Needing Prayers

After all day in the ER since he'd had another seizure, Jesse and Lena's son, Isaiah, has been admitted tonight in the hospital. I'm begging for prayer covering over all three of them and thanking y'all for it.

And Folks Think I'M Odd?

Meet the best, loudest (and only) Christian-libertarian-capitalist-environmentalist-lunatic farmer on the face of planet Earth. Read article here.

Reinstatement Meeting Number Two

This morning's reinstatement meeting for Paloma did not go well. Or did it? No deputies had to be involved, we didn't give in to her demands, but she's not in school yet again. She has to serve her time in ISS and she's unwilling to do so, preferring to argue with the administrators about their policies which she doesn't believe should ever be applied to her as in nothing is ever her fault.

If Mrs. Smith and I had stood our ground, demanded she get to ISS at that moment, I double dawg guarantee all heck would have broken loose. Instead she went back home with me where I decided I'd go check out a park where I used to find leaves and wood chips dumped by city dump trucks, free for the taking. Jesse and Big Joe used to take my old '86 Toyota pickup down there and load for me.

Now, all uppity I am with my lovely '98 Nissan truck, in need of working out to dull my stress load, to expend my energy, and to continue being healthy in my mid-50s in fairly decent shape, I loaded my own truck while Paloma breathed heavily and leaned on her pitchfork. 'Nuff said, right?

Like horns don't eventually sprout.

A very beautiful mixture of leaves, wood chips, pine needles and chunks of horse manure all laced together, drug home and spread over the new garden beds I'd been putting together, before it rained today, while listening to my hens carry on as they laid their daily eggs.

I'm just not gonna fight with Paloma about it. I can't make her go to school, can't make her behave while there, can't make her comply, and can't stop her rages. Neither can Abilify, Lithium, Clonedine, Concerta and Lexapro all combined with a psychiatrist and a treatment team. This is what bipolar looks like.

Sometimes just maintaining her moods, ensuring family safety, and minimal property damage is the best I can expect.

I don't wanna go see The Blind Side. A feel good movie? No thank you. I wanna see reality. A movie about an idiot like me who adopted severely troubled children who likely will never make her proud. No, not bitter, but realistic.

Paloma doesn't want to live within the prison of her mind. She'd love to wake up tomorrow and be a normal, regular kid. It is so devastatingly unfair to a child to be born so emotionally handicapped. It is terminally sad. She's beautiful, but with very poor hygiene, she's artistic, but detrimentally disorganized, she's capable at times, but weighted down by severe mood swings that prevent her from forming or keeping friendships.

If she's all this with a parent, with psychiatric resources, medications, and a wonderful school system, then what will she be like as an adult with little access to any help and less understanding of her need for it all?

I kinda already know the answer to that ignoble question. It sucks.

So I again go to that place in my head that allows me to not lose either my patience or my temper, knowing it wouldn't help at all, I just keep plodding along, doing my chores, improving the tilth of the earth where I farm, moving forward, checking stuff off, enjoying the rest of my kids that are doing well, planning tonight's supper, and sorta just doing my time. I can't fix Paloma, can't cure what ails her, can't reason with her, can't guide her all that much, but I'm still trying.

25 Million Tons of Unnecessary Trash

As a child I was never traumatized during the holidays, and no one ever drank any alcohol, there were no fights, no meltdowns, no issues - only low key normal celebrations - little, if any, stress and my own mother supervised the proceedings beautifully, never to any excess.

One year, when I was ten, right after Christmas, a very beloved aunt died very tragically in an unusual manner, causing my grandfather to angrily choose to never celebrate Christmas again. His son, my dad, isn't a big one about holidays either.

When folks learn how many children I have, the baffling response I hear a lot, that always takes me aback is, "Wow! Christmas must be really fun at your house!" in an excited tone of voice.

I never know how to respond.

Christmas? What about cooking for this many people three times a day for the other 364 days? The massive amount of groceries or laundry? Daily logistics and demands? Homework and projects?

Who gives a rip about Christmas, I always wanna holler?

Where are people's heads?

I used to carefully and kinda thoughtfully shop for Christmas, but was always baffled that the children would immediately destroy so much, as if they inwardly felt they deserved nothing, or they wanted to pointedly demonstrate to me that they valued nothing from me.

Whatever.

It's better now, to some degree, as there are no new kids, and as they've become accustomed to our family routines, but now I am traumatized, and I totally dread December.

I dance away in my own mind to that place where I'll finally be free of the BS prompted by holiday advertisements of impossibly happy people exchanging perfect gifts that they think will forever change their lives for the better.

A cynic never believes this would be so.

Stuff is stuff. Yawn.

Bo-ring.

We've had financial help over the years, different folks pitching in to help, we've worked hard to keep it very, very low key. A small tree, put up late, minimally decorated, a big dinner, emphasis on family time, that some of my older children still try and crap up for me and for the others.

I'm so weary of amped up behaviors that get no one anywhere.

It's almost December, and I never allow myself to stress or fret until December first, but now that Thanksgiving is over, the big one seems to be oppressively looming.

There's a severe recession simmering, pressure mounting, folks snapping from the stress, can't we all just tone it down, please? Remember the reason for the season?

Adbusters, of course, has a Buy Nothing Christmas campaign that I clearly envy.

This year we should radically redefine what our gifts will be, to simultaneously love our family and our earth. A gift from a big box store – from the demon monoculture – that puts us in a car for hours and is wrapped in plastic packaging, and was shipped a thousand miles with internal combustion engines– this year we won't consider that a gift at all. Such a gift hurts life on earth, and so it hurts us.

The language that sells us consumerism for Christmas is going in one direction and what we are quietly telling ourselves is the opposite. This year, after the banking failure and the debt mountains, the advertising has less power than ever. So find the things you have that may be under-used, over-looked.

There's no doubt Christmas is an annual environmental disaster. Last year Americans generated 25 million tons of trash between Buy Nothing day and Christmas. But we can still change it – and Buy Nothing day, amen, isn't a bad place to start.

The 13th Load

Fabian and Mayra were not my helpers today, as usual my picture has little to do with my post.

I didn't argue with either Sarah or Preston 'bout how I'd have done a garden. Well I maybe might've said a little and I just dumped the manure and moved on to Grandma's gardens where she got a truckload. I'd been shoveling all day, but wanted a load for my gardens too.

Martin and JoJo helped me get the last load from the stables, while Chuy and CW put together the new trampoline Grandma'd bought the kids, and no one was then the least bit interested in helping me dump the last load from my truck to the wheelbarrow to the garden beds so I just did it myself, glad for the time alone.

Days like these, warm and sunny, me with a purpose, knowing I'll eventually see a result, spurs me on. 13 pick-up truck loads later, I've hardly made a dent...except in my happiness and satisfaction with my gardens.

Paloma, Sabrina and I'd loaded up one load in 8 minutes, Chuy, Allen and Dubs' personal best is 7. JoJo and Martin had farted around, not timing themselves at all.

I wrote this particular post for Jimbo - an ego scan at work, right? A yawner just as you described.

After Thanksgiving - Zero Leftovers Involved

Only on our planet do I see more kids the next day than on Thanksgiving Day, as Sergi and Edgar both showed up out of the blue. It was wonderful to see Sergi since he's been navigating his own issues on his own, preferring to be a loner, but surprising me with his many successes - two jobs, a small apartment, and enrolling in a community college. Yep, Big Mama's very proud.

And speaking of blue, Jim and Bonnie (pictured here with Gina) left today, which leaves me kinda dragging. It's been fun having them both here, Sergi'd not seen Bonnie since our Nags Head Beach Vacation Days, a locale we'd long since abandoned, after decades of it being our number one destination. Finding a large house at Pawley's Island, only to then change to Myrtle Beach, my eye is on Edisto or St Augustine, a long-time favorite of mine.

Jimbo's lived in Tallahassee long enough to pay off his house, yet I've been unable to visit due to the exorbitant demands here. Fortunately I'm blessed with a sweet and wonderful brother who drives up here fairly often for the holidays. Hopefully he'll come next month when my other brother, and my favorite brother-in-law, and their respective families are here after Christmas.

My always cool, nearly cutting edge brother, Jimbo, does not even own a clothes dryer, preferring to not burden the earth with more electrical demands, hanging his clothes on a clothesline in the hot Florida sun, like God first intended us mortals to do. Stresses his grown-up daughter out somewhat, as she both goes to school and has a job, can't just sit around and wait for stuff to air dry. Jim's a rural route mailman, not concerned with fashion anymore than I am. Our other brother is just as thrifty, we all prefer spending on real estate versus trendy crap.

