Growth (and Growing Pains)

 

Four sides of a planter I made for one of my besties a couple of weeks ago. She LOVES plants and she was on vacation so we got to spend a couple of days together. The weather was excellent so we spent most of our time together hiking which is one of our favorite things to do and has been over the years. When we were teens we hiked the woods around our homes. When we were adults we took our daughters hiking with us. Then she moved  an hour and a half away when she got married to her current husband in 2007 and our full-time careers and lives got in the way. Now that I'm semi-retired, it makes meeting up with her so much easier when she has some vacation days! So, we had some spider plant babies, and I made this quick planter for her with a recycled juice jug and did a mixed media collage over the top. I tied it off with some green & tan raffia. I love how it turned out and I love recycled crafts in general so will try a few more of these out in the future with different finishes to see what holds out the best so I can maybe sell them down the road. For a first try, I love how this turned out though! It was rather on a whim, so I didn't do all the layers I would have liked to do (I do more layers in my art journal) but I didn't have the luxury of letting all the layers dry, but still, I'm pretty pleased. And my Jenners liked it, so that's all that counts.

I'm also on to my next art project which is a 4.5" x 4/5" handmade art journal which will have short poetry compositions in it--possibly all haiku or tanka, but I've barely gotten layer 1 complete, so I'd like to get more of the art complete to see how much room I'll have for words before I make that decision. It's also mixed media collage, which is where I'm in my happy place right now, so I'm sticking there for the time being. It's also a recycled/repurposed art project and so far I've used old cereal boxes, an old dryer sheet, napkin and I'm about to apply some texture with a frayed kitchen scrubby.

I'm getting kind of wiped out, so art is helping me zen out and recover a little from all the other activity lately. We saw Vanilla Fudge near St. Louis last weekend. They were meh. More washed up 80s band than awesome late 60s band (their songs that I loved were from their late 60s psych era) so I was a bit disappointed in their performance, but they still put on a good show and we had fun in the cute little town they played in. Next weekend we'll see Grand Funk Railroad in St. Louis which WILL be a great show, as we have seen them dozens of times, last time being last year at French Lick, Indiana. We plan to spend a bit of time in St. Louis too, so our neighbor will watch our puppy boys & kittens for us while we're away.

I'm wiped out because we have joined the predictable set of newly semi-retirees in that we discovered pickleball. It's gentler than racquetball by far, and even gentler than tennis because the court is shorter so there is less running around and the ball is slower because it's basically a wiffle ball. We are also taking martial arts lessons together. For me, it's all about self-defense and also some cross training for walking, dance and fitness. For my husband, it's about reliving one of his old passions. He's a 2nd degree black belt from another lifetime ago, so our skillset is vastly different, as I have very little martial arts in my background. What I do have that he doesn't is yoga & gymnastics in my background so a bit more flexibility. We're taking martial arts together twice a week and he's going once a week solo for extra training. On his extra day, it's my art and writing day, so I'm letting him go for some extra combat training that I'm not as interested in.

I will try to get more disciplined about posting. I hope to utilize Wednesdays for stuff like that but my Wednesdays are starting to really fill up now, so I need to figure out a new schedule I can work with!! So, until then, I may try to at least get some filler posts launched once a week on say a Saturday--about something I'm working on and hopefully augment that with a slice of life post on Wednesdays. That is my goal for this week. I'll take it one week at a time.

Happy 4th of July for my American friends. Happy belated Canada Day to my friends up north. To the rest of the world--enjoy the new week!!

How I Know I'm A Nerd

 

I know I'm a nerd for one simple fact. I think spreadsheets and databases are beautiful. I love them for their simplicity. I love them for their practicality. I love them for their logic. I love them because I get them because they get me. Once another lifetime ago, when I was a girl coder building databases for a living and on a heavy project at my full-time gig and then building databases for our consulting business and then building even more databases for my own personal projects, I had a dream where I *was* a database and I woke up totally getting it. It's the only time in my entire life I have ever felt truly organized. And, in a sense, in control of my past, present and future.

