Guest Q&A - Nikki

You've already met Nikki over at Life of Ikkins (fka "To Walk In My Shoes") and I wanted to know her answers to my guest Q&A questions.

Please help me welcome...Nikki!


1. What was the spark that generated the idea that drove you to start your blog?

I started my blog to keep me sane. Seriously. My blog was born because of my decision to move from Virginia to Kentucky with my son. Just the two of us in a semi-big new city (Louisville). Pretty scary! I was getting spammed with emails from friends and family once I made the announcement. Replying to 100 emails just wasn't working when trying to arrange the move, so I blogged updates instead.Voila, 100 email replies condensed to just one blog post! After I was settled in Kentucky I got a little blog-happy so one day I could be blogging about motherhood, another day would be a random rant, and then the next week i'd blog about a new experience. Now-a-days I'm going through another (international) move though, so the blog has gone back to being used for it's original purpose. How's that for perfect! Ha!

2. What do you feel is your strength as a blogger?

Oh no, not that question. You know, the one that every interviewer asks when you're sitting in the hot seat across from them. "I dont know" isn't acceptable, and you have to answer in a way that doesn't make you look pompus. I guess my greatest strength is keeping readers away from my blog. Really, I'm amazing at it ( see question #5)! Or maybe it's the dull way I write, keeping commenters away. Or maybe-- hey, wait a second.....

Seriously though, I truly enjoy blogging. Writing is my stress relief and I think my strength is that I can keep up with it juggling school, working full time, and being a single mommy. Blogging is my guilty pleasure- I can never get enough!

3. What bloggers make you shake your head in admiration? What bloggers make you shake your head in shame or disgust?

More like stealing-hours-of-my-life-everyday-enjoying-her-site in admiration, Jill from Scary Mommy takes the cake. She is a wife and mother of three and is one of the most down to earth, hilarious writers I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Warning: don't go to her site if you don't have a few hours to kill. You'll get lost in post after post or in page after page of confessions. Seriously. Don't go. Not yet, anyway.

I would have to say I'm the lucky blog winner for most shame. Why? I've had my blog for one year and I just (like literally last week) started using the blogger templates to customize my blog design. What kind of blogger has a blog for that long without learning that kind of stuff? One that should have lots of shame, thats who.

4. How would you like to be remembered as a blogger? What is the legacy you’ll leave behind?

Wow, that's a toughie. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'd like to leave a legacy, but I would be happy if during the life of my blog, even just one person read it and was able to do one of the following; laugh, relate, or learn something from my shared experiences. I'm not aiming to get super successful, but in my perfect world of skittles and rainbows, I'd really like for my blog to not suck either. But hey, feel free to follow me, tell your friends about me, and put my blog link out there, I'll take success any day. Can't I have my cake and eat it too? :-)

(You may only have cake if you share with the rest of us.)

5. Do you ever worry that your blog posts may be misinterpreted? Ever ball up your fists, shoot steam from your ears and yell, “But you just don’t get it!” while reading a comment to a post? Even if they don’t get it, is that opinion still wrong?

Honestly, no. I hardly get comments on my posts. Infact, you (Ken) are probably my only regular commenter. A bit depressing now that I think about it. Somehow I found myself in the fetal position and I think I'll just stay here, in my dark corner, and cry... thanks.

On a serious note, I write how I talk and I'm pretty straight forward. I think, though (in my hypothetical future of getting comments on my blog) that situations like this will be pretty easily delt with. It takes a lot to get me upset and things like misinterpretation shouldn't be too hard to deal with. Right?

(As long as you're in that corner...dust it would ya?)

Thank you so much for participating Nikki! For everyone else, I've known of Nikki for a while through Seasoned Gamers. I hadn't really 'met' her until participating in the Fitness Challenges she put together. If there was one feature I could commend her on it's that she's a very good sport. The jerks at SG have actually coined a phrase describing a thread as being ikkins'd. It's not an endearing term, but they're just being dumb funny. Nikki is incredibly tolerant of it and doesn't seem to take it personally. She's also a lot of fun to play video games with.

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Saturday Scavenger Shots - Plant

Birds eat PLANTs.



Umm......whut?



Birds sit on fences near PLANTs.... Yep

Wrapped lumber in the background used to be a PLANT. Or is it still.....?

Hmmm...how can I bend them to my will?

Who woulda thunk it! Already a prime opportunity to use my new found skillz for winning friends and influencing people!

It's about the dog.


No, I'm not trying to influence the dog.

Here's the deal: The original owner would like her back. The original owner is D, the already-ex-brother-in-law. He was the one to choose Sadie (the dog) as a puppy, pay an obscene amount of money for a dog (but I think any money for a pet is obscene,) and spend a lot of time training her. Because of all that, I have no problem calling him the owner.

