Some days you just don't want to get out of bed!

"If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all..." I used to watch Hee Haw! That has been my theme song the last few weeks.

The last couple of weeks have been hell. Nobody has gotten terminally ill, or died, but it has been the little things, one after another after another that have hit me and my family in a series of disasters that it has almost become humorous. Let me share.

First, "Q", my soulmate and partner, went to pick up his son from the train station. His son was visiting from Montana because a high school friend was getting married. When they were on their way home, his truck died, right there in the middle of the street. Fuel pump went out. Thank God it was the company truck, but he still had to call AAA to have them tow him to the mechanics and he was forced to drive the car for a few days. But nobody got hurt, that's the main thing. Speaking of cars...

That same week, the starter went out on my son's car and that needed to be fixed. No big deal. He did his brakes at the same time, and then discovered that he had the wrong brake pads for his car. But the best was yet to come. His "CV" joints are bad. UHH!!! But wait, it gets BETTER!

This past weekend, me and "Q" decide to take his boat out for a spin on the lake. We took it out to Blue Lake, close to home, and the wind was blowing so hard that we couldn't anchor off to fish. I just purchased my fishing license for the year that very day (Saturday), and it was tucked safely in a small plastic ziplock bag in the pocket of my shorts, along with my digital camera and my cell phone. He gets frustrated because it's too windy to do anything and we decide to just pack it in. We reel up our lines, and off we go. He kicks it down and then we hear a strange sound, like a "crack, pop, ...PLOP!". He turns around just in time to see his trolling motor fly up in the air and come back down in about forty (40) feet of water in the middle of the lake. Nice. But wait, there's more...

As we approach the dock, I get ready to jump ship, (Captain Jack Sparrow has nothing on me!) and when I think we are close enough, I make my move. I land between the dock and the boat, right in the lake! I was not dressed for swimming. I didn't have my lifejacket on or my water wings or my floatie with the duck on the front (ala Country Acres). The temperature of the water was... well...frigid to say the least and then to come out and be hit by wind gusts of 20 to 30 mph, it can take your breath away!

When I got up to shore, I pulled the contents out of my pocket. My digital camera, in the case, wet. My cell phone, no case, wet. My keys, wet. My brand new fishing license, nice and dry in the little plastic ziplock bag! We loaded up the boat, and while on the landing, I could hear the people on the shore behind me laughing. 'Fat lady fell in the lake!' then to make my day even more special, a six year old by comes on the dock and looks at me and says, "You should have been wearing your life jacket!" Thanks, kid! I almost started crying right there, but I held it together until I got home and in the shower.

After a few days of drying them out, the camera still works and takes pictures and the phone works, but now I lost my SIM card and had to order a new one, so I still don't have a cell phone, but I hopefully will once I put it in there. (Murphy's Law: Once you order and receive a replacement for the item you lost, it will turn up.) So, it looks like "Q" will be getting a trolling motor for Father's Day. (Shhh! Don't tell him!) But first, I have to have a chat with my bank...

Today, I got a huge overdraft in the mail. Nice again! I almost didn't get out of bed today. But tomorrow will be better after I yell at my bank and ask them why they feel it necessary to bounce my checks when I had more than enough money in there to cover the bills and the checks I wrote. My mistake or theirs? Does it matter? I just hope that this is the end of this series of disasters so I can actually look forward to getting out of bed. At this point, I'm grateful I still can!

I hope the blue moon tomorrow night will bring a shift in my luck, and everyone around me. Now, where did I put my lottery tickets?

Writing for Gas Money

As writers, it is sometimes a challenge to find reasons to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, and the daunting goal of writing the "Great American Novel" can be overwhelming and keep you sitting in a corner muttering to yourself, or suddenly, the dishes are the most important thing to do "Right Now!" Well, I have come up with a new inspiration for my creations. Thanks to the government and the oil barons, I have decided that I am going to set my sights on writing for gas money!

You read that right! Gas here in the great state of Minnesota has been $3.29 a gallon. Remember when $5.00 would at least give you about a half of a tank or more and $10.00 was just about full? $15.00 will hardly give me a quarter of a tank of gas now. It's a good thing I gave up smoking or I would be in trouble! And to make this situation even more unbearable, the Minnesota Legislature is considering passing a "Gas Tax" that would increase the cost of each gallon of gasoline by as much as 5 cents per gallon. (As of this writing, I am not sure if it passed or not, and if our great governor, Tim Pawlenty, vetoed it as he said he would.)

