St. Louis Wedding and Portraiture Photography - Pinxit

I read this in another mom blog today and it gave me some purpose: like I didn’t have enough epiphanies this week! Any way it said:

The preacher started to talk about kids and spirituality and how children seem to be born with an innate ability to see that we are a part of something bigger. They have a sense of wonder about everything.
He told a story of a little girl who kept asking her parents for time alone with her new baby sister. The parents were a little worried about what the private meeting would entail, but they agreed (and kept the door open a bit) to let the sisters have a moment together in the baby’s room. The little girl went up to the crib and moved it a bit to try and wake her baby sister up. When the baby woke up the little girl said, “Can you tell me about God because I am starting to forget.”
The point of all this is that what the minister was saying to us really made sense to me. In order to be happy, connected, productive members of society, it is important to understand that we are a part of something that is bigger than we are as individuals.

J and I aren’t church goers, we have not found a church home that works with us as a family. We aren’t looking as actively as I would like but we are both spiritual people, believe Christ is our Lord and savior, believe we must be better in our faith however - we just don’t know how yet. This just makes me remember to try harder so my little girl doesn’t forget.

The problem with the phone company - out side of the obvious long list of things any one who uses our product will tell you- including me as I worked in the complaint department for three years, until this March. (Whoo hooo! freedom!!!) Anyway , the problem is that it is boring as hell and while hearing all the ways I get cursed out in any given 24 hour period in my old position might have been exciting for you all - it is not the case any more, and I work in the most boring office SBC could have ever pieced together. My job, once I complete the training that is scheduled for SEPTEMBER, will be to fix broken circuits, instead of people. Circuits don’t curse, they don’t yell, they don’t call my mom out of her name. They don’t sling racial epithets like confetti at a new years eve party, they don’t hold me responsible for the bad day they were having before they got to me . They are boring as hell. My office is full of people who don’t appreciate how boring our job truly is. They, while seemingly adults to my untrained eye (as at my last office,it was like being in highschool everyday) they feel stressed at the same situation that brings me joy. I wake easily daily now with none of the stress I used to carry into THE PHONE COMPANY. They complain about…. I don’t really know what they complain about , the just complain and while I think it is a bit amusing - they take their stress very seriously. Have transfers in to go to the place I just left because “nothing could be as bad as we have it here” they say. I wish them well and tell the people I liked to put in their transfers - as slots will become available for them too soon. Why do I tell you this?
Because I read blogs everyday whoms daily grind is amazing. They do remarkable things every day. Doctors, law enforcement, major movie directors -actually his everyday is boring but he warned me before I started reading it, skip him there are many other people with wondrous everydays. People visiting foreign countries with their jobs, adopting children everything! People who see the beauty in things I just see regular. My everyday makes me wonder why I even blog it. I am just a mom, soon to be a wife, a friend, a sister, a niece, a daughter, a cousin, a poet. Maybe as I keep writing I will find the amazement in that. You never will however. Because the phone company sucks for excitement - it is boring as all get out and I just thought you should know.

P.S if you want to help a girl out and you have SBC service use this information to make your orders
1-800-U-ask-SBC apparently they actually work harder to take care of our friends and family and I appreciate that. You may too you but you have to have a user ID when you call. (use mine RJ2545) or contact me via e-mail and I will make sure you get a call back.

Life happens and like…. that… everything you thought you knew about life changes. Your understanding of God is tested, your faith poked in the chest like …and, now what? And now what? What can you do? how do you stand in the space of a man who has just lost the woman he pledged to love and say anything? How do you hold a child who will never feel her mother again?

My uncles wife who was celebrating the birth of their daughter on Friday April 22, died yesterday afternoon, apparently due to complications that went unnoticed by her doctor. She was young, in my age range. She was excited about having her daughter. She just glowed with gladness that her child was coming, the last time I saw her, and that her child was now here I’m sure.

Her family is angry, I understand as much as one can without losing my sister, my cousin, my friend, my husband, my mother. They are angry and are setting up to lash at one another. Their pain needs an outlet and they will lash at the in-laws and vice versa. I am praying for strength and direction to help stop it, to sooth if I can but I don’t know what to say. I don’t know that they will hear that it is not what she would want. They know that, they have to know that already but pain has a way of muting the obvious. Each family is trying to vie for that baby, I know they feel that baby is all that is left of her and that child has her place in each family, but most importantly in her fathers home. I want to tell them to hold on to everything they can of her, every memory, every dream, becasue that child will crave them. I want to tell them to keep her human, tell her daughter everything about her mom. Write down everything before time makes those memories dull and rewrites them. Remember that baby is too small to know why her family is hurting and she needs them to hold together across marriage lines, across bitter histories, she must become the common ground, so I pray that God shapes their hearts once they become open to his love and will

Then I went home last night and held my common ground. I vowed to leave detailed instructions for my family when I die. I will print and bind my blog entries monthly so my daughter can have my thoughts. I’m going to find the letters and jorunals I wrote to her and package them together for her, so they are easy to find if or when the time comes. I went home last night and held my common ground, kissed her, smiled at her happy face and put her to bed, I lit our candle and incense and loved her the way I do every night. I kissed my fiancee, told him I loved him. I thanked my granny for staying with the baby so we didn’t have to take her into that. I called my mom and sister, called my aunt, called my father. We made plans to see Jerry’s dad this weekend. We promised we would spend more time trying to see our family. We became the people we should be everyday but are too busy to find the time to be.

