Tag Archives: life

They tell me not to be afraid…

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You know people around me tell me not to be afraid because that’s what “they” want. I’m not even sure who they are anymore. And I am afraid. I look over my shoulder no matter where I go, no matter what I do, no matter who I see, no matter who I’m with.

I’m beginning to think that our present administration is part of the “They” movement.

This world is a crazy place. And while I am sad for every single murder, shooting, end of life from violence in this country this particular slaughter of innocents hit me really hard – like Sandy Hook did. I am heartbroken, devastated and just so incredibly horrified.

A note from the universe.

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My note from the universe. I get these daily. They are always pretty right on and they creep me out a little.

Heres today’s :

I can imagine that from your perspective, it must seem like some truly awful things happen in time and space. So, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to weigh in.

You live in a world of illusions. A world that springs from a much deeper and far greater reality. And while at times the illusions are indeed ugly, with your physical senses you only see the tip of the iceberg. If you could see the whole, you’d discover that the unpleasantness was only the tiniest piece of a most spectacular puzzle that was created with order, intelligence, and absolute love. You’d see that contrary to appearances, in the grandest scheme of things, nothing is ever lost, no one becomes less, and setbacks are always temporary. And you’d understand that no matter what has happened, everyone lives again, everyone laughs again, and everyone loves again, even more richly than before.

Hubba, hubba –
The Universe

A giant of a man has left our planet

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My Dad died. I have no idea what I am going to do.  Breathing is hard.  Our relationship was complicated.  I am thankful we left on good terms. He knew I loved him fiercely and I knew he loved me.

I hope that was enough.  Rest in peace Dad, God knows you deserve it.

Chuck Engel Dad

Charles “Chuck” Lee Engel was born in Fargo, North Dakota on August 24th, 1936 to his mother, Leone I. McCrady (née Engel). Chuck passed away after a brief illness on January 20th, 2016 at 6:08 AM, Swedish Medical Center, Seattle, Washington at the age of 79.

As a young child Chuck spent much of his time in Fargo, North Dakota and Fergus Falls, Minnesota, and later moved to the Pacific Northwest with his mother, where he was raised in Tacoma, Washington.

In August of 1956, he met the love of his life Diane E. Kemp. On April 18th, 1958 they married in Seattle, Washington, settling in Belfair, Washington where they started their family. Always good with his hands, Chuck’s first job was working for Red’s Electric winding motors and began an apprenticeship as an electrician.

In September of 1959 Chuck was drafted into the United States Army and served our country for six years as a Telecommunications Technician with a tour overseas serving at USAG Baumholder Army base in Baumholder, Germany. After receiving an honorable discharge in September, 1965, Chuck returned to work at Red’s Electric until 1967.

Chuck’s career for the rest of his professional life revolved around fresh water irrigation systems, fresh water pumps, and the waste water industry. He was the regional manager of the West Coast Division of Hydromatic Pumps for several years in California and then later returned to his home state of Washington where he traveled extensively to Alaska, managing and administrating waste water treatment plants all throughout the state.

After nearly three decades selling, installing, and administrating fresh water and municipal waste water treatment plants, Chuck served as the Superintendent of Waste Water for Kitsap County until 1994, and then went to work for Familian Northwest, retiring in 1998.

He and his wife Diane lived on the banks of Lake Devereaux for 27 years before relocating to Kent, Washington in 2005.

Chuck enjoyed, photography, fishing, hunting, gardening, traveling and oh my goodness, he was an amazing cook. An avid reader, his interests revolved around historical novels and World War II topics. Chuck did a lot of volunteering for Senior Services of King County, driving senior citizens to and from various appointments, and could be found exercising regularly at the Senior Center and with his “Easy Breathing” group for patients with various kinds of breathing issues.

The center of his life revolved around Diane, his wife of 57 years. His children and his wife loved him fiercely, and fondly referred to him as “The Lion” of their family.

Chuck is survived by his daughter Marna Gatlin, and her husband, Manny Gatlin of Warren, Oregon; daughter, Lisa Carr, and her husband David Carr of Kent, Washington, and son, Cristifer Engel, and his wife Verlynna Engel of Wenatchee, Washington; three grandchildren, grandson, Joshua, granddaughter, Ashley, and grandson, Nicholas; and one great granddaughter Abigail. Cousins, Robert “Bob” Baker, his wife Vonnie, of Fergus Falls, Minnesota and Mary Jo Kilde, of Battle Lake, Minnesota.

His mother, Leone, preceded him in death in 1970, his very special Aunt, Inez Baker 1981, and cousins Helen Lund, 2000, and Jean Ann Bassett 2011.
Per Chuck’s wishes there will be no funeral services.

Last but not least Chuck leaves behind his beloved Bombay cat, friend and companion “Thomas” of the family home.
A giant of a man has left our planet. He is loved so very much, and we will miss him every single day.

