I'm A 46 Year Old Runaway

So, I ran away last night.  Yup, got dressed, grabbed my car keys and took off.  I was at my wits end with all kinds of garbage going on in my life.  I'm sure you know what I mean or can relate and if you don't, heaven love ya!

I'd go into detailed details but those things are for a different blog post than what I have in mind today.  It is not the issues that made me runaway in the first place I want to talk about but rather the outcome.  With that said; I am in my car just driving.  No clue where I am headed and mulling over in my muddled brain where I want to go all while my Rob Zombie CD is blaring in my ears.

I thought of one friend but knew if I went there I'd probably of drowned my sorrows in a bottle of Jack Daniels and I didn't feel that was a good solution so bypassed that, then I thought of another place but that friend the poor girl is going through her own serious issues and I didn't want to add to her already stressed out life and next thing I knew, I was in my oldest nieces driveway.  I literally sat there for a moment even wondering how I got there and that's a scary thought in itself.  We don't live far apart from each other but when you don't remember getting there you know you probably shouldn't have been driving in the first place.

My niece Joy is 21 with a fiance and 15 month old baby of her own.  Her life is no thorn free bed of roses either and they have their own problems just like everyone else.  I am not the type to just show up without calling but in my stormy mood I walked off without my cell phone and like I said I wasn't even sure how I got there in the first place.  It's the cars fault it drove me there HA.  Needless to say, she was pretty shocked I just showed up out of the blue, that was pretty out of character for me but she welcomed me with open arms and a big smile.

Joy put on a pot of coffee for us, we played with the baby who I might add has a smile just like his mama's that knocks your socks off and already I was feeling my tension just ease away.  Next thing we knew it was 2 o'clock in the morning.  The baby long since in bed and Alex (my nieces fiance) was sitting on the couch shaking his head at the two cackling hens in the kitchen yack yacking away non stop.

 Yes, this was us lol

So, here we were, two females ages 21 and 46 just pouring our hearts out about our lives, the good, bad and the ugly, some tears were shed but more laughter than anything and I felt the close bond we had become even closer. 

I was seeing Joy in a whole different light.  She wasn't just that cute little girl I drug to the beauty salon when she was little to get that goldeylocks hair-do she hated so much, or the one of many times I had to scold for being naughty for fighting with her sister or cousin all the while trying not to laugh at her with that pouty little face (which by the way she still has and it still can melt my heart) she is a beautiful grown woman with her own baby, her own life and struggles and I realized just how proud of her I was at that very moment.  It was her and her wee family that mended my broken heart last night and I don't think they even know the true impact they all had on me. 

What's the moral of this story?

They say running away never fixes your problems and your problems just follow you.  Well, yes, in retrospect that is correct.  However, in regards to last night and me running away it did fix some things even if only temporary.  It gave me the means to be able to deal with my issues just a little bit better.  Sometimes you just have to walk away from what is bothering you before it eats away at you and most important before you do or say something you regret to another.  

I am a full believer of a "cooling down" period.  It is better to walk or in my case last night, run away to get my bearings.  I am much more relaxed today and able to take on my world yet another day.

So, I guess you can say, I'm a 46 year old runaway.  Can you relate?  Tell me about it, sometimes talking to a total stranger works well too.   

Thanks for stopping by today,

Live Life, Laugh Hard and Love Passionately

Life With A Swamp Cooler is Not Cool

 

As time goes by you will learn one thing about me.  I do not like hot weather.  Any temperature over 85 and I am dying.  I live in the Southwest of Arizona and right now it is 113.5 degrees outside.  Trust me when I say if I could move I would be gone, and in Colorado Springs where my heart and spirit roam.  Until then, I look like the poor fella in the picture above.

You want to know the kicker of it?  I was born and raised in the desert of Southern California so you'd think I would be used to it?  No, not at all, a desert rat I am not.   My 'ideal' temperatures fall in the range of 30-75 degrees.

Most people in the real world have central air conditioning but is that what I have?  Of course not.  I have a swamp cooler also known as an evaporative cooler and I'm here to say they are useless as....ok this is a family blog so I'll be nice :-)

Don't get me wrong they are 'ok' as long as it's not over 85 or humid outside.  Wait, before you say "but it's a dry heat" we do get humidity during monsoon season and when that happens you can kiss your fanny goodbye if you are not a heat lover and have health issues where the heat makes you sick, including, yours truly.

