The friend I referred to in a previous post, the one so full of high school drama, has some serious issues. And I don’t mean that in a sarcastic way.

Sure, she bad mouths everyone who cares for her, and she doesn’t think about how it effects those around her.

However, I found out that she has a  bigger problem than that. She is addicted to Morphine and before that it was apparently percocet. They took her off that, and now she takes upwards of 5-6 pills of Morphine every 3 or 4 hours. She had surgery, which was why she was given the pills. In fact, she had lots of surgeries, but now she’s addicted and I think that is part of what has been going on. The mood swings, the stuff she says and then conveniently forgets, etc.

There’s this website that I found, called Project Know. It’s actually really awesome, and covers every “addiction” known to man, from alcohol and drug abuse to eating disorders and gambling. Even nicotine. And the drug categories on Project Know  are broken down by regular drug abuse to prescription drug abuse, which is what she needs. It’s even further broken down from that, in that it lists several types of prescription drugs. It also claims that the destructive behavior that comes from any type of drug abuse is the same. I have to agree. If it is affecting your life, it’s a problem.

Project Know provides drug addiction help for those that need it. It isn’t the solution, and it won’t cure it, but it will help you understand what is going on, and how awful it truly is. I was truly impressed with the site and bookmarked it so that I can use it anytime I need it.

I thought it was rather funny, since one of the listed items on there was Internet Addiction. While I understand that is a serious situation for many, I had to giggle, because perhaps that is what I suffer from.

This is my first time participating in one of these, though I think secretly I’ve been doing them and not realizing that someone had started up a weekly thing. However, one of my favorite bloggers Jo, started one.

Here are the rules:

- While visiting other blogger’s sites please be sure to look over the advertisements they may be displaying. If you see something that interests you then please click on the ad. This will not only help your fellow blogger earn a little money but also maybe help you learn about something new.

- You are not expected to do a weekly post or linkback to Jo’s site, or me, my site, or this post. Jo is doing this for fun and because she’s thankful to those who read her blog (I am too, which is why I joined).

- Be sure to email Jo or leave a comment on each Monday’s post letting her know you are doing this too and she will add a link to your site in the Mad Click Monday posts. It’s her way of saying thank you for taking the time to join her. (I will do the same if you leave a comment).

- Jo uses Mr Linky and so do I. (makes leaving your url easier for you) She is also looking into making a button or having someone make one so you can display it on your blog if you’d like. The one on my blog I made, and you are welcome to use it, but please save it to your computer - please don’t link directly to it. Thanks!

That’s it folks! It is so simple. It is just a nice way to play catch up from the weekends and get to know fellow bloggers by reading about them and letting them get a glimpse into you, and your comments.

I cannot believe the weekend passed by so quickly. We did absolutely nothing. Mike’s girls went to their mom’s, my son was at my mom’s house, and so we had just Brie. So she got some nice one on one time, except we didn’t do much other than go out to eat and go shopping for some upcoming birthday presents.

In fact, we spent the entire day Saturday in the basement cleaning, purging and sorting. We now have three distinct areas in the basement. One for garage sale items (or freecycle), one for stuff that is packed and just need to make its way to our storage unit, and then of course, the stuff that needs to stay and hang out until we are ready to leave. There is still a lot more to get done, but we made a lot of progress this weekend. We still have to make it over to our storage until and strip some times out of there that can be sold or freecycled.

I’ve got some writing to get done, and then I’ll be back over here. Hope you have a great Monday!

Oh, except I did have something I wanted to share - my daughter “earned her reigns” on Friday when she was at her riding lessons. This seems weird to most of you, but its the most exciting thing to her. It means  she gets to begin working on her cantering and jumping. That is what she has wanted. So she is very proud of herself. It was a shame that none of our family was there to see it (except me of course).

Hope today is great!

The theme “creative” is so perfect for our family, because honestly all seven of us, are extremely creative. The problem was, what photos to use. I have loads of pictures of their artwork and creations, as well as projects we’ve all done together. I chose these photographs, because they were taken two weeks after we officially moved into Mike’s house, and the kids all wanted to create something for Mike’s birthday. I pulled out a bunch of scrapbooking stuff, craft stuff and stuff I had leftover from my teaching days, and they all went to town. It is funny to look at these pictures now. The kids have changed SO much in just a year and a two months! All kids look completely different, and in addition - the kitchen doesn’t look ANYTHING like that anymore. (*giggle* It had a feminine touch take hold, and then Mike redid the floors and we removed half the furniture that was in there!) I’ll add an “after” shot of the kitchen how it looks now, at the end of this post.

