After posting I’ve decided to add this story. It happened yesterday. Since I was on the topic of detecting and overcoming worthlessness I thought I really should begin to include stories regarding this matter. That will show my struggle. Show the difficulty I’m having healing a relationship with a child I have hurt and may assist you if you’re in the same boat…
My day, ho hum, but glowing memories. . . December 1, 2009
The day just finished nine minutes ago! And I’m here reflecting. This is where I break my day down and map it out for you in 550-650 words (hopefully 
). Today was mostly typical. Worked on the business, went to my job. Both went well. Made headway on some of those picky icy areas that needed sorting out. Went to John1′s to work on some things, got John2 on the speaker phone and for a couple hours we picked, poked, found solutions, and made some decisions. So headway. Perfect.
That’s my day from the black and white “entrepreneur business woman” end. Not too exciting really. Shrug. Today what I think was worthy of ink to paper was this:
After work my eldest daughter whose name is Blessing, wasn’t feeling well at all. I brought her some herbs, gave them to her with a glass of water, sat on the bed next to her, and rubbed her stomach for about 45 minutes. Trying to sooth her past the pain and into sleep. Her slender face was pale and winched with that drained look of exhaustion one has from dealing with a non-stop, crippling cramp that steals away even the ability to speak.
As I sat there in the silence of the soft, amber glow casting a small puddle of light into the room, all I could think was 19 years ago what I was now rubbing was called a “tummy”. It was tiny and taunt and fit below my hand. When she was sick I would scoop her up out of her crib, cradle her in the crook of my arm, and rub that tiny belly. As she grew I eased her small body up from her twin bed onto me, sat on its edge, and rubbed her tummy. Except now my hand didn’t cover nearly as much and her twin bed continuously seemed to shrink as her form covered more of it.
She’s 19 now and sleeps on a full size mattress. Beautiful and grown. Exuding the freshness and exuberance of a healthy adult, anxious to fully embrace the wonders that life holds for her as an adult. I watch as she struggles to fully experience the weight of her independence. Such a healthy thing. A necessary thing. Such an uncertain, wobbly time. Wanting me at times and not at others.
But I’m proud to say that she’s doing a terrific job moving from her youth/teens on into her adulthood. She’s sturdy, strong, and loving. A hard worker and wise with her money. For the last few months she’s been working her way towards her first apartment and if all goes according to plan, and it appears that is, she will be securing it and moving in in January.
So as I sat there in the quiet of the evening, on the well worn side of her bed reminiscing through time I couldn’t help but think…after January life is never going to be the same . . .
Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-It’s now 1:18 a.m. and I’m heading for bed.
Tags,Tagul, and a cup of hot cocoa cake . . . November 12, 2009
Gasp! Horror!! The “please excuse us while we change” sign that I had up to tell the world that I was working on my soon to be launched web site wasn’t up! What happened? Thought we checked that? Well it’s fixed now.
Coldness is setting in so I bought a new blanket today. At? Where else Wal-mart. It’s brilliant white. I laundered it and when I opened the dryer it was like freshly falling Christmas snow. I felt like a kid as I laughed, cupped my hands and scooped mountains of it from the lint catcher, gathered it from around the door, and chased it through the air. Much funner than the real thing! Too bad snow wasn’t like that.
Tags, located on side bars with random words scattered throughout.
Tags, the list of words that appear above my posts.
Tags, give search engines a way to find sites.
Well! These seemingly boring, do nothing, I thought they were just there for search engines to use and wondered why they even needed to be on a site, do more than that. Today I:
1) Learned: You can click on them to search the for information pertaining to the word on a web site/blog. Who knew?!
2) Put this together: They’re totally handy to scan when you’re checking out someone’s blog/web site. Besides reading a couple posts, scan the tags this will help you know if you’re interested in them because they tell you the topics they discuss.
3) Discovered: Tagul.com. Tagul is very similar to Wordle but with distinct differences. They’re designed to be used on blogs and web pages as a replacement of ordinary tag clouds. And each word/tag is “clickable”so visitors can use it for navigation. Meaning… we just upgraded our eye candy to practical: click the word and bam, you get a list of posts related to the word! This is where I learned that the tags in side bars are clickable! And, it gets better… this site allows you to customize the clouds into shapes such as: hearts, triangles…and multiple fonts can be used in one cloud. TOOOOOOO, FUN~
The kids had Veterans Day off today. Sarah and Grace went shopping. Zach and Ben slept till probably the time they would have gotten off the bus had they gone to school, and Dan and Cal came with me. I was second choice for Dan as his plans with a friend fell through. We went to the grocery store on the way home because Dan, my gotta have milk kid remembered, “Mom, you need milk.” Right! While in said store what does Dan’s eyes land on?? A mini cake in the shape of a hot cocoa mug with marshmallows on top. What is Dan’s favorite thing? Marshmellows. NEVER let him hold the bag when the fam is making Smores. Well, his eyes were googling, and his breath gasping, his fingers stabbing glass, other hand was tapping Caleb’s shoulder to get his attention, never taking his eyes off the case. Two faces turned up to look at me and in unison they said, you guessed it, “Oh mom, please!” With such delight the Devil himself couldn’t have said no. I walked out of that store, muttering to myself and making a mental note: keep those boys out of the bakery section from now on! And creating excuses… Dan loves marshmallows, and they both love hot cocoa, I never buy such wild extravaganzas, why, I’m making a memory, and this will be our celebration cake for my deciding not to move.
