EDUCATION

Such a huge topic, where to start?

Where to focus?

How about salaries of teachers? Okay, let’s start there.

Michigan ranks quite high on the salary scale nationwide. Our elementary teachers average $57,958 a year salary and a decent benefit package as negotiated through their union. (A union to which they pay very high dues for membership.)  Secondary teachers average $55,000. I have no idea why the difference or if these are accurate salaries in my rural area, but I do know that in this economy it isn’t bad pay for 9 months work of 60 hour weeks, but no one is going to get rich or support their family in high style on that income. They will pay their bills and some will work summer jobs to stay afloat.  New York teachers make about $13,000 more than Michigan teachers. $68,000 is a little more respectable except that the cost of living in New York is probably  higher than that of Michigan.  Point is these are the professionals to whom we’re giving our children for 8 hours each of 5 days for 9 months every year for 13 years. 

To verify those salary numbers you may check out the following link…

http://www.teacher-world.com/teacher-salary/michigan.html

Each month the teacher spends about 160 hours with your child. That works out to $40.28 per classroom per day. So let’s say there are 25 children in each classroom.  That’s $1.61 per child per DAY.  Your weekly childcare bill is $8.05 per child. Now in this daycare, they will also be given instruction in math, English, history, social studies and science and many other fields. The kids sometimes make friends for life under these teachers guidance and most definitely they advance their ability to live in the world as adults one day at a time and one year at a time.  That makes your child’s education one big value, if you ask me.

Our teachers are not only underpaid by a large amount, they are more importantly undervalued and grossly underappreciated. I know some are awful and should not be alone with a child EVER and classrooms are a vast waste of time with those undedicated and uncaring individuals. I believe them to be in the minority, however, and that the schools are filled with mostly teachers who want to help form your child’s mind and fill them with information they will use every day of their lives. They will help prepare your child for college or help train them to a particular trade to help assure their futures as contributing adults. For all of this, you are paying $8.00 a week!  Yep, they deserve a big raise and they deserve your respect. They have mine.

Maybe one day this week, thank a teacher. They are not working for a paycheck to support an elaborate lifestyle, they are teaching because, for the most part, they love teaching your children.

Now, how important is your child’s education these days? How many people do you know who have graduated with a degree in xyz and are working in a completely unrelated field, if they are working at all?  I am afraid I know several. It is a mystery to me why just having attended college and graduated with some diploma and some degree makes you the perfect candidate for some job that you never even considered actually doing. Never wanted to do and don’t really want to do it now, but you have bills to pay and this job is a big paycheck. Common.

I guess the education is important. It’s a job. It’s the key, apparently, to obtaining the higher paying jobs with a future even if you have no idea in what field to study for the world four years from now, when you will walk out with your own degree in biology to accept the job at Dow Chemical in the Human Resources Department.

Education is never wasted, can’t really argue that.

Jo

LIFE LESSONS ~ FOR PARENTS

1)  No matter how much they think they do, your kids will never love you as much as you love them.

2)  Of all the people in your life, no one can or will hurt you the way your kids do and will.

3)  When you are on your last ounce of hope, no one will bring you back from the edge by just walking into the room like your kids can.

4)  The less you expect from your kids, the happier your life will be. Everything they do is so much more special if you weren't expecting it.

5)  Understand that your children will never know YOU as well as YOU know THEM. Then accept that that is okay.

6)  When you encourage your kids to grow up independently, knowing their own mind, making their own decisions and living with the consequences, you are also teaching them not to need you. That isn't always a good thing. Sometimes it is a good thing.

7)  Of all the people in your life, no one can make you happier and no one will make you happier than your kids.

8)  When you find yourself aging, just a bit, some things become just too difficult to do alone.  Call your kids, but understand they also have lives and probably can't come right now.

9)  When they call you, drop what you are doing, they may not call next time. If they Do need you, go now.

10) When you think of all the things you have done in your lifetime, everything, if being a parent is the best thing you can remember doing, you have done your best. That is all you can expect from yourself and all the kids can expect from you.

11) When your kids make time for you, appreciate it, enjoy it, relish it and never punish them for not doing it more often. They are busy and have made time to be with you because they wanted to. Appreciate that.

12) When your grown children give you grandchildren do all the things you wish you had done with your own kids PLUS all the things you did do with your own kids. Just leave the parenting to your kids. Grandparenting is a lot more fun.