Bonnie'd grown up close to Gina and Cristy, Yolie and Sergi, she'd moved to NYC for years, now back in Florida with Jim. I keep planning trips in my head, what I'm gonna do when the kids are grown. It may seem to others as if I have a very long time to go, but not to me. I've been raising children for 36 years now, in less than five years, I'll only have the last three really good kids at home and it'll be such a breeze.

Jimbo told me about a Florida walking trail, an entire 1,100 miles of the Florida Trail from Big Cypress to Pensacola. I'm so excited. Really, this isn't sarcasm. I love, love, love to hike, and I adore Florida. I plan to spend Dec-Jan in Florida when the kids are grown for the rest of my life, hiking it's interiors and it's coastline, running back up here to garden for the other ten months of each year.

That's as cool as it could ever get in my book.

My least favorite months of the year, December and January, with holidays and cold winter weather. Yucko, lemme outta here.

Jim and I'd hiked yesterday, a long walk where I vented about the unnecessary drama I encounter each day.

Another adoption professional explained to me the stages of grief and loss which we all are aware of, from sadness to acceptance. I do not want to even begin to imply, nor compare, my experiences here of estrangement to the devastating levels of grief one experiences in a death. It's the overall picture I'm viewing however, when some, the minority, of my children choose to reject me, as they were once seemingly rejected by their birth parents.

After all I've done...most of which they have no clue about.

Starting conflicts which justifies, in their minds, their subsequent anger. Ok, whatever.

Initially I'd be very sad and I'd go through the predictable stages, finding myself later on the other end of the spectrum totally accepting the outcome, and realizing later that it simply is what it is, and noticing I'd hardly skipped a beat about it, moving on, and enjoying the ones I have a normal relationship with, no longer remotely concerned with forcing one upon those who are incapable of reciprocity.

That also means, sadly, that I will not be close to some of my grandchildren, but if that's the way that the parents want it to be, I'm also fine with that subsequent result. I will neither press a relationship, nor allow one, if it involves disrespect, dishonesty, or deceit on any level.

I forgive folks and I move on.

Still no fall frost here, that alone motivates me to haul more manure today. I wanna get a load for the garden beds Sarah's laid out at her house, finish my upper second gardens, and begin re-loading the Big Back Garden with fluffy horse poop and wood shavings. Grandma needs at least three more loads to make her happy this winter.

Sarah's handsome husband, Preston, works his butt off to provide for his family. I, for one, am extremely grateful that Preston wanted to live near us, we ain't an easy family to be around, but he made it possible for Sarah and I to see each other often, as it's walking distance, so I'm absolutely thrilled to drag the manure over there, to dump carefully where they've laid out next year's garden areas. A big old Thank You to Preston for all he does for them and for me.

Eventually I wanna dump a load on Yolie's garden, but since we've had no frost yet, hers still has live plants there. Gotta wait. Her garden is the easiest to get my truck backed up towards, but I gotta first discuss this with her monstrously large guard dog, Ella, a full-blooded 200 pound mastiff that even barks at me sometimes too.

Buy Nothing Day

From Adbusters:

Take the Plunge:
You know what they say: a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. You feel that things are falling apart – the temperature rising, the oceans churning, the global economy heaving – why not do something? Take just one small step toward a more just and sustainable future. Make a pact with yourself: go on a consumer fast. Lock up your credit cards, put away your cash and opt out of the capitalist spectacle. You may find that it’s harder than you think, that the impulse to buy is more ingrained in you than you ever realized. But you will persist and you will transcend – perhaps reaching the kind of epiphany that can change the world.

An Illustrated Thanksgiving

Martin, Gina, Daniel & Dubs

Three tables of folks eating in the kitchen, a dining room table was full and some others in the living room, balancing their plates of food.

It is a staggering amount of work to feed between 30-40 folks, no clue really as to how many will show, as Thanksgiving is a day to figuratively give the world a poke.

A very narrow slice of the universe, where they think that not showing up is punishing me for whatever…the sins of the birth parents? I used to feel slighted, maybe two decades ago, but the now deep sense of overwhelming relief long ago surpassed any other emotion.

Yolie’s entire small sibling group, now ages 24, 26 and 29, Daniel, Big Joe and Yolie were all here. Daniel’s been in and out all week, now gone to Atlanta for the UGA-Georgia Tech game tomorrow, but hey, let’s enjoy his last football game as an undergraduate.


I met Cristy and Gina’s niece, Angel, from Texas, her mom (Melissa) had been here a few years ago, and they were delightful, Cristy’s brother-in-law also was here, as his family’s in south Georgia until they can get moved.


Way more food than friction, zero drama (thank you Lord), cooler weather keeping me from wanting to bounce outside, and it had all combined for a wonderful time.

Sabrina, Mayra, Paloma and I’d fried up the pumpkin empanadas this year, making them even better than ever, but it’s a long slow process starting from scratch. Not a problem, as I’m an automatic early riser, but that ability to jump outta bed did not entice me to join the mayhem today of Black Friday. I’ve never done so, sure won’t start now.

I wouldn’t care if they were giving away free handsome security guards with accompanying tool belts. NOTHING would tempt me to venture into a store today.

Chuck took a photo of Sarah in her ‘happy place,’ as she knitted after the mongo meal, I’d pulled out a favorite gardening book, Paradise Found, before the meal day to re-read as it soothes my very jangled soul, the pictures are exactly the types of gardens that I deeply love.


One month from today even the Christmas pressure will be off, a holiday I truly fidget all the way through, as folks all across America have way too high expectations of, as if thoughtful gifts will heal their anxieties, or they too could become immediately successful, like the carefully prepped actors who portray unrealistic situations, advertising products that will not make anyone feel any better about themselves, buying in to the commercial aspects of materialism that drive some folks over the edge afterwards.

Oh brother, let’s all just tone it down, please. Everyday life is enough for me as it is, maybe even too much at times.

An aspect I’ve never liked about adoption, or about folks who’d been raised in chaos, is the amount that they need to recreate over the years as that’s their comfort zone, all they’ve ever known. Calmness stresses them out, the need for the adrenaline that courses through them in a drama situation drives them to stir things up and then sit back and play the victim when all hell breaks out.

I hate it, I hate conflict and ignorance combined. When there’s no logic, no reasoning with someone who cannot see the obvious truth, again I gotta go bye-bye.

My battered psyche and soul just wants to put on an Ipod with country gospel music that shuts out the noise of arguments, manipulations and strife. Putting my hands in the dirt, producing food rather than maliciousness, is all I desire. Solitary farm work is a balm to my very rattled soul.

The peacefulness of yesterday was superb.


Daniel and I, after it was all said and done, Thanksgiving Dinner at 1, dark by now, total peace and relief...

Get in that Dang Kitchen Girl

I did not cook a thing yesterday for Thanksgiving. I vacuumed, but had four grandchildren playing with the homemade playdoh for hours, then catching lizards which delighted Gina for some reason. But I still had my usual hungry kids to feed three times yesterday, Thanksgiving dishes would just have to wait.

Sweet, sweet, darling Travis and Kimberly took Mayra and Sabrina to that Twilight movie that I'd never have been able to get them to, mainly because I think it's lame. Vampires? Really? A love story? Barf.

How wonderful was it that my girls have some cool people in their lives besides this ole fart? They had a blast, and this ole librarian just about fell down in shock and awe to learn the number of books Travis reads in a week. Oh honey chile, I so wished he'd have been one of my students back then. Nothing impresses me more than a reader.

Daniel had gone to a yard sale in town to get the sports equipment he'd brought over here to play out in the meadow with the Bubbas, now all teenagers, who so totally adore him, these games started Tuesday and will likely continue all week. He and Gina'd gone to a movie last night. Gina's giddy with anticipation of seeing my brother's daughterkin (long story) who'll be here today, plus we also have Gina and Cristy's birth sister, Melissa, and her daughter Angel, both from Houston.

My phone had rung the other night, dumping a dumb drama conflict in my lap, blindsiding me with the logistics, and ending up being a big ole dramatic brouhaha that drove up my blood pressure since I clearly prefer my hermit-like status away from those who'd do me harm when gratitude should be their only theme. You're think you're gonna snap? Go snap on someone who gives a rip. I sure don't.

Hello?

I'd remained furious, but finally shook it off after dumping my angry emotions on an adoption professional who told me to "Just back off. You know you've done all you can, now be free. Anything else is just enabling them to mistreat you."