And this is what our new kitchen looks like:

I found this meme quite by accident while browsing blogs. I thought it was cool even though I already have a Friday meme I do. The Fridays Feast is one of my favorites, but I thought I’d play along with this one. I plan to go back and do the others just so I am caught up. I read them and they are great.

If you play, please leave me a comment letting me know you did one, so I can come visit and leave you a comment too!

1. Yesterday I was _____.
2. Today I am _____.
3. Tomorrow I will _____.
4. Someday I’m going to _____.
5. I will never _____.
6. I might _____.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to _____, tomorrow my plans include _____ and Sunday, I want to _____!

Here are my answers:

1. Yesterday I was full of energy and I have no clue why. I couldn’t sit still very long.
2. Today I am a bit more mello. Tired even.
3. Tomorrow I will more than likely do a whole lot of laundry and spend some time packing up the basement.
4. Someday I’m going to have a book published.
5. I will never doubt myself, because I know I can do anything I set my mind to.
6. I might even write a whole series. Actually, I know I will.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to some time spent with Mike, tomorrow my plans include more time with Mike and hopefully some fun family outing and Sunday, I want to bake cookies, relax and catch up on housework!

Appetizer
Describe a toy you remember from your childhood.
I don’t want to. I want to show you.

Soup
On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being highest) how observant are you?
9 or 10. I tend to be quite observant, I am a writer afterall. I am paid to pay attention to details and get my facts straight.

Salad
Where would you rather be at this very moment?
Well, I’m fine where I am right at the moment - in bed. However, I wish I was sleeping rather than suffering from insomnia.

Main Course
When was the last time you learned something new?
Today - several hours ago. I learned about a different way to put the bit in my daughter’s horses mouth at her riding lesson. LOL I learn something new everytime I go!
 

Dessert
Fill in the blank: I have ____________ but I haven’t ____________.
I have big plans for my writing career, but I haven’t got the finished book published yet.

1st - want to give a shout out to Erin and tell her how happy I am that she is back. I missed ya girl. Sorry about your accident and I’m so happy that you and little guy are ok.

Now, onto my very interesting drama deal.

Ok, so I have this friend. We’ve been friends since high school (oddly most of my closest friends I’ve been friends with since high school or I’ve reconnected with them and now we are close again. Weird.) Anyway, so I’ve known her a looooooong damn time. I’ve always known she has had issues. She has always had a tendency to lie. In fact, it has always been something that really bothred me about her. But we had so much history, I tended to overlook it most of the time. I really think I am a good friend, and I’ve worked hard to maintain that friendship, despite the damage she has inflicted over and over again.

Now here’s where I have not been such a good friend.

About nine months ago or so she got sick. Because of her lying and the fact that she tends to be a hypocondriac, and the fact that her husband felt the same way I did, we weren’t sure how “sick” she really was. We weren’t sure what to believe. I tried to be there, but I felt extremely used. She only called to complain about her husband, her illness or to ask me for a favor. That was the only time I heard from her for awhile. It was really annoying. I still continued to try to help out when I could, including getting her child off the bus and keeping him when we had things to do, etc. (I have five kids, one mini van and no more spots left, so when we watch her kid or kids we cannot go anywhere)

After awhile, I quit calling her all together. And I avoided the phone most of the time that she called. In fact, sometimes I deliberately left the phone where I wouldn’t hear it ring. I was tired of being the sounding board. So as her illness got “worse”, she got “worse”. During that time, I befriended a neighbor of hers. Actually, I’d always known the gal, but not as well as during this time. I learned over time how digusted this gal was with my friend. I was also told that this friend had spoken badly of me, my ex husband (don’t care much about that), and my children. (you can say whatever the hell you want to say about me or any other adult in my life, but dammit keep my kids the hell out of it!) The things she said, could only have been said by her. She would take situations and twist them so badly, it was horrible. Apparently she had been doing this for years. My new friend (the gal) had no idea what to think about anything during that time, and just continued to know me from a distance. As she watched me with my new family however, and saw how I interacted with my children, how my children interacted with others, and how dynamically we were all happy, nice people, she knew that my friend was lying about everything. So that was when she spilled the beans. This was at Thanksgiving. In the meantime, my old friend had reconnected with another old friend of ours from high school. She spouted off more lies to her. Some about me, some about her husband, some about the neighbors and more and more and more until it was absolutely out of control. The “reconnected” friend of ours approached her almost like an intervention and told her we were onto her, that we were all sick of the lies, the two faced crap - basically the high school drama.