There are a couple of problems though. Namely the stbx and the stbx-sister-in-law. Both of them think the dog is theirs. Not individually, but 'theirs' as in, "not anyone elses."

The stbxsil and D had a horribly nasty divorce. One that's lasted 5 years now, and is still going on. Somewhere along the line, it seems the stbxsil got 'custody' of Sadie. I have no idea if it was a legal precedent or just something that happened that way. At another point, further up the line, the stbxsil couldn't keep Sadie. If I remember correctly, it had to do with her housing situation. "No dogs allowed" kind of a thing. So we took her in. I'm taking care of Sadie now because my stbx can't feasibly have big dogs. I think she's allowed to, but it's quite a bit more rent, not just a larger deposit. Besides, it's a little 2 bedroom apartment; not exactly ideal for a full grown golden retriever. So I'm housing and feeding her.

I don't want a dog.

Sadie's a great dog. Loveable as can be. Great with the kids. But I don't want a dog.

D wants her back. Now's my chance to send her home. But those 2 obstacles need to be overcome. Right now, my thought is to try and convince the stbxsil to 'approve' it. If she does, that totally removes the stbx obstacle. In fact, the stbx would only be an obstacle if I went to her first.

I haven't spoken to the stbxsil in 3 or 4 years. We left on ok terms, so I'm hopeful that I can come up a with a convincing argument. I think I'll talk about how their daughters will be getting Sadie, not just D. D has custody of at least 1 of their 2 daughters right now. The other is in a therapeutic group home but will probably end up going to D.

So I think if I use that tactic, that Sadie will be going to their daughters, there might be a better chance of it happening without hurt feelings or repercussions for me. We'll see.

Dale Carnegie wrap up

This past Monday night we finished up the 8 week Dale Carnegie: Effective Communications and Human Relations class. It was good. I'm not going to get into particulars, but one of major purposes is to stretch the boundaries of your comfort zone. It did that and I think it did that for everyone to a healthy extent. It's a goal of mine to take that and translate it into more dynamic communication with my coworkers.

The instructor was good. His name was Skip Patience. An older gentlemen who was very energetic. The area leader hinted at how nationally popular he was as a motivational speaker. We were very privileged to have him. During the after class beers, a few of us talked about how there was nothing even remotely negative said by anyone during any of the classes.

Maybe it's not fair, but I can't help but compare him to the previous instructor I had, when I attempted to attend the class at a town that was an hour and a half away. The class was different. And not a good different. The other instructor was quite pushy. Always telling how to do something different, but it didn't seem like we ever got it right.

It was very cool to hear the talks given by the other classmates. We all had to give talks and stories were part of every one. We learned a lot about each other. There was a lot of variety in careers too. A teacher, an engineer, a HR manager, fuel salesman, HVAC salesman, and a few guys from a local greenhouse/hydroponics company. I got to carpool with the fuel salesman which was nice, even just to make the drive seem quicker. I think that will be a continued friendship.

After the talks for each session, we voted for a couple of awards, one for the Outstanding Performance and one for the Breakthrough Performance. I suppose I'm proud to say I won 2 of those awards. Not everyone won something and only a few of us won more than one award. For one big award, after the very last talks, we all voted on who we thought did the best at living the 'Dale Carnegie Principles'. The HVAC salesman was the big winner. He deserved it.

This is the book & pen I got.

So would I recommend it? Certainly...especially if someone else was paying for it. It ain't cheap.

"Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action." Benjamin Disraeli

Whurly Ghurly update....urly

A long time ago, in a comment far far away, someone asked me how my girlies were doing. (Tara...maybe?)

They're doing good, but they've been fighting the typical seasonal illnesses. I have to confess, I got a little pissed and loud when every one of them either coughed or spit on one of the others, or sucked a finger and rubbed an eye. I had been harping about being clean all winter. I think my new tactic will be to send them to wash hands & face every time I catch them doing something gross.

Please don't ask me why G is wearing a coat when A is in short sleeves.

My new camera has a small view screen on the front of it, for easy self-shots. I thought it would be cool for the girlies to play with that.





It's interesting to see that A seems to have a little bit better eye for photography. Even in the random shots she takes. She's pretty conscientious about what she's shooting. And she's a goof.

I suppose I shouldn't leave out the shot of me:

Emotionally, I think they're doing ok. The stbx still can't stop herself from complaining at me when the girls are there, so I've made a concentrated effort to minimize that sort of contact. We haven't seen any blatant button pushing, so I guess that's good. Haven't had any trips to the principals office this year either. So all in all they're good. They'll be changing schools next year. We'll see how that goes.