13) When your grown adult children disappoint you, keep it to yourself and find the silver lining, there always is one. Always.

14) If your grown children do something extraordinarily nice for you, hug them, kiss them, thank them and then thank God for giving you such thoughtful and loving children.

15) If you forget any of these, forgive yourself because you are human. You can hurt sometimes and burst with pride sometimes but you can never stop loving your children, even if they aren't so lovable all the time. Maybe you aren't either.

16) No matter what happens in your life, be thankful you are above the grass another day and that God gave you someone to love forever.  

Hey call your kid, give 'em a hug, even if it has to be a virtual one and know how blessed you are.

AND if by chance you ARE the child, keep these things in mind and make time to get to know your parents and make time for them, a little bit anyway.

Jo

Our Journey

HOW DO YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART?
You move through it; you take a journey to happyland.


It was done. I had left my husband of nine years.

He came home from a few hours at the bar with his friends after work and a very small amount of his paycheck left. He had cashed it and spent a large percentage of it with his friends at a bar near his work place. This had happened many times recently and I could not abide anymore of it. I normally wouldn't start a discussion while he was under the influence, but I had had enough at this point so I began the conversation. It wasn't fun. It wasn't what I expected. I expected to tell him what I needed and for him to understand that I was serious and things had to change. I expected him to love me enough to make that happen, whatever it took. I expected this time to be the last time.

I told him that I could not pay the bills and put food on the table with less than half his paychecks. I told him I did not want to raise our children with an alcoholic. I reminded him that my own father had been an alcoholic and had quit drinking to save his life and I reminded him what a wonderful father and husband he had become since. I clearly told him this was the last time I would ever have this discussion. It was not the first. I clearly told him if he couldn't stay sober, I was leaving.

He yelled. He threw a heavy glass ashtray at my head. I ducked and slid down the wall. Out of the corner of my eye I saw our 5 year old son standing just outside the doorway. Horror on his face. Just as I was about to turn to my son, his father struck my face with his hand. It was a slap with the back of his hand, I think. It startled me and hurt like hell. Again I hit the wall, remaining upright this time. I said, "You will NEVER get a chance to do that again." It was just above a whisper.

I stopped speaking and so did he. He walked past me and put his fist through the kitchen cabinet on his way to the back door which he pushed so hard it hung from only one screw in his wake. The hole he left in the cabinet was terrifyingly big and all the way through. 

The minute he was out of the driveway, the very second he was gone, I ran to the kids rooms and grabbed enough clothes for a few days. I told them each to get a favorite toy while I threw some things in a bag for a little vacation. We left the house in less than half an hour. I was terrified and angry and brokenhearted and the saddest I have ever been in my life. The kids were nervous. They asked repeatedly if I was okay. The red mark on my face upset them and it was beginning to turn color within the hour. They asked if their daddy was going to meet us there, more than once. I repeated the same thing over and over, "No, Daddy isn't coming. He has somethings to work out and we're gonna just take a little break while he does that." I knew they didn't understand; I didn't want them to understand. I just wanted them to love both of us. Always. I just wanted my marriage to get back on track and my life to go on as it had before their dad decided drinking with friends was a lot better than hanging with us. Before he didn't care how much money he brought home. Before he started promising me weekly that he would not go to the bar this week with his friends at all; he'd be home every night right after work. Before I stopped believing him. Before I stopped being the most important thing in his life. Before I began to fall out of love. Way before I didn't care what he did anymore. Before it was too late. A short 2 years prior we had a good life. Now we had separate lives and there was no room in this new life of his for a wife and 2 kids. 


The next two years of our lives were beyond difficult. I made enough money to pay rent using three of my paychecks and the fourth had to pay all the other bills and buy food. I got no support from their father until the divorce was final a full two years and 6 months from the day I ran out of that house. That house that I once loved and believed we would grow old in, together.  From that I moved into a mobile home in a mobile home park with good neighbors and close to my work. I managed to double my hours at work and have a small amount of cash for clothing and school needs. My children learned about budgeting and they learned about loving each other through everything. We did without a lot of things they were used to having, but they really didn't seem to suffer except they missed having a TV, so I planned to get one as soon as possible and started asking around about a used one. A customer of mine and a friend of my boss offered me a TV while having lunch one day. No charge, he just wanted the kids to have one. Said it wasn't a great TV, but his wife had been wanting a new one so she had offered this one for the kids. I cried and thanked them a million times. I was so happy for them. It was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for us. A friend of mine brought a bag of groceries every now and then and just put them in the cupboard. My sister and her husband did the same. We had good friends and family. My parents were there with some cash I desperately needed and refused when I tried to pay them back. They made sure my holidays were something to be celebrated and not worked through. I was not alone. I had to keep reminding myself of that. My babies needed me to carry on and I was not alone. Some days that wasn't enough.