This blog post probably is of no interest to anyone other than me, it has no real value to it other than me whining :-) and trying to pass the time away because it's 95 degrees in my house and the swamp cooler is broken...again.  My landlord bless his heart is up on my roof furiously trying to get it fixed.  I cannot complain about my landlord for he is awesome when it comes to caring for our home and my heart goes out to him out on the roof right now.

Moral of this rant is?  If you can't take the heat and you can avoid it, don't buy or rent a home with a swamp cooler because it's anything but cool.  To me at least.

Psssst...guess what?  It's now 114 degrees and the news says we have one more degree to go.....nice......

As always, my best to you,

Live Life, Laugh Hard and Love Passionately

The Night The Arizona Desert Sighed

Let the rain kiss you.  Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.  Let the rain sing you a lullaby.  ~Langston Hughes

While some parts of the United States have had way too much rain and devastating floods this past year, Arizona has been dry as dust itself.  The  Arizona climate sees very little rainfall and it's getting sparser as the years move on.  So far this summer we've seen temperatures as high as 114 and it's early in the season.

I laugh often when someone says "at least it's a dry heat" well let me tell you folks that is no consolation in a region that sees rain so infrequently we can't recall in our memory bank when the last one happened that wasn't a literal 5 minute spittle from the sky. 

Arizonan's looked forward to Monsoon season where it would rain everyday like clockwork.  You could set your watch and by 4:20 p.m. it would grow dark, the winds would whip and the rain would pour for close to two hours, everyday during the season.  The Monsoon doesn't really come to us much anymore, no rain does.

June 30th 2011 it's the wee hours of the morning at 2:30 a.m. I know something is up because my body starts aching really bad and my joints start to scream.  This means the barometer is rising.  How do I know just by this?   I have Fibromyalgia and many conditions that end in -itis so, any drastic change in the barometric pressure sets my body to nothing short of crazy.

Anyway, I manage to drift off and at 3:20 a.m. I am roused from a fitful sleep by a grumbling, a low rolling guttural sound of none other than blessed thunder.  Then.....

              



 a thunderous crack and lightening lit up my bedroom.   My heart races with excitement and my husband shot straight up in bed.  "Is that thunder I hear, is it raining"?  hahaha I could feel his excitement because I was up and out of bed and literally hit the floor running pain and all to the front door.  Then it hit, the lovely scent of rain meeting dust in the air and dirt on the ground.  I flung open the door and.....  Sweet Mother Earth!  It was raining, I lifted my face to the sky with my arms held out to my sides and giggled letting the cold, yes COLD rain drops just fall on me and around.

With head tiled back and eyes closed I could sense, no feel the earth around me give into a deep, happy sigh.  I could feel my mesquite tree, which is a desert dwelling tree "lighten" up, you could see it's leaves curling upward toward the sky, the plants, flowers and grass perking up...it was a spiritual moment for this tree hugging nature lover and I could feel the sweet, happy vibrations of the desert around me.  The heaviness and burden of infrequent rain and being pounded by scorching hot days was lifted if only for a little while.

I mark this day June 30th, 2011 in my blog The Night The Arizona Desert Sighed.

On a note; you can water all you want in the parched dry desert but to the vegetation here it's not enough.  You can tell the difference in how your surroundings act with natural rain fall verses watering from a hose.  Have you ever noticed everything seems so much greener during and after the rain?

My best to you always,

Live Life, Laugh Hard, and Love Passionately

Family Comes With Loving Extensions

 

Family means different things to different people.  In my world it's not always about 'blood' family relationships but about those who are nearest and dearest to my heart.  Those who love me as much as I love them with no conditions.  It's just pure unconditional love.   I do not have much of a 'blood' family some by my choice (and some very heart wrenching decisions and some not) and some by their choices.  This is a whole different story to be told at a later time.

Let me introduce you to the people in the photo here.  In the middle is yours truly and author of this blog, Jamie and to the left of me is my husband Rick.  Behind my husband is my son Cameron and next to him is my niece Heather, in my lap is my great-nephew AJ and the lower right is AJ's mommy, my niece Joy and next to her is her fiance and AJ's daddy Alex.

Now, my nieces are extended family from my long time girlfriend Kat.  I met their Mom when our kids were 7 and 8 years old.  We became family and the girls are just as much my 'blood' kin as it gets.  My son and the girls don't really remember not knowing each other and trust me when I say they fight like siblings and love like siblings.  This isn't all my extended family but this is where I am starting.  I have to get others permission to mention/talk about them in my blog first.

Love and family to me is about holding those dear to you closely even if it's in your heart and from afar or right up close and personal.

What about you?  What is or does family mean to you?

Thanks for stopping by today and my best wishes always,