Dear Son,

Contrary to popular belief I do not enjoy punishing you. I am neither trying to ruin your life, nor make it hard. When you choose to rage against the rules you are given, however, you leave me no choice.

Contrary to popular belief I do love you. Unconditionally and irrevocably. It is infinite, without beginning or end, and continues to grow as I watch you begin to morph into the man you will become.

Contrary to popular belief, as your mother, I am even more upset than you right now that you had to be punished. You may be on a school bus, grumping and grumbling over your evil witch of a mother (and, yes, I'm aware you're possibly using harsher language than that...but allow me this tiny bit of delusion, okay?); however, I'm trying to function through a mountain of work while nursing a broken heart. Broken because I was forced to break yours. Broken because being a good parent means you have to do the hardest thing in the world (i.e., cause your child heartache) in order to help your child learn right from wrong.

One day, far from now, you will understand the difficulties and intricacies of being a parent. You'll know that it is both the best and worst job in the world. Most importantly, however, you'll know that every grounding, every punishment was something far greater than Mom being mean and evil. It was Mom whispering, "I love you more than myself. I love you enough to cause you a little pain now, to prevent you from suffering great pain in your future. I love you enough to stand my ground, to teach you to follow the rules. I will gladly cry for hours after punishing you, if it means that you will be better for it. I will suffer through a thousand heartbreaks if it prevents one from coming your way in the future because of what I should have done."

Always & Forever,

Mom

Contemptible

This whole writing experiment thing is supposed to be about positives. Well...not today. Tuesday is being quite gruesome to me.

It's 9:30AM. I've already driven 100 miles today. This isn't all bad. The Hubster's old, faithful work car is having a little tantrum, so I had to drive him to my parents' house this morning to pick up on of their vehicles for the day. Usually he would've just taken my SUV to work, and I would've stayed home with no vehicle for a day. No biggie for this gal. Our oldest is home from college, however, and had to work today...smack dab in the middle of The Hubster's shift, so I had to have a vehicle. After snagging some biscuits for breakfast and dropping the hubby off I headed back home to get the boys up and get the oldest delivered to work.

Did I mention that it is raining, none too gently, this morning?

After getting home and cramming biscuits in our face we left for our work drop-off run. Here is where the day went straight to Hades without passing "Go!". We got less than a mile down the road from our home and witnessed an assault. Yep. Two grown men (though acting like this in public makes me loathe to call them men). Screaming at each other, and one of them swinging a baseball bat at the other, hitting his car door and being very threatening. Other grown "men" (again, this is used as loosely as possible) were blocking the road in vehicles, and even standing around watching with their hands in their pockets...AND DOING NOTHING! This is the most despicable display of morality I have seen in quite some time. My 12-year old is terrified. He's asked me to keep the door shut and the alarm set at the house today, just so he can feel safe. A child that young should have NEVER:

1. Had to witness a display of violence between adults who are supposed to know the heck better.
2. Had to witness bystanders ALLOWING the violence, with no one stepping up to the plate to protest or put a stop to it.

Way to let a CHILD know that they aren't safe in their own towns, imbeciles. Way to let a CHILD know that, when they grow up, there is a good chance that when someone gets angry with them that they will be hit with a friggin' BAT. So, since I know that people that live around me read these posts. Since I know that there is a good chance that one or more of them know the people involved in this incident. I'm going to go on the record and say this:

TO THE PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THIS INCIDENT, WHETHER YOU WERE WIELDING A BAT, SCREAMING, BLOCKING TRAFFIC, OR JUST STANDING AROUND WATCHING.

YOU ARE CONTEMPTIBLE. 

SHAME ON YOU. 

GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR RESPECTIVE REAR ENDS AND LEARN TO NEGOTIATE ANGER WITH WORDS, NOT VIOLENCE.

SET THE EXAMPLES YOU, OBVIOUSLY, MISSED OUT ON AS CHILDREN AND PUT AN END TO THIS TYPE OF IDIOTIC DISPLAY.

REALIZE THAT YOUR CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN, ETC., ARE LEARNING BY YOUR EXAMPLE, AND THE ONE YOU ARE SETTING IS REPREHENSIBLE.

Now that I've gotten this off of my chest it's time for me to log off. I have a 12-year old with serious emotional trauma to tend to. Thanks for that, you moronic scumbags.

Farewell, Old Friend...

Last night my favorite coffee cup left this realm to enter that great kiln in the sky. He did not pass peacefully, but violently. Waiting until I picked him up, full of hot java, to come apart at the handle. The heat of the coffee bouncing off my chest, stomach, and legs was not enough to numb my pain at the loss.

Farewell, Old Friend...I'd say you'd be missed, but after breaking AND burning me? Yeah, don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out, okay?

In crafty-related news, I cast on a new pair of socks for myself Saturday night. Life has been throwing curve balls of the rotten vegetable and fruit variety my way lately, and I've found myself sinking deeper and deeper into the self-pity pool. I figured a new pair of handknit socks would perk me right up, and it certainly is working like a charm! The yarn is very busy...it's Bernat Sox Multi in Crazy Hot...so I had a little difficulty deciding on a pattern. Then I stumbled across RPM, which was published on Knitty in summer of 2006. TA-DA!!! PERFECTION!!!! So late Saturday night I cast on. I've just finished the cuff of sock #2 this morning, so I'm hoping that by Thursday (at the latest!) I'll have a new comfy, soft, pamper-me pair of socks to wear. WIN!!

I've also almost finished with the test-knit of my first design of the year. Only a little overstitching with my trusty Singer is left now, to secure the blanket to the backing. It. Is. Gorgeous. I'm hoping to finish it up this week, and get the write-up for my Etsy store done, as well. Stay tuned for it, I'm really proud of how it turned out!