Their dad didn't show up for his scheduled visitation very often and then when he wanted to spend time with them, he would just show up and expect to be able to take them for a day or two or whatever suited his needs. I had a problem with that. I had a problem with him not parenting or calling or showing up for them. I had a problem with him hurting our babies and not being affected at all. I had a problem with him refusing to help me support them. He thought and said that he didn't give me money because if I needed help, I could come home. He didn't understand how much I wanted to come home. I could not. That life would never be MY life again.


Our journey, the one my children and I began the night we ran from our home, was difficult and valuable and memorable and probably the most precious of all our lives. I learned how to do whatever needed to be done and they learned that I would always be there. Always. I would be the one constant in their lives. They learned how to survive when life gets crazy and unpredictable and they learned that their dad was not a man they could depend on or trust. They could love him for who he is, but never expect anything more than what they had. A casual relationship. You can't make children understand that concept. They have to learn it by being hurt, more than once. 


To some extent we are still on that journey. I know my daughter has never really adjusted completely from her father simply divorcing her along with her mother.  Her job now is to protect her daughters from ever going through that kind of loss and sadly, she can't because their father is doing the same to his children. Divorcing his daughters to be with someone who doesn't need or want his children in her life. My daughter  loves her step-dad with all her heart and I am grateful, but it still saddens me that she doesn't even know her father. Once upon a time, he was a fabulous daddy, before ...


I also know that my son would have loved to rekindle as an adult a real father-son relationship. He tried. He reached out and made several attempts, but he failed to really reach his father. It could have been a "drinking buddies relationship," but that wasn't what my son was looking to have. He also loves and respects his step-father, but I know on some level, it hurts him that his father doesn't know or care about his grandchildren. 


So our journey does go on and for all the days of my life they will be my babies and anything they ever need or want from me will be done in some way. The end of this journey will not come until I am at the end of my journey. 


You mend a broken heart by living through it and coming out the other side, stronger.


Jo

Father's Day 2012

Though I have never been a father, I had one and I live with one and I divorced one, so I have some experience with what makes a good one and what makes a sperm donor just a sperm donor.

Having donated sperm, even if it's through direct deposit, does NOT make you a dad. It makes you the legal father and nothing more. If the laws were written truly with the child's best interest in mind, as they say they are, sperm donors would have zero rights. The reward for their donation was given at the time of the direct deposit. Nothing more is owed to them, in my opinion.

Now a dad is a whole different story. The man who holds the child to comfort or just to show love, the man who listens and advises, the man who teaches a child what a man is and how a man should behave, the man who didn't have to love yet chose to love is the dad. In some cases, this is the sperm donor, in some cases, not. It doesn't matter. In both cases, the dad is the man who loved the child unconditionally by choice.

My favorite childhood memory of my own dad is such a simple thing, one has to wonder why it stands out in my head. I was about 9 or 10 and got a giant chalk board for Christmas. My dad had written on it..."Merry Christmas to Joansy Lee Lee Settle". I don't know why that was such a big deal to me, but it was. I still recall the excitement of seeing those words written by Dad on my new chalk board. Silly? Probably, but it said my dad loved me. It said I was important enough to warrant his time and the sentiment was all for me. Only he ever called me that silly name and I loved it. I loved my daddy as most little girls do, but I was a Momma's Girl and still am. The outstanding things about my dad were not big deals; rather common everyday things. Long car trips would find us eating in diners along the road where trucks were parked, the best food would be found there, Dad said. The ever repeated, "If you have to use the bathroom, use it now, I'm not stopping in 5 miles!" meant nothing. If someone needed to stop in 5 miles, he would do so with a proper amount of grumbling and moaning about how he told us to use the bathroom and he wasn't happy now.  Every trip included backseat arguments because 3 kids in one bench seat for 7 hours to the grandparents house is going to include arguments. He would usually yell, "Shut up and enjoy this trip!"  That still makes me smile.  Somehow, shut up and have fun seems good advice, but maybe a different delivery would have been good!  Dad wasn't known for his finesse. 

