Mattie's blog: "Thinkin' Thinky Thoughts"

So, let's see... In the past week and a half I've: -run to the bus station to send my daughter to visit her dad -drove to our cabin to do some work down there -drove home again -run to the airport to send my other daughter to visit her Momo -run to the airport to pick up the daughter from Momo's -gotten a call saying the other daughter is moving in with her dad now, so not coming home -sent my husband off to a new job -sent my boy off to boot camp And those are just the big ticket items. I have been on very little and so, yeah, I'm WAY behind and don't expect or intend to try to catch back up here, what with all the umpteen other things I have to deal with in life. I now have to pack up my oldest's stuff and ship that out to her, clean up her old room, rip out the carpet and repaint, the put down new flooring in there, replace the bathtub/shower enclosure in the little bathroom, rip out the hall carpet and replace that with vinyl, pack up the rest of the boy's stuff so it is ready to move into storage for him when he gets done with boot camp, then pack down the rest of that room and again, rip out carpet, repaint, put down new flooring... I am prepping the house for sale, you see. Nothing much, just cosmetic stuff and a couple minor repairs (trim that is flimsy and has gotten damaged needs replaced. The only major task is the bathrooms, both of which are in sorry shape I'm afraid, thanks to poor choices made by the manufacturer, like carpet next to a bathtub...) So, I'm busy. I'm popping in when I can, but don't expect too much of me.

Sweetie, two of the three teens and I loaded up the cars and headed to our cabin for the weekend. Sweetie had to leave early, but we got the woodstove and doors down there, so next time down we can get started on installing them. Then down to our lakeside lot to clear it so the kiddies can be out there during the 4th of July celebration and away from the drunken adults. We burnt two bonfires on that spot, and began prep on the other bit of land on the other side of the creek/ditch so we can burn it next time. We also shifted/sorted a big stack of reusable wood that, mostly, isn't usable anymore. Bill didn't put it up on a non-biodegradable riser, nor did he cover it and the bottom of the stack turned into mulch already, while the rest was well over 2/3 trash. We got most of that burnt, too, though one stack was so wet we couldn't light it with gasoline! So, I'm a bit sore from all the lifting, shifting, tossing, raking, carting and carrying we did. Feels good to have gotten that much done, though. We'll go down again in a couple weeks and start the work on the cabin. My list of To Do items grows every time we go down, as I get a better handle on what all was just cobbled together. Like the deck with 4' spacing on the support beams. Ummm... dude. No. we'll remove the flooring and put in the needed extra support, then see what can be salvaged of the materials. Lots of the deck boards are so badly warped they're junk now. Damn it. Incompetent boobs shouldn't be allowed to operate a circular saw, let alone build decks if you ask me. Morons. We've got to go make final selections on our hearth stone and our tile for the firewall behind the stove, too. Then it's off to the stove shop to make sure we have the right stove pipe and chimney for our new heat source. THEN I will set to work with steel wool and a wire brush on the stove, get it all nice and free of rust, then rub it over with melted beeswax to prevent reoccurance of the rust. I've argued and won the debate on how to protect cast iron from rust. I'm a cook. I know how to season cast iron, damn it. :D So, lots of work ahead. I'd like to make another trip down this coming weekend, too, but with our boy leaving for boot camp next Monday, it'll wait. I'm still not sure what to think of that. I'm proud as hell of him, and yet I know it is going to be weird to say goodbye to him, knowing it will be a long, long time before he's home again. Ten months isn't long for someone to be a part of your life, but he's become ours as surely as the girls are, and it definitely feels like I'm about to set one of my own nestlings out into the Wide World.

Green is coming soon. Right now the world is brown and squishy-muddy out there, but with warm temps and sunshine, soon I'll be out in the garden, bent over to peek for points of hostas, peonies and bulbs emerging from the brown. My hair is turning green, too. In a single stripe on the right side. Why not? I don't have an employer to piss and moan about my piercings, tattooes or strange colored hair, so I'm enjoying it until we're moved to where I might be able to manage a job again, though Sweetie tells me over and over not to worry about it. He likes that I'm home all the time.

