PROTESTING GAY MARRIAGE WITH A FAST FOOD SANDWICH WTF IS NEXT?

Wow so I have been out of the loop as I have been out of the blogosphere, no internet, no television, no phone, not as a protest but because I have been broke. No I'm not protesting anything at the moment. So when I get all plugged in what do I see but news about Chick Fil-A and a protest that uses food! How obese of America, the most overweight nation in the world. Protesting gay marriage by eating fried chicken sandwiches, really? I was reading an article that said how "rebellious" it was to eat fried food anyway and now people are having "eat-ins" to protest a cause, well what the fuck have the morbidly obese Americans who partake in fast food dining daily been protesting? Protesting cooking their own food? I am in a complete state of what the fuck is wrong with people? Their are so many American kids who do not eat properly and would love a fast food meal as a treat, but hey when you are on welfare you can't be seen buying a Happy Meal with your EBT card for your kids without getting a stare or two. But shoot just tell em you are protesting gay marriage and they will gladly charge that cash aid card. This is a joke right? Since when is using food, especially fast food as a way to protest something become so popular. In recent days McDonald's and other fast food chains have jumped on the Christianity bandwagon and stood behind Dan Cathy, president, of Chick Fil-A who in a statement said he believed in traditional marriage... traditional two parent families, and that this generation has the "audacity to redefine what constitutes marriage"...Cathy did not specifically say gay marriage, but the media took it and ran with it and what really stinks is so did Cathy and his "Christian" supporters.

 Look, Cathy is entitled to his opinions, but this all stinks of hullaballoo and tactics to get people to go buy more fast food...hello, making Cathy richer by the day. What a bunch of lemmings...followers looking to protest something. Hey here is an idea go to the source. Have you thought about going to church? Why not fill up the pews and pray for these "sinners" instead of eating fried chicken sandwiches. What else will fast food corporate schmoos do to generate millions for their shitty food that is silently killing Americans daily.
I love a good burger don't get me wrong, I eat fast food, but not as a way to protest. No I usually succumb after working 10 plus hours because I don't want to cook or rather I am too tired.

I am a Christian, a work in progress. I believe what the bible says....for the most part. I believe my God and yours, is a loving kind God who may not always like what we do, that is when we sin, but would he ever damn us to a life of eternal hell if we asked him for forgiveness, or if we truly felt in the heart he created that we were being who we were meant to be. I am not pro-gay or pro-anything other than pro-human being. I believe that whatever faults an individual has or a group perceives those individuals to have is really based in ignorance and fear. I went into a church a while back and was so turned off by their anti-gay thought (3 x in one hour) that I never returned. I believe in a union between man and woman but not for any financial or political gain. I also believe it is every persons right to love another person without fear of what others may think. Love cannot be dictated by people, politicians, or even religion. Love happens in the unlikeliest of moments to the most unlikely of people and if its not hurting anyone then leave it alone.

I wish Chick Fil-A's Dan Cathy and other fast food giants would find something else worthwhile to protest like childhood hunger...that would make me respect them more. Don't think I will be eating any fast food again this week.

LOVING AN ADDICT AND THE GOD FACTOR...

These last few weeks have been a trying time for me. I miss my Love like there is no tomorrow. If you follow my blog you know that he is in rehab, and has been away from us for more than two years. When he does return home in five months or so we will have spent more time apart than we ever have together. I know that seems crazy to a lot of people. It sounds crazy to me too. Why would I put up with the life of loving an addict for twenty plus years? I don't have the answer other than that I have waited and been through all of the hard times to learn what real love is. My Love and I are at a point in our lives where we are on the same page. As I write this it is a strange thing to see that, to verbalize, to acknowledge and appreciate.
I am used to being the bold, independent, self sufficient single momma who never had to answer to a man. That has changed for me, in a good and positive way. My Love has always been in our lives through jail and prison and now rehab, my kids and I, but he has never been fully "present". Of course him being incarcerated had a lot to do with that, and that probably seems strange to a lot of people. He has been the passive parent standing to the side because his choices prevented him from being an active participant in his children's lives.

