First, let me reassure you… it is really me… yep, Geannie has come back to her long-neglected blog to vent. Just so you know someone else hasn’t taken over here. I’ve just decided to redouble my efforts with my blog. We’ll see how this goes.

Second, Neil Bortz is who I’m referring to in the title up there. Now anyone who’s ever read here even a little can figure out that I’m a conservative chick. That’s no surprise to anyone who pays the least bit of attention to what I (very rarely, these days) write.

So then it should be no surprise that I listen to talk radio. WNOX 100.3 FM to be precise. Okay, so I’ve been at my mom’s shucking/silking corn this morning and on my drive back home, I flip on the radio and hear Bortz talking about that pathetic man who opened fire in his gym a few days ago, killing three women and injuring more.

Bortz makes this assinine comment that if only prostitution were legal, the pathetic excuse for a man Sodini saying that if only he could have gotten him a hooker, everything would be fine.

Now, let me issue this disclaimer before someone reads on the 1,002nd page of search results and finds this post… I did NOT sit in my driveway and listen to Bortz til the end of his show… maybe he was being sarcastic. I dunno because hey, I got stuff to do and can’t sit listening to his mouth to see if perhaps something worthwhile is gonna come out of it. He sure sounded as if he was dead serious about this to me, though. So there… if he turned the topic around, I missed it. This post is based purely on what I heard Bortz say mid-show.

Here’s MY take on this tragedy and Bortz’s stupid solution:

1. As has been stated a bazillion times all over the place, there’s no way this Sodini couldn’t find anyone annnywhere who’d have sex with him. I mean really! I live in what can comparitively be considered “a podunk town” and whenever I am out and about, I see way uglier, creepier looking guys with a woman hanging all over them. He could have no doubt found a ’sex partner’, no matter that prostitution is illegal. There are women and girls all over this world who are willing to give it away. Which leads me to this second thought…

So I say to Bortz and anyone else who agrees with him, saying that legalized prostitution would have kept this sicko from opening fire on those poor women is idiotic to the nth degree!

Sodini thought he was above paying for it, above “dating” any woman who didn’t fit his fantasy image. So these “Sodini perfect” women who were creeped out by him, who rejected him were illogical in his mind.

He was a messed up whining creep-o who felt sorry for himself when he couldn’t get his fantasy women to sleep with him and decided that someone had to pay. He was such a cowardly sicko that he couldn’t simply take his own life, but he had to randomly take any and as many women as he could along with him.

What a warped, pathetic man Sodini had to be and what a lousy, feeble-minded person to suggest over national air waves that legalized prostitution would have averted this whole thing.

God help the warped, lost soul who would think of committing such a horrible crime as this and the people out there who think that using one sin to cover another is the solution.

That’s all.

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This post was contributed by Lynette Chandler of MomsGadgets.com, great blog about technical stuff and gadgets for moms.

Hello, Blog.

Yes, I know. I am terribly sorry for the way I’ve been neglecting you. And you know I have no real reason. Life. You know, I mean REAL life seems so often to get in the way.

Oh, you remember those posts about how I am now addicted to playing PackRat on Facebook? OooOOOooh, okay. So maybe it’s not REAL real life getting in the way. It’s just my unbelievable obsession with that blasted game. *sigh*

But wait, dear Blog, there actually IS some REAL real life stuff in there. For instance, did you know that I have been working a temporary job for the past two weeks? Hmm? How about that?

Oh. Yeah, I guess you have a point. If I didn’t post about it, how would you know?

*sigh* Okay then… maybe you should keep in mind the fact that the job itself is one of the things that can get in the way… just like the fact that we’ve been trying to regularly attend Sunday School and evening services along with helping out with the Wednesday night kids’ program. And we’ve put out a garden in the backyard this summer. Aaaand the 4H Shooting Sports program has started back up again and as coaches, we have a lot of responsibility. Besides that, just getting a place to hold practices has been an effort us coaches had to undertake ourselves! (but that’s a whole ‘nother story!) And for future reference, I’ve been tapped to teach a class at VBS which is coming up next week.

So, Bloggy dear, don’t get TOO high and mighty with me over this whole neglect thing, okay? I DO have a life outside of you. *hmph!* Besides, do you have any clue how much aggravation I’ve had with just trying to keep you from going haywire? Just tonight I had to google how to get to my login page when there was NO LINK to the login page actually on you?! Hmmm? Yeah.

