Ramblings of a Wayward Goddess

Yesterday, while the kids were at school, blissfully unaware of what their mother was doing…I snuck off and watched a movie. This is a big deal because we worship all that is good and holy in the new release section of the video store, AND because I had already gotten to see a movie in an actual movie theater 2 weeks ago for my Birthday. I’m living large.
I went to see Silent Hill. I live with 2 “gamers”, but this is a game we had not had the pleasure of playing. Once, years ago, we had Silent Hill 2, but when my husband spent hours wandering around a graveyard with no idea what he was supposed to do, he gave up and went on to bigger and better things. That was the only experience with Silent Hill that we had. The movie trailers sucked me in though and I really wanted to see it.
There were 4 people in the theater, counting me, and I admit I wondered why they weren’t at work or school or something at 10:40am on a Friday.
The movie was awesome! It was spooky and scary and intense and I just loved it. I’m a total horror movie whore. I love being scared and this one scared me. I don’t want to be a big spoiling spoiler so I will stop talking about it now expect to say that, if you like horror movies, go watch it. You don’t have to be a video game fan to enjoy it. The critics are saying this is the best game to screen movie yet, and they are right.

And now, in the worst segway in history…

After the movie I had just enough time to run off to my kids’ school to see my oldest in his D.A.R.E. graduation. They sang songs about being friends and not doing drugs. Their opening number was, and I’m not making this up…A Little Help from My Friends. You know, the one that says “I get high with a little help from my friends”. I found it hysterically funny.
After the singing, the D.A.R.E. officer presented the essay winner with a medal. Surprise surprise, My kid won! He is super smart and able to just pull things together with little to no effort. I keep telling him that one day that will all catch up to him. Giving him an award for something he wrote at the last minute isn’t helping my case any. But, I’m still proud of him. How can I not be. He’s a great kid.

This week’s assignment…
1. Something Big
2. Something Small
3. Half of Something

First up, Something big…

This is my, then 10 yr old, recieveing his black belt in kenpo karate. He’s been in karate since he was 6 yrs old. He inspired me to start. he’s the youngest in his rank, and I’m the oldest in mine.
Because he was 10, he recieved what they call a Jr black belt, which means the belt is black with a white strip. He took the same test any other black belt woudl take, but he isn’t eligible for “full black” until he is 13. He now holds the title of Sensei Conner.

Something small….

My brother in law and my niece. They waited 17 yrs to have a child, always saying they didn’t want kids, and this “little thing’ has changed thier lives in ways they never imagined.

Something Half….

This is my newest tattoo. I got it just over 2 weeks ago. It’s the Capricorn symbol. I’m not a capricorn, I’m an Aries. My husband is a capricorn. This is my half, forever with me.

Did you play?
Run on over to Random and Odd to see who else played.

Just when I thought she’d finished, she asked me if I wanted han-mei or something similar sounding. When I gave her a quizzical what-does-that-mean look, she responded by demonstrating the international sign language for male masturbation.

I experienced my first love at 15. He was a year older than me, and new at school. He didn’t have the history that the rest of us had together. Growing up in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, and your parents went to school with each other has it’s disadvantages.
I was not a popular kid. I was the poor kid. I loved in a small cinderblock house. I wore clothes from the second hand store. No one noticed me unless it was to give me grief about something. Then came Shawn. He was attractive, and suave, and everyone loved him, and he turned his charm on me. I was immediately smitten. We were both young and stupid and to think anything would ever evolve from our relationship was naive to say the least, but, he showed me that I was worth something to someone. I was more than the poor kid. I had value and could be loved.
Our break-up(s) was bad and bitter and turmultuous, but I learned a lot during that time.

My next love was probably my first real true love. His name was Ray. He was a sweet, kind, patient guy who wanted nothing more than to love me. We were together my entire senior year and then some after graduating. It was the first, true, unconditional love I can remember feeling. I was able to open up to him and trust him with some of my deepest, darkest secrets and that scared me. I didn’t know how to handle that so I shut down. I turned into a bitch in an attempt to push him away, but he never left. He was always there no matter what I threw at him. I finally broke it off, much like ripping out stitches, raw and painful.

The guy I dated after that gave me my first born. I said I was in love with him and at the time I truly believed it, but looking back I can see that it wasn’t. It was more about obsession than love. It was about needing to be wanted. It was about filling a void. It wasn’t about love. Admitting that doesn’t mean that I love my son any less. Nothing will ever replace the love I feel for my children.

This brings me to my husband. I met my husband when my son was 5 mths old. From the very first date, he accepted my child as part of the package. It was rarely an time when we went out without my child. When he planned our dates, he planned something that the three of us could do together. The more involved we got and the more serious it became, the more he took on the role of father to my son. He has never been a step-father. He has never treated my son like anything less than his own. That alone made me fall in love with him.
We’ve been together 11 years now, married 9. Our love gets deeper and stronger with every passing day. We’ve had our share of bad times and we always manage to get through them. It seems no matter what life throws at us, we get through it together and in the end are more committed to each other.
Our love is a love like no other I’ve ever felt. It’s a comfortable love. It’s a constant love even if we aren’t always together. It’s a love that gets through my compulsive spending, and his need for order and control. It’s a love that understand that we are not perfect, but we are perfect for each other. I have trouble sometimes remembering my life with out him in it. It’s like he’s always been there, somewhere. I can’t picture my life without him in it. He truly is my other half.