Yep.

So if handsome Edgar will allow me some oxygen, if some mean folks can just be nice for a few hours today, if others won't let the holidays drag 'em down, then maybe we can get through today with little hassle. The drama folks will not be here today.

I need to make the pumpkin empanadas which I'm gonna not bake, but lightly fry and use real whipping creme, under Sarah's direction of course, as I think it mentions not for the under 12 crowd which clearly includes my immature attitude today, or something. I'm a gonna throw together a fresh salad, pick peppers still from the garden, make a Spinach Cheese Squares dish I like, which prompted CW to ask me to bake spinach calzones for him this week, and I'll make a mac and cheese from scratch for the little kids, Grandma's done the bird and the gravy, and some other dishes, I do the rice, Lily's got the bread, Sarah's doing a squash casserole and some other dishes, Yolie's handling the broccoli and the fudge separately, going through the list we'd devised. Yep, we can slam this all together in a matter of hours and be done with step two of Holiday Hell said the Scrooge that I've become.

Lahna'd asked me how many will be here. Honey, I so don't know. Letting me know they're coming eliminates their control over me. Not gonna happen.

Like the kids, I've learned to stuff my own wants, needs and feelings into a little metal box that I used to call my heart, knowing if I let on to anything I want, I've just given folks more ammo with which to attack. That sucks, right?

Anyone wanna hear how many times I've hollered my real feelings out in my head? Sarah's claiming my filter's starting to fall off, maybe so. She, Yolie, Gina, Daniel and I had a good time carrying on yesterday, the laughter that I so crave flew freely all afternoon. I'd called the drug store to see if I had any refills on the valium my dentist had once prescribed to calm me down so he could deal with my restless self, but it was no go, all gone...deal with it, girl.

OK Big Mama - pep talk time. You've been to this rodeo before. Bulls kick you and you've survived. Git back on that raggedy-butt horse and git in the dang kitchen. This crap ain't gonna cook itself.

Several folks have lately told me that I write jist like I talk.

So?

Mae Mae is wearing a play-doh hat I made for her.

Honey, I'm SO there With You.

Odd to think that a woman with 15 children still living at home can even begin to think about downsizing, but more so than just pondering it, I'm happily doing so. Keeping up the doublewide we have proved too expensive overall, as I had to maintain renter's insurance, although folks never paid rent, they just assumed that the woman who owns nothing new, has bottomless pockets.

County requirements include a stupid, expensive decal each year indicating that the exorbitant taxes had been properly paid annually, plus water from my well added to my electricity bill and an extra trash can that services must be purchased for, all adds up to some thousand bucks a year. No gratitude was ever expressed. Y'all think I don't need that money? Get real.

I'm literally staring at my budget sheet, eliminating line items that truly can be done without, whittling my life down to the bare essentials.

Tuesdays at Goodwill, the senior citizens day of 25% off, my one place of flattery where they exclaim, "You can't possibly be 55," and I'm secretly pleased that they think that, as my children assume I'm absolutely doddering and elderly, especially since I'd done the long-promised dance in my pjs and houseshoes at the bus stop yesterday. Allen, super self-conscious was mortified as I was salsa-shaking it and loudly singing, "I'm da mama!" over and over in case the other bus riders had any lingering doubt. An off-Broadway moment that had the bus driver guffawing all over his steering wheel.

CW, a very grounded kid, snickered, "Told you ya couldn't embarrass me," while Mayra and Sabrina fell down laughing.

Lily's friend, Jessica, ventured, "You're so lucky to have such a fun mother."

Luck was not the word my young'uns would've chosen at the moment, although Lily does find me to be entertaining.

I spent $27 big ones at Goodwill and came out with a pile of books I want to read this winter, plus some for Sarah, Ray and Yolie, while Paloma found an Oshkosh outfit for Hazel that was too pink for words. That outfit alone would've likely been $27 with the striped leggings we also found, to walk away with books, a Pyrex pie dish, and several more ceramic pots to plant was very satisfying. To never step foot in the mall? Priceless.

A book I'd bought for Sarah, about Starbuck's beginnings, reminds me how she and I both teeter between biographies, management tomes, foodie stories, and gardening ones. Yolie's deep in her Kennedy history era and I'd found her yet another paperback she'd not read. The book section at a Goodwill in a college town is very impressive.

All of Daniel's college roommates and friends apparently have left town for the Holidays, a bored Daniel came by with sports equipment in his Jeep, and played football, badminton and croquet with the Bubbas until dark, and then took Chuy, CW, Martin and Mayra to a UGA basketball game, thrilling them all with his attention.

Today's the day I finally get down to business and cook for tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner. Daniel had, of course, bested the Bubbas in every sport, who all want a rematch, so he's returning today. I'm always happy as a clam when Daniel's home with us. I'd been dreading December 18th with all my heart and soul. Even though I'll then have yet another child graduating from UGA, it just meant that he was now a man who'd be commissioned that afternoon. Yolie and I will pin his officer bars on at the ceremony and I had it in my mind that he'd then be immediately shipped off to AfghanisNAM (dread to a child of the 60s). "No, mom," he reassured me yesterday afternoon at Yolie's house, "Not until 2013." Like I'll be emotionally ready then? I don't think so. They're gonna have to rip him outta my arms. Good luck with that you mean ole Army men. You've never come up against Osama Big Mama.

Shaking off that impending dread, only to find out minutes later that Jesse and Lena's young son, Isaiah, had had a possible seizure and will have an EEG done next Tuesday. Time to pray that this is nothing, that he is amazingly healthy. I talked to Jesse, out there in Texas, who is a little rattled, of course, and I hate that they'll have a week of stressing over this, why can't medical procedures immediately be done?

Yeah, yea, yea, don't talk to me about scheduling conflicts, this is my grandson. I get pissed off at the universe that Jesse, who's already been twice to Iraq, who had a childhood nothing short of HELL, not adopted by me until he was nearly 13 years old...Dear Lord PLEASE bless this child of mine, please honor his efforts, please make sure his son is perfectly fine.

There are three awesome women in my church, among many others who pray for us, but those three meet during the week for specific prayer time, their leader emailing me, and I just can't tell you how reassuring I find that to be for us. Specific prayer covering is all I desire in life.

Paloma will return from her OSS (out of school suspension) to serve ISS (in-school suspension) next week, yet she'll be kicked off the bus for another two weeks, which truly is punishment for me, as I then have to provide transportation, but I also need to demonstrate to her, this child who likely cannot ever connect the dots, that I follow the rules, that I obey authorities, that I do as I'm told...these are the consequences for her actions and that these consequences, along with her actions, affect others.

She truly doesn't give a hoot. The Adoption Counselor explained her own similar situation here. Drugs and alcohol, in utero, scramble the signals in a person's brain forever. I have grown kids who still can't understand logic and reasoning, preferring to blame me for all their problems, even as I physically and emotionally withdraw very obviously from their drama and chaotic lives, tired of the misdirected anger and rage that they spew out, drenching others with the resulting slime.

I simply can not continue to be involved in their very poor decisions. The stress alone will only weaken me, drive up my own blood pressure, and give them the negative attention that they so crave. Folks who just wanna stir things up? No thank you, I'm out. I'm done. Gone. Bye Bye. I'm free.

Those grown folks of mine that are thriving daily, even in spite of difficulties that we will all encounter? Honey, I'm so there with you.

Brilliance in Action

The best eight minutes you'll ever spend, especially if you live in town.

Watch the video, become recession proof - and tell me you don't get it?

Water???

"Cindy," Grandma corrected me, "I have 45 pounds total in turkey, not 45 pounds each."

Well, what do I know about buying frozen birds? A very sweet friend of mine has supplied us with 8 turkeys at a time for many, many years until budget cuts hit his firm. I'd tried mightily to eliminate the entire dead bird thing, but Grandma is very steeped in tradition, and she'd have had a cow otherwise, even though she herself doesn't much give a good cahoot about eating it. Then why bother?

My favorite brother-in-law called me early yesterday morning as he and Lauren boarded a cruise ship with their side of the family for their Thanksgiving get-together all week. Now there's a plan. I just keep reminding myself that when the kids are grown, my Holiday Hell period between Halloween and New Years will be selfishly spent happy and ALONE. Honey, I've done my time.

Kat recently commented she'd gotten some 40 sacks of leaves from her neighbors, by far outscoring me. A good day for me will be a dozen or so of those tall Lowe's bags crammed full, filling my truck. But 40? A girl can dream, right. I think about Kat's 40 every day...no kidding. That's where my mind wanders, plus now I'm reading The Crunchy Chicken where this lady'd put the mental in environmental.

