Life continues.
Chris' court case got dismissed, so hallelujah for that.
Parents and Grandma are talking about going in halfsies to get me a new car. Ol' Tsunami has 11,000 miles to go before we hit 400,000. Like whoa.

I am so unbelievably blessed on a daily basis, and I'm trying to remind myself of that. For the people in my life that I didn't ask to have there, but who support and care for me and help me along the way. If you believe that you will be provided for, you will find ways to get it done.

Henry, an older man who lives across the street from me with his wife and dog, Skeeter, took me for a ride on his motorcycle yesterday. Its been a long time since I rode a motorcycle; I think the last time was with Mike when I was 18. Ah, memories and regrets.
Anyway, Henry has this old BMW bike that is older than me by a few years, and it was a really comfortable ride. All it took, aside from the comfort I already feel with Henry, was hearing he's been riding since '63, and I knew he was experienced enough not to be an idiot and lay us over. I wore his funny white helmet with Chris' clear safety goggles from work, and just sat on the back and grinned like an idiot the entire time. I told Henry we're going to have to make it a semi-regular thing, because he needs an excuse to go ride for fun, and I need adventure in my life, even if it means riding on the back of a 60-something Canadian dude's motorcycle.
I think I love Henry, in the way that someone loves someone else that they have an affinity with, but don't know all that well.
Sometimes, with Dad and Cathy gone for the summer, when I'm feeling a little lonely for them, I consider going across the street and making Henry or his wife come sit on their front porch swing with me. I told Henry that, but haven't done it yet.
I like the idea of having friends that don't have to be in my generation. Why should age differences keep me restricted?

Work is going pretty okay. I work this Saturday to drop an occurrence, and so, have today off for myself. Hurray for that! I also work next Saturday and have Friday off. I'm considering going to Rock Springs or the beach by myself. Morgan needs to get out, yes she does.

There's a lot more I could talk about, but I'm not that interested in a complete unload right now.
Suffice to say that I miss you guys, and am sending love to you all.
M.

Okay, its been entirely too long since I was on here. Not a lot of time because there is too much to do today. I need to go home and work on house stuff with Chris, and my car is in dire need of a cleaning, because I'm going to pick up Dad at the Airport today. He's coming back for a week to do a jazz workshop at FS with middle and high school kids. I'm excited that he's going to be here and to see him a little, but I know it won't be a lot. Anything is nice right now though. Social life has hit a bit of a dry spot. I have a good group of people I'm around at work, but once work is done.... nothing. I'm a little lonely, I admit.
We've had some awesome adventures recently though, going to Kings Landing and canoeing, going tubing at Wekiva Springs, playing at the big playground, going to the huge flea market and checking out the wildlife sanctuary neighboring it. We saw tigers and an asian panther and cougars and some awesome owls and a variety of other stuff. The kids' favourites were the horse and the baboon. The baboon's ass was the craziest thing I've seen in a long time, and he would carry around this empty plastic barrely, throwing it lightly across his pen or knocking it out of the way, and then he would walk to the fence and pick up his basketball and look at us, flicking his tongue in and out between his lips making this little "thp-thp-thp" sound. It was awesome.
I'm ready for some beach time or something. I'd love to go tubing again; it was so incredibly relaxing, aside from one small incident.
Isabel and I finished "James and the Giant Peach" finally, but I've yet to find the movie so we can watch it. I'm going to pick out a different book for us today. Something else for me too. I've been reading so much I can't even remember what the last book I read was..... no, take that back. Odd Hours, by Dean Koontz. I liked the character and would like to read the other books in the series, but not right now. I need something a little different.
Chris has also been reading to Abram every night out of this book of Disney stories we got him for Christmas. They've almost finished the whole book, and I find that rather exciting considering Chris is not at all crazy about reading.
Also been a bit of a slump with music, because my laptop is out of commission and my radio in the car is, as we know, a piece of shit. My car continues chugging along, and I keep wishing that I was in a position that it could just die and I could get something else. 16 years with this car, and I've just about had it.
I got "promoted" to escalations rep at work this week. I'm still in training for the position, and I still have a lot to improve on with my negotiating skills, but I'm sort of interested in seeing how it goes. It could be any sort of experience. I'm just hoping I'm cut out for it and that maybe it challenges me in new ways that are suited to the kind of person that I am; that I can rise to the occassion, shall we say.
Discovered an awesome little meat and produce market near the house and have stepped back a bit into the joy of different meals and cooking altogether. If it weren't so freaking hot, I'd be all about some baking.
I'm ready for a kitchen that isn't the size of a single-wide trailer's hallway.

