Joey You’re a man

Well, my 23 year old son.  I love you and thanks for the mother’s day greeting.  I appreciate your position in life and how you have made it thus far being a productive citizen. You know that for me, productive means you’re not on drugs, you haven’t been arrested for anything, and you haven’t knocked anyone up. LOL.

But seriously,

 I can honestly say I know how it is to struggle with life and money and life

 and well, life. 

 I just pray you know what you are doing joining the Army.(after leaving the Air Force)  The Army was an escape for me as well.  I did 5 years escaping my upbringing.

  But….there was no Iraq war then.

  What has fostered this love-hate relationship with the military for me?

  I married 2 Army guys. 

both are kinda nuts, but I’m hanging with the 2nd one because I’m in love with him. 

 All 4 of you kids were born scott-free, paid for by Army dollars. 

 I do not own a house.  For all of your 23 years, give or take a few months, I spent living in army quarters. Mine, his, or HIS.

  Everytime you kids had a sneeze, a sniffle, a fever, or a life threatening emergency, I was able to go to the Army hospital and have you seen~~again, FREE. Zero dollars and zero cents.

This would’ve cost a LOT had I been a civilian then.  You guys were a sickly bunch with your asthma, your accidents, your braces…. 

 By all accounts, you kids should have sent me to the poor house with medical care, but the Army paid it all. 

 On top of this, after 23 years, your dad retired with a nice monthly pay check and lifetime medical care, again scot free.  Your step dad will do the same Lord willing in 5 years.  This is the “LOVE” part of the Army.

  The hate part is, that the Army is part of a war now. 

 It’s not a fair war, and I happen to think it’s not ending anytime soon.

You think your head is messed up now, honey, wait until you see someone’s brains blown out in front of you.  Wait until you see blood that looks like Halloween stuff,

 but it’s real. 

This war will not go away.  I believe personally that it is the end of the end.  But that is just me. 

 Whatever you do son, realize that the recruiter is doing his job.  The reason they happily accepted you (after you left the air force) is that they are happy that they have another warm body to go to that big sand dune of Hell. 

 I’m not saying you aren’t good enough son.  I’m saying you are TOO good for them and that is why I am cautioning you now. 

 Beware of someone that might lie to you about what you are getting into, promising you jobs that you want, but you end up with a job toting weapons in some unwin-able war. 

 That is all I am saying.  You may or you may NOT go.(to Iraq)  But if you do, you will come back changed son.  You will. 

 I hope you will not change too much son.

Son, you are my only son. I’m too old and ugly to have another one. You brought me years of joy, and pride now that you are older.

 I love you. I support you fully, because I believe in you.

The weedy seedys~tale of a great photo op lost

On a sad note:  Yesterday, I was going to have this fantastic shot of a seemingly mundane field of white seeded dandelions, caught by the rays of the setting sun. 

You would’ve had to see it to appreciate it of course.  That’s what makes it so grrrr, frustrating! 

It was like angel hair.  Billowy poofs of glowing surrealness.  One almost forgot that they were weeds. Fields upon fields of WEEDS.

  It seems as though whoever is in charge of landscaping the army base has just given up fighting the siege of the weeds.  So dandelions are alllll over in freakish numbers. 

 Anyhoo, I had this awesome shot.  It almost made me feel sentimental about weeds!  The orange glow of the sun setting and shining through alll those white poofy dandelions.

 I told myself I’d shoot it the next evening.  Well, guess what?  The wind had blown every last (okay almost) every last white puff away.  All that was left was BALD dandelion heads. 

 I don’t want to have to tell you that the sun setting through bald dandelion heads wasn’t as pretty do I? 

Pretty much explains why this place is losing the weed siege tho.  Think of where alllllll those little weed seeds were blown last night in 50 MPH wind gusts!

the moral of the story: shoot it while ya got it shutter bugs!

 

Today was nice.  For every mom it probably was.  At least that would be my hope.  Big and little “A” made sure they made a meal for me.  They also gave me a nice big card and a book called HUGS FOR WOMEN, nice collection of scripture and quotes.  I prolly will share some of them over the blogging course of days.  Nice weather too after last night’s high winds.  I truly thought the house was goin’ dowwwnnnnn.  It was sunny and chilly today. 

From reading the blogs on here, it looks as though many or most of you had great mother’s day’s and that is how it’s supposed to be, eh?