Top Five Things That Broke My Heart In 2012...

Top Five Things That Broke My Heart In 2012..

And How to Prevent Them in 2013

5.  People are not what they seem.

I think we all have images in our minds of how we see people, who we think they are and it hurts when you realize some are just not what you perceived. It burst your little bubble, it is like finding out there is no Santa Clause or Easter Bunny and you just want to know why anyone would lie to you about what is real and what is not! The fact is most of us are not as we appear. I have met people I thought were total buttholes because they acted closed off and aloof and downright unfriendly, but when I took time to get to know them…really know them….I found  out something awful had just happened in their lives. That is why they were acting weird--they didn’t want to meet another person they might love and then have to lose. Then and I have come to know others who I believed in completely and they turned out to be completely whacko. So we have to accept people where they are at the time and not make any pre-conceived opinions or hold on to first impressions. That will save us a heart break or two next year.

4. Religion is not what it seems.

I have decided I am not religious anymore…I don’t think I was ever really religious, I think I have been “Christian” for most of my life because there is nothing any cooler or beyond WOW than Jesus Christ…you just can’t beat His teachings-- so I am happy to say I am no longer religious but a stronger believer in Christ…so that is not what broke my heart. What broke my heart were all the people masquerading as “Christians’ who would kick Christ right out of their own church. Jesus loved everyone. He loved the sinner, the leper, the thief on the cross. He judged no one and just loved them all regardless of their sins. Some Christians had rather go have a Chick-fil-A sandwich in honor of someone who hates homosexuals than give a meal to a child…I guess because it makes them feel superior and separates them from those ‘bad people’. It broke my heart to hear people say or sing in one breath how great the grace and mercy of a loving God is and in the next talk about how He would also send people to a burning hell forever and ever and ever for loving the wrong person or committing a different sin from their sins. My heart broke to not see love come from those that say they love God…but I will continue to love God. Next year I hope I learn to love Him more and serve Him better.

3. NEVER talk about religion and politics.

Sure we have heard that all our lives but because I was raised in the backwoods…I didn’t know any better. Maybe because my parents never agreed on anything political and I learned more listening to them ‘debate’ than any school or college could teach me. I just assumed that everyone was like my family. That you could state your opinion about anything, disagree and then laugh and have a really good home cooked meal later. But that is just not true anymore. People identify themselves by their religious and political beliefs and if you disagree with either,  they feel you are attacking them personally. So my heart did not break because someone did not agree with me…let’s face it..I am pretty used to that….my heart was broken because they thought maybe I liked them less as a person because I did not agree with them. And the bible says if your right hand offends you…cut it off. I don’t think that meant literally take a sword and chop off your hand…I think it means nothing should be more important than letting people know that you love them. 

Certainly not your opinion about anything--even if you feel like it is important-- people will not really listen to you if they don’t think you love them first. My heart is broken by my own mistakes. Now that I realize that--I will be slower to speak and quicker to listen next year.

2. We Have Become a Christian Nation of Fear

Sounds like an oxymoron to me. Christian Fear.  It does not compute. There is a wildfire spreading across the United States of fear. Be afraid of the government, be afraid of your neighbor, afraid of anyone who looks different, acts different, worships different, if they even seem the least bit different. I worship a God who says, “Fear not”, so it all confuses me and I am sure it confuses those who do not know or believe in God. What are we so afraid of? We are ready to put armed guards around our schools, we think more guns will cut down on deaths by guns. We are buying up more and more ammunition getting ready for some sort of show down with somebody and we are teaching our children that the entire world is not a safe place to live. I don’t think the world has ever been a safe place to live. We are enraged at the deaths of 20 innocent babies and we should be but where is the outrage over thousands of deaths of innocent children we killed in wars we should have never been fighting? Do we just demand safety for those children who live within our borders, if and only IF they have a legal right to be here? Jesus came to save the WORLD—not just the USA. That breaks my heart and I am not sure what we can do about that next year. Any and all suggestions are welcomed.

1.      And the NUMBER ONE thing that broke my heart this year is….

I did not spend enough time doing all the things I should have to make things better. I spent more time on “me” than I did on the mission to help others. I thought I had it all right and that all I had to do was make people think like I thought and things would be better. So my heart deserves to be broken into a million little pieces and I need to pick them up and start over. I need to look at the ‘man in the mirror’ or "Ninja Squirrel Queen in the mirror"( hehe)  and start with me.  “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me”…that needs to be my motto. I need to stop worrying about what other people are doing or not doing and sweep around my own back porch as Mama Bess would say.

Thank you all for listening to my ranting and raving and craziness this year. I can’t promise I will not continue BUT I can promise I will put forth more effort in the coming year. I will stop…I will pause..I will take a couple of deep breaths, count to 100,000… (maybe) and try to be a bit more understanding and less critical. Ya’ll better PRAY FOR ME…haha

May you all have the bestest New Year EVER!!!

