We all bend and sway with our friends and groups.  This group likes Rap Music, this group Country and this group Death Metal.  Or maybe with these group of friends you go to eat Chinese,  while the next group it is Mexican.  

     All of those are superficial adjustments that we make when the crowd mentality kicks in.  We don’t want to be the one lone Chinese Food lover in the Mexican group or vice versa.

     The real issue arises when someone tries to change the fundamental principles of who you are, to match what they want you to be. Akin to telling you that the sky is green when we all know that it is blue.  We all need to find our own path to walk in this life,  sometimes the path a little less traveled may be the one that you are more comfortable with.  But maybe you want the 8 Lane super highway,  all hustle and bustle and lots of commotion.  Those are decisions that only we can make. 

     Trying to live someone else’s dream or ideal of you is like trying to squeeze into a pair of jeans that are a tad too small.  They will fit,  but never be really comfortable,  find the life that is like the comfy well worn jeans, it is you,  thru and thru. 

    

     I was just cruising along doing my thing this past weekend,  things were going well.  Then out of the blue Sunday afternoon a migraine arrived.  This was a doozy of a migraine.  It started with nausea, and dizziness like the world wouldn’t stop spinning.  I kept thinking I was gonna toss my cookies at any moment.  Then came the numbness in my hands and fingertips,  a bizarre feeling that never becomes normal.

     I started by taking a shower and popping my migraine meds, and anti-nausea meds,  washing them down with Gatorade. 30 minutes later and the blinding pain and nausea hasn’t abated.  Onto stage 2, the heavier duty anti-nausea meds and more migraine meds,  along with pain meds and more Gatorade.  Finally I sleep because the nausea has abated a bit and the blinding pain has diminished a bit.
     I am very careful about what I eat to keep these debilitating headaches under control.  Minimal processed meats,  no artificial sweeteners,  lots of fresh veggies and fruit and lean protein.  I keep a food journal and nothing that is a trigger has crossed my lips in the passed week.  I am at a loss as to what caused this horrendous headache.

     3 hours of sleep and 3 doses of medication later I am finally feeling human.  The Migraine isn’t completely gone,  but what is left it is tolerable.  Today I was left with the Migraine hangover,  the dull ache that is left,  over my brow bone.  I thought maybe Yoga at the Y would be relaxing tonight and helpful.  I am not sure it helped,  but it didn’t make it worse. 
     One thing I do know for sure is that the lingering effects of this one will take days to leave,  and I am truly done with it.

    

     If I had any illusions that I was tethered to my cell phone those illusions came to a crashing halt on Friday afternoon.  I was on my way to the bank Friday and I had texted my boss to tell him I would be in after I was done.  I glanced down to see if he had responded and my phone was black.  I double tapped the screen to activate it,  all I got was the LG.. Life is Good logo.  Life was seriously not good.  My cell phone was not responding.  Trying not to panic,  I wedged it out of its Otter Box case (which is a feat in itself).  Then pried the case off and pulled the battery out,  waited a minute and popped the battery back in, nothing.  I repeated this 3 times with the same results.  By the end of the third sequence I was seriously pissed off and panicking a combination that is never good.
     I left the paperwork with the bank manager and went downstairs to my husbands shop.  Kyle repeated the process,  inserting his battery,  since we have the same phone.  I was tapping my foot the entire time and generally freaking out.  When it would not come to life for Kyle he handed it back to me and pronounced.  “It’s dead mom,  you wore it out,  it suffers from.. Over work and underpaid syndrome. 
       I called my boss via the landline when and  was as unimpressed as me.  The next call was to AT & T, my dear electronic was under warranty so a new one would be shipped.  I wouldn’t get it till Monday evening.  It was a long weekend without my beloved electronic friend.  I came to realize how dependent on the little beast I am.  No text,  email,  Facebook,  blogs,  words with friends,  Instagram,  or Google Hangouts.  It was a form of withdrawal, and it wasn’t fun. 