No, I can't. I have still to get the kiddo dressed and ready for her dance, supper, get her to the dance, pick her up after the dance and maybe then I can rest. Maybe. I've put about 40 miles on the car already today just running around. I'm tired now.

Algernon Black Why not let people differ about their answers to the great mysteries of the Universe? Let each seek one's own way to the highest, to one's own sense of supreme loyalty in life, one's ideal of life. Let each philosophy, each world-view bring forth its truth and beauty to a larger perspective, that people may grow in vision, stature and dedication. The religions of humanity should be a unifying force, for all the great religions reveal a basic unity in ethics. Whether it be Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism or Confucianism, all grow out of a sense of the sacredness of human life. This moral sensitivity to the sacredness of human personality -- the Commandments not to kill, not to hurt, not to put a stumbling block in the path of the blind, not to neglect the widow or the fatherless, not to exploit the servant or the worker -- all this can be found in the Bibles of humanity, in all the sacred books. All teach in substance: "Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." There is, then, a basic unity among the great religions in the matter of ethics. True, there are religious philosophies which turn people away from the world, from the here and now, concentrating life-purposes on salvation for one's self or a mystic union with some supernatural reality. But most of the great religions agree on mercy, justice, love -- here on earth. And they agree that the great task is to move people from apathy, from an acceptance of the evils in life, to face the possibilities of the world, to make life sweet for one another instead of bitter. This is the unifying ethical task of all the religions -- yes, of all the philosophies of humankind. There is no need to force our own theological points of view upon one another or to insist that the moral life grows out of final, absolute authority.

The tattoo on my chest irritates me. It should be my pride and joy, but the guy who did the work botched the job and isn't available to make him fix the damned thing anymore, not that I'd trust him to! So, I'm working on a coverup. This will make the second coverup I've done. The first was on my ankle, where I ruined my little purple butterfly- done when I was 16- thanks to my brother borrowing my razor. Suffice to say that the little butterfly lost all of its body and most of its wings in a split second. The new work is coming along nicely. First I printed off a low-rez b&w frontal shot, nude. This time, no bra to keep everything high while they work, so it looks better when the bra isn't there. Over the top of the current tat will go a flower. Standard five petal posie, black center, most likely. It will be surrounded by knotwork vines with smaller posies- four of them, one for each of my biological kids. The design is based closely on the Celtic Tree of Life, split in half. I'll talk to Greg, my new ink man, about how much it would cost to do both sides, but even just the single side looks pretty damned cool, I think. It is a LOT of territory I'll be covering this time, with the highest point right at the collar bone, then extending down well onto the breast. I think it would look seriously cool to do both sides. I will do each of the flowers in my girls' birthstone colors. Colorful, but not garishly so. I stopped in today to price my oldest daughter's tat. She's getting a little dragon, standing on a stack of books holding a rose and a pencil- very her. It'll go on her thigh, high enough to hide if she likes, low enough to show if she wants, too. I drew the original dragon ages ago, then modified it last year for her. Original it was going to cover up a scar on her leg that reads "PAIN". She's decided not to put it down that low. Greg priced it out, fully colored, at an excellent price. He did the work on Sweetie's back- another of my designs. I really should learn to ink myself, since I get as pissy as I do when other artists fuck up my work.

I'm stuck at home today. The roads had better be cleared by the time I need to leave for yoga in the morning! I could hardly get out of here earlier, and couldn't get above 25mph most of the way. The main roads are fine, but the intersections are just like driving in a Slurpee, and the roads near the house are really bad still. So, yeah. Me, three teenagers and nothing to do. Bored redhead isn't a good thing. And with Sweetie out for a couple of days, I really am left without any entertainment. *big sigh* I misses my Sweetie.

I'm snowed in, and my Sweetie won't be home for a couple of days. He's a truck driver, on the way home from the West Coast right now. This has been a long run, thanks to the weather, and I'm getting a bit antsy now.