If only life could be a database, I'd muse--even then. Then everything would make perfect sense!

Unfortunately, life is that interminable bug that never finds a genuine fix, and we just keep finding workarounds. That's the place I find myself in these days, but I've been on a paper journaling kick lately and have been exploring a lot of old topics that used to excite me that I have abandoned over the years due to health, time constraints or things that just fell off my radar with the passage of time. We are about to kick our consulting business into high gear again, and I am behind the curve on database development now instead of on the cutting edge, so I'm thinking of taking some coursework to brush up on my skills so I can get our business launched again in this new world of AI.

But, it also got me thinking that maybe I could get organized in real life by putting my real life into a spreadsheet or database. If I saw my clutter in data sets rather than the overwhelming stacks in closets and my junk room and garage, would that help since I used to speak fluent database? I am admittedly a little rusty, but I don't think it would take too long to brush up.

Inching My Way Towards Confidently Failing Upwards

 It's been a while, dear readers. I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, though we almost did. Long story there and I won't have an opportunity to write about it today, but will write about it soon. Still carrying on. Still dancing, and walking. Photo is from a May hike on a gorgeous day in Des Moines. I'm in my fifties now. How did that happen!? I'll celebrate my 54th birthday next month. Hubs is lucky to have celebrated his 70th birthday in April. He had a stroke 3 years ago and was given life saving treatment in less than 10 minutes of his stroke. We are aware of how lucky we are and we are living life to its fullest. I do still blog. I rediscovered my blog over at LiveJournal. I wanted to blog in a smaller sphere for a while as I sorted through the aftermath of telling on my abusive father, but I'm ready to be more public again. I think. I'll continue blogging there, too, as I've met some really cool people on that platform.

We are semi-retired as of January 1st this year! We are still working on a handful of cases and our consulting business from home and I do some work for hubs's former partner (our brother-in-law) from time-to-time at the office, but he is also scaling back and has a part-time assistant helping him. I only get called in for special projects or if she is unavailable. I'm taking a break this afternoon from working on a spreadsheet of federal cases going to trial in the upcoming months. It's nice working from home other than hubs thinks that means I'm available to work 24/7 so I had to set some boundaries. Namely, Wednesdays are my days off and weekends are days off from legal work too, so we can get caught up on home projects.

Wednesdays are art days, mainly. I was invited by my watercolor instructor to Studio time on Wednesday mornings at the Art Guild, so I've been going. It's been wonderful! I've been creating more art than writing, which is okay. I'm creating and that's the important thing. Since I told on the monster, I haven't felt as compelled to write, although I am still writing quite a bit of poetry.

Possibly my best news is that my eyes are lasting about an hour or two longer a day than they were. They still can't last a full day, but I can use them at longer stretches than before. I have to admit, not being able to use my eyes for prolonged periods has shot my focus all to hell though, and if I wasn't certain I had ADD issues before, I'm VERY convinced now. heh

This is my year of shedding my fear of failure, so I am inching my way towards a YouTube channel where I explore things I've always wanted to do but was afraid I'd fart up. One of those things is a fear of being in front of a camera instead of behind it. So...wish me luck. My first baby goal will be to post a couple of teasers before the end of the month. I'm training for a sub 45-minute walking 5k at the end of July (though I'm getting over a head and chest cold that has knocked me out 3 weeks of training, and with lupus, I will just be happy to make it through the race without passing out at this point!!!) and the other teaser will be just for starting the channel. I have another teaser already filmed for Shimmy Mob (belly dance), but we don't have a date set for when we'll perform yet, so I'm not ready to release it yet.

A lot has changed here at good ole Blogger. I need a refresher course on how to find everyone's blogs and how to get mine out and about. I'll share this to my Twitter feed until then. Peace, love & butterflies, y'all! Until next time. xoxo 🦋 

I Have No One Left to Protect

I'd forgotten I revived this blog! I was looking to get back into publishing my writings and having a blog to supplement that endeavor...and voila! It hasn't even been a year since my last post.

