There is something very strange going on. Nothing to complain about...just something VERY different.

I have complained about my husband and how angry and disappointed he gets with me for a long time. Always fighting against me. His anger getting out of control with the kids sometimes. He has had his good moments...but then the pendulum swings in the other direction. I have felt ignored, paid attention to only when he is in the best mood and bored with other things, and generally like I'm worthless.

But in the past month...especially the past few weeks...it has been different. More than just a good mood. He is THERE. I don't know if it is becuz he railed on my not too long ago...and really let me know what he is thinking/feeling about EVERYTHING but mostly me. It was diseminating. I felt shredded and lower than dirt. BUT, I thot it all through. I sifted through what he said and found things in it that I felt that I could do better about. He started to apologize to me for what he said cuz he made me feel badly...but I told him to not apologize if what he said he actually felt to be true. And that I needed time to think. So, when I was done thinking, I sat him down and gave him my honest opinion about it. No yelling, accusing, mud slinging. I just told him my honest thots about what he said about me and what I felt that I could change to make it better...and what I would not change and why. He was kinda stunned I think. He was expecting me to yell at him or treat him like crap, I guess. He never got that I can actually think about criticism...once the sting wears off.

In turn, I had a few times when I had to give him some criticism about his ppl skills as far as his kids are concerned. I did it nicely. He thought about it...he got it and he has done better.

He has been very attentive lately. Doing little things for me that he knows I will appreciate...things that only he would think to do if he had been paying any attention to me at all during our marriage. It isn't all him, anymore.

Here is something that will seem weird. But he handed me the remote the other day. He said, "Put it on anything you want." "Anything I want, huh?" You see, when the both of us are watching TV...he controls what is on the TV...and the remote. So, I put on "Under a Tuscan Sun". He was actually watching it with me and commenting. I didn't make him watch the whole thing. I had things to do. But later that night, he watched "House" and "Medium" and didn't get up and go somewhere else. And he asked me questions as we watched it. He shared my time!

He has been THERE. Not just doing something nice here and there to get a favor in return. He is THERE. And it feels good. We have been having these lovely talks...and LISTENING to each other. It only took almost 19 years of marriage to get to this point. But it is so GREAT! I hope it doesn't stop. I truly hope we have started not just a new chapter...but a new book.

I have been doing so much eratic thinking today...the past few days. From one thing to another. My husband laughs when I tell him I just had another epiphany. Why? Becuz...when our son was 2-3 years old, he used to watch the movie 'Hook' over and over and over. He memorized it! Down to the last detail! As a 2 year old I made him a "Hook" costume for Halloween. He wore it down to nothing! I used an old red velvet jacket one of my aunts gave me (I was really good at making my own patterns and cutting things down to size). There was a line in "Hook" where Schmee told Hook that he had just had an 'apostrophe. (Hook said, "I think you mean an epiphany...") And Schmee said, "Lightening just struck my brain" to which Hook said, "that must have really hurt!"


Anyway...ppl can do some screwy things. Even those that you think have brains and know how to use them. I am no exception to the rule. But I wish I would trust my own instincts more.

What makes us do uncharacteristic things? What makes us take a turn on life's road map that we might never have taken? Especially when you are supposedly old enuff to know better?

I like to think of myself as being somewhat intelligent. I also have a sort of 6th sense about some things (no, I dont' see dead ppl). But that sense sometimes just about destroys me. I do not call it a vision or anything else. Things just pop in my head from nowhere. If any of you have ever seen the show "Medium"...that's what I'm talkin' about. And the images and signals can get a bit muddled. It is not a great thing...and nothing I would wish on anyone. NOt even my worst enemy. I guess that is why I take it so very hard when I make a miscalculation. My emotions mess things up. And sometimes the 'soul' of another can cloud my judgment.

I can't really explain it...and anyone reading this will think I need meds and shock therapy. Perhaps I do. It might quiet it down.

There are few ppl that I don't 'get'. Usually the ones that I can't 'read' are ones that have too much pain blocking the way that I really do NOT want to go there...and some have so much darkness that I cannot see.

Either way...I would rather be blind. And the darkest ones...are the ones that pull me in and flatter me into believing things that I would ordinarily know better about.

An excuse? Perhaps.

(this is from Three Weeks With My Brother by Nicholas Sparks and Micah Sparks)

"I wasn't sure what to expect when I reached Cambodia.  Though I'd traveled to Hong Kong and Korea for track competitions, I wasn't prepared for the city of Phnom Penh when we landed.  In a strange way, the land struck me as being both hopeful and tragic.  The main thoroughfare bustled like cities around the world, but instead of cars, people drove scooteers.  Beyond the tenement housing were shiny new high-rises; for every man in a business suit, I saw another who'd lost a leg from the land mines that still dot the countryside.  Everywhere I looked, I saw the contradiction of the country; a country struggling to put its past behind it in order to secure a more prosperous future."

Sometimes we come across ppl that have had pasts that left buried land mines.  They try to make things different, shiny, new...BETTER.  Then someone comes along and sets off a landmine.  No matter how hard that person tries to change the landscape and make things better, there is always someone stepping on a landmine. 

Anyone that is a celebrity or a politician or in the public eye at all...they have to deal with landmines.  Others take great glee in finding and setting off landmines of the past.  If that is the case, why does anyone try to change and make themselves better?  There is always someone waiting around to smack them back down.

I've been hearing a lot of 'confession is good for the soul'.  While that may be...does EVERYONE need to hear the confession?  My mother raised me with this piece of wisdom that she got from HER mother...and so on and so on..."Don't air your dirty laundry".   And from my lessons I got from my church as I was growing up here is how I have always seen it:  If you have done wrong by someone, and you want to make it better by confessing...confess to the ONE you have WRONGED.  It serves no purpose putting it up on a big billboard by the freeway.  If what you have done is something that, by confessing, will make YOU feel better by confessing but hurt someone else deeply/irreparably OR create an even worse situation...shut up.  Confess to God alone. 

If what you have done to someone has been out in the open for others to see...if you have specifically used their name...then your apology/confession should be out in the open.  But, that is the ONLY time I see that a 'confession' should be so very public.  God wants us to confess our sins to Him.  Making things right with others is a private affair. 

But this is only what I have learned...how I see it....what you think or do is your own personal matter.

Let me know if you don't know this:

I m not an angel. I am like a sweetart. At first you think "Oh boy! Candy!" then you suck on it and it makes you pucker. Okay...that didn't come out right. oh well.

My husband's fellow workers and friends love to jam each others' emails with funny pictures and things. He weeds out what he figures is inappropriate to share with his wife and sends the rest on to me. I figured I'd share with YOU ALL!