and I will also have a beer...

(Above quote from John Taylor with a line added by me)

Dear God,
Watch over my (Matt) Cut him some slack. He likes to do things his way. He is a great worker and will be your sharpest dressed angel. 
Thanks,
me(Julie)


My friend Julie's facebook status yesterday. She lost her husband Matt on Saturday, March 3rd 2012. He died in his sleep, a healthy 42 year old man, of a heart attack. Today is his funeral, and his wake. A celebration of all that Matt was to so many people. With a lot of great music and beer and food and dancing and laughing. The way a wake should be, in my humble opinion. Julie's kept her sense of humor which is rivaled, by perhaps, only Matt's. She has stayed strong for her 3 kids - all over the age of 18 but kids none the less who have lost their daddy. I wish i could be there to hug her, but something tells me she is the one doing the hugging right now. That's just how Julie is. 


So many of us shaken to our core by the loss of of one of our own. My friends from QVC and the Blarney and FB all intertwined and connected by the pain and the heartbreak of yet another death. Yet another loss, another gone too soon. The sheer shock of it, making even the strongest among them questioning their lives and beliefs. Hugging those they love a little tighter, fixing the relationships once broken, calling the ones they haven't talked to in a while. 


Living as if each day is their last, because you never know. You never know...


So perhaps today, in your life, you can think of Julie and her kids, and of Matt. Maybe today, you can resolve to appreciate what you have and embrace those you love. Maybe even contact those you have let slip away. Maybe for today, we can all learn something from loss. 


I know that I will. 


PS: And I will also have a beer or two (Slainte' Matteo) - put on some Led Zeppelin and dance around the house a bit. And I will laugh... most definitely.  

Try to imagine them all around

Not in some distant heaven

For they are nearer to you

Than your own heartbeat

~ © Alison Stormwolf ~

and ohhh what a Wedding weekend it was...

Went back to PA this weekend or my daughters wedding and it was fantastic. I will write a longer blog on it tomorrow but first let me just say... I MOVED THE DAMN LAPTOP!!! If you don't remember click here for my post on it. It was good for a couple of weeks and then tonight i picked it up & BAM, the charger signal cut out and can't be found again. SON OF A BITCH!! Ok - with that out of my system...


So my daughters wedding... so many great family members and friends. My dad and her father walked her down the isle 

which was quite fitting, since my Pop's has been more of a father to her in the last 13 years than her own father ever was. It was so beautiful and she kept it under budget.

 It was casual and relaxed but still on point as a wedding with place cards, dances and cake cutting etc. Family and friends (and me - ziti yum) provided the food and we had beer and wine and champagne.

The centerpieces... these were all Kelly - aren't they gorgeous?

 Kelly made all the decorations, I made all the wedding flowers, and we had it at the Clubhouse in the development she lives in.

Here I am with the bride and her 2 best friends - my otha kids lol you can also see the flowers here too.


Just a quickie for now - I will write the whole blog tomorrow with some more pictures. Beautiful, touching, intimate and filled with love. Can't ask for much more at a wedding.

Wish, Want, Need, Crave...

For me personally -


I wish...that I made enough money that i could pay all my bills and still have enough left over for food and a bottle of wine.


I want... a peaked roof and gutters on my house


I need...to finish my damn book, This is ME, Damn It...learning to survive and thrive with positivity.


I crave... Blarney Stone wings, mild, extra crispy w/ extra blue cheese please. Oh and a miller lite bottle 


I desire... a sz 6 body and perky boobs


If i could...go back to school I would in a heartbeat... and i would study forensic psychology


Since I should...clean my room, I will instead write my blog. (works for me)


Why I would...eat at fast food places is a mystery to me.


My heart... is in Pennsylvania but I love living at the beach so I am happy 

My brain...never, ever stops thinking.Which makes sleep difficult at times


My life... is in my control and only I can make it better.

My love... does not come easy, it must be earned and treated well. 

I miss... my peeps in West Chester, PA


If i didn't...eat fast food I might have a sz 6 body...see how that all connects?? LOL

I wear... flannel pajama pants when i am home. warm and comfy is key! 

yep - penguin flannels...right there

I eat... like a single person too much sometimes. I need to cook more.


I smile...a lot more lately than I used to...

I laugh... Loud and hearty and lately at my idiot dogs all the time. 

I believe...in God and angels and ghosts but question the idea of aliens


I dream... of winning the lottery and working for NCIS but only if Mark Harmon was my boss. 




The world in general...

I wish...that people would accept that gay or straight it's all the same love.


I want... a world where race, religion, and sexual orientation didn't matter, just the kindness in your soul. 


