THERE IS A GOD!
I praise God. He is my savior and my higher power. I’m not a bible thumper by no means, but I truly believe that he was by my side when I should have been dead, not once, but twice.
The first rescue was on April 25th, 2007, when I was in a bad car crash where I was ejected, then thrown from my vehicle. I should have died and I didn’t.
The second rescue was on June 1st, 2014, while I was in the midst of my addiction. I bought a pain pill, so I thought it was a pain pill, but it was an anti-anxiety pill instead. I consumed it and it had an adverse effect due to the other medications I was taking at the time. Consequently, I overdosed and nearly died as a result, but I didn’t. It wasn’t until then I realized that something or someone had my back the entire time, both situations, both times.
Today, I’m lucky to be alive and I’m thankful. I pray each night and I thank him for all the blessings he’s given to me and this is where ‘praise and pray’ play a major role in this story. Praise the Lord, give thanks and pray!
The Architecture of my Life
Built solidly,
Upon a foundation of love,
Nourished with years of compassion,
I quickly grew
My walls expanded,
Until I was no longer so little
My exterior, normal, unassuming,
Hid the flawed interior within
I suffered losses here and there,
Shed the innocence of childhood,
As I viewed the ways of the world
It was what most adolescents go through
It was only the last few years
That wrecked my interior so
Familial issues, stemming from addiction,
Took root
My mind, my heart, my soul
All battered from the ensuing struggle
Days of depression,
Feelings of hopelessness,
A sense of being lost,
With no stars to point home
This temple of mine
Has undoubtedly weathered some,
But just like any sturdy house,
It continues to stand tall
Era of Victoria
A smaller place, a vintage home
Her fascia showing age
Designed after her mother
Feminine, eaves braced
Foundation, brick, for strength to bear
All the weight; her structure
Along her roofline, rain gutters
For tears of joy and laughter
All-weather, lifetime coating
To brave the elements
Siding dates her ’mong the rest
And her gabled vent
A vent that’s there to circulate
The attic air, but more
In case her fire spreads atop
Burning, uncontrolled
Her steps lead up toward her porch
Wooden, with a swing
Just steps away from her front door
Closed, yet still inviting
Inside, her ceiling, crafted
Intricate with time
In extra steps of detail
Fancy cornice mold design
Center, sits tiled hearth and stove
Her warmth; kindled and burning
Her guests enter from winter’s chill
To find it welcoming
Her family room for gathering
Informal, leading toward
Her kitchen’s open living space
Sharing of her love
And rooms, several, of smaller size
Suiting each, her dear ones
Larger, though, the master
Where she rests, undone
Not everyone is welcome there
The room set furthest back
The antique door kept closed the most
Where wooden floor meets tack
Her windows, French and double-pane
To keep world’s cold air out
With shutters, screens, crank openings
To let her warmth about
Marbled are her window sills
For function and for taste
Preserving of her fragile frame
Careful care ’did take
When craftsman in her mother’s womb
Did measure, build, create
Inside, outside - plans drawn up
A house, by love, was made
Updates 12/18/2018
Improvement: Under the Hood
We’ve made a lot of changes under the hood to improve the performance and reliability of the website. The site will now be much smarter about remembering and saving the pages you’ve recently viewed. In the short term, there may be a few bugs, so please let us know if you run into anything.
Improvement: Cacheing
Everything you view will now be locally cached. For example, after publishing a post, you won’t have to wait for the post to load to view it. If you click a challenge in the challenge feed, it’ll load instantly. You should notice these effects across the site.
Improvement: Messaging
Clicking different messaging conversations and messaging multiple users at once should now be much faster and more responsive. A bug has also been fixed that prevented the messaging window from automatically scrolling as you send and receive messages.
Improvement: Feed Loading
When visiting new pages or new post feeds, the previous feed will no longer linger while the new feed loads. This caused some confusion when loading a new feed failed or took longer than usual.
Bug Fix: Facebook Share
The Facebook Share button now works as intended.
Bug Fix: Read Count
The read count indicator will no longer increment when editing a post.
