I don't even know what to call this post

Todays post will make little sense but just all the thoughts running through my head in no particular order..i'll call it a rant and off chesting of sorts..

There are times in our lives when we do not know how to react to people. When they say things to you that are so mean and hurtful you in one of those rare moments in life fall silent waiting.. hoping.. that they will realize what they just said to you and see how assholish it actually sounded.

But sadly no, most times they don't. It's not even 10am and already I have experienced this today. Someone said something to me by all accounts hurt me to the core and yet kept talking like they'd said nothing wrong.. How does one respond? 

I used to be a person that would call people out on thier bullshit quite promptly but after years of having my displeasure turned back on me I have given up, I say nothing and keep it in.. that is until I get on the phone with Sheila, THEN and only then do I get to say whats going on in my mind to a person who I know never judges me, never thinks I'm over reacting and even if she does she points it out in a way that is not condescending or hurtful. She listens to me and I her.
 This is why she is my best friend. 
I notice over many years friendships change. People take others for granted, expect them to take whatever you dish out and continue on your merry way. 

Last week I removed 56 people off my facebook. Why? Well quite simply this.. I dont need to see a friends list compiled of 400 friends to make me feel like i have friends. What I rather is a list of 99 and of them 20 I talk to and the rest I enjoy seeing what they post. 

I dont know how anyone can keep up with the goings on of that many people and not be emotionally and mentally exausted after reading it all, not to mention you may miss out on the stuff that matters to someone who matters cause you are caught up in a million daily posts.
I have found this to be true. I have posted things that were incredibly important and yet, overlooked.
Then people wonder why they dont know whats going on.

Electronic overload..

If people spent half as much time with thier kids as they do on thier phones, computers, tv etc.. we may have more well rounded children.
I know my girls are on thier electronics alot but it irks me to no end to see mothers and fathers of young children with thier hands on those beloved phones non stop..more than the average teenager..thats brutal.. who is really that important that you cannot put the damn thing down?
I sometimes see this and want to say "hey! You, mom/dad, why dont you shut your phone off and enjoy your children you claim to love so much instead of texting away like theres no tomorrow. Those people can wait, your kids will be grown soon.

Now on to trust..
You ever feel like you have people you cannot trust? Like every word you say to them is shared with someone else. When you text them you feel like actually saying hi to the person you are sure is being shown your messages just for the shock factor of, yeah I know you are showing it to them..You can figure this out easily because the other person cannot keep stuff to themselves and randomly out of the blue starts talking about a subject you were talking to someone else about.. 
Those are ah-ha moments. When you realize even though they swore that your conversation was just between you that it was shared. It truly makes you pull back from the original person and tell them very little.. unless of course you want it shared.
This happened to me for awhile I would talk to one person about something and then low and behold someone they know would try to bring up a subject similar to it..the next day or two days later.. huh. Next topic of conversation, im not playing that game. This doesnt sit well with noseys.. when you wont engage.

Kids: I love my kids but lately here they drive me crazy.. the fighting non stop, the back talk, and general messiness of their rooms is driving me to drink.
All the while I am listening to what all I can do and should do for them when they cant do one simple tyhing like pick up a damn plate... I'm going to go on strike in awhile here and see what happens while I am not able to do what I do everyday. THEN they will figure it out.

Well, now my coffee is empty and I need another and got to get to doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

Reason's I am the way I am.. In detail, no holds barred. be warned

Before you read this I need to warn you.. I do not want sympathy. I want understanding to my behaviors in the last year or 2.. that is all. 

Lately people have questioned why I am moody, and not nice and generally don't really care to much for people's feelings.. Well.. the short answer..there is no short answer.
This will likely be my longest and most insightful blog as to who I am on the inside, so hold on to your seats, it's going to be a bumpy ride...

Lets flashback about 4.5 years, it's really when nice Chanda began her retreat behind her personal wall of protection.
I was living a decent life, 3 kids, a house a husband a dog.. you know the proverbial fairytale.. but was it?
Hardly. I was miserable. I had a husband that rarely noticed I was in the room. My hair could be on fire and he'd barely look up from his computer.
 I was struggling with depression and really had no one to turn to but one friend ( i'll get to her later.. she was no friend) I was sick and I knew it, I knew something was not right so off to the doctor I went. 
Turns out I had a problem with my thyroid. I knew something had been wrong for some time, I was losing weight at a rapid rate, my hair was falling out, I had no energy and no emotion for anything. I was a shell of a woman being pumped full of medication to fix what ailed me.. and still did not help.