I need... to remind people that the size of your bank account does not make you a better person.


I crave... a world where anyone could get Blarney Stone wings whenever they wanted... yep still on those wings


I desire... a cure for cancer


If I could... offer every abused woman safe haven I would. Why can't the US do this? 


Since I should...tell every woman to get a CA 125 test for early ovarian cancer detection, I have signed on to be studied by a oncology group out of Philadelphia.

Why I would...take a job making less than 1/2 what I used to make is why the US is in trouble and no one can spend any money.


My heart...knows that at it's core, there is true good in the world.


My brain... suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because not enough government money has gone towards furthering research into this disease.


My life...MY CHOICE! F U Rick Santorum and all the other republican bureaucrats who want to tell me otherwise!


My love... for men is the way I was born, not a choice I made. Same goes for anyone who is gay. Realize that people.


I miss...when the US had respect for the President


If i didn't... fight back, I would be a murder statistic, instead of a violence survivor. Teach every woman how to fight back now!


I wear... my pants pulled up, why can't the rest of the US population. (I am looking at you young man)

I eat...too many chemicals in food I think is safe in a country that should be doing better at policing itself.


I smile...even tho I have never been able to afford good dentistry -even with dental insurance. Wake up dental industry.


I laugh...at the republican candidates that should not even be able to run for dogcatcher , let alone President. (I'm looking at you Newt Gingrich)


I believe...that President Obama is doing the best he can with what he's been allowed to do since our party lines are so negatively divided.

I dream... of a country where woman and children are safe from domestic violence and everyone, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation or bank account, is treated equally.

RIP Whitney Houston...

Wow! 48 years old, Whitney Houston has died. 6:55 pm EST (3:55 in LA) at the Beverly Hilton in her room. They are saying no foul play is suspected and no cause was immediately apparent.


RIP Whitney. We will ALWAYS love you!

Happy Thanksgiving and catch up time...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Wow it has been way too long since I blogged. I apologize. In the past 20 days, I got hired at and started 2 jobs. I left the one at KMart because the 2nd job I started is at a bank and is full time, more money and has excellent benefits. Based on the openness of my blog and the world today in general, I will simply refer to my new job as ... The Bank... What's funny, or great, is that the day after I asked a friend to say special prayers for me to find the right job, I got the call for an interview from the Bank and subsequently got the job!  

Yes, I do believe in the power of prayer. I also believe in angels, ghosts, Karma and Divine Intervention. I am a mixed up bag of spirituality.

I've gone thru 2 weeks of training and Wednesday was my first full day on the phones alone. All went great and I am loving the job, meeting some great new friends and walking almost 3 miles a day getting around the work site. Yes the call center is that big! 11 more days on the phones then back into training for 6 weeks. Christmas parties and Secret Santa's and pig in's, my own cubicle... I have missed the business world! I also like the job security. 

Last weekend Mom and Dad came down to their beach house and brought my daughter Kelly and her fiance' DaShaun with them. The kid and DaShaun stayed with me and it was so good to see them. it had been 3 month since I had last seen the kid - tho we do talk every day- and I MISSED HER!  Mom surprised me with a fabulous early family Thanksgiving last Sunday and it was so great. Today, I spent the holiday alone and didn't even care... because I had last Sunday! 

Today I appreciated the day off, slept in until 8:30am (i have been getting up at 5am during the week)  and made a great meatloaf, asparagus w/ hollandaise sauce, a baked potato and crescent rolls.

mmmmmm cheese soup on the meatloaf!

I finally get paid next Friday - 3 weeks worth - and man will it be good to have money. Right now I have about 10 bucks in my bank account and I drive 30 miles a day back and forth to work so I am in a bit of a panic. BUT everything happens for a reason and If I had extra money in the bank right now I would be black Thursday shopping tonight... I do not need to be doing that! 

So many things to be thankful for...but that's for another blog tomorrow. 

For those of you who celebrate it (believe it or not I have a lot of readers who aren't from the US) I hope your Thanksgiving's were filled with friends, family, laughter, love and good food. 

I hope you take a moment, or hopefully longer, to truly reflect on all that you have in your life to be thankful for. Please remember to appreciate all that you can while you can, because life can be fleeting. Don't wait to say what you feel and love who you want because you've got to start living your life every day! 

"and today there was joy. Joy for life and all the beautiful people and experiences involved. I hope that all you dear hearts were able to feel that joy all around." ~Jamie Windsong Kasper

xoxoxoxox

  

Dancing with myself...

Sooo I am heading halfway thru my 2nd full week here on my own. Of course this past weekend, my friend Don was here w/ his best friend Joe. So I met up with them on Friday and Sunday. SOooo much fun! 

