These pretzels are making me thirsty...

I don't know why I picked that. Probably because it is one of the last times I am going to random with my blogs. I had an epiphany today. Goood god I have no idea why it took so long for these certain things to click. A little slow on the uptake Jen, a little slow on the uptake.

I never really intended this to be a rambling, personal blog. I actually had that in Chisel Point for Deeper Penetration. I could go back there for that sort of thing. Anyway, I really did have a theme and a plan and I just didn't know how to execute it. Or perhaps, on a divine level, it just wasn't my time. Well, now is the time and over the next couple weeks there are going to be changes here. nothing drastic, but certainly noticeable.

Today has been fantastic.

To post or not to post, that is the question in this SEO crazy social media mixed up world.

Something that I have on my toolbar that most people don't is SEO tools. My husband's old job required them, I learned to use them. I can't help it I am an information junkie. I like to know things.

So, I am getting some business related things together and looking at options. It is not until you really start looking that you see how full of snake oil the entire internet is. People claiming certain following on Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter and whatnot, but then to look at their site through the SEO tools... well, pure crap plain and simple.

I am not trying to be rude but if your page rankings are abyssmal and your FB page has more commercial graffiti than Times Square what really is the benefit of jumping on your advertising specials? Wouldn't I be better off putting my hard earned dollars to work in something as silly as the Coffee News? You might laugh, but I pick one up every time I see one. It's something idle to look at and they do get me everytime which is more than I can say for most online sites.

I don;t know. I am into some really good stuff and I just don't want to waste my money on some dark corner of the internet. I have kids, I don't really need to try to throw money away they do it for me :)

In other news, I am totally off schedule and wondering if a long meditation tomorrow would sync me back up. I totally understand the whole guru fascination at times like these...

Anyway...random...sorry...

Lit in the Middle...

First, can I just say that the new Tabasco Buffalo Sauce is awesome? I have been pouring it on top of ranch dressing and dipping pretzels in it.

Feels a bit lately like some one saw both ends of my candle lit so they lit it in the middle to be a smart ass. It's not a complaint, more of an observation. Lots and lots to keep me busy which is always better than boredom, I just haven't quite got a handle on everything.

We were in Chicago over the weekend and the weather was fantastic! I can't say so much for here. It rained most of the day yesterday. Today, well, it was pretty gloomy to start. One of the things that attracts me about moving Southwest is the sun. I don't do so well anymore with gray skies. They are just not acceptable...maybe this positive thinking has gone overboard.  Anyway, weather wise today was humid and yucky and not very sunny.

Got together with some Clever girls this evening. It was nice. Mostly just rehashed convention for those who weren't there. I am still very excited about this company. I just wish I could get some movement and get on the board! I have been having a goofy month because I canceled the open house and have not rescheduled it. I was going to do it this weekend, but part of me wants to hold off 'til the new catalog is released in July. I really just need to get my butt in gear and get moving.  I need to sell $150 a day til the end of the month to make my goal. Seems easy, right? I hope so.

The trip knocked me off center. I am not very solidly centered yet as far as most things go and I get knocked off track pretty easily. Scheduling is hard to nail down when there are other people in your life. I am aiming toward setting some working hours of 5a-7a and again from 3p-4p. These are mostly for me to do administrative things and honestly some housework. Shifting to an early wake seems better than staying up too late. Eventually, I would just go to be earlier and everything would work out.

Everything is going to work out. I just have to have patience.

I'm doing better thanks for asking!

Okay, so I am up past midnight and I need to be in bed fast asleep but other than that I am doing much better than I was oh say a week ago. At least right now I am, and that's really all I can look at is right now.

I came down to write because I was laying there thinking about Qigong. Now, I don't really know anything about Qigong. I can't even define it. I can only say that I clicked through a series of links awhile back for some Qigong healing something or other. It was intriguing enough (and free) so I tried to follow what they were doing. You had to state your intention to join in the healing at the prescribed time and then during that time you had to meditate or relax so that you could more easily receive the energy.

One particular thing I remember about all the rules were that you could not state an intention for someone else because the flow of energy would basically freak them out.  Or at the very least you had to be careful about the way you did it. Anyway, on some level my cursory knowledge of this ancient Chinese secret sounds an awful lot like prayer...when done on a high than I want this I want that level.