I started having severe pain in my abdomen all the time, back to the doctor to see why.. no answers, off to a specialist.. finally he decided he wanted to do some tests, but this would wait. I found out about this time the reason my husband was so busy on the computer was so he could spend time with his "friend" he met at work.. she was married as well..needless to say that was the end of my marriage then and there, I asked him to move out that day and I became a truly single mom although I had felt for over a year I was anyways.

He left and I started my tests, these went on for about 7 months before they decided they wanted to do a punch biopsy in my uterus to test me because one test came back with not desirable results.

All through this I leaned on my friend, I contemplated taking back my husband and forgiving him and giving a go at working on our marriage. She spent a lot of time convincing me that it was a bad idea, I was better off without him, if he cheated on me once he would do it again.. wow was she ever right.. and she knew it.. as SHE was starting a relationship with him. 
Doing what I think is possibly the most heinous, unthinkable, unforgivable act one person can do to someone they call a friend. 
Suddenly it all came back to me how she basically had emulated every other thing about me, my hair, my style of dress, my hobbies, everything..why not my husband too and yes he was still my husband although we were separated. 

All I ever heard from him was how I was all he wanted and needed. Then what was he doing with that skank?. 
Well... once I showed my displeasure her and her mother ( yes a grown woman sicking her mommy on me) turned me into the villan in this.. how dare I be mad at that? It's perfectly acceptable to carry on behind someones back with your spouses friend right? I mean apparently. The harassment over this went on for well over 2 years.

The day after I found out about my so called friend and my husband I got results from the biopsy, they had found I had what they called pre-cancerous cells a very small area on the lining of my uterus, these could be removed easily but that didn't make it any easier to deal with.
 I thought for a time that it really couldn't get any worse..I wanted to die.. literally.

Thankfully I did have a friend who while I had not known for long I felt I could trust to speak freely to.. I am happy to say this rock, this pillar of strength is still to this day my most cherished dearest best friend in the whole world. She has saved my life more times than she even knows.
I had found a new circle of friends and people I became close to and felt I could trust and start a new life of healthy relationships and leave the bad in the past. 

These were the people I now called my close friends. I told them things I would never admit to anyone, I cried in front of them, shared my fears and in return expected only the same. 

All through my health issues which seemed one after another I had another devastating blow.
 I found that one of the people I cared for and called a friend was not who they claimed at all.. everything but their name was a big lie. 
How do you recover entirely from that? You don't even if you try you can never trust them again.
  This person had lied about everything about them, what they did, how their life was, who they were as far as a person. This hurt me so badly I didn't know what to do anymore.

I finally found the strength inside me to forgive my husband and take him back and it was a struggle, between trust issues and my health and the day to day running of a household, but you know I have to tell you all through it.. my kids and my best friend were what kept me from ending it all on several occasions.

In 2010 I was rushed to the hospital with severe pain that they thought was my appendix, it was not. Scar tissue from my c section had built up and attached itself to my ovaries and colon and needed to be surgically removed, so another surgery for me.

I recovered from this and sometimes I stand after a bath or shower and look at myself in the mirror and I see all my scars from surgeries I've had and I am reminded I survived them, I survived the breast lumps, the c sections, the laproscopic surgery to remove the scar tissue... they are my badges.. now though I prepare once more for a big one. Its the scars you can't see on the outside that cause me the real pain, the scars on my heart.

4 days before Christmas of 2011 I reached my breaking point I found myself sitting alone in my bathroom surrounded by every bottle of medication I had in the house and being I was in so much pain there were some heavy duty pain killers and depression meds at hand, enough to likely kill an elephant. 

