a change will do you good

Yesterday Randy joined the Y again. This was kind of like putting a gun to my head & saying, "Girl, if you don't start eating right & exercising THIS INSTANT, you are gonna regret it." You see, in 2003, he lost 70 pounds in the time it took me to lose 20. You could barely tell I'd lost an ounce. He was skinny. It was miserable. People made snide remarks. He was kind of arrogant about it, though in his defense, he could've been a lot worse.

Egotistically, I am probably retarded. I do not use that word to make fun of people. I mean, I have emotional issues a lot of people do not have. I would rather not get into all the baggage I brought with me into my marriage, but...my self-esteem is weak. There was a lot expected of me as a child. I had good looking parents & appeared to be intellectually quite gifted. I have often felt like a failure as an adult, because I did not turn out to be pretty, successful & rich. My greatest accomplishment is that I have raised two good kids. That's nothing to sneeze at...I'm proud...but so much more was expected of me.

And those kids could still turn on me! But maybe they won't.

Anyway, when he was getting his ego stroked constantly, I was getting NOTHING positive, just ugly remarks by family members & mean-spirited co-workers. When I get nothing, after awhile I am kind of like a spoiled child who throws tantrums at the grocery store. I will get attention even if I get it the wrong way. If the hubby's not feeding my self-esteem, I'll look for someone who will. Now please don't think I go around looking over my shoulder. I don't, but back then, I did.

I didn't cheat on him. I don't think he cheated on me. But it was a horrible, dark season in our lives. He put his need to exercise before EVERY other need our family had. It was harder for me to fit in a workout because he would go to the Y straight from work, while I had to go home & take care of the kids. I resented him, a lot. It worked for awhile for him, but then things happened, & then he got big again.

He thinks I just want him to be big. I do like him the way he is, but I also want him to be healthy. I liked him when he was skinny too. My problem is that emotionally, I needed to have a good 30 pound head start on him so I don't go through that again. I felt like a failure for not having that already & I don't need more evidence that I'm a failure.

Emotionally, I am not very far removed from the last dark period of my life. I still don't think I was ready to have that gun put to my head, but it got put there, so here I am, on unstable ground again.

I have to be fairly stable emotionally in order to do my job. I couldn't care less if I'm emotionally stable at home. That's unfortunate because my husband & kids deserve for me to be strong too, but they need my income more than they need my emotional stability. Fortunately, it's mostly tears on my part - they don't have to hear me yell much. To be strong enough to do my job I have to do certain things like I mentioned in my last post. I have to avoid sad and negative music at ALL COSTS (even if it means walking out of a store, church, the funeral home, etc.). I have to fill my heart & mind & soul with positive, happy, upbeat thoughts & songs. It is a MUST. I have to compartmentalize my soul to some extent, to save my emotions until the right time.

This has set me back about 2 months in my emotional recovery from last summer & fall's dark days. I think it's great that Randy wants to do something about his health. Let me get that out there. I am proud of him. But I need MY emotional strength, & the only way I can get that is to lose the weight as rapidly as possible. The only way I know how to do that is self-loathing & beating myself to death. Emotionally, I cannot handle that right now, but I know no other way. I can coddle myself right up to 250 pounds. I can only lose weight by hurting myself.

This time I have the very slight advantage of him needing to lose more than 70 pounds, but I need to lose more than 60 myself. But, it's time for me to lose weight, & to hurry up about it. I am praying. Please, pray too.

Cold as ice!

It's cold here & ice is falling from the sky.

Well, the last couple weeks have been interesting. Here is a short list of what's been going on since Feb. 2.

I went to the funeral I mentioned in my last post...work has been busier...deadly tornadoes hit our state, but left our house alone this time...Randy had some surprises for me...the kids went to Warmth in Winter, the annual youth meeting for the Tennessee Conference of the United Methodist Church...I sang & taught Sunday School...my granddaddy turned 80...we went to his birthday party...we had the annual Valentine's Dinner at church...went back to work yesterday...now the weather's crazy again (as it seems to be every Tuesday).

First, the funeral. I was sitting next to my aunt, who was sitting next to my mother, who has been sick over the last few months. First they played that Vince Gill song. Now, I love Vince Gill, I do. He is truly one of my favorites. But that song...I have listened to it in full one time since July 11, 2004 (the date of Randy's dad's funeral), & that was Saturday, Feb. 2 at my great-aunt's funeral. I got through that by counting the 484 holes in the ceiling tile above my head. When "How Can I Help You Say Goodbye" started playing, I couldn't take that. I got up & walked out.

