Confession – I don’t read anymore. Not physical books, not even e-books. My latest obsession is audio books. I know, I know – I used to scoff and make fun of people who listen to audio books – “that’s cheating! You call that reading?!” And yet – here I am. I listen to books and craft – that’s my thing, for now, at least. And I have to admit – listening to a book being read adds a whole new dimension to reading.
But I digress.
Kindergarten teacher Lily Gallo is a happily married mother of three who considers her life perfect… until the day she’s brutally assaulted while out on a run. When the town’s high school football hero is arrested for the attack, Lily’s family suffers retaliation from local sports fans.
Recovering from her injuries, Lily wraps herself in an opioid cloud. Later, a barely avoided tragedy motivates her to flush the narcotics. But her return to sobriety is overshadowed by unnerving memory lapses and her husband’s growing mistrust.
As unremembered events become more disturbing, Lily is convinced that she’s being stalked. Though her attacker started the destruction of her life, someone else is determined to finish it.
Lily was out for a run, on a trail that she used every day, and ran by a person she saw nearly every time she ran. Yet, for some reason, out of the blue, this person brutally attacked her and left her for dead. Fortunately, a couple, walking their police dog, with a nose trained to find people, sniffed her out and she was rescued.
She was pretty beat up: a broken jaw, a brain bleed so they had to shave her head in order to do surgery, broken fingers, leg and ribs. She was nearly unrecognizable.
She wasn’t only physically beaten, she was also emotionally damaged.
The road to recovery was long and tedious.
To compensate for her physical pain and the mental flashbacks and panic attacks, Lily starts relying more and more on pain killers. It soon becomes a problem and she’s hiding medication around the house to hide the fact that she has developed a problem to her family.
Months go by and Lily starts to lose track of time and her memory is spotty. When her behavior starts to endanger her family, it serves as a wake-up call that she has a problem and needs help.
Her “perfect” relationship with her husband is strained and their bond starts to unravel.
In the meantime, the person who attacked her is eventually identified and sent to jail. But his sentence is light and he is soon released one year after the attack. Lily has gotten control of her opioid addiction by the time her attacker is released, or so she thinks, as strange things continue to happen to her. Even though Lily is fairly sure she isn’t taking medication anymore, her behavior is so odd and uncharacteristic that she doubts herself and her family doesn’t trust her.
When tragedy again strikes her family, her husband finally believes her about not taking medication and instead realizes that something strange is happening to them. Lily and her husband join forces and together, they try and piece together what is happening.
My Thoughts
This story was told in first person. I’m not the biggest fan of first person – I get bored being in one person’s head all the time. And this story was no exception. Even though it was important to the story that the reader KNOW and FEEL what Lily was going through, how she slowly lost control of herself and then fought to find herself again, only to struggle with possibly losing herself again, I would have liked to be inside her husband’s head to get his perspective on Lily’s behavior. I found myself getting a little bored and impatient with Lily and just wanted her to snap out of it, stop being such a wuss, though I’ll be fair and give the author credit for taking me to the very edge of frustration only to pull me back from the brink. It’s like the author knew she was pushing her readers’ patience and decided she needed to inject some strength back into her character to keep her readers from giving up on her.
I wanted to get inside the husband’s head because their relationship was strong and his love and trust in her took quite a beating – it rocked their foundation. I appreciated reading about a normal couple with strong love ties to one another not only weathering the chaos but working together and coming through the ordeal even stronger. It was refreshing to see a couple that works together instead of against each other.
I knew, about 2/3 through the book how it would end. It wasn’t super obvious but there were a few times I felt the author let the cat out of the bag a little too soon. Though I knew what was happening and who was responsible for it, I ultimately didn’t see who the actual “bad” person was, so that was as surprise.
I also really enjoyed the tug o’ war relationship between Lily and her teenage daughter. I thought that relationship was beautifully written and pretty realistic.
I didn’t roll my eyes once.
The relationship between Lily and her brother was interesting and it felt a little out-of-place in the story overall. That side story felt almost like an afterthought. I think the reason the author chose to include the brother/sister relationship in the story was to inject some humility into Lily when it came to judging people who develop addictions. Her brother started drinking shortly before he graduated from high school and that splintered her family. She never knew why her brother started drinking but she harshly judged him and in fact, they were estranged for ten years. It took her addiction to pain meds to force her to understand that addiction happens for a variety of reasons and that people who have addiction need help, not shunned. Her understanding eventually healed their relationship.
