What I Do & Don't Believe (How Many People Will I Piss Off?)

Dear Blahg,

I have been wanting to do this for a long while but haven't as I really hate rocking the boat but there comes a time in every one's life that they need to finally reveal who they are and how they feel about things.  Today is it.  I'm gonna do it.  Who knows, I might actually get mail here.  Anyway, here goes....


I believe in the freedom of religion as long as your religion does not harbor hate or violence against others. I also believe you do not have the right to shove your beliefs down every one's throat.  

Nor do I believe that God could care less that you shared some one's post about Him.

I believe in God.

I believe in Jesus Christ.

I call myself a Christian.

I believe Jesus was the spiritual son of God but not the physical. 

I believe Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene.

I believe they had children.

I do not believe the bible is the word of God.

I believe in the loving God and not the destroy all others God.

I believe that God doesn't not hate gays.

I believe God has a great sense of humor.

I believe in the separation of church and state and business.  The three should always be separate.

I believe that love is love is love and it does not matter who you love as long as you do love. 

I believe in Buddha, the Dalai Lama, Confucius  Moses, Rama, Krishna, Apollo, Mohammad and lots of other Gods.  They all the Higher Being being all bi-polar. 

I believe in the freedom of speech. I know there is a lot of hate speech and while the haters have to right to speak it we do not have to listen.

I believe in truth.  Stop lying to me. Stop lying to yourself.

I believe the government is being run by vicious greedy evil corporations that are killing our country by dividing it against each other (Conservatives and Liberals).  Red pill or blue pill?

I believe in the death penalty, not as a deterrent but because some criminals are too fucked up to live.

I believe in abortion, not as a form of birth control but as a choice.  There have been times in my life when I might have chosen to terminate a pregnancy though luckily I never had to make that choice. 

I voted for Obama but if the GOP had given me a better choice than Romney I would have voted for someone else.  Sadly, I chose the devil I knew instead of the devil I didn't.

I believe women were the leaders a really long time ago.

I believe they should be the leaders now.

I believe in the right to bear arms.

I believe we should do more for our mentally ill.

I really hate shoot em up computer games.

I like Facebook.

I believe cartoons should only be played on Saturday mornings.

We just need to remember to tolerate the differences between you and others.

But a good Pollack joke is always appreciated.

I believe lust for life is good.

Be kind.

I believe we should eat more fruits and veggies and less animal foods.

I believe we need to stop drinking our water from bottles and start drinking it from the faucet or hose.

I believe that marijuana should be legal and cigarettes should not be legal. (And, yes, I do smoke cigarettes and I hate it and I really think Big Tobacco is evil and I am their pawn)


I believe rap is stupid but hip-hop is mostly good.

I'm in love.

I believe we should respect our elders.

There are three kinds of beauty:
physical beauty
inner beauty
and the beauty that makes you gasp

I believe we should cherish our children and teach them values and not leave that to our teachers.

I believe that our children should be taught facts and not the slanted history of our government and religions.

I believe our children should be able to take what they have learned from all sources and decide in what they believe.   

I believe that we should believe in what we believe and that no one has the right to tell us we are wrong.

I believe in ghosts and witches and magic.

Most of all I believe in love, laughter and life.




So there!

My Poor Little Neglected Blog

Dear Inane,

 I had to do it, I had to write.

 I have been neglecting you for so long and I want to apologize.  There is no excuse for it.  I've just been a lazy bitch where you are concerned.  That and I'm posting too much of everything on Facebook.  Anyway, I know I have promised you again and again that I would make the effort to come here more often and write and I break that promise everytime.  I don't even click on your link for months at a time.

(Ben Folds -Strawberry Fields Forever)
Okay, took a little break there and while I was gone I made a late lunch.  I went through the fridge and cupboards and this is what I did....
Preheated toaster oven to 400
(Vandals - Euro-Barge)
Cover toaster oven pan with parchment paper and the bottom layer is a
Traders Joes Circle of Rolls
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Elton John - Daniel)
3 of Sprouts Organic Deglet Pitted Dates cut-up
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1 Fresh & Easy Baja Classic Tomato chopped
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
6 (yes, 6!) Valley Produce Peeled Garlic shmoosed and chopped
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One bunch of green onion
(Alan Parsons Project - The Naked Robot (Early Stage Instrumental Mixes))
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bake half-way through the song.

Finish typing this and go eat.

