Being human

Hello everyone, nice to see you on this Saturday night.

As the days keep on passing, and I absorb more and more information from around me, I get more and more of a sense that there is so much I have to learn, things that I feel I should have learned at a much younger age. I have noticed a change in other areas as well, if it's only in my own perceptions of the situations as they are.

One thing I've realized is that there is so much about myself I didn't know, and that in and of itself is strange to me, because after all, I'm like everyone else, I have to live with myself every single hour of every day, you'd think me and "me" would be well acquainted. Truth is, as I have eluded to in previous posts, until very recently I lived and thought with the mind of someone else, always thinking and doing and even having opinions based on what I thought others wanted me to think, or what others wanted me to do. I won't go into a long drawn out explanation of why, as I have addressed it before. What surprises me most about this "getting to know me" thing is twofold.

First, the shock of realizing that I'm really meeting a new person here, someone who was with me all along, but who I knew little about, just seems so alien to me. I want to ask myself "Who are you, and what have you been doing just sitting there in my head all my life"? It's a really strange thing to me, I'm too old for this, how in the world did I make it to the age of 39 without thinking with my own mind? Is that even possible? I guess so, because I've managed to accomplish it.

Secondly, having my own mind has brought with it a kind of confusion, now I second guess my own thoughts, I think to myself, "Am I thinking this because of what someone else expects, or is this really me?" It feels a lot like my brain is trying to rewire itself, not physically maybe, but certainly from a consciousness standpoint, I'm installing a new "filter", one that is screening out thoughts I would have previously accepted as my own, but were in fact motivated by what I perceived as what someone else wished me to think. It's hard to explain, but for instance, if someone said to me "Do you want to go to (insert restaurant name here) or would you rather stay home?", my thought process did not automatically engage in deciding what "I" wanted to do, but rather with what that person wanted or expected, or wanted to hear. And then agonizing over whether the decision I made would ultimately make them happy or angry or otherwise indifferent. Intertwined with that however, now that I think about it, was my actual self's thoughts of what I wanted to do, but those thoughts were filtered out in favor of that person's expectations, perceived or otherwise, that I had in mind at the time.

Anyway, over the last few months, as I have walked my path, I have developed a system of beliefs all my own, and they are probably not like anyone else's. Which is fine, I can accept that now, I don't have to believe JUST like anyone else. Even if everyone else on the planet thinks those beliefs are wrong.

Many pagans believe in a god and/or goddess, much like many of the other "mainstream" religions, but it is my belief that while they do exist, I don't see them as "gods", but merely another type of lifeform in this thing we call the universe. They are energy beings, not physical, like human beings, and I also believe there are many "species" of energy beings, or to put it another way, energy beings in various states of evolution. This is where we come in as humans. We are a mechanism, a way certain energy beings use to be able to experience and learn things that they cannot do in their natural state. We are those energy beings, but in human form, and as such, we cannot comprehend or even have knowledge of our "natural" state, other than to have a rudimentary perception of it. The reason for this is surprisingly simple. To be fully aware of the "other" existence, and the nature of what it is like, would absolutely spoil the ability to exist in a physical form. Having intimate knowledge of that existence would make living in a "crude" human body seem like nothing more than wearing a "costume", as one would always see the physical world as an illusion. As an energy being, the rules of time, space, and what is "real" are much different than they are for a physical being. We in the physical world are bound by constraints such as a perception of time that is only linear, one moment following the next. An energy being has no such limitations, and can view time in many different ways. As humans we are physically incapable of comprehending anything but linear time, which I believe is "built in" to prevent us from perceiving things outside of this physical form. As an energy being the concept of location is also vastly different. We see things as "up" or "down" or "here" or "there", but a being of energy doesn't have the same perception at all. The phrase I have heard over and over again in researching and reading about spiritual things and accounts from those who have spoken to these beings is that they say  "I am everywhere and nowhere". I take that to mean that what we see as the certain place that we are right this moment is not "where" they are too, to them, "where" doesn't exist. It's a little difficult to wrap one's mind around a concept like that, how can someone not be "here" if they are right in front of us talking to us?

It's my belief that we are here, on this planet, as energy beings having a human experience. Those that are our guides, the spiritual beings, help us to accomplish whatever it is we chose for ourselves before we got here. To that end, I believe that those beings do not ask or require of us to worship them, as we are much like they are, only a little less "evolved" so to speak. I also believe that nothing happens by chance, or by accident, and that even things that seem insignificant can be very important in the grand scheme of things. I view life as an opportunity to grow, it's a special thing indeed to be here, now, doing what I'm doing. There's something to be learned from the experience of being human, and the opportunities to learn in everyday life are not to be squandered, for there is a finite amount of those opportunities we are each given with each life we live. And yes, I believe that we have more lives to live, and have lived many more before this one, well, some of us anyway. Even if we have lived several lives, or hundreds of lives, this one is unique, and can never be duplicated. It's all in what we chose or choose to do, we pick the lives we want to live, and "sit out" other times, and just observe. While we're here though, it behooves us to make the best of the life we have.

These are just a few paragraphs on what I believe. There is so much more that I feel in my heart that is true, but it would take a novel to fully explain it all. For now let it suffice to say that this is how "I" believe; how you believe may be completely different, and that's ok, you are entitled to believe differently, you are not me. The possibilities of existence are infinite, and the things that can be learned from experiencing those infinite possibilities is just staggering, there is so much to learn, and that, I believe, is the purpose of existence. Interesting tidbit of recursion, don't you think? We exist to learn, we learn to exist. To learn, to grow, to change. That's the one true constant in the universe, change. How we choose to learn is also limitless in its possibilities, it's part of the change, and maybe that's part of why we are human, to be diverse in our pursuit of knowledge, to look at the universe from many different angles, from different points of view, to say "what if".

Here's to being human.

Getting on with my life....

I've been doing a lot of thinking since my last post, and I've come to the conclusion that it's time to move forward, time to do something.

I want to get rolling on getting a divorce, I want to get out of where I'm living, I want to live my life as I see fit. This thing I'm doing right now is not living, it's sitting, settling, waiting, but waiting for what? Nothing is going to happen if i just sit here, going to work every night, and then sitting on the computer all day when I get home. It's been almost 8 months since I left her, what am I doing waiting for something to happen?

I have no answer to that question.

It's time I faced facts, and realized that I've only been sitting here because I'm afraid to go out and make a life of my own. I've never been on my own before, so yeah, it's understandable that I'd be nervous, unsure, but avoiding the problem has not made it go away, there it still sits, just waiting for me to do something about it. I wait, it waits, and nothing is accomplished.

