It's been a month....or six!

Wow, it has been a long time since I've been here. Life gets in the way sometimes and I can't come on here as often as I want.

The teenager-type will be going off to college sooner than I thought and I've been pondering the catering business idea that a few people have suggested. I guess I could get into making the Miracle cake and the chicken enchiladas to start off. I am not sure I want to take on more than I can chew at this time (no pun intended). I could also make Rico's rum cake; now that would travel really well.

The enchiladas are hard work though. Oh, I've prayed on the Miracle cake and I will be giving the church a nice donation for every cake that I sell. Our church needs a miracle. So many people lost their jobs and our pastor mentioned that our light bill for last month was $2500.00!! Of course it is summer in Texas. I've been praying about it and I feel I've been led to do this to help others.

My Miracle cake is just a simple pineapple cake with an amazing pudding topping that people just love. Everybody in my family requests this cake for their birthdays, anniversaries or other special occasions. I really enjoy making them too.

People in other parts of the country have asked if I will ship this cake but I'm not sure it will ship well with the topping being pudding and it must be kept cold. Also, there are pineapple slices on top so I don't think it would be a good idea to ship, who knows, maybe someone with more cake-baking/shipping experience than myself can enlighten me.

For the past several days I've been getting up at 5 am for no apparent reason. I've been going on 5 hours sleep at most. I've not been wasting that time though. I've been praying every day about everything and everybody. God knows why.

You guys all have a blessed day. I know I will.

Christian Academy education

When school resumed after the Christmas holiday, my husband and I decided to put our little Princess in a private school. A Christian school where she could get a good education, make friends and have a wonderful time. I researched, visited and talked to several different places and their respective staff. I finally had it picked out. A small Christian academy that was a perfect fit for us. I was happy, my daughter was semi-happy and it was close to our house and the best part: they had room for her! Wow, were we lucky.

So, I'm there and I'm signing the papers to get Little Princess enrolled. I pay the fees and tuition and I mention that I may be looking for a job when he asks me why Little Princess is no longer going to be homeschooled. He told me that they really needed a part-time teacher/sub if I was interested. I, never in a million years, would've even remotely considered taking a teaching position so was totally shocked when I heard myself say, "Sure, that would be a great experience!" As soon as the words were out of my thick head I regretted saying them. I thought to myself...what in the world did you get yourself into now, you ditz!

He took my word right then and there. I couldn't back out. Then I thought, well, at least I'll be able to see what type of environment my Little Princess would be getting that wonderful Christian education in and I didn't give it a second thought. I figured, what the heck, I'm not doing anything anyway.

I started the same day my daughter started school. I was a little bit uneasy that there were several different grade levels in one classroom. They hired me to fill in for one of the teachers that was out on Mondays. I agreed to that. Several days later, they wanted me to come in on Wednesdays as well so the kids could have other activities available to them. I agreed. My husband didn't like that idea too much. I convinced him the kids needed me. They did. Desperately.

The next time I went in I noticed that the kids were for the most part just needing encouragement and attention, lots of it. I built them up. They were, for lack of a better word, lost. Hungry for attention. They had low self-esteem. Those were the good qualities. More than half of the children, I later discovered, had ADHD, Dyslexia, or some other form of learning disability. I figured that was probably the reason their parents had put them in a private school. More one-on-one instruction. Special needs being catered to in a Christian environment. I knew I had made the right decision when the children started laying their heads on my arms so I could say words of encouragement and reassurance to them.

At first I thought this was a wonderful place for my daughter to be in as she loved going there. She enjoyed being around other kids her age more than anything. I quickly realized that she loved it so much because the curriculum she was given was so far behind from what I was teaching her when I homeschooled her. She tested so high on her diagnostic test that they only had her doing for subjects. Leaving out two subjects because she tested 4 levels above her grade level was just not what I wanted to see.

As the days went on I saw this same pattern with a few other students in my class. They were done with all their school work by 11 am. The rest of the day, they sat there bored and picking on each other, talking or playing. Remember, I'm only a sub so I can't really change anything. I did, however, approach the school director about my concerns. I pointed out that the kids should not, in my opinion, have all that free time on their hands. He felt the same way but said he had no control over the rules that had been set in place by the pastor's wife who was now gone from the school due to terminal cancer.

It annoyed me. I continued to play by their rules. After all, I'm only a sub. The kids all told me how happy they were that I was there because I really enjoyed helping them. One little boy told me, "Mrs. Rico, I like you because you always have a smile on your face. You walk in first thing in the morning and you are smiling. We ask you for help and you smile and help us all the same." I think I floated about 3 feet off the floor all day long. Humbled is what I was.