Since my last post, we are still droning. I have a new car (A BMW X5)--kind of a tank, but AWD and gets the same gas mileage as my cute little Nissan Jukes did.

I got back into dancing. Heavily. I performed on my first "real" stage earlier this month with my student troupe. I'm learning veils. I have another performance with my troupe on Saturday. I danced with Shimmy Mob. This is where things get interesting.

I've been very vocal about the monster being abusive while I was growing up. I no longer speak to him, and do not intend to ever speak to or have the displeasure of seeing him ever again. Something I haven't been quite as vocal about is my first marriage.

We were two stupid teens in love. He was leaving for the military. I agreed to marry him because when you are a teen, even a couple of weeks apart seems like an eternity. Things were great until...the night I got pregnant. I remember it so vividly because I was abused and raped that night by my husband of six months. It was a horrid evening, we were on our way to our new home in Colorado (we were in Kansas City at the time), and when I found out I was indeed pregnant, my whole future went up in flames. Instead of attending ENMU that fall, I was changing infinite amounts of diapers and still dealing with his abuse. The last time he abused me was very physical and I have a permanent injury to my chest because of it. His brother, who was just a kid at the time (age 16 or 17), defended me. When I slipped out the back door with my baby (nothing else which I lamented the hours we spent wandering around until dawn--you don't have time to think. You are in total survival mode at that time of leaving), my ex-husband and his brother were killing each other in the front yard. I didn't have much to do with him immediately following that incident, but I STAYED. For TEN MORE MONTHS.

I'm still ashamed and embarrassed that I STAYED. I made all the excuses for him. After all, I still loved him despite how cruel he was, plus I had an extreme case of post-partum depression and didn't believe I could make it on my own with a baby. "The military changed him. He's so young--he will grow up soon. His father abused his wives--he grew up thinking this is the way you treat your wife. He's under stress because of the impending war and not knowing when he might be called away. Yada-yada-yada."

I'm still ashamed and embarrassed that it took him CHEATING ON ME WITH MY CLOSEST FRIEND in New Mexico and him admitting he wasn't sure he wanted to be married anymore to leave. It wasn't the abuse. It was the infidelity. I'm a libber, and especially as a libber, this isn't me. So...what happened? I am still trying to figure it out.

Now to the part where his mother comes into play. She was not supportive of him cheating on me at all. I've been closer to her than he has in the past 25 years since our divorce. However, here is my exchange that I posted to what I thought was a safe group for the dancers:

To be honest, the color of the t-shirt is not important to me. I dance for friends who have been affected (one died because her ex ran her over with his car) and for myself who grew up in an abusive household and was abused by my ex. It is such an important cause, and this was my 3rd year. I continue to dance for those who have no voice, to raise awareness. T-shirt color for me is a mere afterthought, although our group (Bloomington-Normal-Peoria, Illinois) did a “guess the t-shirt color contest” to raise extra funds for our local shelter. I joined in on that fun, of course! 😍All I mean to say is that I love all colors, so what we dance in isn’t a huge deal for me. The fact that we are all dressed in the same color, a TEAM, that matters more. Shimmy on! 💕

 Her response:

1st I've heard your ex abused you, I'm sorry.

She has not once contacted me directly. I'm too hurt and angry to reach out to her at this time. I've put myself in her shoes a million times, and I get that she wants to protect her son. I totally get that. What I don't get is that we've been close over all this time--why would she feel it necessary to try to discredit me publicly instead of trying to contact me directly? First of all, I didn't say WHICH ex, but she seems to know who I'm talking about which leads me to believe she already knew or suspected. Maybe I'm just reading too much into her comment. I will contact her eventually, because I want to address the elephant in the room and I want to reclaim my sleep. I just don't want to have this hurt and anger in my heart when I do. I may end up losing someone very dear to me, but I won't stop telling the truth. If I lose her, I'll be broken-hearted, but I will be honest with myself and with the world.