I don’t get it.

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I have a specific set of values and philosophies I hold in regards to gun ownership. I feel as strongly about those views as my friends who have an opposite set of values. And that’s really OK because I respect their point of view even though I may not agree with it.

However what I don’t understand is that some of my friends ( not all ) who are at the opposite end of the spectrum regarding their feelings about gun ownership are hell-bent on lumping all of us who are gun owners in this category that we are violent – blood thirsty- war mongers. And that all we think about is kill kill kill.

That’s the farthest thing from the truth.

I am probably one of the most peaceful people on the planet.

So this is what I don’t get- some of my friends ( again, not all ) who do not share my views on gun ownership verbally are some of the most violent people I have ever met. The hate, the threatening words, and the anger that comes out of their mouths is just over-the-top.

I really don’t get that.

Then again – I have a very different view of the world now after almost dying.

And I think I will save that story for a different day.

When your mind won’t stop long enough to pause

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Up until the past year I’ve never had a problem sleeping. I could lay my head down and in five minutes be out cold.

And I used to sleep like the dead.

Not so much anymore.

Everything affects me- Much more so than it ever did before.

I’m now sensitive to sound. It’s as if I have developed super sonic hearing. I swear to God I can hear someone talking 5 miles away. I hear every creak, groan, and crack the house makes at night. As much as I not to let my imagination run away with me with God knows what I might think – Aliens, home invasion, robbers, who knows. The truth is I’m sure it’s always the house settling.

My husband snores- This does not help. I can hear the neighbors snoring. It’s just not help.

My room has to be cool, and dark. No light or I don’t sleep. God help me if I’m over warm or sweating.

Last night there was a symphony of bullfrogs out in the meadow across the way making their beautiful music. Do you think that their lullaby could put me to sleep? No unfortunately I don’t know how long they kept me up. What began as something beautiful and reminiscent of my childhood shortly became irritating because I couldn’t sleep.

The rain used to be my natural sleeping pill. The harder it rained the harder I would sleep. Not anymore.

Along with all of this my brain won’t turn off. Part of me wonders if it’s stress and anxiety. Part of me wonders if it’s because I’m older. Part of me wonders if it’s because I run my own business and company and everything is on my shoulders. Part of me wonders if it’s genetic.

I come from a long line of non-– sleepers. So I come by being an insomniac naturally. We were all the night owls- And I used to be and wore that label with great pride. I can remember around 8 PM I would get my second wind, a burst of energy if you will, I could stay up until 1 AM or 2 AM with no problem. Now days if I’m not horizontal by 10 it’s all over for me.

But then sleep doesn’t always come.

I have tried everything- Exercise, reading, praying, warm milk, music, sex, hypnosis, meditation, and drugs.

I think my imagination is my worst enemy. In the good old days I could think about what I would do if I won a huge lottery. I could fantasize about walking into someone’s house and sitting down at the table and writing them a check- Or the places I would travel- Or the kind of house I would build-Or the charities I would help, etc… That in itself would lull me to sleep.

Again, not anymore. I know replace that ritual with worry and it’s so dumb. There’s so many things that I worry about but I have no control over that I can conceivably drive myself batshit.

The also weird thing that’s going on is that I am steadily losing weight- I’m doing it on purpose but I’m continuing to lose weight which is great- What’s weird about this is that I’m dreaming about things but I haven’t thought about in years that I’m realizing I satiated with the way I am at the time. For instance I’m almost down 50 pounds and I’m dreaming about stuff that happened to me when I was out this week many years ago.

Crazy times.

If any of you have insomnia what’s your home cure? How do you get your brain to turn off?

When Women Become Bitches….

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I stop what I’m doing and make homemade granola.

You think I kid — but no I am serious.

In my day job I am surrounded by thousands of women — 90% of who I deal with on a daily basis are women.  (I bet all you guys are licking your chops aren’t you.)

They are all different shapes, sizes, cultures, socioeconomic status, race, creed, faith, personalities,  and various walks of life — it’s truly for the most part a delightful diverse melting pot of individuals.

Most of the time I love my job.  Today is not one of those days.

The majority if the women I interact are delightful and I sincerely mean that. There are only a handful of women who I interact with who are not delightful and down right awful.

After spending almost all day attempting to resolve an issue that would make the majority happy I realized that there was no making everyone happy and I needed to come up with a resolution that would benefit the organization.

So I did.

And boy did he have howlers.

Instead of stressing myself to the point of a nervous breakdown I said :

“Screw this”

I shut everything down and made homemade granola from scratch that I can smell roasting in the oven.

Yep, that’s what I did.  When women become bitches you stop what you’re doing and make granola.

My diagnosis: I have a tiny penis.


 

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When I first read this I thought it said: “tiny penis” then I thought “I don’t even have a penis. Do I?”

