I'm trying to get off facebook for good, just as I'm getting reacquainted with relatives, there was some wisdom pre-facebooking in "laying low", not that I haven't enjoyed the experience, but the politics behind it and the privacy acts are getting another look. Nothing can be fun anymore without BIG BROTHER looking into every detail. I'm not paranoid, just angry that freedoms aren't like they used to be. Enough said there.

The song "I Remember" by Deadmau5 is what I'm listening to, if you don't have a "playlist.com" account you should check it out! I heard this song on Comcast music channel and I was taken in by the trance-like music. HOT HOT HOT!
Sooooo I was outside waiting for Logan to get home so he could get me to get my NEW car! We found something that was affordable, good on gas and nothing needs attention. While I was waiting outside with the kids the LDS boys came around in their suits and nametags. The kids warned me in a whisper that they were coming toward us. This is not the first time the "boys" have come around since I've officially left the church. Only this time it was just myself, usually Logan has been the one out when they confront him. I stood there looking the other way wondering if someone since has put a tag on our address as they sometimes do to state something like, "don't go back or try to convert"....well, I was standing away from the house and then one pipes up, "Hi, we're servants of the Lord, Jesus" I couldn't help but interrupt to save his speech, "I know who you are b/c I was a Mormon, born, raised, etc." Well they were interested in hearing my 'story' of the why's and hows on my leaving and I refused to 'share'. For one, its something you'd have to have a lot of time to discuss, I was on my way to getting my new car and then get to work on time. Of course, they don't have a clue to any of this even when I was in my full scrubs, as if they saw right thru that. And does a Mo-boy REALLY want to hear my 'story'? NO! "If you pray with sincerity God will show you-" I retorted back responding quickly, "OH He's showed me the truth!!!" They just want to love-bomb me back with their beliefs. They kept prodding of what I found or what I lacked in knowing before.... Nope. Hey, if you REALLY WANT TO KNOW, question the hard QUESTIONS. I DID. I WANTED TO GET THE ANSWERS THAT THE LEADERS SHY FROM TIME AND TIME AGAIN! And let's just say, I was at the end of my rope with the religion standing on "faith without works is dead" like they are a business with a quota to fill and nobody gets paid, in fact you have to pay them for your work! HOw DoES THAt MAkE @ny sense?? I was at the end of doing service, service, service and it was never enough, do more more more, in the meantime, my home, my relationships elsewhere were suffering, my work, my sleep was depleting. Visiting Teaching on a many morning where I was supposed to be catching up on sleep, the guilt trips put on in meetings and more meetings. ALL FOR WHAT???? I loved God and it seemed that even the 'human' in me was saying His 'Holy' leaders were making me miserable! Was I right? Were THEY actually wrong? My body, my mind was unable to feel balanced no matter how hard I tried. I cried. I felt like my life was being attacked at all levels. I've been married to an extraordinary man who after many years on his own track with it all had been studing on his own trying to live the lie. We had some good yelling matches, again, my life was sucking! God would have me be happy and I wasn't. I finally realized I'd been duped in believing in Joe Smith and his cronies and his bad ideas that have nothing to do with the Bible (and not his reworded version to suit his needs) Joe was a bad man in all my research, he slept with and married other married men's wives---that's like Tiger Woods--but worse, Joe even married a slew of them and the facts are even in that genealogy site==30+ wives. Emma was just the first. He couldn't keep his pee pee zipped up, what a damn shame! I thought he was a fantastic guy way back when. But the truth is all over the internet and I am not some crazy, I am a deep-rooted kind of person, loves Truth of all things, and I'm not stepping off or away from what I know as of 2008 but began wondering back in 2001. Took years of my life to get it set straight-All the questions set straight in my life. Everyone is entitled to their beliefs and I finally chose to walk away from what I consider out of my code of living. And you may think of me what you think, but I didn't run away quickly, it was methodical, it was slow and in my eyes the right thing to do for me and my personal happiness. I love my life now and God is a different God to me, even Jesus is a different Jesus to me. Curios as those 'boys in suits' were, they were in the neighborhood for some time all evening, the kids said.
I also used to hate it when I was a Mormon when people on the 'outside' (that's me now--I'm one of THEM) would call Mormons members of a CULT. Well in hindsight, YES. Here's DR. ROBERT J. LIFTON'S CRITERIA FOR THOUGHT REFORM a brief summary

1. MILIEU CONTROL the most basic feature is the control of human communication within and environment if the control is extremely intense, it becomes internalized control -- an attempt to manage an individual's inner communication control over all a person sees, hears, reads, writes (information control)

2. MYSTICAL MANIPULATION (Planned spontaneity) extensive personal manipulation seeks to promote specific patterns of behavior and emotion in such a way that it appears to have arisen spontaneously from within the environment, while it actually has been orchestrated totalist leaders claim to be agents chosen by God, history, or some supernatural force, to carry out the mystical imperative the "principles" (God-centered or otherwise) can be put forcibly and claimed exclusively, so that the cult and its beliefs become the only true path to salvation (or enlightenment)...