~Squirrely Girl

SEX, DRUGS, AND ROCK N ROLL...and...

.....PYTHONS and EVIL ELVES…

I will be going back out on the road soon with The Hub and The Boys.  Every time I tell someone that they say something like, “Oh, that is exciting!” or “Oh, that sounds like so much fun!”  or “Wow, you guys get paid to dress up and go on stage and play music and have a good time? That is AWESOME!”  But I think what many are thinking is “You are insane, what kind of job is that? That’s not a real job.” or “I bet you all do drugs cause everyone knows people in bands all do drugs, drink and ‘other things’ we can’t even mention.” 

And I completely understand. Growing up in a small town, my impression of ‘musicians and bands’ included: “ They are alcoholic druggies who are too lazy to get a real job and just got lucky and have a little talent in order to get paid enough so they do not have to work a single day in their life. It just can’t be fair that people can love something so much AND be allowed to do it AND get paid for it AND then enjoy it because it is so much fun! That is just not normal and there must be something illegal involved somehow somewhere.”

So when I tell people that our family sometimes plays music for a living and I see their eyes twitch a little, I know where they are coming from. But because of my family’s history in music I was open and even encouraged to explore the possibility that you can make a living using your love of music. Daddy Frank played with Hank Williams Sr. until he said he about starved to death, my great uncles, Pappy Neal and Uncle Earl spent all their lives playing music. Everyone in our family plays an instrument, sings, writes, or at least listens to the radio. You can’t survive if you don’t.  But life on the road is not quite as glamorous as it sounds. I will be doing a blog sharing the ins and outs and break-downs and  a few “Band On The Run/Running On Empty / With The Runs” food critiques..that should be pretty interesting. So stay tune for that. You can check out when and where we will be at The Southern Soul Allstars’ website..  http://www.thessas.com/home.cfm 

I must say ..it is looking like a really COLD ..um..I mean a really COOL tour. Oh well…life is a journey not a destination. And in the case of our band …it is a journey that needs some sort of adult supervision…but why should we start now!!

Speaking of adult supervision…why anyone in their right mind would leave me to my own devices on Facebook is a mystery to me. I have been in more trouble than a tumblin’ tumbleweed in a tornado this week. I chimed in on a little conversation—which I have been known to do a time or two—about the big old humongous PYTHON that was killed in Caryville, Florida. It was of interest to me because I don’t live far from Caryville, Florida. All I said was…people buy those suckers online and then when they get too big and after they eat their house and car..they set them free and then they end up in places like Caryville, Florida…where a little 13 year old girl had to shoot and kill it.

Well…some looney toon guy said I was crazy and that nobody could buy a baby PYTHON online because it was illegal and I said..(because I always have the right to remain silent ..but I never will) “Well here are a few sites that say you can buy one online.”  And he said..”Well the last 3 years that has been banned and it is illegal NOW.”   And I said GOOD! Then he said—PYTHONS can NOT survive our winters here anyway and that I (Ninja Squirrel Queen) did NOT know what I was talking ‘bout and I said—well, the PYTHON in Caryville, Florida that was 11.4 ft long and 15 inches wide..I think it was surviving pretty dang good. And then he got mad and apparently reported me to FB as a black market PYTHON seller/oppressor, which is not true. I am not going to oppress or pet or hunt or buy or sell NO KIND OF SNAKE. 

But that doesn’t matter-- I got put on probation on FB and could not post or like anything on my page for 24 hours until I learned my lesson not to chime in on other people’s conversations that might have looney toon friends. Lesson learned!

At first I thought I was banned for making fun of my nieces’ ‘elf on a shelf”. Yeah…um…who came up with this idea and how many drugs did they take first???  I want a ‘stocking on a shelf’ one filled with as much chocolate as possible but I cannot imagine wanting a little skinny elf on a shelf that gets up in the middle of the night and wrecks havoc on my house, life and family. Who thought this would be fun??? ELVES are Santa’s little helpers. We all know this right??? They are at the North Pole pounding away on toys or trying to be a dentist for God’s sake..they are not roaming around your house playing tricks..that…is GREMLINS!!!  Maybe we can pour water on all those creepy elves and they will turn into FROSTY THE SNOWMAN! That is something I can use around my house because I am having MEGA HOT FLASHES!!!

Sure the title said Sex, Drugs and Rock N Roll..but there will be no talk of sex in this blog. All that leads to is more human beings who think Evil Elves, Pythons and Gremlins are a good thing!

Happy Whatever Will Not Offend You (I am in enough trouble as it is)

~Squirrely Girl

Cousins..who could ask for anything more?