Okay, I REALIZE that is probably due to having a lousy template that’s been poorly coded, but that’s not actually MY fault now, is it? What?!! PAY for a nice template for you?! My dear Blog! Do you realize that I already have to pay for the domain you so casually enjoy? AND the web space you amply fill? Did you ever even consider that? Do you ever think of anyone but yourself?! Hmmm?

I think maybe you just need some time alone to think about how ungrateful you are, that’s what *I* think. So you just sit there in that corner and study on how much energy and money it takes to support you and when you think you can talk to me in a kinder tone, you know where to find me.

What? Oh. Well, when I know where I’ll be, I’ll come post about it, okaaaay?

A lot of you out there may have already seen this one in your inbox. I always try to investigate a little to see if there is truth behind these kind of email news flashes, so I went on snopes.com to check it out. What I found there was that they could neither confirm nor deny verification of this letter, so without further adieu, I wanted to share it with you::
=====================================
April 17, 2009 The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Ms Kathleen Lyday
Fourth Grade Teacher
Grandview Elementary School
11470 Hwy. C
Hillsboro, MO 63050

Can someone tell me HOW on this EARTH could a so-called president of the United States think we’d believe he was not aware of the unconscionable, thoughtless Air Force One fly-over in NYC?

Is he serious? And if that is the truth, then we need to know just who IS running the show in Washington?? And how can someone, even your average Joe, think that a 747 being followed by a US fighter jet isn’t going to cause alarm when it swoops down over Ground Zero?!?!

People, this country is doomed for we have a bunch of absolute idiots running the thing. Purebred IDIOTS!

I am SO furious about this. Mayor Bloomberg is fully within his rights to be enraged. I’m right there with him. What a stupid stunt for the “leader” of the free world to pull!!! Talk about making us all look like an ignorant country! Barak is doing it and then some.

Like we needed him to further cut America’s world standing? I mean, wasn’t it enough that he traveled to a foreign country and APOLOGIZED for our insensitivity and ungratefulness to a continent that WE came to rescue in decades past?!?!?!?! Good Lord, deliver us!

Isn’t it enough that he went down to visit with his buddy in Cuba? That he wants to turn loose all those poor terrorists and tell the ones we haven’t caught what to expect in case we do? Or rather, that we’ll stop being so ‘mean’ to them.

WHAT MORE CAN THIS IDIOT DO TO INJURE AND DEGRADE OUR COUNTRY!?!?!

God, have mercy on America. She elected an immoral ignoramus to run her business but not all of us were complicit. For our sakes Lord, please grant us Your mercy!!

This post isn’t open for debate. You wanna discuss these topics, great. I welcome it. But don’t start an argument about the facts I’ve stated. I don’t wanna hear it.

Thanks.

…treat their own kids so badly??

*sigh*

I’m feeling really frustrated right now. If you can figure out what this is all about, good. If not, well, I’m going to refrain from posting too many names here out of respect for my daughter-in-love and NOT for the sake of anyone else.

So, yeah, poor Melissa seems to be plagued with problems when it comes to her parents. If you’ve known me since last year, then you might recall how childish the mother’s behavior was and how many petty things she found to complain to Melissa about. Most of it had to do with me because it seemed I was the one who always made myself available to do many of the wedding prep things that had to be done with Melissa. And I loved it. I mean, it wasn’t out of any sense of obligation that I did them. I wanted to help. But it seemed her mother couldn’t be bothered with those things… and then she would be mad at Melissa for having the audacity to take ME along. ARGH!

I don’t want to resurrect any of that awful stuff though. But I have to say that they’ve repeatedly treated both of the kids (my Corey and Melissa) rudely and with no respect. They take every opportunity to stir up trouble and try to manipulate Melissa into feeling guilty or … or … SOMEthing! I just don’t know WHY they would act the way they do.

I’m fine with the fact that Mel’s mother hasn’t really even spoken to me since before the wedding and even then it was only the very basic have-to-know type of information. I don’t care about that. If it makes her feel better somehow then good. That’s great. But then she still finds it somehow necessary to treat Melissa and Corey this way?

She’s going so far as to involve Mel’s four younger siblings. They’re from age 13 down to 7 - 8 years old. I tell you that so you can understand the lengths this woman goes to trying to “get to” Melissa. The mother won’t call Mel up and tell her what’s bothering her. Nope. She puts one of the two older kids on the phone, then tells them what to say to Melissa… when Mel can hear her perfectly talking in the background. I just think that’s pathetic. And I’ll never, ever understand that.