Women in Aviation - Female Techies

womenanddrones.com

An early memory for me was back in 7th grade. I was attending a gifted school that had some real money and we were able to purchase two Apple II computers. It was a huge deal in the early 1980s for a school with less than 100 students. Our science teacher was a male chauvinist pig. When we got the computers, he asked the "boys" of our class to gather 'round the new technology. I was already programming in BASIC & beginning to learn COBOL by that age, so I was super interested. I gathered around too, only to be shot down with, "Angela, I asked the 'BOYS' to come over, not you." Never mind that I was salutatorian. Never mind that I probably understood the technology better than anyone else in my class, and possibly even my teacher. It was clear. This was a 'boys only' club, and I was not invited.

In the early 1990s, I was a technician for a phone center. I handled home improvements and helped people install garage door openers, use their robotic swimming pool cleaners and program universal remote controls. Again, I entered a boys' club as I was one of 3 females in a department of 120. When I got the job, the guy interviewing me had the balls to ask me if I was "given any of the answers" to the test I needed to take because I was "'cute' and the guys wanted me to be in their department". "No," I answered. "And, in fact, you can plainly see that I know absolutely nothing about cars, but I do know a LOT about building homes (because I've been around it since I was a toddler) and a LOT about computers (because I was already building databases by this stage of my life) by my test answers, correct?" I got the job, but also got the whole..."Gee Angela, how come you don't wear short skirts anymore now that you're over on the tech side?"

Should that particular pig of a junior high teacher ever feel guilty that he tried to shoot down a female student's dreams, his conscience can be clear. In my 20s and 30s, I built databases for a paycheck and I loved it. I'm still a data geek after all of this time, but I've fallen behind on database development and programming after the initial push to get database technology online in the early 2000s. I can still build simple structures though, and that seems to satisfy our professional needs.

Now, I am an FAA certified unmanned drone pilot. One would think in 2017, I would not still be an anomaly in my techie pursuits, but I am. I joined a local group for Radio Controlled aircraft and because my passion lies more in the art and storytelling beyond the technical aspects of flying a drone, I'm still not a welcome member to the boys' club. I'm not mechanically inclined and most of these RC pilots are, building their aircraft from the bottom up in many instances. I'm in awe of their talents, but my passion and my technical aptitude still doesn't align with theirs.

I still have a lot to learn. Maybe one day I will be able to tear apart my bird and build it back up even better and badder than before. Until then, I'm still this freakish female who pilots a drone, handles all the techie details and has just enough aptitude to keep it aflight. If this makes me a pioneer, I'm happy to wear that label. However, what does it take to garner an equal footing in this world? I'm still trying to find that footing, and so far it's been precarious.

The Newest, Lowest Chapter of My Life

I have been dealing with chronic illness for 30 years. I remember being healthy. In fact, ages 16-almost-18 were the best years of my life. I had wheels. I was a good kid. I got a job and joined every club I was interested in at my high school to avoid my parental units and the daily abuse I got at home. I got a full time job. Full time school.  I was planning to move in with a good friend of mine my senior year and then the parentals threatened me with being a runaway and having a police record. It was their last-ditch effort to control my life and it almost didn't work. Almost. Instead, I got very, very ill. It was the beginning of my autoimmune issues. I missed the last two months of my senior year in high school. I missed out on my prom and nearly my graduation. I was an ace student and had no trouble keeping up my grades, even when I was very ill. I graduated with honors. I looked like a monster, however. It was a very nightmarish scenario for me, a 17-year-old brainiac hippie nerd who didn't feel anywhere near attractive to begin with. I looked like a monster. I will never forget going to the pharmacy and a little kid asked his or her mom, "What's wrong with that lady, mommy?" Her answer: "She must have been in a horrible fire." Yes, I looked that monstrous.

When I was a little, little girl, my mother worked for a bank in the south side of our city - the "bad" end of town. A lot of vagrants, pushers, prostitutes, etc. worked in that area. I remember being a little girl and asking my mom "What's wrong with that man, mommy?" He was known as the Boil Man. He had a serious case of boils over most of his body and I don't know if he was homeless, or was living in that area. When I was 17, I had become the modern equivalent of the "Boil Man" and I felt like a freak.