Thanks for reading!

Saturday Scavenger Shots - Run

Forgive me if my interpretation is a bit of a stretch. As I was RUNning some errands, I picked up a new camera. It's a Samsung PL120. Just came out this month. It's just a P&S, but seems to record decent movies too.

Back in November, when my parents were in Montana for my grampas funeral, the cousins were divvying up grampas cowboy hats. My parents were nice enough to grab one for me. The only crummy thing is that my exceptionally large and powerful brain (or at least the brain holder) is too big for it.

I'm such a sap. Almost everything seen in that
photo has some sort of sentimental value.

On the front of the hat is a brass pin. It's a commemorative pin of the signing of the Constitution. In other words...a picture of the guys that used to RUN this country as they were establishing the rules for RUNning this country. Awesome. I need to ask gramma where the pin came from.

I took this photo with my new camera. I have never had a P&S take such good pictures at such a close range without having to fiddle with the settings. This was auto.

GUN rhymes with RUN. The other thing I got from grampa was his Ruger .22 rifle.

I haven't shot a gun in about 5 years. There's a short range near work, primarily for truckers to practice pistols I think, but it's close enough that I plan on stopping by during a lunch hour to fire this thing a couple of times. It's got a nice Bushnell scope. I was taught years ago how to clean a rifle, but I've forgotten most of it. Gotta do that too. Then maybe I can find a rancher than needs some gophers rubbed out.


I missed a couple of weeks of SSS, so I hope I'm not doubling up on the cycle, but I pick LAURA B! to pick next weeks word.

Fridays Mental Meander

A warning: The following contains my blatant, uninhibited opinion. It is not directed at any individual. What I speak of comes from personal experience. If it offends you, that was not my intention, but I would encourage you to consider why it offended you.


A couple of times over the last few days, the subject of pornography has cropped up in an indirect manner. I've been thinking a bit more about my post concerning affairs and with that idea, I see a direct correlation with porn.

Comparing affairs and porn to fantasy is like comparing Wile E. Coyote to The Lord of the Rings.

Pornography and it's usage is pure fantasy. There is absolutely nothing real about it. It may be pictures of real people, but being just a snapshot of time, they are entirely removed from reality. With an affair, there is another real person involved, which inherently induces some sort of reality into the mix, no matter if the participants choose to acknowledge it or not.

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned it on this blog before, but I have a problem with porn. I would like to say that I had a problem (or never had, really) but no matter how many successes God gives me in refusing the temptation, it eventually crops up again. I believe it's because I'm a very fallible human. And a male one at that. Not that I'm using that as an excuse, but I'm guessing that it probably will not go away entirely until I find someone with whom I can develop a real relationship and replace those desires with that. A relationship as God intended it.

What I really want to talk about is how it seems to me that a lot of people have a hard time separating fantasy from reality, when it comes to pornography. I believe this because of the time or two I've run across blogs that are obviously of a pornographic nature, or even just mention the casual use of porn in one post, and then talk about a dissatisfaction of their sex life in the next.

Again, I'm not talking about any one individual. There are more than a few of these out there.

Now, I'm not saying that I was the exception. I'd like to think I didn't transfer unrealistic expectations from porn into my marriage bed, but it probably happened. There isn't anything specific I can point to, but I don't think it's possible to not transfer something. To what extent porn had on the dissolution of my marriage, I don't know. I know it wasn't punishment from God. He just doesn't work that way. But if I had to choose something, I would say that I expected my ex to feel the same way that the girls in the pictures seemed to feel.

Thinking about it now, it just seems silly. Thinking about it some more, it breaks my heart that marriages are failing because one or both parties bring the fantasy of pornography into the bedroom. At the least, it can let the participants separate themselves from their mate, even in just a mental sense, and at the worst, it creates unrealistic expectations.

I guess my point is....well, if you don't think pornography is a bad thing, just check yourself. Maybe you have a relationship that comfortably includes porn. If that's the case, would you be just as comfortable without it? Try removing it and see what happens. If you feel like you're missing something important, you probably are...but it ain't porn.

Again...all in my humble opinion.

The Word.....is not Bird

The word I pick for next Saturday Scavenger Shots is...

"RUN"

I, for one, have been running a bit of a race lately. Work became very busy, very quickly. Thank the Lord. We have more orders on the board now than we have at any point in the last 3 years. My goal now is to keep my wits about me so we can capitalize on it and actually run in the black.