I sat on the floor looking at them all, feeling like I really had nothing left to lose. I felt I was no use to my children, my friends, or my husband the way I was. 
I was crying and opening the bottles. 
My step father was over visiting and in my mind this was the time to just do it. He was there for the kids, he could take care of it. He always took care of everything...Jamie was at work and I was just tired of hurting emotionally, physically, mentally. My life flashed before my eyes..my horrid childhood, my teenage years, the past years that were still fresh in my mind. All the betrayal I had endured and the feeling of hopelessness was strong. I sat there for more than 20 minutes piled all the pills into one pile and was ready to go and then it occurred to me what i was doing.. |I was not thinking clearly. I know how suicide affects a person from my own experience. How could I do this to my children? I would ruin thier lives more than I was as I was. This was permanent and in my own mind set I was sure since I was such a failure I would probably not do it right and end up a vegetable.
I poured all the pills in the toilet and flushed them and left the bathroom, I walked straight to my stepfather and told him what happened and asked him to take me to the hospital because i needed help before I hurt myself. He took me and I got the help I needed thankfully.

All through these years this pain never went away it just got worse, there were days I couldnt get out of bed. Finally I was diagnosed 2 years ago with endometriosis.. there's no cure, it spreads. There are treatments but after 2 years of them nothing has been truly effective..which leaves us with this.. a hystorectomy. Ok I'm ready for it. BUT.. I'm scared, terrified actually that what if this doesn't fix it? What if it just starts a whole new ball of problems? What if I don't survive the surgery.

The final hurt in my life came a few days after Christmas of 2011.. my grandfather, them one man I could always always count on, who raised me as his own had a stroke. I was helpless to do anything but sit at the hospital and pray.. I never prayed so much in my life until I didn't know what I was praying for anymore.. did I want him to live or did I want him out of pain? I loved this man.. the most corageous, upstanding man in my life, my role model.. laying there not in there when I looked in his eyes.
I started to pray for him to let go. Be free of the chains that held him here.
he passed away Jan 3rd 2012. I knew the moment he died. I felt it in my chest, I sat up on the couch and couldnt breathe.. the phone call came 5 minutes later.
I was devastated.  I wanted him back.
 
Now as you are reading this you may think.. there are people who have it worse and yes there are..and someone said this to me this week.. I have a dear friend who has survived cervical cancer, kidney problems and she doesn't have the shitty outlook I do.. I can't help it. Some people deal better than others.

I snap at people, I cry everyday, I wonder what next...well I got that answer not too long ago.. what next came was in the form of yet another lump in my breast. Biopsy ok.. now what.. we could try and remove this one too but something keeps telling me this one is different, don't open it up and expose it to air..if it is bad, it will spread.

I have tried so hard to put this stupid happy grin on my face, pretend I'm strong when I'm not and try to put up this act of I'm ok.. but I'm not..I'm so weak.

I don't want sympathy, that is not the intention of this blog but more so the people who wonder :"what the hell is her problem, why does she act this way" can maybe understand. 

I dont mean to be mean, I don't mean to be snarly and short with people, I don't mean to cry for what seems to others to be no reason. but unless I tell people what's wrong how can anyone understand.. I'm not just a bitch. I'm scared. I hurt. I'm human.

I also have run out of tolerance for people in my life that only come around when they need something, are bored or wonder if a snippy status is about them. Don't flatter yourself, here lately sad as it is no one really means that much to me to bother.

I have found who my true friends are and who cares.

These are the people I cling to. 

I have had people say.. how can anyone help if they don't know? well.. now you know.

You will notice this has incorrect punctuation and improper paragraphing but when you are speaking from the heart and trying to lay it all out there before you change your mind about bearing it all.. these things are of little concern.

What are we mothers doing to our own children?

So today I am a little bit perplexed being a mother of three daughters and a step daughter in today's society.

Last night I went into my youngest daughter's room to read her a story in hoped that she would calm down and go to sleep. When I went in she was sitting on her bed looking at a naked barbie.
 I said to her "what are you doing?" 
She said.. "mommy do you think Barbie is pretty?"
 I said "She's not as pretty as you are" 
She said "Well Barbie doesn't look like me, I don't look like this when i have no clothes on"

I then took a deep breath and thought now I am going to have to explain that she will not look like that until she reaches puberty..

so I started with " why does it matter if you look like Barbie?" 
she looked at me with her innocent face and said. "Isn't this what pretty girls are supposed to look like? This is what you look like and Selaira looks like" 
I said "well.. Selaira and I are older than you though, we have body parts that you have not yet developed." 
she said "but when I get bigger and I want to get a boyfriend, isnt this what I need to look like so they will think I'm pretty?"

