up on the couch with a cup of herbal tea while I watched a guilty pleasure.. the soap opera, Days of our Lives, which I TiVo all week. As is my custom, I proceded to tell off the characters who annoyed me between coughing fits. "Shut up, Kate, you skank!" or "EJ is such a dog."

Ross was in the kitchen making lunch and listening to me. "What's the matter honey?"

"Nothing.. EJ is a jerk. I hope they kill him."

And being the kind gentleman he is, he opened a can of worms and asked "Who is EJ? Is he the Salem Stalker?". And that innocent question led to this exchange:

Me: "Well probably, but that storyline is a year old now. He's the one who raped Sami and may be the father of one of her twins."

Ross: "Sami? Is she the one you like? I thought she was married."

Me: "She is.. to Lucas. But he's freaking out because he may not be the baby-daddy, and is stressed out over Sami devorcing him and marrying EJ to end the De Mira vendetta."

Ross: "I thought her and Lucas had a kid."

Me: "They do.. Will......but that kid is like 14 or something."

Ross: "Wait..so who is EJ the jerk? I'm confused."

Me: (sigh) "EJ is the son of Stephano Di Mera. His mom was Susan the psycho who was given plastic surgery to look like Stephano's daughter, Kristen. EJ was a race car driver and put a lot of money into a business with Kate, Lucas' mother, but he's always been in love with Sami."

Ross: "Wait. So is EJ just using Sami to hurt the Brady's and that's why he has had a fling with both Lucas' mom and his wife?"

Me: (getting annoyed at missing my show while explaining.) "NO! EJ really is in love with Sami. His tryst with Kate was more of just a business thing, or else he just wanted to follow in his fathers footsteps who also had a fling with Kate. But he really is in love with Sami and hopes he is the father of her twins. It's not that complicated! You just don't pay attention when I tell you things!"

At this point Ross gets annoyed, walks into the living room, glares at me and says:

"I do pay attention. I pay attention to everything you tell me, but you women and your little TV shows are nuts! Nevermind! I'm sorry I asked."

Then he stomps back into the kitchen.

5 minutes later I say "Stupid useless Kate" quietly to myself .... then I hear hear him breathe out heavily before he bellows:

"Okay.. who the heck is Kate again?"


Soaps are like second hand smoke... they don't just effect the "smoker".. they poison the brains of everyone within a 40 foot radius apparently.