I do not do sad songs much.

You see, Mom is battling cancer. She is doing a pretty good job, too! I believe in God's healing power & she does too. I think He has already done a great work in her. She is improving slowly. Though it is a very, very serious disease & the "odds" are not really in her favor, we have not given up! She does not dwell on the bad but focuses on the good. I do this too. I mean, if one has a 12 percent chance of surviving a disease for five years, this means that if 10,000 people get that disease, 1200 will still be here five years from now. (I do not know if those are the exact numbers. I did see percentages when she first got the diagnosis, but I really can't remember. This shows you how much the numbers have meant to me personally.) Death is a fact of life. I know that, as does she, but she is a long way from dead, I tell you! She is very much alive! And as long as she is alive & fighting, I just cannot do sad songs about dying Mamas & Grandmas. In my car, I just flip the dial. Can't do that at the funeral home. I have to save my emotional energy. I do cry, when the time is right, & I shed tears later in the service, but I just cannot let my mind go some places.

Work has been busy. I can't say busier than usual, for this IS the new "usual." We have increased our numbers in the last week or so. It's not always easy, but I am not complaining. One thing has changed lately & that is that we've come up with a better system for lunch. I am feeling a lot better about this. It is working. Let's hope it keeps working.

A week ago tonight tornadoes killed 27 people within 150 miles of us. There have been some sad stories there & some stories of hope as well.

While you're at it, read about this little girl. I work at Vanderbilt & saw this today in my email. I had to wipe away a tear.

Last week Randy surprised me by telling me he wants to get some of his friends to work on some accompaniments for me. I think he felt bad about me going to the karaoke night a few weeks ago. Many musicians have a thing against karaoke, claiming it puts musicians out of work. But, he & his buddies joke that playing instruments gives them a license to sing.

He also surprised me with a Saturday night date. Oh, by Saturday I'd figured out what he wanted to do...we went to the Station Inn to see Junior Brown. That was great! We also ate at Chappy's. That was great too...but a little more expensive ;)

Well, I've written a novel, so I'm going to go to bed now. Looks like I'll be here at the house tomorrow, instead of my trip I had planned, but that's OK. I've got plenty to do here too.

Ain't got time to fix the shingles, ain't got time to fix the floor

I haven't written in awhile because life has been busy, as usual. I have done a lot of journaling in my personal, hand-written journal, but I haven't done a lot online because I just haven't felt like sharing everything that runs through my mind. Since my Madisonville trip, I haven't done much worth writing about anyway.

The weather here has been weird. We've had some cold weather followed by warm days followed by strong winds & more cold. We didn't have power one night this week. (That was the night some of our shingles got torn off the house!) I was gone all the next evening, & the night after that, Randy had the computer all torn up trying to fix another computer. (Don't ask.) Anyway, if I'd wanted to write, this week wouldn't have been a good time. I don't have a lot of time to write today either. My granddaddy's sister died the other day & in a little while I have to get ready to go to her funeral. She was 89 & had been ailing for a long time. I think the weather will be nice for the trip. Today is supposed to be a lot warmer than the last few days, but when I walked the dog at 8 am, it was still mighty cold to me.

My mood lately has been...well, sort of nasty. I have been irritated quite easily the last couple of days. I feel like a blimp, but I can't make myself get charged up about any kind of physical activity. I am trying to eat better, but I still slip up. Maybe I'm improving there a little bit, just a little. The desire of my heart is to do more singing, but I can't really figure out where I'm supposed to do that when there are no open doors around me. I do like my job most of the time, but some days I still wonder what I'm doing in nuclear medicine when I'm such a sloppy klutz. Sometimes I hate my house, but I don't have the time, money, or emotional energy to fix it up or do what it takes to move. We're talking about refinancing, but I've got to wait until the insurance company lets us know if they're going to repair our roof! In general, I do feel more positive about life than I did a few weeks ago, but I am in desperate need of a new attitude!

Well, I'm going to get on with my day. I don't have time to sit here in front of the computer.

I wouldn't take nothin' for my journey now

Yesterday was my day off. I had been kind of sentimental for a place I used to live, so I took a road trip to Madisonville, KY. I just wanted to reminisce, I guess, & I wanted to see what had changed & what was still the same.