3. THE DEMAND FOR PURITY the world becomes sharply divided into the pure and the impure, the absolutely good (the group/ideology) and the absolutely evil (everything outside the group) one must continually change or conform to the group "norm" tendencies towards guilt and shame are used as emotional levers for the group's controlling and manipulative influences once a person has experienced the totalist polarization of good/evil (black/white thinking), he has great difficulty in regaining a more balanced inner sensitivity to the complexities of human morality the radical separation of pure/impure is both within the environment (the group) and the individual ties in with the process of confession -- one must confess when one is not conforming

4. CONFESSION cultic confession is carried beyond its ordinary religious, legal and therapeutic expressions to the point of becoming a cult in itself sessions in which one confesses to one's sin are accompanied by patterns of criticism and self-criticism, generally transpiring within small groups with an active and dynamic thrust toward personal change is an act of symbolic self-surrender makes it virtually impossible to attain a reasonable balance between worth and humility...

5. SACRED SCIENCE the totalist milieu maintains an aura of sacredness around its basic doctrine or ideology, holding it as an ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human existence questioning or criticizing those basic assumptions is prohibited a reverence is demanded for the ideology/doctrine, the originators of the ideology/doctrine, the present bearers of the ideology/doctrine offers considerable security to young people because it greatly simplifies the world and answers a contemporary need to combine a sacred set of dogmatic principles with a claim to a science embodying the truth about human behavior and human psychology

6. LOADING THE LANGUAGE the language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliche (thought-stoppers) repetitiously centered on all-encompassing jargon "the language of non-thought" words are given new meanings -- the outside world does not use the words or phrases in the same way -- it becomes a "group" word or phrase

7. DOCTRINE OVER PERSON every issue in one's life can be reduced to a single set of principles that have an inner coherence to the point that one can claim the experience of truth and feel it the pattern of doctrine over person occurs when there is a conflict between what one feels oneself experiencing and what the doctrine or ideology says one should experience if one questions the beliefs of the group or the leaders of the group, one is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to even question -- it is always "turned around" on them and the questioner/criticizer is questioned rather than the questions answered directly...

8. DISPENSING OF EXISTENCE since the group has an absolute or totalist vision of truth, those who are not in the group are bound up in evil, are not enlightened, are not saved, and do not have the right to exist "being verses nothingness" impediments to legitimate being must be pushed away or destroyed one outside the group may always receive their right of existence by joining the group fear manipulation -- if one leaves this group, one leaves God or loses their transformation, for something bad will happen to them the group is the "elite", outsiders are "of the world", "evil", "unenlightened", etc.

Are you thinking????
Here's a video that I can relate to and another video that I couldn't agree more with

I recently found out that our laptop is going to have to be rebooted, wipe the slate clean of all the goodies we had and maybe I'll get lucky that we can sweep off some of our pictures and files with a jump drive before getting everything clean again...I will have to get in the habit of defragmenting files. Don't really know if that's how it got so bad, 4 sectors(?) are saying they are bad on the hard drive according to my friend. All I know is it is sad that I can't post pictures like I want to when I want to.
This weekend was Summer weather in NH! We went to Al and Kim's house to have a nice cookout, though Logan left our sausages on the grill too long...talking too much with Al, and burnt the outer part of the sausage, who likes burnt sausage? We ate it anyway and the steak Al cooked was very yummy, even the kids were asking for seconds and thirds. I had some really good Mike's Hard Apple Cider drinks, I had some Rum that ooohh was soooo smooth. Initially I had bought the rum for a dessert cake I was going to make for Easter, but instead I decided to drink it and have some fun. I found my limit as I was getting a bit giddy and stopped drinking for a while. I don't want to look like a complete fool in front of the kids and I didn't. After that I stuck to soda and milk.
Easter Sunday the kids helped out with the mass. Mertz was a candle bearer, Alina the book of the Gospel she carried and held for the Pastor. I made the dress Alina wore. We served Easter Lunch where my Dad, Eleanor, and Logan's folks and his Brother came and enjoyed the feast we put on! The food was excellent, the desserts were to die for, and the company was very content and we all enjoyed each other and their company, no one left out, even the kids were enjoying the company of the older folks. What I love about it is I can be myself and not have to sit in a corner with barely any conversation with anyone, here its all out and everyone is chatting!!