The thing is, something has been nagging at me. There has been this sort of "vision" I've had in my mind for a very long time now, and by very long time I mean YEARS, and it's a sense that there are great things in store for me, lots of happiness and success, and what I perceive as a gratification I've never felt in all of my life, of  using my talents and gifts in the way they were intended. I feel the need to give of myself to others, help them, teach them. It's kinda like the feeling of "this is what I was born to do". I really can't explain it other than to say it like that, because the feeling is one of such immense joy at seeing other people successful and happy,  doing whatever it is I am helping them to do. I honestly don't know what it all means, but now is the time to start finding out.

To that end, I am going to enlist the help of a lawyer, and discuss with him or her my options for a divorce. I have already spoken to one, several weeks ago, but I got the distinct impression that he did not have my best interests at heart, and I feel that my attorney should be thinking of my interests, and not just spout out the law and tell me how things are going to happen. Of course there is going to be a major expense involved, but I have a feeling that once I get the ball rolling that the universe will provide me the means to accomplish what I set out to do, because when I align my vibes and energy with the task of living my life the way it is intended to be, things will  fall into place, I truly believe that.

One thing that I have found out about myself is that I will find every excuse to focus on everything BUT what is important in my life, or rather, what is important to continue LIVING my life. Most of the time I'm just existing. The only reason I could come up with for making these excuses is that I'm too afraid of the unknown to get off my ass and get started. Take right now for instance, here I am talking about it, talk, talk, talk, that's all I do, "oh, I sooo bad want to get a divorce, oh, I want to start my own computer repair business, oh, I want to teach people how easy it is to fix a car", and so on and so on. I give myself every excuse in the book as to why I haven't done any of these things yet, but the only REAL excuse for no progress being made is ME, I haven't done a thing to make anything happen, so of course nothing HAS happened.

Anyway I have made a deal with myself. I have told myself that I have until the end of the year to have some progress made on my goals, and, that I will each day, if the opportunity is available, do something that will help to accomplish them. Sitting here talking about them is not making them happen.

I have given serious consideration to getting a second job, as the one I have now is not bringing in an adequate amount of money. So one of the first things I am doing when I finish this post is to look online for job opportunities. One thing that having a second job and more income will help to accomplish is for me to get a house or apartment of my own to rent, as well as provide me with the added income I need to buy a newer vehicle than the "beater" I'm driving now.

After/during my job search, I am going to be perusing the local phone book and making phone calls to various lawyers to arrange for a consultation. Then, once the consultations have been made, and attended, I will choose the attorney I feel is right for me and begin the procedures to obtain a divorce as per his or her advice.

If it seems there are obstacles blocking me from doing something, I will not give up, and sit again on my laurels, I will find another way to do what I feel I need to do.

This I promise myself, this I command of myself. I will remain steadfast, and have courage.

I will get on with my life.

Just "Me"

I told Bella that I was going to write this post when the time was right, but I've been sitting on it in my head for weeks now, and because of a post she wrote today, I really feel the desire to write this down. She's been an inspiration to me, the way she handles her personal growth. Reading her post was just a huge kick in the ass to me, the proverbial "two by four to the head" everyone talks about when they get a message from the universe that says "Hey stupid, what the hell are you doing just sitting there, do something!!"

I've been on this path of mine for a very long time now, over 39 years, and through it all there has been one constant. I have never shown my true self to anyone, not even to those I love and trust the most, not completely anyway. All I could ever do was this: show people the side of myself that is socially and what I have now dubbed "personally" acceptable. It's easy to do, especially if all you want to do is to avoid conflict and avoid feeling let down or disappointed because someone doesn't like who you are. I've never been comfortable enough with myself to show anyone who I am, that's the bottom line, I know that now. I've always been afraid, too unsure of my own worth to be who I really am. And this even in recent months when here I thought I had made great strides in becoming "whole", there I sat, still afraid to be "me".

I talked to my dad the other night, and he told me something that really made me think, bringing this post ever closer to reality. He said that in all the things I didn't do early in life, in school, in the Navy, everything, was from a lack of motivation, and he more or less called me an idiot for being that way. See, growing up I was the one out of my siblings, (I have 2 brothers and a sister), that was supposed to be the "smart" one, I had the ability to get straight A's in school, to get an academic scholarship to a good college, and it was expected of me to perform to the best of my ability. As an adult I took an IQ test to find out if in fact this expectation were true, and I found, not to my surprise, that my IQ is around 150, or what they call "borderline genius". I'm smarter than about 95 percent of the population. So what did I do? Well with my lack of motivation I did nothing, no effort in class, little to no homework, and what did I get out of it? Not straight A's of course. I didn't get a scholarship to college, so, in order to get the ability to go to college, I enlisted in the Navy to take advantage of their GI Bill. You can probably see where this story is going. To make a long story short, not only did I not succeed in the Navy, I was discharged earlier than I was scheduled due to taking a 31 day vacation without telling them first. Now that situation was over a woman, the girl who was eventually to become my wife and bear me my 3 daughters, so it was not a "bad" thing insomuch that it was poor planning and yet again a lack of motivation on my part to do what I needed to do to get what I wanted and needed. She was the focus of my thoughts, what she "wanted", which of course was nothing even close to the reality of what she actually had in mind.

Which brings me back to what I started talking about, my socially and personally acceptable behavior. My whole life I have said and done things because of what I thought someone else "wanted", or acted in ways that  I thought THEY felt I should, never once considering that in the process, I was losing myself, or worse, never finding myself to begin with, never being "me". And I still do it to this day, I talk to my friends, I tell them things I think they want to hear, not what I truly want to say. Even those closest to me probably don't know the true "me", because I have never actually showed him to them, and that really makes me sad, I want to just be me, and not feel like they will hate me for what I've done, for who I've been. But I'm scared, deathly afraid to do it, and I wish I knew why.

I know some of the reasons why I do things like I do, especially when it comes to the opposite sex, wow, I could write a book on that. Now I'm not saying that I haven't gotten better, these days I do tend to be a lot less afraid to say what I really want, but I used to be a whole lot worse.

