This Girl needed the rain

I love the rain, it speaks to my soul.

It is why I live in the pacific northwest. When others are droning on that it has rained too long and are wishing for the sunny days of summer, I am still relishing the drizzling grey days. The days that darken early and awaken late. The days when the sun is merely a shadow of illumination, those are my days. The fall is my season. November is my month. Days spent with a hot cup of coffee, evenings spent with a book, a dog and a drink.

I can feel with a calm clarity and I can tell you waking up this morning and smelling the rain and hearing it pitter patter on the leaves of the rhododendron outside my window I felt like I was finally able to breath.

Quick recap for those of you just tuning in.
After twelve years of marriage and two months after the birth of our third 'Dick' met another woman and decided he'd rather dick around with her. So my three beautiful girls and I moved in with my parents and I filed for divorce.

In a new twist of events Dick has decided since our third baby has dark brown hair, in contrast to the other two who have blond curly hair, that I must have cheated on him and he wants a paternity test. I acutally laughed. Loudly.

Which is a far better response than brooding for two weeks over the comment that our girls need a strong female role model and his new girlfriend fits that description. I spent two therapy sessions on that.

After that he was genuinely shocked that I would have a problem if his girlfriend attended some deeply personal family events next week.

It is the spreading of my beloved mother in laws ashes. My sister in law is flying up with her family from California and it is going to be very emotional for us all.
In fact, Dick has no balls as he had not yet told his sister that we were divorcing and she sent me a very cheerful 'cant wait to see you' text with all kinds of excited emojis and hearts. So I had to tell her, via text. Something that infuriated me. He said he was going to tell her, but again, no balls. He, of course, has said he would do lots of things, like pay off the credit card that has tens of thousands dollars on it.

It was the rain, this morning that helped me keep my sanity. It reminded me that fall is coming.
 My season.
It reminded me that I will be okay, I will move on. I will rebuild my life.


Anyway, I'll keep this post short since next week will, I am sure, be long winded and very emotional. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

This Girl and her Lemons

Took me forever to get this post out.
Two reasons: One being my Macbook is an 'antique.' That is what the guy at Apple told me. It's slow and there are no up dates for this any more. It is seven years old. I bought it on my last vacation, before I got pregnant with my first. I have not taken a break for myself in seven years. You may wonder if Dick has taken any vacations, and the answer wont surprise you. Yes, he has. Several. Any way my antique computer froze up completely and had to be nursed back to health again. Sad computer.

Why not buy a new computer you ask? I couldn't even afford the dell computer on sale. I have very little money to my name and I have to save it for moving in to my own place and furnish it with basics, like beds for my children. *Suck in deep cleansing breath*

Moving on to reason number two. While conversing over text with my cant be soon enough ex and voicing my displeasure that he is already introducing his new girlfriend to my kids he made the comment "I want my girls to have a strong female role model in their lives."
*release angry seething breath*

Boy, that is a stinky layered onion isn't it?

I cant even begin to put all the thoughts and emotions to words.

I thought I was good. I thought I was moving on. I thought I was making progress.

The logical side of my brain is screaming at me that he is just being mean and trying to get under my skin. But the emotional side of my brain let it get to me.
Dick has placed a monetary value on everything in his life and that included me. Being that I never made much money and certainly not a dime for the last two years he had very little to no respect for me at all. Despite everything I have ever done for him to make myself worthy, it was never enough.

I needed to cool off from his comment and I turned to something that I have loved my whole life. Something I do when I am stressed to the max.

I bake.

I stood in my mother's kitchen and stared at her mixer for a very long time trying to summon the energy to pull out ingredients and preheat the oven. But I had no motovation. I had no desire to bake. I had no desire to do anything.

I got angry with myself, for letting him effect me. I got angry at him for thinking that this newer model of me was a better role model. And yet despite all that anger and bitterness I still didn't want to bake.

I really don't know how long I stood there. Finally, when I found myself I tried to write.

Anything. I was willing to write anything. I have three stories going. I have a journal of the events for my daughters to read when they are ready. And I have this, my boring blog. And yet still nothing poured from my fingers. I couldn't even get my brain on track. I sat in my chair of doom for a few hours and produced nothing.

It took every bit of what I had left to turn to my sewing machine and finish the pocket squares. It was fairly mindless and I did it. I completed them. My first batch was nearly ready to sell. So, a small accomplishment. Something to be proud of. But I still felt the weight of his words.

I felt them all the next day. I felt them in my therapy session and I still feel them now.

And I realized that it is going to take me longer and it is going to be harder to get from underneath him. After twelve years he had no problem moving on and yet the idea of even being attracted to another man is stomach turning.

