Writing of the Day

So I've recently come across a blog where the writer gives her readers a writing prompt of the day and she asks them to write for a minute on the subject. I've decided that this can be a good thing for writing practice, since I frequently feel the urge to write and often lack a topic. So, here goes...

High schools often name one graduate as "Most Likely to Be Famous." What should your "Most Likely to Be..." title have been in high school?

There could be so many answers to this prompt. But throughout high school and since I would have to say I'd be named "Most Likely to Surprise Herself." Through high school and ever since, I've thought I've known who I am. I'm the me I'm comfortable being, and then, all of a sudden, I'm a completely new me. For instance, sports had been a big part of my life from the time I was six or so until I was a sophomore in high school. Then, all of a sudden, I didn't care about it anymore, so I quit. Just walked out of a conditioning practice.

Another, more recent, example is this: Most of my life I've sworn to my family and friends that I didn't want to be married or have kids, it just wasn't me. Then, again all of a sudden, I fell in love with a man named Richard, and fell even harder for his two little ones, C and J (girl and boy). To top that off, I go and have a baby with him, and my whole life changed, for the better. Surprised? You bet, but so happy, as well.

Maybe this happens to everyone. All of a sudden we realize we're not who we thought we were. We're doing something we wouldn't do a year ago, trying something we swore we'd never try, making a life for ourselves we swore we didn't want.

I could've been many things, Most Likely to Succeed, Most Likely to Be a Lesbian, many things. But instead, much to my surprise, I am Most Likely to Surprise Herself. And I am proud of it.

Ready, Set...Oh Wait the Car is Broke

You heard it right, ladies and gentleman...thankfully we had the extra money (well, not extra, it was kind of grocery money) when our car decided to leak oil and blow out blue smoke today, an hour from home, at the in-laws. Here I have one thing to say...thank goodness I like my in-laws! Richard's cousin told us "what was wrong with it" and that it would be 500-600 dollars to fix. A car place said that to fix what was "most likely" the trouble would be 1200 dollars. Right...So we went to a garage who, thankfully, do things cheap and effeciently to pay the 10 dollar fee to put the car up on the lift-y thing-y and see what was wrong. Apparently, it was an oil sending unit, a part that the car-illiterate me did not even know existed. Let me clarify. This piece was about three inches long, not even an inch wide, looked like a little cylinder, and cost a grand total of....drumroll please...15.99. A total of 46.something to fix the car period. I almost cried and hugged the extremely greasy man standing in front of me. So fifteen minutes later...fixed! That was at about four, and then later....on the way home...



I won Kelly Clarkson tickets on Hot 96! Again, I will clarify. In my area there is a radio station that I am, quite frankly, addicted to, called Hot 96 STO that is based out of Evansville, Indiana. They were having a contest called RC Tops off for Summer or some such title. If you were caller 96, you simply pick a number from one to 96 and see what's under the lid! It was the last time they were playing this game, and I was caller 96. I almost fell out of the car. J, my stepson, gave me the number and I won concert tickets. It was between Jason Mraz and Kelly Clarkson, and I know more Kelly Clarkson songs so that was my pick. Yay! I never win ANYTHING! My stepson, of course, was only interested in hearing his name on the radio, lol.



It seems like I'm forgetting something sweet and poetic I wanted to say. Eh, I'll post another if that's the case.

Just...Everything

"Sometimes you get to the end of the rainbow and the leprechauns went and booby trapped it."

Ahh, such is life. I have so much to talk about I better dive right in. First of all, about the new template. I've decided that this blog may be the most important thing to my sense of self right now, and I want to dedicate myself to trusting this blog like I've never trusted any (thing) before. I plan to be as brutally honest as I can with myself here, and though that's going to be a tough journey, I'll be able to look back and see how it's gone and how much left I've to do. My template is now the "music is my life" one, but will be changing often, as with my myspace page. I literally looked for hours for the four decent ones I have bookmarked. I didn't want it to be over the top because the purpose of this blog is to see me, my words, my thoughts, dreams, hopes, fears, instead of what half naked guy is in my background. So honestly? Here goes...