Pathways, our newest counseling team, makes evening home visits which is a spectacular option for us. Dr. Mandy is out on maternity leave, enjoying her precious new son, as she should, she'll be back in January, but due to Medicaid paying, we've had to change Jonathan and Paloma's therapies if we ever want psych hospitalization. Dr. Mandy and Dr C (the psychiatrist) will still see the rest of my kids.

I'd read Rachel's blog with dismay, her Holiday Hell sucking bigtime. BTDT.

Last night, Pathways arrived, as several sons and I, flashlights in hand, were bopping between the old well house and the newer submersible pump in the newer well, hardly a dozen years old, I think.

I checked the fuse boxes in the laundry room, thinking out loud, no way has this well gone dry after all this precipitation. It's possible we've worn out the pump. I told Memaw to google the lifespan of it, see what a new one cost, while I broke out in a stress sweat, an oh crud moment. I called Chuck as his house is also tied into my well, my go-to guy, but what's he gonna do in the dark down a deep well.

My nine year old son, Jack, been here since birth, very, very attached to me, Grandma and Grandpa piped up, "Check the fuse box in the garage," but I'd irritably snapped back, "Like we didn't use water before we built the garage?" This kid knows where everything is, what needs doing, the mechanics of running a house, my junior Daniel.

I stormed around the house, how the heck can I do Thanksgiving with no water? Oh good I can call it off. "You boys are sure gonna stink," I cackled to my vain 8th graders, of which I have three, me careening back and forth between thinking and getting irked about the situation at hand.

Right then Pathways arrived. I'd forgotten, of course, in the preceding waterless moments that they were coming. I calmed down and talked nicely with the sweet young lady that I like a lot, and then while she worked with Paloma, I followed the advice of my nine year old, who I should've listened to in the first place and checked those fuses in the garage.

Bingo, he was right, water restored, crisis averted, gotta finish the Thanksgiving plans and get on with it, after having bagged some dozen sacks of leaves yesterday, a small ton of coffee grinds, first load of groceries, and caught the fifth mouse this week in a trap.

Taking the recycling yesterday, my junior scrounger, Paloma, eyed two perfectly good, unused coloring books and pulled them out. Score! Surprisingly she gave them to Tabby, a child she usually is horrible to on a daily basis.

Paloma and I'd taken donuts to Tabby's first grade class to celebrate her birthday that we'd drug out all week, used part of her birthday money to purchase a Clorox magic eraser for her to clean the desk she persists in writing upon, plus her bedroom wall. Am I mean? Or not an enabler?

This is Tabby, Nando, Scotty and Memaw's (Sabrina) fifth Thanksgiving here within our family. The two youngest kids don't remember their life before here, do not remember living in a children's shelter twice, nor all the different places their birth mom dumped them at, hundreds of places in their first two years of life. Emotionally scarred yes, that's what therapy is designed to help heal, but I've worked very, very hard on their stability and security.

Tabby's been Queen For a Week, she's happy, and hopefully has learned a lesson about destruction of property as she's a smart little girl with a good future in front of her.

Greening Up the Play-Doh

Yes, the cabinet door is missing. That's what happens when folks swing on them.

Looking over at my kids, as I do constantly, we take up a couple of rows at church, and try as I might, I rarely get everyone seated to where I can easily redirect disruptive behaviors, always with Claudia's son in mind, the one who once hollered, while his dad was preaching, "This is so fu&%ing boring!."

Looking over at JoJo I noticed he'd taken a blue ink pen and drawn a handlebar mustache on his own face, along with sideburns and a uni-brow. I couldn't help myself, I found it as hilarious a the time Joey'd accidentally farted in church. Remember I'm a Preacher's Kid too, sometimes completely unable to reign myself in.

I snatched the pen out of his hand, nearly falling backwards out of my seat while reaching for it, shaking my index finger at him, a sign that means 'cease and desist child,' but this is JoJo. Not gonna happen.

Next time I glanced over he had on blue eyeshadow, mascara, lipstick, eyeliner and blush that he'd dug out of Sabrina's pocketbook. Near enough to the end of the sermon, I tried to not make a scene, but as usual, our pastor walks to the back to greet people afterwards and he stopped in his tracks, Pastor Geoff behind him trying not to explode with laughter, because by then even JoJo'd hair was braided in spikes on top of his head. "Y'all got the devil in your row, doncha!" Pastor Tony remarked, hardly messing a step, though his eyes had sure bugged out.

JoJo never cracked a grin even though, by then, several rows of folks were laughing so hard they had tears running down their cheeks. Hard to suppress laughter and not leak somewhere. I was wishing Linda B had made it to church, sitting with us as she sometimes does, because I knew she'd have been busting a gut, laughing at this child of mine.

That child looked way more than three shakes past bizarre.

All I could think of was Miss Lisa needed our van for the Children's Church movie afternoon, and I had to rapidly get all of the rest of my kids back to the house, so she and I could trade vehicles. I wondered why there was a car seat in our van, not realizing Preston'd put it in there for Ray, so I unknowingly tossed it in the garage, further upsetting the apple cart.

It was our final birthday in a week of birthdays and I'd bought Tabby several 100 piece sets of cookie cutters because she wanted me to make the play doh from scratch that Ray had told her his mommy had made. I multiplied the recipe by six, figuring all my kids would wanna play, that's one thing about my 39 children, since maybe because we live isolated and no one will snicker, or maybe due to their inherent emotional immaturity, or maybe because they have me, the clown, for a mama, but playfulness can really abound here in the form of Bardie doll grenades (pull head off, throw doll), horse manure battles, or other rule-less games.

Everyone enjoyed the playdoh, including me. I'd overdone the food coloring as I had some strong stuff of Carolina's to use, but this playdoh doesn't make your hands reek of plastic like the store bought crap. It squooshes nicely, relieving stress and is fun, truly fun. I was frying up a couple hundred tortillas and making playdoh, glad for the dreary rain as I could feel in my bones, how happy yesterday's manure must now be, washed down into the soil, dripping between the crevices of the leaves I've added, speeding up the white, spidery appearing webs of decomposition. I got nearly giddy just thinking 'bout it.

JoJo never much washed off his face yesterday, sending me into gales of laughter every time I looked at him.

We finished off our peaceful night by watching a Disney Nature movie that I adored, not because I'm such an egghead, but because the incredibly beautiful scenes of nature - of animals, plants, and places - gives me such peace within my soul. I still want to believe the earth is a gorgeous place somewhere.

Now two boys to the orthodontist, Paloma home with me (oh boy), and Thanksgiving looming in which I've prepared nothing, but playdoh... oops, better get to shaking.

Oh come on, big whoop, like I don't routinely cook for hungry crowds and swarms of folks? No biggie, and Grandma's cooking the nasty dead birds she and Jack had gone to get. As proud as if she'd hunted these two 40 pound each monsters, further grossing me out, hope my spoiled brat hens don't smell 'em cooking. Grandma's calming my vegetarian self down with promises of her just-dug up sweet potatoes which are heavenly and my pepper varieties, sugar snap snow peas, and swiss chard are still producing. Lily's biscuits are wonderful, Memaw and Mayra, pictured above with Tabby, are hollering about making pumpkin empanadas, even vegetarians have plenty to eat on holidays.

Turd Fights

Horses pee impressively, soaking areas with nitrogen that then helps plants thrive without synthetic bagged powders that are killing us slowly. I'm fairly sure Armageddon will involve pesticides, surviving cockroaches, of which there'll be billions, and the other detritus of lazy and poor decisions.

At the barns, horse owners put down fresh, soft wood shavings in each stall that absorb the desired nitrogen just for me, further illustrating some purely egocentric behavior, am I right on? Another beautiful circle of life that never fails to thrill me. The chunky turds falling from the horses add richness as well. These same horse owners replenish the stalls very often, emptying out the soaked matter into a steamy pile that attracts me more so than flies.

We'd even convinced a gullible Tabby that usually we stand behind each horse with a bucket to catch it before later explaining the true experience, soon taking her down there to enjoy the process, reminding her to NEVER step behind a horse.

I'd set a goal in my uber-determined mind of five truckloads yesterday, again underestimating how much I truly need, yet figuring that ought to wipe out a 55 year old's endurance eventually. Being a Macho Woman, it didn't whoop me, but conversely set me on fire to build bigger and better garden beds, be more productive, and produce more produce, catching Grandma up in my silly excitement, as she too danced with joy over our gorgeous bounty of poop.

