#BlackLivesMatter

I've literally run out of fucking words.

I want to say something meaningful. I want to say something helpful. I want to say something. 

Anything at all. 

I have no fucking words. Just anger, and sadness, and exasperation at the fact that we apparently can't go a single fucking day without shooting a black person dead in the street. I don't care if he had a concealed weapon. I don't care if he had weed in his car, which in legal in some places by the way, so there's that. I don't care if he ends up having a rap sheet a mile long. He, and so many others, don't get to tell their side of the stories or even get the option of a fair, just trial, not that I really believe that is a thing. You know why? Because they're dead. At the hands of police officers. For being black. 

I mean, sure he probably (maybe?) wasn't like "oh, a black person, I think I'll go kill him" But how many black males get pulled over everyday for driving while black. A shit ton, that's how many.

Don't try to feed me your bullshit that it isn't about race. In 14 years of driving, I've never once even been pulled over. One of my cars currently has expired plates. Never been pulled over. 

Let that sink in. 

So maybe I have some words. But none of them are good. I never know all the facts in these stories. I don't want to offend people (and by people of course, I mean my black friends) or say the wrong thing and come off high and mighty in my comfy white world so I keep my mouth shut. I fill with anger and hate that I'm not entitled to and I stay quiet, but I'm tired of being silent. I am tired of the excuses and the skewed perspective and the "well he shouldn't have..." justification bullshit. I'm tired. And if I'M tired, I can only pretend to imagine what the black community is. 

I am appalled and ashamed and horrified at what we, as people, have become, or rather at what we have persisted to be. In 1963, MLK said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. That whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Anyone who lives here in the country cannot be considered an outsider inside it's boundaries. Now days we teach that letter from Birmingham jail and it's considered our history, but is it really? Injustice is still injustice no matter how you paint it.

We are all a part of the history that is being written as I type. You don't get to pretend this shit isn't still real. That it isn't happening daily because you choose not to notice. It's out of hand and unless we stop looking the other way it is never, ever going to stop. Thoughts and prayers are fine. I'm down with that too. But maybe, just maybe, it's time to get off our asses and actually do something. So you can turn and look away or you can stand up and shout. You know my ass can be loud.

Wordless Wednesday - Happy Halloween

Wordless Wednesday

Take Me Back Tuesday - Luci

One week until this gorgeous girl turns 6!

Luci, Age 2

Wordless Wednesday

Take Me Back Tuesday - Old friends

Luci is turning 6 in a few weeks. Thought I would share a couple pictures of my sweet girl with one of her dearest lifelong friends.

Luci and Evyn in the nursery at Daycare.

Luci and Evyn last summer at Kings Island.

These two are forever friends.

'ello 2015

What's up nerds.

Been a long time. Whole year actually. Sorry for that. Been busy with sitting around doing nothing. Well, mostly. Some other stuff like five kids, a job, and nursing school might have also gotten in the way. Who knows.

So it's 2015 now. I am happy to announce that have already managed to write the date several times without having to change a 4 to a 5. At. All. Not even once. So that's a first. Shoulda made that my resolution now that I think about it. 

Seriously though, not much to say just felt like dusting off this old machine and typing up some nonsense. The kids are great. Jake is great. I'm great. We're all great. Updated the banner above with some family photos we had taken in November. The old one Charlie still didn't have teeth, so I figured it was time since she's 3 now. The photos were done by J. Turow Photography, a good friend of mine. Click here and like her Facebook page, then tell all of your friends.

Kids went back to school today. Winter break seemed a lot shorter this year. I think because we actually did something other than sit around for 3 weeks. Took a few days to Jake's family's hometown between holidays. Sadly it was for a funeral, but we had a great time nonetheless. Got to meet a lot of family I had only ever heard about, and they got to visit with a whole lot of children. It was a win win. We ate food from restaurants a lot. Also a win. We found BBQ Fritos* at a Walmart in Elizabethton, TN. I am telling you, the trip was a win.

(*They, for some reason, do not sell the delicious, best chip ever made, at any store in Indianapolis. If you ever find that they do, I should be the first person you call. That is an order, friends.)

I go back to school next week. So, yeah. Enjoying this last week of whatever it is I'll be doing. (Watching a lot of Doctor Who.) Last semester was pure hell, so hoping it will be better than that. I mean, it can't really be worse, so that's hopeful. On another note, I graduate this year. That's right, the year of graduation. In December, but still, this year. THIS. YEAR.  I am a little excited if you can't tell. Ready to be done with school and into the workforce... wait. what?

On NYE, with a twinkle in my eye, I said to Jacob, "just think next year this will be so different and exciting for us. I'll be a nurse, we'll both be successful, and it will be like the start of a new life for our beautiful family." 

or something like that anyway. All I remember is him replying, "Well, I mean technically you won't be a nurse yet, you'll have to take that test in January and hope you pass."

Thanks. Dream crusher. Like I passively forgot about the NCLEX. geesh.

Jake is a full time "regular" mailman now. Don't ask me what that means because the postal service is asinine and it would take too much work to explain. BUT he actually gets a day off and benefits and everything so that's pretty cool. He seems happy with it anyway. I don't really see how considering it's snowing like Antarctica as I type and he'll be walking around all day tomorrow freezing to death in it. I'd rather shoot myself in the foot. He doesn't complain though. I suppose the faces he makes when I tell hospital stories means the feelings about job role reversal are mutual. We're polar opposites, but somehow we work. Love that man. 

Hoping to write more, hoping to have the time to. If you don't hear from me for another year, just think, you'll be hearing from a nurse.