Are there any other bugs, difficulties, or inconsistencies you’d like to see fixed? Let us know in the comments below.
Pirates of the Potato Patch (A “Black Wattle the Pirate” Adventure)
Red at night, sailors delight. Red in the morning, sailors take warning.
This had been true ever since chickens first invented the dirt sailing ships, and it was still true today. And, as long as there has been ships, there have been pirates, but pirates were sailors too. The red tinted sky boded ill for the fiercest and cleverest pirate ever to sail the brown dirt seas, Black Wattle. A worried frown creased his beak as he considered this omen.
He thought about his ship, the Dirt Rider. It was the fastest ship to ever sail the potato fields, and it plowed through the furrows like a beak cutting through a plump grub. No, he needn’t worry about this ship.
He then turned his thoughts to his crew. They were hearty lads, with unparalleled experience. Blue beak was a master navigator, and could cross the road with his eyes closed, without even knowing the reason why. Rhode Island Red Beard was the best gunnery sergeant in the entire fleet. There wasn’t a gun or munitions that Red Beard hadn’t been able to master. No, he needn’t worry there either. Even his stores were in good shape. Sure, they had to tap the biscuits to get the weevils out, but every sailor learned to avoid thinking about the biscuit, but instead focused on the tasty weevil.
He was probably worrying about nothing. They had been successful day after day raiding the potato fields for the lucrative wire worm, the delectable Colorado potato beetle, and the delicacy of all delicacies, the tuber flea beetle. Even the minute pirate bugs futilely fled in fear whenever his ship came into view [1]. But maybe that was the problem, it had been almost too easy.
His reverie was broken when he heard the squawking of the alarm, and the dreaded call “Weasel Ho”!
“All wings to the braces!” he clucked instantly. “Hard-a lee!” Maybe he could turn and run before the weasel noticed him. And for a second, he thought he might get away with it. But the sky was not red this morning for nothing, the weasel caught a glimpse of them and the chase was on.
Weasels were the worst fear of every sailing bird. They were natural born killing machines, and the weasels had never lost a battle in a head to head fight. Black Wattle’s only chance was to out- run or out-wit him, and even that was long shot. He would have to pull out every stop, use every trick, and coax every last bit of speed from old Dirt Rider, if he hoped to live to see tomorrow. He sent Hawk Eye up to the crow’s nest to keep him informed on the weasel’s progress.
“Weasel two points off the starboard quarter. Range 10 furrows and closing fast!”, shouted Hawk eye, Over the next hour, Black Wattle tried every trick he knew. He tacked, he jibed, and he put up more sail and tried to out run him. Perhaps with the wind behind him the weasel would lose his scent.
“Weasel dead astern , range 3 furrows and closing!” shouted Hawk eye.
Black Wattle was beginning to lose hope. He urged his crew on even harder .
“Put your backs to it, you gizzard goobers!” he shouted to his crew. “No slacking off or you’ll get a taste of the cat!”
The crew was now straining at its limit. No one wanted to be tasted by a cat. But it appeared to be too little, too late.
“Weasel dead astern, distance one furrow! He’s doing his war dance!”
The crew slumped in defeat, they knew that weasel only did his war dance when he had his prey hopelessly cornered. He was twisting, darting and dancing, all the time with the evil weasel grin showing off his razor sharp teeth [2]. The crew began to despair, and several of his mates fainted from fight. The Fryer went from crew to crew offering last rites. Even Black Wattle began to think he would never make it home to see his hen again.
Just then Red Beard approached tentatively.
“Captain, I may have an idea”, he said. “It sounds kind of crazy, but the mates have been catching the rats on board and feeding them, keeping them as pets”. Red Beard continued to explain his idea, and after more back-and-forth discussion Black Wattle decided they didn’t have anything to lose.
“Hurry and bring up the rats.” Black Wattle shouted. He then loaded the rats into the cannons and aimed them at the weasel. “Don’t fire until I give the signal or I will fricassee your giblets!” he squawked at his crew.