Initially my robust sons balked for no other reason than to be oppositional. I threw down a gauntlet daring anyone to drag their heels on another gorgeous day. I stomped outside dramatically, knowing they'd soon follow...as they did.

When they are grown and I am old, I still plan to do the same, not having to cook so much food everyday and pick up everyone's crap constantly, will free up tons of my time, I plan for my own energy to never, ever flag.

We all had fun actually...go figure.

It took some six solid hours of nonstop toiling, Lily and Tony worked on their biscuits from scratch recipe, Sabrina'd gone to Atlanta with Yolie's family for a National Adoption Month shindig, and my sons outdid themselves, knowing Big Mama was super excited over the impending rain, hustling to get the poop hauled in time to drench the soil with beneficial elements.

The fifth load we took up to Grandma's gardens, she was as excited as I'd been all day, we were dumping it everywhere as fast as we could using an elderly Garden way cart that Grandpa had gorilla glued back together over the years, buckets, and my wheelbarrow that we over-loaded and a screw popped out. Watching Grandma rake it just so, makes me positive at 80, I'll be as equally, if not more so, energetic.

After hustling hard all day, the final 30 minutes minutes disintegrated into a turd throwing battle. The same too-prissy boys who'd wrinkled their noses when I picked up the big ones to tuck carefully over the asparagus plants were now choosing large ones to splatter on others, leaving Grandma leaning on her rake in disbelief, but knowing the lawn was being fertilized as a result.

Hey, who needs toys?

These very same super-cool boys who take great pains each day with their middle school looks and attire, have the freedom to act like kids out here in the country, thoroughly enjoying turd warfare, laughing and carrying on, having a stinky blast.

We've now hauled ten loads this month, my 1998 Nissan Frontier truck holds over 1,000 pounds - do the math - and I truly reckon we've done only about 25% of what we need, but it's only November, so I'm feeling pretty good overall.

"Well I'm at Big Mama Boot Camp now, aren't I?" a rather lucid Paloma lamely questioned me. "You and I can haul all day Monday and Tuesday," she queried, as if I don't need to start on the Thanksgiving cooking?

Yeah, but we're gonna haul groceries, pots and pans, child.

I get so angry at this stupid Pulmonary Fibrosis that is slowly robbing a non-smoking Grandpa of his oxygen. For an upper middle class male, he'd always been remarkably fit, always very healthy, as he chooses fruits and vegetables over almost anything else, not one of those steak-eating, expense account executives, and to see him have to fight so hard with a health ailment when he'd done so much right over the years is frustrating. I keep rounding them both up to age 80, because they're almost there, in reality they're both 79 and very vital members of our family.

No way could two strong-willed women like Grandma and I garden on the same plot, even though we garden much the same. Her garden beds are up by her side of the house, mine are further down the way, and this works perfectly for us both. We admire each other's production.

What's Paloma's consequences from her deputy interactions? Dunno yet. The school will contact me next week.

She'll again be glued to a grownup here if she can find one, likely I'll have to act like one.


That's 15 year old Martin balling up horse poop to make a missle...I should send this to his Facebook.

Shut The Hell Up

"Shut the hell UP!, the deputy roared back to her, putting her handcuffed, raging self in the squad car's backseat, as I stood there stressed out to the max, literally wringing my hands.

What had started out as another of north Georgia's incredibly lovely fall days, when it is pure T pleasure and joy to be working outside, and not sweltering while doing so, even Grandma had hiked up to the Fruit Orchard to see where I'd laid out new beds for next year's harvest.

Another blog the Ethicurian: Chew the Right Thing had a great write-up about a book I'm reading at the moment Independence Days about the literal necessity of food preservation as today's food thoughts, the way we American's have been eating for too long, just sucks with a capital S.

As I work alone and happy, my mind races, and as I dig and process recent events, I'm always grateful for a physical challenge to divert my frustration, tensions and wall-to-wall work chore list of cooking, cleaning and laundry. Bo-ring.

"Cindy, we need you at the school, Paloma's not doing well," my cell phone blurted via an understated, calm assistant principal.

I'm never sitting around looking well turned out in casual sporty clothes, flipping idly through a fashion magazine. I'm usually muddy, with very honest garden dirt encasing my hands, my hair yanked up in a clip, no make-up, and work shoes. Never any time for a quick shower when I'm beckoned so I'll look halfway middle class, and my clothes are never hardly even suitable, barely presentable, but honey, I drop it all and run when summoned.

As usual - because Paloma'd been in a fight, she didn't like the consequences and had stormed off, wild, raging and furious. Good thing was it was then time to board the buses, bad thing was, she wasn't allowed to do so. Administrators and a coach were helping the bus driver prevent her from boarding as the rest of the startled middle schoolers watched.

Sweet Miss Ellen and some other six grade teachers got my other children, Lily, CW, JoJo, and Tony into the gym as a basketball game was going to start, while Allen somehow slipped by everyone and got on the bus, as did my granddaughter Blanca.

Chuy, bless his heart had wrestled Paloma down to the pavement, as I truly fear for the coach or the administrators to ever put their hands on her. Later, after some discussion, I'm gonna rescind that thought and allow it. If she assaults one of them, it's on her. There were more than enough witnesses to prevent false allegations from her.

Very afraid she'd run in front of the school buses that were leaving, Chuy was restraining her, Dr. W had already called the deputies, and they'd come roaring across the parking lot when they'd seen a guy (Chuy) obviously appearing to fight the girl who he didn't hit, didn't shove, but merely held her to the ground for her own safety. As a birth sibling, he is the only one that we know Paloma will not ever falsely accuse.

I quickly told the deputy he was a birth brother, fortunately it was a deputy I knew, who sized up the situation as he jumped out of his car. He yanked Paloma up, who was roaring and strongly fighting, slapping her in handcuffs and putting her in the back of the car while she blindly yelled at him.

He and the other deputy, a woman I didn't know (who Paloma took that opportunity to inform this lady that her own son cusses in class). Girl, you're the problem here, I thought in amazement, not the deputy's son, and I later learned from the deputy that she'd already heard the name Paloma regarding some classroom outbursts via her son who likely is a fine young man. Paloma just likes to hate folks.

DJJ was called and I was calling the counseling team, hoping for a 10-13 referral, get this child in a psych hospital, as I'd been aiming for now for way over a year.

DJJ said, "release her to her mother's custody," causing me to squawk to the deputy, "Gimme that phone," as I was outraged at the very thought, talked for a few minutes to the calm supervisor there who informed me that without an assault charge, she could not be detained. "But she's Jose's sibling," I protested, knowing he knew the level of violence possible there, but we got disconnected and I fretted he must think I'm mad, which I wasn't, and necessity demanded I had to tend to the situation at hand.

I'd been smacked on the forearm bone by Paloma as Chuy held her, pain shooting up my arm due to my fragile bones, and my osteopathic physician's words of last year reverberated through my mind, "You're just one more fistfight from a broken hip," as the years of constant battles have exacted a huge toll on me.

But Paloma had not meant to hit me, truly she had not...at least in that exact moment, and there was no way I could honestly bring assault charges. My gut told me that, I always go with my gut feeling, knowing that's God leading me in my walk. I will not stretch the truth.

The A.P. then took me aside and suggested, "I'm jes saying..." that maybe I should allow her to take a fall via Chuy and I backing off, "Do you hear what I'm saying, Cindy?' I was pointedly asked. Yep, I do.

Very surprisingly, over the next 30 minutes, while in handcuffs, Paloma calmed herself down. She'd been yelling she was still going to an event later, Middle School Madness. I knew better than to inflame her. The man with the gun bellowed, "No you're NOT!" and got away with it.

"Cindy, drive your van around here," the deputy ordered me, "She's gonna get in and act right."

I obeyed him, even though I didn't really believe him.

I'd been standing a little bit away from the situation, letting the other administrator write up the incident report, Chuy'd then gone into the basketball game, and I went to get my kids and the van, stopping to hug Miss Ellen and ask her to pray for safety for the rest of the evening as I know, from crappy experience, that Paloma targets folks. Other parents, arriving for the game, folks I know, had seen a little bit of all this before we'd taken it around to the back of the school, Lonnie and Molly giving me reassuring hugs that I value at times like these.

I don't know what Ellen prayed, or for how long, but it was truly successful. Paloma came home and acted exhausted, taking her meds without incident, prompting me to wonder if she has brain seizures that cause these rages...or do the rages cause seizures because when she's in these furies, there is NO getting through to her.

