I’ve seen said craft room, and she’s right – she’s got a TON of stuff – cool stuff.

Well, anyone who’s seen my office knows that I, too, have a ton of stuff I could unload. Mostly books. And computer stuff.

So, I signed up, and sure enough, I got 400 credits for doing so, an extra 50 credits for hooking it to my Facebook account, and another extra 50 credits for hooking it to my Twitter account. Nice.

Then, I got another 100 credits for listing my first auction (which you can see in the box to the right.) I have no need for this tripod any longer, since my Flip cam grew legs of its own and crawled mysteriously away sometime in the last few months. (I may possibly have left it somewhere in Atlanta last summer, too.)

So, I ask you – don’t you have stuff, perfectly good stuff, that you don’t need or use anymore? Wouldn’t it be grand to give it away to someone who really needs and wants it? There’s good karma in this, folks. Our stuff wants to be where it’s loved and valued, not gathering dust and being ignored.

Go on ahead and get 600 free credits and get started! You know you’ve got stuff to list.

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

The end of the Mayan calendar has people a bit wigged out and there are a lot of doom-sayers having a field day with that. We’ve got a Presidential election this fall, and that has folks a bit wigged out, too. And, of course, the media is already having a field day with it, labeling their news broadcasts such things as “Decision 2012″. I’m sick of the posturing and pontificating already. Whatever you believe, I think we can probably all agree these are stressful times and our individual and collective faiths are being tested.

No one is feeling it more than a friend of mine whose husband died this week. He was only 43 and had a massive heart attack on New Year’s Day. He leaves behind his wife of 19 years and two kids – none of whom have any understanding of what has happened to them.

Happy Fucking New Year. Lean into it, my ass.

Having had my own scare with Second Son in November (And no, don’t think you missed a post, because you didn’t. I have been too busy dealing with the shit storm that has been my life these last few months to write about it here.) I have only the tiniest inkling of what my friend is going through. How the hell do you lean into pain like that? I don’t know and I don’t want to find out anytime soon.

It’s amazing how things that were such big issues 5 minutes ago become petty and small in the face of this kind of news. I’m sitting here guiltily grateful that it’s not me in that kind of mind-numbing emotional pain, horrified for my friend and the grief she’s feeling, and hurting so much for their kids.

I know we’re all human, and that, to some extent, explains how we get so caught up in the insignificant details of our lives and allow them to take up so much of our bandwidth that the really important things – I love you, you are special, I see you, you make a difference, I believe in you – don’t get said.

Any one of us could be gone in any moment for any reason, but we live – myself included – like there’s always going to be a tomorrow. I don’t want to live in fear of death, but I don’t want to get caught taking life for granted, either. So, for me, I’m going to practice being a little more present everyday. I’m going to say more of the important things, even if they seem out of the blue to those listening. And I’m going to be my real self more. Less conforming to expectations and more genuine expression of who I am and what I’m here to do.

Because, you know my grandkids and great-grandkids need stories of their crazy Grandma who slid into her grave with a big thud, exclaiming, “Whew! Ok! I’m ready. But, I’ll be baaaaaaccckkk!”

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

So, when Second Son showed signs of following his brother’s footsteps, I decided radical action was in order.  By this time, I was working at home and had more flexibility in my schedule, so I got certified to be a substitute teacher and took assignments at Second Son’s school so I could both see what he was up against and reduce his ability to buffalo me. I told him, “I hate to break it to you son, but the high-school dropout position in our family has been taken. Your job is to graduate high school, go to college and live a productive life as a functioning adult. If you don’t like it, take it up with God, because I can’t help you.” Today, he is a college freshman and I am so proud.

Meanwhile, PDD has navigated her way from kindergarden through elementary school with flying colors. Then came middle school last year. Her grades plummeted and the campaign for me to home school her began.