Through most of my teenage years he was an absent dad. He drove truck and was gone most of the week. I have some memories of trips to town with him on week-ends to run errands. He didn't stop at the dime store, like Mom did, he just did what needed to be done and maybe got me a coke or candy bar, but no side trips. I liked going with him because he didn't treat me like a kid, exactly. It was more like I was his buddy for those few minutes that we were on the road. Hard to explain, but I liked it and I remember it. He sometimes let me drive home at age 14, but I couldn't tell Mom.

Unlike me, my kids were not raised most of their lives by their father. They were raised by their Dad. He chose to help me parent my children and I chose to help him parent his. We have no regrets about that. He is the man both my children refer to as their dad. He loves them the same as his own, they are his own now.  He walked my daughter down the aisle and he loves the grandchildren his step~children have given us exactly the same as he loves the grandchildren his genetically related boys have given us. I do, too. Our grandchildren are all our grandchildren.  It's a choice we made years ago with the birth of our first who turns 23 this fall.  (omg...23!)

I am eternally grateful to this man who shares my life and loves. Everyday he lives is a blessing to each of us in one way or the other. He has taken into his heart two children he didn't have to 'own'. He took on a very difficult job because he wanted to and he did the best job anyone could have done. In return, he has gained more love than he ever could give. He is respected and admired and honored for all he has given and all he is as a man, father and husband to their mother. He has earned this by being a good man with an unlimited capacity to love.

Happy Father's Day to him and our sons and to our father's who have gone before, our respect and love eternally.



Jo

IF I COULD LIVE MY LIFE OVER

Who says we can't? 


Well, if I could, I might do some things differently in order to save my children some unnecessary pain. I might have eliminated a few of the heartaches I endured or caused. I might even have spent more time with some people and less with others. I might have said something to someone that would have changed their life. Those things might have made my life easier or less painful, but then where would I have gained my strength and my experience. How would I have known NOT to cause pain to others if I had never felt it? Would I appreciate my life today if I hadn't lived that life yesterday? 


This person, right here, this one writing, is the person I was meant to be and she's an okay girl. She isn't perfect and still makes big mistakes, but she is aware and she works at not repeating the same mistake. I like making new ones, instead. Making mistakes means I am doing something. I am learning something. I am growing.


I may be wrong, but I think you only go 'round once and if that's true, I'm okay with the ride I've been given.
No changes needed. No real regrets. Some things I wish I had done better, but don't regret. 


I'm all about looking forward because where I've been is already done, but where I'm going is the road untraveled, by ME, at any rate!


Jo

FORTUNE

Financially speaking we will likely never have a fortune. Family wise we have a fortune and have lost a fortune. It's a mixed bag with people, isn't it usually? 


We do love to imagine what if, you know that game I'm sure. If we ever find ourselves with a million or more buckeroonies, what would we do?


We'd pay off anything that we might owe. We'd buy a new truck and a new car and a motor home. We'd put most of it away safely because we lost a ton of money after 9-11 and now have a healthy and strong fear of losing our security again. No stock market or mutual funds for us. 


We'd pay off our kids homes. No reason for them to have mortgages. Otherwise, their bills are their bills. We would invite all of them on another family vacation. We took one a few years back and I would love to do that again except this time the grand kids would be going also.  Disneyland or Disney World, their choice, I suppose. We wouldn't want to completely remove all of their financial obligations because we feel our children should handle their own lives. Handing out that kind of help would not really be the best thing for any of them. They would expect it again even if they didn't think they would. When we are both gone, they would get it anyway and could then do whatever they chose. Waiting would be a good thing. Being given too much too soon can be devastating to ones life. I watched those reports about the lottery winners lives being ruined by the money and their choices so I don't wanna set my kiddos up for such horrid happenings.


Ya know, being a parent can be a really tough job even long after your babies have flown the coop and have babies of their, one of whom has also flown the coop!


But money of the fortune variety is the root of all pain and suffering according to that TV show, so we have planned ahead to avoid most if not all of the possible disasters to which others have fallen victim. 