Goodreads Comments
This book was my first by this writer, and l really have mixed feelings about it. The beginning was good as was the end, but the middle was painfully long. In fact, so much was jammed into the end that it felt rushed.
I have to agree – the middle did drag. That’s why I think the brother/sister aspect of the story came into play – the author needed something more to fill the pages – Lily’s emotional self-exploration and self-centered attitude got old, fast.
Entertaining, but would have benefited from more development of the relationship between the characters. Some were so nondescript I needed to go back to remember where they were first introduced.
Agreed! In fact, when the villain of the story was revealed, I didn’t even remember who it was or what sort of relationship this person had with Lily. I think it might have worked better if the author had taken out the brother/sister part of this story and had flushed out her relationship with the villain more – I think it would have made the reveal more impactful.
One of these days, I’ll actually catch up to these Reflections’ entries. I really want to finish these because they’re an extension/expansion of the daily journal I write in. I have to say, it’s pretty fun to go back and read my journal. I will likely never read it again.
Apr 1
I’m looking forward to taking two weeks off next month. Still no word about my co-worker leaving – when is her last day? What is the plan after she leaves? But let’s be honest – my job is okay, and I even enjoy it, but our management team is a little like a Tom/Jerry cartoon – pure chaos. We’ll see. Kevin and I looked into Viking Cruises. I know I sound like a spoiled brat saying this, but we’re, (okay, me), sort of bored with “traditional” cruises. We’ve taken … close to 20 – Kevin is likely closer to 20 than me, he’s taken a cruise with LeRoy and the boys without me before, but we’re ready for something different. A Viking cruise is on our bucket list – but geez louise, they’re expensive.
Apr 2
Word is management is thinking of turning our group into precert/call center. WTH? On one hand, I get it. We are the middle man between the patient and registration – we run the tests, update the documents and registration has to call the patients to reschedule/cancel depending on our results. I’m sure registration gets yelled at – they work with the public after all. But part of the biggest reason I wanted this remote job was so that I WOULDN’T have to talk to people. I had had enough of that working in a Neurosurgery clinic for 12 years. I’m DONE with that. I’m ticked, not gonna lie. I don’t see how in the world we can get our work done if we’re constantly being interrupted by ringing phones. The insurance portals we work out of are timed, so .. I’m in the middle of a case, my phone rings, it’s a patient, I time out of the portal on a case I’m in the middle of, the case goes to pending and suddenly I’m having to get the provider involved because I couldn’t finish before it timed out? Um, no, I don’t think so. If anything, let’s put some sort of chat feature together that patients can reach out to find out if their insurance has approved their tests – I would be down with that option. But calm down, Karen, it’s only a rumor, let’s see how this shakes out.
Apr 3
Our new luggage is here! Our new luggage is here! It’s hard shell. We’ve never had hard shell before – it’s always been the soft cloth luggage. It’s so pretty! It’s blue, but a dark blue, like a purple blue. When I picked up the box, I got worried – it was so heavy! My first thought was, “oh no, I’m going to have to stress about how heavy this ends up being.” But once I opened the box and took out all three pieces, I wasn’t that worried anymore. They were all pretty light weight. I’m excited to use it! We haven’t bought new luggage in forever and the luggage we currently use is still fine, but the wheels are wonky and again, I don’t want to have to stress about my luggage while mom and I run through airports to make our connecting flights. (Gosh – I hope that doesn’t happen). Since they’re such a common color though, I’m thinking about buying luggage bands. We’ll see. I’ve been having a BLAST watching travel/pack videos and shopping for neat don’t-really-need-but-are-cool travel items on Amazon.