Here's the scenario. There's a woman who I have feelings for, and she says she likes potted plants, she loves nothing more than to plant them and tend them and make herself a wonderful garden, aren't they just the coolest thing ever? (she asks me) Well in my mind I'm saying "Potted plants? Yuck, I hate to get my hands in dirt, I don't like potting plants or messing with anything of the gardening variety". But what comes out of my mouth? "Yeah plants are cool, I'd like to have some in my house, build my own little garden". And I say that because A) "What if she loses interest in talking to me if I say I don't like plants?" and B) "Messing with plants isn't all that bad, I can do something like that if it's what she likes, and she can teach me something in the process, and she'll see that I'm interested in the same stuff as her, which will make her like me more." See, the fact is, I am very flexible, and I like to try things more than once, sometimes it's all in the person doing it, so I don't just write something off because I didn't like it the first time I tried it. The problem comes in my motivation for doing it, it's usually not JUST because I'd like to try that something again, it's to get her to like me more.

That's so wrong it's not even funny, but that's what I used to do, and to some extent, still do. Let me do what she does, what she likes to do, and more importantly, when she does it, so I'll look like I'm really interested. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I say and do this with EVERYTHING. There are a lot of things I do genuinely like, and like to do, like blogging here. I love to write things, not so much stories, but observations of mine on the meaning of life, or something educational, I love to teach people about cars and computers, two things I love to work on.

Something just struck me, I feel like I've written this post before, or parts of it at least, almost word for word, and that bothers me. That means I've said this before, and that means I've known and acknowledged this issue before. And obviously did nothing. Hmmmm.

Anyway to shorten this increasingly rambling post, I have to say that just writing this has made a lot of difference, because for the first time I've actually said what's in my mind, and I don't do that a lot. Even writing here most of the time I say things in a way that I feel most people will want to read it, not necessarily how I really want to say it. Which I recall I have said before, jeez. So this is a vicious circle then, no wait, a globe, you know, one of those things you see a hamster running around in, I've gotten myself stuck in a globe of fear, fear of others seeing "me", (see mine's not plastic and clear like the hamster's, otherwise everybody could see me, it's probably an opaque gray or something) and that my friends is what this post is about, coming out of that globe once and for all. Boy I hope there's a door or something, or maybe it's glass, and I can hammer my way out.

But all kidding aside folks, what I fear too is the expectations of others, and really of myself and what I will have to do, which I believe is why I stay unmotivated to be as successful as I could be. That has to be it. I'm not really "lazy" so to speak, I'm not one to just do nothing intentionally, it's just that I don't always feel confident that I CAN do something, and so I don't, and I basically paralyze myself into inaction. Interesting premise, I've never really worked that out into a logical thought process before, but it's true, that's exactly what I do. Even as a kid I was told I could do it, but when the going got a little tough, I started to doubt myself, and then just said "screw it, I can't do this", and gave up. Wow, that's amazing, 39 and NOW I get why I acted that way. And by proxy, the reasons why I act like I do to everyone today.

I'm not going to apologize folks, this is just part of MY growth process, and I have the right to be an idiot. Lots of you may have seen this long before I did, but that's ok, this is me, and this time I want to be the me you all DON'T know and love. And just maybe you'll love me anyway. I know me, and I want to share me with you.

A great night, and another's great day.....

Hi folks, hope your day is going well so far! Mine has been really great, well, better than great, it was excellent!

When I went into work last night the manager in charge pulled me aside and asked me to work as a stocker, and to work the freight in hardware and housewares, isn't that the coolest?! I sure thought so.

I don't think I mentioned this before, but there's not a lot of room for advancement working in maintenance at Walmart. We don't answer to any manager other than the co-manager in charge on any given night, because we don't have a department manager or anything like that, which means there is really no position to advance to unless you transfer to another department, and on third shift, the only other department that is available is with the stock crew. So I've been talking with the managers on duty for the last week or so about giving me the opportunity to run some freight if they needed help, and last night I got my wish. Apparently several of the stock crew personnel had called out of work, so there was no one to stock anything on that side of the store, no one in hardware, sporting goods, or housewares. So I was asked to do those departments, well, other than sporting goods, which they had a few of the first shift people do when they arrived at 6 in the morning.

Anyway as far as my first night ever of having to actually LOOK at the shelves, I thought it went really well. See, being a maintenance man requires me to stare at the floor for about 90 percent of the time I'm there, for obvious reasons lol, but last night I finally got to take a look at what we had, and try to find and place each of the items that were on the pallets to be restocked. I've got to tell you, it's not easy when the department is unfamiliar, but I found the challenge of finding each item to be really fun. I'd love to be able to do that job for a living, every night there's something different to put up, and it gave me satisfaction to know that I was putting merchandise on the shelves for our customers to come and buy. I mean who doesn't hate it when you go into a Walmart, with the intent of buying some of your favorite or most needed items, only to find they are currently out of stock? Especially when you know full well that there is probably a pallet full of them in the back room, I mean I don't know about you, but that really gets my goat. And what if you saw something online, or saw it in another Walmart earlier, but couldn't afford to buy it right then? You finally get the money together, and go down to your local store to buy it, only to find there are none of that item on the shelf. GRRRR!!! I hate that!!! So trust me when I say I gained a tremendous amount of satisfaction in putting stuff ON the shelves, rather than being the hapless shopper I have always previously been, a victim of the ironic circumstances of poor inventory management.

I hope that I get the chance to work the stocking gig again soon, and I hope I do well enough that the management considers moving me to that position permanently. I really enjoyed it, and because there are managerial positions to advance into in that job field, I am excited with the possibilities this may just open up for me.

Now, I had a great night, but someone else is having a great day today. See, my dear friend Bella over at Memoirs of a Crazy Witch started going walking every morning a few weeks ago, after her daughter gets on the bus, with the intent to become more fit and to lose some weight. She's been doing really well with it, walking about 3 miles a day, I'm so happy for and proud of her, she's already seeing some results! And now, she's found someone to go walking with her every day, how sweet is that?! There is no doubt in my mind that it will make it more enjoyable for her, and also give her more motivation to reach her goals. Not that she needs any more "motivation", because trust me when I tell you, she is one of few I have ever known that sticks to her guns, no matter what, and when she sets her mind to do something, she follows through. I wish you guys could see the smile on my face that I get when I talk to her, I'm just so happy for her, and I'm glad that things are going so well for her! But don't just take MY word for it, go check out her blog for yourself, go ahead, click that link above, she's an amazing woman, you'll see......and you'll agree.

Such a great day for both of us, and I sincerely wish all of you a great day as well, talk to you soon everyone!

