Spring arrives

Forsythia

I had the camera out today and decided to take some
 pictures around the yard of signs of spring.

Lilac

Burning Bush

Just about everything has started to bud.

My babies and what a great stepdaddy can do

I have two beautiful, wonderful, amazing children.  My darling daughter, Jessica, is newly 16.  And my precocious son, Liam, is 10.  I have been divorced from their father for 8 years now.  The marriage was not a good one.  And while I will be the first to say that most marriages probably end with no one person at fault, I don't think that was the case in mine.  I don't say this because I think I am perfect.  But, I tried.  I tried so very hard to make it better.  I simply made a bad choice at the tender age of 19 and had to pay for it.  I stayed for two main reasons - I have a very strong aversion to admitting to failure and I knew divorce would mean giving my kids to a man who had done nothing to deserve them every other weekend.  As it was, he was never around.  He spent every free moment at some friends' houses drinking or smoking pot.  He was an alcoholic and a pot head.  Now, I am not a saint.  I have drank before.  I rarely did while I was married to him, but there were times I indulged.  I have no problem with drinking - in moderation.  But the idiot to which I was married had been charged with multiple DUI's and had an extreme lack of self regulation when it came to drinking.  As far as the pot goes, I've never done it.  Never saw the need.  Never was offered.  Never wanted to.  Add to that, it's illegal and it's the reason he was kicked from the Marine Corps whilst I was 7 months pregnant, and I had very little reason to believe it was a substance he needed to use.  He knew my thoughts on all this before we married and lied to me.  He covered things up and hid them from me.  My babies and I were never his first thought.  Every evening after work was spent watching tv and telling the kids to "go bother your mother" or staying "late at work" smoking a joint.  Weekends, the kiddos and I spent with my parents or my sister.  So, see.  He had very little interaction with the kids while we were married.  But, when it all finally came to a head and he found a woman that would allow him to drink and smoke at home, divorce was inevitable.  And now, I had to deal with a fool that wanted his kids only because of how he would look to others if he didn't take them.  And to take some control from me.

With a dad like that, the kiddos could have become little hellions.  Hateful little snots who he turned against me with his vitriol of abuse spewed to them but never to me since he is a coward.  But, no.  My babies are grounded.  They love me as deeply as I love them.  They know I will not lie to them as their father has.  I didn't tell them he was lying.  They learned it through his actions.  They trust me.  And so, when I met and married the love of my life, they accepted him and have learned to love him as well.  Now they have a stepdaddy that thinks of them before himself.  A stepdaddy that wants them to be happy and healthy and most of all good.  A stepdaddy that has shown my baby girl what a good father is like and my munchkin boy what a good man does.  I want to thank the universe in its inevitable wisdom for bringing me this man who accepts me and my screwiness and loves our babies as if they had always been his.  My Michael.  My Husband.

The NCAA Championship to a non follower in Bleed Blue Nation

The NCAA tournament started yesterday, which brought about the inevitable office pools and bracketology.  It is of course a full time job here in Wildcat Country where if you don't bleed blue, then you must be a traitor from Da 'Ville.  I am neither, but that is hard for many to understand.  Oh, I have a soft spot for UK.  It was almost my Alma mater and I love Kentucky.  But, I do not follow the team - basketball or football - during the regular season.  And when I have something better to do, I do not sit glued to my TV watching the silly team almost lose the game before finally winning or losing spectacularly.  And it seems that no matter who the coach, that is what the Wildcats do.  I have seen games coached by Pitino, Tubby, the most recent disappointment Billy, and now Coach Cal.  No matter who it is, if you watch, the game will send you into fits of apoplexy.  While I enjoy the games when I watch them, I do not follow them.  I do not paint my naked body blue and run around screaming C-A-T-S!  And I do not put them on my bracket as the winners of the NCAA championship unless the coin tells me to.  That's right, I said the coin.  Whilst the inevitable bracket is passed out each March, I am patiently flipping a coin to determine who will win each game.  I have found that the coin is as accurate a predictor as the most avid basketball follower.  This year, the coin predicted the triumph of Morehead (another KY team) over Louisville.  I see this as proof that the universe has a sense of humor and all we lonely earthlings can do is laugh along.

Green Eggs and Ham

I had some great green eggs and ham for brunch today.  My first thought when I saw this on the menu at Doodles was "Basil in eggs?  Doesn't usually work, but what the hell."  And, it did in this dish in the form of pesto.  Add a little spinach and mozzarella and the eggs were the best scrambled eggs I've ever had at a restaurant.  It helped that they were moist and flavorful.  Not dry like I usually get them when eating out. 
And the ham!  I have eaten many a slices of country ham.  (For those who don't know, country ham is what we call the salt cured ham that is offered as an alternative to that sweet city ham junk.) I love the stuff.  I have it every Thanksgiving and Christmas and eat it for months after.  But, what I have had in the past was thickly sliced.  It was the only way I thought you could slice country ham.   This ham was sliced so thin it was like picking it up at a deli and it changed the taste and texture of the ham in such an amazing way.  It nearly melted in my mouth.  Slicing it so thinly seemed to dilute some of the saltiness without taking away the wonderful flavors of country ham.
Finally, the biscuits.  Every time I eat at Doodles, I get the biscuits.  They ask if I want toast or biscuits and I never hesitate.  I don't even want to try the toast.  Those biscuits crumble while melting.  They quench my thirst instead of giving me dry mouth.  Slather some of the local blackberry jam on the biscuit and you experience heaven. 
To top it all off, I washed my wonderful brunch down with my very first bellini.  This meal was so much of enough, I haven't eaten anything else for fear I might erase the flavors from my memory.