Apr 5
It poured today! We’ve had so much rain these past three days. It was chilly, too, so mom wanted to go to Wendy’s for some chili. They still have the best chili, in my opinion. We ate inside and there were two homeless guys near us who literally had their belongs sprawled across several tables. One was asleep and snoring. Mom and I got nervous and kept our purses close. The manager finally came out and told them to leave. I’m sure they were taking shelter from the rain and my heart goes out to them, but also, life is full of choices, some good, some bad, but ultimately, all have consequences. Mom and I talked about our cruise and what shore excursions we wanted to take. They’re booking up fast! I need to get a move on and book them before all of the good ones are taken. Mom doesn’t really care, she trusts me to just pick them. Gah – I’m nervous now. lol
Apr 7
Bit the bullet and booked our shore excursions yesterday! Ended up spending about $600, which YIKES. We happen to be taking one of the most expensive cruises available, (Alaska – Hawaii is also expensive), but it will be SO WORTH IT. Alaska is GORGEOUS! Kevin and I went several years ago. I’d like to go back again with Kevin one of these days. I was able to cash in $250 dollar ship credit though so it brought the cost of the excursions down by nearly half, so that was a nice perk. Booked the times for afternoon because Kevin and I have done all early morning excursions before and it was exhausting! Want to have fun but don’t want to wear mom (or me – mom is in better shape than me, truth be told), out too much. I’m so excited for this cruise!
Apr 8
Feeling a little guilty about how much money I’ve been spending for this cruise. But I really want to take this trip – who knows if I ever get to do something like this with my mom again, so the money is worth it. Its only money, right?? You live once, right?? There are a few more things I want to buy before the trip but I need to stretch this out, let the pocketbook cool off a bit. I’m getting my hair done soon – crap – there goes another $100.
Apr 9
Kevin wants to keep the Jeep.
(That’s our oldest son sitting in it)
I have a feeling I may have to fight him a little bit on that. I mean, don’t get me wrong, driving a Jeep Wrangler is super fun .. and the whole Jeep community is pretty great, too, (doing the lazy finger lift to wave at passing Jeeps is always fun), but WOW, this little beauty is expensive. Like, stupid expensive. And we’re leasing … oh, for SOO many reasons. This is our first time leasing but we’ll likely continue to lease for the foreseeable future. There are pros/cons, but it’s worth it to us to have a car that is reliable and if it needs anything, we can just take it to the dealer and have it fixed. Cars are so complicated anymore – it’s not like we can go down to O’Reilly’s and grab a spare part. The Jeep has SIX computers. Dude. However – we DO need to take some road trips before we turn her, (yes, she’s a she), back in April 2028.
Apr 10
Had an impromptu meeting with my supervisor today. She didn’t sugar coat it – she flat out said that we have to continue cleaning up other people’s crap, i.e. work other people’s messy, sloppy cases and if I didn’t like it, perhaps I need to go to another group. Well, alrighty then. I appreciated her honesty, at least. Now I know what to expect. I have some thinking to do, I suppose. I most likely just need to cool my jets and stop being a brat. Overall, I like this job. I LOVE being remote and I know I’m good at what I do. This is a big con, but it’s not a deal breaker for me. At least, not yet.
Apr 11
Had the day off today. No reason, really. I take random Fridays off here/there just to recharge my mental health. I hate when people talk about mental health, I feel like it’s a lot of woo-woo talk from crazy, sensitive boneheads, (I’m a Gen X’er – need I say more?), but honestly, it IS a thing. It’s mentally exhausting to juggle so many duties, personalities, carry the entire group on my shoulders, just call me Atlas. Didn’t really have anything planned – I went ahead and got on the treadmill this morning like usual, (I try and walk at least three times during the workweek since I sit on my butt all day, every day). I typically walk about one hour each time while I listen to trance music, (hey don’t laugh – it’s energetic and gets me revved up), and watch Asian made-for-TV shows on Amazon Prime. I like to read the sub-titles because it distracts me so much from the treadmill. Kevin and I made our monthly trip to Wal-Mart, (he HATES going to Wal-Mart so we try and only go once a month), and while I was doing research, dotting my i’s and crossing my t’s on the Royal Caribbean site, I noticed that I had listed mom’s name as Barb on our tickets but her full legal name is Barbara. I am SO GLAD that I thought to look further into that because if her name doesn’t match what’s on her passport, they might not let her board. OMG – so I called Royal Caribbean and got that changed. Thank GOD they didn’t give me any trouble over that. Wow … I’m an idiot. I just want this trip to go smoothly.
