Thursday Thirteen (13) Things Needed for Family Event

Thirteen things needed for family event:

1. Cleaning
2. Hamburgs
3. Hotdogs
4. Steaks
5. Corn
6. Wine
7. Other liquor
8. Plastic utensils
9. Yard work!!
10. Dessert items
11. Condiments
12. Folding tables
13. Outdoor seating

Looking for places to store pictures

Since Typepad and my initiated seperation, I have been looking for alternate places to store my photo albums to share with friends et. I mean everyone wants to look at my 1000s of pictures of my dogs, right?

So there is myspace, facebook (no idea how to direct this to MY facebook LOL), and flickr that I am toying with. The advantages of myspace and facebook is that if you have friends and family already on there, you can share your photos without sharing everything else. It's just a quick cute little tool for sharing and storing what you are up too, without potentially giving out too much info (TMI).

I find facebook a bit confusing in other areas, but the photo upload is super easy, and you can hold 60 photos in an album. I haven't figured out whether the albums are limited or not!! Flickr seems easy to use to, need to look into it more. Myspace allows you to make slideshows, but the whole thing is slightly confusing.

Anyhow, that's what my geek techy side has been doing lately.

And you know those great photos that come up on your screen saver, but you actually can never find. I found that the Windows Media Player allows you to pull up all photos WITH the dates they were downloaded. It's been easier for me than doing a computer search and everything is just sort of jumbled together.

New Blog Horror Heaven

http://horrorheaven.blogspot.com/

The above is my new blog where I am consolidating all my horror movie reviews and recomendations (or not!!!).

Family Rifts Board-Re Boundaries

This is a response to another member whose parents do not acknowledge that they understand what Boundaries are:

You know my dad tried that on me too. "I don't understand what you mean". So I laid it out over and over until I got the following response "I am not stupid, of course I understand what you are saying".

It was important to me that both my parents could not claim "they were not told" or "they did not understand". I guarantee they both understood from the get go, but it's a common "matyred me" ploy. Once they can't say they don't get it anymore without looking like an idiot, then (for me anyway) I was on my way to freedom and closure.

That, and I just did not accept any excuses anymore. ME: "The monster told me to FO when I said she wasn't going to sell my house"DAD: "She was just diagnosed with diabetes and is upset." ME: "I don't accept that as an excuse from her, or a reason to talk to you more on it." DAD: speechless, as there is no argument for that.

I drew my line in the sand with 1600 foot high concrete wall that went divided us across the world and 1600 foot into the earth until or unless he could respect me. That doesn't happen, oh well. It'snot my loss by any means. In fact, I hope he never claims he can, so I just don't need to deal with him. He is just not a nice person.It's easier to forgive things if you have ever felt loved. I never have or at least since third grade when I started to formulate my own opinions.

I often wonder was it just that I wasn't a boy OR that h ejust didn't want children (but he accepts my stepbrother easily enough no matter what he does) OR he just hates females OR he just
hates me. It's an unanswerable question, and no matter what the answer is, there is just one bottom line there.

And you know what,it's not my problem!!! It's his.My boundaries are my boundaries, whether he understands them or not,that is HIS problem, NOT mine.

Family Rifts Posting-Goals Regarding Estrangement

In answer to another board member's posting, these were my answers to her questions regarding goals:

I have not "somewhat connected" with three members of my family, my father, my mother, and my stepmother. By default of my mother, I guess my step father, but I think it's that we both don't want to third party the other. We never would have just talked on the phone before anyway. I have nothing against him, is what I guess I am trying to say.

What are your goals regarding the Family Rift?

To go on with a fruitful, productive and mostly happy life. To feelgood that the decisions I made were based on some not easy but fairenough decisions.

What did/do you need to heal?

Well apologies and acknowledgements would be just lovely. Respectof my boundaries.

But that ain't gonna happen!! So accepting that it is what it is,and nothing I am going to do is going to change that. Including submitting to their wishes and wills.