     With Super Tuesday occurring yesterday and Bernie Sanders taking 2nd place to HRC and Donald Trump keeping his commanding lead over both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio I am having to face the facts that my politically ideology is not shared by the majority of my fellow American Citizens.  
     I really was  convinced that Trump would fizzle out months ago,  that his campaign would run its natural course and he would be the proverbial “flash in the pan”.  Unfortunately as the weeks and months have ticked by his campaign has gained momentum and his hate has grown even stronger.  He has said more outlandish and revolting things and yet his numbers have increased and his crowds have grown.
     There is a great quote that is often bastardized but I have included the original here.  “No one in this world as far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. ” H. L.  Mencken In my thinking that quote sums up his campaign in a nutshell.  The  American people are buying his crap hook line and sinker, and he is a true embarrassment to the Republican Party.  That is saying a lot,  they don’t usually need any help to be embarrassed they do fine on their own,  but somehow they found him to do it for them this time.
     Now on the Democratic side HRC,  well I seem to be in the minority from the votes,  but I don’t really want another Clinton in the White House.  After all the flip flopping she has done and the Benghazi scandal she still walks around like she is heir apparent.  I am really at a loss.  

Somehow we have lost our way,  and I don’t know how to get the voting public to understand that.

   

     Oh that is so me,  from the time my feet hit the floor in the morning I am figuring out what I am having for breakfast,  then on to lunch  and dinner, with a few well placed snacks tossed in and depending on my mood maybe even some chocolate.  I can’t fathom people who just eat for pure sustenance and not for the enjoyment of food and people that “forget to eat”?  That is something I could never do anymore than I could forget to breathe. I am a Foodie,  pure and simple,  I love to cook, saute,  sear,  fry,  bake,  steam,  poach,  you name it,  I will try it!!!
     I have my list of favorite foods,  seafood,  pasta (you might think I was Italian not Irish) a good beef tenderloin,  a great steak,  Eggs Benedict,  and crusty bread.  And not much beats a fantastic rare burger with lettuce,  tomato,  mayo and some ketchup.  Cheesecake,  either plain or flavored,  good decadent chocolate cake with chocolate frosting tops the dessert list.  Who am I kidding if it is chocolate it tops the dessert list.
     All of these reasons are why I constantly fight the “Battle of The Bulge”  on a daily basis,  as a good friend of mine has been known to say.  “I can do some serious damage with a  fork”, that is why I have resigned myself to love my curves and love the gym.  Together we can make my love of food and the knowledge that I live to eat, not eat to live work.
#Blogging101

  

Today was the last day,  I dropped Connor off at Drivers Ed.  In just short of a month he will take the Permit test at the Massachusetts RMV, and then about 6 months after that they will give my  baby a driver’s license.  Where the hell did the time go?  I am sure that he was really just 5 a few months ago,  how is he going to be 16 years old?  My mom told me to hold on tight to them and don’t wish their lives away.  Stop wishing for them to sleep the night, go to pre-school, kindergarten, graduate from elementary school,  go to middle school and then on to high school.  I wish I had listened. 
     Don’t get me wrong, I love both of my boys,  actually young men in their own rights.  I just sometimes miss the little boys they were at times.  The boys who came in covered in mud from the Wiles household to show me whatever they had made and what kind of mess they were covered in.  Those are memories I will cherish forever.

     I was recently having a conversation with a long time friend,  this person and I have been friends since Kindergarten,  so to say we have history is a mild understatement.  We were talking about our high school experience and how mine differed from his.  He was a 3 letter “Jock” and I was a brainy shy girl.  Yet we coexisted in the microcosm of a very small high school.  A class of 121 in a school of just over 600.

    Our main discussion revolved around how our generation contains the first women who played high school sports due in part to Title IX. In our parents generation our moms had the choice of being cheerleaders or no sport at all.  We really concluded that in small rural schools like ours high school girls embraced that and chose that rather than to be a “girly girl”.  In effect we went to the opposite extreme of our moms .  No June Cleaver vacuuming in her heels and pearls for us.  We were sneakers and jeans,  hair in ponytails and keeping up with the boys. That didn’t mean that we didn’t have our class couples,  but the power couples were both Jocks of the male and female variety.
      I played field hockey in high school,  a cross between a girly sport and good old hockey.  Dress us in kilts and arm us with sticks,  but there is nothing dangerous about that, lol.