I stopped for a minute and just looked at her not really knowing what to say.

I have never been one for being all about what I look like, I am what I am. I don't diet (well except that one time when I went from wearing a size 1/2 to a size 12 when I quit smoking but i dieted to get back to a point where I wasn't winded walking up the stairs)
 I eat whatever I want when I want and I don't care about calories.. I have never been gung ho on working out or obsessing on my figure so I was not sure why this was an issue for her, it's not like that is what she had been subjected to in her life. So I said the only thing I could say to her.

"Being pretty has nothing at all to do with what you look like on the outside, yes some people like to look like barbie but in reality what makes you pretty is your personality, your face, how you do your hair no matter what colour or length it is. What makes someone pretty is their self esteem, you must FEEL pretty to be pretty." 
Of course then I realized that I over explained this to my 9 year old when she looked at me with a blank stare. 

 I continued by saying " Honey here's the thing, no one can like you if you don't like yourself, no one will be happy with you if you are not happy with yourself. Someday maybe you'll grow up and look like barbie and if you grow up and you look like your stuffed teddy bear it does not matter in the least. People will like you for you and your beauty will shine through in what we call confidence." 

I then asked her something very important
 I said to her " do you think Sheila (my best friend) is pretty?" 
her face lit up and she said " yes! I love Sheila, Sheila is beautiful"
 I said "ok, then.. does Sheila look like Barbie?" 
She smiled and said.." she has hair like my Ariel barbie.
 I had to smile at that
 I said "ok but she does not have the same body as barbie does she?"
 she put her head down and said " no, mommy she doesn't" 
I said "ok so what do you think I'm going to say next?"
She thought about it for a minute and then I saw the light bulb go on.. she said to me
"it doesn't matter if you look like barbie cause you can be pretty any way you look"

*insert huge sigh of relief that she got it*

Here is my issue now, I see far too many of my friends who are already thin constantly complaining about their weight, trying to get thinner, trying to kill themselves to have a model type body. 
It angers me that we should as mothers, be spending more time trying to show them that being beautiful is not defined by how much you weigh, what size clothes you wear or how you compare to a plastic doll or what society has portrayed as "perfect"?

 Maybe we as mothers of this new generation of girls should instead spend less time focusing on looking like a model for someone else and become a role model for them? 
After all who do our girls look up to the most? who do they want to be like? if our daughters think we are beautiful and we constantly are on a mission to be "better" what are we telling them about themselves? Heaven forbid they are already not happy with the way they compare to Barbie

If we spend our days dieting and trying to lose weight all we are doing is setting the ground work for them to grow up to do the same thing.
 Maybe we should be taking that time we spend doing that to teach our girls about true beauty, the kind that comes from within..

The cycle needs to stop with us!!! Love ourselves for who we are and what we look like. THESE are the bodies that God gave us, he thinks he did a good job who the hell are we to change what HE made? 
We cannot continue to let our girls believe if you don't look like this one or that one you aren't good enough!!
Mothers have the power to make or break our children's self esteem and thoughts on what is pretty and not.
So I say this, to all the moms out there that may not realize it. These impressionable young girls see all and hear all even when we think they don't stop complaining about yourself and start building up your child.

Not to mention that seeing skinny people complain about thier weight also insults the shit out of people who actually do have a few pounds on them. It makes them feel worse. It's rude and disrespectful.

End rant

Holy Crap I haven't blogged since June?

Well I couldn't possibly think of how to begin to tell you all whats happened since my last blog so...
I think I'll go with this...
My best friend is getting married.. you may have seen me mention her in my first 3 posts.. yup he finally popped the question. So now my days are filled with ribbon and tulle and fluffy.. hell no!! This is a country girl there will be no frou frou crap at that wedding! I am honoured to be part of her wedding and I'll leave it at that other than to say I'm thrilled for her and Jay.

Lets see my daughter moved out of the house into her own place... somehow I thought the house would be cleaner, bills lower and less fighting amongst siblings.. Wrong!! The other two picked up the slack and then some.