During that spike in orders, I was without an assistant. Which induced a lot of mental running. Kinda like diarrhea. I think I was lucky and found a good candidate without having to go through a bunch of applicants. She starts tomorrow. No more data entry for me! Woohoo!


That Dale Carnegie class is coming to an end. The last class is this Monday. It's been good. I've enjoyed it. A lot of good classmates. Different than the last attempt I made. That last class was kind of strange, in that most people spoke of their darkest secrets as soon as they could. This class was more reserved. Which I appreciated because it seemed like most people actually progressed, rather than ending with nothing left to talk about.

I'll still be glad when it's over.


A is sick again. She got over strep about a month ago and now has a light fever and upset stomach. Poor girlie. Bought a second hat in about 4 days. The first one got used as a puke bag. Oh well, I like the second one more anyway. And since it cost over twice as much, that aint' happening again.

I always wish I could be sick for them, so they don't have to be. That's saying a lot cause I'm a freakin' pansy when it comes to being sick.


I ended that fitness challenge with a fizzle. With all the mental gymnastics I was doing at work, I had absolutely no desire to work out. I ended in second place, but the winner burned almost 4x as many calories. Dang overachievers... ;) Congrats Tin! And thank you for putting that together Nikki.

Motivation is an issue with me. I don't feel unhealthy and I don't have anyone I'm trying to impress. The Dicky Don't disease isn't going to go away by itself though.


I don't like Katy Perry.

Just thought you should know.

Saturday Scavenger Shots - Emotion and an opinion....

I wandered over to Mars vs Venus and read the anonymous comments in the Secret Box.

I tell ya, the comments about infidelity, swinging, and marriage regret really hit me. I'm not an expert, but this is what I think:

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know everything, but personal experience with infidelity has taught me a lot. Being the spouse that was cheated on gives me a different perspective than all but one of the commenters, it seems.

For people who are considering cheating on their spouse, who already are, or even those people who long after the 'missed opportunity', I wish you understood how much you don't know. If you are actually cheating, it's highly likely that both you and the 'other' person have protected and nurtured that relationship beyond what is possible in a marriage. You both go out of your way to see that it doesn't go through the same trials and tribulations that a real marriage does. There's no fighting over laundry or who has to take out the garbage.

Few relationships outside marriage get the opportunity to overcome failure.

A lot of extra-marital affairs don't get those opportunities. They are a fantasy. What I've learned about affairs is that some tend to stop on their own, without external influence, because one or both parties get uncomfortable. That's it. Maybe one person said something the other didn't like. There goes that relationship. Nothing invested, nothing lost.

The fantasy aspect is especially evident in the regret of not marrying someone else, when there isn't an affair happening. Whomever is doing the regretting probably doesn't remember one bad thing about that other relationship. They spend their mental power developing a fantasy scenario that includes all the great things of that missed relationship, even some things that never actually happened but 'might have', and compares it to all the bad stuff in the current marriage. There is no way the marriage can win.

My stbx saw that, at least at one point. She finally saw that the guys she had seen were jerks and that what she experienced with them wasn't real. It took a 30 second description of them by her for me to figure that out. About a year later she figured out I was right. (For the record, her infidelity isn't the reason I left.)

Don't get me wrong. There are many many reasons that a marriage can struggle and fail. Abuse is certainly one, but I also understand the desire to 'get out.' I experienced it too. It's hard to watch your marriage constantly struggle and equally difficult to set aside a potential success, which is what an affair feels like. I've seen both sides of the fence, even if my affair wasn't physical and lasted all of 3 days. I felt an immense connection, but it was a fantasy. It quickly became a lot of the good things I was missing from my marriage.

The thing that makes it a fantasy is that 90% of it was from me. My thoughts, my desires, my control, and my direction in not letting it get uncomfortable. Nothing about it had any depth. It was entirely superficial. A light breeze would have blown it away.

How much more satisfaction can be had from a relationship that can withstand a hurricane?

My marriage went through a hurricane. It didn't survive. Marriage can't survive anything if both spouses don't want it to.

Maybe it all comes down to positive attitude. Don't forget the good things that you have now, even if you think something else might be better.

So I leave you with my picture for Saturday Scavenger Shots - Emotion. It's of my grandparents. You may have seen this picture before. I posted it after my grampa passed away. My gramma's doing ok, but she doesn't like being alive without grampa.


This picture evokes quite a bit of emotion in me. Honestly, a bit of it is jealousy and a longing to be as connected to someone. Just as much, if not more, is a feeling of contentment and pleasure. I always always loved visiting them.

I suppose I'll never know, but I wonder if they ever went through the same trials that my marriage did. I certainly hope not, but if it did, it seems it would be very encouraging to know that a marriage can be as strong as theirs was.