Drastic times call for drastic measures and I really don't want to go out and work a second job dressed as a taco (OLA!). But I have to be able to drive. I have to be able to get around, and since I haven't written or sold my "Great American Novel" I have to use my God-given talent for good, the good of my family and my financial future. That, and I enjoy writing in my jammies until 11 am., OK?

Here's my plan. If I can write 2 articles a day, with 2 queries to go with them, send the queries off to various magazines and publications, and if I can do that for one year, that would be 730 articles sold (2 articles x 365 days per year). If I can get paid an average of $100 per article (give or take) then I would make $73,000.00 per year! I wouldn't have to drive! I could stay home and make money in my jammies! I could be home to cook and clean the house, to hold garage sales, to tutor young writers in the craft, to babysit my nephew, to...well, you get the idea!

So, instead of complaining about the gas prices, I have decided to turn this into an incentive to get on my butt and write my way into the next tax bracket!

Oh, darn! I didn't think of that! Oh, well, it's going to be a lot of fun to see if I can actually do it! Now, how much are stamps again??

What happened while I was on vacation?

We came home from Florida on Monday, and through some great weather miracle, the temperature in Minnesota was almost the same as Florida. It was 75 degrees! When we left Minnesota, waaaay back on April 5, it was 12 degrees in Minnesota. I was also updated by everyone when we called home for various reasons, that it was snowing back home, that it was freaking cold, that we all sucked because we were in Florida, etc. But somehow the weather made it easy to come home so it wasn't such a shock to our systems. Thank you, God, for that!

In the meantime, I have been trying to catch up with all that is going on in the world since we left. I made a decision that I was not going to watch or read any news, other than the weather, while we were gone. My reasons are many, but mainly, I have a screen addiction I am trying to break. Yes, I am addicted to the television and the computer screen. I can't get anywhere, or get anything accomplished while there is a 'screen' in operation. The world would fall apart around me and I would be sitting on my couch watching grass grow (golf), or be on the computer trying to find out if I could make money at home racing cockroaches in my kitchen, or any other nonsense.

I also was not about to get caught up in the whole negative media feeding frenzy that happens because I was on vacation with my son and my "hubby" (we aren't married on paper, but we are in every other way) and I wanted to spend time with them and have fun and let the rest of the world take care of itself for a couple of weeks.

So, for 11 glorious, wonderful days, I didn't have a clue until I came home that the world went to hell. There was the whole "Don Imus Incident", then the continuing war in Iraq and the standoff in the government about whether we leave or send more troops or what. Larry Birkhead won the Anna Nicole Smith Baby Lottery. Then a crazed lunatic shot and killed 33 people at VA Tech before turning the gun on himself. I haven't turned on the television for more than the weather since I came home.

But the kicker was when I checked my answering machine and there was a nice message from the Sherburne County Sherriff's office that there have been a rash of home burglaries and car thefts in our area and if we see anyone suspicious or someone comes to the door selling something or are there and we didn't ask them to be there, to call 911. Nice. Welcome home.

Suffice it to say, we did a thorough sweep of the house and grounds and accounted for everything. We talked to our landlord and suggested better locks on the doors. We also are going to update our renter's insurance policy and inventory all of our valuables. We should have stayed in Florida!

Florida, Here We Come!!

The snow is now all gone. We had 80 degree weather a week ago, and it was just enough to kick me into high gear with my spring cleaning. This year I am brutal, throwing or donating anything that I haven't touched or used in a year's time. Painful, for a packrat like me, but necessary. I need to open up the pathways so more good things can come into my life. I feel like I lost 10 pounds this weekend!

I am doing this for another reason, not just yearly ritual. My family and I are going to Naples, Florida, for a vacation. We will be gone for 11 days! We really need a vacation right now, and since my son will be graduating high school this year, this would be our last chance to go as a family. I want to come home to a nice clean house, not be bummed out and overwhelmed by all the mess I left behind! So, if I have not been as "chatty" as usual online or offline, I apologize. I'm not being snotty, just getting my house in order! I will be back and will have a lot to write about when I get back!

Have a Happy Easter!

SNOW!!

Wow! This is the view of the Polebarn (the one I actually live in!) and as you can see the snow we received this last weekend was significant! These pictures were taken by "Q", my boyfriend on Saturday, March 3, 2007, with my digital camera.

This is the view from the front part of the polebarn. This door doesn't get used in the winter, too much cold air coming in so we put plastic over it. My son, Alex, decided to "walk through" the snow up to the door. It came up over his waist, and he is about 6 feet tall. The car bumper you see on the left is his car.