So no huge charitable donations. Just modest ones, often anonymously. No handouts to friends. No lavish life style changes. We wouldn't be happy with that anyway.
Just a debt free retirement with a motor home, 2 new vehicles and the security of knowing our kids have a home for as long as they want them. That would be a good thing.


An old couple has to have something to dream about when all their other dreams have already come true.  ♥


Jo

My Brag Book

There are so many things I could brag about. I mean my children are all geniuses and model material. (I see you rolling your eyes).
My 9 grand daughters are perfection in pink with IQs off the charts! My one grand son, well, there has not been a more handsome or brilliant boy ever born. (Again with the eyes?)  And my brother married a beautiful nurse who managed to nag him into work side by side with him to build a chain of three reputable pet stores which they eventually sold and are now retired and living nicely in their Chicago area home AND their Florida home. (No soup kitchen for them, yet.)  And my beautiful sister who my children think walks on water because she always has lovely and loving things to say about all of our kids and their babies both to their faces and behind their backs. (No, really, she IS that nice!)
And I've spoken of Momma often here so most of you already know what an amazingly loving momma I have. She is the my buddy, my shopping partner, (neither of us like to shop, but have to sometimes) and she loves me unconditionally almost all the time. (I'm not as nice as my sister.)  My husband is just about the best ever was, except for the not picking up after himself thing, but I'm still working on that. It's only been 29 years, 11 months, 2 weeks and a day or so.  There's still time for improvement.

But, you know what I want to brag about?  ME.  (eyes, again? stop it, right now).  Yep, me. I'm gonna tell you one of the things I accomplished on my own, pretty much and I use it everyday.
I wanted a computer back in the early '90s.  They were expensive and no one I knew had one in their home yet.  Then my brother (the store owning one, oh, that's my only brother) bought one. He connected it to his stores and could then check in on their receipts at the end of the day. How cool is that?, I'm thinking.   So I start looking around and talking to the one person I know, one of my clients, who owns one and has 2 sons who know how they work, kind of. They were learning quickly and they were kind of excited to teach me how to compute.  

I get an inexpensive used IBM.  I don't even know how to turn it on. Seriously. I wait a few days until my client and friend comes to the salon and helps me get it all set up. I'm going to use it at work for now and later I'll try that two computers talking to each other thing with my home machine.  She did get me started with a great afternoon of learning the basic DOS language and making me cheat sheets to refer to until I was comfortable with my software. In a couple of months I was keeping my own books on my Peachtree Acct. program.  Running my schedules on the word processor and writing on the same.  I was loving this machine and I wanted to know all about it.

It was about 2 years before I first saw 'windows'. WOW!  No more DOS?  Well, only for fixing. I wanted to know how to fix so I started reading manual and books and talking with the sons who knew how to fix minor things and add memory and do a lot of things I thought I could do. I added more memory to my IBM and to my first home computer all by myself. I put a new motherboard in my first computer when it was about 6 years old. I replaced the floppy disk drive in that same machine when it just quit working.  I did all of those repairs by reading the manuals and the packaging of the replacements.

I learned and I studied on my own and finally, I GOT THE INTERNET! My learning was unstoppable now!  The world was at my finger tips.  IF I could just learn to stay on task.  That internet led me in a million different directions and hours would pass and I would have forgotten what I started to research.  (You have, too and you know it!)  But I did learn a lot of basic fixes.  

I am bragging about this because I am not a young 'un and I wasn't  then. I am bragging because now at 62 I am probably more computer savvy than my kids.  I'm bragging because I think it's super cool when my techie kids call me and ask me how to do something!  Or they're going to get a new laptop and call to ask my opinion before they shop.  Oh, yeah!  I'm kewl like that.  And I have not lost my love of tappity tapping on these keys!

In my next life, I'm gonna be a Best Buy Geek.  I'm gonna drive one of those little black and white Geek Mobiles.  Oh, yes I am.

Jo 

Walking Away

Walking Away
Writer's Post #17

My career was who I was for many years.  When I introduced myself to someone I would usually say, "Hi, I'm Jo Heroux.  I'm a hairdresser."  So my name is most important, but the very next thing was what I do.  Odd, because it wasn't really the most important thing to me.  I just thought it was the most important thing to the people I was meeting.  It wasn't.  I know that now.

