Have you sat down and just wondered how you got to this place in your life? This is not the life I had planned out for myself. I had planned to wait tables and grow old with the man I married who would be a good God fearing man. One that supported me and our children both physically and mentally. I really left a lot to chance. Then one day life happened and now I find myself in a small home, three rooms, plus a bathroom. It has nearly 1000 sq feet but still small. We heat with a wood stove and cook with gas. When we bought the house it did have inside plumbing, but as an added feature it had a two seater out house. I have a wonderful husband who loves me dearly and is riddled with OCDs (Obsessive Compulsive Disorders) as well as many other mental disabilities. I have my fair share of OCDs so we fit together well. If I had my pick of any man on earth I don't know if I would have even looked twice at him, nor him me. However we met at church and I invited him over for dinner and four months later we were married. 4th for him, 3rd for me. Some track record we have. Now five years later I am more in love with him than I ever imagined I could love a man. He is as dear to me as my children are, in a different way but he is the center of my world. I grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia and I never imagined the life experiences I would have. I didn't have a good concept of what out west meant much less ever dreamed I would one day be living in the Phoenix valley. I certainly never dreamed I would leave there and move to Superior Wisconsin. I do love extremes though. I never thought at age 36 I would be totally disabled due to a neck injury, that was fixed by surgery, but the nerve damage was not. I never expected to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I thought Trinity had killed them all off. I mean when you learn history in Virginia you learn of the founding fathers and the eight men from Virginia to become president of the country; you learn of the Civil War and of how the Indians were driven to the west. You grow up in a lush green environment and can't envision having a lack of water. Yet still after buying a house in upstate Missouri and living here for four years I still marvel at all of the little ponds and streams and rivers and lakes that most people seem to miss as they barrel down the highway. The trip here was for the most part not a pretty one. Not for me nor for my husband; but for the first time in our lives we look forward to each and every day. We feed the squirrels and birds and watch for the ground hog in the back yard just hoping to catch a peak at him. I have a couple of pictures but I couldn't get very close. We love going to the park and seeing the deer standing by the road eating with their young ones. We love spotting eagles and osprey over the lake. We love taking our ADHD dog, half Australian Cattle Dog and half Basset Hound or She who eats like a goat as we call her, better known as Daisy Mae; and having her run in circles like a crazed animal trying to heard the air? or what ever she thinks she is hearding. We call them hot laps. It is a sight to behold. We love our cat Baby. He loves to be cradled ergo the name. His nick name is Baby the Outlaw Truckin' Kitty. We so named him when my husband changed companies from Crete Carriers to JB Hunt. Crete allows a small dog or a cat. JB Hunt doesn't. So since I rode along and we were not about to allow our cat to be left with someone else we snuck him in. I would say that is about the most illegal thing we have done. See a truck driver must have permission from his employer and documentation of regular vet visits and current shots to be able to have an animal or a wife/husband on board. A few companies allow girlfriends but not many. However I justified it with the fact that my husband follows the speed limit laws. Like in California and other states with the split speed limits. He goes 55 while the other traffic goes much faster. I insisted on this as I don't want to pay the price of a ticket. He works too hard for that money. Now though we are currently living on my disability only. It is hard to make 700 dollars last an entire month. We knew this day would be coming, but we thought it would be for his knee