Do you hope to establish reconnection?

AT this point, I hope they stay far far away, quite frankly. If at some distant point in time something changed drastically, and I do mean drastically, I would try and entertain the idea with an open mind.

to what degree?

If a drastic change happened, I imagine it would still be a very limited and superficial degree for my own sanity. It's hard to wrap my mind around something or someone changing so drastically.

Why and How?

I can't even begin to imagine why or how this would come about.This is beyond my very vivid imagination.

Or do you only hope to make sense of your estrangement, remaining disconnected, and why/how?

I think I have made sense of my estrangement. My dad hates females,and never wanted a kid. Mystery sort of solved. My step mother for some reason thought I was the equivalent of my mother, who my dad was glad to be rid of, but still treated me like the mistress living in her house. Mystery solved there as well. My mom felt entitledto things that I could not give her materially or emotionally as payment for having me in the first place. Again, mystery solved.Now years and events happened during a period of (I am counting afterI left the house) of 10 years with my mother's estrangement and a good 18 or more years with my father/step mother estrangement. All of this emotional and verbal abuse finally became clear to me as something I did not need to allow or deal with. I have given them options, made consessions, and the same has not been done for me because I am their "property/child".Many days writing and analyzing my feelings are the how. Even conversations with the parents since even if they happened via e-mailor on my blog. They really made things very crystal clear for me.

Finally Figured Out Box.net As You Can See

It's a bit slow in downloading the files, and the computer I am at allows me to edit more, et. Since it's free and cool, I will try not to complain too much, however .

Some day this will all cost money, sigh. I hope they at least consolidate storage companies (pictures, videos, music) so you aren't paying for each service. In the meantime, love these people that allow us to borrow their technology and storage space.

And I do hope it profits them at some point, but just don't want to pay more than I already do for technology LOL.

Oh, Damn-Formally Titled How Do I Keep This Grin Off My Face!

Out on assignment walking a client's dog today, and in order to use the backroads to get there and back, I have no reasonable alternative other than to pass near the S Donor's house. You know they have a summer home exactly one street over.

Darned it, don't I see a for sale sign either at their house or their neighbor's house. They were there, so I couldn't very well investigate.

Can you say Hoo Fing Ray!!! OMG, this is the best birthday present (it passed but is in this month) ever if I am right!!!! I only hope for their sake, the Monster isn't trying this on her own LOL.

Oh Dammit to hell!! It's the fing neighbor to them's house that is up for sale:( I almost had the best birthday present ever:(

Thursday Thirteen-Thirteen Services I use to Post My Blog

Here are thirteen services I use to promote and publish my blogs:

1. Well blogspot of course. The only downside to typepad is there is no photo album!! However, there is also no fee, and no hyjinx with billing. I hate typepad, and I love blogspot. As soon as I get all my typepad stuff over here, they are gone!!
2. Feedburner. This is what gets your blog out there to various services. It also foots posts that you program on blogspot's site feed to your blog. There can be some fun had there, let me tell you .
3. Technorati. Not sure exactly what this does, other than puts my blogs on yet another service, which is not a bad thing. Also let's me customize tags for my blog as a whole. BE CAREFUL WITH THIS ONE, IT WILL POST YOUR REAL NAME ON EVERYTHING. SERIOUSLY. DON'T ASK HOW I KNOW THIS, BUT IT'S HOW MY FAMILY FOUND MY SITE!!! WHOOPS. OH, IT ALSO POSTS YOUR USER ID, SO DON'T USE YOUR NAME, UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE FOUND. LIKE MY BUSINESS USES MY NAME:)
4. Google Video (used to be video egg or YouTube). Course this has had many glitches lately so in the meantime I have gone back to Youtube. Video Egg has gone commercial as in advertising, and you can no longer store your misc videos on there.
5. YouTube, a great place to store your video. Pretty easy to use as well, once you figure it out. You can also upload your video now right to blogspot, but I think there was a glitch so I stopped for awhile. Or I couldn't figure out how to have that video recognized elsewhere.
6. Yahoo images, to get those great cute cartoons on my blogs that I do not do or own myself.
7. http://mainepets.mainetoday.com/, is an alternate source for my dog training blog. It is peopled by mostly purely positive dog trainers and other professionals, and other people looking. So it's a great venue to get an alternative point of view out. Course, you can tell they are completely one sided, and I will likely never be a "featured" blogger no matter how much I contribute.
8. Sitemeter, so I can see who is visiting. Hahaheehee. Also to be very impressed with how much my visitors have grown, and that people seem to identify with the same, yet not much talked about, situation that I am in.
9. Livejournal. I can't remember why, but when I need it, I remember why!!! Do not use this that much, I suspect there is a blog there I frequent that required membership.
10. Google, I use the bookmark feature to store the blogs that I like to frequent.
11. Typepad, refusing to use for anything else other than to transfer my records over!!!
12. Blogroll. I also don't remember why. (Oh, whoops, okay it's because I found MyBlogLog that puts readers on your blog of the most recent kind, and catelogs blogs that you frequent)I think it's to be able to post other blogs you like on your website or as you add them. However, I haven't been able to really figure it out yet. Apparently there is also Blogrolling, of which I am also a member, and see where I can add the code.
13 Box.net I keep trying to figure this out. This is a service where you can share music downloaded to your computer on your blog or website!! There is a Pink song that I have wanted to put on THIS website for awhile. "You're just like a pill, instead of making me better you're making me ill." Pretty much says how I feel about certain members of my family!! Well not any more, the no contact thing has made me better ie not taking the pill.

Talking About Dear John Letters

If you click on my category "e-mail is forever" you will see another "dear john" letter to my donor. We were just talking about this on another board. When you make the decision to break away, what do you say? (I am a poet and didn't know it).

I found another "dear john" letter to my donor as follows:

No harm has been done, I just didn't want any lasting "confusion" to be on my part at all. If you are unclear on my reasons, I wanted to reiterate what they were again.

I know how it feels to hurt over these familial problems. I was quite hurt (when my request to let this house sale be a non-problem was not honored by either of you. I was further hurt when you both insisted on revisiting it, knowing that Robert's mom was dying. It was pretty crushing to me, because although I believed you both to be selfish and controlling, I thought in the end that my plea to be left alone during this extremely painful portion of me and Rob's life would be respected. Not only did you both bother him during a stressful time (he won't say this but I will), but you made this selling of our personal property so much more than that. It didn't need to be. I am sorry the other e-mails hurt you, but I wanted you to know this was not the only incident that was making me feel completely disrespected and uncared for. It would have been pretty bad even if this was the only incident.

I had never meant to tell either of you these things, as the past is the past. I am not going to change the person you are, or who Betty Ann is. It would be an exercise in futility, but I can control how I allow myself to be treated and what my boundaries are. There is no denying that. I have gone through enough pain about this in my life.

Finally, you furthered the hurt by not allowing us to just work on our relationship, but again insisting on jamming Betty Ann down my throat as you did 18 years ago. I should have never given in to you then, and we would either be beyond this point now, or we wouldn't have talked since. And I further take responsibility for repairing the breach with Betty Ann when her mother died. I gave her the idea that she could still do this, but she used to be a lot more subtle about it.

Parents during estrangement say "I didn't know this, therefore it's your fault". According to the above, to an extent that is true. However, just because you don't know that someone doesn't like to be verbally and emotionally abused does not mean that you have the right to continue to do that. Also, when I stood up for myself in the past, you made my life miserable, and the only way I have been able to cope for the last 18 years is to make as few waves as possible. I also don't like to be the B word that Betty Ann is very comfortable being. It doesn't make for nice relationships for me, and these are relationships I shouldn't have to fight that hard for. I know because I have them and other people have them, it is quite possible to disagree; respect anothers wishes, respect their different beliefs, respect their different values, and still love them (through actions not words) as a cherished family members.

