My brother, Robert, was 18 and I was 21. This was 1987.

Summer fun - why does this have 275 hits?

I will be working for Fetzer's Sausages at the farmers markets in the Portland Metro area! This is going to be a blast!

http://www.fetzers-sausage.com/

You can feel GREAT!!! coming out of my cave

Laura Parks age 44, mother of 4 children ages 20, 17 and 12 yr. old twins.


Jus and I

Update April 28 2011

Started taking jus about feb 15 2011

I have been on every kind of anti-depressant offered since 1998.

I used to cry all the time couldn’t get out of bed to go to work I have been fired for being late too much

I was so sad

Slept all the time I was not at my job

The high cholesterol medicine and blood pressure medicine had too many side effects so I quite taking them the end of 2010

The feel of clothes on my skin made me irritable and cranky

I didn’t want to live and didn’t know why

Everything was miserable it took every ounce of energy I had to drive across the street to buy groceries

I couldn’t cook meals for my kids

Couldn’t clean the kitchen, bathrooms, do the laundry without being in physical mental and emotional pain

I would cry just feeling the weight of all I had to do in a day, I had to hide in my room under the covers, and life was just too much

I just couldn’t do it.

I would wash dishes on the weekends and then have to take a two hour nap

I couldn’t help my kids with their homework or even get them to school on time

I did not have the energy to care

I couldn’t take myself to the doctor to get my medicine changed, my mom would drive two hours to take me in, and I would be in my pajamas

I couldn’t talk or think for myself, my mother had to tell the doctor what was going on with me and that my anti-depressants weren’t working, again.

I don’t think I ever smiled

I thought everyone in the world hated me and that I didn’t even have one friend

I would not talk on the phone or send letters or emails

I would never go visit people nor have people to my house

I was a social recluse

I let people treat me like a doormat because I had no self-esteem or power to say what I needed or wanted or how I felt.

I have been dancing and out danced a 22 yr. old, she got tired, and I wasn’t sore the next day

I can run up and down stairs

My hands do not hurt from arthritis

The psoriasis in my ears is gone

I talk calmly to my children

I do not shake

I can laugh

My blood pressure is down ten points and I have lost five pounds

I had my cholesterol checked yesterday and am anxious to get the results

I wake up before the alarm rings and look forward to each day

I have renewed my friendships

I enjoy my family more than anything

I call my mom to see how she is doing

I call my brother to tell him that I love him

I went camping with my son

I don’t cry when the bottle of laundry soap falls and spills all over floor, nor do I yell at my children to clean it up while I run crying to my room

I call my children and spend time with them

I want to go to Mexico on a real vacation

I feel 20 years younger! click here

I can dance for hours, run up and down stairs, and my kids say my skin is so soft! I have been living in a cave of depression for 25 years years and it feels so good to be alive again!

Got My Dancing Shoes On

There is more fun than one girl can handle at all these dances at some terrific venues in this area! The price is so affordable and the live music is so great!

The ones I go to most often are The Refectory http://www.therefectoryrestaurant.com/
and
The Red Lion
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=-&sll=45530443,-122661149&latlng=45530443,-122661149,11752391508997972130

There are dinners and dances for the holidays that look especially fun.

We have a lot of fun and I am so thankful for my family!

tackling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzvZvSN2Y3k

my boy tackling another on youtube but the ref gets right in front of the camera

I have never wanted to slash somebodys tires so bad

My kids had to hold me back...

Todays football game our kids are doing GREAT!! We were proud happy jumping up and down excited!! It was the best game so far. The boys were playing great and winning!!

Then this a**hole coach from the other team tells the refs that since my boy limped off of the field a little while ago that he couldn't play the rest of the game. My coach, our coach, went over to talk to the refs and the other a**hole coach and the rules state that if a player is carried off of the field, they are not allowed to play the rest of the game for their own safety.

I am serious I was ready to rip his face off. You think that football players are tough you just wait and see what happens when they piss off players mothers.

We had another player even earlier in the game that really was carried off the field but went right back out and played the entire rest of the game and the other team said NOTHING about that kid. That kid is a great player, too! Our whole team is!

Our team is red hot!! Your team is diddley-squat.