Yummm!
Night, Love ya,
Theresa Jane,
-oh and that’s not all marshmallows, most is frosting. And yeah it was as good as it looked!
I love being a mom and Halloween pictures . . . November 2, 2009
I love being a mom. L O V E it. I had the time of my life yesterday, I”m still glowing. I went over and spent a few hours with my kids again today and made them all lunch. I love cooking for them and I loved baking the cookies yesterday–yeah I know they were pre-made, but you just can’t make them and their cool. When I was a SAHM (stay at home mom) I cooked from scratch allllll the time. Well, except for the Pillsbury Shape Cookies around the holidays. They added a sprinkle of fun.
I love all things mommy and woman. I’ve always loved being a woman. And when mommy was added, that just made it all so much better. I’ve always loved the whole package of being a mom. Okay, never liked the housecleaning thing. Detested it really. I could have used a housekeeper. The enormity of time it sucked from me always grated on my nerves. I always wanted to busy myself creating. I had so much I wanted to do. So much more that I would have done with the kids. So many ideas would come to me and no time to execute them thanks to the need to clean.
Okay, so for those pictures Halloween pictures I promised. They need a little intro so here goes:
1) Dan made his own costume. All his own thought and creation. He worked long and hard on it too for a few days. He’s a Zombie. His top was done in two layers. He cut holes and painted red underneath to look more realistic for the blood and gashes. He’s amazing! The pumpkin is the one Dan carved himself. When you see just the back of a child, that’s Dan’s back of his costume.
2) The two girls together are of my daughter Sarah, who you’ve not met yet till now!! She’s on the right and her girl friend is on the left. They were winter Barbies
3) The other girl in pics with John2 and Caleb is John’s girl friend. So together they made a family of Vampires. They were just the three of them for the last 45 minutes and people thought they were a family.
I’m going to say goodnight in advance. Night, love ya. Theresa Jane.
Feeling like one of Snow White’s Seven Dwarfs: Droopy . . . October 22, 2009
It’s 1:14 am and I’m droopy. Droopy is one of the names of those seven dwarfs that hung out with Snow White right? If there isn’t one, then there should be. And I’m so droopy I don’t care to do a search to find out. Someone leave a comment with their names, then I’ll know for sure. LOL.
It’s been a full day. John2 and I had two phone meetings today, one with that guy I mentioned before that’s been in film for over 20 years and helped us before. Then we had one with just us. Among other meeting results we, well he more than me, came up with the perfect logo idea for our company: Free The Mind Productions. Completely different then the direction we were going in. But that’s the way creativity moves. John1 grabbed the idea and ran. In no time flat he was emailing me his creation and the stationary! He even free drew the picture on the computer. It’s not super detailed mind you, but if I were to go about doing it I wouldn’t have had all that done in under an hour and half, tweaks included. But then he did see it clearly in his mind, so that totally helps. Being an artist totally helps. Working with a publishing program for years also helps. Well, I get some of the credit pie, because WE had the meeting. I mean without me where would we have been 
We’re letting the logo sit for a few days then we’ll come back and look at it again and finalize. Once done I’ll share it!
We lost our graphic artist that’s worked with us for a year. So I’ve been scrambling to find a new one. We have a client that wants a book printed. EEEkkkk. Been emailing and calling people for a couple days. Besides talking with a few, I viewed a boat load of portfolios today. They’ve all merged into one sticky blob up there in my brain.
Worked a teeny bit more on understanding optimizing. I went to Google AdWords and used the Keyword tool to see what were keywords for my blog and Red Book and Cotton’s web site. Took awhile to figure out where the heck the page was to actually put the web sites in, then it was sticky and didn’t want to work, but then, it generated a list. I also tried to see where the rankings were on our sites. Don’t worry I’m not suffering from grandiose thoughts. I didn’t think we’d be soaring to the top of the charts or anything. I was just curious. Took it a long time for it to do it’s thing and when it was done I had no earthly idea what it was telling me. Couldn’t find a “translator” anywhere. Blah!
Saw my kids for awhile. Zach true to form said, “I don’t have any homework.” Got ornery when I pressed the matter. Zach’s teachers seem to have been on a “no homework streak” for a couple months now. I smell failure in the wind. SIGH. Helped Dan learn his spelling list. Test tomorrow. Had it been today, wellllllll, let’s just say it’s a good thing it wasn’t. When we were done he asked, “Want to go to McDonald’s? I’m stressed. I’ll pay.” He whipped out his wallet and produced a 5 spot, proof of his creditability.” Bless his little heart. He used the last of his b-day money to go out with me. What was he stressed about? I asked and he said, a touch forlorn, “Oh I don’t want to talk about that. Anything but that.” And that’s what we did.
Love ya,
Theresa Jane
-whose putting her backside in bed, it’s now 2:30 am. Hope it’s not too late I feel my second wind kicking in. . .
fromhousewifetofilmmaker