replacement. No Heavenly Father had a different plan for us. Michael began to disassociate while driving. One day he went into Sparks NV, just past the border and the next thing he knew he was in Reno NV. With an 80,000 lb load that is a scary thing. His psychiatrist pulled his driving priviledges and all priviledges to work. Of course the government believes someone should hire him to sit and stare into space and get paid to do it, without a science degree I just don't know who would hire him. Did I mention sarcasm is my way of coping? Now that he has been home for six months he is blanking less often. I do still have to watch him while he cooks, he forgets or stares off and things catch fire. He tilled some parts of the garden very well, by standing in one place for thirty minutes. As long as he doesn't hurt himself it is okay. My psychiatrist wants to know why I obsess on how long he is gone. Oh I don't know maybe I need to know if I am talking and he is gone then I just have to repeat myself and I hate to do that. He sleep walks and sleep talks mostly because he is concerned about me and why I am not in bed yet. My pain level usually keeps my up for hours and when I do go to bed I usually wind up in a recliner. My psychiatrist told me I had the most pronounced case of Resistive Depression he has ever seen. I laughed at him because I do get tired of hurting, I get tired of not being able to do things for myself; but I have the best life I could ever imagine. I have the love of a God fearing man who is better than good he is perfect for me. He is the love of my life and I am his. We are co-dependent and know it. What I lack he has and what he lacks I have. How much more could I ask for? I am eternally grateful for my Heavenly Father plunking him into my path to find. Do I get frustrated sure he is male. Do we argue no, we disagree and we are both opinionated. We have agreed to disagree on tree hugging. I love trees but I do belive in harvesting them. He loves to hug them and believes all dams should be blown up but would never do it. We both love and enjoy nature. The Grand Canyon is a place to behold and to help you find your place back into the grand scheme of things. Don't do the normal tour. Camp and follow the trails and take plenty of water. Spend time just staring at the beauty and uniqueness of its many peaks and canyons and try to imagine how it happened. How is it that part of the canyon is upside down chronologically speaking. New rock is under older rock. Just how does that happen and no one notices? No one can tell when it happened. Just that it did. These are the mysteries of life I want to ask my Heavenly Father when I see him. These are the things my grandfather would just answer "Well honey there are some things we are just not supposed to know." I never believed that. If we conceive of the question there has to be an answer. Just waiting for it is the problem. By the way tonight I was at the emergency room with my daughter, a gas pocket has hyperextended her abdomen and she has to go back on her Zelnorm. When I told her I was diagnosed as Resistive Depressive, she said of course you don't get depressed. Down yes but not depressed. I explained it was the opposite she looked at me and said I need to talk to your doctor. He doesn't know what he is talking about. He sould have meet you about ten years ago, I would have agreed then but not now. You and Michael have the life both of you have always wanted. Simple, modest and surrounded by nature in the middle of a very small town. I will leave you now with one belief I held for a very long time. At one point and still sometimes I believe my sole purpose for being on this planet was to share my current situation, day to day, with different people so they would feel their lives weren't as bad as they thought. If I have a nickle for each time I have heard that in my life I wouldn't need to live on Social Security. But I realize my life was preparing me for my beloved Michael and he was being prepared for me. It takes time to shape two people to fit toghther so perfectly. So when you feel life is bad remember Heavenly Father has a plan for you just as He does for all of His children. It may take 20 or 30 years for that plan to work out, but it is there.