All the parents said it was cuz my boy was doing so good and that really IT WAS FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE OTHER TEAM. Because we were winning and they were afraid they were going to lose WHICH THEY DID LOSE ANYWAY and SET A BAD EXAMPLE because the entire stadium KNOWS WHAT THAT COACH DID. A**hole.

At the end of the game when everyone was leaving the other coach walked past my daughter and she said, "Great game, when #11 was playing!" #11 is my boy of course, her brother.

I am still freakin' pissed. That other team is our in city rivals and we will beat them every game every year for the rest of these boys time in this district.

dang I miss Sunday football

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMWhfqVTMN4

I was ok for quite a while...really stuck to my pride and stuck to my guns, after all I was right, wasn't I?
Then Sunday football started, and now I am just sad.

football, baby

I spend a minimum of 20 hours a week either at football practice, at a football game, watching football games on TV and watching football movies. We have watched Invicible twic every weekend since the beginning of August.
My son is an awesome player!! He is not afraid to do what needs to be done on the field. Best of all he totally loves the game!! He dreams about it, talks about it, gives me endless replays of everything that has ever happened at every practice and every game.
The only thing missing is my favorite Sunday afternoon game celebration activities.

isn't this the sweetest little face?

This is our puppy, I just love her to bits and pieces!!

my resume

my resume went out internet wide to any job site I could find Aug 8. I immediatly got some good emails and calls about jobs. One, at Intel was looking for someone to start last week but I sadly I did not get it. I would have happily left where I am. I havn't been that miserable at a job in years.

My only problem is I have to send it from work - I know big fat no no - but I don't have Word on my pc and can't save my resume so I emailed it to work and saved it there...

I don't care actually. The managers are rude, insulting, backstabbing, buger eating morons and I will do anything I can to get out of there. Short of walking out and believe you me don't think I don't want to everyday. I know I would have a job very quickly but I just can't risk it cuz I have a whole bunch of children to feed.

I have contacted everyone I ever knew, sent my resume to in the past ( I save all my job searches and interviews) letting them know I am back in the job market.

This sucks so much cuz I really really really never wanted to look for work again, but I am driving 30 miles each way and spending all my money on gas. The only place I can cut back in my budget is food.

I'd like to post my resume here for you to see, but like I said I don't/can't save it on my pc so I can't upload it or email it from here. Please wish me luck anyway, I think I am employable at least I hope so anyway.

Football used to just amuse me

Now I am not just amused at the game, I am totally confused!!!

Watching my sons practice there is so much to learn and it is so involved I don't have a clue whatg is going on!

I play football on Xbox so maybe that will help a little.

I was a football cheerleader in high school, but I really didn't have to know a thing just jump up and down a lot...

His coach thinks he is tough and awesome!!

next to NASCAR and NFL this is my biggest event this year

http://www.achorusline.com/land/info/mario?gclid=CKf5qMnE75QCFScuagod93sQrg

As someone that grew up taking dance lessons, performing and competing until the age of 20 and is now over 40 and can only dream about dancing, going to see A Chorus Line is the biggest event of my year! I got to play around in local perfomances of A Chorus Line, Guys & Dolls and Grease. Oh and Alice and Wonderland but not a musical version. It was small town stuff but we were good and had a blast!!
I am so excited I can hardly see straight! I will laugh, cry and get chills all over!! I will remember this forever!

don't know what all the fuss was about

don't know what all the fuss was about, I still have internet...

is it possible?

I really, really just want to live in a kinder and gentler world.

The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
The secret anniversaries of the heart.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow



The hot sun shone through the windshield, partially blinding me, but not enough that I couldn’t catch a glimpse of the sign that read, “BCTI Business Computer Training Institute”.
May 7 the first day I ever saw him. August 20 the following year our first date.
(Boring so far, I am such a boring writer)
Having separated from my husband, the four children staying with me, and working two jobs, in a bakery during the day and tending bar at night has not prepared me for a 9-5 job in an office or using a computer. I had read the want ads and I knew what employers wanted, computer skills. None of which I had.
Seeing this sign, This was fate for sure, I had never drove this way, couldn’t even remember at the moment where I was going or what I was going there for. I had to get inside this school. Little did I know the way I looked and felt about the world was going to change for the rest of my life. Or at least 5 years as of the date I began this writing.
Some young girl who I never saw again, was telling me all the wonderful skills I can learn at this school. I had to prepare for a job I could work during the weekday since the evening and weekend shifts at the bakery and the bar not only had me working 70 hours a week, but it was impossible to find day care . She proceeded to guide me down the hall to look at all the classrooms. One in particular caught my eye. Keyboarding. It wasn’t just the shiny new computers that caught my eye, oh no! It was the tall dark handsome man walking towards me with a great big glad to see you smile and the wide eye grin that says he’d like to get to know me better. I was wearing work out clothes. Dark blue pants with a white stripe down the side and a jacket to match. Not ready to impress Mr. Right, but it apparently did the job. Christopher Jennings Butler shook me out of my dreamy state of fantasy and was wondering if I had any questions about the school or about his class. “How do you teach here”, I asked, “Hands on training”, he replied with a sly smile. I was probably the only one to notice the twinkle in his eye or to notice the cute way he stepped from side to side in nervousness. Every time I looked at him from then on it seemed he wore his heart on his sleeve and I was always surprised that the whole world couldn’t see the fireworks and electricity and excitement between us.
I signed up that day and began an agonizingly wonderful eight month long, five day a week observation of the man I was to love from that moment on. It would be years before we dated or spoke of love but it was always there between us. At least for me it was. I was so enamored of him and surely made a fool of myself in more ways than one. But I adored him. Loved looking at him, listening to his voice, thinking about him. Fantasies of him became more interesting than dating real men.
The rule was, instructors couldn’t socialize with students. Well I knew we were much more than that from the beginning, but I could never get him to see my side of things, no matter how hard I tried! It was fate, yes, at this moment in time we were not going to be anything more, but this was a gift in and of itself. It gave me the time to really watch and listen to him. See what made him tick. Where he was coming from and where he was going. What mattered to him, what bothered him. He was a person of character, morals, love. I could see he was good people. I had made bad choices in my former relationships and although this would never turn into a real relationship, the love and affection was there. We had to protect ourselves from pain and for both of us that was the most important. I would never, ever marry again.
I sent him letters, lyrics to songs, poems, flowers, presents, and chocolates but nothing I did worked, he even asked me to stop! But I knew from the way he acted and the things he said that he was definitely interested in me, too. It was just a matter of time.
Now Chris Butler has the zodiac sign of Cancer the crab. That means he is shy, he skirts around things, moving side to side like the crab. Never straight forward. I am a Scorpio which means I don’t like to be told no. We are both very stubborn and still haven’t determined who is more so. He is afraid to love and so am I. We have four ex'es and six children between us. Lots of good reasons not to get involved with each other.
But every time we are in the same room our eyes meet. We are totally aware of what the other is doing, saying - how they are moving, breathing. When we are not in the same room, there is a force that drives us to search for each other and stay in their presence. There is no better place on earth. To see him, to hear him, to smell him and oh holy Mother of God, to actually get to touch him! Hallelujah! It still turns my insides out, makes me breathe fast, I get warm all over. The most amazing part to me is that from the very first time I ever saw him, the rest of the world disappears when he is anywhere near me. His body is magnified in my presence, it takes up all space and time. I don’t hear or see anything else except him. Everything else disappears, ceases to exist when my lover is near. I smile thinking about him now, even though I haven’t seen him in a long time. It is sad to be lonely at times. But I am just so dang busy with all the kids and a full time job and a huge commute, that there just isn’t a lot of time for anything or anyone else.
Yes, there are definitely times when I am sad to not see him for a while, and I will cry. It is so sad that two such wonderful people as us had to go through such miserable relationships before we met that have ruined us for each other. But we know better. Those relationships ended for pretty good reasons. Most of them probably never should have even started. We would probably not even be together now, if we had gotten together before. We stay away from each other mostly. Don’t call write or see each other much. It stays nice that way. We are happy to see each other. Nobody is obliged to return phone calls, plan ahead, or even consider the other person at all. We celebrate all holidays and birthdays apart. There are no events whatsoever that we partake in together. Except we went to a baseball game once. We do not exchange gifts or recipes. We do not know each others family’s or friends. We both like beer that is about it. Oh, and gin and tonic.
There was going to be some romance in here somewhere, but see, I seemed to have forgotten it. We went from exciting romance to really blatantly shallow before the end of page 3.

this cracks me up

some more pirate jokes

http://piratemaster.wetpaint.com/page/Pirate+Joke+Links?t=anon

8th grade graduation