Apr 12
Mom came over today. I’ve been recording our conversations when we talk to my sister on Google Meet. The last one I recorded was May 2024. I need to get back to it. I know she hates it, and it does feel a little awkward at first, until you forget the camera and the ring light are in your face, but I’m doing it on purpose with purpose. Mom talks about listening to the cassette tapes her, her mom and sisters would send to each other when she lived outside our home town. They were audio letters to each other and I think that’s so cool. To be able to listen to each other talk, hear their voices (they’re all gone now) .. what a cool memory. So, I thought I would do that with mom but put her on camera as well. I want see and hear my momma after she passes. My dad dying – it’s made me super sensitive to death and appreciating life while we still have it. Gave mom an invoice of her financial share of the cruise – yeah – it was a lot. But it will be so WORTH IT!
Apr 14
Got my hand virtually slapped today. I was basically told to sit down and shut up, in a manager-ish sort of way. You know the manager talk – a lot of words, don’t really say anything. I was told that being handed a virtual mop and bucket was now part of my job and that it’s. Stop bitching about it. This asinine decision has come from higher management (doesn’t it always?) and my immediate bosses can’t do anything about it. My immediate bosses are actually pretty great, I truly like them, and I get it, if you don’t have the power, if you want to keep your job, you continue to smile, nod and take it up the butt. Fine. I’ll just continue to get overtime, I guess. I truly don’t mind working so much, I like those numbers on my paycheck, but it’s the principle of it. When you are asked to clean up other people’s messes, that naturally trickles down to people don’t care to do a good job, because why? When people know someone else is going to clean it up, and there’s no accountability, why? But whatever – I’ll accept my destiny – for now.
Apr 15
Mom got a surprise visit from her great granddaughter! H was in town with her class to go to the Discovery Center and H’s mom decided to drop by and say hello. F is a good person, and is always thinking of my mom. Mom was SO happy to see them. Warms my heart.
Apr 16
Blake sent Kevin a picture – of an ant attack in their bathroom. There is probably one in the kitchen, too. What do you expect from a bachelor pad? (Though – some women are pretty nasty, too), I hate to see it, but also, maybe this will be a motivation for them to keep their house clean. There is also nothing more jarring than stumbling into the bathroom first thing, pulling back the shower curtain only to waken with a jolt when you see a spider in the tub desperately trying to crawl out. Ah Spring, how I hate thee.
Apr 17
Booked Mama Mia tickets to the Alamo for Mother’s Day. I booked three tickets since my sister mentioned she might come down. Even if she doesn’t, that’s okay, I would rather have a ticket than not. I’m excited for mom to have that dinner/movie experience.
Apr 18
Got a ton of overtime this week. I was working two people’s jobs since my co-worker was out on vacation. Should be a pretty decent check.
Apr 19
Went to moms. Had lunch at McAlisters then back to her house for Survivor, crafting and talking to sis. I think mom is starting to come back to the land of living since dad died. She’s been walking around in a shocked daze since he passed. It’s good to see. I was truly worried about her.
Apr 20
Easter! Mom came over and she put a scavenger hunt together – we all participated. Brandon got all of the items first. We had flying saucers for dinner, (fried tortilla shells topped with hamburger meat, pinto beans and all the taco trimmings), then played three rounds of Sequence. We love that game. We decided to get together in the evening to make it easier for Blake to be there since he’s been working nights.
Apr 21
Sun was out but it’s been wet and windy so far this Spring. Kevin and I feel like characters out of the Wizard of Oz, walking through the poppies – the tree pollen pretty much knocks us out. Kev comes home and just collapses in his recliner because the pollen makes him so sleepy. Both of us. I have more of a problem with Ragweed in the Fall but when the temps drastically change – like 30 to 40 degree difference IN ONE DAY, my sinuses squeeze so much they trigger massive headaches. Not fun. Did I mention I hate Spring?