She was charged by the school and will have yet another court date. "Will I be on probation for even longer?" she later wailed in dismay and utter surprise.

Ya think?

The counseling team does understand what they're dealing with in this child.

She did not later prevent the rest of the middle schoolers from going to their Middle School Madness which, as it turned out, resulted in two of my large macho sons later sobbing in their respective beds. What the heck? That's another story, as was a conversation with Pepe earlier this week, or a visit from Edgar's old girlfriend and Miriam. That had been my initial blogging plans, maybe later.

My evening further disintegrated and ended with JoJo crying his eyeballs out because Miriam and Vanessa grew up and abandoned him. That's how he sees it. He sobbed as if his heart had split in two over losing them, plus Edgar and Fabian who also do not live with us. The painful layers of early trauma and abandonment show their angry suppressed heads at times and I held him while he convulsed with grief, blowing rivers of snot over on my shoulder and down my back.

My last thought, at midnight, when I finally got to calm down and try to sleep, involved Ellen's colleague, Karyn, who's fighting ALS, a woman who truly needs prayer for miracles, a mom of small children who JoJo'd recently cried hard over when she went out on medical leave, no longer able to teach. I tossed and turned thinking about her, thinking about my severely emotionally damaged children, and all the other truly sad and heart-breaking aspects of life on earth.

Lord have mercy, I'm so glad we have a God to turn to, we'd all be sunk without Him, even though we all understand so little in our finite minds, all of us struggling mightily to survive here on earth.

Homeless Leaves

It's probably no surprise that I'm not caught up in the Twilight movie fever, not seeing the movies, not reading the books, not caring at all, but that shouldn't give me any kinda supercilious attitude, the cool beans for me only involves my total lack of interest in pop culture. That I awaken in the night, fretting over sacks of leaves by the curb near downtown, shows the level of dorkiness to which I've happily sunk.

"Good thing you didn't go down there before dawn," cracked a kid of mine, "As you'd have been mistaken for some homeless person digging in the trash."

That's way true, not well dressed to haul leaves, surely no style-setter, and I later explained at supper, "'Bout those beer cans in the back of my truck..." City leaves have aluminum can additives apparently.

I swear they (the leaves) smiled at me when I got there, hoping they could leave the exhaust and low crime rate of a fairly small town in favor of rotting comfortably on someone's beloved garden.

Good to know that the head therapist on Jonathan's new team is a gardener as well, as he totally understood the answer when he asked me how I coped with it all.

Well duh.

I dig away all my frustrations, Thanksgiving is less than a week away, an opportunity for grown kids to majorly stress me out, I threatened to just mix me up a pitcher of margaritas and drink my way through the holidays, which only caused some grown confidants to hoot with laughter, knowing I was all big talk and no follow through, but the very thought of a stinky dead bird(s), white dinner rolls, and all the other trappings that simply do not appeal to me at all, makes me wanna hurl. Add to the mix the various attitudes, posturing, and acting out, and it's a dang wonder I just don't cower in the corner. But I'm way stronger than that.

I can't wait to be with my baby brother though, he's a fun guy, and will bring out even more immaturity in me.

He'll be 51 in January, and Grandma and Grandpa are gonna have their hands full with the two of us. Ain't neither of us gonna act right, why start now?

Vanessa and her friends came by for Mayra's birthday, one of her friends being the darling youngest daughter, now 21, of my own best friend, and we ended up cutting up last night and having a good ole time. Mary's known all my kids since they were very small, the Bubbas all now towering over her, very glad to see her, and an evening of goofiness was wonderful.

By next Thursday at 4 pm, we'll be down to just a few ratty leftover not scarfed down by the wild hogs that I'm raising, I'll then start stressing about Christmas, another holiday that sends me over the ledge, but knowing it puts me that much closer to spring, and this upcoming garden season should be the best ever as I've really been working on the soil. My goal is some 10-20 truckloads of manure. Imagine the $$$$ if I were buying the homogenized, sifted, purified malarky sold at garden centers, plus paying a gym membership to work my middle aged muscles, versus the free, open-air, unadulterated sweaty workout I get from shoveling horse manure. Can you say no-brainer?

"What is an electric can opener," I've been asked before by my children.

"Something else to get broken," is my stock reply, truly believing all these labor saving devices have ruined us Americans both physically and emotionally. There's nothing to do anymore. Joel Salatin espouses that the restrictive child labor laws, once very necessary and simply designed to prevent child labor abuse, have now evolved into lazy teens who only wanna go to skate parks or play Wii, versus those who'd bag groceries to earn money for a car.

I haven't even made a grocery list for Thanksgiving yet, not gonna fret until Monday or so, Lily volunteered to work on wheat biscuits to shut me up about refined white flour, Sarah always helps, heck - she's the kitchen backbone and boss - while I'll really loose my food police status and pig out if Yolie makes her peanut butter fudge delicacies, knowing I'll have to fight Sarah's husband for them since he's crazy about 'em.

Too Yummy

Sarah, of course, chose a favorite place to eat. So incredibly delicious, we semi-decided to make it an annual event, not her birthday itself, that's a given, but the locale at which to celebrate the fact that 40 just isn't that far off for her. Again, there's not much I don't like about growing older, the freedom from anxiety-producing bullcwap is amazing, as is the dropping of nonsense from our lives.

I'm loving it.

In sharp contrast, my handsome 14 year old son Chuy has an image to protect, still navigating the waters of peer pressure and competition that truly doesn't get anyone anywhere anyway. Who needs the anxiety? Thank God for the confidence to be who I am, no style beacon certainly - heck I still have macrame plant hangers from the 70s, versus trendy sleek Italian expensive pots.

Preoccupied with some new garden ideas, I almost didn't see some 12 loaded sacks of leaves sitting forlornly by the side of the road yesterday, but dadgum we were in the van, not my truck, as we had Sarah's children with us. I bounded out of bed at 4:44 this morning, literally thinking about running back to town to get them early before the kids got up as if leaving them would be a wise idea? Not so much.

Think, however, I'll dash outta here as soon as I drop the last one off at school.

My Big Back Garden is jam-packed with permaculture garden beds, no room for anymore, until I build the chicken moat and free up the original chicken yard area which should now be very rich soil. Why shouldn't I put perennials, such as strawberry beds and other bramble fruits, up in the Fruit orchard (duh) and free up more space closer to the house for the annual vegetables. Why did it take me 17 years of living here to figure that out? Mommy brain or what?

Finally, after fits and false starts, an insurance snafu, paperwork and processes, the newest mental health team for Paloma has been put together and is underway, and I totally adored the young, pretty woman who came by yesterday to explain it all to me. I love it when folks get it, just love it.

Edgar also came by, eating some leftovers, carelessly dousing them with my latest batch of Fire Hot Pepper Sauce, for some reason more potent than ever. Edgar has a notorious ability to withstand blazingly searing peppers, but this dose earned me a "12 thumbs up" of approval from him, a "you're more Mexican than any of us kids" and a text later that simply said, "Burning" as the aftertaste is physically impressive.

My parting shot to him, "Yeah, boy. You're gonna be screaming for Mama in the morning," leaving the rest of the bathroom details to his vivid imagination.

It is very good nuclear stuff, I just use it more sparingly than he did.

Last night of the Youth Led Revival Service and Martin, Sabrina and CW were all asking to attend, while I also got the rest of the kids to our church for Wednesday night services, evoking a big ole, "thanks Mom for making that happen," as CW said it'd been an amazing service.

I'd made a big restaurant serving stainless steel dish of lasagna, commercial weight, industrial size that barely fit into the oven. "Mom please don't put stuff in it,"JoJo had whined, wanting only the flat brown wide pasta I suppose? I'd added spinach, hot pepper and ricotta cheese, mushrooms galore and garlic-laden tomato sauce. I could hardly eat supper, still full from lunch, plus I'd had a delicious freshly baked from scratch raspberry chocolate cake while at The Grit.

Too yummy for words.

Claudia once mentioned that her site meter plummets during the good times, I'd checked and mine has too, by a couple hundred readers or site visits. I'm guessing that simply folks are not checking back for updates? My dream is to become totally boring, no live events, no play by play recounts of fights or deputy interventions - just long drawn out accounts of soil quality and produce weights - just me reasoning aloud here the mundane boringness of a past middle age woman's farming ventures where the ole bat rarely leaves the land, if the kids wanna see me, they gotta wander around the acres hollering, "Mama?" until they find me up with my sweet hens, in the second meadow, on my knees, digging in my beloved dirt.