PDD is the only one of my children who enjoys reading.  She is very artistic, distractible and social – none of which are really valued in the public school setting. She is not one of those “fast” girls you see wearing hoochie-mama clothes and boys are still a little bit gross. So last year when she told me that one of her friends had already been pregnant twice, I don’t know who was more freaked out – me or her. Add to this the 30 minute morning battle to get her out of bed, the crying scenes because of the torment she was enduring from the mean girls clique, and her spiraling grades…well…let’s just say she had my attention.

While I could think of a long list of reasons why home schooling would likely be a better option for her (and me), there was an equally long list of reasons why it wouldn’t.  For the first time in 19 years, the home schooling issue was not cut and dried.

After spring break last year, PDD’s campaign to do school at home began in earnest. She kept saying she hated school and wanted me to home school her. We made it to the end of the school year and she passed 6th grade by the hair of her chinny-chin-chin, and I knew something would have to change for her, but I didn’t know what. I thought maybe the campaign would die out over the summer, but it didn’t.  More interesting was how she spent her summer: self-directed learning online.  She wrote countless reports on dogs, horses, wolves, and giraffes complete with pictures and references.  She and Google became good friends and I couldn’t keep paper or ink in my printers.

Then, at the beginning of August, when the start of school began to loom large, she said the magic words to me: public school online. My beloved Internet:  The very thing which has so drastically empowered my own life by giving me the means to earn a living at home ~ could it hold the same empowerment for my daughter in the form of public school online?

We are in the process of finding out.

In early August, we applied to the Oklahoma Virtual Academy through K12.com. We both were very enthused about the alternative format and the individualized curriculum. For me, the magical factor was that I wouldn’t be the teacher. So, it’s not home schooling in the traditional sense, it’s school at home.  Big difference.

Long story short, Tulsa Public Schools killed our plan by denying PDD’s out-of-district transfer. Why?  Because they have their own virtual school…surprise, surprise.  No mention of it on the district website, I guess we were supposed to intuit its existence. So, she is enrolled in the Tulsa Virtual Academy for now, and we’ll see how it goes. She is enrolled in 4 classes: math, geography, language arts and science.  She has to do 5 hrs a day for a total of 25 hrs a week.  The good news is the week total is the one they really care about, so she can spread it out over all 7 days if she doesn’t want to do 5 hrs a day, or she could do it all in 2 days if she likes. The bad news is the format is not the most interesting and there is limited interaction with teachers, unless you fail a test twice – then you have to go to their location (which, at the moment, is a suite of offices in Promenade Mall) for tutoring.

This is not ideal – for her or for me – but there is enough of what we both wanted out of online school to muscle through it until January when we can reapply to K12.com and TPS won’t be able to block the transfer. She’s an extrovert and I’m an introvert and we’re both suffering the fact that we’re now together 24/7, but we’re both finding ways to get the kind of time we need without driving the other one crazy.

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

“Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Well, there you have it.

All these years of being misunderstood, and now I know why.  I am great.

I would say, “Well, I could have told you that!” Except, I couldn’t have. Always before, the voice in my head would scream, “LIAR!”

But, I am beginning to “get” it.  I am beginning to accept my fate as a unique, Divine creation, the only one of my kind.

It’s been fascinating to watch the cast of characters in my life shift and change over the years. From each connection, I have learned about myself. Each relationship has had a purpose.

As I understand myself better, as I learn about who I really am, I find I am:

• more confident
• more tolerant
• more joyful
• more connected
• less anxious
• less judgmental

I am still misunderstood, but now I don’t mind.  It’s just because I am great.

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

This is the 3rd #Trust30 prompt, offered by Buster Benson: The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action. What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it?

I strongly believe that two people who are opposites in every way imaginable can join forces – be it in a marriage, a friendship, a business partnership, or any kind of relationship – and view their differences as assets, rather than liabilities. I believe that in that together those two people have “more bases covered” than either would on their own, or with someone more like them.

I am blessed with a couple relationships in my life today that are me and someone quite different from me, yet they really work well.  I have had relationships in the past that were with someone quite different from me, and sooner or later, the differences became liabilities instead of valued assets.