Little did I know 30 years ago that I would STILL be suffering from that illness. Fortunately I am not permanently disfigured other than a couple of small scars, but I do have my moments with skin crap, chronic migraines, eye and visual impairments, failing kidneys, pervasive infections, etc.

While I don't look like a monster anymore from the waist up (most days, anyway), I still feel like one. My eyes and head have become the new skin disorder. Vasculitis is ruining my legs. I thought getting away from the monster and my mother would cure me, but it didn't.

Today has become my new low. I turned down an HR position that I know I would love. I can't guarantee my health to this company, however. I can't guarantee my visual acuity. I can't guarantee ANYTHING anymore. I meet with an attorney tomorrow who specializes in disability. I hate that it has come down to this. I also hate that his paralegal was rude and condescending with me on the phone. I'm NOT an idiot. I've been a paralegal. I just don't know this area of law. I had a simple question.

I don't know what my future holds, and I'm frightened. I want to be relevant. I want to make a difference. I want to be meaningful. Right now, I'm just not feeling any of it.

Memories of Uncle L

My tios and the tiny version of me.

I have so many good memories of my Great Uncle L. He passed away ten years ago. I was just thinking the other day about when I lived with him and Great Auntie in Florida. Him talking me into taking his 1968 red T-Bird convertible to the store…and "take the long way home, by the beach, so you can find a boyfriend.” I remember thinking at the time to myself…A-I’m not looking for a boyfriend B-My car is already enough of a guy magnet…not sure I want an even more guy magnet-ish car!!…and C-I need a hot car to find a boyfriend!?

Too funny, but I know it was his way of trying to keep me in Florida. I was very, very tempted to stay in Florida too, but it was too expensive for a kid just starting out.

I remember on vacation when I was 14, Uncle L going to the mall with us, and I fingered this beautiful soft, pink sweater there. I decided it cost too much money, so I left it. Right before we left to come back to Illinois, Uncle L said - "Hold on, Beautiful, I have something for you." He'd gone back to the store and he got that sweater for me!

When I was small, he'd always sing "Beautiful Brown Eyes" to me. He still sang it to me when I was in high school, and my eyes were becoming more hazel. Every year he and Great Auntie came to Illinois for 2 weeks in October, so my wonderful Tia could see the fall foliage she loved so much. He'd bring his guitar, and we'd all spend an evening singing, laughing, talking, eating Cuban food. It was beautiful. He'd play a few songs in Spanish that my grandma and Tia would sing too, and sometimes my eccentric Auntie (I also have a story that I'm writing about her and how I became a hippie the summer I turned 3--about the same age I am in the photo--because of her. It's outlined in my personal journal, so I'll post it soon.) and my mom would know the songs too.

Partially because of my uncle, I have a profound love of music. He got me listening to Julio Iglesias and Marty Robbins. He got me interested in trying to pick out tunes on a guitar. He got me interested in cumbia, chicha and salsa music.

Speaking of my own guy magnet car – my '65 Mercury Comet – it probably didn’t hurt that my friends were all so beautiful. Maybe they were the guy magnets, not my Baby Comet. Maybe it was just the great combination of hot girls in a hot car. I remember the ex-husband and I drag racing against each other in the New Mexico desert. Baby Comet didn't have quite the pick-up that our '92 Mustang 5.0 Litre did, but she kicked ass in the long haul. I can't remember if the speedometer went to 120 or 140, but I know I pushed 120 mph on those long stretches of desert road where you could see for miles and miles, but would never see a single other car.

Yes...I'm a chick. And I think cars are hot. What can I say? Even now I love my little Nissan Juke. It looks like a Volkswagen Beetle and an SUV had a love child and it has its fair share of power. I don't live life in the fast lane anymore, but I still could...if I wanted to. And, no worries Uncle L. I found a boyfriend. After 24 years, I think I'll keep him!