When I found out he would be gone for yet another 2 years I broke down and cried, but now looking back on it I am glad his probation officer didn't let him come home, instead putting him in a rehab facility a few counties away from us. This was so he would not try to leave and come home, something he did anyway once and then it hit him that he was preventing his own happiness. In the beginning he called me and said they are trying to shove religion down my throat..I don't want that I don't need a relationship with God like they want me to have. I told him in those early phone calls to just do whatever he had to do to come home.

I believed, I was a reborn Christian. I was raised Catholic but never practiced as an adult. Instead after going through our domestic violence incident and staying at the local mission for a brief time I was urged by a woman who was also staying at the mission to go to a church near the mission one Sunday. I went and I listened to the sermon, at the end of the sermon they asked if anyone wanted to turn their life over to God and to have a personal relationship with him. The way the Pastor spoke was as if he was speaking to me and raising my hand that day changed my heart from one that was hurting to one that would be filled with hope. I was later baptized and when my children came home two of them also became baptized and we faithfully went to church on Wednesday and Sundays for 5 years. At this time their father, my love was in his addiction deep and every time we went to church we prayed for his sobriety and his heart to be changed. He saw how going to church changed me, how happy I had become. He tried to be in our life but I held fast that he would not be in our lives as long as he was using and doing drugs for a long time and then I allowed him to come home after a stint in rehab where he said he changed. When he did live with us I stopped going to church and blamed having a new job and working overtime as the reasons I stopped going to church. My life spiraled and I lost places to live several times because I allowed my Love to make promises to me I knew he would not keep. He again went to jail and prison and I continued making bad choices. Moving a total of 5 times in the next 4 years.

I decided to shut him out, I deserved to be happy, I even went to church occasionally, but not as often as I wanted to. It was during this time that he showed up on my door to visit our kids, in the daytime.. he paid no attention to me. Which was odd because every other time he would say he was coming over to see the kids he would show up late after they went to bed, ashamed for them to see him sucked up and coming down from his meth high. His attention was on his daughters this time and he came and said "I know they( the police) will be looking for me Kris, I am so tired of this life...I don't want to live like this anymore. I love you and my daughters but I don't know how to stop. I want to stop but I don't know how to. I know I have lost you and them." I told him that he hadn't lost us but that we could not live like this, that he needed to get help and that it wasn't something he needed to do for us, but for himself. He needed to love himself so he could fully love us. The next morning after sleeping on my couch he was arrested. That was almost 3 years ago. 1 year of it was spent in jail and then in a rehab in Fresno, that I hated because it had not helped him before, and didn't this time either. He ended up leaving and getting a violation, more jail time, he had done well but was still kidding himself that he could make it out here. I am so glad he violated and that his probation officer put him in the program he is currently in. It is called Teen Challenge and it has saved him from himself and made him a different person entirely. He has been there for one year. Every day after he leaves will be a day of hard work and making the right choices, but now he has a renewed faith and that faith will help us both.

When I speak to him now and spend time with him he is a completely different person. He has grown into the man I always knew was there. He has helped me to parent our children in ways that he never has before and it has been hard to listen to him give me direction because I have been doing it all alone for so long. I got mad the first time he gave me some parenting advice. I was actually upset with him for having the nerve to try to be a parent. Then I realized, wow this is what I had been praying for all this time! A partner who was willing to shoulder the responsibility. How do I know he has changed? It is a gut feeling, just as I knew when he was high on crank or drunk or smoking weed I know now that he has the God factor working in his life. People who find themselves in certain situations...Get God. Everyone in prison says they are saved, of course they are only saved to the extent that it allows them to get out and mess up again. That's not to say that some are truly changed. I had heard this before from my Love when he was in Prison. No this time its different, he had a conversation with me recently and he told me, "Pray Kris!" I answered back, " I do, I do all the time." he then asked, "Do you really pray Kris, or do you just ask for God to get you out of a situation? I am talking about taking time daily to meditate on the Bible and prayer." I was floored. Yes many of my prayers consisted of "Lord just get me out of this situation and I will go to church." Of course the Lord had nothing to do with many of my situations, because they were purely out of my inability to be responsible.
It was during this conversation that he told me to go back to church and I promised him we would. I thought how we might visit another church in the area, but for some reason I decided to go back to the church I had first stepped foot in over 10 years ago.