So things got better for awhile. But during the past five months she has been spouting off again. Apparently about me to our “reconnected” friend, and to me about our “reconnected” friend. She has gone off on my kids, she took a situation from when my son was seven, a very innocent child-like thing he did (playing with a candle) and called him a pyromaniac. (uhm…it was the only time he has EVER done anything like that and he is about to be thirteen. She took another totally sad, and horrible experience my son endured and made it something it wasn’t. We had to put our dog to sleep a year and a half ago. My son had once hit my dog on the head. The reason he had to be put to sleep was because he had a brain tumor. My son thought it was his fault and was blaming himself (obviously it was NOT his fault). She told our mutual friend that he is an animal abuser (not even close -in fact we have 2 dogs and a cat - guess who feeds, walks and plays with them the most?) So I just found all this out two nights ago.

I was so angry, I thought I was going to cry. Not because I’m sad, but because that is how incredibly mad I was. (and still am).
So after I found out, our mutual friend decided to once again have an intervention thing again. And she did. She finally called me tonght to tell me about it. We talked for two hours and I don’t feel a single bit better. I really want to. She says she made headway, she made our friend admit that she has a problem, that she spouts of lies, talks badly about the people who care for her most, and a lot more. Why doesn’t that make me feel better? Because my friend is also my neighbor. I have to see her all the time. Her children play with mine. Mine are very aware of what is going on, and don’t understand what happened. My children have literally grown up knowing her and don’t understand why she would say the things that she has said. There is just too much damage, and I have to protect my children and family.

I am so sick of all this damn drama, I feel like I’m in school again. What the hell is the matter with people? Can’t she see all the thigns we have done for her. Is she that ungrateful that she has to turn on the people who have helped her the most. I so wish I could figure out how to make her aware, how to get her to change and how I can help her find God again, because she is so lost. She is definitely one of His lost lambs, and lemme just tell you right now I feel more like she is a lost ASS. I’m so mad.

Sorry for venting, but I just had to get it out.
I’m not going back to even attempt to proof this, so sorry for typos and grammatical errors.

Thirteen Articles I’ve Had Published at Associated Content
(it’s been awhile and I’m trying to get motivated to post the 30 something articles I wrote for another client that went awry.)

1. Helping Your ADHD Child With Better Study Skills
2. Choosing to Homeschool Your ADHD Child
3. The Indigo Child: Fact or Fiction?
4. Top Ten Signs You Have an Indigo Child
5. Tips on Homeschooling Without Support
6. Best Bed and Breakfast Lodging in St. Charles, Missouri
7. 5 Hearty Crockpot Meals for Winter
8. Associated Contents Top Ten ADHD Articles of 2006 
9. Why Are Some Babies Born With a Caul?
10. The True Story of the Carte Blanche Tatty Teddy Bear
11. Top Ten Gift Ideas for a Birth Mother
12. Top Ten Gift Ideas for the ADHD Child
13. Top Ten Gift Ideas for Scrapbookers 

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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I am so completely annoyed with society. Not necessarily as a whole, but with some of the media and their backers. Witchcraft and magic and blah blah blah. For crying out loud people, can an author not have an imagination?

The point of being an author is having the ability to spin tails, use creativity to capture and captivate your audience. Harry Potter not turning me into a witch. I am not walking around brandishing a twig and calling it a wand and yelling “Expelliarmus”, nor am I turning my back on God. Yet I love the Harry Potter books.

I am a strong Christian, with good morals, who enjoys an entertaining read. So, essentially, when I am reading a book about a guy that cheats, it’s really the authors way of telling me that I should cheat too? When I read a book that takes place on a beach where a bunch of chicks hang out drinking margarita’s, the author is actually trying to convey to me that I should be doing that too? Gimme a darn break!

I am an author. I am a writer. My active imagination goes places that others do not. Does that mean that I will write about some of it, YES! Does it mean that whatever I am writing about is what I feel? Uhm. no.

A side note: Have you picked up a Star Wars or Star Trek book ever? Have you read The Magic School Bus books with your kids? Are they trying to tell me something too?

I guess I better go pick up my miniature sized bus and pack up about a dozen kids because tonight we are going to fly inside a bugs nose. Won’t that be fun?

I’m seriously annoyed with this whole news crap. Get.Over.It.

It is an IMAGINATION. Not witchcraft.