Life on 10-10-10

Hi folks, hope you're having a good day, it's 10-10-10, interesting date, and it won't happen again for another 100 years, pretty cool ain't it? Let's all just hope that the numerologists don't tell us that the number "3" that this date adds up to doesn't spell doom and gloom or anything. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

I'm sitting here alone, late at night, on my day off, it kinda happens that way when you're on a third shift schedule like I am. Everyone else is snug in their beds, those on a day schedule at least, and so I have hours and hours of being alone, really and truly alone.

I don't see it as a bad thing though, I'm never "alone" in my mind, I have myself, I can talk to me just as well as I can to another person, strange as that sounds. But I have time to think, time to be with myself, it's kinda nice actually.

Today, like any other day, I stayed at home and played around on Facebook, frustrating thing that can be, I mean who else puts out software for public use before fully testing it for bugs? It's a wonder any of us stay with it, what with all the times things refuse to load, the comments that can't be made, the messages that can't be read,  and the posts that magically disappear, only to reappear later when we no longer need them to be there. I guess the developers figure that we the people will put up with a little frustration from time to time as long as we get to visit Farmville at least once during our day, or in my case, Happy Pets and Frontierville, oh and let's not forget Millionaire City, and yes, even though I'm a guy, It Girl. That one is a lot of fun. There's just something about searching through racks of clothes, looking for just the right thing to make that girl just as "hot" as I can make her, so she will win that 4th showdown and finish yet another quest. I gotta be honest, I think if they made a game like that for guys, it just wouldn't have the same appeal. So yeah, I guess we WILL put up with a little frustration to get our app fix for the day.

And speaking of Facebook, there seems to be a prolific amount of greed that some people demonstrate when playing the games. Of course there is money spent on Facebook, that's the main reason these developers keep punching out more and more new games, but what does it say when you have people who will shamelessly advertise on their status updates that they want to "trade" a pet for cash items in the game? I've been playing Happy Pets for probably a year or so now, and recently it seems there are those who have decided that it's ok to ask other people to buy them the cash items from the games' "store" in order to be allowed to trade for a certain and not necessarily unique pet. For those not familiar, the premise of Happy Pets is to acquire and care for and breed a variety of "pets", be it cats, dogs, pigs, horses, and more recently, iguanas, bears, and even butterflies. Some of these pets can be bought with game "coins" that are acquired from doing things such as feeding and cleaning up after the pets, and for making them "happy", none of which requires spending any real currency. Many of the animals however are only available by spending real money on facebook credits which are spent in the "store". Along with pets however, there are things called "love potions", which guarantee success when attempting to breed the pets, and "mystery boxes" which may contain accessories for your pets or in some cases the pets themselves. There is a wide variety of items to decorate the rooms your pets stay in, and many other items to further enhance the enjoyment of playing. What bothers me is that the people who ask for cash items in trade for pets is that in most cases, the pets they are offering are not worth spending real cash money to get. They are more or less asking others to do the spending for them, instead of using their own money to buy the items they want, and to me that's just greedy and downright rude. That's like me asking you to buy me tires for my car because I gave you a ride to work one day. I mean really, is it right to exploit other people because you're too cheap to spend the money on your own? Granted, SOME of the pets they offer are pretty unique and sought after, but the fact is, the people that are practicing this exploitation technique came upon those same pets by using the same tactics. Personally I find the whole thing deplorable and I wish there were some kind of rules and regulations governing the "business" conducted between the players of games where real money can be spent. Of course that covers just about EVERY game on Facebook. And then there's the "it's a free country" thing too, I mean it's not like what they are doing is illegal per se, just immoral. And in this country, there are no laws against greed and exploitation when the other party is willing. Anyway, I suppose if one wants a certain pet bad enough, one might be inclined to pay through the nose to get it, so who am I to judge? I myself am not one of them, but to each his own. But remember folks, in the end they're just pixels, just saying.

There's another game on Facebook I just started playing, called My Mad Millions, or MMM for short, where the object of the game is not to gain millions, but in fact to lose them, 300 million of them. It got me to thinking about what it would be like if I was actually given that task, to blow 300 million bucks straight out of my keister. It's surprisingly hard given the rules. They stipulate that at the end of the given time period, I think it's 30 days, you should have a balance of 0, with no assets, no cash, no nothing. So just spending money to buy things is out, you have to rent everything so as not to build up a tremendous amount of assets like houses and cars and material possessions of all types. Without those rules you could blow through 300 million in less than a day in real life, I mean things aren't cheap here in 2010. The economy sucks, the housing market is terrible, but money still spends, and it doesn't go nearly as far as it did before the Big Dick took us off the gold standard. (For those too young or too uninterested in politics to remember, the Big Dick was our 37th President, Richard Nixon. He was actually known as "Tricky Dick", but I like to refer to him as "the Big Dick" thanks to Robin Williams in the movie "Good Morning Vietnam"....) Right now I bet you could find houses on sale that would easily take up half of that 300 million, to say nothing for the taxes you'd have to pay to keep them. But what I was thinking was that I would buy a modest home, as I have no need for all the "finer" things in life, I mean I don't have them now and I am just fine, so why spend out the wazoo to get them just because I can "afford" it? I would certainly buy myself a nice car, and by nice I mean one that was less than 23 years old and had less than 265,000 miles on it like the one I'm driving now. And then I would buy a boat, or rather, a ship, something longer than 100 feet, to be able to take ocean cruises on. But I would save some money for later, might need it for something, you know, like helping out the people in Louisiana who were affected by the now infamous oil spill in the gulf. And what about that homeless guy that bugs you for change when you go to the office every day? What if he had oh, say, a couple thousand of those 300 million dollars? What would he be able to do with it? Sure, maybe he would go and buy more booze, but then when he discovered he had lots of money left over, he might just decide to find himself a decent place to live and get his life back together. What if the waitress at your favorite diner found a tip for a thousand dollars under the check? How many diapers could she buy for her new baby with that, and then have some left over to buy herself the textbooks she needed to put herself through law school? And what about that door greeter at Walmart, so tired and doped up from the pain medication after his hip replacement surgery? What could he do with a few hundred smackers? Might help to pay for some of those perscriptions. What I'm getting at here is that while having a bunch of money is great, giving it away would be a whole lot sweeter. I only hope that sometime in this lifetime I have the chance to do just that.