Last weekend was our first weekend there, there were seven of us, me and my daughters and a nephew and my grandson and my daughters boyfriend. It was nice and we left with a good feeling. This last Sunday we were anxious to go as we were having a special speaker for Fathers Day. All week I had told my Love when I heard from him. This speaker Darwin Benjamin, was like my Love, a former addict. I knew what he had to say would resonate with me so I eagerly anticipated the day wishing my Love could be with us to hear his story. He and his wife's testimony spoke directly to me and my family and rang true in many parallels to my own life with my Love. After church which had run longer than usual my love called and I told him how powerful the speaker was and what his name was and he said, "Wait a minute was he a black guy?" I laughed "Yeah, why?" and my husband told me that he had just heard him this last week at a Teen Challenge Picnic in Turlock. I was amazed that my prayers were answered and that my Love was able to hear Mr. Benjamin's message. I then started to see other coincidences if you will....The church I go to is heavily affiliated with Teen Challenge as it is an Assemblies of God church. I prayed every time I went faithfully to have my husband restored and saved. Darwin Benjamin is also associated with Teen Challenge and my church. The simple fact that my husband has developed a relationship with Christ at this facility is in itself a blessing. Everything is coming full circle from the very first day I walked into that church till now. Even after my absence for a long time God continued to work behind the scenes for me daily even when I thought he had abandoned me. That is the God factor at work. I fully believe that everything we do in life is linked to an event that needs to happen for us to find our higher power. Whether you believe or not is not the question because I believe for you. I know what God has done in my life and will continue to do. All that I or my Love had to do was surrender.

 

I messaged Darwin Benjamin's Truth Ministries on Facebook. I told him about the fact that he spoke at the event my husband was at and the parallels in our stories this is the reply Truth Ministries

• Omg - amazing i sure will pray for you guys and always keep the faith especially if we dont get what we want and how we want - we just need to say like Mary oh well let thy will be done Lord cause the Father knows best - i trust you Lord! Read Isiah 44:22 - 2 Cor 5:19-20 It's all there add 1John 1:9
  
  

  I am not here to tell you what you need to do with your spirituality. I am only here to tell you how my life has taken so many twists and turns and yet it has come full circle to where I first found comfort in believing as an adult. Too many coincidences to be just that. We are all works in progress and the truth is there is a lot of work to be done in both mine and my husbands lives but if me sharing this with you helps you through times of doubt and encourages hope in you then it has all been worth it.

Parable of the Proud Daughter: Supporting your Childs Decisions Even If Its Hard!

Sometimes as a parent it is hard to sit and watch you child's life unfold. The times when things are going well and they are successful make you proud of course and are a joy to watch. Those are automatic feelings that happen when pride swells your chest and you say "That's my kid!" to anyone who will listen. I have 3 wonderful daughters and sometimes I feel they only hear the negative things that I say. I know that's all I heard from my Dad. It took a long time to become a "better" parent, more mindful of things I say, even today I ranted and said "stupid" a few times. I am frustrated with "stuff" and I have a lot on my mind. I have been slipping in the praise department, and I know it.

I have my oldest daughter on my mind today as I request friends on Facebook to pray for her to make some hard decisions, that in part have come about because of someone else's irresponsibility's. Some were her own choices, but in the end most of the situation came from something that was not in her control. I selfishly want her to come home and live in my little house again. She has in the past and we have butted heads a lot! I think this time its different, no boyfriend drama is involved, shes an adult now and her son is going to be 4 this year. I think she knows she has to make some choices in his best interest. As much as I want them here so she can get on her feet, I know that is how much she wants to stand alone and be a grown up.