Lately I have been going through my yearly self cleaning. I psycho-analyze myself, look at every nook and cranny, and figure how I can make my self better, stronger, smarter, more efficient, and ultimately happier than I was the year before. I avoid new years resolutions but on my birthday I think its fair to be self introspective. (Is that a word?) anyway, this year my hunt has been very varied, kinda like the house, ultimate success is inevitable, difficult but promised, but like the house, the elephant has stopped vanishing and now I have caught it.
One of my biggest fears in becoming a mommy was that I would lose my identity in becoming mom. That noone would remember my name, I would be forced to write mommy on those “hello my name is tags”, and upon my marriage to her father which will take my own name and maybe what is left of my identity and replace it with his, will leave me as ‘Mommy Henderson’, when Raquita was so much cooler.
Not only was my name cooler, but I was cooler. As a single childless human I ran the gambit after I broke up with the boyfriend from highschool, I blossomed into quite the human. I wrote and performed poetry, took road trips when ever I thought about it, I was fierce. I dyed my hair bright red, and then shaved it when it suited me. I wore wrestling and soccer shoes because I liked them. I drove my mother crazy. My sister looked like a saint next to me. She the ‘finance major with good grades from birth through college graduation’ - me the ‘got good enough grades to graduate high school and get into college’ - then dropped out cause it costs to much and I needed to live some more. I have met wonderful people, from famous poets to poets who will be famous one day. I have genuine friends from that time, even if I don’t see them as often as I should. And I am alright with that, I am glad of the life I have lived. I remember that fear of becoming MOM and in looking at my life now I know I wouldn’t trade it for all the single life - sex in the city type diary entries in the world. and this time of introspection has shown me why.
I have learned to be a genuine friend to the people in my life. Friends call me Mamma Queue, and I think its kinda cool. I, and my family are home to so many people. They come to be comfortable in our space, because we work hard to keep peaceful energy in our home and they know they are welcome. I have loved and learned how to be the best lover that I can be today and know that I am still learning for tomorrow, J offers the best canvas for perfecting this part of me and I am glad the be the canvas he practices on. I have become a “we”, a piece of a completed puzzle that grows bigger and more defined everyday that C learns something or figures out what a word means, or J becomes more comfortable with his role in our world, or I learn how to be better at this family thing. Because we are an official bonafide family. And that feels good. There are so many things I plan to do to make this year better than the last, they are not difficult things, not hard changes by any means but they will make our family better, they will make me better. And that’s the goal isn’t it? To everyday be better than you were yesterday. Love harder. Forgive easier. Be more honest with yourself. Be the woman you envy in your self. Do the things you wish you could, because you can. Know that you are your worst roadblock and vow to stop. Be the woman you want your daughter to grow into. Be the woman you want your son to marry, be the woman you want your husband to dream of. That is my goal for this year.
Everytime she churns those little chubby legs to get to me, everytime he pauses to watch us play, every time she stops to watch us kiss, it reminds me how connected we are and how blessed we are to have each other. So long live Mommy Henderson, I may not be as cool as I used to be but I wasn’t Mom, or wife then either, and this me is way cool enough.

This is an actual job application a 17 year old boy submitted at a McDonald’s fast-food establishment in Florida… and they hired him because he was so honest and funny!

NAME: Greg Bulmash

SEX: Not yet. Still waiting for the right person.

DESIRED POSITION: Company’s President or Vice President. But seriously, whatever’s available. If I was in a position to be picky, I wouldn’t be applying here in the first place.

DESIRED SALARY: $185,000 a year plus stock options and a Michael Ovitz style severance package. If that’s not possible, make an offer and we can haggle.

EDUCATION: Yes.

LAST POSITION HELD: Target for middle management hostility.

SALARY: Less than I’m worth.

MOST NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT: My incredible collection of stolen pens and post-it notes.

REASON FOR LEAVING: It sucked.

HOURS AVAILABLE TO WORK: Any.

PREFERRED HOURS: 1:30-3:30 p.m., Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

DO YOU HAVE ANY SPECIAL SKILLS?: Yes, but they’re better suited to a more intimate environment.

MAY WE CONTACT YOUR CURRENT EMPLOYER?: If I had one, would I be here?

DO YOU HAVE ANY PHYSICAL CONDITIONS THAT WOULD PROHIBIT YOU FROM LIFTING UP TO 50 LBS?: Of what?

DO YOU HAVE A CAR?: I think the more appropriate question here would be “Do you have a car that runs?”

HAVE YOU RECEIVED ANY SPECIAL AWARDS OR RECOGNITION?: I may already be a winner of the Publishers Clearing house Sweepstakes.

DO YOU SMOKE?: On the job no, on my breaks yes.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE DOING IN FIVE YEARS?: Living in the Bahamas with a fabulously wealthy dumb sexy blonde super model who thinks I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread. Actually, I’d like to be doing that now.

DO YOU CERTIFY THAT THE ABOVE IS TRUE AND COMPLETE TO THE BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE?: Yes. Absolutely.

SIGN HERE: Aries.