So now it's 3 in the morning, I've been writing for almost an hour and a half now. I really like talking to you guys, you're always a great audience, thank you for that. And feel free to talk to me too, a lot of times you guys just sit being quiet, listening, and while that's wonderful, I mean I appreciate you letting me have my "time" and all, but it's ok to speak up if you have an idea, or a question about anything I've said. I always love hearing the perspective of others, no one else sees the world like you do, because you are the only "you" there is. Makes you feel special when you know there's only one of your kind doesn't it? (Only trouble with that is, if EVERYONE is "special", doesn't that mean that NO ONE is?) Every single person on this little blue ball is unique, the only one like themselves, the only one that's ever lived, at any time, in any place. That's what I read at least. My belief is that we ARE indeed unique, each one of us, but as I mentioned in a post recently, I believe that for some of us at least, this is not our first time being human. It's nice to know that I could have been there when Mozart composed "The Marriage of Figaro", or I could have been one of the Persians that invaded Sparta, or how about having been one of the Egyptians that built the pyramids? Those must have been some incredible experiences, and may be why I feel such a connection to them now. But who knows?

I'm not sure what this lifetime has in store for me, but I feel very strongly that the next chapter is the beginning of the best parts of this life. Things may not happen like I want them to, or in the timeframe I have chosen, but I feel that before I started this life I did make a plan, and even if I don't have the blueprint in front of me now, I still know in my heart that this is the way I planned it to go. And that's exactly the way it should be.

I was writing, and then I heard some tragic news....

Hello again folks, nice to see you!

I don't really know what I want to talk about. I just know I have to write. Writing helps me think, to hash things out, to mull things over in my mind. Seeing my thoughts in written form really makes it easier to work out the details of how things are going.

Right now things in general are trending towards something big happening, I don't know how or why I feel that, but I do. I watch for things, signs if you will, things that tell me, "hey, you might need to pay attention to this". It could be something someone mentions, or just something I see, usually several times, because I take that to mean that the universe is trying to tell me something. For instance, if I see or hear a certain word several times over the course of a day, or read something on the internet in completely different places, I think about the fact that maybe there's something I need to pay attention to. It doesn't need to be over the course of a single day either, it could be over the course of a week.

My belief that I am here as a spiritual being having a human experience has led me to live a different kind of life. Everything, well, almost everything, has a different significance to me than it once did.

I've just learned while writing this that there is a young girl right now very possibly on her deathbed due to cancer that was undiagnosed, even though she had been complaining of pain to her doctor for a year. All they told her was that it was all in her head. Her name is Ariel, and she is the second cousin of Bella over at Memoirs Of A Crazy Witch, and it breaks my heart to know that this young woman might die because of a doctor who didn't listen and try to determine the real cause of her pain. Sometimes people come into the world to teach us lessons, and I'm sure that Ariel's situation will undoubtedly do that, but try telling that to her parents who will possibly have to bury their child. As a father, I can say that if I was faced with the prospect of losing one of my daughters that I would be beside myself with grief, I would just lose it, and I would never ever be the same. This is just too hard to write about, because I am so angry with the doctors, and sad that this is happening to someone so young, with so much life ahead of them. Add to that the fact that I find most doctors to be crooks, only out to take people's money, and you've got one really upset Perth on your hands.

Many of you may have read my earlier posts, on my other blog, and are aware that for 10 years I was an auto mechanic. I worked on everything in that time, all types of cars, diagnosed all kinds of problems, and one thing always reared its ugly head, and that was the customer's fear or even assumption that I was not telling them the truth about their car, but rather only looking to squeeze every dime out of their wallet I was capable of acquiring. But nothing could have been farther from the truth. I always told them exactly what the problem was, and what was needed to repair it. For some reason, because of mechanics who did in fact inflate their estimates and were caught and made the national news about it, and still do, the general public has gotten the idea that ALL mechanics are crooks. Again, nothing could be farther from the truth. Most mechanics are honest, and only tell the truth about what they find wrong, and while I'm sure there are plenty that don't, I truly believe that the numbers of dishonest mechanics are far smaller than people think. Doctors, however, as a general rule, do not seem to have this stigma attached to them. People are perfectly ok to allow them to work on their bodies, diagnosing all kinds of diseases and conditions, prescribing medications, scheduling follow up after follow up appointment, and charging thousands upon thousands of dollars in the process, without so much as an "are you sure?" or a "I don't think that's the problem, I'm not feeling the pain there". I guess because a doctor has to go to school for so many years to become a "Doctor" that it makes them completely un-fallable and always straight to the point and unswervingly honest. There's no possible way that they could see the opportunity to draw something out, to schedule further tests, to make more office visits, to dole out more medication, all for the express purpose of filling their pockets with even more money. They probably DO know right off the bat what the problem is in most cases, I mean with all their years of training, but why not make a few bucks by not letting the patient know right away, why not make them go through more "tests", who's gonna be hurt by it? What they don't know won't hurt them, right? I bet Ariel's parents might have something to say about that right now. How many children will complain about having pain if it is not really there? Sure, there are some that do, just to get attention, but to have it go on for a year, and for the doctor to do nothing? All I can say is that I am appalled, and angry. As a mechanic I was questioned for the littlest thing, constantly accused of being untruthful, but here is a doctor who obviously did not seem to care enough that this young lady might have had a life threatening illness to tell her anything other than "it's all in your head". I guess having constant pain is normal for a human body that is 17 years old, yeah, ok. I wonder how many visits that doctor went ahead and scheduled just to tell her that? I mean a year? Really? Hey here's an idea, why not tell the truth, and say "I don't know what's wrong, but let me find someone for you that can find out."

I don't know the whole situation, so I could be way off base here, maybe they did do just that, and no one found anything, but it just irks me in general when I hear about doctors that in my opinion are just dicking people around, drawing things out, just to make a buck. And no one even looks up. Sorry folks, just my opinion, I'm sure there are honest doctors out there, but I am one who thinks that most are crooks, because I'm in a position to know what that looks like.

I sincerely hope that all of you who reads this will pour out your prayers and healing energy to Ariel and her family, that she may be healed. No one should have to go through something like this. I pray that she will recover, and that the universe will provide her family with strength and comfort in this most difficult time.

Dear Blog-ary

Hi folks, how's your day going?

Mine was pretty quiet. I went to sleep last night at 11, which is usually when I'd be working, but on my days off I  usually sleep at night, it's a pretty long, lonely night when no one else is awake lol. Most of the day today I've just been on the computer playing around in Facebook, just sorta relaxing and enjoying my Sunday.

I feel like if I'm writing here every day that it's kinda like writing in a diary, but since this is a blog, I figured it would be better to call it a "blog-ary". But, since I'm not talking to my blog per se, I'm not sure that's apt. Anyway, it was a thought, one I'm sure I'm not the first to come up with.