First of all, I have a new writing job with an old friend from GearUp camp, Sarah. I really enjoy this job because...well...I love to write. I don't think I've ever recently realized, as a matter of fact, how much I enjoy writing until I got an email offering me a contract and actually got the goosebumps, hug somebody excitement I get when I'm passionate about something. It has, in fact, made me re-think my career choice, but that's another paragraph...

This paragraph. I realize the transitions in my blogs will not be perfect, which is one of the fatal flaws of my writing in general, but again, it's just one of those things. I am going to attempt to return to college this fall at Madisonville Community College. Only now I find out I may not be able to because when I got married, which was right around tax return and FAFSA time (February 20th, 2009), I was in the process of changing my name from Pippen to Fletcher and now the social security office has messed up somewhere and that needs to be repaired before I can begin to re-submit my FAFSA. And with no financial aid, there will be no college for me. Even if I could go though, I'm interested intellectually in so many things. At first I turned toward teaching. But what age? And what subject? Math or English, it's gotta be one of those, but which? So many decisions I thought would just come to me in adulthood are swirling around in my mind constantly.

And speaking of minds (god what a bad segue, I really have to work on that) I've been having migraines lately that make me think something may be wrong with me. Of course, it could just be the remains of a head cold I've had recently, and I'm hoping it is because stress headaches stink. As a matter of fact, I can't really function with any kind of headache, and I don't ever remember having ones this bad before.

ADHD. In my opinion, a completely inaccurate diagnosis for anyone under the age of, say, 14. In my opinion, again, ADHD is the lazy parent's way of saying "I can't handle my children." The biological mother of my two stepkids is claiming now that Carissa is suffering from ADHD. But here's the thing. ALL kids are hyper. ALL kids lack a long attention span. This is not an uncommon occurance. I am just thankful that she is not allowed to put my sweet, hyper Crissy on any kinds of medication without Richard's legal consent and signature. It's just ridiculous, in my opinion.

Ok, I'm geting closer to the end of this small, random, stream of consciousness book I'm writing, so fear not. The last thing I want to discuss is my recently started and then stopped journey of weight loss and health-gaining. I started keeping a food journal, walking and doing strength exercises five days a week. That lasted for two weeks. At that point my mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law came to stay with us for a week while Richard's parents had a little spat, and my diet and exercise plan went out the window because I was too self-concious to exercise in front of or even in the same house as them. I am, for those who do not know me, severely overweight. I would love to lose the weight at this point in my life. After my son was taken from us, I got nauseous every day at about the same time and decided that it was stress causing it. Right about that time I decided to go on this weight loss journey and once I started exercising my nausea went away. So I've discovered that one: it's a good stress reliever and two: I had lost about three pounds in two weeks doing this, and I should've kept at it. I need to buy a set of scales and just do it. I didn't mind doing it at all. My only problem, I think, will be forcing myself up in early morning hours to exercise because I am so busy the rest of the day. It will take time to get into the habit, but I need to do it.

Now that I've written a novella similar in structure to The Catcher in the Rye, it is time to say goodnight for now. I will try to keep a running tab on things I want to record here and stay loyal to my new blogging habit.

Forgot

I'm so forgetful it's quite sad, sometimes. The other day I posted a blog entry to the effect that I was worried about being pregnant...that's a negative, Roger Roger. However I was taking some antibiotics for a cold while I was on what was supposed to be and ended up finally being my period, so there's a whole new level of worry now. Is my type of antibiotics one of the kinds that screw up birth control? Probably.

In other news, Richard and I have family court July 21st so the judge can decide if she thinks we are guilty or not guilty. I have never been so terrified in my entire life. To love a child as much as I do my son only to have the threat of having him taken away from me forever is my worst nightmare, and I truly hope no one who is innocent of child abuse ever has to go through what my husband and I have been put through because of an accident.

Oh, and one more thing. Now that my articles are written I have five hours to sleep before we get up to go fishing. Must...go...to...bed!

Before I Forget

I wanted to get this memory down before I forgot to do so.
Yesterday at my in-laws fourth of July celebration, Richard's uncle Eugene gave me a big hug and said "You're very precious to us." I wanted to get this down because it will always be a precious memory to me, to be accepted by another family so whole-heartedly.