COUSINS MAKE THE BEST FRIENDS and CO-CONSPIRATORS

We all grew up with our cousins. For the longest time I didn’t know the difference between my cousins and my sisters and brothers. We all spent the night together so much I thought we were just one big family who took turns with mamas and daddies. We didn’t just play “musical chairs” we played ‘musical houses’.  The girls would spend all day building a playhouse of boards placed on tin cans to design our ‘house’ under the two big oak trees beside my house appropriately named “The Oak Tree”. If we did skip a night of spending the night together (we didn’t call it sleepovers) the last thing we would say to each other at the end of the day was, “See you in the morning at The Oak Tree!” Then we would take turns walking each other halfway home which could sometimes take hours until we finally figured out we would all have to walk at least halfway home alone..that is usually when we came to the conclusion it would be best if we just spent the night at someone's house. That choice was made by whose mama was cookin' the best supper. 

The Oak Tree was magical. We would build our playhouse all morning and would sweep the dirt and cook our mud pies and we even had some vines in the pretend bathroom and if it had rained that day we would stand under them and shake for a ‘shower’…something none of us had in our real houses. It was a master piece, The Oak Tree. It was our secret club. Which drove the boy cousins completely INSANE. They considered it a foreign country that needed to be attacked and terrorized at every opportunity and they never failed to be creative in their plans for destruction. This often resulted in mind games, like convincing us the place was haunted by a giant monster with a size 24 shoe. That has not been disproved completely to this day. We all saw the shoe print and no one could ever explain how it got there. It was obviously a one legged giant monster because there was only the one footprint, but it was enough to have us screaming and running for safety. Clever they were..the boy cousins”.

Just like in real life, the girls were nesting and building a thing of stability and beauty while the boys were trying to see who could kill each other first on the makeshift obstacle course they had built to use their bicycles as deadly weapons.  JTD,“Jumping The Ditches” was the equivalent of the most extreme sport today. I don’t even know how many bones were broke or dislocated over the years…too many to count..and they DID NOT report most of them because it was against the rules to JTD and the parents would seriously WYB, 'Whip Your Butt" if they found out.  Of course being the wonderful little caretakers and responsible citizens we were, the girls would always immediately report all offenders.

That led to the inevitable and ultimate final battle between the girl cousins and the boy cousins. You could see the smoke coming out of the boy’s ears with thoughts of revenge while we just stayed up all night giggling and preparing for the attack. This would go on forever, until we would all join forces and put our differences aside for the UATE, "Ultimate All Time Experience".  According to the parental units, the most dangerous thing we could do besides go swimming after eating (I don’t know how we all lived through that) was to go play on the DSP "Deadly Sawdust Piles". We grew afraid of three things in life:  panthers, hell and the DSP. The more dangerous they said it was and how bad we would be punished if they found out we played on the DSP, the more we would plot how we could go play on the DSP.

The parental units AND grandparental units would say, “Sure those big sawdust piles look fun, but they are old and they are rotting from the inside out and they will cave in and you will be buried, your lungs filling up with rotted sawdust and you will choke and eventually die a horrible death by suffocation.” And we would say, “Oh yeah, we are DEFINITLY going to the forbidden DSP now!!!!!” 

 I think back and wonder...wasn’t there just one logical older cousin that could have spoke up and said, “Hey, maybe this is not such a good idea”?  Nope, there was not. So we all found a way to play on the DSP at least once a week and some weeks we didn’t get caught and there were no WYB sessions. Good times.

The thing about growing up that close to your cousins is that it last a lifetime. A perfect example is my cousin Dalton and my brother Gator. I wasn't even old enough to remember all the trouble they got into as boys but I know what they are doing now and I am sure it closely resembles their childhood.  The Gator and Dalton have been 'workin' (and I use that term loosely) on and off together since they are both semi-retired and here's a recap of a normal work day for them:

Meet early..the earlier the better...have some coffee and maybe a bite of breakfast..discuss upcoming 'things that need to be done'...have some more coffee...talk a little more about things to be done and decide on one...have some more coffee...discuss other things of great importance..the weather..the neighbors, religion and sin in general and how they could fix it all...have a little something more to eat and a half a cup of coffee...change original thing to be done to something else after re-evaluation of weather and level of arthritis. About 2 hours later..start 'thing to be done'. First stand and discuss 'thing to be done' in great detail and what is actually required to do the job...decide you don't have it...go back.. get more coffee and discuss 'what we gonna do now'? Pick new 'thing to be done'. Go to lunch. Talk with all surrounding patrons at local café about what the new 'thing to be done' and decide if it is truly a priority. Go back have a cup of coffee and discuss new 'thing to be done' and whose opinion from the cafe you really trust and what was the underlying motive for their suggestions.  Decide it is too late to do new thing now and discuss what time to meet in the morning to discuss the new 'thing to be done' in more detail over a cup of coffee.  Decide it needs to be early, the earlier the better. Discuss what happened to the day because it just seemed to fly by.  End the day with the usual farewell greeting, “Meet me at The Oak Tree in the morning."

I love my cousins...say AMEN if you do too!!!