19 Years

Today is my daughter's 19th birthday. What can I say about her? She is wonderful and I am so lucky to have her. She is my buddy and my partner in crime. She understands me better than anyone else I know. She is beautiful, inside and out. Happy Birthday Sarah Anne! Your Momma loves you!!!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Oops! Sorry! Lots of things have been going on and I have neglected this blog horribly.
First, Sarah and I moved. We now share a condo with 2 single dads and their children. The kids are 5, 8 & 10 and they are here part-time so it is feast or famine with the noise. We really like it here. I can now walk back and forth to work and it saves me bus money and I gained 2 hours a day with not having to use public transportation. Other things have happened but I'm not going to get into it right now.

The other changes I will talk about are on November 1st I found out that I have Type II diabetes 8-( and on the 7th I found out that the ugly thing they cut out of my shoulder was a nodular-infiltrative carcinoma (skin cancer). I think they got it all but I will find out more at the end of the month. I hope.

I have high blood pressure, high cholesterol and I just had to have another tooth pulled. I have to take 4 different medications daily, one twice a day. The diabetes medicine seems to make my eyes permanently blood-shot and I seem to bruise and bleed easily. I'm f'd up. If I don't make some changes soon, I am going to die. I know, we're all gonna die but I don't want to for a long time. I want to see my grandkids. Hell, I want to see my great-grandkids.

This has made me think long and hard about what is happening to my body and how I have abused it. I also have a friend at work who has been talking to me about diet. So, starting Sunday I will be totally changing how and what I eat and I will be blogging about it. I am making a 6 week commitment to the "Eat to Live" diet and when the 6 weeks are over I will re-evaluate but I believe I will continue to follow the diet and I will allow myself to "cheat" very occasionally. I am also setting a target date of my "NOT 50th" birthday to quit smoking. I am giving up the Big Cs...cheese, chocolate, candy, cookies, cakes, coffee and cigarettes along with meat and most dairy. We are going (mostly) vegetarian in a big way, except for the occasional fish and, of course, turkey next Thursday.

I want to be able to get off 3 of my meds, at least.

I will be blogging about the changes and I will try to include my food diary (Yes! A food diary!) as much as possible and we will see if this works. I hope so.

Now, I know what you are thinking. What about drinking? Well, since the holidays and my birthday are right around the corner, I will allow myself have one drink for my birthday, one for Christmas and one for New Year's Eve. I will be turning into an even cheaper date than I already am. 8-)

Well kids, I'll be back here for sure on Sunday to let you know how the first day is going.
Until then...Baby Turtles!!!!!

Attention!

Lately I have had an overwhelming urge to scream, "Look at me, look at me!!!!"
I think I need attention. I may even be a bit of an attention whore. I think that is why I was in my last relationship. Even though it was never physical and he made me wait endlessly for him to show up and then he would call and cancel or stand me up, he wrote me emails mostly all day long. It was strange because the emails were kind of boring or annoying, I liked that someone was thinking of me. He still emails me, once a day. I don't answer anymore. I guess we all need attention. And hugs. We all need hugs. I need daily hugs and mostly never get them. I think I am hug deprived and it makes me feel out of sorts. I am sure there has been a study on it.

Mornings

Weekdays, I have to be at work at 8 in the morning but I start my mornings around 4:45. At least I used to, my alarm still goes off then but I've been hitting the snooze button lately. First things first, because I am a woman of a certain age, I run to the bathroom to pee. Then I go out on the patio and have a cigarette and read a book while smoking it. I take my shower, read my emails, play my daily online lottery and visit Facebook and check out the weather forecast on Google Chrome. Get dressed, brush my teeth, take my vitamins if I have any and then, sometimes, I gather stuff for lunch. I'm usually out the door a little after 6. Now here is where I sometimes change it up. I use 3 different bus stops. One is east of Sequoia on Cochran, which used to be my main stop but I haven't been going there much lately. What changed? The new McDonalds on the corner of Cochran and Galena. Now I have a place to get coffee and maybe a sausage burrito AND there are restrooms. Restrooms are very important to women of a certain age. Plus it's a covered bus stop (great to have when it rains and yes, it does rain in Southern California) and there is a trash receptacle. Trash receptacles are important to me also. I make trash. I like having a place to put it so I don't have to carry it around with me. Enough about the trash. My 3rd bus stop is the one across the street from the 7-11 on Cochran west of Sycamore. This is the one I use when I go to the bank before work or if I want to shop at Albertsons or if I want to get 7-11 coffee. I love 7-11 coffee. Do you know lots of 7-11s have these little creamer-size cups of caffeine that you can add to your coffee to give it that fabulous morning burst of happiness? They do! I love them. They make me happy along with this month's flavored cappuccino, it's Raspberry Caramel. I fill most of my cup, did I tell you that if you bring your own cup (any size!!!) the coffee is only 99 cents? Anyway, I fill most of the cup with the Raspberry Caramel goodness, add a little Brazilian Bold then 2 (the daily limit written on the little creamer-sized cup) of the extra caffeine cups and voila! My heart is full. 7-11 also has the best p-nut butter cookies (3 for 99 cents). This 3rd bus stop is where I break the law. I jaywalk across Cochran. I know, but I don't wanna have to walk back to Sycamore and cross at the light. Sometimes it takes forever to get to my turn and the Happy Walking Guy. We'll discuss it later.