I start back on a new work week in a few hours, and tonight I will be working with only one other person, normally we have at least 3 people, most times 4. The work required to get a Walmart floor scrubbed and buffed and swept in the 8 hours we have to do it really requires 3 people, so with only 2, it means I will be very busy. I don't mind that at all though, as it will make my shift go quickly, and I also have the added feeling of accomplishment that I more or less did the job myself. That's "my" floor when I'm there, my baby, and when I leave in the morning with it shining brightly, I feel good.

The weather has been cool of late, which I love, I'm looking forward to winter. I love to see the leaves still on the trees change over to the yellow and red and even brown, and the cooler temps really feel good. Since I work at night, I haven't really had to deal with the heat of the summer as much as in previous years, but trust me, even at 2 in the morning it's pretty warm and muggy in the middle of summer. The trash run in the parking lot can be pretty stifling, and add to that the atrocious smell of warm, wet garbage, coupled with the sheer weight of the bags, and it can get pretty uncomfortable to be out there. The one up side to being outdoors while working is that it pretty much affords you a free smoke break. No one ever checks to see if the maintenance guy is smoking outside while he's collecting garbage, and even if they did, I doubt they would frown upon it, as long as the trash is taken care of.

That's one thing I think I like the most about my job, as being a part of the maintenance crew I have a certain level of autonomy. The management doesn't keep up with what we're doing very much, they check at the beginning of the night to see who's there to work, and tell us what they want us to accomplish, but after that we're pretty much on our own. We can wander the store freely, talk with other associates as we make our rounds with the dust mops or scrubber or buffer, it's a really laid back environment. The stockers on the other hand are stuck in a specific department, with management checking pretty often to see if they are getting their freight put up in the time they were allotted, there's a bit of pressure there that being on the maintenance crew I just don't have. As long as the floor is done before 7 a.m., the management leaves us alone for the most part, and that's the way I like it.

What's funniest about my job is how much the place changes from night to day. It's like a completely different store. At night things look different, when there is only artificial light from above, but when morning comes and the sunlight comes through the skylights it makes the floor shine more, the displays seem brighter, and of course with the arrival of customers there's an activity level shift, I mean at night, between the hours of 1 and 5, there's nothing. Some days I go shopping after I clock out, and it's really funny to see product on the shelves that I didn't notice the night before because all I was doing was staring at the floor. It's pretty amazing, I go down an aisle I just got done sweeping or scrubbing or buffing just hours before, and I say "Wow, I didn't know we had that!". I'm concentrating on my work while I'm there so much that I don't stop for a second to see what's on the shelf, so it's kinda neat to go around later on like I've never shopped there before. I work at Walmart at night, but I shop a completely different Walmart during the day, it's pretty cool.

Well folks it's time for me to close and get myself ready to go do my job, I hope you all sleep well, and get up tomorrow well rested and ready to go do that voodoo that you do.......I just love that saying lol.

Happenings, and discussions....I felt like writing

Hi everyone, how's your day going?

I had a great time with the kids last night. The fall festival is always a fun night with the girls, they enjoy playing the games, and every year I make it a point to make sure we attend. T (my youngest) really wanted to win me a cake on the cake walk, which I thought was adorable, but unfortunately she was not successful. Interesting thing, this cake walk, it's kinda like musical chairs, only with cards with numbers printed on them placed on the floor. And ironically, it was done in the music room of the school, presumably because there is room enough to move a group of people in a circle easily, and also to set up tables for the cakes. The music starts, and the players walk around in a circle on the numbers, and when the music stops, everyone has to be on a number, and then they choose one of the numbers from a hat, or in this case a plastic bag, and whoever is standing on that number wins a cake. It cost a dollar to play, so if you win, you can get a pretty good cake for what you paid. They ran two "rounds" for each group, so the odds of winning aren't all that bad. And the cakes, well, they were all kinds, from cupcakes bought at the local grocery store, to homemade strawberry angel food cake, and frosted layer cakes. They always plan ahead a few weeks in advance and ask the parents to bring in cakes, so there's a lot to go around. And while my daughter didn't win one, both my niece and nephew DID, so they got to take home something at least.

The rest of the games were as usual in each of the classrooms, just about every single one of them, well, with the exception of 3 prize rooms, a face painting room, a silent auction room, and several other activities I didn't even get so far as to see what they were. But they had everything from the "duck pond" to the "putt putt", all sorts of quick and easy games, where even the smallest child can win themselves some prize tickets to use in the prize rooms. Oh and they even had inflatables outside, always a favorite activity for the elementary age kids. Then, in the cafeteria, they had hot dogs, nachos, pizza, cookies, and popcorn. All in all it was really fun.

Of course being there meant I had to deal with my wife, and I think she's up to a new game, this one meant to show me that she's changed. She was very accommodating the entire time I was there, asking me what I wanted to do, never trying to boss me, and she bought my dinner in the cafeteria. I can't figure her out sometimes, she goes from being nice, acting as though she wants to have things go my way (or at the very least acting with some semblance of normalcy), to being vindictive and hateful, throwing threats and accusations at me with reckless abandon. I mean the whole time we've been married she's acted the same, things always have to be done HER way, and I mean everything. She's even tried to tell me how I'm supposed to THINK, like I don't have a mind of my own and therefore entitled to have my own thoughts about things. If I do voice my opinion, and it doesn't coincide with hers, she just can't accept it. So honestly I don't know what she's up to. She keeps saying she wants to "work it out". I don't WANT to work it out with her, I've told her this, but, since nothing I say means anything to her, she ignores it, and continues to act as though nothing is wrong. Someday she's going to have to accept the idea that I'm not going to be with her. Maybe I should tell her that she doesn't have to agree with me to accept what I have to say, because that's her main problem, she just won't accept the things I say to her as valid thoughts. She's in freaking denial, and I'm not sure there is anything I can do to convince her that it's over, without her going ballistic on me. Because that's the opposite side of her coin. Once she gets it in her head for a few minutes, as she's done several times in the 7 months since I left, that it's actually over, then she goes nuts threatening me in a vain attempt to scare me into doing what she wants. She can't just accept the inevitable, and in the brief moments she does, she goes completely apeshit trying to scare me back into her life. I mean really, who thinks doing something like that is not going to end badly? What's the old saying? You get more bees with honey than with vinegar. If she really had changed, and she wanted to "work it out" as she says, then she would not go back and forth like she does, it's just another way she's decided that she's going to control what I do, and it's not happening, sorry for her. Once a control freak, always a control freak. You can't change your core personality, not really,  and in her case, she's a control freak to the core.