I think the big difference between the relationships I have like this today and the ones from the past is – no surprise – trust.  I trust myself much more than I ever have before, and because of that, I am able to trust others better, as well. When real trust is present, differences are assets. When it’s not, well, it’s only a matter of time…

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

Dating, I’ve decided, is a crash course in personal growth. Not only are you dealing with your own vulnerabilities, insecurities and foibles, but the other person’s, as well.  It’s a mine field, at best – but if you approach it from a “what’s there for me to learn” place, it can be quite entertaining, as well.

Take last night, for example.  This guy had invited me over for dinner – he wanted to cook for me. He’s a nice enough guy, so I agreed.  He gave me his address and we agreed I’d come over at 6.

I arrived and he invited me in.  He was fresh out of the shower, had dinner ready to go on the grill and a bouquet of flowers waiting for me. He offered me a glass of wine and asked if I was hungry. I said I was, so he put the shish-kabobs he’d made on the grill.  I milled around a bit, looking at the pictures of him with the Governor of Oklahoma, another with Bill Clinton, some from his days as an army pilot, others from his travels around the world.  I thought to myself, “This guy’s going to be interesting to talk to, for sure.”

He came in from the patio and began to tell some of the stories behind the pictures.  As he lead me around the living room, he reached out to take my hand. I thought – awww…sweet.  Then he turned and planted a kiss on my lips – mid-sentence, no less.  Taken aback, I finished my sentence and then shut up.  He asked if that was ok and not sure exactly what he meant – was it ok that he kissed me, or did the kiss, itself, pass muster – I mumbled some affirmative.

We sat down at the dining room table with our wine and I thought, “Ok…let the stories begin.”  I asked leading questions, trying to draw him out, but between looking at my boobs and checking on dinner, all he could muster were one-sentence answers to my questions. It was beginning to feel like an inquisition rather than a conversation, when all of  a sudden, he comes back in from the patio and proceeds to try and perform a tonsilectomy with his tongue while boldly copping a feel.

Now I realize there’s a whole other agenda in play here. Dinner is served with impatience and it’s obvious I’m on the menu as dessert.  He attacks his shish-kabob with the vengeance of a man on a mission while I look around, totally expecting to see Ashton Kutcher and the “Punk’d” crew hiding around the corner.

I tried to make light conversation, but he kept eye-balling my boobs while he chewed.  Ewww.  It got so bad that without filtering, I said, “You know – if I could twist them off and give them to you to play with, I would.”  That got his eyes off of them, at least.

Half-way through his meal, he stands up, holds out is hand to me, and when I look up confused, says, “This is me trying to lead you somewhere.”  Still chewing a piece of steak, I stand up and take his hand.  Dumb. Ass. Me.

Next thing I know I find myself on his bed with a mouth full of half-chewed steak and him trying to kiss me.  He is trying desperately to put the moves on me, even manages to finagle his way on top of me, only to have me say, “Uhhh…excuse me?  What exactly are you doing?”

“I just want to hold you,” he says.

“Well, you might want to get off me, then, because the lovely dinner that you couldn’t wait for me to finish is now being pushed back up into my esophagus.”

He gets off me and sits up. I sit up and pat him on his knee and said as light-heartedly as I could muster, “Slow your roll, cowboy. Let’s talk and practice our communication skills some more.”

“Well, if it’s practice you need, maybe you should practice your driving skills and go home.”

Slowly, I turned my head to look him dead in the eye.  “You know what?  Thank you.  Thank you for dinner and thank you for that. Buh-bye now!”  I stood up, slammed the bedroom door behind me and was out of his house before he made it out of the room.

That date lasted an hour and 39 minutes, including drive time.

From the “what can I learn about me” perspective, this date was highly educational.