I know I promised some Mindy isms. However her husband suddenly passed away just shortly after my last blog. I just can't seem to get to those yet but they will come. She is my most unique sister and does the strangest things that all people can relate to. On a better note I have been to the neurologist and my medicine has been changed and all of my maladies seem to be doing better. FYI I have been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, Dystonia, three different arthritis maladies, I have nerve damage from a herniated disk and surgery in my neck C5-6, Carpel Tunnel in my hands and elbows, and Extreme resitive Depression. I disagree with the resistive depression as I believe I am responding to treatement better than the rest of my family. I also am the happiest I can remember being since I was 2-4 and we played with the rabbits dressing them in our doll clothes. I truely never realized I was depressed. I have never been suicidal, homicidal yes but not suicidal. My psychiastrist says my homicidal thoughts were completely justified and normal in my situations in those three instances where Heavenly Father intervened and prevented me from making the mistake of taking the life of three different people who were just excerising their free agency. I have forgiven them for the most part. I have no desire to know about them or their lives and it is okay with me if they are alive. I do wish for accountability, but judgement day is good enough for me. I do look forward to it, I don't in any way want to seem as though I am better than they are I just know they haven't repented, nor do they want to change their lives and try to do better today than yesterday. We are all sinners and fall short of the mark. I pick myself back up and admit my failures and try again. My failures are of my chosing and not the responisibility of others. I own my choices and for that I am grateful. There are so many places in the world where as a woman I might not have that opportunity. I love this country and wish more people would not just put flags on their cars, but become aware of the wonderful gift of being an American and get more involved in voting. In this last election (presidential) so many votes did count and many were won by small margins. We need to take our country back from the out of control judical system. We need senators and congressmen who will actually do what they promise, we despreately need a president who does not flip flop, although not as bad as Clinton. He still wants to stomp out terrorism, but critizes Isreal for the same desire. He wants to stop the flow of illegals but doesn't put enough border patrol guards to do the job and then we refuse to deport them, the cost is too high. What about the cost of keeping them? Can't we use that money? Thanks for letting me rant. I have been so busy these last two weeks. I've been canning the last of our garden items and for myself and my husband we did have some prolific growing plants. We have enough Cayenne pepper to last me about three years or so. I had no idea that tomitillas grow in bushes and six plants can produce more than a bushell of small green tomato like fruit that needs to be husked and then rinsed until the stickiness is gone then you can begin to process them. We will have years worth of salsa verde. We have tried to give them away. My husband finally came up with an idea. Get the salsa we want a couple of years worth and give the rest to the Salvation Food Bank. I think that is great as long as the people getting them know what to do with them. We live in rural Missouri and most people don't have a clue about things like star fruit, tomitillas, guava fruit, tamarind, or other exoctic plants. White eggplant what is wrong with us. Is the questions we get. My husband is a trained Chef and I grew up in a family of gourmands. It has been said that my grandfather invented the Philly Steak Sandwich. My uncle owned the restaurant in Philly for many years. Is it true with the Tannenbaums who knows. He left the business when he left Judaism and became a travelling evenglist. My other grandfather was a Baptist lay minister for 40 years until he felt the calling to a pentacostal Church of God. With that background it is a miracle I attend any church. I am LDS and I hope that doesn't offend anyone. I joined at age 23 four years after my sister. I have never felt closer to my Father in Heaven and He has sustained me through many trials and tribulations and although I have many physical problems He has blessed me with a home, a husband that adores me, two beautiful children and two beautiful grandsons. What more can I ask for. Life is good.

