As if

As if in answer to my previous post, one of my favorite authors, Paulo Coelho just posted this on his Facebook page:

"Cloning Confucius: if you let bad things stop you, you won’t be there for the good things"

I think that answers my question about how to live your life in the face of so many atrocities happening all around us. Sometimes, I think Mr. Coelho has magical powers.
LOL. Maybe he is just psychic. If you have never read "The Alchemist"....OMG. Please do.

FEAR

Fear, the concept of it, has been foremost in my mind these past several weeks. The murder of Buddy's Aunt and Uncle, the missing girl in Charlottesville, the heinous shootings at Fort Hood...the list goes on and on. Its insane. Its scary. Its enough to make anybody want to lock their doors and hide under their beds for the rest of their lives. What's the point of reasonable risk and throwing caution to the wind? I think that's more my question.

I am well acquainted with fear. I grew up with fear. Not that my childhood was fraught with danger or anything. But my mother, bless her soul, was phobic about almost everything. Her message to me was that danger lurks around every corner.
Flying was a death sentence. Traveling outside the country was an invitation to maiming, torture and unspeakable horrors. Also making the list: being out and about alone at night, bars and nightclubs, strangers, heights, bridges, thrill rides at amusement parks, swimming in the ocean, driving in unfamiliar territory, rest stops...honestly, there is not enough space on this blog to list it all.

Its a wonder I have been able to lead a halfway normal life. My daughter gets annoyed by my nervous "checking up" on her. When the poor girl went missing in her town, I had to call and check up on Erica about once a day, just to say, "I hope you haven't been abducted today". My mom was horrified about abductions. When my children were really little, she would call me, and send newspaper clippings (this is before the internetz) of every case that made the news to make damn sure that I was aware of the potential dangers and was staying on my toes to watch over and protect my babies.

My mother let fear limit her life. I guess she weighed her options and decided that being safe was worth more to her than being sorry. I can't live my life that way.
The limitations are too strict. I wouldn't be able to go out and enjoy my "Girl's Night Out" if I followed those rules. I wouldn't be able to take a cruise, fly to a vacation spot, or drive up to visit my daughter. I would alienate my children with my incessant phobias. I can't do it. A part of me WANTS to do it. I still hear Mom's voice disapproving everything that I do that might be a potential risk. The news constantly tries to reinforce that danger really DOES lurk everywhere, no matter what you do. Its something that I still struggle with. But, I am determined to keep living my life, somehow. I believe that if we give in to fear, if we stop enjoying the good things, then the bad guys win. I don't know. How do you deal with it? Are you able to put thoughts of the bad things that are plastered all over the news aside? Do you make concessions and compromises to hopefully stay safer?

Sadness

I want to write a long post about how much fun we had on our trip (Lots). Maybe pass on a few of the highlights (like Barb winning the slots tournament). But its really hard for me to do that right now. While we were gone, my brother-in-law (Buddy) lost his Aunt and Uncle in a brutal robbery/murder in my hometown area in SC. There was a double funeral on Halloween afternoon.

I knew his Aunt, although the press calls her Jo Ann and I only ever knew her as Aunt Ducky. Its funny how I don't think I ever heard her by any name other than Ducky. I'm sure I met Buddy's Uncle as well, at some point or another, but I don't remember.
What I do know is that this couple was retired and they liked to travel and socialize.
They enjoyed life. Its a sad situation that nobody should have to go through. My thoughts and prayers go out to Buddy's family. They have been through a whole lot over the past couple of years.

Details

Good times....Serious fun. I will write some more about all the fun as soon as I get a chance. There was a whole lot of unpacking, laundry, and putting stuff away to do.
But as soon as I get myself all caught up, I will be back to blog about the trip. It was most excellent though.

Bahama Mama

I am going to be a Bahama Mama this week. We are on our way. See ya in a week. Don't be hatin'.....LOL.

The Haunted Cornfield

We (meaning Bruce, Erica, Stephen, Hannia, and myself) all headed out to
Briley's Haunted Farm last night .
It really is a lot of fun, and oh my Lord the number of people there. There was a line for the haunted cornfield that was a mile long. Well, I don't know if it was actually a FULL mile, but it was really, really, really LONG!!!! We bought a combo ticket, meaning we went through both the haunted cornfield AND the un-haunted corn maze, so we got to avoid the lines AND the wait. A word of advice...its is so worth the combo ticket. Our waiting was minimal. And that made it way more fun, because seriously? I imagine those people waiting in line for just the haunted cornfield probably had to wait for several hours. Maybe more. This attraction has become very popular around here, apparently.