I walked away from my career and I have no regrets.  It was the right time and the right thing for me and everyone else involved.  

So, since I walked away from who I was, who am I now?



I am a daughter.  Been that my entire life.  I was raised with a lot of love and understanding.  My parents were loving and fun.  They had time for me, well, Mom did.  Dad worked a lot and wasn't home as much as she was, but he made time for us when he could.  I was the baby of three and I liked being the youngest.  I know that being the first born is special and I know that that sometimes is considered the favorite position in the birth order books.  I can see why that might be true.  I can see why first borns often think they carry more responsibility and maybe they do.  In our family the second born is the first (and only) boy child.  Those who study birth order say this is the same special spot as the first born in many ways.  The first boy is often treated with some royalty regardless of his actual order.  My sister and I dubbed our brother The Prince and I guess he will always be just that.  He is the only one who carries our family name.  The baby, me, is always the baby.  In our family it has taken me 6 decades to establish myself as a real adult.  Both my siblings are smart and successful people.  They have both raised wonderful girls into womanhood.  I have respect for each of them for their individual accomplishments and I love them both as people besides being my brother and sister.  My sister lives relatively nearby and she would be my friend even if we weren't related, I am sure of that.  My brother has lived hours away for many years and we aren't in contact nearly as often as we should be.  Moving away leads to living in different worlds, sometimes.  I still enjoy visiting with him when he is here and I still look forward to seeing him. We love each other, we just aren't on the same page very often.  Not walking away from my siblings.

I am an adult now.  I have succeeded in raising my son and my daughter into adulthood.  I am the grandmother to their perfectly perfect children.  I inherited 2 boys when I married Mike and they have given me 3 more grand daughters, another something is due in November.  I am happy in this place.  I have the life I have worked toward for most of my adult years.  I'm not rich and I'm not famous, but I'm not dead so either of those could still happen!  :)  Not walking away from these jobs nor these possibilities.


I am a friend.  My best friend and I have been together for 34 years and I cannot imagine not having her with me for the good and the bad.  She is the shoulder and she is also the sunshine.  Love my Shirley.  Not walking away from her.



I am a wife. Twenty-nine years and counting, we have shared our days, nights, children and parents, siblings and friends.  We have shared our lives for better or worse, more betters than worses.  We have sorrow and joy and again more joy than sorrow.  We have nearly called it quits more than once and found a way to stay together.  We have found a way to still be in love and still be best friends. At this age and at this point, not walking away from him.

Apparently, I am not very good at the walking away thing.  I am much more into sticking it out and making changes to make things better or if that can't be done, learning to accept what is.  



What I will walk  away from-every time-is anyone who just causes drama and stress in my life.  People who plug into me and proceed to just drain all my energy until I am just useless.  People who cannot make good decisions and then cannot figure out why everything goes badly for them.  People who constantly look for change in their lives by doing exactly the same thing over and over and over!  Stupid people aren't going to stay in my life very long because I am required to remind them of their stupidity.  I can't help myself.  I don't really want to either.  From these, I will walk away and not look back.


I did walk away from what I did...I won't walk away from who I have become.

Jo

The Road Not Taken

The road not taken can bring to mind so many things.  May I just start by saying that looking back and wondering is probably not the healthiest thing for me to do, but certainly is a human thing to do.  We all like to wonder sometimes if we had made a different decision at some point, who or where would we be now?

I am no different, but I don't do it often and I seldom come up with a better life in my wandering mind than the one I am actually living.  

I am sure I could have stayed with my children's father and raised them in an intact home instead of divorcing him and struggling for 5 years to pay my bills and take care of their needs.  I could have not married husband  #2 because I didn't really love him like one loves someone you are about to marry.  I loved him as a person and a friend and he needed someone to help him raise his son who was in a precarious situation.  I loved his son and wanted to help him have a family, real loving family.  I did that.  I'm glad I did that.  I divorced #2 and I ultimately lost that son to his mother.  She had gotten her life together by then and I couldn't keep him. 


Then I married #3 and current hubby and I think this is the one.  I mean it's only been 29 years 7 months, but I think it's gonna work out.  

So, the roads not taken in this respect might have lead to the kids having their dad in their life and I would have had to become a different kind of woman to live with the situation he created for me, but we could have stayed together.  I see us now 44 years later and I see two people who don't really like each other anymore, but have managed to build a life together anyway.  Neither of them particularly happy and they spend very little time together.  They have nothing in common and they don't care.  They just live in the same house.  Glad I'm not on that road.  He is most likely glad, too.