The fact is she is still my Baby, my first baby at that, and I have watched her successes and choices that have led her to a point she is at now happen. I wont call them mistakes or failures, because my grandson is not that. Getting pregnant with him at fifteen changed the way her life would go. I want her to believe that she can still attain her dreams, she has always wanted to work in the criminal justice system with at risk youth, kids like her. She has no high school diploma and tends to want everything to happen NOW! If she studies she will finish her math GED, she is a whiz at English, but math is  for her as it is for me, hard. Her time on welfare is running out, and though she is currently going to beauty school, she may have to take a leave or quit. Especially if she moves home with me. I keep telling her that she CAN finish her GED that she CAN go to college, that she CAN even join the armed services, or continue her education at a school like Fresno State. She is having a hard time believing that I think. Believing in herself. I will never stop believing in her ever, because she is MY kid, made up of the same indomitable DNA that I am. I never let anyone or anything hold me back, yet like her I am my own worst enemy when I fear failure! Sometimes letting my PRIDE get in my way and cloud my judgement. She is too big for this small town life and I know she wants to see more of the world, and I know that will one day take her away from me. For now though I want her home in our crazy little house, safe and sound like the "Prodigal Son". I told her last night that she needed to pray about her decision, and that I would be here for both she and my grandson, and I will be, whatever she decides, sometimes you need to let them fly, let them find themselves...even if it breaks your heart.
I spent a sleepless night and cried a lot. We never stop being Mama's even when they have babies of their own. Love you my Proud Daughter.

Sober Life.....I was slapped in the face by my codependent behavior, reality check for mates of those getting sober...

This past weekend was probably one of the best times I have ever spent with my family. My 3 girls, my grandson and my Love. I had dreamed of  days like this not so long ago and often times I had given up hope of having them. When you love an addict you are always waiting for the bottom to fall out, and now after all of these years of waiting for my love to realize that he deserves happiness, its finally happening and I don't know how I feel about it. Don't get me wrong I am soo glad that he is on a road to recovery and sobriety. It has been two long years in rehabs and though I have prayed every day for this I am forced to look at myself as he gains a new outlook on life. Forced to realize that I too need to change harmful old patterns of behavior and change my role in our relationship. He is becoming the guy I fell in love with 20 years ago...funny, confident, loving, the person everyone loves to be around and gravitate to. I am an antisocial people hater..... I say that as nicely as possible. We are complete opposites and that is what I love about him the most, he is all of the things I am not. He brings out the best in me, and unfortunately when he was in his addiction he brought out the worst in me. I was a textbook co-dependent and to some degree I still am, but I have gotten better at drawing boundaries with him.

This weekend I had to check myself for falling into an old pattern, we were having a great day a 12 hour visit and we had a lot planned. I had a lot of stress just getting to him, car rental issues and creditcard issues and no sleep issues. I was like a kid on Christmas Eve, filled with the anxiousness of seeing him after 3 long months since our last visit. It was great, all of  our girls were so excited to see him. My grandson also came, who took to him like he has not been gone. I wanted to take him shopping and buy him some much needed things, specifically tennis shoes, we shopped at the Gilroy outlets after a long morning of Monterey Bay Aquarium and Aptos Beach. Tired and beat I took my girls shopping as I had promised. He was excited just like them. For some reason he loves tennis shoes and I knowing this let him run wild looking at shoes. He was stuck on getting these ugly for lack of a better description effeminate looking sleek Nikes. I told him no, and as I heard myself say it I flashed back to the days of his addiction. I wanted to be in control of the fucking tennis shoe buying experience! This continued for three stores, too expensive, or he just didn't like Vans...I love them and have the hots for guys who wear them. Ok some guys. He then came across some 60 dollar Etnies and I had another shit fit...really I dont even spend that much on any item for myself...my kids maybe but me or him certainly not! I said no again. Wow, was I trying to suck the fun out of the trip or what? In all honesty I could of bought them, but wanted to hold it over his head that I had rented a car, paid for our trip and wasn't that going to be good enough for him...did he really need these damned tennis shoes? I told him as much when I went and bought a purse for 30.00 way over what I normally spend, it was leather and 70 percent off? I deserved it! He reverted to the kid he was when his Mom tried to make him eat meatloaf...nope he had to have Pioneer Chicken...remember that? Or Mc Donalds....I told him your not that lil kid anymore and he said he was "sorry, take back the things you bought me and I am just happy with you just being here."  That made me feel like shit....in the old days he would take it for granted that I would forgive him and reward him... a definite codependent pattern, and I would chide him and make him feel bad. Then he would be sorry and we would make up after hours of arguing.