We have finally got a new vehicle!! But in the very near future I'm going to need a second one. My PT has done their thing and now I'm seeing the chiropractor! He is doing what I think I needed most of all all along and I am feeling better. I'm not afraid of driving since the accident, but more afraid of lifting weights and doing the physical things. PT told me to take it slow and do half the weights I was doing prior to the accident. Things are looking up since I've retreated to the "bone cruncher". We have a gym in our basement of the apt building with an Olympian Weight bench and weights, some dumbbells a heavy bag and a "wooden dummy" to work some Mook Yang Jong techniques, I spelled it how it sounds, but its a good training tool. I'm going to get back on the wagon and do some walking, either out doors or at work on the treadmill that sits in my client's basement. I'm sooooo spoiled at her house when I have down time. I have a beautiful wall to wall sun room from floor to ceiling to look out at the funny squirrels and birds in the landscape, I've got 900 channels/on Demand on her new cable package, put in over the weekend, the treadmill; and outside of that I don't know what else could be better! The food I bring, if any, could be better, but I get paid to hang out, cook, clean, and feed and do full care which is not very hard at all. I am the envy of all--Home away from home. My boss is nice, I rarely deal with her, and I have not too many toads to releave (some just dont do any of the cleaning in the 8-12hrs) I don't get that, you must be extremely lazy if you cant do a load of 15 dishes in THE DISHWASHER or a small load of laundry, some people are real nimrods---What DO THEY DO ALL SHIFT???? I like the accommodations of being there too, but there comes a time when you have to move and do things too, which is why we get a paycheck and why she pays the company we work for so much money!!!

I have been making it to work and making the best of it. I go to Physical Therapy, and I don't know, its not exactly going all that well. $30 just for the co-pay, it is insane, that's one compliant, another is that I don't know if they are really helping, some days I've come out of there hurting for a few days, I try to take it 'easy' but that's not so easy to do. I can't just sit around. I may end up relying on a chiropractor to get some release of my bones being twisted up.
Soon we won't have to be borrowing my mother-in-law's car and we will be soon to owning our own, that's good news. Since we've been borrowing, we have had to help with getting her axles repaired, something that needed to get done before we needed to borrow her car, and when I had to drive to Boston to pick up Logan at the airport, I thought the axles were going to bust, my heart was sinking in my stomach as I drove, hoping I wasn't going to have a breakdown in her car IN BOSTON!! That would have SUPER SUCKED!!! I don't recall ever having that heart-racing-sick-to-my-stomach feeling while driving as I did that night! The destination was made, and I prayed with all my might that we'd get home safe! Needless to say, we drove home at the very slow speed of 45mph as opposed to my normal 75mph. It was a much longer ride home and having picked up Logan at 12:45am, it was not until almost 2am that we returned back home safely in our beds. Three nights later we trekked up north for a much longer drive in the same axle cracked car so Logan could play guitar at a paying venue. And we had to return the same night, again getting home quite late, though the roads in NH are wAAAyyy better kept than MA and the car could tell too cause it was barely rattling so we were going a bit faster more like 55/60mph on our way home. We got home at 1am or so...another late night!
One adventure after another I must say! We split the cost helping Logan's mom's car since we were driving it full-time. I am thankful that she is able to let us use her car, even though she hates the fact that we eat in her car. One day, she was getting a ride from us so she could go to the store and she was wiping down the rear-view mirrors on the outside of the car cause they 'were too dirty with salt'! ????? Its in the middle of winter, you've got to expect that, I mean really????? There's nothing wrong with wanting your car clean, but it was the way she began with it, cleaning the mirrors and the windows with baby-wipes, and making things even worse! I had to then go to a gas station and properly wash the windows with the proper cleaning agent for outdoor use. Oh she can be a little screwed up in the head, she then made us go to a car wash and the whole thing...I swear its a control issue with her. Some things she does that drives me absolutely crazy, but she would never do it in front of Logan. Elderly mother-in-laws......