First I want to thank John24871 for his encouragement. Nice to know someone is interested. I was born in Indiana and at the ripe age of 4 we moved to a very small town in Virginia. At age eight we moved to a slighter bigger city in Virginia, still in the beautiful foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I thought I had a normal happy life. I thought I was a fairly happy person until lately my psychiatrist has told me that I am a poster candidate for resistive depression. I laughed and said does that mean I am resistive to it or to recovering from it. I want to start with my early life as I truly believe that was when I was the happiest. I am the youngest of five children. My brother is the oldest and we are most alike. My three sisters are very different yet very like me. My earliest memories are of tunneling through the snow and having to make igloos to use as forts for Brian and Cheri and myself as the baby, and Kitty and Mindy used their fort. Now we all participated in the tunneling and building of forts and then we would retreat to our respective forts and they began bombing each other. Realize there is six years between Brian and I and three years between he and Mindy who is three years older than I. The order is Brian, Cheri, Kitty, Mindy and myself, Beth. We have no twins just ten months between Brian and Cheri. Mom worked two jobs as did Dad. We lived in a huge house with three stories and three sets of stair cases. We loved those stair cases. Mindy and I never did get the hang of going down them head first before our arms would go out and we would roll down into the washer and dryer. That never stopped us trying for the entire time I remember being in Indiana. Persistant is what we are when we set our mind to something.
Brian had a pet peacock it was a beautiful thing and we loved it. We also had several of dad's family living near us. They were always a stange group and I absolutely loved when mom's family came to visit because they made fun of dad's family and they never new it. I was a thing of beauty to watch. We spent time with several other large families and the Mickles family was the one I remember most. We would always go over there and Missy and I, their youngest daughter and a year younger than me and my best friend, would play. She would go to bed and I would go and lay on my Mother's feet until we went home. I was like a little puppy or something. I was and in some ways still am Mommy's baby. One day the Mickles were at our house and Missy and I were playing on the front porch while just inside the house watching us the adults were playing cards. Missy and I were playing dress up with our kittens, we never dressed the dolls. Suddenly I heard the same noise our bull made but it was very close. I turned around and our bull, not a nice one, had gotten out of the fence and had the two of us trapped on the porch. He weighed over 1000 lbs and we were two very little girls (2 & 3). I told Missy to scream and we started screaming as loud as we could. She was frozen at first that is why I had to tell her what to do. I thought the screams would scare him away, but instead it caught the attention of our parents as he started pawing the ground and moving his head side to side. He started to charge us and at that point I felt myself being lifted up and saw Missy being scooped up into the arms of my dad and I saw her dad run towards the bull. Our mothers took us as dad charged out and helped put the bull back. He didn't live long after that. I had never considered that it was dad that saved us I thought that Montee Mickle was the bravest man in the world running towards that charging bull, and dad helped. That was one of two times in my life that I wanted or needed my father and he was there. I am like I said my mother's baby. I stuck to her like glue. I didn't talk much mostly because my sister Mindy spoke for me and I only spoke up to correct her. We were very close for many years; eventhough I was usually on the side of the two older ones (Brian and Cheri), Mindy, Kitty and I were always very close. We had our spats amongst the three of us but I never dared to challenge Cheri or Brian. He had a priviledged spot in the family as the only boy and I had a priviledged spot as the baby. But our mother loved us all equally, our dad did not. Dad made Brian an equal from as soon as he could walk and he made Mindy responsible for him. I study other families with five siblings to see how close to normal we might be in pecking order. Sometimes we are so normal in pecking order it hard to imagine, I dated this guy one time he was the second of five and their pecking order and feelings were almost identical to what my siblings and I felt. They were five boys who had never been to the ER in their lives. So you could say our feelings and experiences were more intense then theirs but the underlying pecking order was the same. When I found out that this guy had never been to the ER I knew he'd never fit in with my family. If a week went by at that point in time without a visit for me, my children, sisters or their children it was just amazing. One time my mother had three grand children break an arm within 6 hours of each other all in different states. We are walking proof that if it can't happen; if an engineer says it is impossible it will happen to someone in my family. Well I will leave you with the understanding that I loved our life in Indiana. We dressed up the rabbits we raised, only the mothers, as we killed 200 a year for food. Yes we played with our food for many years. We played forts in the summer. We had a weird family of cousins one of which presided and conducted the funeral for one of our kittens. Chan, the one of five cats that both Brian and I wanted. We decided to share Chan and the other one. The other one is the other cat's name. Mom thought five kids five cats simple. Right. We worked it out though. Chan got caught in the dredded kitchen door. It was a lovely funeral. I look back at that time and try to see when and where the signs were for my mother to see that my father was a pedophile. At that time I have no memory of anything that she could have thought of, except she was 15 when they married and he was 21. She wasn't even pregnant she wouldn't put out without a ring. Her father forbade her so off she went. That is the fastest way to get us to do something that is to absolutely 100% be against it.
I will try to keep a better timing of my blogs. I have been ill and am unable to work. I have several disabilities the latest diagnosis appears to be dystonia. Rare disease #4 for our family. I think my next blog will be about Mindyisms. I hope all can relate.

I suppose you are assuming this biographical blog will be depressing and at times it may be. I intend to use satire to show what would be a failure for some lives and I have been told I am a failure; to illustrate I do not believe it to be true. I hope you will read along and follow my life as things come to mind. I recently had an anaphylactic reaction to morphine and went code blue, meaning I began turning blue. I felt my spirit leaving my body and I was okay with that. The result of bringing me back is that I seem to have lost part of me. My mind can no longer be counted on to recall the things it chooses, wants or needs to. So I thought blogging might be a good way to get back what I have lost or at least place things for someone to see while I remember them.

I can assure you these things I write will be to the best of my memory, as truthful as I can get them to be. I will include the opposition's side where I can and you can decide which of us is right.

Opposition is a huge part of my life and that is okay. Without opposition in all things there would be no growth. I have grown in age and in wisdom. I know things the normal human being on this earth shouldn't have to know.

Some of my stories are heartbreaking and some are heartwarming. Some are just down right redneck. I hope you will laugh, cry and feel like I am a part of you as you get to know me and my family.

I want to keep this first one short as an introduction of sorts. Come along for the roller coaster I call life!