I need to shine. I need to move on. I need to show my girls that happiness and joy can be found even in the darkest situations.

Life has handed me a whole bale full of lemons, and when life hands you lemons, don't sugar coat them. Freeze them and throw them back.

So for now, all of my lemons are in the freezer...just waiting to be released.

This Girl and her Pocket Square

I have really struggled to write this post. I have written it three times and erased it three times. There is so much emotion going through me, I am having a difficult time expressing myself. 

I am getting a divorce. 

It is absolutely devastating.

It is devastating to awaken from a dormancy in my life to realize how much I was being controlled and manipulated. 

It is devastating to realized how I was used. 

He took advantage of my painful and difficult second pregnancy to buy a Camero. A freaking Camero. I hate that car. The fiery passions of the deepest parts of hell cant hold a candle to my hatred of that car for a myriad of reasons. 

But none of that compares to me discovering that, lets call him Dick, has been having an affair. And that anger and humiliation is nothing compared to the angry grizzly bear mama in me when I discovered that not only has the other woman, lets call her Joan, has met my children several times, but Dick instructed my oldest to keep it quiet. 

For some strange egotistical reason Dick was sure a five year old was going to keep his dirty little secret  and that it was appropriate for him to do so. 

When I confronted him he said I was lying, that I was manipulating him and could no longer control him. Just keep the camero in mind. 

I have been advised to stay the high road, no matter how unfair to me, stay the high road and it will work to my favor in the end. 

So I informed him that I was uncomfortable with Joan being around the kids, bear in mind that we have only been separated for three months and he is already comfortable with bringing her around. 

With that, I told him how inappropriate it was for him to ask the oldest to keep it quiet. 

I guess that was controlling too, he told me so.

What does this all have to do with a pocket square? 

Before Joan, I had bought some fabric.

I had been trying to be amicable. I had been trying to be flexible. I had been trying to be reasonable. 

As a gesture of peace and friendship I was going to make the girls matching dresses and a pocket square for him. Things like that are important to him. Dressing nice and fashion. 

Isn't it gorgeous? It is beautiful. The girls are going to look great, but when I looked at the fabric I had cut for him I wanted to throw up. 

How could I have been so stupid? 

I dismissed his change in behavior as a result of his mothers cancer and sadly her death two weeks before our third was born.

He was being so nice to me, he was helping around the house, mowing and taking care of chores. All the things I had been doing.

I had encouraged him to go out with his friends and decompress.  

He would come home at four in the morning, two hours after the bars closed, but I didn't push or question. If I asked he said he was hanging out with friends and I let it be.

I had trusted him.

He always had a low opinion of me. I never met his expectations. I was never good enough. 

Dick always went out of his way to find something I did wrong. 

He never thought I was going to amount to anything. 

I had never really had much ambition for anything, quite the opposite of him. 

But when I became a mom, I knew that was what I needed to devote myself to and I did. 

Dick wanted me to have a career, be a mom and do everything else. 

I stared at the innocent square for a very long time. What on earth was I going to do?

Dick wasn't giving me much money and I was going to have to go apply for food stamps, despite his making ninety nine thousand dollars last year. He claimed he had no extra money. 

We didn't even have a savings account. He didn't believe in saving money. 

He spent it. 

All of it. 

What was I going to do?

I am better than him.  I can do better than him. 

I decided that I was going to make more money than him, I am not going to rely on him, because I cant.  I am going to show my daughters that I can rise above. I can take care of them and give them security and safety and I was going to start by selling the pocket square. 

I cut up the rest of my fabric and sewed them. 

Isn't the maroon beautiful? I loved working with this fabric, I'll be sad when it's gone. 

I am going to sell all of them. 

I am going to build my own life.

I am going to build an empire. 

Starting with these.

I have dozens of each, in varying sizes. 

They are fun and vibrant, like my oldest. 

They have spirit and attitude like my middle. 

And they are fresh and radiant like my baby. 

Contact me kristinek121@gmail.com

or comment here. 

This is the beginning of my life. 

This Girl when to a Seattle Sounders game and holy crap!

Do you know someone that is a freak about their team and their sport? Are you that person? Do they wear their teams colors and shout robustly during the games? Do you? Are you that person?
Do you attend the games with vigorous regularity? Do you bedeck yourself with your teams colors? Do you have capes, scarves, flowers, face paint, hair dye, and jerseys? Have you ever marched in a pre game parade?
Maybe you do all those things.

That is all well and good. Go your team. But have you ever been to a sounders game?
Do you know what happens at a Seattle Sounders game? Are you aware of the following and the passion their fans possess?

