JANUARY 2, 2009 UNITED FRIENDS CHALLENGE NUMBER ONE HUNDRED SIX ... THE LOCKERRIDGE 2008 WRAP UP OF LIFE EVENTS, LESSONS LEARNED, AND FUTURE GOALS

JANUARY 2, 2009

UNITED FRIENDS CHALLENGE NUMBER ONE HUNDRED SIX THE LOCKERRIDGE 2008 WRAP UP OF LIFE EVENTS,  LESSONS LEARNED, AND FUTURE GOALS Ladyharley's Challenge Happy 2009 everyone! Here's your 1st challenge of the year.Write a "Dear Friends & Family" letter to recap YOUR 2008... The challenge though is to make it about the good things... & To write it in story or poem format. (NON-FICTION, please.) If it helps, use a theme. A theme type is only a suggestion, not a requirement in this challenge. Also, if you feel the need to share about something adverse... try to put a positive spin on it
THE LOCKERRIDGE 2008 WRAP UP OF LIFE EVENTS, LESSONS LEARNED AND FUTURE GOALS It is truly amazing, but I have little trouble putting a positive spin on the year of 2008, not because it was not a year of much turmoil and upheaval worldwide.. but because it was a year that I did not have an event which turned my world upside down.  Changes which shock the emotions and permanently change my way of daily life, and ultimately my personality or outlook on life in general. I did not lose a close friend or family member in the year 2008. I did not have to give up on a business or project, because it was just not something I could handle by myself. I did not have to worry about having a roof over my head and food to eat. I did not have any one treat me in a way that altered my view of human kind in general, all those illusions of people being basically unselfish and loving me if I loved them, were gone many years ago.. so no alterations there.. the lessons learned were not even in use very much this year. Health wise, I only had two bouts of flu in 2008. Nothing else in my health to worry me or anyone else in my friends and family to speak of. ( knock on wood) I have had several epiphanies though... Whew! I learned that some people are very weak people. I learned that I do not have to take on responsibility for something which is not my problem. In other words.. don't allow others problems to be dumped into my lap for me to fix for them. Especially if the person with the problem, is doing nothing to help with the fixing. An enabler of lack of someones own personal responsibility, and self respect ( lazy butts) , I will no longer be!   I learned that if I want something done.. do it myself.. waiting on someone else to do it, even if they said they would,  is an act in futility. If I want it done.. then I must be the one to get it done. I don't throw that responsibility on anyone elses' shoulders. If it is my problem,  then I must be at least a small part of the solution. I learned this by the dumping problems in my lap epiphany.. I finally got off my ever enlarging duff, and got busy remodeling my Moms' house so I can move into it. I almost waited too late for this to get off the ground. As it is I think the mobile home I am living in at the moment, will have to become a rent income for me instead of simply selling it. No more mortgage money for real houses, let alone a mobile home.. sigh.. live and learn. In the year 2008 I learned that just because someone is blood related to you.. and they do love you.. does not mean they necessarily want to be around you. Nor does this mean they will help you in the event you might need help. I do not have many family members left which live near me, and the ones who do... Well let us just say... I learned sometimes people just are not compatible, even if they are related. No fighting, or ill feelings. Just the knowledge that we are very very different in our way of living, and the two shall not twain.. ever! I learned that the young people we have in this generation, the ones who have graduated high school and up to their mid twenties are still just as dumb as we were when we were that age. This knowledge came to me by way of,  a 17 year old unmarried female cousin, who is  6 months pregnant. The reason she gives for this happening is, the babies father,  just would not let her alone so she could go to sleep... So the result of her needing rest... Is a baby.  She also is refusing to marry the babies father because she does not LOVE him.  "HELLO!".. you had sex with the guy.. and you did not love him????? You just wanted him to leave you alone so you could sleep, and gave in? MY Daddy is rolling over in his grave about now!
She has moved back in with her Dad and he is taking care of everything for them.
 I can hardly contain my joy over this maturity shown by our next generation. Through this bit of knowledge and wisdom gained, served to reinforce my belief  that evolution is garbage on a paper plate.. no way is the human race evolving into something better.  Parents need to get into some kind of educational involvement with their kids again, and the most important thing. Cancel all sex education courses in our schools. They are teaching girls that giving in to a boy is okay if they are tired and just want to go to sleep, and that even if Dad can't take care of them and their child.. Uncle Sam is always there to lend a hand... Of course doing this basically gives the government control over how you are raising your child and if a social worker says your not doing very good, they just take the child away,
 and give it to foster parents who know better how to do that than the biological parents do.  Foster parenting is a noble thing to do, for any person with that much love to give freely to kids, but as with anything, that is not always the case, and the children are the ones who suffer the system corruption.
But once again with a positive outlook on things, I will have a new baby to hug and cuddle and snuggle in around three months time, and that is a gooood thing!
 Nothing makes you feel more alive and capable of moving mountains, than when you hold a new born baby.. nothing! I have also had an epiphany lately of needing to recognize the things which surround me in my life. Things that have made it possible for so many other things to happen world wide that are good things.. miracles actually. The things which reaffirm that mankind is always working, always striving, always pushing the edge of our known existence to improve it. Some of them are included here, on this list of things I need to notice and not take for granted... Like the fact that I am able to go to a store and buy strawberries and tomatoes in January... no small feat that! The miracle of the telephone, and the communications that we take for granted, that allow communication with the other side of the world, in a mere second of time. My frost free refrigerator, my self cleaning oven.. my Maytag washing machine and SmartSense dryer and most of all.. my microwave. . The moving pictures and sound on my television set which are only waves of energy in the air till a machine made by another human being enables them to be caught and translated into the movie I am watching.
The cell phone, I have never known this much enabling in my entire life. I have no fear of taking off in my vehicle alone, for most anywhere I feel like going. The cell phone puts my mind at ease about most any problem I could face.. with help just a phone call away. The machines which only count the numbers one and zero, this machine called a computer, I am using at this moment, to communicate with a person hundreds if not thousands of miles from me.. in a matter of seconds. The machines that they have which allow a premature baby to live and grow and thrive outside its mothers womb..  Heart transplants, cornea transplants, liver transplants, kidney transplants...  All are miracles which God has given us through the intelligence of other human beings with a desire and a drive to make things better.  And I do not even think about them. I don't give thanks for them. I just pass over them if they do not apply to my life at the moment.  It seems mostly instead of seeing the blessings,
I just gripe cause they can't cure the common cold.  It is something in me that is selfish behavior, and I need to change that... So never considering the genius and blessing, in the intelligence it took to send a person to the moon and receive them back unharmed, is something which I am going to try to change about myself in the year 2009. I also have decided that I am over the age when gaining decent employment is easy... or at least it is harder than at age 25 lets say, so I need a skill that would be of great demand right now. This decided.. I am going to learn to speak Spanish this year of 2009.
Sounds easy when you say it huh? lol.. Via Con Dios,
Mi Amigos
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