But anywho, I have to get back because it's getting to that hot part of the day and my car still needs to be cleaned. Those of you who still check in, thanks. I miss you guys and hopefully someday my presence on the web will be known again.


Oh, and Lonesome Dove is the shit--- That'll teach me to think before I make anymore promises...
You go, Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall.
Butcher, out!

So. Not a lot of time, and I have to figure out where to start this thing. I've been nailing it at work, except for a few stumbles which can be improved upon. Hey, I've only worked there since March 2nd, and there is a learning curve. I was doing well enough though that my UM, Gloria, nominated me as an employee of the month. They all vote on who gets it, and I didn't this time, but I was pretty honored that she even wanted me to be one.
Also, she encouraged me to apply for an open QA position, which I did. I went through the application and interview process. Passed the supervisor exam with a 90%, which isn't bad, and they were impressed with my mock QA's and interviews. It was narrowed down to me and 2-3 other people, but they felt I would be better suited elsewhere in the company.
Josie, the lady who trained my class for a week or so, really opened up to me during this process, and by the end of today was telling me that she was honored that she was someone I wanted to impress in the company. She is interested in me helping out with upcoming training classes, and encouraged me to apply for an escalations position. I did so after our talk, and we'll see what comes of it. I hope it comes through because I think I am well-suited for it, and from there I could apply for a manager trainee position, which equals a raise, and from there could be considered for a unit manager position, which equals another raise. I think I can do it, and I'm going to aim to keep doing well with my stats and quality monitors, so that they have no choice but to promote me.

In other news, I got 6 of my hand designs (I've been doing at least 4 a week for the last month) printed postcard size and am going to be trying to sell them. The guy at the print shop seemed really happy to be supporting me and referred me to this lady, Bonnie, at a local graphic shop. She's a graphic designer in charge of the shop, and I went and spoke to her briefly today. She thinks my designs are "great work" and definitely have potential.
I have to look into copyrighting my work, and she said they would probably translate better to greeting cards than postcards. She also encouraged me to look into selling my designs to some greeting card companies. Like, whoa.
So I'm excited.
I showed the printed cards to my dad and he told me that I could have more success, more of an identity, do more with myself, than Rocky (one of my old high school art teachers who has been extremely successful as a professional artist) has been with his work and his folding chairs. That was a serious compliment coming from dad, and I feel like I'm building up some steam here. Like this could really happen, this could bring me a modicum of success and get my foot in the artistic-community door. Like, whoa.
I still have to put the postal standard on the back of my cards, and I need to build a website and be getting the copyright thing going so that the legalities are covered. I also need to figure out packaging, which may be costly. I think I want to go with boxes to sell sets in, but I also need envelopes or something if they're going to be marketed as greeting cards. I'm also playing with the idea of transferring the hand designs to other merchandise, like screenprinting them onto purses or something.
I don't know what's happening here, but it feels good and I'm amazed and wary all at once. What if people don't buy them is a big thing. What if they don't come off as a quality product? What if I run out of designs?
Right now I have 14 completed designs and I aim to have at least 20, but I'd like to have more than that really. I worry a bit about overkill though. Otherwise, I'm also thinking about taking my portraits and trying to translate them into postcards or greeting cards. Or whatever.
I need to also start an etsy shop because I think that could be major, but that may come after the copyrighting and other things.
I think I'm going to go by morganButcherjane, which is good, in my opinion, because it is my name, and what I called myself when I was little, and for the morbid humorists out there, it could spell multiple personalities slaughtering each other. Who ever knew my last name could be so fun?
Anyway, I need to try to look up the copyrighting stuff before I leave.
The only other thing I need to update about is that things have been a bit better with Chris lately. We're working on it. That helps.
We went to Wakiva Springs on Sunday and celebrated Mother's Day by taking a 5-1/2 hour canoe trip down a waterway that, with all of its zig-zags, very well could have been 8-10 miles in length. The kids were there, as were Chris K. and his cousin Jeff, and the guy from Uretek Colorado, Damien. We had 3 canoes, 2 coolers, and a great time. I got burnt the hell up on my knees, and my knees only, and have a massive bruise coming up on my knee from the one time mine and Chris' canoe tipped over (with Abram in it). We swam some, lost some of our possessions to the current, wore our arms and backs out... I'm still sore. Woke up Sunday night with emergency-room-level pain in my left arm from rowing so much.
A lot of the silent-rowing time was spent, besides looking at the beautiful beautiful nature around us, thinking about how canoeing is a great metaphor for how a healthy relationship should operate, both people working to steer in a safe direction, sometimes handling things differently, but always with the objective of helping each other and keeping on a good path. It was a really great experience for me. It felt like... this is what we should be doing. We need this. We need to get out, away from the bullshit, away from the house, away from stress, and settle down to that base level of working together, sharing experiences, soaking up something bigger than ourselves.
The kids did fabulous all day. At one point I looked over and saw Abram laid back against the side of the canoe, the most content boy I've ever seen. Later that night he was so exhausted that he puked several times all over his bed, but by the next morning he was up before us and ready to go. When I dropped them off at daycare on Monday morning, they were talking Mr. Morris' ear off about the canoe trip and seeing turtles in the trees.
At one point I had to take Abram off into the trees to pee. As I stepped off into the shore to get Abram out my foot sunk halfway to my knee into the muck and I almost lost my sandal. Isabel chose this time to switch from my canoe to Jeff's, and when she stepped off the boat, she went up to her waist in the muck. She freaked out and had to scramble her way out of it. She was covered in mud for half the day after that. When you ask her now what her favourite part of the day was, one of the things she consistently mentions is getting stuck in the mud.
My little girl is growing up and getting stronger and she is amazing, amazing, amazing to me. I adore her. I adore them both.
Anyway, good things from the peanut gallery. More of an update when I have more to update on.
Much love to you all.
M.