Been doing alot with my music as of late, signed with a record label and still make noise on my guitar that resembles a dying cat caught in a barbwire fence, but it's ok I will have musicians who can play the songs. Been into the recording studio a few times working on a cd.. should be out in um.. 2013.. sometime haha. The more I sing my songs though the less I like them, I think to myself how damn depressed have i been for the last 4 yeasr that THIS is the best I could come up with? Oh well it is what it is.

Discovered pinterest, I'm not sure if I had last I bloged.. yeah well it seems now i cant throw anything away cause i could might be able to use that.. much to the dismay of my OCD.. I have arguements with myself, out loud over my shit.

Got a tattoo.. yup so they say with potato chips you cant have just one.. same deal with tats.. I got one after 19 years of debate with myself and no sooner was the ink dry on my ass that I decided i needed another...i get that Friday.

Baking, Baking.. haven't done much since Christmas it wore me out but I need to I feel the need to put on my bakers jacket, crank up the metallica and go to town on some fondant and cake.. I miss it, it relaxes me. I may just go ahead and make one for the sake of not forgetting how to do it. Hmm I have nothing going on tomorrow.. yes!!! I will do it! I will do a trial run on Sheilas wedding cake.! By golly! There that takes care of the one day this week I didnt have something to do!

On that note I now need to go and see if I can make a bigger mess of the day I have already mutilated with my mouth and hands.. yes its been a day you wish you had never woken up to. I also just discovered I missed this.. just typing away getting all the thoughts in my head out.

Hello Tuesday.

Well.. it's Tuesday.. 

I haven't been blogging over the weekend was busy making work projects for myself and trying to sing.

Yesterday I will talk about.. dreaded Monday.. the day everyone loves to hate! 

Jamie and I decided to switch bank accounts.. ok, seems simple enough right? Open an account.. transfer all your money over, call up the people who have automatic withdraws and tell them the new info and carry on as usual.. *insert crickets chirping*  NOT!

Let me tell you what.. there are people that have absolutely NO business in customer service and they certainly do not make me feel confident that they should be anywhere near my mortgage, my car payment or any of my insurances life, home or otherwise.. These people are morons!

My final conversation of the day yesterday ended somewhat like this (as most did before it) 

Me: well Karen, how about since I already gave you all my information including the colour of my first pets last crap in my yard you still don't seem to want to take my word that I am who I say I am. So how about this? When my payment does not go through on Thursday you will end up calling me next Tuesday. at that point maybe we could then revisit the idea of you updating my banking information into your little computer on in your cubicle as then and only then may I actually be myself and not some random stranger who wants to pay my bills for me. Have a nice dayyyy" *click*

 This kind of thing annoys me. It takes one void cheque to set up all these money transfers in the first place and 14 pages of documents in triplicate signed in blood to change them.

Then I decided to "help" my husband understand that the way that the deck we are building's plans were set out were wrong.. they wouldn't work and have the effect that I desired as an end result.. well hello world war 14. 5 Hours later I decided someone else was going to help him with this deck .. and not me.. sooo I enlisted the help of yes, that's right my ex husband.. cause of all people he would be the logical choice. They both annoyed the shit out of me they may as well annoy the shit out of each other for awhile. You don't wanna play nice with me , this is what you will get! I hope they have a real fun time doing that.. I'll take pictures.

So I'm obsessed with Hells kitchen and Masterchef these days.. One cooking show that makes me think how did these people get this far? and I'm yelling at the tv as much as Ramsay is to another cooking show that reduces me to tears listing to these peoples back story. ok ok if I were on the show I could blame the onions, but there's no onions on my couch ( I pronounce like coach according to my bf sheila)

That said, I am looking at the clock and it's time to go to Hell.

TTFN

Mommy really is a potty mouth and people should stop pushing my buttons

Well, I wasn't going to post today but decided maybe a small one would do.

Lets see.. Went to bed last night with a raging headache, thought the logical thing to do would be to sleep it off.. SLEEP?? really? whats that? I was up most of the night and finally at 4am I gave up on the whole deal.

What does one do at 4am you ask.. let me tell you.. think! Thinking is not always a good thing, Sometimes it lets you sit and reflect on conversations youve had, things you've done, things you have to do all the while drinking LOTS of coffee!

Once people were up I could start my day. so, I made some crafts and bought a pool, had a nap, talked to my best friend on the phone while her lunch was so rudely inturrpted ( like usual) by clients and her boss.. cause clearly lunch time is only for laywers.. not thier secretaries. ( well except his other one that he sleeps with).

