Meltdown

Went out to California for a conference in Anaheim. Since Kelsey is stationed just 45 minutes south at Camp Pendleton, Gary and I decide to visit her there. We finally found her barracks, kind of dark and depressing but she does have a room to herself. We take her out to lunch and she is uncharateristically quiet. Towards the end of lunch, we are alone at the table and she begins to cry. Here is my big girl, my independent one, the one who has succeeded as a Marine no less and she is crying in my arms. "Mommy I hate it here, take me home please", my heart is breaking. We don't talk a lot about it. I just know what she is feeling. We walk back to the car holding hands and crying. Gary is not sure what's going on. We take her back to the barracks and I have to leave her there and it is one of the hardest things I have ever done. We are in the driving back and must drive along the base on I-5 for many many miles and I just sob out loud. I have not felt this way in so long. I cannot control the way I feel. All of me just wants to turn around and go get her. But I know this will result in her in the brig and me in jail. I actually call my Mom, 48 year old woman calling her Mom and sobbing. Gary is upset at how I am reacting I can tell. I feel so bad.

JumpShot

One of a bunch of layouts completed for the Pro-Scrappers league over at Club Scrap. I just love this one. Love the colors, love the paper and love the subject. The journaling is talking about how Kelsey convinced Kalie to keep taking pictures until she got that perfect shot of her jumping!

Cripe, I missed the entire month of February?

How can this be? I was doing so good. Well I can say I have been crazy busy at work? I can say I have had this terrible eye infection that has turned into a staph infection and I am on two different anti-biotics (yikes) I can say home life is crazy busy too and I have been working weekends at the gym. While all of that is true I think I have just not taken the time to post like I wanted to. So here I am posting and not sure what to say. So when all else fails first take a walk. Which I just did and it's so nice out there. Outside smells so good today. Then there is always the post a photo and talk about what it means to me ploy. So here goes. This is Kalie at her Orchestra concert last night playing her Viola. Chuck and I decided we have a Geek for a daughter. Which is just fine by me, less trouble hopefully eh?

Dante & the Taliban

I happen to be reading two books, well three actually but these two are what drew a comparison in my mind this morning. Jodi Picoult's The Tenth Circle and Khaled Hoseinni's A Thousand Splendid Suns. I just started Tenth Circle, and the author is describing Dante's Tenth Circle of Hell as a place in the very bottom of Hell where the worst is reserved for the Devil himself. The "worst" is described as the inability to move, the ability to do what you want, when you want to has been taken away. Last night just before falling asleep in ATSS, I was reading about the Taliban coming into Afghanistan as hero's, as an organized force which ended many years of civil unrest, but also as a gang of religious zealots intent on forcing their laws on the population of Kabul. The laws that were given to the people were many, but the one that stood out so prominently to me were the ones regarding the women. "Women may not leave the house unless attended by a male relative and clothed in a burqa, may not speak to a man, may not work among many other restrictions. To break the laws invited a beating or stoning or death. It just struck me that this sounds much like the Tenth Circle, the Taliban is restricting the movement of women, the ability of the women to move when they want, where they want. And that definitely sounds like Hell.

A Tribute to Frozen Water

For future use. Beautiful, transient and whimsical in their temporary-ness

This Blog

Reminder to me that this is a blog of my daily life and what is going on today in my thoughts, and in my life. I need to write more often!

So last night Kalie was in the shower forever, what's new?, and I said to her " you've been in the shower for half and hour it's time to get out now. Then I hear a very quiet, "what? I have been in the shower for half an hour? I don't think I have been in the shower for half an hour, how could I have been in the shower for half an hour?" This is to herself because she believes I am long gone. She continues this conversation with herself for a bit and then gets back to her singing. She just cracks me up sometimes.

Solitude and Quiet

Treasured moments. It seems as though I don't have any time alone anymore. And it seems I am not alone in this. As I was walking in to work this morning and chatting with a co-worker arriving at the same time, she mentioned she took Friday off so she could have time at home alone. I mentioned I had two hours home alone yesterday, on the Martin Luther King holiday, as Gary had to work and Kalie went up to the Fun Spot to skate for a couple of hours. Those two hours were delightful! No music, no tv, no questions, no expectations for what I should be doing. mmmmmmmm

The Kodi cam is empty this morning, too cold to leave him outside! He hates being in the house alone though! But 0 degrees. Yikes.