Apr 22
Had a department meeting today to talk about communication. Or the lack thereof. Because we’ve been asked to clean up other people’s messy cases, when we run into a problem and contact that analyst abut it, she gets butt hurt, complains to management and management comes back and says, “Now, now, we are not asking you to audit your peers …” Um – bitch- that’s EXACTLY what you’re asking!! If someone is consistently making mistakes, we’re not supposed to say something? What about “learning opportunities” as management likes to call it. The meeting pissed me off so much I “lost connection” and left the meeting. I’ve never done that before but I knew if I didn’t exit the situation, I may not have a job tomorrow.
Apr 23
Shit show today. I worked a 12-hour shift because one of my co-workers left early and the other one had to leave unexpectedly due to family issues. That left me with useless chatty Cathy. I ended up doing all the work and of course, it was a one step forward, two-step backward sort of day. I was mentally exhausted when I finally clocked off. I have so much overtime right now – and it’s only Wednesday!
Apr 24
Mom gave me a check for her portion of the cruise, Seattle hotel room, excursions … yikes – it was a lot of money. I pray everything goes smoothly. I want mom to enjoy herself. For this much money, we better enjoy ourselves!
Apr 25
My pissy attitude and mouthing off is starting to affect the team. I think they’re over it, and me. So – I need to just shut up, keep my suggestions to myself and do my work. Why am I trying to make sense out of something that doesn’t make sense? I’m driving myself crazy, and from the sounds of it, I’m driving my co-workers nuts, too. A blast went out today giving people permission to work this weekend and get overtime. Here’s a thought – why not have everyone do their own damn work and then there wouldn’t be a need to ask people to work overtime. Oops – there I go again, making a suggestion. AARGH.
Apr 26
Mom came over. We ate at Zaxby’s. We were both disappointed with the quality of food. This was our second time going and we just aren’t impressed enough to go back again, I think. We bought some cookies at Crumbl Cookie for our treat – OMG – they are so good but SO EXPENSIVE. We bought four cookies for $20!! However – technically, the cookies are big enough they are really two cookies in one. We split the cookies we bought. We got Raspberry cheescake, Reese’s peanut butter, chocolate chip, and double layer carrot cake. Filmed mom talking – it was a nice chat.
Apr 28
Book sale at the library is on Wednesday. I would love to go – I used to LIVE for those sales. So many cheap books. I love the smell of books, the comradery of being around other people who also love books, not that I talk to anyone, but still … Kevin wasn’t really interested in books for a long time, but he’s getting back into reading and really loves buying non-fiction books for dirt cheap when he’s out looking for inventory for his thrift market booths. But now, I don’t go to book sales. I don’t buy physical books anymore. It’s all e-books. I know this is a controversial topic – physical books or e-books – but I’m in the e-book category. I love that I can carry so many books in one device and not have to find room to store a physical book and/or think about how I’m going to get rid of my excess books. Even though I don’t buy physical books anymore, I do sort of miss going to the book sale.
Apr 29
Tornado sirens went off at 9:00 this AM. Lights flickered but didn’t go out. I’m surprised, we usually lose our power whenever someone sneezes. It got pitch black and very still .. it was kind of scary. So I shut my computer down and Kev called me to ask if I wanted to come over to the rental house, (which is across the street) to go into the basement. I didn’t end up going over there. Kev’s dad was over at the house, he was watching him while his mom participated in her Bible study class. His dad is declining fast. He gets around okay, but he forgets things so it’s really not safe for him to be unsupervised for any length of time. But that’s okay, Kevin enjoys spending time with his dad. We ended up losing a few limbs, (shocker – our trees drop limbs at the slightest breeze), but overall, it wasn’t bad and we didn’t have to take cover.
Apr 30
Well, 50,000 people lost power in our city yesterday and are still out today. I feel bad for not thinking it was very bad – it wasn’t bad for us. I was also shocked because our neighborhood is usually one of the first to lose power, and we didn’t this time. In fact, we lose power so much Kevin and I have talked about investing in a home generator. So that if we lose power, the generator automatically kicks in and is powerful enough to power everything in our house. I would love to have one of those, but they are EXPENSIVE. And though we lose power frequently, I’m not sure we lose it enough to justify paying for a home generator. I left the house to grab some lunch and again was shocked to see a few of our neighbors’ trees had exploded in their yards. Luckily, it didn’t look like it hit their houses, so thank goodness for that. We really did get off lucky. (Not luck – God protected us). According to the city map, it looked like mom was out of power but she said she hadn’t lost it when I checked on her. Thank goodness. Did I mention I hate this time of year?