Until this incident, I have treated both of you as cherished family members. Both of your disrespect, not subsequent e-mails, has hurt me deeply and caused a relationship with you to be impossible for me. If at some point, you can see this "condition" that you demand is not acceptable, we may be able to talk (I realize this would require you to make an unselfish act on your part). As is, please do not contact me again.

I accept your apology below. I am going to work on my business again now, and continue enjoying the life and people in it that I am lucky to have, and show me the same.

Robin

Well, Golleeee, they finally sold their house

Finally from 487 thou to 290 thou, and only taking two and a half years to do it!! Congrats monster, er should I say congrats to the real estate agent that FINALLY needed to handle this for you. Glad you took my advice, seems it took her a much more reasonable time frame.

Can you imagine if I had let this insect represent my property by cowtowing to her entitlement behavior, just cause she was "part of my Donor's life"!!! Wow at 2000.00 per month, just in mortgage payments that would have been 30*2000=60,000 spent. Now you get some of that in the sales price, but only the non-interest portion. Let's say that is about 1/3, so only 40,000 spent on interest while waiting. Not to mention the 3,000 in real estate taxes, maintenance to keep the property up, some utilities need to be paid in the meantime, water, and her Fing commission.

You know a really bad real estate agent is one that has been in the business for YEARS, and still only pumps out four-five properties a year. If you don't want your property sold anytime soon, and someone that is really really bad at their job, feel free to check my Monster's business site. She is available for crashing funerals as well:)

My Birthday!!

It's my birthday aggggaaaaiiiinnnn. Birthdays are okay, as are holidays (Halloween being my personal favorite). However doing good things for youself on occaision on any given day are much better. Do you really need that one day a year to come to pamper youself a bit?

My actual birthday was spent helping a client out in Portland ME first thing, as Robert took care of two dogs being picked up here. Since I love what I do, there is no better birthday present than being able to do this now for my actual bona fide living.

Earlier this year I bought myself some Ed Hardy sunglasses, which I love. Sadly, before my birthday a screw came out, now I need to return them to zappos.com. Thank Goodness for their good customer service and 365 day return policy!!! These sunglasses were not cheap, and hopefully I will get a replacement with the screw NOT coming out!!

Robert got me a bottle of Six Grapes (not the best but quite tasty) Port for me to enjoy. Then on Sunday (a day later than my birthday) we went to Wentworth by the Sea for brunch. We had an Easter Brunch there earlier on. Always good, and I gorged myself on Shrimp, Salmon, Chicken, Mozzarelly Cheese, Oysters, Herb Encrusted Chicken, and then a bevvy of small desert delights.

We later wandered around the ocean sightings, and then returned back home for a lazy day.

Busy, Busy Bee

It's been insanely busy for my business these months. I apologize for not being on top of my blogs. It has become not unusual for me to have 13 dogs in my house at any time!! Not for the faint of heart LOL, though all of them have had some sort of training, so not total chaos.

Not too much to report on the family front. Haven't bumped into my "neighbors" the Donor or Step Monster. Pretty soon, they will not be up here anymore, and as it is, they are up here on a rare weekend. And if it's going to be bad weather, they don't come up at all!! So that has been lovely.

The other donor has stopped posting about me on her blog. Also wonderful, not sure why I would care though. I am pretty confident about myself, the decisions I made, and anyone who reads the blog and doesn't know me is the only one who would wonder about what ever story she might write. I do hope her business and marriage are doing well, and that she has found some happiness and moved on.

Our dog Jazz is getting older by the day. I am doubting that she will make it to her sixteenth birthday this January, but we will see. She still continues to hold a bit of life in her LOL.