Then my dad was here from Thursday thru Saturday so I got to cook dinner for him one night and then he took me to dinner the next.
BUT this week, I am a bit homesick.
 “Homesickness is. . . absolutely nothing. Fifty percent of the people in the world are homesick all the time. You don't really long for another country. You long for something in yourself that you don't have, or haven't been able to find.”~Anon


I've been stressed about money and jobs and in between all that I've started really missing, as the quote above says, my family and friends. Not my apartment or West Chester but something I haven't found down here... people to hang out with. Actually more than that , I miss my people to hang out with... I am a little bit lonely.

Amiee and Nicole

Tami

Jenn and Doug

Dre

Kelly and Colleen

Bob and Barb

Vern and Jeffie

Alex

Every house where love abides
And friendship is a guest,
Is surely home, and home sweet home
For there the heart can rest.
~Henry Van Dyke

It is a curious emotion, this certain homesickness…   we are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.

~ Carson McCullers

Then I found this in a post I wrote in December of last year-

And so as this January roles around, and I put Christmas behind me again, I find an excitement for what's to come. Not a sadness at a another year gone by, but pride at what I have been able to accomplish. I've learned that change is good and freeing and healthy! I have an undeniable sense that the best is yet to come and it's just waiting for me to find it. And find it I will. 

So bring on 2011... it's gonna be fantastic!

I will admit that I am proud of myself and what i have accomplished. I proved to myself that 

anything is possible if you want it badly enough. I think that once I get a job (and believe me

I am applying non stop) and meet some people I will feel a bit better. i still know that I made 
the right decision by moving. I still feel that I am exactly where i belong. I have come 
"home" and i own my own place and it is coming together beautifully.

But at 47 years old... I still miss my mom. LOL I guess that all means that I am a blessed
person. i have enough people in my life that i love, and that love me, that I am missing them.

Mom and Dad

And then I go to the beach and it's quiet and beautiful and I float in the warm water of the inlet and I am at peace. I sit on my chair in the sand and watch a school of dolphin playing out in the water and I realize this is what people dream of. This is what people say they want and never get. Somehow I have been lucky enough and determined enough and blessed enough 
to not only find my bliss but to live it.

And that's when i realize, when I know deep in my beach loving soul, that all will work out and it will be wonderful.

there's no place like home...

It's funny how quickly a place can feel like home. And how quickly a place that used to be home can feel like it belongs to someone else. That's a good thing tho...I missed my home, my beach house, the minute we we hit the first bend after the main drag. I wasn't going home, i was leaving it. And i didn't want to. Don't get me wrong - I was looking forward to seeing the kids and smooching my dog and seeing my parents and my friends, BUT I knew when I left, I was visiting West Chester... not going home to it. I notice my words have changed as well, I no longer say home when I am talking about the apartment and instead say it about my house in Rehoboth.


All of this is good stuff. It's transitional stuff that makes things go more smoothly. My love and excitement for my new home make it so I don't miss my old one quite as much. The idea that I won't see Kelly every day or my parents when I want doesn't hurt quite as much because I know that I am where I belong. It's like finding that missing puzzle piece and having it fit perfectly. 

All this time I thought my missing piece..or pieces, would be wrapped up in a man. I didn't feel complete because I was single. I had fallen in love a few times but it never worked out. Somewhere out there was the guy who would, in the words of Jerry McGuire, "Complete me". But what if this move, buying my own home, living at the beach on my own, is what completes me? What if the parts of my soul that I thought I needed to find in someone else, were really there all along. In the ocean and the sand and the cry of the seagulls and the smooth rocks on the shore?

What if I am still single, because the universe or God, felt that I needed to complete myself BEFORE I found someone to share my life with? Someone to compliment my life instead of completing it?


How many people can say they've figured it out? Found their BLISS? Completed themselves and are exactly where they are supposed to be? 

I am so blessed. So truly, truly blessed! 


"In this journey we call life, so many people search for something outside of themselves to complete their lives, complete their souls. What if we realized everything we need can be found within ourselves. It just has to be rearranged a bit to fit together and make us whole. Wouldn't that be the most wonderful thing?" ~Stacey Charter

No matter what I say, I will always love you...

 Listening non stop to Adele's 21. God Lord I am so glad this was not out a year ago... This kinda says it all...
"Next time I'll be braver, 
I'll be my own savior, 
When the thunder calls for me, 
Next time I'll be braver, 
I'll be my own savior, 
Standing on my own two feet"


And she covers one of my all time favorite songs...LoveSong by the Cure.