Somewhere between 6:36 and 6:42 I get on the bus. On Mondays we have different drivers but Tuesday thru Friday we have Tina. She is very cool and a great bus driver. Fairly fast with no jerky stops. It's a mostly quiet bus in the mornings and there are regular riders. iPad guy who watches pod-casts. Tiny Reading Lady who sits up front and waits until the stop sign before her stop before pulling the cord. For some reason this really irritates me. I don't know why. There is also Sleeping Vons boy. He works at Vons and sleeps almost all the way to his stop. There is also Construction Guy and School District Lady. They get off at my stop. Then there is Richard. We've exchanged names, we actually talk to each other. He's my bus buddy.

Wow! This is taking longer than I thought and I am getting sleepy. I'll be back tomorrow to finish.

*A little bit if nature in suburbia. This is across from where I sit in the mornings waiting for work to open. I can sit and pretend I'm somewhere else*

Note to self; Do not start writing later in the evening after taking meds. You won't finish.

Back to the Blahg!

I get off the bus on Cochran west of First Street. This is where I break the law again by jaywalking across Cochran unless the PoPo are about then I walk to the crosswalk. Now let me say this. Crosswalks are where  I almost get hit by cars. It's a weekly occurrence. Drivers do not like to wait for you to cross the street. It slows them down.  I walk down First Street to either Easy Street where I work or down to Los Angeles Avenue to the Mobil station. If I need a restroom (see above) I go see Jimmy (a very nice man), use the facilities and get a High-Rev Mocha and coffee combo. If I go that route then I walk down L.A Ave. to the gate of the Simi Valley Arroyo and walk the bike path to my sitting spot next to the arroyo and chill with my beverage of the day and a book. I don't always read there. Sometimes I just sit and listen to the water and the birds and the guys at the concrete place but I try to ignore them and just listen to the birds. There are some great birds down there and I am trying to identify them all. Sometimes I take pictures. In the spring and early summer there are ducklings. I love the ducklings. Ducklings make the world all right. I call it Duckling Therapy. 

Below is a picture of a bird I haven't identified yet. It's around 16 inches tall. Do you know what it is?

So I sit there for a while and pretend I'm in a forest somewhere.  I  then go and sit on the steps at work and wait for one of the guys with the keys to open up and I start my day of labor. That is my morning. I think it's a lot nicer than sitting in traffic but I'd still like to have a car again someday. 

I Am Here!

July 24, 2011

I finally did it. I finally started a real live blog. Will anyone come? Will anyone care? Who knows, 'cuz I don't. It'll still be my place to get it all off my chest or to express my joy or whatever. This is also an exercise in communication as I feel the brain damage from the 80's is affecting how I, uh, um, talk and stuff. 

Who am I? I am Shelle, Michell, Mom and Pearl. No, I do not suffer from a multiple personality disorder but those are names I have been called over the years. I do suffer from bi-polar disorder but I am happily medicated and pretty much a functional human-being. 

I am a 48 year old single working mom and we are fairly poor. I rent a room and take the bus to work. I have a job that I really like (except for the money, but I have a job so I am happy) with people that I like and I try to make the most of everyday, I think, mostly.


Of course I get down. Of course I want more. 


I am trying to start each day with more of a kick-ass attitude and I have been practicing the "find something every day that makes you happy" philosophy.  


Someday I would like to fall in love. 


I guess my writings here will be about all of the things above and more. 


See you soon!