I’m sorry – what?! Wouldn’t that make me and Kevin …….. OLD?!?
Seriously. How does this even happen? I look at him and still see my chubby, restless, blonde cherub.
He was 8 lb, 8 oz big when he was born. I could barely push his overly big head out. I would push and push and push and the little booger would slip back in once I took a breath.
Little stinker.
Once he was born, he didn’t make much noise and we worried about him for a little bit. But once he got the gunk out of his lungs … he CRIED. Boy has a strong set of lungs on him.
He was the kind of kid that when he got tired, NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING would distract him from sleep. He wouldn’t take a pacifier, but he wanted his blankie, he was my Linus baby.
He hated to dress up in costumes, like Halloween. He didn’t (and still doesn’t) like candy and then forcing him to participate in a holiday where you get candy … yeah – we tortured the kid.
We found this board in the back of his closet. In his old bedroom. Where he hasn’t slept in over 10 years.
This was for a school project.
(See the picture of him dressed up as a soldier? I told him to look mean but he was CLEARLY annoyed – haha!)
And that picture of him with his blankie? I still and will forever, see that face whenever I look at him.
Remember the days when you could leave your front door unlocked?
Or walk away from your car confident it would still be there when you exited the store?
Or didn’t have to worry if someone would steal your mail – or if it would even be delivered to you and not your neighbors? (An ongoing problem with us right now).
Remember when people were neighborly? Friendly? Smiled?
I’m not saying our neighbors are jack holes – not at all – we have a lot of really nice neighbors. Kevin has made an effort, through LeRoy, because LeRoy will talk to anyone and everyone, (Kevin’s special-needs uncle), to get to know our neighbors. He can point to practically any house and tell you the names of our neighbors.
I, however, have no idea who lives where or who anyone is. I’m that neighbor – not very neighborly. I’m not rude, I’m never rude for the sake of being rude, (I’m not a KAREN after all – that’s said with tongue-in-cheek and meant as sarcastic), but I don’t go out of my way to get to know anyone, either. I like keeping most people at arm’s length. I’ve always been that way. Not just with neighbors, with co-workers, with family – I’m just a person who likes her space and the freedom to do what she wants, when she wants, without the interruption, (for the lack of a better term), of disrupting my life for someone else.
I know I’m not painting a very flattering picture of myself, but I’m just keeping it real. I’m friendly, funny, helpful and loyal, but on my terms.
But I digress, (as usual).
Everyone, to my limited knowledge, gets along in our neighborhood. Everyone seems to be pretty respectful, keeps their houses/lawns nice, smiles, nods/waves whenever we see each other, but there are always those bad apples.
We have a father/son duo who like noisy cars. It all started with the 16-ish year-old son. At least, he was the first to get my attention. Every day, you could set your watch to it, he would leave for school at 8:20 and come back from school at 3:30. You could hear his car coming for 1/2 mile. He not only has one of those highly annoying muscle car mufflers, but he has some sort of “glass thingie”, I don’t know, Kevin explained it to me but …
::blank stare – shrug::
This thing sort of detonates as the kid lets off the gas. It explodes and pops and it’s super loud. If that weren’t bad enough, in addition to him leaving and coming home from school every day, he also drives up and down our neighborhood multiple times a day so it feels like we hear his car, all. day. long.
We live on a corner lot. So, there is a stop sign at the corner and this punk has to slow down and roll through the stop sign. But that’s okay, you see, because this just gives him an excuse to rev his engine and take off with a roar, a pop and an explosion.
At all hours of the night. I don’t know if the kid is just bored, if he works as a Door Dash delivery guy, or what, but he drives back and forth, back and forth, multiple times a night.
It’s gotten so bad, that some of the younger dads in the neighborhood have confronted the punk’s dad. Kevin, or LeRoy, maybe both, have witnessed these confrontations and they are ugly. Everyone is yelling, cursing and acting all alpha male but the dad simply yells, curses right back at these guys, doesn’t apologize, nothing.
