This allegations of child neglect that were being made against me are going to be found unsubstantiated. It had been said that not only was I leaving the boys home alone in the morning, I had been locking them out of the house and making them sit on the deck or on the front porch whilst I went to work. The kids were interviewed, and so was I, and at the end of it all the counselor said she saw no truth to this allegation and was going to recommend that the case be closed and no further acti...

I have to take my kids to the military equivalent of social services today. Someone called in a neglect report last week and said that I leave them alone in the house in the mornings when I go off to work. That's odd, seeing as I don't have a job. Apparently, I leave for work at 0645, Shea leaves at 0700, and the boys are alone in the house until 0740. Like I said, I don't work, so around that time in the morning I'm usually here, on the computer, e-mailing Dave and reading the paper ...

I'm sick. I think I have the flu. I hurt all over, I have a fever, a headache, my nose alternates between being plugged up and running like a faucet, my throat is sore.....I'm just miserable. I tried to go swim this morning (I've been bitten by the swimming bug again after spending 2 hours in the water with the kids Sunday afternoon) and managed to struggle through 10 laps before giving up because my ears hurt and my lungs felt like they were on fire. Because I'm sick, I'm also tired....

I have, I think, come across my first real griefer. I've read about them, heard about them, and suspected that certain bloggers might hold griefer tendencies, but didn't really think that I had come across a fully fledged one...until now. For the sake of propriety I shan't name names, but Dan knows who I'm talking about. You all are a sharp bunch, I'm sure it won't take you too long to catch on. Trolls...met one of them recently, a proper one....on both mine and Mack's blog. She's ...

Something happened yesterday that showed me how far I've come on this spiritual path I've been walking. We live on base, and in military housing there are some strict rules about leaving children unattended. I had left Davey (who's almost 10) alone whilst I took his sister to the BX (the department store on base). Base regs say that I can do that, as long as I'm not gone for more than an hour and the child left alone has immediate access to adult assistance (he did, I had my cell phone o...

These are in no particular order.... Hearing his voice, in person, not at the end of a phone line. Being able to reach out and touch him when I'm half asleep. We don't 'spoon' all night anymore, but as long as we're touching each other in some way both of us have agreed that we get a much better night's sleep. It's the comfort factor. I also miss feeling his breath on the back of my head when we do 'spoon', and the hair on his legs tickling me. His smell. Not stinky smell, but jus...

Well, as Karma predicted, my MRI was normal. I have to keep a symptom diary for a week and then go back. What I really want to do, and what I think I will do, is go in if I happen to have a 'bad' day between now and then. By bad, I mean really fatigued, shaky, numb, weak all the crap I've been dealing with for the past months/years. I want my doc to see my when I'm like that rather than on a 'good' day....I can try and describe my symptoms to him all I want to, but I think him seeing i...

I had an MRI done this morning. I had my head clamped on either side, then they put a cage kinda device over my face, with a little mirror in front of my eyes, angled so I could see out of the machine and hopefully not feel quite so claustraphobic. They gave me some headphones to wear so I could listen to the radio, then slid me into this tube and started the machine. Being in there was odd..it makes this rhythmic throbbing, humming noise, much like what a maternal heatbeat must sound li...

As I have mentioned before, I have a problem with stinky feet when I wear sandals. It really irks me, because I prefer to wear sandals or be barefoot...hence my feet are usually grimy or smelly. Last summer something happened that clued me in as to how bad they really were....the upstairs potty got clogged and overflowed, and by the time Dave and I got there to turn the water off it was all over the floor and running down the wall downstairs. There's an a/c vent that I thought that wat...

Here's a quick update on what's been going on around here: My 'new' computer has crashed on me 3 times in the past 2 days. I'm about ready to take it back and have them look at it to see WTF is going on...and they can do so for free, as far as I'm concerned. My neighbor has managed to royally piss me off by riding his 4-wheeler all over my newly raked, seeded and watered lawn. Then the people on the other side of me dragged a huge tiller over it, got it stuck in the wet ground and dra...

The Silent Ranks I wear no uniforms, no blues or army greens. But I am in the military, in the ranks rarely seen. I have no rank upon my shoulders; salutes I do not give. But the military world is the place where I live. I'm not in the chain of command, orders I do not get. But my husband is the one who does, this I cannot forget. I'm not the ones who fires the weapon, who puts my life on the line. But my job is just as tough. I'm the one that's left behind. My husband is a p...

I'm not in the greatest of moods..the anger I felt yesterday had mostly disappated and all that's left is apathy and sadness. I feel like crying, and I HAVE cried. Not for myself, but for my husband, our friends, their families....everyone that's in the same situation I am. Any woman who's love has left her to go serve his country in a foreign land. This war, this conflict...whilst I understand the reasons we're there - I may not agree with some of them, but I DO understand them - has...

...although it doesn't appear to be working and I'm not sure why. Anyone got any ideas? But it did feel good, though. I never thought I'd enjoy censorship quite this much. I'm really quite ashamed to say that - but I did what I felt I needed to do.

I almost let my anger get the better of me this morning. Almost. For the first time in ages....but I maintained control of my chariot, and now I've moved on. More often then not, as soon as I sit down to write an article such as this all the things I wanted to tell you disappear and I sit here, blank...trying to think of what it was I was going to say. I can tolerate a lot of things, but one thing that really is guaranteed to press all the right buttons and trigger anger in me is arro...

The Buddha compared faith to and blind giant who meets up with a very sharp-eyed cripple, called wisdom. The blind giant, called faith, says to the sharp-eyed cripple, "I am very strong, but I can't see; you are very weak, but you have sharp eyes. Come and ride on my shoulders. Together we will go far." The Buddha never supported blind faith, but a balance between heart and mind, between wisdom and faith. The two together will go far. The saying that blind faith can move mountains omit...