Look at them, they literally pay homage to their team. 

I have been to professional sports games. I have watched the Mariners lose, in person. I have gone to Super Bowl parties hosted by crazed fans. I have been surrounded by raving Canucks fans. And not a single one of them holds a candle to the casual Sounders fan. Not. One.

I attended my first Sounders game this last Friday against DC United and let me tell you, there is nothing like it.
It doesn't begin on game day. It all begins immediately after the last game is over.

In the weeks leading I thought I was doing my due diligence and watched a few games and was becoming a 'fan.' My sister spent our time together giving me the low down on every player, their stats and their physical conditions.
She has her favorite players. And one in particular. Remick. And when Remick's name is called and he trots onto the field she jumps up and down and starts screaming and then she leans over to me and says "I have his shorts!"
The way she says it, I get the mental image of her sneaking into his bedroom and steeling them in the dead of night. Really she bought a pair of shorts with his number on them. But her sneaking into his bedroom is a much better story.

Personally, I was already becoming partial to Stephen Frei. Maybe its still the sweeper in me (a defender in soccer terms) that makes me favor and protective of the goal keeper, I dunno. Maybe it's because he's cute, I dunno, but regardless his dedication was winning me over.
And I knew Martians was injured and I was becoming partial to him as well after I watched him play his heart out with a broken nose. No matter what, I was becoming a Seattle Sounders fan very quickly. I liked the way they passed. I liked the way the team still held together without their star players. They were a Team inside and out. That is something I feel is lacking from a lot of other sports. Its about the hero on the team or the best player, not the team itself.
All of this did not prepare me for my first Sounder game.

We started out with a Pre game parade. Parade? Why yes, a parade. The fans, casual and not so casual (aka the super fans) sing and chant. They march, wave their flags and scarves and insult the other team. These are the most organized fans I have ever seen. This is a good time to get a song card. A song card? Yes, but I will come back to that.

Then we found our seats.

Look how close we were! They were great seats. See the people sitting. That is the last time they did that. 

Soon Dr. Stephan Newby came out to the field and the most amazing and brilliant thing happened. He's on the big screen and he begins to sing the National Anthem and he has the most incredible and rich voice but only after a few bars he invites the entire stadium to sing with him. All forty thousand of us.

And as one patriotic voice we sang together with such passion chills ran through our souls. It was an awe-inspiring moment. It wasn't a dull or flat affair, there was no somber note to the tone that I heard so many times when I sang the Anthem in school or at sporting events. Here at the Sounders game we sang with such spirit and loyalty there was no denying who we were. 

It occurred to me as we all bellowed the final notes that this is how it should be at every event and it should be sung as though we were announcing to the world who we were for the very first time. 

The game begins and they stand. All of them. For the WHOLE game. I am not kidding. Every fan stands. So wear comfortable shoes. If you don't have comfortable shoes, buy them. You'll thank me later.

 Pro tip: If you are going to go to a game and you have never been before. Dive into your closet and find something green and blue to wear. It wont matter if the colors don't match, it wont matter if it happens to be the craziest outfit you own, in fact the zanier the better, wear it. 

We were close to the lively end of the fans.

See them over there on the left? Waving their flags? Some where in the middle of all of that is a guy with a very large set of drums and in front of him is a guy with a bull horn. They call out the songs and we all sing. Get your self a song card, even if you don't sing, the lyrics are clever and very entertaining, but I encourage you to go ahead and sing. Sing loud and proud, it's all part of the experience. 

The game was an intense one. There were so many close calls. So many great plays. So many gasps of anticipation and ah's as the play didn't quite make it. There were a few tense moments where we were biting out fingers in fear, but the game was scoreless. 

I had been told by some people that we were going to lose because they were playing without most of their key players due to injuries or being called up to play in other leagues. (I haven't quite figured all that out yet, Ill keep you posted.) 

Finally, near the very end, they scored. It was awesome. We screamed and screamed and screamed. We clapped, we sang. I had no idea how much celebrating I had done until the next morning my voice was horse.

And there were flames!

FLAMES! They were so hot I felt the heatwave from my seat. 

Now sadly early in the game Stephan Frei the goalkeeper suffered a potentially devastating injury. He leapt into the air and was hit by another player sending him to the ground at an awkward angle and he landed on his shoulder and neck. It took some time, but he got back up. Admirably later in the game he took himself out and he disappeared into the locker rooms as the crowd chanted his name. He returned later with his arm in a sling. And we all mourned, silently praying he'd be eligible for the next game and praising the soccer gods that the injury wasn't more severe. 

