Once all the best was mine...Tipp City yea, I'm still here.

So, ummmm, yeah. For e'ry bit woohoo hallelujah positive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound that I was yesterday, I am the penultimate today.

Life is like that I guess. I don't know, I am fully just guessing. I having one of those days when I am thinking of that shirt that says,"Jesus Loves You...Everyone Else Thinks You Are An Asshole" and thinking the opposite applies to me. E'ryone loves me, Jesus thinks I am asshole.

I am. I am willfully disobedient in a few very small areas and I kinda think that I would like to be Nicole Arbour's BFF 4 life. I am not even kidding. It'll be me and Nicole Arbour and Lisa Lampanelli and we'll be toking it up with Johnny Hopkins and Slone Kettering. Okay, maybe not, but oblige me, I am in a massive funk today and I trying desperately to pull myself back on course.

I slept poorly. Had crazy, crazy dreams about my doctor and trying to get to an appointment, and so when I came back from dropping the boy off at school, I curled up on the couch. My "old mangy, transient" husband stopped by while I was sleeping and that's when I went downhill. He doesn't speak to me at all anymore, not even about things that matter. About six months ago, I thought that we were over all that but I guess is skank-ass girlfriend heard we actually had several civil conversations in a row and freaked out.

(Queue "Where is God?" by Oliver Adams)  (So obscure, I can't find it anywhere for the link.)

I know you are probably thinking at this point, what does Tammy and the Amps have to do with any of this? Well, I am glad you asked.

Tipp City has been on my mind a lot lately. I have no clue why. Not really. I mean, it's about equidistant to the grandparents so there's a bonus. It's closer to a lot of other family. It's closer to things that keep my daughter happy. It's a bit like whence I came from but without me having to constantly relive my backstory that involves being a complete douche to people who didn't deserve it. I could be me without having to prove or disprove any notions about who I am.

It's not the first time in my life I have considered Tipp City as a place to call home. Several years ago, sigh, for whatever reason, my husband (who grew up in Miami County) always wanted to go spend our free time there...despite saying he hated everything about Miami County. There's a great park in Tipp City that we would end up at occasionally. A great park where we by the end of the journey would have met new people who actually sat and hung out with us as we all watched our kids play together. At the time, his parents were helping us out quite a bit and moving to Tipp would have made sense. (My mom would have moved up there eventually because she's good like that.)

Anyway...so I totally feel like I don't fit in, don't vibrate right, don't something in my present situation. Everyone so concerned all the time with matters of consequence. Everyone so booked to the gills with stuff. I know some of it is the way that this pending divorce, the bankruptcy, the complete and total lack of ability to claim any sort of worldly success is totally f****ng messing with me. I don't need to be mega anything, but honestly no part of my life plan ever involved having to hang my head in shame and mortification as I told people my husband left me for livestock. No part of my life plan ever, ever, EVER saw me 29 days from 40 and so broke I can't even pay attention.

Shrug. This is not exactly inspirational. I am not there today. I want to be. I have cried out to the Lord so much since this morning, I think He is letting all go straight to voice mail.

What did I ever do so horrible in my life that I deserved to be cheated on and all my dreams shattered?

NOTHING.

God allowed it. No clue why and still working through some emotion on that. I am not the woman I was when this started. There is good in that but so much bad. I don't think that a lifetime in prayer and therapy will heal this gaping chest wound that my husband and his self-centered malady left me with. There is no beauty for ashes today. Today, once again God chose not to make all things new or to work all things to the good of Jen who loves him, I willfully and willingly stepped into being a full-on, stay-at-home mom. I don't regret the time. I only regret that the world is not so accommodating and that further exacerbating the annihilation of my confidence that has come from the actions of my husband is the clear cutting that comes every-time I unsuccessfully try to sell myself to some prospective employer.

I can not press any further in without actually going home to the Lord himself. That my friends is the truth of my situation. I have nothing but God and his promises. That I have survived this far in this situation is nothing but the grace of God. No joke. Pressing in doesn't mean you don't feel the pain. I feel the pain. Daily. Some days hourly. I live in a world where hypocritical women's studies lecturers fuck husbands because of their own damned brokenness. Your actions destroyed my world, my life, my peace. I fucking hate you both. May God deal with you ever so severely.