It seems that Melissa, horrible daughter she is, didn’t call to “remind” her family of when Corey’s birthday was. I’m not sure how they found out other than maybe Mel told her sister while they were im-ing. She had planned for weeks to have a family dinner for Corey… like I said in a previous post… us, my parents and Tommy’s parents, Corey’s grandparents, ya know?? So apparently the sister told the mom, who then I suppose said something to the effect, “Melissa doesn’t want us to be involved in Corey’s/our son-in-law’s/your brother-in-law’s life!” And from there it went from bad to worse with Mel’s little brother hanging up on her and her sister refusing to chat with her online anymore.

Melissa doesn’t say much about when she’s upset with her family’s “antics”, and she rarely shows that she’s hurt by the things they do so when I saw her visibly shaken over this horribly petty, nasty treatment, I thought, as a certain commentator says, “blood was gonna shoot out my eyes!”

I ended up taking her for a long Saturday of flea marketing and we had a lot of fun together. I’m so glad that we have this kind of relationship, but it grieves my heart to see her so hurt by the things her family does.

*sigh* I wish I could somehow fix it for her, but I can’t. If it wasn’t for worrying about her brothers and sisters, it wouldn’t be such a dilemma for her…. but she DOES worry. She sees that a chasm is being forced between she and them and it just breaks her heart.

Lord Jesus, I pray that you would take the scales from their eyes… let them see how wrongly their actions are and how much they’re hurting their daughter. Give Melissa a peace and the strength to do what she should do, whatever that may be. Give me the wisdom to be a good supporter, sounding board, friend without giving more advice than is wanted. Don’t let me be a stumbling block.

…. pray with me for Melissa when you think of it, would you? I’d be very grateful if you did.

*sigh* April is such a rough month for me. And isn’t that terrible of me to say?! I mean, part of the reason it’s usually so “rough” is because both my boys’ birthdays are in April. So, yeah… you guessed it.

Corey turns TWENTY today! ACK!! I have such a hard time dealing with the changes that my double-whammy birthday month make. And this year, there’s a THIRD WHAMMY!! (yes! who knew there were others?!) And that was Casey getting his permit on top of them making me all older again. *sheesh!*

Corey’s little wifey Melissa hosted a big dinner with both sets of grandparents, us three and my sister and a friend. It was a trailer full, that’s for sure! But everyone had a really good time. Corey showed us a bunch of pictures on his whopper 42″ LCD tv, which was awesome because it just made the pix pop SO much! He then showed them how he’d modded his xbox 360 so it plays old Nintendo games! It sounds kinda “Eh, so what?” unless you see it. He’s been talking about it for weeks, but once I saw it I had to admit, it was pretty cool. Hearing Mario Bros. music took me waaaay back in time!

Anyhow, it was such a nice time and we KNOW that for sure because unlike the grandparents’ usual custom of leaving shortly after the meal and/or festivities are over, they stayed until well past 10pm! Talking and laughing the whole time!

So, so nice.

Happy Birthday, my sweet baby boy!

YAY!! Casey got his permit today. (and yeah, I’m still alive! LOL!)

There was a whole bunch of crud we had to wade through since Monday, but that’s for another time…right now is celebration time!

I guess I won’t be needing my car keys anytime soon….

Casey’s going to test for his permit. *biting fingernails* I hope he does well! Since we home school, he’s not entirely experienced in “formal” test taking. I just hope he doesn’t get flustered.

Well… here we go!!!

How in the world did I get here?

That’s how I feel right now. My youngest, Casey, is sixteen today. And I am flabbergasted! I guess it’s just the “reality” of his birthday actually being here that makes it so crazy to me.

I’ll post a pic asap because I’m in a terrible hurry right now… cakes to bake, party hats to don, all that stuff.

He’s been going over the driver’s test manual for weeks now… and I think I’m flabbergasted now? …just wait til I take him for that test!!! YIKES!

TTFN—

That’s me. I can’t seem to think of a single thing to write about. In general, my real life is pretty boring. And the old gray matter is just not what it used to be, so I’m definitely not so good at spinning goofy tales anymore. *sigh*

Depressing, right? Well, yeah, except for my Savior. He makes everything okay. Not perfect, because what good would that do? To give ease and luxury to Your followers. How would You know if they loved You and weren’t there just because You made life easy for them?

