Something new

It takes a lot to rattle me, for the most part I just roll with the punches. I choose to look at the world through rose colored glasses however I am really at the end of my rope with Comcast. Grrrr. Suffice to say I am blogging from my phone as we have no home internet or phone service until Sunday at the earliest, AGAIN.Oh and no phone. We had a great day today at a friends house but I can't share any photos as they are all on my desk top. If you are easily offended stop reading here. Comcast you suck donkey balls. I'll be back as soon as I can.

More of the same, again

Dear Mr. Travolta.

When I heard on the news, a couple of weeks ago that you were being sued by a massage therapist, I was immediately filled with doubt. I mean you? Seriously? Somewhere deep in my soul I doubted it could be true, I didn't want it to be true. How could it be true?

A few days passed and then another "masseuse" jumped on the band wagon and then I believe that the manager for a high end spa in New York City also claimed you had been barred from the establishment for a few years due to inappropriate behaviour towards male therapists there. I will admit I was starting to question your integrity.

This field is filled with SCUM. Absolute SCUM. Many massages end with sex and that is what people want and what they pay for. It is illegal and it pisses me off that massage is just a guise for prostitution. The State where I live works pretty hard to keep it in line but it still happens, it always will.

I, am a massage therapist. I have worked very hard for many years to earn my reputation. I have worked on professional athletes, many of them, my name was put forward back in the 90's to work with Madonna, I declined, I've worked in hospitals and with doctors, I don't do fru fru stiff, never have, never will. I work hard, damned hard to maintain a professional image and once, just once I thought we, the professional therapists of the world were, actually going to, "take one for the team" so to speak. That maybe, just maybe someone had taken advantage of us instead of the other way around. We have a horrific reputation that sadly we have earnt, not all of us but it only takes a few bad apple to taint the crate. For once I thought we were going to come out on top.

For once I can say, I am glad it didn't happen that way.

The charges have been dropped. Mr. Travolta, I hope that you sue the scumbag. Not for any monetary amount as that would be futile but for defamation of character. I hope you rake the bastards over the coals. To put someone like you through something like this is pitiful and it brings my "profession" down to a level that I am ashamed of.  On behalf of the honest therapists, I'd like to say, we are sorry.

Sincerely.

DLC

I'm very tall right now.......

Because I'm standing on my soapbox.

From the very first time I took Lily to the U.K. she noticed how different certain staple foods tasted. Some she loved and others she hated. She has never loved the taste of milk over there but has always loved the fruits and vegetables much more. She loves the baked goods more and all the dairy products more. Lily isn't a picky eater which is a great thing as 2 picky eaters would push me over the edge. Jacob eats like a pig in England and I devour all of my favourite foods with gusto. Funny thing is none of us ever gain weight. Rosie gained a pound or two but it was short lived.

I came here at the ripe old age of 18 and worked as a Nanny for 2 little kidlets. My oldest charge was 5. He was a very athletic little man who ate like a horse. He was given so much junk that it shocked me. I wasn't in charge of his meals so there wasn't much to be done about it. I knew that when I had kids that was not going to be the way it was. Hah!

My kids do get there fair share of junk but it was I consider decent junk, most of the time and it is a balancing act. This country allows so much CRAP to be put into food that the EU has banned and in many cases banned decades ago. In my opinion, and this is just my opinion, food colouring is the devil. So are preservatives. The kind of preservatives that make a product have the shelf like of a stone. I avoid those like the plague. I learnt this by trial and error.

Many moons ago we were in Orlando at a Chinese buffet and Lily ate her first ever bowl of Jello (jelly to my English readers) and within a few minutes the kid was bouncing off of the tables. We knew it had to be the Jello. A few months late we tried that experiment again and BAM, hyper kid. We started to watch her behaviour from certain foods and it was so obvious. All extraneous food colouring was removed from her diet. No more red, and blue and no more wild child. Don't get me started on Cheet0s and their family members. The very same Cheet0s and D0ritos in England taste completely different.

Slowly but surely I have moved over to organic. It's a bit of a joke because organic farming in this country is not regulated you just have to have faith that the farmers are playing by the rules. I don't buy organic everything but I do buy a lot of organic stuff and or all natural products. It's expensive and can double a grocery bill so to balance things out I use coupons. I am not a coupon whiz but usually save $40 on every $150 that I spend.

I buy very few prepared products for the kids now, with the exception of breakfast cereal. I think that is where they consume most of their rubbish but thankfully they don't often eat cereal for breakfast. I now make my own muffins and pancakes once a week and freeze them that way they are always on hand.

We eat more fruit and vegetables than most people I know and that is a slippery slope. Have you noticed how waxy all of the produce is that you buy in a store? Uhh, oranges and cucumbers do not produce wax, it is added. I peel the skin off of a cuke if it isn't from a farmers market. Food colouring is added to make fruit look more appealing, how nice!

Girls are entering puberty now at the age of nine. NINE! If they are eating a diet rich in foods that have been injected with hormones it shouldn't come as a surprise, really it shouldn't. I see little girls in Lily's class with breasts and wearing bras. I don't want this for my children and I hope by monitoring what they eat I can slow down this process.

This generation of little ones are destined to be the first generation to have a shorter life span than their parents. Good grief, that is wrong and totally avoidable.

This is my opinion. Opinions are just feelings and can't be judged as they are neither right nor wrong so no nasty comments please.