     All in all as I look at my kids and their high school experiences,  they are still as pigeonholed as we were over 30 years ago,  but the girls in 2016 have figured out how to be a little more feminine and athletic all at the same time.  They learned from their moms,  still no vacuuming with the pearls June Cleaver,  but who the hell wants to vacuum with heels and pearls anyway?

    

     For as long as I can remember my family has been full of needles.  NOT that kind,  the crafty kind.  My Nana was a Knitter,  my Jama too,  Aunt Ida would Crochet and mom did Cruel.  I could  barely sew on a button and only if out of sheer desperation can I hem a pair of pants.  My Nana could knit,  watch TV and carry on a comprehensive conversation,  but she was left handed there was no way she was teaching any of us.  A friend of my mom’s finally taught her how to knit,  and my mom has knit more baby and toddler sweaters than I have fingers and toes to keep track of them on.

     More than once Mom has tried to teach me to knit,  it has always ended it needles tossed angrily and tarn tangled in a pile.  About a month ago I got the bright idea that I could learn to crochet.  It was only 1 needle,  and how hard could it be?  Oh let me tell you much harder than it looks.  Mom tried,  my friend Nina tried,  I resigned myself to the fact I was a needle crafting failure.

     On a lark I went to Walmart,  got some cheap knitting needles,  downloaded some YouTube videos and gave it a whirl.  The first time was a disaster,  the next time… Success!!  I can knit.. I am working on a scarf,  I changed yarn colors twice and even successfully picked up a dropped stitch from 2 rows before.  I think I have joined the ranks of the needle crafter’s. Thank you for teaching me the special handshake and letting me in.  #blogging101

Today is day 2 of the silly little snow storm that could.  All in all we probably got 5″ out of this little  bugger,  but he brought with him some intense cold.
This morning was odd,  just truly odd.. Check out the time line to see what I mean.

2:00 am: Hubby gets up to let dog out and back in
3:00 am: Hubby’s alarm goes off (his dad is having eye surgery today).. After 5 minutes I poke him and he realizes that his for him and gets up
3:30 am: Hubby leaves after a shower,  needs to plow silly snow before picking up his Dad and heading to hospital
3:50 am: Dog barks,  waking me from a sound sleep,  to go out.. She comes back in 5 min later.  Ps it is 10* outside,  Brr. ❄❄
4:20 am: Kyle’s alarm starts to go off.. I ignore it for 10 minutes,  cover my head with a pillow,  shut my door, but the beeping is obnoxious. 🎶
5:15 am:. Kyle finally gets up and gets his brother up.
5:30 am: I attempt to doze off and the cat  begins to tap at my nose, like nope you are up. 🐱

By now I have a headache from hell from logging all of maybe 5 hours of sleep all night,  Kyle is starting to hack and cough because Connor has shared the head cold with him.  I give up turn my phone on and check Facebook.

I was scrolling through Facebook this evening and this Meme caught my eye.  It actually made me bust out laughing.  Full flown belly laughs.  The kind where I expected someone in my house to ask me “What is so funny Mom?”  No one did,  which was a good thing.
     In light of today’s events this meme just sums everything up completely.

1.  The snow storm that was forecasted didn’t arrive till late today.
2.  Connor had no school due to aforementioned snow storm
3.  I stayed home from work due to the same storm.
4.  The snow didn’t arrive till at least Noon, instead of 9. What is up with that?
5.  Connor is getting over the “Head Cold”  from hell.  Please join me in hoping he doesn’t share it with me.
6.  Hubby has been in a foul mood for over 24 hrs with no explanation.
7.  The Groundhog completely screwed up the forecast and now Winter is here!!??
8.  Now the snow I stayed home today to avoid driving in.  Is on the ground to drive to work in tomorrow.
9.  Along with snow the Groundhog brought ridiculously cold Temps.
10. Today was Monday.. Grrr.  That explains all of the above craziness