The hoarders club does not include me! I'm different.

I saw something the other day that made my blood run cold. It was during day time television. Not the soap opera's. Lord, I have seen snippets of them and that is a whole 'nother blog. This was on the Oprah show. It comes on sometime in the afternoon and apparently is quite popular. I want to go on record right now as saying I do not watch television as a rule, but I do watch the news and sometimes neglect to turn it off when I go downstairs, so there it is when I come upstairs to rest my eyes a minute. (Some people call it napping.)

So back to the topic. There were pictures of houses with stuff piled everywhere and women and children sobbing because the mother had let the shopping and hoarding get out of hand and the kids had to eat on the bed because it was the only flat surface. Kids were embarrassed to bring friends home because, frankly, there was no where to set. I gathered from the snippets of conversation and the Psychiatrist in residence that this was indeed a mental problem.

Ok, to make a long story short, I looked around at my house. Now maybe it is getting a bit out of hand, but here is the scoop. I sell on Ebay for other people and so that stuff is setting over there in the corner, both on and under the table. Some of it has spilled around the corner into my bedroom and then there is that pile in the closet. I am trying to run a store out of this office (and bedroom and closet).

I see how you are rolling your eyes! Maybe the weaving has gotten a little out of control what with 3 looms, a spinning wheel, wool to weave someday, a truckload of thread, every book I ever bought, but that is what that room down there is for. That is why it is called the "Weaving Room." The next room down there is for sewing. When you have a machine quilter, 2 sergers, a heavy duty machine, 2 sewing machines, a mangle and tons of scraps and books, you need a "Sewing Room." The third room down there is called the "Embroidery Room" because it has my big embroidery machine in it along with 4 pickup loads of thread, 2 freezers, quilt batting, a train set....

Ok! So maybe I have a small problem. But it is just that, a small problem. Not nearly big enough to be considered MENTAL! I could sort right through this stuff and have it all organized in nothing flat. Let's just start right here in front of me on the desk. Here are three pencil holders full of pencils and pens. Maybe that is a tad excessive, I will give you that. Let's just sort this one. Two eversharps. Those need lead. Maybe I will pick up lead today. 3 pens. Two don't work. Maybe they are just a little dry. Pair of scissors, crochet hook, glue stick., magic marker. Looks like pretty good stuff to me. I will just leave that right there.

Ok! So I have a small problem. I am going to work on that. May have to get more advice from Oprah. Right now I have to go into town. I will start this when I get back. You all have a good day and take a look around. Bet you have a junk drawer, a corner where you put the stuff you need to do something with later. Have a good day and:

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone!!

Hansel and Gretel: a bedtime horror story for the kiddies!

I just finished reading a horror story! Wait a minute before you pass judgement, I think I am on to something here. Did you ever read nursery rhymes? I mean really read them? Back when you were a wee one, perhaps your mother read them to you. How did you sleep after that? Let me just give you a synopsis of Hansel and Gretel as retold by Rika Lesser.
This book was originally written by Wilhelm Grimm in 1810 and printed in 1812. It has been cleaned up because as I recall, it was a lot scarier the first 6 times around. As it is currently written, it is pretty scary. As the book opens, the father and stepmother are laying in bed and the stepmother tells the father he must take the children to the forest and abandon them or they all will starve. Pretty spooky, huh?
Hansel tells Gretel of her plan and goes out in the yard and picks up stones. The parents take them into the woods and Hansel leaves a trail of stones. Parents drop them in forest and when it gets dark the kids follow the trail of stones back to the house. Daddy was glad to see them but the evil stepmother was not! (Now this is probably where we get our ingrained sense of stepmother's being evil!)
Again the household runs out of food and the trip is planned again. This time the door is locked and Hansel can not gather stones. So the next day he crumbles his bread and leaves a trail. Silly boy! Birds ate the bread. Now they are really screwed. Of course, you remember the rest of the story. They find the gingerbread house and then are held captive by the old woman. Hansel is fattened up to be eaten and Gretel is the slave.
The old woman gets greedy and decides to eat Gretel first, telling her to crawl in the oven to see if the bread is done and Gretel tells her "Show me how"and the old woman crawls in the oven and Gretel slams the door, lets Hansel out of his pen. Then they go back and take all the jewels the old woman had and miraculously find there way home to learn the stepmother was dead also and they all lived happily ever after!
Let us dissect this story. Hansel and Gretel slept in the same bed. There is one for social services! They are abandoned in a forest. One is subject to child labor law violations, the other will be fattened for fodder. Gretel is a cold blooded murderer. Both of them are thieves! Found their way home with pure dumb luck, or maybe the witch had a GPS in with her jewels. They are overjoyed to find the stepmother dead. Now the old man becomes an accomplice. I can see all kinds of reasons whereby I would not be able to sleep after reading this story. Can't you?
If this were the only one, it would be different, but nursey rhymes were scary and evil! Tom, Tom the pipers son, stole a pig and away he run. (Thief) Little Boy Blue fell asleep while violating child labor laws. Hey diddle, diddle, the cow jumped over the moon! Where will that sucker land? Old Mother Hubbard could not feed her dog! The old woman who lived in a shoe fed her kids broth without any bread! And on and on go the fairy tales. And we don't wonder where we went wrong raising our kids? We read to them!
I think in later years the tales had a better ending. Now Hansel and Gretel would need seperate rooms from birth. The Gingerbread house would not pass the building code. There are no forests. The stepmother would be kept alive on life support paid for by Medicaid.