• I learned that I am over my self-consciousness about how I look and whether a man will find me attractive in all my middle-aged glory.
• I learned that no matter how long I go without getting laid, my libido does not lead the show.
• I learned that I really do want to connect with a man on multiple levels.
• I learned I can trust my intuition.
• And, most importantly, I learned how to disconnect quickly and effectively when I’m sure there is nothing for me there.

All without getting my feelings hurt or thinking there’s something unredeemably wrong with me.

I bet he’s still mad.

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

“Probably not anytime soon, ” I say to myself, but do not share with him.

Today’s #Trust30 prompt is Surprise by Ashley Ambirge I am, along with every one else participating, tasked with thinking of a time when I didn’t think I was capable of doing something, but then surprised myself. How will I surprise myself this week?

And here’s the funny part – what’s so surprising to him is who I am turning into from his perspective. Of course, surprises seem to me like a given when your role in a relationship changes, but I guess he thought he knew the whole and real me, already.

But for this moment, it doesn’t matter what surprises him. This is supposed to be about how I will surprise myself by doing something I don’t think I can do.

Ok, I don’t think I can continue tip-toeing in this relationship just to keep him comfortable. I don’t think I can just go along anymore, and it feels like I have only two choices: disengage and detach, or let fly with what I really think about what I’ve seen going on, which, no doubt, will really surprise him. Because, you know, he keeps asking me what I think.

His surprise is that I don’t just automatically back his position.

My surprise might be that there is something else I can choose between the all or nothing I feel.

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

The Farm: This is a picture I want to one day have my own picture of, with me in that chair. It’s at a place calls Brinson’s Race and it’s owned by a friend of mine, Laura Biering. That rocking chair, and the dark, cool, quiet of that porch just call to me. In fact, I go there quite a lot already…in my mind. No surprise, since Laura, herself, has the same effect on me.

Valle of Yellow Creek Art Studio: Through another good friend, Ellene Breedlove Davis, Valle of Yellow Creek Art Studio is a place I have only seen in my mind’s eye (with some help from her paintings.) I came close last month, though, when I got to meet Ellene in person in Atlanta, about 60 miles southwest of where she lives in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in north Georgia. This painting, called “Sunny Morning Road“, will be hanging in my home very soon. That will keep me happy until I get to go there and let Ellene show me how to play with paint.

Karen’s Front Porch: Despite all the beautiful scenery surrounding Karen’s new home in Pleasanton, CA, what calls to me is this space, with a cup of French Vanilla coffee in hand and her to talk to. And yes, I would love to go with her to the Farmer’s Market, sight-seeing in San Fransisco, wine tasting in Napa Valley…as long as we come right back here to talk and just be.

Wherever Marty Lands in Palm Springs, CA: I’d follow Marty wherever he went because he is the draw, but he and his partner, Bill, are currently investigating real estate in Palm Springs, CA. So, that means maybe one day soon, I’ll have a home away from home in the desert to run away to. I’ve never been to the Palm Springs area, but I know one thing for sure: Wherever Marty lands will be beautiful, welcoming and good for my soul because he will be there.

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

At the end of the day, my perspective is sometimes less optimistic than it is at the beginning of the day.

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,

But, that’s not going to stop me. (Also, story of my life.)

So, here goes…  I have just been told I have 15 minutes to live.  Here is the story that has to be written.

Shit, I don’t have time to write a story.  I have to hug my kids.  I have to tell them to be fearless in the pursuit of self-knowledge, self-love and the life they want to live while they’re here.  Don’t wait as fucking long as I did to catch a clue.  Decide now what you want out of life and then go get it.

Don’t let others tell you who you are!  And it’s ok to change your mind. A thousand times, if that’s what it takes.  That’s not being flaky – that’s calibrating the direction of your journey with each new thing you learn about yourself and the world.

Your mama loves you far more than I took time to tell you or show you. And you will do that, too. And it’s ok. That doesn’t make you a shit.  It makes you a human being, sure that you’ve got more than 15 minutes left.

And for everyone else I love, same thing goes for you.

I love you. Don’t make me haunt your ass.

Keepin' it real in the bloggerhood,