Anyway, enough of my rambling about my hopefully soon to be ex. Today has been a good day, I've been alone for most of it, which for me is not strange, or a bad thing, even though all my life I've lived with a house full of people. Then again that might be why I'm ok with being "alone". It's funny how you read stuff about the psychology of human interaction, and you hear about how isolation is either good or bad, or being amongst a lot of people is the same thing, good or bad, so what are you supposed to think? I'm fine not being around people, I'm fine being around people. I guess it's the psychology of the individual that I ought to be referring to here. If I'm ok with being alone, and with being around people, does that make me ok with myself? Maybe so. I don't "need" to be around other people, although I bet if I was isolated on a desert island for a long period of time I sure would "need" to be around people. But as it is, I do live with roommates that are home most of the time, so I am around people. My life is just what it is, things happen, things change, the only constant to existence. Sometimes I get to thinking about what it's all about, this "human condition" as I like to call it. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. And maybe it's about having the experience, just being a human in this physical world that makes being a spirit worthwhile. Existing outside of time and space constrictions must be a really different way to live, I mean how can you really "experience" anything if everything more or less happens for you at the same "time"? And how can you really "be" anywhere if there is no "where" to be?

When I talked to my spirit guide Ananda, she told me that she is everywhere, and nowhere. That told me that she lives an existence that is outside of the "normal" ideas about location. She's a spirit, one that isn't a part of the physical world, and from what I've read about it, being a spirit means you live an existence on a higher frequency than does anything physical, they are "here", but out of phase with us. They exist in a different "dimension" if you will, where physical objects and such are insubstantial due to their lower frequency, or vibration. Everything physical vibrates at the same frequency, this has been proven by science, so everything that is at a higher or even maybe lower frequency is not "here", where we can see it, it's an interesting thing to try to wrap your mind around. That means there could be an infinite number of lifeforms, each existing in the same "place", but due to the differences in frequencies, are completely insubstantial and therefore unaware of each other. Assuming this is fact, then there are many different types of lifeforms living right where you are right now, in your living room, in your bedroom, and you'll never know it, because they are out of phase with our reality. But then again, that explains ghosts, as from what I've heard they are a lot of times people who are somehow "in between" planes of existence, and are therefore somewhat visible. It fascinates me to think of the possibilities this thought process brings to mind. I'm of the idea that we as spirit beings decided to live a human existence to allow ourselves the experience of it, to learn, to grow, and to give ourselves something to strive for, something to gain. I obviously don't have the answers to the meaning of life, being a human myself at the moment, but I don't know, this just makes sense to me. What do you do living as a spirit? I wish I knew.

All the discussions I've had with my friends, all the research I've done, everything I've heard about or seen my entire life has led me to believe that there is so much more to the universe than what is "here" and "now". I myself have had numerous lifetimes, more than 13, according to Ananda, which makes me think it's 14. I mean what do you think when someone tells you an odd number like that? Most of the time, when someone says they have more than, say, 27 of something, then you can bet they have 28. Car dealers use that tactic all the time, when referring to their inventory. Ananda claimed it wasn't 14, but she wouldn't give me an exact number. Anyway, it's not really important to know how many, but to know that this is not my first and only trip around the block brings me comfort for some reason, I guess because I know that at the end of this lifetime, there will most likely be another later on. Well, later on from our perception of the timeframe.

What has strengthened the argument for me that we are living a human experience is with my observations of my own and others' interactions with those we call spirit guides. Many many times I've noticed that the information they have, or what they are willing to divulge, is very very general and vague in interpretation. This leads me to believe that we as humans cannot know, we are not allowed so to speak, about the specifics of our purpose in being here doing what we are doing in this lifetime. It's my opinion that if we did, it would ruin the experience, and it would then have to be aborted, and from what I can tell, those on the "other side" do everything in their power to avoid that possibility. I know this because I got caught asking "cheat" questions, most of which for some reason I can't recall at the moment, but suffice it to say I was getting pretty specific in my questions about the life of a spirit and how it relates to us being human, the question about the lifetimes for instance, how many I had had. To make a long story short, you just don't ask specifics about your life, or things on the other side, how it is for them, stuff like that, because we have no frame of reference, and it seems like it's just the wrong thing to do, because it isn't meant for us to know about it. Not until we get back to being a spirit ourselves that is. And I'm happy knowing this, because I know that there IS in fact someone looking after me, making sure things go as they should, guiding me, helping me to get all I can out of the experience that is this lifetime I'm living.

In my last post I talked about my discussions with my coworker about religion, and I wish I could have him read this post so he could see what I see as the truth, but I also know that he may not be meant to know, or even if he does know, he is not meant to be able to believe it. He's not in the same pantheon as me, his life is dictated by another spirit, one with a completely different agenda, and I'm ok with that. That's why I am ok with all organized religions, and all of the unorganized ones as well, to me, they are all just different forms of basically the same thing, we all are here under the tutelage of a "god", or "goddess", or even the universe itself, as the ultimate in creator and manager of all things. Everyone doesn't have to "answer" to the same deity, and in some like myself, our "gods" are not to be worshipped, but to be confided in, respected, and given the credit for the status they have achieved in being spiritually enlightened. They help us as we go through these lives, guide us as we learn the lessons we need to learn, so that when this lifetime is over we can say we accomplished what we set out to do while we were here. Because that's part of it too. We don't just come here willy nilly. We plan these lives before we get here, give ourselves challenges to overcome, because without challenges, then we learn very little. We work with our guides, those that have come before us, and decide on what we want to learn and how we will learn it. I don't know about you, but knowing that my life has a plan sure makes me feel a whole lot better about living it. A plan that I had a part in making, so when things seem bad, and life doesn't seem worth living, I can say that I was the one that planned it that way, and that maybe I should see what I need to learn from the experience. Makes life completely different knowing that. Nothing is too hard, nothing happens by chance, nothing is a coincidence. For me, knowing that, well, it's just changed the way I live. I interact with others in a different way, as even the people in your life, those who stay for only a short time, and those who are with you for your whole life, are also planned ahead of time. In some cases you even work together to plan joining up at a specific time. And don't even get me started on the roles certain others play in your life, as each lifetime those roles may be vastly different. But that person is still the same person that stays with you lifetime after lifetime.They may be your mother one life, your lover the next, and then your friend the one after that. Who knows, one of you out there may have asked me to write this down, on this specific day, so that you could be "awakened" to the reality of who you are. Others never choose to learn of the reality of their purpose here, as the life they chose precludes any knowledge of the life they have while not in a human body. So I guess they are some of the ones that aren't reading this. (LOL) The possibilities are literally endless.