Fuey.

This time of year is meant to be fun and festive so why do I feel like a cat on a hot tin roof? I am sure when I was growing up my parents were just as stressed out if not more so than we are now but they never showed it. Christmas was a wonderful time of year as a kid. Fun, fun, fun. I never noticed anybody running around like a chicken without a head. Perhaps my girls won't notice either.

When I picked Lily up from school today she announced that her Christmas performance is TOMORROW night. She has been chosen to perform in it and needs a black long skirt or trousers and a white blouse. A goody we don't have either of those I'll just drop everything and run out shopping right now cos I only have to bake 4 dozen cookies to bake tonight for your class Christmas party tomorrow. Can you smell the sarcasm here, you should be able to cos it really pissed me off and the other parents. Munira and I put our heads together and she headed to one store and I went to another and we rang each other to see what they had. I ended up buying for both our girls and delivering it to her house. At least we had a plan. Now I just need to cancel riding and move a client and this will not be a problem even though the music teacher only gave us 2 seconds notice.

I don't actually think the girls notice the intense stuff that happens because I always try to make it an adventure. When I am really fried I let them know and tell them I need their help.

OK Bitch session over. I will resume regular scheduled broadcasting shortly.

Special Needs Versus Non Special Needs. Updated

That is it, I am at the end of my rope with the nasty fricken comments. This will be a rant. It probably won't be very polite so if you are easily offended I strongly recommend you stop reading right now.

When we chose to start a family through adoption we decided with our first child to choose a healthy baby girl. We were naive. We wanted the world and we went for it. Thankfully after a very long wait we were handed the world. Lily is a perfectly healthy child and has filled our lives with joy beyond our wildest dreams. She is everything to us.

When we jumped back on to the adoption rollercoaster a few years later we consider a special needs child right from the inception of our journey. We knew that many of the defects, diseases and disorders that China considers SN are truly nothing to be overly concerned about. At the beginning of the journey we spoke to our agency about this but we didn't do a live broadcast as we felt it was something that was our business and not public fodder.

As the wait grew longer and longer we perused the lists and finally we found our daughter. Yes, she was our daughter. It took us a long time. At one point we gave up as we felt she wasn't there and we were supposed to wait for her to be matched with us. But on that fateful day we found her, we saw her face and we knew. I cannot explain to you how we knew other than by saying she evoked the exact same feelings deep within us that her sister had done 5 years earlier. Rosie was right there staring back at us. She was ours.

At that point I would easily get 30-40 comments daily on my blog but once we announced that we had a daughter (12 months ahead of the queue) my comments dropped to 5 or 6. We were sent one or 2 emails about how we had jumped the line.  We were shell shocked. WTF? This little girl with her heart condition who was sitting all this time in an orphanage in China with nobody to love her had finally found her family and all these people could think of was that we had beaten them to the finish line. Give me a break you selfish jerks.

Today, over 12 months later, we received yet another accusatory email from someone in our original group stating how they were one of only 3 families who had stayed the course and bought home "their" babies home at the right time.

Does it really matter when we travel? I know the wait is endless and the ride is bumpy but in the end our children come home to loving families and that should be the focus of the journey not whether someone with a LID later that yours gets to go first. We found our little girl and somehow were supposed to walk away from her because some people felt it wasn't our time. When you have your child in your arms I hope with all my heart that you will understand how shallow you were being.

Grow up and put love in your heart and not jealousy because if that is what you are going to teach your children then quite honestly you do not deserve to parent a child.

Rant over. Fa la la la la

Update...I wrote this earlier when I was really ticked off and have since calmed down a little. I am still fed up with the nasty comments. Jacob is really annoyed about them and heaven help anyone that make one directly to him.  Rose was meant for us, and us for her, end of story, full stop. I am turning off the comments. I don't want to hear anymore about this, I am fried.

One Of Those Days. Rant.

Phew, is it bedtime yet?

I have just had one of those days. You know the kind, the ones that make you think that a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 is a good idea.

(no I haven't ever had it but I have seen enough bottles of it in my time, all partially hidden in brown paper bags and discarded at the side of the road, to know it must be good for something)

Happy place, oh happy place, oh where did I put my happy place?

Some People Need To Think

Lily and I had to go to the grocery store this afternoon to pick up the last minute stuff for tomorrow. Lily loves going to that Publix cos she loves the girl behind the desk and Kathy loves her too. Whilst Kathy and Lily were exchanging niceties I stood to the side and another girl that I have known for years but who has recently transferred to "my" store came over and we started chatting. I have always liked her and it was nice to see her. She couldn't believe how much the Schnoog had grown, blah blah blah and then she said something that just utterly dumbfounded me.
She said, "did you ever dream that you could love her like your own?"
I nearly got whiplash cos I snapped my neck around so fast and said, "She is MY OWN".

Lily heard this part of the conversation and I know it is something that she will always hear but damn it people use some common frickin' sense. Lily didn't bat an eyelid. She knows full well who she is and who loves her etc etc but it has crippled me for the day.

If I was the swearing type I would say, SHIT. (Oh wait I am and I did!)

I will never forget what my Father said to me at some point on Gotcha Day when I finally found my way to a phone and rang him to say she was ours forever.

Me: Daddy it's me. We finally have her and she is absolutely beautiful.
Him (quite indignantly) : Of course she is beautiful, she is one of us.


The Princess, unscathed by todays comments.


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