Recently I re-read Vestal Goodman's autobiography (and, as you can see on my last post, I've been enjoying their music lately too). They lived in Madisonville before we did. The day we moved there, we passed a church & Mom said, "I think that's the Happy Goodmans' church." It wasn't. Even if it had been, they were already gone - the family wasn't performing together anymore & most of them had moved elsewhere. I've written about them before here. And, even when I wrote that, I was looking for an excuse to visit again. I wanted to put things together in my mind...to see their old church, because I couldn't recall it anymore...to see where we lived on Princeton Road...& other places.

So, I went to Madisonville. I prayed about it, & I felt even more strongly that I needed to go. I went to the library, drove by several places, & took a few pictures. Here are a few.


Here is the first place we lived in Madisonville, the afore-mentioned place on Princeton Road. The apartment on the very end, nearest the camera, is the one. We lived there for a month, before we moved to the opposite end of the complex. It was a wild time. I took this picture from the parking lot of the Elks lodge. Lodges were a pretty foreign concept to me when I moved there. The Elks had bingo once a week. The letters on the outside of the building are "BPOE" which stands for Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. I always said it stood for Bingo Players Of Elks number whatever it was.

When we were deciding where to move, I said, "I can't live anywhere there's not a Dairy Queen." I wasn't really serious. Now I very seldom go to a Dairy Queen! But that goes back to my childhood, when the closest fast food was the Dairy Queen in Goodlettsville!


The next photo is of El Bracero, which obviously used to be a KFC. When we moved to Madisonville, it was Video-Ville, which is now located across town. We called it Chicken Video. It is still located in the building which once housed "Club Radical," an attempt to become a Christian teen hangout. When Video-Ville moved over there, we started calling it "Radical Chicken." I didn't get a picture of that place. I took this picture from the parking lot of the old laundromat where I used to go every Tuesday night & wash clothes. I watched "Growing Pains," "Coach," & "thirtysomething" every week while I washed. The laundromat seemed fresh & neat compared to the other ones in town...now it is closed, & the inside looks trashed.

This next picture is where Randy worked back then, the Messenger.

Finally, this last picture is a special place. One night when Rachel was a baby & I was angry at God about a lot of things - well, I don't want to get into all that - I wanted God to prove to me that He was real. Like a brash youngster, I was demanding & I basically said that if He didn't prove Himself to me I wouldn't raise my baby in church. Shortly after that - seven seconds, to be exact - a lady from that church called me. Rachel is a beautiful young lady now who really has God in her life & wants to get into ministry.

Vestal Goodman mentioned this church in her book as well. After the book was written, her nephew Kris Goodman became the pastor there. Yesterday I went into that church & told my story to Pastor Kris. It's strange, but after I told him my story, I felt like I could put things in the past & go on & do what God has for me to do now. I am not sure exactly what He wants - I never have been - but I know He will show me the way.



Speaking of what God wants me to do now...on Tuesday night I went to the Bridge again. I have spent an hour & a half here at the computer writing about my Madisonville trip, so I'm not going to write about the Bridge tonight, but I'll try & tell that story next time.

It's the sweetest song I know!

If you haven't watched my YouTube videos that I have listed at the right of my blog, please do. I didn't actually add those videos to YouTube, but I enjoy sharing them with others. My very favorite is the one at the top, the Happy Goodman Family doing "The Sweetest Song I Know." I think I am addicted to it. I have to watch it at least once a day. It is guaranteed to make me smile!



I remember seeing them do this song on "The Old Time Singing Convention," which came on Nashville's Channel 5 (which was WLAC back then) every weekday at noon. Oh, I wish I could watch some of those clips today! I don't think I appreciated the show as much back then as I would if it were on now, but I do remember watching it & liking it a lot. The Happy Goodman Family looked like they were having so much fun, I wanted to be up there singing with them. Well, I guess I will have to wait until I get to Heaven to do that, but until then, I'm glad I can watch them on YouTube! I remember trying to decipher all four parts at once...I still do that.

I discovered MySpace this week. I've known it was around, of course, but I just created my own space there. You can check it out at: http://www.myspace.com/singingbushlady. I hear that Marisa is too hard to spell & I am tired of using "risabush" for everything. I wanted to be singingbush but it was taken. Anyway, check it out. I hope to add more of my own music there eventually.