When the crew saw what the captain planned, they despaired even more.
“We’ll be stew meat!” they cried. “Shooting rats at the weasel won’t stop it! We’re only succeeding in giving it an appetizer!”
Time seemed to slow as the weasel began his final charge.
“Fire!” Black wattle bellowed.
The rats shot through the air with a rat-a-tat-tat , and hurtled toward the weasel. All eyes watched as the rats sailed majestically though the air right towards the weasel’s head, and the crew held its breath.
And then, the rats missed, and sailed harmlessly past the weasel’s head. The crew let out a collective moan of despair as their last gamut failed. But there was a grim smile on Captain Wattles beak. He kept watching as the weasel’s eyes tracked the rats as they sailed past. He knew that weasels often attacked any movement by shear instinct [3], and as the rats sailed past, the weasel forgot about the Dirt Rider, and pounced on the rats. He darted right, then left, trying to catch them all before they escaped. In the confusion, the Dirt Rider was able to sneak away to safety.
That night as they feasted on wire worms, and they retold the story over and over again of Captain Black Wattle, and the battle of the weasel. They extolled the wisdom of Rhode Island Red Beard, and his invention of rat chaff, which has been used ever since by friend and fowl alike to evade the fierce weasels.
Now it would be nice if the heroic chickens [4] lived happily ever after. But unfortunately, the law of unintended consequences reared its ugly head, and the weasels soon learned that they could get a free meal of rats by chasing the chicken pirates, and it only increased the weasels attacks, until eventually the chickens ran out of rats. Then the weasels turned on the chicken pirates and ate them all up. That is why you don’t see the chicken pirates and their dirt riding ships any longer.
Footnotes:
[1] Those are all real potato pest names.
[2] Weasels really do perform a war dance when they have their prey cornered, although no one really knows why. There have been observances of the prey dying of fright when this happens, but sometimes the weasel does the war dance by himself for no apparent reason
[3] Also true
[4] A phrase you don’t hear very often
Department Fiasco
Walking around the store
You see the dress you want
You love
You desire
But
It’s a fucking size
Too small
You sigh
You didn’t have
The money anyway
But it’s so cute
You continue
Through the store
But you can’t escape
From the clutches
Of that outfit
It was everything
It was you
And you make
The terrible decision
To take it
To try it on
Ignoring the little voice in your head
Dumbass
You give in
You slip it over your head
And it’s tight
Just as you expected
But it’s so cute
And just so you
And you can’t say no
That bill that’s due in a few days
Will just have to wait
This could work
But now comes the hardest part
Parting with the dress
No, of course you’re going to buy it
But you have to get it off
In order to pay for it
You didn’t think about that
Did you?
There’s two ways
That this plays out in the movies
A mother helping her child
In a heartwarming scene
As she slips the shirt off the child
Readying him for bed
A sweet bonding moment
As she whispers
I’ll always be here for you
The other
A sexy frame in time
As you give in
Allowing him to see you
In the moonlight for the first time
Revealing your naked beauty
Because for some reason
Women in these movies
Don’t wear a bra
And you can’t tell…
He leans in for a kiss
And it warms your everything
Sadly,
You’re in neither of these situations
You’re alone
In a dressing room
Because you never
Really liked the idea of shopping
With other people
Let alone shopping at all
You can’t call for help
Because that’d be embarrassing
You should have never
Tried on the damn dress in the first place
I told you that
So you begin the
Tumultuous journey
Of wriggling out of it
And it’s over your head
Your hands stretched out
Almost there…
There’s a knock on the door
And you’re terrified
Stuck in one of the most
Compromising positions you’ve been in
Since your mother caught you
With your boyfriend at 16
Are you alright in there??
How are you supposed to
Answer that question?
You mumble a soft yes
Through the cloth of the one dress
That warmed your heart
Moments before
It’s the same feeling
You get when the waiter
Asks how your food is
While you’re still chewing
And it’s off
Finally.
You’re never going to do that again
Well… at least until next time
And before you ask,
No, I’m not sure why’d you think
I’ve ever been in that situation