"Whenever I'm alone with you 
You make me feel like I am home again 
Whenever I'm alone with you 
You make me feel like I am whole again"


Sweet Jeebus every word this woman sings speaks directly to me. 


"I heard that you're settled down, 
That you found a girl and you're married now, 
I heard that your dreams came true, 
Guess she gave you things I didn't give to you, 
Old friend, why are you so shy? 
Ain't like you to hold back or hide from the light,"


Is it wrong that after all this time, I still miss him? I don't miss "it"... But I miss him. 


If I could talk to him I would ask, "How much of it was real? And how much of it was lies?"

As I look back with a clearer mind, I realize that,perhaps, I saw only what he wanted me to see. Maybe everything we had was just a lie...and really, in his world none of it matters. Except to me...

Another trip down memory lane...

I have been searching, finding and typing up my old poems for the book this week. I wasn't going to add them at first - and they may still not make the cut - but I have to include them in this phase of writing. Plus it's nice to get them off of paper and into the computer.


I find myself saying over and over "If only I had Microsoft Office instead of Open Office". Open office was free tho and Microsoft Office, as we all know , is not.  So for now I use the bare bones Open Office to write. Problem being, nothing recognizes the open office file names. So I can't even up date my resume, let alone transfer my book into a program. I am hoping that when I eventually get Microsoft Office, I can just cut and paste from what I have typed up so far directly into Word. It's either that or I start looking for writers software.  Hmmm, well anyway, sorry, I digress. 


Poems are what we're talking about. So here is a piece of one, that I wrote in October of '96. It's actually quote romantic as I read it again. And funnily enough... wait - is "funnily"  a word? hmm maybe I should say  - And oddly enough, these words still ring true to me today. It's what I search for when I am in a relationship. It's what will rock my world when I find it.

  " I've never even touched you,

but if I close my eyes and see with my heart,

  I know exactly how you feel.

I hear your voice

  and I feel as if I have heard it forever.

You are so new to me, 

  but you're not.

I think my heart knew you,

  before I even saw your face."

~Stacey Gates Charter

Oh Yay, it's Valentine's Day...UGH!

yeah this pretty much sums it up

So joy oh joy it's Valentines day. Isn't that special! (they really do need to come up with a sarcasm font) In all my 47 years i don't think I've ever really had a good one. When I was married, my husband wasn't a big romantic so we treated it like any other day. Well he did anyway. Since the divorce, I usually was single or dating someone (like last year) who really couldn't give two shits about celebrating with me. Tho if i remember correctly, I believe he told me he bought something for his soon to be ex-wife... yeah nice guy right? Guess that's why he decided to forget the divorce and stay married.

I do remember  1 very nice dinner with an ex-boyfriend that I was still friends with... I love a long dinner. Drinks before then good food, good conversation... some more drinks after. Great restaurant... So there was one nice Valentines day LOL. 

I know I sound bitter and I shouldn't but really, if you're gonna be bitter, what better day to be it. (wow say that sentence 5 times fast haha) I usually keep that bitter side of myself in the dusty corner but when you are single and consistently force fed everything love for weeks and then have to go thru the day while everyone celebrates it ... well it's kinda sucky.

The positive side of me that usually wins is telling me to celebrate Love in every form today. Loving myself, celebrating myself , is a healthier way to look at this day.

“You must love yourself before you love another. By accepting yourself and fully being what you are, your simple presence can make others happy.”~anon

I mean really, it's what I write about, it's what I counsel others to do thru my words...

Don't rely on someone else for your happiness and self worth. Only you can be responsible for that. If you can't love and respect yourself - no one else will be able to make that happen.~Stacey Gates Charter

Again, I guess, that is the contradiction that is me. I strive every day to love myself.  I know that I will not find someone else to love me, unless I truly love myself first .  Believe me, I like the hearts and flowers and pinks and reds of the day... but it's easier to say Valentines day Sucks, then it is to say, I am alone and lonely... again.

So allow me, dear readers, my one day of bitter and I promise on the remaining 364 days of the year I will aspire to love myself positively and spread the word  of  healthy self love and respect.  

I do send you all love and flowers this day and hope that you are spending it in a way that makes your heart happy.

I leave you with something I wrote a while ago... that may further explain the ying and the yang of love. The desire to be loved, but the fear of it as well.

Happy Day!

Everyday we are locked

in a constant battle for our hearts.

We build wall after wall,

like protective armor,

that we hope will keep us safe.

But then spend all of our time

looking for someone who can

break down all the barriers

and set us free.

That ever elusive freedom...

that possession of our hearts.

It's our deepest desire

and yet also our most soul wrenching fear. ~Stacey Gates Charter