Have a great rest of the weekend.

Guest Q&A - Narcissistic Raven

Narcissistic Raven was kind enough to ask me my second ever Q&A session! I enjoyed answering them because they were not easy questions and it took some time to think of the answers. They were things I hadn't really thought of before.

So, just to have fun, I asked her the same questions. Here are the questions and her answers:

1. What was the spark that generated the idea that drove you to start your blog?I started blogging back in 2008. I had a rather successful blog called about life, love and yarn. In 2010 I had to shut my blog down because I was going through the end of my very messy divorce and I no longer felt that I could be completely authentic on that blog anymore since I knew he and his family read it and any thing I wrote about our divorce or what was going on just fed the flames. So after a 6 month hiatus I decided to create another blog that would give me the ability to journal and share my life (the good, the bad, the insane and the hilarious) in a way that I rarely have the chance to do in my real life. A place where I can be the entire, Raven

2. What do you feel is your strength as a blogger? Hmmm that's tough. I always worry that I will be "Too much (enter verb)" But I think it's precisely the "too much" factor that makes people want to read. I try to not hold back about myself and where I am at. Based on the comments I have received it seems to be why people like my blog.

3. What bloggers make you shake your head in admiration? What bloggers make you shake your head in shame or disgust? Hmmm there are so many. I would have to say that I admire any blogger who is blatantly honest no matter how difficult the subject matter provided that they show growth and progress through blogging. I'm disgusted by people who share way too much. I don't need to know about your "bits" (girl or boy), I don't want to know about your sex life especially anything requiring electricity, batteries or otherwise. Some things are better left not talked about.

4. How would you like to be remembered as a blogger? What is the legacy you’ll leave behind? I want to remembered, period. I believe that our deeds are our legacy. I may be a crazy, emotional train wreck at times but I want to be remembered for my kindness, my good intentions and willingness to be vulnerable.

5. Do you ever worry that your blog posts may be misinterpreted? Ever ball up your fists, shoot steam from your ears and yell, “But you just don’t get it!” while reading a comment to a post? Even if they don’t get it, is that opinion still wrong? Good Lord Yes! All the time. My issues with my mother that I have been dealing with has proven to be the most misunderstood issue of all. I get messages about "forgiveness" and "forgetting". It can get maddening at times. I sometimes get comments that are obvious they never read any of what I wrote they just like my pictures and decided to comment by asking me for a date or to fly to where ever they may be (total strangers, first time commentators mind you) and have a romantic tryst. Actually add those to the disgust category on question #3 ;-)


Thank you Raven! (and sorry it took so long to get these posted.)

Randomonday

So here I am. Setting at my computer on a Sunday evening. Alone. Watching the dog twitch in her sleep.

Don't want to do anything. Anything like video games or a movie. Tired enough to go to bed, but don't want to because that only means I'll have to wake up and go to work tomorrow.

Feel like writing a bunch of partial sentences.

Just finished reading Directive 51 by John Barnes. Good story. Epic story. Seemed like the author wanted to write more but was supposed to keep it down to a reasonable page count. Picked up a new (new for me anyway) book called Hawke by Ted Bell. Saw Clive Cussler's recommendation on the cover and thought I'd give it a shot.

Glad work is picking up, but bummed this new snow is probably going to put a damper on it. Nice to know my weekly sales report is going to be much better than it was last Monday. Almost a 40% jump. That's not saying much since this February was our worst month since I've worked there...which means it was probably the worst month ever.

Oh well.

Have all sorts of crap I could complain about on the stbx front. Don't really want to.

Haven't been blog reading much lately, but have tried to keep up with my 'inner circle' of blog friends. Not that I want to exclude anyone, but for some dumb reason my blog reading interest has waned. Severely. Along with my blog writing interest.

John Barnes writes "huh" as "hunh". Weird.

Need to apologize to my Scavenger Shots friends for not participating for the last 2 weeks. Please don't ask me why. I just don't know.

My new 'desk' isn't designed for extensive typing. Not ergonomic at all.

Won a book at the last Dale Carnegie class. Dale Carnegie's Scrapbook. It's a collection of memorable quotes his wife compiled after Dales death. Quotes not just of Dale, but many others. Supposed to pick a favorite to share with the class tomorrow night. Chose this poem by Rudyard Kipling:

If you can dream and not make dreams your master,
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with triumph and disaster,
And treat those two impostors just the same,

If you can force your heart, and nerve, and sinew,
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you,
Except the will which says to them, "Hold on,"

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the earth and everything that's in it,
And, what is more, you'll be a man, my son.

Hope y'all had a good weekend and have an even better week.