We spent 2 days holed up in here and I loved every minute of it! We just sat around watching movies and television and just hung out together! I made Tater Tot Hotdish and it was sooooo nice to just slow things down and not have to rush and hurry to get somewhere or worry about being late or traffic! It was even better when "Q", my boyfriend, came home because then all of us were home safe and sound. I was hoping we would get a "snow day". I guess I should be careful what I wish for, huh? :)

Mrs. Fliginger wrote back!!!

I could not believe my eyes when I saw the email in my Inbox. I clicked on it and started to cry. It was her!! She wrote me back!! Suddenly, the years have seemed to melt away and I can still remember her strawberry-blonde hair, her glasses, her voice. Wow! Talk about a time warp! But I am glad that I was able to contact her and let her know how she helped me through the most difficult time of my life.

I guess the real reason I chose to seek her out now is that my son is graduating from high school in June and seeing him go through all of the things as a senior compare in contrast to what I was going through at his age, and THANK GOD!! He doesn't have any of that to deal with!!

I have received a few emails since she first replied back and I have replied to her. It still feels funny to call her by her first name, it seems disrespectful to me, even though I am no longer a student! Does that make any sense at all? Anyway, she stopped over for a visit to the Polebarn here and said I "write well." Again, with the crying. She was a tough teacher. I was a writer with an "attitude." I had been told by all of my former English teachers that I was an excellent writer and I would do great and wonderful things, and blah, blah, blah. I have to confess, I used that to get some special favors for grades and other things, and they let me slide by with a lot of stuff! Not Mrs. Fliginger. She basically looked me in the eye and said, "You think you're a writer? Prove it!" I had to work my tail off and she didn't let me slide with anything. My point? I got knocked off my pedestal, and I became a better person, AND a better writer!

Sometimes the greatest lessons come from the toughest teachers!

Mrs. Fliginger, I thank you.

I recently decided it was time I contacted my old English and Speech teacher, Mrs. Fliginger. I had to find her first, but thanks to the marvels of modern technology, I found her via the Internet and a Google search led me to Harvey, North Dakota. Ironically, her husband is named Harvey. I haven't seen her since I was a senior at Garrison High School, in Garrison, North Dakota, where I had a different name (Michelle, my middle name), and a very different life. She had an impact on me and did something nobody else was able to do at that time in my life. She came back from maternity leave, after having her daughter, Diana, and noticed that I was not myself. That was an understatement. I was messed up.

At that time in my life, my parents were separated, heading for what I knew would be a long and drawn out divorce. The scandal was all over the small town and to make matters worse, it was being played out as I sat in English class everyday at the house across the street. SHE lived over there. The person my father was having an affair with, and I could see his pickup truck sitting in the driveway, then leaving. The truth had come out in February, and sometime that spring, Mrs. Fliginger had come back and saw me in my miserable state. She kept me back after class. She asked me, "What's up with you?" I tearfully related the horrible events that had transpired in her absence and she listened and then asked me if it would be ok to refer me to the school counselor. I nodded. I couldn't keep this to myself any more. I was planning on suicide. I had the whole thing worked out, it just seemed like the more I wanted to do it, and the times I actually was going to do it, something would come up and I couldn't ever get it done. I was severely depressed. I did anything and everything to stay away from home. I signed up for paper staff as editor, and I sucked at it, but it kept me from going home. I was in Band, like I had been all through school, and I signed up for Speech Team, and I sucked at that too, but hey, it beat going home! I was also working at the local hospital, but there was no relief there either, because SHE worked there and was down in the break room each day to stare me down, daring me to say something, before I would go to wash dishes in the kitchen. I just ignored her as best as I could, but I would often break down in tears on my breaks.

Anyway, I ended up going to the counselor, relating the whole horrible nightmare that was my life at that time. I also had my friends, my best friend at that time was Carol, and without her to keep my mind off of what was happening, I would have ended up in a rubber room or worse, a coffin, if I wouldn't have gotten the help I needed.

I survived, and later the thoughts of suicide went out the door, and I moved around a bit before I ended up in my current home, "The Polebarn", and I don't regret a single thing I went through. Why??? My parents would not have reconciled, my father would not have sobered up, and my family would not have become as strong as it is now. I know for certain, I would not be the person I am today, doing the things I have always wanted to do, and living this glorious life I have always wanted to live. My son would not be here, my current BF (the love of my life 12 years and counting) would not be in my life, and I would not be excited about graduating to the next phase of my life, as a mother, a writer, an artist, a human being. I have found my bliss, now I just need to make some money at it!

But first, I had to thank you, Mrs. Fliginger, from saving me from myself.