I hate this world.

I am tired of so much.

I just want to move to Tipp City and live out the remainder of my years in the relative peace of Miami County. Once...all the best...it was mine. I never once took it for granted. I really didn't But here I am. Busted and broken and abandoned. Tipp City, yeah, I am still here. And it beats the hell out of moving back to Germantown.

I never claimed perfection.

I just want to be content.

First Day of the Rest of My Life: Take 14,524

As I start this, it must be the right thing to do because Matthew West's "Day One" is playing on the radio right now.

Day one. 

No day before.

Clean slate.

The beginning.

It's late evening as I write this but that's because that is the time I have available to write. I have never been much of a conformist and the older I get the more I see the complete illusion that is calculated time. Shrug. Call me a weirdo. It's okay, I am totally fine with that. 

Lamentations 3:23-24, that's the whole His mercies are new every day thing. Sigh, but in full disclosure...I struggle with this and the idea of hope these days. Shrug. At some point, in a relentless beating, you just give up and shut down. 

That feels awful to type but it is so totally how I feel right now! 

I keep hearing that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but worry. The first time I heard that it was comforting because I have really been wrestling with well, anything and everything. 

Why wouldn't I be? 

My husband left me for a woman who somehow despite working in the women's studies department at the local state university and having done some work she feels worthy of noting involving Christianity...well, she seems to fail to recognize or even implicate herself in the ongoing financial abuse or any of the past verbal, mental, emotional or physical abuse. Plus, she has totally ruined the Beastie Boys for me because now when I hear the lines,"And beatnik chicks just wearing their smocks/ Walking high and mighty like she's #1 and /She thinks she's the passionate one." I for whatever reason think of her. But I digress...

Where was I. Oh, yeah...my husband left me. It's been almost two years. I am still in disbelief. How can a man who says that you are his whole world and that he is so grateful that God gave me to him suddenly decide that livestock makes a better romantic alternative? In my best Church Lady voice,"Hmmmm, could it be Satan?" Damn Skippy.

When all of this broke, I hit my knees and then hit the pavement and came up short. No better job, no better income, and a whole mess of other issues that have me very much fully doubting just about everything. I mean everything! As I sit here on my patio typing this, I am gonna lose this house. I have tried and tried to get more income, to get support on paper, pray, plead, hope, wish. Nothing. I love my little house. And stupidly, part of the reason I love it is because my husband worked so hard and without complaint to get us here. Wanna see the view from here? 

Okay, so the webcam takes a horrible picture. There is so much peace in this backyard. That right corner where it's all bushy should be a vegetable garden but all the rain and lack of time for weeding and um, my love of morning glories has lead to this abomination. You can't see the apple tree or the fire pit or any of the memories of all the good times in this backyard or how absolutely gorgeous the sky is tonight.

I don't know what I am supposed to do with myself. Yeah, pretty much you would not be wrong to queue up that White Stripes song of a similar name. I didn't need him when I met him or have any weird issue that made me make poor decisions. He was in my life because I wanted him and not just haphazardly, willy nilly. Fuck. (Sorry.) That's what makes this all the harder. I didn't enter into this half-cocked or aimlessly trying to fulfill some need. I repeatedly put him off. I was good in my condo with my daughter and all my friends. Something though said give him a chance.

Famous last words.

Seriously.

He just dropped our son off and he treats me like some two-bit whore he never gave two shits about. Dropped some money on the table on the porch and does not acknowledge me. It's pretty unnerving.

Anyway...

Where was I?

I am not even sure. Seriously. Seriously.