Some fun with the camera

I bought myself a new camera a few weeks ago.  I have been wanting an SLR type camera for forever.  Every time I downloaded pictures of important moments taken with my little point and shoot I was disappointed.  Every movement was blurred.  Faces were fuzzy.  Color was off.  So, I finally broke down and bought a Canon.  And I am loving it.  I took the camera to my husband's MMA gym this last weekend and got some great shots.

My husband sparring

Jessamyn Duke - Top 20 Amateur

And now some color.

Who am I

I have another blog on which I write about my adventures as a gardener/farmer.  But there is so much more to me than that.  When I feel the need to write about something other than my gardening,  I have no appropriate venue in which to record my thoughts.  This got me to thinking about how simple my life is - I eat , I sleep, I love, I work - and yet how much more complex than that I am.  I am unique.  No one else in the world is like me.  Don't worry, I'm not self aggrandizing here.  Everybody is unique.  Some may try to hide their oddities in order to fit in with a social group, to be accepted by others.  But, honestly, there is no one else out there just like me.  Or you.  Or her.  Or him.  If I'm wrong, I invite you to let me know.
Some of my uniqueness- I am the daughter of a 20 year Marine.  I was conceived in Kentucky, born in Virginia, and spent the first twenty years of my life wandering the globe - Okinawa, Hawai'i, California to name a few.  I married a Marine who was a piss poor excuse for one.  I stayed married to that fool even after he was discharged from the Marine Corps less than honorably.  I divorced him eight years later, however, for the same things that caused his disgrace in service.  I have a daughter and a son.  I have a wonderful husband.  My parents still refuse to settle down having moved to Belgium.  I have settled in my family's home state.  I have a sister and a brother.  I am the eldest of three.  I love accounting.  My husband does not love his job and would love to go back into social work.  I want to be a foster/adoptive parent but will have to wait until my own are out of the house.  According to my husband, that would be best for their well-being and safety. 
I am anti-social.  That doesn't mean I sit on the computer or holed up in my house all day.  I go out.  I speak to people.  But, with a combination of my anxiety in groups and the social awkwardness enhanced by a childhood consisting of moving every couple of years, I don't like to mingle with people.  That may be why I find the concept of blogging so appealing. I can throw my thoughts out there and see if they catch like minded people.  I don't do well at hiding my oddities to fit in.  So I choose to flaunt them and see what happens.  This approach managed to catch me the love of my life.  This is another reason I am writing a second blog.  I tend to post the farming blog on Facebook.  I don't have many friends on Facebook, but those I do are all people I know to some degree or another.  But outside of accepting family and my husband, those friends don't know a whole lot about the real me.  I don't want to throw it out to them.  If they happen upon it, so be it.  But I will not shove their faces into it.  I am who I am.  I will not change this.  But I do have to make concessions in order to function in this world.
I have a strong anxiety involving making phone calls.  It is difficult to explain.  I have tried.  Even my mother, who suffers from this same anxiety a bit, doesn't understand completely.  She has managed to overcome it enough to make phone calls daily at work.  I know I need to pick up the phone.  I know it won't hurt me to talk to another person.  I know I really could care less what they think of me.  But, I find every reason in the world to procrastinate until it is no longer necessary.
There is quite the list of oddities in my family tree.  Grandmothers who suffered from manic depression-possibly & agoraphobia.  Ornery and mean great grandfather.  Alcoholism.  Resignation.  I make it all sound horrible.  But my family life has always, with the exception of the 8 years with the dreaded ex, been wonderfully happy.  Ups and downs, here and there.  But all in all, I good simple life...of complexity.
I have many, varied interests.  I have always wanted to be an author.  I love to read.  Hiking is a passion I rarely get a chance to indulge.  I love needlework.  I look forward to every spring when I am able to till the earth and stick my hands in dirt to grow some new life for the dinner table.  I love swimming.  I grew up around the ocean, but have lived so very far from it for fifteen years.  I would swim all day long if possible, but my asthma precludes that wish.  The lungs just don't like to hold the air in that long.  I have been a Cub Scout leader and enjoyed it so much , I would love to continue even though my son has moved on to Boy Scouts.  History is the field I thought I would go into when I started college so long ago.  But it ended up being numbers and I have no complaints. 
I am as white as white can be with European ancestors I can trace back hundreds of years.  But I really don't understand what that means.  I am American.  Plain and simple.  I was American when I lived in Okinawa and all my friends were either natives or other military BRATs-white, black, mixed, Asian, blue, yellow.  I never thought there was a difference among us due to skin color.  It was adulthood that taught me how others felt. 
This is me.  But such a small piece of me.  It has taken 35 years for me to know myself as well as I do.  How can I expect another to know me half so well.  I guess all anybody really wants is acceptance of who they are.  I find there are few who accept me completely as I am.  Or maybe I just choose to be careful who I show all of myself to.  This blog is my attempt to show the world who I am.  My sending of myself into the cosmos.  Take me as I am or don't take me at all.  I am finally comfortable with me.