printing up some hand designs that were done on index cards. turning them into postcards to send up north.
going to go look into bookbinding now.

Smoked my last cigarette at lunch today. Been chewing The Gum since, and man, it's kind of bullshit. I kind of just want to smoke something, period. Like, let me go find a twig to stick in my mouth or something. My coughing and breathing troubles have been escalated since I had the flu a couple of months ago, and I'm tired of worrying about my health, so here we are.
Just so you know, even if it might aide on some of the nic-fit shit, it's definitely not an immediate cure to wanting to smoke me some tobacco. Oi. I just have to keep reminding myself of my motives.
Checked into some of the school stuff, found out about the program outline for Early Childhood Education. Have somewhat of a gameplan, but don't think I can make things move fast enough to get in for the summer stuff. I guess I should make certain rather than ride the discouragement and fall into that regular pit of complacency.
If I don't go for my AS all at once, I'm thinking I could do the online classes, and try to get a job at a childcare facility to get my CDA. From there I only need to have at least 4 of the ECE classes to start teaching, and could work on my AS in the meantime. We'll see how it all plays out. I just... want to be able to be independent, passionate about my work, passionate about my life, confident that I can support my children and have a life that is not always always always down to the wire.
I'm not in love with Chris anymore, and there it is. I just want to be happy, and I find it so frightening, so difficult to just let go. On a daily basis, though, I feel that we both deserve more, and our children deserve some sense of peace, if that's even possible with the life we have built these last 7 years. I just... I'm short on hope and faith and need more to sustain me. I can't will myself to feel these things; I can't force myself to keep pulling on reserves that have been drained again and again.
We have a well-worn groove, though, and letting that go seems harder than logic would imply. Emotions aren't often logical, I suppose.
I want a cigarette. Stupid fucking gum. Stupid lungs that force me to do the right thing. Stupid repurcussions of stupid actions, stupid expectations, stupid fears, stupid inertia. Stupid heart, and stupid soul.
I just want to crawl in my cave and not deal.
My psychic email-stalker tells me I am about to enter a lunar transit period of 6 months that will mean big changes in my life.
Tell me about it; I can feel the fucking shit floating toward the proverbial fan.
I done, yo. I done.