Look At ME Having Fun

Social butterfly that I'm not, I'm rarely invited to parties, even more unusual is the chance to attend, as getting a babysitter for a rather rambunctious lot of kids who've been known to grab a knife in a fight, is no glossy minimum wage job opportunity.

Not that I could even pay anyone anything.

My teenagers were insistent upon attending a Youth Led Revival hosted at a Baptist church this week and I'd literally been too tired to take them the first two nights after manure hauling several tons or so. Last night I dropped ten of them off, taking Jonathan and Scotty to town for their soccer championship party at a pizza place where I absolutely had a blast with some of the parents. It was really fun and this isn't just coming from a virtual shut-in who got to stay out past dark last night.

Lily had her final knitting class, she and Sarah'd been taking lessons as I can crochet, but not knit, so asking Grandma to babysit the remaining three young, good kids wasn't a very big deal. I DVR Grandma's favorite show, Dancing With the Stars, to entertain and entice her over to our side of the house.

I literally had to drag myself away from the party, Jonathan wanting to nut up because I wouldn't let him drink chemical laden poison (sodas), yet allowed him unlimited pizza. This after I'd already cooked supper for everyone at home earlier. Jonathan got a grip and very surprisingly offered to go get me a piece of cheese pizza from the buffet, so I could sit with the folks I was apparently having fun with.

One bite of the cheese pizza that I'd graciously thanked him for, made me wonder if it had been sitting near the meat ones, as something appeared off to me. Oh well, it was the gentlemanly gesture from Jonathan that had been remarkable, and I really wasn't hungry anyway.

Paloma had truly bonked out earlier, making us all late for our eventual destinations. Angry over me making her shovel out the piles of crap in her room, she unreasonably and viciously berated Mayra for nothing. We tried ignoring Paloma who only upped her crazy inner ante, threatening to tear up the house and hit Mayra. We all walked away, her birth brother Chuy was very, very pissed off, and I got the other children to just calm down.

Within 15 or so minutes, we got a slight apology from Paloma and our evening resumed...after I counter-offered with a non-negotiable point. Take your bedtime meds early, knowing it'd make her just drowsy enough to either choose to go with me, or the meds would make her behave more subdued at the other church. Mission accomplished, disaster averted.

The biggest surprise of the evening, besides all of us staying out fairly late on a school night (nine p.m.), was the fact that JoJo went up for the altar call at the revival, crying his eyeballs out over his own conscience, knowing how terribly aggressive, violent and disruptive he's been for several years.

I was truly shocked when he later told me all this, my usual bristling guard involved, "Son you've lived with me for ten years and now you wanna get it together?" I asked incredulously and suspiciously, as I've been done this long road many times.

"I'm sorry mom," he blubbered. "Can you get saved more than once?"

"It's called recommitment stupid," my insensitive but intelligent Chuy blurted, ready for bed, forgetting to set the mouse traps.

Knowing how hard life is, how many battles we will all fight and how many we'll lose, only to get up again and keep on keeping on, I gave JoJo the very short version of my usual lecture about needing God within us. He knows it, he's sat in Sunday School, church and youth group for most of his impressionable young years. We both know he'll mess up, straighten up, falter, balk, fall down, jump up and go on.

"Just keep your heart right JoJo," I hugged him, we all went to bed and I could hear him and Allen talking in their room way past bedtime. Their older birth sister, Vanessa, had just called and even in her own young adult rebellion, she was happy for JoJo, glad that's he's making an effort to act better overall.

Yep. he does look like Edgar. "Call him up and tell him, Mom"

I Feel It Coming On

The good thing about all these birthdays this week is that I generally take kids to lunch and clothes shopping (new clothes like at Rugged Wearhouse), knowing gratefully that they share clothes with each other, and that 90% of their wardrobe came from donated bags, Goodwill, or yard sales.

Almost everyone in the house right now, including Big Mama, is in the 115-130 pound weight range. Everyone, but Tabby, Nando and Jack. Weird, huh? 13 of us are nearly the same size.

JoJo invented a song this morning about living on beans, flatulence, taking a dump, stinking up the house, and happiness. He belted it out at the top of his lungs. Thank you Lexapro. Just 5 mg. did the trick with that child of mine. Oh, you're so very welcome that I did not take a picture of his bathroom antics.

Today I'm taking Mayra and Chuy out together and they get to choose where to eat, after they get credit for a half day at school. They want the China buffet which I don't like, all cheap oil, MSG, and nasty smells of greasy dead chickens. I'd so much prefer Agua Linda, Las Brisas or La Parilla, but it's not my day.

Tomorrow I'll take Sarah out who really knows how to eat right.

Talking with my 20 year old yesterday, she's a pretty young lady with ten tons of mental and emotional disabilities, it's really heartbreaking, and her adolescence just about did me in, but nowadays we've worked out our relationship. She lives in Atlanta, but calls often. I sent her some money, but also want to scoot over to the icky big city and take her out to eat soon.

Theresa blogged about kids like ours moving out correctly, if they ever can do so, and The Adoption Counselor covered the sadness of FASD in the work force. If nothing else, my judgemental attitude has been reshaped after 20 plus years of frustrations, I've learned some empathy, but overall the hopelessness is just so simply sad, and there's some very tough years ahead for children who've been so damaged.

Dreading today's shopping trip, Chuy'll be easy, this isn't his idea of fun either, Mayra's gonna girl stress me out, this I already know.

The owner of the used game store laughed at my total inability to dawdle, "You sure know what you want," he cracked, "I hardly have time to get you rung up before you're busting out the door."

Well duh, I don't browse, I don't give a flip about what all there is to buy, just lemme get what the boys sent me in there for...I didn't say. I just smiled and said, "Well, thank you, honey."

I read seed catalogs cover to cover. I immediately recycle any other dumb catalogs that still have the nerve to show their tree-wasting face in my mailbox, calling the companies, begging them to stop sending me crap, if I wanna order something I could look on-line, which I'm not gonna do anyway, but I need these folks to STOP so I throw 'em a bone.

I have to get my U12 boys to a soccer celebration tonight, and my middle schoolers and high schoolers have asked to go to a Youth Revival at a nearby Baptist Church that they know is a big social event. I just hope I can stay up til 9 to go pick 'em back up.

When life is this good, as it's been lately, I sleep hard, making up for the previous years of insomnia.

I think I can be bold and speak up here. I'm expecting our family tide to turn for the better. We've endured some very tough years, and life is made up of peaks and valleys...time for an upswing and I feel it coming.

I'm trying to keep my head screwed on tight regarding the upcoming holidays that I don't care about anyway. When my kids are grown, I'm a gonna just breeze on through December, choosing to take a disappearing trip that time of the year for the rest of my life, and I sure cannot wait to do so. See ya. Wouldn't wanna be ya, I've so done my time.

Money & Clutter

I truly do check here each Monday, loving the fact that a nearby county publishes it's Leaf & Limb pick-up, telling gardeners where they can go find already bagged leaves to tote home for leaf mold, compost, mulch and/or earthworm vittles. I found dozens of bags today, filled up my truck, got coffee grounds, and 100 mismatched bricks from a brick company. I'm expanding the garden beds, willing to pay almost-sticker price for bricks, knowing they'll outlast the house. I still have all my original bricks that've moved twice before I bought this house in 1993.

I only go leaf-hunting in nearby neighborhoods, I'm not gonna waste gas or my time traipsing around.

My antique roses are still blooming and I sure wish I'd had time, years ago, to remember the names of those I'd planted. One today was heart-stoppingly fragrant. It really doesn't take much to make me happy.

I stood up there like a dork, planning next year's garden beds, never remembering which crops shouldn't follow each other, hardly remembering what I'd planted where this year, really just dilly dallying in the very warm sunshine, thankful I'm retired, glad that all my kids go to school, freeing me up each day.

This week is full of birthdays, Alex is 20 now, Mayra 16, Chuy 14, Tabby 7 and Sarah turns 36 this week alone. Y'all want Krispy Kreme? I'll barf if I have to see another sheet cake.

My mind today thinking hard about two blogs I adore, one of them reviewing a book the other one wrote. These statements in particular resonated, "I link to Unclutterer frequently because I believe there is a strong connection between clutter and financial problems, since clutter represents having more physical possessions than you can manage and all of those possessions cost money. Plus, dealing with clutter requires a time investment and in our busy lives, time has a very high value.

Amen.

The next fifty years for me will be all about food. Producing and preserving, gardening and simplicity... equals joy and happiness.

Bring it on.