One day after school, the principal called me to tell me that the pastor's daughter had told him that I must not wear eye makeup any more. I got upset. Now, granted, I don't wear heavy eye makeup at all and the other teachers didn't even notice I had any on at all so I have no idea why this woman said that. Anwyay, I got ticked off and I told the principal that I wouldn't be controlled like that.

I was miffed. I would show them. I would tell them where to get off. How dare they expect me to look all dead and pale. I have dark hair and a very pale complexion. If I were to wear no eye makeup whatsoever, I'd risk someone calling 911 on me thinking I'm dying. Seriously. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't wear anything other than face powder and barely there eyeliner and mascara. Just enough to mask the ghost-like appearance. No eyeshadow, no blush, no lipstick, no lip liner. I do wear chapstick or lip gloss but nothing like blood red color on my lips. It's just not me.

In my head I had already prepared the little speech I was going to give them before I quit. Shoot, who did she think she was telling the principal to tell me not to wear eyemakeup. I'd show her.

The weekend came and I pondered the situation. I cooked for my family. I pondered. I did my daily family things and I continued to ponder. Monday morning I showed up with no eye makeup on. I looked frightful but I did as I was told. In coming to the conclusion that the kids were more important to me than looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I realized that what I looked like didn't matter any more. Being there for those kids that needed so much help was now my first priority.

Two weeks ago, I found out that our principal/director was going to be resigning. When I questioned his motive, he responded with something that totally shocked me and just broke my heart. The school that I thought was going to be where my daughter would graduate from was far from what I had envisioned. Apparently, a random drug testing that had been done on the high school kids had come back positive for cocaine on several of the boys. When the pastor was told about this he chose to continue with the basketball games and only suspended the guilty parties for a week. Although the kids were failing academically, the games were not cancelled and the principal told them he would be leaving because he would not be held responsible for something like that.

I immediately started planning on taking my daughter elsewhere or just to homeschool until the end of the school year and looking at other schools between now and the new school year in the Fall. What I found out next is like a nightmare from the very bowels of the inner city schools in the slums. Nothing could have shocked me more.

I didn't forget

After thinking long and hard about finishing up the happenings that took place in my house back in the late Summer of 2008; I decided against it. For those of you that wanted to read "the rest of the story", you can email me and I will summarize it for you and let you know what happened.

Sorry for disappointing but I'd rather move on to more positive things. I will, of course, continue blogging as of tomorrow. On a regular basis. I really enjoy doing this but with the holidays and my birthday and all those fun days; well, I've been so busy.

I have some great news to write about as well. I'm bursting with energy and just happy that the Lord is ever merciful and kind to me.

Being too nice doesn't pay off

I'm standing in my friend's apartment as she is crying and sorting out the few things left after she sold her belongings. She doesn't know where she is going yet but decides she will go get her job back. She has been calling her husband but he's not picking up. In fact, he has turned off the phone -- the very phone that she got for him because his credit is so bad he can't even get a cell phone.

She keeps asking me why he did this to her. I answer I don't know. The crying and earth-shattering sobs get worse and I, like an idiot, say "don't worry, it's going to be okay, if you need a place to stay, you can stay in our spare bedroom." As soon as I'd said the words I wasn't so sure that I truly meant them. She immediately jumped on it. I couldn't go back on my word.

She's got one other problem (as if she doesn't have enough already), nobody has bought her two-week old couches. They are nice but nobody wants them. I ask her what she plans on doing with them and after another bout of sobs and what seemed like endless tears she tells me she doesn't know. Then she asks me if I want them. I told her she could keep them in my living room as we are remodeling and it's empty anyway. We are planning to get new ones so they can sit there until she decides what she's going to do with them.

Stating she just got them, that her husband had purchased them for her, she looks at them with a sad look on her face. I feel so bad for her. I tell her she's going to be ok and let's get moving because it's getting late.

Throughout the remainder of the day she cries, laughs and wonders out loud why her husband did this...for the 100th time. I understand that she is grieving and in a lot of pain but I really can't do anything else other than try to be a good friend to her. Encourage her and tell her to put things in God's hands; that all will be fine. To just give it a few weeks and all this pain will be much better.

Tomorrow she is going to go back to her old job and tell them she wants to come back now. Tomorrow, her healing will begin. She says she needs to get back to the world of the living. Get her job back where she will be working and not thinking about all this mess she is in at the moment.

Tomorrow.

Some people just refuse to see the obvious!

After I told my friend about putting God in the center of our marriage and family life I told her she could have that kind of relationship too if she so chose. I took this opportunity to witness to her, really witness to her. I saw a glimmer of hope come across her face.