Had I stayed with #2, I would have maybe gotten to keep my step-son another couple of years, but eventually he would have gone back to his mom because she did clean herself up and the courts would have allowed her to have her son again regardless.  #2 was a truck driver, over the road, and gone all the time.  Home like 3 days a month.  He was very much a visitor in my home.  We were never really a couple, though we really did love each other, not in the married for life kind of way.  Long term with him would have resulted in me being alone a good deal of the time as the kids got older and I would have spent a lot of time with my friends.  I don't think that would have felt like marriage to me.  For many people it works fine, but I need more partnership in my life.  Glad I didn't take that road.


I was once offered a job in Illinois and I seriously considered taking it.  It would have been a big raise and a wonderful opportunity.  I declined because I was single and had 2 kids that I thought needed to have family around.  I felt after a divorce, the more I could keep routine, the better.  The timing was all wrong.  My kids needed their grandparents, aunts, uncles and their dad.  It was the right decision.  Had I gone to Illinois, I would never have met #3 and that's a road I am very glad I took.  


Maybe looking back is a good exercise for me after all.  It might have made me appreciate where I am, who I am and with whom I am sharing my life.


Jo

Rainbows Over My Head

BFF picture prompt...


Looking up and seeing a rainbow arcing across a still damp sky always makes me feel hopeful.  I am not a big fan of rain or storms, as some are, but a rainbow following seems to be God's promise of greener foliage and brighter flower colors and a new freshly washed moment in time.  

A promise that tells us we do get another chance to get it right.  Some of us need more than one more chance.  Glad there is no limit on how many rainbows can occur in one's lifetime.  

Even the ever changing colors in the trees beneath this rainbow can't dampen my spirits.  The fall colors are not inspiring for me, not exciting as they are to so many of you, but with a rainbow hanging hopefully high above them, they don't look so sad to me.  

Perhaps the rainbow is trying to brighten their colors and convince them to hold tight to their leaves just a bit longer.  Or perhaps, I am doing that and using the rainbow as my own personal 'tool'.  



Children often choose rainbows as their favorite thing.  I think it's the way one can hardly be sad or even indifferent when you see one.  Rainbows require our attention and they also require that we appreciate their uniqueness and their beauty. 

They are rare and therefore, precious.  They are beautiful and therefore, admired.  They are yet another of God's gifts to us and therefore, free.


Wishing you all a rainbow in your day.  If not a literal one, a figurative one.  


Jo






I think I am going to like being here...more time with great people and more blogs to read and comment on!  Please share your thoughts with me below, I will respond...eventually!

Longing Isn't For Me

Please leave your thoughts...I love when you do that!

Longing is almost a foreign concept to me.  It is something I can imagine doing, but not something I practice.  I don't long for anything, really.  I have goals which I chase and plan for success, but I don't long to achieve them, I work to achieve them.

I have memories that make me smile or cry when I recall them, but I don't long to relive those times.  I am simply aware that I have done that, been there or seen that.  I am content with the past being the past and the future being the future.

I don't long for more time with someone I loved who has passed on because I know my time with them was all we were meant to have.  I know I said and did what I wanted to say and do while I did have them here.  I know that God has now rewarded them all for their trials here on earth.  I know my time will come, too.

Longing, for me, would just take up time from my life.  Using up precious moments that I could be, oh say, staring out over the back yard.  Time I could be thinking of a new recipe.  Time I could be cleaning out a closet.  Time I could be petting or playing with one or both of our furbabies.  Time I could be talking with my husband. Time I could be writing.  Time I could be reading...well, you get it, I'm sure.


I could  think of one exception...maybe... I could long for a world where anyone who wants a job, can find one.  A world where children do not go hungry or cold or unloved.   I could long for the kind of world where the Golden Rule is practiced routinely by all who inhabit it.  But, it would be much more productive to be one person who does these things and thereby, sets an example for others.  If only one person loves a child because they saw me loving a child and making both my life richer and the child's life easier, GREAT.  So I won't long for the perfect world, I will do what I am able to do to make the tiny spot I am using a bit more perfect.


I prefer to live than to long.  I prefer to live long than to live longing. 

Jo