Is it a coincidence that the more spiritually connected I become the more interested in science I seem to be? Physics particularly. I don't know. I never took it in high school or college. It always seemed beyond my reach. Then again, so did any sort of belief in any higher power.

If the Qigong healing is working and you are feeling all wonky from the inflow of healing energies would not positive, loving prayers utter by you or on your behalf by others have the same effect? And if people were praying for you and you were not receptive to the energy, wouldn't that surge be a little unsettling? How would you react? Lots of very interesting stuffs swirling around my head. I would like to be eloquent enough to have conversations about these things but alas lately there seems to be a traffic jam from my brain to my mouth.

I know this is quite a turn from my last post. I would love to get into what changed, but as I tried to recount the chain of events to a friend the other night...well, it sounded completely unbelievable and I don't want to diminish the importance this has to be by putting it up to other people's judgments. I have been feeling better everyday. I don't like being in that other place. I like it like this. This is the me I have been missing. You know the one that wants to talk about spiritually, religion and quantum physics at o'clock in the morning.

Oh, I still get bogged down at times. It's all part of life. I read a great anecdote about a storm coming through and the next morning there being a lot of debris around this particular tree. A child asked if the storm had hurt the tree because of the volume of leaves and branches that had been knock out by the storm. The child's father answered that it had not, that it was probably in better shape now because the storm had cleared dead growth from the tree. It went on to counsel that at stormy times of life we are a lot like that tree. We get beaten and battered by the winds of the changes in our lives but once the storm clears we usually find that we have knocked loose old habits, old attitudes, and other things that no longer serve us, making us better, making us stronger.

That's what I am thinking about, what do you think?

So it goes...

This is an entry that I started 6/8 but put aside to do my mood in six songs or less. This font this color is what I have written today.


I was thinking of some lyrics to a Waits song, but pulled this one up. I clearly know that this is NOT the song I was thinking of but yet it is what I typed. Weird how the mind and the fingers communicate sometimes isn't it?

Do you ever just wonder what the point of any of this all is? I have had a less than stellar day, like the third in a row. I mentioned in my status on Facebook that I was having some difficulties, might have been nice if someone other than my husband acknowledged them. The positive there is that is proves that we are not co-dependent and in fact it really is that no one else talks to me.

As I am writing this, he is slamming things around in the kitchen. Stupid rental. Stupid renters. Stupid us for ever thinking that we might get somewhere peaceful in life. Of course, two days ago, the bad mood was because he had been in Chicago and coming back here was really depressing. Thanks honey, I love you too!

I am not a saint by any stretch of the word. I try to be "good" but I am only human. My capacity for most things is greatly diminished these days.

today. Two days after I started this entry and despite trying to get centered I still feel like I am riding a super sonic soul centrifuge. The dark just keeps rolling in like raging storm and dampening any of the bright spots. 

Ah, so the blessed rental has it's central air fixed. Sure, my personal HVAC unit is in dire need of repairs. I don't have AC in my personal vehicle. We have someone whom we are paying to act on our behalf as property manager but I do not think he is really doing a very good job. The whole point of having that is to alleviate some of the headache that comes with renting property. The whole point is to have a reliable point of contact who protects OUR interest, not coddles the renter, or misinforms us as to the gravity of the situation. The whole point of paying this percentage every month is so that my husband doesn't end up in hospital or jail from having to deal with self-righteous, self-entitled, spoiled adult children.  EPIC FAIL. 

My anxiety has kicked in over the past few weeks. Manageable. Bearable to some extent. Completely unwelcome and annoying. There is no functional purpose for anxiety. I have no control over it. Trust me, I know all the techniques for healthy,non-prescription relief of anxiety. They fail to give me any relief anymore. So, what comes next better living through chemicals? I don't know. All that really does is dull the physiological so that you can pretend that everything is okay. If I am just going to dull the pain, why not just walk two blocks to the wine shop? Who cares that it's only about 11am? Obviously being responsible and mindful hasn't been working. 