This little tennis shoe incident made me realize that I need to work on my issues as he gets well. I too, need to stop trying to create conflict when there should not be any. He has had a history of sabotaging important days, especially holidays, and I have learned to react. So now that he has been working on himself and instead made the day memorable for our children in a good way, I had to sabotage it. I caught myself and apologized too. He settled on some tennis shoes he was happy with. I felt good buying them for him. I know in time he will be here helping me support our children financially and emotionally and making a better way, I know he can only do that sober. I know that we can only be a family if I work on my stuff too. Being in control is not all its cracked up to be. Sometimes like the waves ebbing in you just have to go with the flow. Our visit ended as I dropped him off and we said our goodbyes....I watched him walk in with his box of clothes and new shoes and he held his head up high. Something I have not seen him do much of in the past. I am so proud of my love, so proud of him in so many ways. I thank God for answering my prayers..."Dear God if you just let me have one day with my family where everything goes right I would be so happy!"  Yes it was one of the best days yet of my Loves sobriety, and a painful lesson for me. Learning to let him be independent from my control will bring us even closer. Ironic how he is teaching me that!

To leave or not to leave, When your Bliss is on the Brink of being lost....Settling

I have been noticing a trend among a majority of my female friends and I am wondering why women who are smart and vibrant and beautiful, settle....I am guilty of it too. My relationship is what I would like to think "different", but I have chosen to stay with my Love who I probably should have left 10 years ago. Unlike my friends there is a reason that my "husband" was an asshole, and it was his addiction. He is just getting to a point in his life where it is not controlling him. I don't know what the future holds for us but I want to be positive that whatever happens we will always love each other. That is the key here, my girlfriends either are not in love, or have fallen out of love, or don't know what they are supposed to feel for the significant other in their life. They don't feel appreciated by their male counterparts...yet they choose to stay with them because they are afforded having a sense of financial stability. Not to mention that the sex is either nonexistent or matter of fact "wham bam thank you ma'am"....how sad to live that way.


No, sex is not what a relationship is based on but if you think about it looking back at the one you fell for was it the size of his earning potential or the butterflies in your stomach that had you falling down when he walked in the room? Ideally it would be great to have both, but realistically I think women choose one or the other. I have told my daughters to never depend on a man to support them. I actually like a quote by famed Diarist and lover to many literary men, Anais Nin, “How wrong is it for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, ... Some never awaken.”  As women we look for something to complete us as if we were incomplete all alone, when the fact is we are what men need to reproduce....Don't get me wrong I love my children and had my Love been a provider financially I probably would have had 10. If I did not have any I don't think I would have felt I was missing something.... I would have learned to like the me I had become. Lets face it, as women we loose a great deal of me time when we have a family or a demanding husband. That is why you see so many women divorcing as their kids grow and leave the nest because they then have this freedom they never thought they would have. They want to live the life they did not get to as a mother and wife.

When we are young we have this idealistic/unrealistic vision of what marriage and a relationship should be.We formulate this by what we see and live as children. If your parents had a warm and loving relationship chances are you will too, maybe you will even wait till later in life to find that compatible person. If you saw your parents in what you now know to be an unhealthy relationship, chances are you will follow that suit or avoid it altogether. Whatever the reason we end up in unhappy marriages inevitably we need to be happy with who we are first, no one will complete us or make us who we should become, we can only do that on our own.

If you expect your mate to change after 20 years of feeling unappreciated, you will have better luck winning the lottery. But on the other hand if your mate is willing to look at what got you here and work on it together then maybe there is hope. Listen up men when your women are telling you what they want, chances are they have said it a thousand times but you only filtered out the part where they are telling you to take out the trash and even then not doing what they ask, not the part where they are telling you they want more foreplay.

I am not an expert at relationships, quite the contrary but I do know how to communicate well with my Love. I think that is what makes it different for us we actually talk to and listen to each other. We share our hopes and dreams and fears and insecurities, and we talk frankly and openly about sex and what we need from the other. Look if you cannot talk about sex then you probably should not be having it.......just sayin' come to think of  it you probably aren't. It takes two to make a relationship thrive and it also takes two to grow the weed of discontent, one partner plants it, the other neglects it. Maybe that's why so many women go after the gardener....the other man who will tell them what they want to hear, woo them in all the right ways  and make them feel the best they ever have....until the weed creeps back in because as women we really need to love ourselves and nurture ourselves first, we are in fact the Master Gardeners of our lives.

Life is too short to live in an unhappy and unfulfilling relationship, bliss is attainable either in or out of the relationship but the first thing you need to do is decide what YOU really want.