My political involvement has been growing over the years. My history in a nutshell: I cared very little living under my parent's roof, though wondered why these people were always on the news. I did get the idea that Ronald Reagan was a very awesome dude and talked very smoothly. I now look back and think, I was right, if only there were more Ronald Reagans!! Then I remember the next president, George Bush, and I remember the January night that we had to go to War in the Gulf back in 1990. I was young that I was terrified of the idea. Clearly I remember talking about it with those around me who tried to calm my fears. Eventually, things calmed down in my mind, hey, there weren't any bombs flying around me so I felt safe. Then I clearly remember all the rage in the race with Clinton up for president and I watched more intently and sensed he was a tool. I was in my own way, outraged when he became president, I hated the feeling I got from the guy just by watching him and listening to his verbal diarrhea. I tried to ignore politics thinking that these sleezeballs would go away. As I gained more maturity the whole sex thing with Clinton and Monica Lewinski--that was when so many things changed, not only for me, but for the country! I began to watch more and feel more outraged about the goings on in the leadership of this country. I decided that I would take part of the movement to get someone with some decent values in the leadership position and it was my first time to ever be of age to vote! Since then, I've had many complicated discussions with Logan and learned about the direction of this country, and furthermore did research along with Logan on Youtube where there are loads of stuff you can't find and will never see on network TV that shocked me and have forever changed my life. I began to live with more understanding of the leaders, the history of the country (thought I'd learned that in school, but no), and what kind of direction our future was headed in. I loved being included in conversations at work, or in social gatherings and loved to get into discussions and debates and over time have developed my own opinions about life and the current events. In that result I was coming out of a cloud a fog of fantasy. I never smoked any drugs, but I sure lived like I had, with not a clue!! I am glad to be out of that thick fog.
I sure had my moments where I'm sure people looked at me and thought "wtf" I can also attribute some of that to have lived as a moron, I mean mormon, LOL. I love picking on myself in saying that, cuz wow, after I walked away from it all, so many friends shared that they were glad we left. I finally came to a place within myself where my internal beliefs often spoke differently. Gays and Lesbians for example, I don't agree with the lifestyle, but they are just as you or I, with needs to be filled and if marriage completes them, then that's theirs to be. In 'heaven' or the afterlife in the mormon way of thinking, you can't be 'together forever' unless you've been married in the temple....(I was married in the temple, would love an opportunity for a do-over outside the temple with my hunny) Again, I looked honestly at that one and Never could really agree with thatthough I tried to conform to believing that, it just never felt TRUE. ....(was I a hypocrite or what??? well, that's why I had to leave and never go back.) Ha, even reading a book that in many spots verbatim reads the same as the bible...see the right hand of the screen on my blog here that says 'old beliefs are fun' its quite an eye opener. My blinders are so gone! God created us all, why would he shun us from our own beloveds? The ever so popular screwing with minds on the afterlife just can't be right! Heaven, what I believe, is what our conciousness will return to and believes it is a place we will one day go, but not stay for long, as we have many more lives to live. Yes, I believe in reincarnation, without a doubt! And I don't believe Jesus is all he's cracked up to be, its complicated if you don't have an open mind and room for change. I no longer see him as the guy who died for me, nor do I believe he was some divine being. Its something I'm still working out in my head for sure, but I will one day write that out or refer to a website how I see him. I guess more like a history figure, a sage, a great teacher, but leave the divine out of it.
Religion goes deep as does politics too. Many have their strong opinions on both subjects and they are somewhat one in the same. Some that have no opinion on one or the other, I have very little patience for people like that, or I feel I need to teach you to think about it. I saw a lot of politics in the mormon religion, and there are a lot of people who don't admit that it exists. Some people live like politics is their religion, so it can too be. Religion is strong in the hearts of many; don't care if its Christian, Jewish, Hindu, etc, and so are politics, they've been around for a very,very, very, very long time. What they have in common are laws and lets face it, the control of groups of people and how they live, and that's pretty broad.
America overall is great because it is the first country that said 'hey, we don't care what religion you are, and we acknowledge that men are born with rights' and again very broad, but around the world today we are the first which is so attractive. If you don't know it, the Constitution that was formed and today reigns as our "King" is being beat down day by day, our liberties and freedoms getting chipped away at day by day and it is very unsettling to me and my family. I hope we never see a Holucaust in our country or of the like or something horrific as such, that's why I have been closely attentive in the news; I will not become a slave, as such, I'd rather die.

The beginning of the year has started with a bump a week in! I have managed to take the wrong road and be at the the wrong place at the wrong time and now my car is a total loss. I can either choose to be so angry, but that never got me feeling better, so I just accept it as it is and try to get moving no matter what. I'm very fortunate that we all walked away and didn't have injuries that prohibited us from doing everyday activities. I can still work and the kids can still do all the things they do. I am very fortunate that we weren't going very fast and it was a T-bone crash so it was only my impact. We were all belted in the car, and I was able to brake some to shave some of the speed impact. Alina and I did go to the doctors to get checked out from our bumps and bruises and seem to be fine. I couldn't believe the incident, it was quite upsetting. How long it will take to get life back to normalcy is undetermined at this time. But Damn it, cars are such a pain to replace.