What I'm getting at here is that in looking at my life, and the things that are happening, I have the confidence of knowing that there is a plan. I chose these challenges to facilitate learning the lessons of control. Control of emotions, control of logic, among other things. From the moment I was born, even down to the family I was born into, all of it, everything that has ever taken place, has been a carefully orchestrated series of events that has been teaching me how to control my emotional state, teaching me to think not just with my head, or my heart, but with both. Balance, that's the key lesson for this lifetime. To learn that emotions should not dictate my life, control me so to speak, but that logic has it's place as well. That is the main reason I left my wife, it was a situation in which my emotions overrode any sense of logic I had, I got with her because she gave me attention, not because we were actually compatible. I became someone I was not, compromised myself, in order to make the relationship work, and in the end I was miserable. I have the right to happiness too, something else I've learned, and in being in the relationship with her in the way I was in it did not make me happy. So I made the choice to end it. Logically if a relationship is not possible because of differences in compatibility, then it must be ended. I can be so much more without being in a restrictive and poisonous relationship, I can accomplish goals I set out for myself without having to answer to someone who is trying to control how my life goes, that is MY choice. I choose what I want to do, no one else does, and the pressure exerted by someone else should not cause me to give in and compromise what I believe is right for me. That's the life I had with her, I allowed myself to think with her brain, rather than my own, and once I broke free of that, I began to live my OWN life, and have never been happier. Sure, a little compromise is necessary, but if there are things that I feel are important things concerning me personally, things like the clothes I wear, the hairstyle I choose, and the people I associate with, I have the right to choose for myself. What if I DON'T want to go to bed with her, because there again, it's all about what SHE wants? I have the right to choose not to. No one else has the right to decide for me. They are not me. And that's what I did, I chose for myself, and it meant that I chose to end my association with her, as she could not allow me to be "me". Now I will move on, deciding for myself, and one day when this lifetime is over, I hope I find that I've learned what I came here to learn.

This has been a really long post, and yes I did get back to talking about my ex, but that's because I usually have a lot to say, and don't say it, at least not here, on my blog. There is lots more, more detail, about this subject, and many others, here in my head, but that's all for now, gonna leave some for another day........

On religion, among other things.....

I've been away from blogging for a while, but after a conversation with Bella, I realized why I don't post very much.

It's because I usually don't want to speak what's really on my mind, I like to "clean it up" so to speak to be PC, so as not to offend potential readers, but then that's not the way someone should run a personal blog. I could write about lots of different things, but I always seem to find reasons not to, most notably that those same potential readers wouldn't care about or want to hear what I have to say. But this is my blog, for me, not necessarily for my readers, so I'm just gonna go ahead and write what I think, and let the readers take from it what they will.

The first thing is my layout. While it's beautiful, and really expresses the vibe of the "path" that I was going for,  it's completely horrible at allowing one to read the posts in the blog, so, soon I'm going to change it. Well, actually, I already did, what do you think?


And now, on to religion, among other things.......


I've been working at Walmart now for going on 6 months, and I enjoy it, although I wish they would pay me a little better. The work isn't all that hard, the hours are perfect for me, and the guys I work with are generally easy to get along with. Recently however, one guy in particular has made it his personal crusade to recruit me into the Christian "club".

He's been doing everything in his power to enlighten me on the "truth" that is the Bible, and has told me that he prays for me every day, because he believes I am going to hell in a handbasket. We've had some pretty intense discussions on religion, and I have to say they have been very interesting to me. I find it fascinating to learn about how others believe, and I am careful not to discount any of the possibilities. Unfortunately, my colleague doesn't seem to be very openminded concerning the beliefs of other people if they don't coincide with his.

His entire argument is based on the fact that he believes, like many others I have spoken to who perscribe to the same belief system, that his way is the "only" way to believe, and his belief is based solely on the fact that the Bible says it is so. I've found that many people, not just Christians, seem to have difficulty in entertaining the possibility that there may be other "truths" when it relates to religious topics. In my opinion, that is a very narrowminded way of thinking.

My beliefs are not based on a book that tells me it's the truth, mine are based in what I feel is right for me, and while I know for the most part his are as well, it makes me wonder why it is so difficult for him to accept the idea that there may be other possible "truths". Because the book tells him that he can't? I will say one thing, I respect his ability to stay steadfastly and staunchly true to what his religion and sacred text tell him he must do. But on the other hand, there is pure and simple logic, and if new ideas are presented, new "truths" even, then doesn't it seem wise to at least try to give them a reasonable hearing?

I told him that I too believe in "God", but that I feel that he is not the only one. There are others like him. Well, you can imagine what the deluge of arguments was like that he brought out to try to disprove that idea. All of course again based solely on what the Bible says. I'm not saying he's wrong, not at all, he very well could be "right", he's just "right" for himself. I happen to belong to a different pantheon, I believe in a very different and not so authoritarian god, and therefore I am not subject to the rules and regulations that restrict him. But of course since he doesn't believe that the possibility exists that there even ARE other pantheons, well, let's just say we went around and around for quite a while about it.

Anyway, it has been a very invigorating experience working to "defend" in some ways the belief system I have, which is, in a lot of ways, still fairly new to me, but in the same breath, let me say that I feel there is no need to defend it, or to recruit anyone else into it, as it is my belief system, and mine alone. I think that everyone has their own system that works for them, and therefore, to them, that is the "truth", so no defense is required, unless of course one is fighting with himself or herself, internally. Religion is a very personal thing, to each his own.

In other news, I went to see a lawyer recently, and found out that getting a divorce will probably cost me a small fortune, but that my child support payments will not be as bad as I previously thought, possibly only around 500 dollars a month, which will not be too hard to handle. I'm still in the same place when it comes to my wife, we are done, and the sooner I can get a divorce, the better.

I'm excited today, however, as it is "Fall Festival" day at the elementary school, and while only one of my girls still attends, the older two still like to go back and enjoy the games and activities with their sister, and I'm going to go up and make a surprise visit (the girls don't know I'm coming, mom does lol), and spend some quality time with them, it's been a few months since we've done anything together, and I couldn't be happier that the time of year has come where there are activities almost every week.

Well I think that's all for now, hope everyone is enjoying the cooler weather, and has a great weekend!