First day of the rest of my life: take 14,524. How many of those days were wasted? I shudder to think. But God's mercies are new every day. Every single solitary stinking day! This is good. It means that no matter how bad I screw up today that tomorrow is a new day. And I do screw up I struggle with forgiveness for my husband and that skank whore he is shacked up with. I struggle to be okay with a world that is okay with what is happening to me and my kids. My kids are absolute proof in a higher force to me, I don't deserve such loveliness, such awesomeness in my life, yet there they are...somehow still calling me Mom and relying on me for things despite the fact the I know without a doubt I have totally dropped the ball of providing sanity, comfort, security, peace. Ugh. I feel very bad about this. This...all of what is going on in this moment...it is not what I ever wanted or envisioned for either of them. I wanted more. Every mother does...

The mercies are new everyday, but the residual feelings of failure never seem to fade.

Maybe I am doing this all wrong.

Please advise.

Don't piss off the groupie...

So, I have had kind of a trying day. Seriously...work sucks in a I have the most production, this job totally meshes with my brain but I get no strokes, no kudos, no love sort of way. I have been looking forward to the fun and frivolity that is being a groupie. Show tonight in the dirty D, show tomorrow in Cbus. I have been looking forward to this.

So a good solid hour before last call...I get asked if I mind cashing out. Sure, why not since you don't seem to mind missing the damage I was planning to do. Why not, go ahead cash me out...oh and while you are at it when I go to the bathroom go ahead and clear the mfin table.

IT is not like this is primetime and you are trying to turn the table for Dufraines, party of four. Many of the people that are in your shitty establishment tonight, didn't come for you. They would not have ever had any motivation to visit this place in the middle of the urban wasteland that is Dayton, Ohio.

And now without the benefit of my liquid refreshment...i gotta wait around while the people who played haggle for what you said you would give them in the first f'in place.

It all makes me feel very, VERY Mr.Pink. Like really if you are going to be in the service industry and be this shitty...learn to type. An office job is a very steady gig and it saves you the negative karma of totally ruining the evening of someone who REALLY needed a night out.

I am so done with the dirty D and the less than stellar atmosphere. I have been trying to cut it some slack but tonight pretty much proved to me that like a lying, cheating boyfriend who says he has changed...this town is just as useless!

And on that note, sweet Cbus I am coming to visit tomorrow. Take my money and show me a good time. I am apparently not good enough to be entertained in Dayton.

Sitting alone on the front patio of a bar, not exactly how I envisioned my night. I could have stayed home for this!

Women with Heart Network Shopping & Bingo Event at Valley Vineyards 5/3/2012

Mark your calendars! Thursday, May 3, 2012 the Women with Heart Networking Group will present its bi-monthly shopping and bingo event at beautiful Valley Vineyard in Morrow, Ohio.

Doors open at 7pm for Shopping / Bingo begins at 8pm
Cash & Carry Items will be available, and all in attendance must be at least 18 years of age!

The Women with Heart Networking Group (WHNG) has a mission to give back to our community. Abuse and Rape Crisis Shelter (ARCS) will be our spotlight charity and we ask that everyone who attends the WHNG Bingo event bring a donation for ARCS. You can find their wishlist online at: http://www.arcshelter.com/wish_list. When you arrive, you will receive one bingo card for your donation.

You can earn extra bingo cards during shopping hour for visiting with the vendors, making purchases, booking home parties, or even signing up as a consultant with one of our vendors.Each of our vendors supply a prize from their company. The value of these prizes usually ranges from $25-30 and every vendor displays their Bingo prize 
 
Food and wine will be available for purchase from Valley Vineyards throughout the event.

If you are looking for a fun evening with friends, I highly recommend you make plans to come to the WHNG Shopping and Bingo on May 3, 2012 at Valley Vineyards.

Valley Vineyards is located at  2276 East US 22 & 3, Morrow, Ohio 45152 and has been making quality, award-winning, nationally recognized wines for over 40 years.

Vendors may include: Tupperware, Body by Vi, Melaleuca, Partylite, Kele and Co, Scentsy, Votre Vu, Lia Sophia, Silpada, Do You Bake, Thirty-one, Gold Canyon, Mary Kay, Celebrating Home, Pampered Chef, Wildtree, Longaberger, and Tastefully Simple. If you represent a company not listed here and are in the Lebanon, Ohio area visit the WHNG Group page on Facebook to get more information about joining our wonderful group.