I should tell you about my best friends. I will start with Sheila.. this is the one I talk to about everything and everyone.. did you just cringe? GOOD! you are probably on the list of people I talk shit about. You know how there were those mean girls in high school? yup.. we've been called those girls.. and we are! 

Sheila lives in West By God Virginia and thankfuly I have an amazing long distance plan.. I have several friends that live in the states.. but only maybe two I am allowed to call.

Sheila and I spend on average 3 hours a day on the phone. some of this time we watch tv, pinterest, facebook and listen to each others day and always manage to cheer the other up.

Sheila has 2 boys.. these boys I would let date my daughters.. oh wait.. they did date my daughters.. sigh.. sadly long distance relationships dont always work. do they?

Sheila lives with one of my other best friends.. we'll call him Jay, mostly cause that's his name. I call him other things.. only I can call him these things, except Sheila.

I suspect they will get married some day when Jay stops procrastinating.

This could be awhile.. he's the KING of it.

Sheila has hair I would die for and pretty green eyes and looks all sweet and innocent.together we are trouble but you can't help but laugh at us. When the words.. Oh hell no, come out of her  mouth.. you run for your life especially if its followed by.. 'mere a minit

So as I am tired my mind will just jump around now.. I found this cool little feature facebook has added to messenger, it tells you when someone had read your message.. I guess the days of pretending you didnt read it are gone.. thank you facebook for showing me who really doesnt want to answer me I'll make note of that when they try to talk to me :)

Burnt my hands trying to make dinner.. rarely do I burn dinner but I do in fact drop the whole pan on the floor screaming in pain as my fingers blister like a heel with a bad shoe. You know what they say.. 5 second rule... haha

I did try however to mow the lawn with my one hand that wasnt burnt, this proved difficult therefore rather than moving the 4 bikes out of the path.. yup.. I mowed around them.. oh well they shouldnt have left them there.

Oh well.. I just got really bored of typing with my left hand only and decided.. the end for today.

Day 1 an intro of sorts

True to my word I said I was going to restart a blog.. so why now do I sit here thinking.. "what do I type"?

So, I figure the best thing is for you to understand a bit about me and the purpose of this blog.
Twitter annoys me, and I would have to turn into one of those"update my status 50 times a day types" to get it all out.. and THAT is annoying as all get out.

So that leads us back to this.. my blog. My release!

I am a mom of 3 girls and a stepmother to one, not to be confused with her mother.. she has one of those and I like her enough to respect those boundaries. My children have names.. some I gave them, some they like to refer to themselves as.

I named them Laura, Selaira and Victoria ( you will also hear her referred to as Tootie)  Now, I have found they have other names too.. These would be "Not Me", "I didn't do it" and "I don't know" 

My girls are 18, 14 and 8. My stepdaughter Tracy is 26 and she blessed me with a grandson at the oh so old age of 34.. thats right.. 34! He calls me "G-ma" cause I'm too young to be called grandma.

I used to work outside the house.. you note I say outside the house because I tried to go back to work and the whole house fell apart.. it was chaos and well my job wasn't ideal so.. back at home I am where I belong...but all too often my husband likes to put his foot in it by trying to remind me "he had to work all day" 

This happened today actually after I spent hours redecorating a room and he had the stones when I complained about our youngest being a handful and saying he was lucky he gets to leave he came out with the zinger.. "yeah, I have to go and work"

REALLY!!!??? It got real quiet in the house for a minute or.. well actually till he left to go to his almighty job..right before he left I was sure to tell him "have a nice night I think I'll go sit on my a** and do nothing while you're working..." Pet peeve of mine.. people that think stay at home moms don't work.. BULL.. we work 24 hours a day and even when we sneak away for a vacation from them.. they call.. (ok, ok, or you call them)

In a nutshell this blog will be my craziness I live, the craziness I do, the craziness I cook, bake, paint, teach, and whatever suits my mood and well pretty much everything you didn't really care to know about me but will know anyhow..

I  will sign off for now as I have a birthday party here for Selaira in less than an hour and I am still covered in paint, food has not been made.. or bought from the store yet either.. so I better get my cape and tiara and run off to save the day!