In the same way that God gives us a free will, He also leaves our lives on the same plane as the rest of mankind. God doesn’t want mere humaniods, devoid of decision-making capabilities. What good is devotion that is “forced”… or really not even that… it would be manufactured. As if we assembled a troop of barbie dolls & soldier action figures around us and posed them in prone position and imagined that they were all chanting “Hail thee, O Great One!” to us.

Silly, huh? Yeah. That’s how it would be for God to have “made” us to love Him. Even though we are all made BY Him, He gives us free will to choose to love Him or not. And keep in mind that when one of His creations, you and I, choose to reject Him it causes great heartache. Just as it does when a child or dearly beloved person rejects us. It’s horribly painful.

And yet? God granted us this freedom. I struggle to understand how people can reject God after being presented with all He has done for them. I know there are a multitude of reasons, all with their own complexities. But still…how can people reject God?

I have a new burning desire to see people come to know God and trust in Jesus as their Savior and Lord of their lives. Somehow, the urgency is stronger than before. Maybe it’s just me maturing a little bit in my walk. I dunno. But the feeling of expediency is so, SO strong.

Jesus has been SO good to me. He’s brought me through a multitude of medical and physical trials. Times when I should have or could have died. But He didn’t allow it. Times when my children or husband or parents could have been instantly taken away, but He spared them. For my sake? Maybe not, but even so, I was blessed by having them with me… not having to deal with the terrible pain of losing them. He’s blessed me with healthy, loving children when “reality” would say that I couldn’t have healthy babies. My reality is Christ.

That’s where I get peace. That’s why I’m not really frightened by anything. Not worsening medical problems. Not lack of money and overabundance of bills. Not the looming economic disaster.

Why should I worry? Jesus is in control of it all. God knows what is going to happen, and no matter what it is, He will keep me in His hands, safe and secure. Even if I die, even if the worst possible scenario happens to me, I can have peace. Isn’t that amazing? I know that no matter what happens to me, Jesus knows about it, it is in His plan and He will not forsake me.

“And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.” ~Luke 4:47

“2 Grace be to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; 4 Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” ~II Corinthians 1:2-4

“Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all.” ~II Thessalonians 3:16

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: …. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” ~John 14:27

“And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” ~Matthew 10:28

*sigh* I know, I know… you think I’m just an awful person for abandoning my blog this way! And you’re RIGHT!! But I didn’t MEAN to! Really. It’s just that I got so busy with the stuff on Facebook and then… y’know, the real life stuff gets a little hairy sometimes.

The scoop on us right now? Well, a couple weeks ago we took a surprise trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The kids, Corey & Melissa, had planned a trip to a cabin there back in December as their Christmas gift for each other, so they’d gone down there on Thursday evening.

It came up this freak, sudden snow storm that laid down 2 inches in about 15 minutes and overall, at least here at the house, we had almost 4 inches total! Very freaky! And so… when the kids were about 35 minutes away on the interstate, they lost control and wrecked!!

I was SO stunned! Thank God, they weren’t hurt and neither was the car, but it was clearly God’s doing because they did a 360* spin and then a 180* spin and ended up facing north in the southbound lane with one big, fat, not-made-for-off-road tire in the median and the other just barely off the yellow line.

And there they sat. AAAHHHHHH!!!

It was kinda funny because Tommy was talking to Corey on two-way at the time talking about the weather as we were looking at a radar map. He overheard Melissa say, “We got this far, we’re not going back now!” Then, apparently in a split second, they wrecked! Tommy and Casey left here in our 4-wheel drive, sliding all the way to the end of our road which never gets salted…

I was so worried! The plan was to transfer the kids to our vehicle and Tommy would bring the Mustang home. The closest exit was further south about 6 miles, and by the time they got there it was mostly rain and the snow was going away. They decided to just keep on going in the Mustang and really, that was probably safer. That thing’s not made for anything but hard asphalt and Tommy wasn’t too comfortable with trying to drive it back in the awful snow that we still had at the house.

So… that chaos behind us, the kids called every night and Friday Corey had an “idea”. Why don’t we come down and spend the night Saturday? Hm. Sure, it sounded great to me! Then I figured out why… *heh* or at least part of the reason… Corey wanted to buy a large flat panel tv and couldn’t get it in the Mustang! LOL! What a stink!