In fact, one day, the punk drove by and a pickup truck, just as loud and obnoxious, was right on his tail. I looked to Kevin and said in a sarcastic tone of voice, “Oh look, the piss-ant made a friend.” Come to find out, it was the piss-ant’s DAD.
What the actual …. ::bleep::
Apple didn’t far too far from that jerk tree, did it.
I’m not mad at the kid, he’s just following in his father’s footsteps, I’m sure good old dad is egging him on. No, it’s dad’s fault. Hands down. For not teaching his kid some manners, some courtesy, some respect.
This roar, pop, explosion, grinding went on for weeks. Neighbors called the cops on him. But the cops couldn’t do anything, he wasn’t breaking a law. I even saw a motorcycle cop hanging out around our corner one day, I think to try and catch this punk rolling through a stop sign or something, but father/son got word there was a cop hanging around and though they were still noisy, the punk didn’t speed through the neighborhood and he stopped at the stop sign. Again, this only helped him because then he would gun his car and make even more noise.
It annoyed me at first, then I got used to it. Whatever. The kid clearly wanted attention, he wasn’t getting it from me.
But we don’t have littles at home. And a lot of my neighbors do. And his driving through the neighborhood at 9:00 at night was waking up those littles.
And the neighbors continued to fume.
Then, one day, as dad was driving down the street, they flagged him down. I don’t know how they flagged him down, did they stand in the street so he couldn’t get around them? Did they pound on his truck so he stopped? I don’t know, but the guy stopped. The neighborhood guys started yelling, cursing at the guy and this time, they showed their concealed weapons.
Oh boy.
I’m all for the 2nd amendment. Everyone has a right to bear arms and protect themselves, however, I feel like the guys were close to crossing a line. I understand their frustration, but getting into a gun fight is not the answer.
I didn’t see any of this. I’m only hearing about this from Kevin who did see it. He was going to get involved, and then thought twice about it, especially after the neighborhood guys started showing off their firearms.
To be clear, the neighborhood guys were not pointing their guns at the dad. They didn’t even take the weapons out of their holsters, but them showing them to dad was a clear message: Stop messing with us.
After that?
Silence.
I guess whatever happened, whatever they said, or didn’t say, got to dad because I haven’t heard a peep out of father/son in over a week. I don’t know if they’re taking a different route, if they removed the noisy muffler thingies from their car or what, but the neighborhood is peaceful once again.
My takeaway?
If you’re a gun owner, don’t go showing it off in a threatening manner to jack holes, I get it, it’s tempting, but don’t open yourself up to a potentially deadly situation – but also – it’s good to have a gun because there ARE jack holes in this world – whether the Kumbaya folks want to admit it or not.
Don’t buy a car with super noisy mufflers. You’re not impressing anyone and everyone hates you. Save your money.
Also – can we teach our children to be respectful, decent human beings? Please? What happened to that? Why do people insist on being jerks? Your children are only reacting, imitating to what they see/hear.
Just posting this picture makes my butt cheeks clench.
Dear President Trump, Mr. Trump, Donald … may I call you Donald?
Have you lost your damn mind?!
I know there are some out there that are truly convinced you have. In fact, some are even saying you have Dementia. I snorted and scoffed when I heard that – do you remember how Biden mumbled, shuffled, tripped up the stairs, pooped his pants and had to be led off the stage?
But I digress. (I have decided that “but I digress” is now and from henceforth going to be my blog mantra).
When I first saw this, and then heard from Trump himself that he did indeed post it, I just shook my head. Do I think he think he’s Jesus? Of course not. Do I think the man thinks highly of himself? Absolutely. Should he have posted this? Definitely not. Was this in poor taste? Yes.
Everything about this makes me uncomfortable. Being a Christian myself, I feel like this does border on blasphemy. I don’t know why the man posted it, but I wish he hadn’t. I wish Trump would not say, do, or post a lot of stuff. But he does, because he’s a flawed human and has an overinflated ego.
He also has a sense of humor, if not a little warped.
He also does these type of things on purpose because he enjoys watching his haters’ heads explode.