I invited her to come with us to church on Sunday. She said she would go. Sunday came and went and she always had one excuse after another. I told her that I wouldn't push her and that it would be her decision. Quoting our pastor, I told her God was a perfect gentleman that He would not come into her life unless she asked Him wholeheartedly.

A couple weeks after her birthday she called me again to tell me she really needed to talk to a friend. I went and listened to what she had to say. As I had suspected, the husband was wanting out of the marriage. He was not coming home and hadn't for the past couple weeks. He'd been in town but he was staying elsewhere.

My friend was devastated. He told her he didn't love her as she had destroyed that love with her jealousy-induced accusations every time he came home. The proverbial crap had finally hit the fan. Here she was, out of a job, far from her family ( they are up in New York), no money and no place to go.

Come to find out, she had taken a leave of absence from her job and she had now decided that since she was going to go back home, she would not be asking for her job back. I tried to reason with her as best I could. I explained that she had no money, the apartment she lived in was paid for through the next couple months; that maybe she should just go back to work to make enough money to get back home. She was adamant she was leaving in a couple days. She wanted to get far away from this nightmare of hers.

She had a moving sale and sold all of her belongings that she possibly could. I was trying to tell her she was selling everything off way too cheap. She sold her dining set and her china cabinet for $200!! Same thing goes for the bedroom set. Nothing I said made her listen to reason.

Since she had already made up her mind that she was going back home I didn't push the job issue any more. In a couple days she would be gone and her healing would begin. I hated to see her in so much pain but at least I did what I could to help her while she was here. Going online, I found her some reasonably-priced tickets to fly back home. Everything was turning out fine after all. She would soon be home with her family, I thought, and this would all be only a terrible memory for her; one that would soon fade.

A few days later and a couple days before her flight was due to depart, like a bolt of lightning that comes out of the sky on a crisp clear day, she changed her mind! Being the dipstick that I am I start worrying about her job. I tell her my thoughts and that she better get back in there and get her job back. She acts like she cannot think straight. She is a total basket-case and is crying uncontrollably. I don't know how to deal with something like this as I've never seen anybody in that state of mind before.

I pray for guidance. I pray for her. I pray that God will show me what it is He wants me to do. She calls me several times a day. She comes over to my house. She is angry. She wants revenge on this other woman. She wants me to go with her and sit in this woman's apartment complex parking lot and wait to see if she can catch her husband with the "sewer rat" - as she called her.

For the life of me I don't know what to tell her. I mean this is insane! In the same breath she tells me she just wants to die. She wants to go to sleep and never wake up. I try to explain to her that she needs to think about her two sons. They need and love her. She has three grandchildren that need her around. This woman is 44 years old and she's acting like a love-struck teenager that has been jilted by her first lover. I tell her to get a grip of herself and to not shed anymore tears over a loser dog like her husband.

She smiles through her tears and she tells me I'm right that she's going to be okay and that she hopes the offending party will rot in hell and that he will pay dearly for what he's done. That God is merciful and He knows that she was a good wife and mother and that she is certain that God will take care of him as He sees fit.

In my ignorance I'm thinking she's coming around. She at least has put God into the equation, albeit in a different way than I was hoping but at least she has acknowledged Him. It's a start, I thought.

Night comes and goes and a new day has dawn. Little did I know what was in store for me that fateful day.

The saga continues....

Well, as promised, I am writing another chapter in my mini journal of the past couple months during which I endured things that I never dreamed I could.

It appeared that my friend's husband was having doubts about their marriage. At the beginning of the summer he had taken his kids to their biological mother up on the east coast to spend the summer vacation there. I didn't think anything of it and neither did my friend.

My friend and I went to get our bi-weekly manicures/pedicures and she mentioned that her husband had told her it would be okay for her to quit her job if she so chose. That was around the middle of June.

A month later and after two weeks of not seeing or hearing from her, she called me out of the blue and told me she had quit her job. When I asked her how long ago she had done this, she told me since the last time we had spoken. So, she'd been out of a job for two weeks but I had not heard from her during that time. She apparently was trying to work on their marriage. She mentioned she enjoyed living a life of leisure and not having to go to work every day.

A couple days later it was her birthday and she called me to tell me her two sons (grown and in their 20's) hadn't even bothered to call her. How nobody had even sent her a card, a gift - nothing. I, being the good friend (and sucker) that I am took her out for dinner. We talked about girl stuff...the usual. She also mentioned that her husband was acting more snippy with her than usual. He wasn't calling as often and when he came home they fought all the time.

What I did notice about her was that she was constantly calling him. Nothing really to talk about just to say hello and to see what he had eaten, where he was; small talk. When she mentioned that I had taken her out to dinner he did tell her, "Ok, well, enjoy your time with your friend." Abruptly hanging up afterwards. I had a weird feeling that he did not like her hanging around with me...or anybody for that matter. When I told her about my feeling that way she just shrugged her shoulders and said that was nonsense. After eating, I drove her back to her apartment and told her to keep in touch.