No Better Subject More Deserving

As much as I blab away here, in real life, I generally keep my emotions in check, really hating to ever cry in public, but yesterday's church service 'bout tore me up. It was a water baptism event, and folks give their testimonies. One couple told their story together, in which the wife's parents, who were both clergy, had committed suicide together on an Easter Sunday after church some 12 years ago, how the husband had overcome a painkiller addiction, and that their marriage had finally survived all this, all contributed to an intense time. The congregation, including my group of teenagers, was glued to the speakers.

I talked to my kids later, who are just like me in that we simply think our family is off the charts in terms of issues and challenges, yet we have absolutely no clue regarding the sufferings and problems of others, so wrapped up are we in our own continuing drama.

Surprisingly both Paloma and JoJo, who rarely even have a civil conversation with each other, teamed up with me and we worked all afternoon, only getting three more mongo truckloads of manure, hardly making a dent in our needs, but making me happy as a pig in a poke.

JoJo, our resident family clown, who feels it's his personal responsibility to entertain a Type A choleric workhorse like me, flung himself down on the ground between the barns at the horse farm, flopping like a beached whale too far from an ocean, where other horsey-type folks were grooming their beautiful horses, in contrast to this raggedy ole woman who was way more interested in their horse's by-products. Mmmmm, mixed with wood shavings, hay and straw, I was one happy fall gardener.

Paloma and I wisely ignored JoJo, we just kept shoveling, and he rejoined us, later shedding his shirt in his 12 year old, seventh grade attempt at hotness, or so he claimed, prancing, clowning and acting the fool as he's wont to do on all occasions. Truly I don't mind. It beats the tarnation out of his previous attempts at violence. He's taking Depakote, which has curbed much of his aggressiveness, allowing the funny side of him to take over.

"Mom, these folks must think you've hired Mexicans to work for you," he hollered loudly for all to hear.

I stopped shoveling, since I was working the hardest. "Right, and you're calling me mom while I'm doing all the work. Guess I got a raw deal in your imaginary transaction." Plus I'd just got sucked in to his silliness.

Jack and Nando, wanting to step up to the plate like the big boys, shoveled from the truck to my wheelbarrow. I'm so particular about where each load goes, how deep, how it should be spread, that the kids wander off, leaving me to do some right heavy lifting all alone, which I so don't mind, knowing within five years or so I'll finally be all alone, to get it all done by myself which in no way daunts me at all.

We took the third load of the day to Grandma's gardens, which are large and productive, especially when you factor in her age. She was thrilled at the load, but she's also gonna need a lot more this winter to be hauled for her.

We caught yet another mouse, bathed a big elderly yard dog, I fried up individual corn tortillas to wrap around black beans and brown rice with grated hot pepper cheese, guacamole, sour cream, and topped with Fire Hot Pepper Sauce. Chuy ate THIRTEEN. Pure shock as they're huge servings and he's not that big of a fourteen year old. Three can fill me up and I'm a pretty big eater. Chuy sat at the counter, as I fried for over an hour in my huge black cast iron skillet, prompting the Bubbas applause and respect. I know that boy must've had to sleep on his back lat night what with that bulging tummy.

All that wheelbarrow hauling and shoveling knocked me out by 9:30 last night, my whole house was blessedly quiet.

"Mom, why do you work on the Sabbath?" CW asked me.

"Honey, this ain't work," I smiled back at him, while busting my butt. "This is fun!" And there's been no better subject more deserving of an exclamation mark than when one is involved in gardening/farming.

So Tempting

The temptation to miss church, to just skip one day, is looming over me. Another 75 degree day is seductively dawning and beckoning me to just haul manure. Is it self-discipline or habit that makes me go do what I should do? I dunno. I'm going to church, and lunch will be fast sandwiches, as I'm fired up about getting the manure hauled, knowing even several truckloads will barely make a dent in what all I need.

For years and years I either had babies, toddlers, or those whose bizarre, anti-social, disruptive behaviors demanded diligence and vigilance so much so that I rarely ate or even absorbed enough oxygen. Nowadays I feel totally free in comparison. The second aspect of my freedom involves the simple fact that I've not added any new kids in five years nor do I ever plan to do so. Never ever underestimate what adopting new children will do to the already shaky dynamics in an adoptive family.

JoJo hiding in the corner, behind his blanket, actually chose to vacuum at 6:30 yesterday morning, all around where they wallow and play computer games, surprising me tremendously, and later every single kid wanting to help outside was particularly rewarding.

Grandpa has a very small trailer attachment that can hook up to the lawn tractor, speeding up the manure hauling, and Martin woke up early this morning begging to be the driver of that contraption after church today. I contrarily prefer the wheelbarrow for several reasons, not wanting to burn fuel other than my own, knowing if I don't use it I'll lose it, and certain I'll sleep so much better after expending energy all day outside.

I'd told Chuck on his 30th birthday, after the next 30 years passed, I'll be 85 and he'll have to keep watching out his windows to make sure I don't wander off, as his house is situated down by my gates. 30 years flies, this I already know as Sarah will be 36 this coming Saturday. 36 years ago I had no kids and weighed 152 pregnant pounds before I delivered this only child I'd ever birth. I was then waddling along and fussing about being so ungainly, not having a clue this would, by far, be my easiest child to raise, although Daniel ended up being a very close second.

The kids were in school Friday so Grandpa, Grandma and I sat in the yard after working all day in the gardens. Even Grandpa with his Pulmonary Fibrosis had been wielding tools and cutting back the Brugmansia. For a few minutes there it was like it had been back in 1954 when there were only the three of us, after I'd been born in Atlanta, then a small, backwards Southern town, my brother soon to join us as we're just 16 months apart in age.

So yeah, what parent doesn't realize that time flies?

I can't take my gardens to Heaven, but I'm sure trying to take my kids with me, time to go get everyone dressed for church.

Every time I pick peppers, I'm sure it's the last time as I keep expecting a frost. Every quart of Fire Hot Pepper Sauce I freeze, I expect it to be the last. Jack with orange stamps all over himself, toted in yesterday's batch.

Cappuchino Brownies

Sarah made them, and blogged, not me.

That Barn

"Mom, today was really, really fun," Jack told me at supper.

Yeah it was. All of us outside working on stuff all day long, exactly how I like my life to be.

Warm by 9 in the morning, we didn't even have to wait for the sun to get very high overhead, Yolie brought the kids up to play, treading carefully between the front yard and the meadow where the deluge rainfall event has made one whale of a mud pit that I really thought I'd be able to drive my truck, while loaded with pretty fresh manure, easily through.

Mae Mae tiptoed delicately, being oh so very careful, when she slipped and landed on her butt in the mud, a prelude to the rest of the day, where she totally earned being named Cindy Mae after a piglet like me.

Leaving Yolie to referee, Chuy and I headed to a nearby barn where one of the prettiest girls from the middle school was mucking out a stall. Initially embarrassed at having to shovel what she wheelbarrowed to the pile, he simply decided to flex his muscles in the hot sun and look good while loading up my truck.

"Dang Chuy, she's cleaning a stall. What do you have to be self-conscious about?" He ignored me.

Getting back home, I floored it to get through the mud, but failed. "Oops, let's unload first," I brightly suggested, as we hauled this wonderfully fragrant manure up to the newest asparagus beds and all over the shredded leaves of yesterday, tucking it around figs and in other waiting garden beds.

Still a no go regarding my beloved truck. Shoveling around the wheels didn't help, and I noticed someone had idiotically removed every tire valve cover from every single tire on my truck, probably to put on bikes, or something equally as vital in their lives.

Well, crap. Standing there, burning daylight, I'd hoped to get several loads of manure, the upper meadow's gonna need some dozen truckloads it appeared.

"Mom's gross," Tattletale Tony reported to everyone, "She's up there spreading it with her hands."

Well duh, I ain't no sissy and I want it exactly so. Real women don't wear gloves.



Chuck'd just sold his jeep earlier this week so I tried calling Daniel, as if he was gonna leave his tailgating parties from the UGA-Auburn Game. Not very likely. Maybe if I were stuck miles away, but not just because I was stuck in my own front field.

"Stuck on campus, maybe tomorrow," he pretty much ignored me, knowing his jeep was back at his house anyway.

We kept digging and carrying on, getting nowhere. JoJo gave me a piggyback ride for some unknown reason, galloping around the meadow, and eventually Chuck saved the day with his four wheel drive truck and a chain to drag my butt out of the mud. We tore up the meadow.

Tomorrow after church, I hear that same barn calling my name. All that manure, so little time.