He’s also a great President with huge cojones and the courage to tackle a lot of tough issues that need to be addressed. Americans have gotten so complacent and spoiled when it comes to overindulging and partaking of overinflated programs, perks and benefits. But nothing lasts forever and we’re running out of money. Someone HAS to be willing to be the bad guy, the tough parent, and make some tough decisions if we ever want this country to heal, be better and get back in the black.
But I digress …
I do not agree with his choice to post this. I think it was in poor taste and even poorer judgement, but he did it and now I think even he regrets it evidenced by the fact that he deleted it shortly after posting it.
We all do stupid things. We all make dumb decisions. We all act a fool and take things a little too far at times. It happens. And it happened with Trump. Hopefully, he won’t do anything this bone headed again anytime soon. (::fingers crossed::)
Heads have exploded. People who routinely demonize Christianity are now clutching their pearls in self-imposed shock at Trump’s audacity. Give me a break. The man is a troll. He enjoys ruffling his haters’ feathers. He is a narcissist with an over-inflated opinion of himself.
He is who he is.
I still only care about what he does with this country. And so far, he’s doing all right. Is he perfect? Pfft, please. Of course not. But he’s done way more for this country than his predecessors.
And frankly? That’s all I care about at this point.
Now stop posting stupid pictures of yourself and get back to work, Donald.
I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m not a big crafter, at least, I didn’t used to be. Okay, I’m still not, but I do enjoy cross-stitching and diamond painting. I didn’t really get back into crafts until my dad died and I wanted to not only comfort my mom through the grief, but keep her company, have something to do with her, etc. So – I got back into it.
Now – every Saturday is mom day. We take turns getting together at each other’s houses every week. We go to lunch, watch a few episodes of Survivor, (we’re currently on season 16), then work on crafts together. Mom works on everything – she knits, crochets, paints, (her style is more whimsical and she will paint on bottles, saws, books – just about anything with a surface), works with plastic canvas, sews, (though not her favorite) … she pretty much does it all. My mom lives for crafts. It’s her lifeline, her solace, her happy place.
Right now, I’m just into cross-stitching and diamond painting though as I’ve mentioned I like felting and would like to get more into that, but for now, those are my go-to crafts. I like to sit down after work and cross-stitch while listening to an audio book. It’s SOOOO relaxing.
I won’t bore the non-crafters out there with too much more craft talk but I thought I would show you what I’ve been working on so far this year.
I apologize for the wrinkles. Obviously, I haven’t ironed them out yet, but you get the gist. I love to create, I hate to finish, lol. I just completed the truck at the top, it says “Welcome Spring” – you can’t see it very well because it’s white. Also, “Penelope”, the creature in the upper top left is on perforated paper. The umbrella and the bouquet of flowers are meant to “stick” to the “doll” when I complete it. I just need to cut them out, finish the edges and stick velcro dots on them. Penelope is one part of four “dolls” that are coming out in the Just Cross Stitch magazine this year. I might have them all done in time for the Christmas craft sale, we’ll see. I just enjoy working with the perforated paper. It’s obviously stiffer than Aida cloth but not as rigid as plastic canvas. It’s paper, so it will tear, but it’s sturdy and fun to work with.
I want to complete more cross-stitch ornaments, bookmarks and other projects before the Fall/Christmas sales this year. I need to ramp up my craft time!
Do you know what Diamond painting is? It’s basically paint-by-number only instead of paint, you stick beads, or “drills”, onto a sticky printed canvas. You can get them for dirt cheap on Temu.
(Or – at least you could back in the days of free shipping – now, with the Tariffs, shipping is more than your order!)
This is me, “painting”, (I use that term loosely because come on, I’m sticking beads on to a canvas, not sure it’s really classified as painting), in our cargo-trailer-converted-into-a-camper wearing my “Lost at Last” shirt that I only wear when we go camping. I’m sitting in front of our bed, which is on top of kitchen cabinets Kevin bought at Habitat for Humanity for dirt cheap.
We saw this idea on one of the hundreds of YouTube videos we watched from people who had also converted a cargo trailer into a camper and thought it was a cool idea – our “garage” is under the bed, on the other side of these cabinets. We use the cabinets to store our clothes and the long drawer you see to the left of me is one big cabinet that we use for our dirty clothes.
(Side note: I ended up selling that diamond painting in my mom’s craft booth).
Write From Karen 