The next week when we got together to go shopping she tells me that her husband wants some "time away" from each other because he feels like she's acting too jealous and constantly accusing him of cheating on her. I asked her where that came from and apparently she had still been attacking him about his talking with her now ex-friend every time he came home.

I recalled that she had mentioned it in previous conversations we had had throughout the past several months but I had given it no further thought after I had told her to not fight with him over that. She had, according to her, forgiven him and that she shouldn't be throwing it up in his face all the time or the marriage was going to suffer because of it. I thought she had taken my advice. Wrong!! This woman kept hounding him about his supposed relationship with her ex-friend. In a way, I understood her being upset about this but in my mind I thought she was making a big deal out of it.

First of all, I explained to her, you don't ever confront the supposed "other woman" because if you go and insult somebody like that and there is nothing going on there, after a confrontation like that there might be. Second, don't ever fight over a man. It is not lady-like and only two-bit whores do that. I'm sorry but that is my honest opinion and I am not one to mince words. Third, nobody can take anybody away that doesn't want to go. That's the way I see it. To go and make a fool of oneself like that just isn't something a woman should do. I wouldn't give either one of them the satisfaction if that were me.

When I asked her more about this woman she told me that she had been a neighbor of theirs. That she had two sons. The youngest one was from a relationship she had had with a married man!! When I heard this, my mouth hit the floor. I was like, what the heck are you doing becoming friends with a person like that?! She told me that when she found out that it was already too late that she'd become friends with her and that she couldn't cut off the friendship because of something like that. I'm sorry but I wouldn't allow such a person in my home or anywhere near my family.

Marriages have enough problems to deal with without a friend you have to watch out for in that particular fashion. I mean for goodness sakes, I'm a friendly person but sheesh already! That's like bringing a wolf into your barnyard to see how it gets along with your sheep. Por favor!

After a few choice words about her now ex-friend, she continued on about how a man could even look at another woman having her (my friend) for a wife. I thought to myself...well, she is a little full of herself but oh well.

She then asked me if I would be jealous of my husband talking to a friend of mine behind my back. I told her first of all I wouldn't have a friend like that. Second, my reaction wouldn't have been like hers. I'd have to consider the situation before jumping the gun. Third, how the heck is my friend going to have my husband's cell phone number unless I gave it to her; which wouldn't happen in the first place because I would not allow someone like that near my family.

Now if he went out of his way to talk to one of my girlfriends with any intention other than friendship talk (which wouldn't bother me), then why would I want to keep him anyway? Makes absolutely no sense to me. Oh, I forgot to mention that she said to me, "your marriage is solid because you go to church." I told her, "my marriage is solid because I put God at the center of it." Hello....earth to Mary, earth to Mary.

To be continued.....

Have a blessed evening and don't forget to thank the good Lord for all your blessings. Especially your family.

The past couple months

I'm going to write about the reason for my 2-month long hiatus from blogging. It was a time of sadness, a time of joy, a time of indescribable insanity. Not really sure why it happened, how it happened all I know is that it did. Don't know if I'm the wiser for it or if I still have the big "S" emblazoned on my forehead.

A while back I met a woman and we became friends. We would go out and eat occasionally, share everyday life happenings and she would talk about how her husband drove a big rig and was gone for days and sometimes weeks at a time. We had a few things in common and we clicked as soon as we met.

Several weeks after we met she started to open up more about how her marriage was somewhat shaky. She apparently had caught one of her "good friends" calling and talking to her husband on his cell phone. When she confronted the friend she did not do it in the most diplomatic way possible. When she confronted the husband, he didn't think there was anything wrong with just talking to a mutual friend of theirs. My friend, obviously, did not see it like that. She went ballistic. Try as I might to explain to her that maybe she was making a big deal out of nothing she was adamant that something fishy was going on.

I pointed out to her that her husband wouldn't be stupid enough to mess up a good marriage. After all, my friend was raising his two children from a previous relationship, she loved those kids like they were her own. She dropped them off at school every morning before going to work every day. She got them medical coverage under her policy at work. She was there for them more than he was. Those kids loved her and she adored them. She spent her paycheck on buying things they needed. Her husband, their father, saw them once a week sometimes less. She meant the world to those kids.

At the beginning of July she told me she thought something was going on with her husband. I asked her why she thought this. She told me that every time she called him that he was cold towards her and always cut her off short saying he was too busy. It quickly went downhill from there.

More on this tomorrow. Have a blessed evening and say a prayer of thanks for your family. They are worth more than all the money in the world.