Last night, I pretty much listened my husband renounce everything he believes. I heard him give up. I heard every bit of his hurt and pain. There's nothing I can do about it. I agree with him way too much on some points to be objective, but I am smart enough to not jump in and agree and set off a whole folie a deux we might later regret. I resent him a little too. After all, he has spent an inordinate amount of our time together basically telling me that I was mmmm, closed-minded in my view of faith and all that goes along with it. I can't be the closed-minded because I have sought outlets based on his recommendations. We found someplace we seemed to be able to both benefit from...and...now...

I can't speak for him but I feel like if there is a higher power then the last 12-18 months have only really just confirmed that we are not, nor will we ever be "chosen" people. You know, they say with jobs that if you don't have at least one person that you would consider your work BFF then you probably should considered moving on because it isn't a good fit for you. I don't have a church BFF. I officially gave up on trying to talk to people yesterday. I have had every faith that I would get this picnic coordinated with ease. It's not falling together as it should be, and if no ones else cares why should I? I agreed because I thought it would be a good way to get to know people better. I don't think that is really where people are at, they don't want to get to know me better. 

I find myself thinking a lot about my past, my husband's past, all the things that we both have overcome. All of those things that we have overcome are what made it easy to believe on some level that there is something more out there, that there is a higher level of consciousness that we humans are supposed to pursue and be rewarded by. If I have said it once, I have said it a million times. I often wish that I could take back all the money I spent on college and buy a muscle car. I would have gotten far more use out of a '69 GTO convertible over the past ten years than I have my college diploma. 

You might argue that all we overcame brought us together, but truth be told I am fairly sure that if we had met when we weren't all-together great specimens of man it wouldn't have changed anything. We would be a rough and tumble Jenny and Ryan, a white trash version of who were are now if I may be so crass. We both have been honest about our lives, warts and all, and not in any back handed or begrudging way. 

There really is no point to this. Or much point to anything really. No one gets out alive so why in the hell do we have to take it all so seriously all the time?

My mood in six songs or less...

It happened to have been the first song that my iPod played when I sat down, and well, let's just say it is striking a nerve.


Chaotic Dischord is probably not a band you have ever heard of, unless you have hung out with me extensively. For a long time, this song made it on to a great many mix tapes and burned CDs. We have all felt this way. I certainly feel this way right now. Kids are far too medicated today for punk to live on in this beautifully angsty way. Maybe it's better to be medicated, than beautiful and angsty, who knows.


The saddest song in the world. The only thing worse is if I break out the Tori Amos. Granted, Tori Amos never invaded my head and haunted me like this Aimee Mann song. "All the perfect drugs and superheros wouldn't be enough to bring me up to zero."


A list like this wouldn't be complete with out Waits. This particular song seems appropriate for many reasons. My anxiety flares up and burns my chest. I know it isn't a heartattack but I would imagine on a bad day that is feels pretty similar. Plus, "Don't you know there ain't no devil, there's just God when he's drunk" Yeah, my God must be some sort of full on, raging alcoholic. It's how it feels lately. My faith is wearing thin. As a matter of fact, for the most part my belief, my faith, my wishing, my hoping, my praying has been met by the exact opposite of a solution. Hearing about these events being part of a plan or somehow co-created by me or that I haven't learned what I am supposed to yet has worn my patience thinner than my faith.


Someday. Isn't that what we are all waiting for? I know I keep working and plugging along on things in hopes that someday it will all pay off. I try to just be in the day, but the world really doesn't work like that any more. Not less, you go 100% off grid and hide out in a hole by yourself. Otherwise, people have expectations. Seems like no matter how much I try to live free of other people's expectations, their shoulds for me, I can't. I don't fit, won't fit, can't fit whatever mold they are trying to put over me. I have been trying very hard to be positive, but I just don't have the strength to do it when everyone around me is so negative. I have been working very hard at not getting pulled into other people's dramas, and you know what, it sucks. If I had wanted solitude, I would have stayed in my room as a kid. I would have delved into some sort of research career. And holed up in some cramped apartment with cats writing bad poetry late into the night.

Well, there's five. I told you six or less. Mostly because once I start playing music my mood tends to change. Well, and I get bored of it. Sitting around, typing out a blog no one reads, searching for songs on YouTube that no one has ever heard of.

I generally cranky and no one was written a song about that as far as I know.

Hopefully, I haven't depressed anyone too much. You should always take me with a grain of salt and a lime. I taste better that way. :-P