That’s where my husband is within this new company. It consist of the President, Vice President, Secretary/payroll/Human Resources/Travel co-ordinator, My husband (Field Project Manager), a Level 2 installer, and a Level 1 installer. And that’s all folks!

I’m excited, yet nervous about this all at once. He’s coming out of a worldwide telecommunications manufactuer. they had offices in NJ, CA, Ireland, and China. they did lots and lots of work in the Middle East (ok, I’m not missing that part). Huge HUGE company. Down to a company where he’s only the 6th employee.
The good part is, he is pretty much 3rd down the chain of command. And every huge company had to start somewhere. this is a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor and move WITH the company instead of trying to fight his way up the ladder.
The downside is, being a small company, if they fail, my husband fails right along with them. He has a vast amount of experience and connections on this industry, and I think they may be putting thier eggsion his basket. They seem to be counting on him to carry thier business. My husband has an awesome reputation and as long as they can keep the business end of this company running, he can get them more work than they can manage. They have the opportunity to be real players among this field.

I know, my thoughts are all jumbled and random. I told ya I have mixed feelings about the whole thing.

I prefered my old, black template. But, all my side bar stuff was pushed to the bottom and the semetry was off. Urgh! Everything is where it shoudl be wit this template, but I hate the way it looks. I wish I knew more about HTML so I coul dplay around with it and make it more “me”

I’m not divulging much by sharing that my last name is Smith. I’m right there with Mary Jones as having the most common name in America. I have much Irish and German blood running through my viens, which also happens to make me the whitest person you will meet. red hair is just the icing on the cake.
My husband’s mother is from Colorado and has a lot of Native American Ancestry in her background. My husband takes after her quite a bit so he has many of the dark features. Dark hair and eyes, and in the summer his skin turns a nice mocha. I think it’s because of this that many MANY people mistake him for Hispanic.
He travels a lot for his work. There have been times when someone will walk up to him and ask: habla inglés? He usually will give them a funny look and say “Yes”. Sometimes they will come up and say “You do speak English, don’t you?” Once, he had to go to Puerto Rico for business. he had grown his hair and beard out over the winter, but in anticipation of being in a warmer climate, he went to the barber shop to get a haircut and shave. When he mentioned Puerto Rico, the barber immediatly said “Going to see family?” Most people are nice when inquiring about his nationality, but some people are down right rude about it. Always the professional though, he never looses his cool. He usually responds with a joke to lighten the mood and ease the questioners uncomfortablness. He’s just a good guy like that.

Things seems to be happening all around me. Today is my husband’s last day of work. At his current job anyway. He left here last night around 10pm to drive to New Jersey (he prefers driving at night) so he could turn in his tools and vehicle and phone and laptop and all the other stuff. he gets on a plane home this afternoon. I have to be at the airport (an hour away) tonight at 9pm. His new job is anxious to get him started. He flys out to Santa Barbara on Sunday afternoon so he can be ready to get started Monday morning. This oast two weeks had stood still and flown by all at the same time. It’s a bit mind boggling.
I’ve been looking at new houses. We want at least 4 bedrooms. Big bedrooms. I live in my room so I want to be comfortable and have plenty of space. We want no less than 2 1/2 bathrooms but ideally, 3. One for the grown ups, one for the kids, and one for guests. We want a garage. We want a big back yard where the kids can play. We DO NOT want our neighbors right on top of us like it is here. While we are looking we decided to look at other areas. I looked into my home town. I was SHOCKED at the home prices. A house that would cost me, roughly, $150,000 here, would be $500, 000 there. Rediculous. We wont be relocating there any time soon. Houseing prices are just insane anymore, I think.

I’ll be glad when the dust settles a bit.

In a constant state of exuastion. I think I would die if I actually got a good nights sleep

So a few months ago I followed a group of online friends like a lemming over to MySpace. I signed up stuck a profile up and then just forgot about it. I find most of the profile pages on MySpace to be gaudy…gaudy or plain, seems there’s no middle ground. Plus I’m kinda comfortable at Blogger. Yeah its got it’s nuances, but for a free blog site, it’s not so bad. So that was the extent of my MySpace life.
Until….
I checked my email the other day and there was one in there from MySpace. Someone wanted to add me to their friends list. So I went to check it out. The picture looked so much like an old friend from high school, but I wasn’t entirely sure. I went ahead and accepted her and them started poking around. It WAS her! I was so excited. We started emailing through MySpace, kinda touching base with each other. I then started going through her friends list so I could see how many other people I could come by. I ended up finding several people from my high school days.
Looking through their profiles was so weird. All these people all grown up, married, some with kids. How could they be married and have kids, they are just kids themselves. But they aren’t. Not anymore. They all grew up just like I did. I have this picture in my head of how they should be, and it’s not matching up to who they are now.
One one of the people I came across turns out to be my first, serious boyfriend. I know some people would caution against getting in touch with someone that I once had such strong feelings for, but it’s so in the past that I didn’t see any harm in it. We’ve ha really nice emails back and forth kinda catching up. We are both happy with our lives. I still have trouble seeing him preparing to get married. To me he will always be the kid kicking around Franklin Street.