Well, we headed off with enough clothes for two days, Tommy said, “Just in case.” We had a blast at the cabin with the kids. We grilled steaks, we watched movies, we played in the hot tub… it was great! Then we went out for breakfast the next morning and to buy the tv.

By that time, Tommy had decided we would stay another night.

Since it was Sunday, we found a nice motel room for cheap and stayed right in Gatlinburg. Monday we were kinda leaving it up to Casey what to do. He wanted to go skiing! None of us have ever done that before, but he was all ready to give it a try. So we boarded the tram and headed to the top of the mountain. Once there though, we found out they had closed the ski slope just the day before!! But Casey soon found something else he wanted to try… ice skating! I was forced to don blades and give it a try, too. It turns out that as long as I can keep moving my feet, I’m fine, but when I try to just coast? ForGET it! After two very public, funny falls I decided my feet and legs just couldn’t take it anymore.

Casey, on the other hand… he took to it as if he’d done it for years! Even Tommy could get around the rink without much trouble. But not this gal. Nope. I don’t think I’ll be trying that again!

Next the guys decided we’d try snow tubing. Hmm. I wasn’t much interested in that either, but again, Tommy said he was buying the ticket and if I didn’t like it after one try, that would be fine. Gah! I was aghast because those tickets were $20 a pop! But he was determined and so up the conveyor I went with my tube and then DOWN the slope I went…

The initial drop was the worst part. The first time, my heart jumped up in my throat, I think. But after that? Weeelllll, it was pretty fun! We spend almost 2 hours going up that slow conveyor to the top and then shooshing down in wet snow with alternating sprinkles of rain or a fine wet mist.

By the time we were done, I was soaked. There was only the two spots on the front of my thighs that was dry-ish on my jeans. The rest was drenched. I had on a zipper hoodie over a t-shirt and that was saturated but not “drippy” wet and my hair was soaked through! The boys were all wet, too of course. So we stood in line to get those overpriced pix they take… but they were so good, we couldn’t resist them. See??

By that time, Tommy had already been mulling over staying another night… so we, shivering the whole while, decided that the room MUST have a hot tub! Not a jacuzzi, but a hot tub. We stopped at about three places right there in town, but none of those had hot tubs. So… we decided that since it was the same price to get a jacuzzi room as a cabin with a jacuzzi AND a hot tub… we’d just get a cabin!

It was pretty slick… we called Corey and told him our plan. He got on the ‘net and found a couple of cabins that looked really nice AND were not occupied. We stopped at trusty Walmart and almost froze while we picked out some nice steaks and breakfast foods AND some clothes! Then headed on to the cabin rental place… We went in and asked to see those cabins Corey had told us about, looked them over and quickly made our decision.

It was SOOO nice to be in a cabin instead of a hotel room! There was a wood-burning fire place so the boys immediately started a fire. Oooh, how nice!! We lounged in the hot tub while the steaks were on the grill, then dried off, ate our yummy supper by firelight and yeah, hopped back in the tub for a few more minutes. We all slept like rocks that night!!

Next morning we… well, mostly Casey (!) voluntarily made a great breakfast of pancakes, steak and eggs! We took our time packing up, snapping pix (I’ll get some up here asap!) and just enjoying the sunshine after the days of rain. We spent pretty much all of Tuesday shopping for a four bedroom cabin for all of us to stay in around Christmas time.

Corey came up with the idea and we thought it was great, of course. We’d been mentioning it to my parents but never got much response. Tommy’s parents, after mulling over whether they could afford it, decided yeah, they would be all for it, too.

Then my parents, when confronted with the idea, slammed on the brakes. I dunno why they’re like that. Dunno if they’re thinking they couldn’t stand being “cooped up” with the rest of us that long or what. I am certain they don’t understand what kind of cabin we’re talking about… with TONS of room and awesome views, etc., etc…. But either way, whether or not they come, at least us and the kids will go and Tommy’s parents talked like that would come even if mine didn’t go… so… it’ll be kinda sucky to make that our Christmas to each other and then Mom and Dad not there. *sigh*

Well, there’s time, but not much!, to talk them into it. We just gotta sit them down and coerce them a little. Yeah, whatever… they’re more stubborn than a mule sometimes so we’ll just have to see how it goes. *sigh*

I’d better quit now and get to work. Hope you have a beautiful day!!

God bless you,
G~