I’ve been told I have a set of iron clad balls- But no penis. This would explain a lot:)

I’ve always got along better with men than women, I’ve been told I think more like a guy that I do a girl, and I’ve been known to be referred to as a hard ass bitch sometimes:) In fact one guy I dated years ago told me that I was resentful because I didn’t have a penis, and my problem was psychologically I really wanted to stand up and pee like a man.

So maybe my bad attitude stems from the fact that I have a tiny penis:) ha ha ha ha!

Truth be told this is just a fancy word for athletes foot- On my heel:)

Oh and I do have a plantars wart on my foot and the doc wants to treat with duct tape:)

You have no idea how much I have laughed over the fact that I thought for about 10 seconds my diagnosis really was that I had a tiny penis.

Okay so here’s the acid test – I wonder how many perverts I’m going to see googling tiny penis.

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Monday mornings or should that be Monday mournings.

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Why is it that the older we become the faster time seems to fly by?

Thinking back when I was a child – Christmas couldn’t get here soon enough. Going on a car trip – the destination couldn’t get here soon enough. “How many more miles to have to go ?” we would ask our parents over and over and over. I would keep a calendar that would have countdowns to many things that I anticipated.

For instance, in a former relationship, my partner asshole was in the Navy. He would regularly go on these things called “readiness exercises” – They were typically about 21 days long. My calendar would have the start date and end date and I would put big red X’s on every day he was gone and it seemed like it took years for him to come home when it was only a short 21 days. I had a love hate relationship with these things. I would either start a diet, or rearrange the house, or do something different to my hair, but there was always the anticipation factor when he would leave. And God help me when he would leave for long cruises of six months or more- Those were the worst.

I’m not a good person when it comes to waiting. That stupid quote that says good things come to those who wait is just bullshit my book. I hate being on hold, I hate hate hate standing in line, I don’t like waiting in the doctors office, or a dentist office, my thought is I just hate waiting.

It seemed like it took for ever for me to become 10 – that was such an important age to me and I don’t know why. Turning 16 seemed like an eternity as did turning 18 as well as turning 21. I highly anticipated 25 but then once I broached the age of 30 it was like my life hit the fast-forward button.

And now at age 50 I feel like a time traveler who is traveling at work speed and I can’t find the brakes!

Maybe this has to do with the fact that I become proficient at becoming such a time waster. Maybe the Internet feeds my tendency to be ADD. I can surf the web and begin reading the news and end up on some weird ass site for growing moon rocks in your backyard and not realize that three hours has gone by – time that’ll never get back.

Most likely it has to do with the fact that I work a ridiculous workweek- Typically I put in about 65 hours a week. That’s a lot of hours- but I own my own company and I’m all about making sure things are done right, the needs of our patients are met etc…. Any business owner gets this.

Unfortunately my partner is also in an incredibly demanding job and because of that and his work schedule we don’t get to see each other very much during the week. We also have a kid and balancing life, child raising and work is a challenge.

Which brings me to the weekend.

I used to loathe Friday nights – just loathed them. It was the end of a long week, everyone was crabby, I didn’t want to talk to anybody, I used up all my words for the week, all I wanted to do was sit and vegetate and not interact with the world.

However, when you’re married and have a kid that’s a really an unless you’re sick. And even when you’re sick you still kind of have to interact right? At least you do at my house.

I’m not sure when the shift occurred but I began to really look forward to Friday nights. Saturday nights have always been my favorite night of the week for many reasons- But Friday night began to really rate right up there with all good things in my life. And then of course I began to dread Sunday morning because I knew that before I knew it Sunday night would be here and it would be time to switch gears and mentally prepare for Monday morning – To begin the week again.

This weekend for example I began my work day Friday at around 6 AM. I looked up from my desk and it was already noon; the growl in my stomach told me it was time to stop and eat lunch.

So I did.

I had an appointment in Portland so I grabbed my kid and we made the mad dash to Portland and I got home around 3 PM. I had to think about dinner and that lasted about an hour which took me to about 4 o’clock. I’m not sure what happened between 4 PM and 6 PM that’s a blur but my husband whistled in around 6:30 we had dinner almost immediately and the next thing I knew it was 11 o’clock! We all crashed, slept in, got up and started her day around 8 AM.

And I’ll be damned if I didn’t wake up at 6 o’clock this morning realizing it was freaking Monday all ready!!!!

I used to not understand when retired people would say they’re busier now that you’re retired than they were when they were working. Now I get it – I think it’s because the time just speeds bye.

Oh crap – a lame post brought to you by the letter “L”

Today is Friday – My Friday five.

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Food:

1. What’s your favorite food?
2. If you were not allowed to drink water what beverage would you drink for the rest of your life?
3. What food do you refuse to eat under no circumstances?
4. What food can you not live without?
5. What food were you sure you’re going to hate but when you tried it you were pleasantly surprised?