My life without a Father ...

When I was 3 years old my Mother and Father divorced, because my Father was pretty into his marijuana from what I understand. When they divorced he left, and I never saw him again. I don't know many details because my Mother would not talk about it.

My Mom remarried but I never really felt like I had a real father figure. My step father took good care of us, he worked hard and provided for our family the best he could but I never had that father/daughter relationship with him. Understandably so, after all, he wasn't my real Dad. He and my Mother had 2 daughters, Megan and Dani Lin (De De), which I always regarded as my full sisters. It's only when someone reminds me that they aren't full blooded sisters that I have to go "Oh yeah".

When I was around 16 years old I found my Mother's old address book. I still remember it like it just happened, it was black and red and hard backed. Tons of addresses and phone numbers all scribbled out and rewritten as people were moving and changing their information. In the back of that red and black book that I found in the bottom of a kitchen drawer there was a phone number for my paternal Grandfather, Jack Ramey. I do not recall ever talking to this man previous to this, or even seeing him though I would have been extremely young. I called him and was on the verge of hysterics. I figured out that I had an older half brother, Brett, from my Father's previous wife.

Brett was about 6 or 7 years older than I was and lived with his maternal Grandparents. His Mother died when he was 16 years old from cancer. Brett, having no Mother or Father around, fell into some problems of his own. Brett married a pharmacist and lived in Tallahassee, Florida for a few years.  He drank a lot and I became more and more frustrated with the life he was falling into, since I also believed he was doing drugs.

I some what distanced myself from it when he started to get a divorce and things got worse. I was young and did not know how to deal with it, nor did I want to as I could not imagine what would drive a person to do the things that Brett was. I remember the last time I spoke to Brett I asked him, in tears, to please stop before he ended up like our Father. This was the last time I talked to Brett, he died when I was 25 years old. I was devastated because I had lost my one and only link to that side of my family. I had lost my brother, and my last words to him were how I couldn't be a part of his life until he got sober. He didn't.

Around the time I found Brett I also got a phone number for my Father. I called him but he always seemed so uninterested in talking to me. Once I spoke to his girlfriend who, apparently, wasn't much older than I was and I heard some pretty crazy stuff from her (to say the least). I found out my Father had 3 other children with him there in Oregon. A boy, and two girls who were a bit younger than I. I also heard from someone in the family that he had another child in California.

When I graduated from High School my Father sent me a card. I remember it was pink and had Minnie Mouse on it. It had 3 pictures in it. One of those pictures was my Father with a rat on his shoulder. One was of my little Brother, Elijah flexing his muscles in nothing but his shorts. He appeared to be around 7 or 8. The other picture was of my two little sisters (Amma and Shivala) Shivala was hugging Amma around her neck and Amma was smiling as big as can be.

In that card my Father told me to expect a package in the mail (a graduation present).

I didn't hear from my Father again.

I made peace with the fact that I didn't have a Father, I learned what I needed to learn for my own peace of mind. I moved on with my life.

Awwww Nuts! (cracker)

I was listening to the Nutcracker Suite and thinking about what to make for Thanksgiving dinner. I have the list of normal foods; I would love to make something new and exciting, a vegetable dish in fact. I'm starting to love more and more vegetables all the time, but since I've spent most of my life loathing them I've not had much practice with making fantastic ones.

When I was a child the only thing I could stand to eat was corn. I hated green beans, and peas and beans of any kind. Lima beans were terrible horrible child abuse as far as I was concerned! How could my Mother do that to me? Anything squishy was terrible and that was every single vegetable that my family cooked. My Grandmother (Nannie as she will hence forth be called) would cook her vegetables in a pressure cooker!

The most depressing thing about that is I grew up on/around a small farm. We always had enormous gardens with all of the fresh vegetables you could think of. I long for that now that I know a green bean shouldn't smoosh to nothing when pressed between your fingers.

With that. I think I'd like to start making 1 new meal a week. Something I've never made before. Force myself to do it too, not just do it every once in a while. One thing I really want to make is a really fantastic Tomato soup/bisque. I love the stuff, but I will generally pop open a can of Campbell's because I know it will always taste like childhood.

How to fit that into life with being a Mom, doing school work, and all of Tyler's activities? Maybe coming into the world of blogging will help me keep myself on track, virtual accountability (if you will). In fact, publicly writing my goals just may force me to make it all work a bit better!

So, what should this Sunday's family dinner be? I'll have to think on this. Tonight, though, the Cub Scouts are getting their S'more Brownies I promised them! Maybe I'll toss my pumpkin pies in the oven too, yum!