Anyway, this year the haunted cornfield was LOOONNNGGG. It felt like we hiked a couple of miles through the corn. Various creatures, monsters and goblins jumped out at us, waved screaming chain saws at us, chased us, and even mocked us. Well, one monster mocked ME! I giggle like a girly school kid when I get nervous, and I just couldn't help it. He followed me around and every time that I giggled, he giggled in a mocking way right back at me. How dare that little creepy guy!!!! LOL.

The scariest parts, though, played on my own personal claustrophobia. There is this one little building that you have to go through where the walls are a parachute type fabric (like those blow up decorations that people put out in their front yards). The walls are being blown in from both sides with a heavy-duty fan/blower, and you literally have to squeeze your body through it in pitch black darkness, with no clue as to how long it is before you reach the end. I got about halfway through it and felt a tremor of panic deep in my soul.....but I managed to hold it together and make it through without freaking out (too badly), wetting myself, or dying.

And the second scariest thing was the maze at the very end. Its a building with walls that form narrow corridors that twist and turn, and it goes on FOREVER. I thought we would be lost in there forever. Its completely dark, you have to feel your way through it, finding the right turns or left turns by touch. I ended up at the very end of our group, and I heard something shuffling along behind me several times. Which made me want to push forward to get away from the shuffle monster, but the rest of my group was slowly trying to feel their way through the darkness, and there was no hurrying about any of it. Also? Its hot and airless in there, so claustrophobia sets in early on.

But we emerged intact, and laughing, so then we set off to the corn maze. That one is not haunted, or scary, but it IS large and elaborate. Luckily, we brought flashlights and we able to read the map that they give you....(ok, not me, I wasn't able to read the map, but I was a good follower...its a talent). You have to find 12 different check points to punch the numbers on your card, and it takes quite a while. Its dark, and the paths through the corn are really twisty and confusing. The whole thing has a creepy "we might get lost forever" kind of vibe, but it is fun. And while you don't win a prize for completing the whole maze, and finding all 12 check points, there is a sense of accomplishment. We had an excellent night out there.

And for the faint of heart, there is also a petting zoo, and a large pumpkin patch market area....they had gourds of every imaginable kind, including some of those strange albino white pumpkins. You should go out there. It ends on Halloween night, so its only open for 1 more week!

Children and Responsibility

Do you "help" your kids with their homework? Do you take charge of their assignments and monitor every move to make sure it gets done? I know parents who agonize over homework every single night, and I just don't get it. Maybe our family was the odd duck, I really don't know. But I do know that from about 2nd grade onward, my children were solely responsible for keeping track of their assignments, doing the work, and turning it in. I provided the tools, the workspace, and the atmosphere to study. But I did NOT do the work, I didn't nag them to get it done, and other than helping call out questions or vocabulary words before a test or a quiz, I didn't have a big part in it. I finished school. It wasn't my responsibility.

Luckily my kids were smart, responsible, and wouldn't have wanted to get behind or suffer the shame of not turning in an assignment. They did it because they wanted to. They did it for themselves. For the most part that strategy of making them responsible worked perfectly. The only time we had a glitch was once when Stephen was in 7th grade. I did monitor grades, and progress reports closely so that I could intervene if a problem surfaced. That one time, I saw that his vocabulary test grades were really slipping. I investigated. It turns out that he was copying the words down wrong from the board, so even though he was studying, he was studying them WRONG. Poor kid. I started going over his list as soon as he brought it home every Monday afternoon so we could make corrections before he started studying. And we also got an eye exam right away. He needed glasses. It fixed the problem completely.

I know both of my kids were very self-motivated. But I think it also helped them to have faith in their own abilities, to know that I trusted them with something as important as their schoolwork. I really do believe that kids become (or CAN become, but honestly some kids really do overcome even the worst parenting) what your expectations are. If you are a hovering, double-checking, over-protective parent who believes your child is incapable of dealing with things on their own, that is exactly what they become. But what happens when they grow up? Will they have enough confidence to succeed in life if they are used to Mommy taking care of everything? I don't know. I know all kids are different, and I guess some children really do need higher levels of monitoring. But some kids really could learn a valuable lesson if they were given a chance to take care of their own schoolwork. Yes, its true that they might actually fail an assignment or two. But eventually, once they realize that Mom or Dad will not pick up the slack, wouldn't that kid finally, out of some feeling of self-respect, or desire to learn or succeed figure out how to take care of these things on their own?

I don't have the answers to those questions. I know what worked for us. And I never ran around exhausted and complaining about "ALL THE HOMEWORK", because it wasn't MY homework. I did all of mine like 30 plus years ago. I guess what I'm saying is that you have to allow a child to suffer consequences sometimes. If not now, then its just a delayed reaction later. Fail an assignment now, or fail at a career (or a relationship, or at life) later. I know which one I would choose.