See him down there in the center with the sling. It was very sad. This pic was taken at the end of the game while the players were shaking hands with fans. 

I had a fantastic time. I will be going again. I plan on watching the games at home when I cant make a personal appearance. 

It is truly a well rounded experience, one that should be had by all. Only, probably shouldn't bring the kids. There was a lot of profanity, and noise, but really profanity. 

Tune in for my next post about the following day...and what I intend to do about it. 

Is Doom Lurking in your Living room?

Is there danger in your living room? Do you even know its there? Maybe it has you right now...and you don't even know it...I blame this hidden danger and all it's evil. They may look innocent, but they are vindictive and controlling and masters of karma. 

Maybe it's a chair. 

Maybe it rocks into your trust.

Maybe it's the corner of the couch. Cushy pillows, soft comforting blanket, and squishy ottoman for those tired feet. 

 Maybe it's a stressless chair with a cuddly lap dog, in front of the roaring air conditioner.

They look nice. They look welcoming. They look and even feel like they love you. They lull you into a trusting ease, making you forget all the things you have to do.

Are you aware of this danger? Do you know what it can do? Are you under it's dangerous spell, even now?

What do these sacred spots have in common?  They suck productivity. Steel time. They convince you that you are too comfortable, too relaxed to get up. They whisper sweet lies to you. 

"You worked hard today, put your feet up. Just relax..." 

"Just a few minutes, that's all you need. That's it, reach for the remote."

They trap you in their vortex and you will never know. 

I have one too. 

My chair of DOOOOOMM! And I blame it for everything. 

Does it look nice? 

It is. 

It has squashy arms. Nice lumbar in the back. It rocks 

back and forth, 

back and forth, 

back and forth, 

with a soothing rhythm. It leans back so completely it could be my bed and I could sleep sweet dreams. 

If I let myself indulge in 'just a few minutes' I find myself coming out of a television induced coma several hours later swearing at myself for the lack of productivity, for the lateness of the hour and the dread of still needing to move the oldest out of my bed and into her own. 

Ive gotta work. All day long I am a single mom, then at night as the sun sets gloriously on a distant horizon I continue to work. I must work. I must work through the physical pains, headaches and stress. I have to make a living for my girls. I have to support them. 

But I am tired. I don't sleep and I walk passed that chair and it beckons me with a little rock and a nod. 

Like the hot guy at the bar drinking a scotch, neat and he's eyeballing you and that dress you weren't sure you could pull off. 

I've been strong though. I've avoided the chair of doom. Two nights ago after a long and difficult day the chair was making every effort to entice me. It yearned for me. But I refused. 

I defiantly pulled out my wire and beads and began to work on earrings, perfecting my craft, for my first Seattle Sounders game. (My sister is super hard core and was very clear about the bedecking that was needed.)

I am very excited. Before I married my soccer hating husband I played and watched it constantly. 

Twelve years later I am totally out of the loop. 

So away I worked. Carefully beading, twisting, cutting and crimping and then the chair of doom got mad. It was feeling neglected. It had not been loved by me in days. 

I had been avoiding eye contact and the chair noticed.

That's when the chair used its power.

Suddenly my bowl of teeny tiny beads tipped. In slow agonizing motion I watched as hundreds of little sounder blue beads spilled all over the hardwood floor. 

They scattered everywhere, like sand from the beach or glitter from your five year olds preschool art project. 

(I would insert a picture of the devastation, but I was too angry.)

I nearly cried. 

These beads were expensive and I am penny pinching as it is and no bead was to be lost.

So there I was, only one pair of earrings completed and near midnight, on my hands and knees collecting every last bead from every nook, cranny and divot. 

Every. Single. Last. Bead. 

Then when I was done and I stood up to stretch my back and rub my knees, there it was. Staring at me. 

I had neglected the chair. I had angered the 'take a break' gods, and I was punished. 

It was mad at me, and I was mad at it. We gave each other the silent treatment. 

All day long it sat in the corner, alone. I glared at it bitterly and it sulked. 

Yesterday with the girls was better. The baby let me sleep in a bit and when they were all in bed I was able to make a few pairs of earrings and even unburden my soul with some writing.

So, In an effort to appease what ever god I have angered, I write this post to you, from the comfy chair of doom, with the soft cuddly lap dog in my lap and the air condition blowing on my toes. 

I did complete my Sounder Earrings.

My glorious sister will be sporting these.

If you see her wearing them, bemoan to her about the sweat and pain that went into their creation, it'll give me a kick.

She'll probably be confused. 

I have a less impressive pair for myself. 

Go Sounders!