Just some thoughts from my demented mind!

The Baby Llama is holding still for me!

This is the baby llama I been telling you about. This thing is the most beautiful chocolate color I have ever seen. If I could just catch it and get that wool I could spin it and weave it into something and all my weaving friends would be so jealous! That is the mother in the background and I think she may be stomping over this way to spit on me! I have heard they do that, and in fact, seen it happen one time years ago. Have pretty well given them a very wide birth since than.

This is mother and Llamette approaching the chocolate adult. Hey! Maybe that is the daddy! "Hello, Father, may I come into your area of the field?" In order to establish paternity here I am going to need to get a lot closer then I am willing to do. Oh, but I just remembered, I am the writer here and I can tell you anything and unless one of you calls me to task, if it is true in my mind, it will be true in yours. Let me see; do I want to compromise my immortal soul over the sex of a Llama that I barely know? I am thinking that is a big "NO". (Well, I see my picture is now miraculously over there on the left. This blog is way smarter than I am!) This is the whole herd. This chain link fence is 4 feet high so that gives you some idea of how big they are. I love the tail on that baby!

I just wanted to show you the pictures of the baby Llama. Please do not look at the area near the camera where the remenants of last years garden are awaiting my able hand. Lord, I am glad it is below zero and there is nothing I can do about that mess. Those wretched geese and ducks are supposed to help me out on this.

Ok, you have seen the herd next door, the mess in my garden area and listened to my ramblings, so now we can both go get busy. I have 33 shirts to embroider for the Kearny County Library and laundry piled over my head. Also today the new dog gets beautiful and I see nap time will come early today!

Take care and God Bless. Oh, that made me think of Red Skelton! Remember him?

The teenage mind is an easy thing to scramble.

This is the boy. This is the teenage boy. This picture is 2 or 3 years old, but it was the only one I could reach without actually getting out of my chair. My purpose today is to teach you how easily a teenage mind can be manipulated. I like to screw with him, because it keeps me young!

This boy is 18 now. Yesterday he wanted to go to the shooting range and set his new scope. I told him that would be fine if someone went with him. So he came to tell me Matt and Chris would be going also as Matt wanted to try out his new shotgun. The following conversation ensued. See if you can guess which words are his:

" Ok, I am off for the shooting range."

"Smoking pot?"

"With guns! No way!"

"So before then?"

"Before a loaded gun? No way!"

"So later then?"

"No, after, we are going to play Xbox."

"Well, when?"

"I don't smoke pot!"

"Why didn't you just say that? Could have saved a lot of time."

And with eyes rolled back in his head he was off to do his thing. His curfew used to be midnight, but I have noticed that now that he does not have a curfew, he is usually home around 10. We are now in the "fine" phase of our relationship. If he does not bring up his laundry, it is a $5 fine. Don't take out trash is $5 fine. Forgets to load the duck/goose feeder, $5. If I tell him to do something and it isn't done in a timely manner, that is $10. So far I have made nothing off him. Guess he likes his money.

So, that is where we are right now. I am smart enough to know this smooth sailing will not last, and about half of what he tells me has any resemblance to the truth, but he has to learn a lot of lessons the hard way. After all, I am the mother and as such I am very stupid and probably will not pull my head out for another 6-8 years. That is when I will suddenly get smart. Right now he knows all there is to know, so we will just let him think that. He will, no doubt, be a father someday. I hope I have instilled something worthwhile in there somewhere. At least I have his respect and that is a lot more then a lot of mothers have!

Resolutions, or the lack thereof.

Once more the New Year has come and gone and I did not swear by all that is holy that I would quit eating, quit complaining, quit cussing, feed the poor people, work from sun up to sundown, and never let a speck of dust settle on my furniture. For many years I made the resolution to quit smoking. This was really going to be the year! This time I would really quit. It never seemed to matter how firm I was in my resolution, it just never happened.
Then one day, without any forethought whatsoever, I got up and never smoked since. I had not planned it. There was no gum or other snacky food in the house and no one knew I had decided to make this life altering change, but here I am 10 months later, still smoke free. So here is my thoughts on the resolution thing:
I get up every morning and do the best I can all day long. For the most part, I don't gossip, lie, steal, kick dogs, and I do like babies. At times the foot gets a tad heavy on the accelerator, but that has been going on for 50+ years and I have yet to get a speeding ticket, so it can't be too bad. I would help old ladies across the street if I could find one wanting to go there.
I have a lot of friends, and I have those friends for a reason. I live my life in an honest and forthright manner, although I have been told I may be a tad overly forthright, but I see that is not changing, so why do I want to say I will change that when we both know I will not? I tend to surround myself with people who are like minded to myself.
If I did not like you on December 31, I am not going to like you on January 1, because there is probably a good reason I don't like you and it is probably not my fault I don't like you. It is your fault because you are not an honest, trustworthy, sober, reliable person. Or maybe you are into the "me" phase of your life. I like to help the poor, sick and the needy, because I can. There were many years when I did not have the resources to help those less fortunate then myself and while I am not rich I have time and talent to help others.
So, back to the resolution thing. If it will make you feel better, I shall make a resolution:

I, Lou Mercer, do hereby solemnly resolve, on this 3rd day of January in the New Year of 2010 that I will continue to live my life as I have in the past. I will not cheat, steal, lie, coerce or in any way degrade my fellow man. I will continue to laugh at you when you do something stupid, point out your faults, and give you my honest opinion whether you want it or not! I will continue to love each and every one of you in my own little way. I will continue to support the weak and down trodden and attend the church of my choice every Sunday!Peace to All!!

The Good Old Days!!!

I hear people talk about the good old days and while it is true that there is a lot about the good old days to envy and wish it were that way, this picture does not reflect that yearning. Here you see a picture of my five kids and myself. This was in the good old days when I was a single mother and worked 2 jobs to keep a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. This was the good old days when if a man did not want to pay child support he really did not need to. His reasoning was that I wanted the divorce and I had the kids so I should take care of them, after all, he now had nothing. Strange as it may seem, I understood his reasoning!

This picture must have been taken in 1971. Now, I know we are a rag tag lot, but we were a family and as a family we survived to adulthood. I would change a few things in this period of time if I could, but I can't so they will stay as they were lived. As with all families we each came away with our own perception of our growing up years. I came out of my growing up years completely different than my sisters, but more on that later.

I think the whole bunch of us were rebels and still are to a certain degree. Now, as I set here on New Years Eve, I would like to address this message to the 5 little kids above. For the areas where I failed you, forgive me. For the times we fished and had fun together, remember me. For the times you felt alone, you weren't. When I told you someday you would understand, you do. These were your good old days, so take away from them what you can and look to the future. Some times it helps to alter your perception a bit to make it a growing experience.

When you see your children, remember you were once children. When you see your grandchildren, remember you were once grandchildren. A family is something that is forever held together by a silver thread. When some of you look at the above picture you may see a picture that looks like it came from "The Grapes of Wrath", but let me tell you what I see and see if you can see it also.

Back row from left Patty, Debbie. Front row Dona, Sam, Susie and mother. I saved and cut corners to have this picture taken. Not easy in those times to have a family picture taken, but I wanted one for posterity. Patty and Dona are wearing dresses I made for them. Debbie is, as the oldest, leading the pack. Sam and Dona are the same age through the month of October (more about that later). Sam looks so angelic there and Susie seems a bit distracted.

I have my own memories of this time, but what everyone should know is this: I did the best I could with the knowledge and resources I had at that time. No way would I trade one of these little cherubs to make my life different. This is my good old days. They made me the woman I am today and this woman would like to say :

Happy New Year to all my babies, grandbabies and great grandbabies!!

If I quit smoking, you can quit smoking!!

I smoked from the time I was 16 years old until I was 67 years old. I imagine I quit over 600 times in my mind. I tried hypnosis, Chantix, Nicorette, Commit, Herbal rememdies, prayer, Colorado Quit Line, water, and about anything else that you can think of to try. Nothing helped. I did quit once for about 6 weeks, but then I got stressed and had one to relax. Six weeks down the crapper!

Then I had a very serious talk with myself. There is no one in this world that knows me like I know myself! "Self", I said "You are a woose. You have no will power, you are not honest and you are ruled by a damn cigarette that YOU go to the store and buy. Now make a list of things that is necessary to quit and just do it." Here is my list:

1. I buy these cancer sticks. I will quit buying them.
2. I have friends who smoke. I will not mooch.
3. The craving for a cigarette lasts 20 seconds. I will ram my finger in my eye for 20 seconds if necessary to pass the 20 seconds. What ever it takes.
4. I will never smoke again.

That is my list. Short and doable. I made this mental list in my mind early on the morning of March 1, 2009 when I did not want to go buy a pack of cigarettes. Today is December 28, 2009 and I am still smoke free. I do not ever see smoking in my future for any reason. Do not be misled; this has not been easy. There have been many times when I have almost rammed my finger in my eye and the habit of reaching for a cigarette is still second nature, but I do not do it. If I do not do it, I will never have to quit again.

Quitting smoking is probably the hardest thing I have ever done. Only takes a few hours to have a baby, and that was hard. Burying a loved one is a life long ordeal. Having the dog put to sleep is hard. Life is full of hard things and most of them we do not want to keep doing over and over and I sure don't want to quit smoking again. So, if I never smoke again, I never have to quit again.

If I could think of one beneficial thing I get from smoking I might do it again, but I can't. It costs money I could use for other things. I smell like a smoke stack. I pollute my lungs. It makes me short of breathe. I have to do it outside so I get nothing done inside.

Granted, I do not now have money to roll it because I quit buying cigarettes. I still have to use deodorant, and the house still looks like Mickey Mouse and friends live here. But I can now jog a little ways down the road and riding the old bike is a lot easier. So as for me, I shall remain smoke free until further notice.