What Do I Do?!

This is a serious question.  I am not kidding here.

I'm going to be upfront and honest and tell you right off the bat that I feel as if our current president is the most divisive person to have ever held the office- at least what I know of in my life time of very nearly 39 years.

So with that knowledge of where I am coming from, you could easily say that my view is biased.  I would say that is a fair perception as I believe we are all biased in one direction or another.

Dealing with that innate personal political bias has become extremely uncomfortable for me lately.

As I have mentioned before, I am literally surrounded by very liberal people.  Almost no one that I see or talk to on a regular basis is conservative in any way. 

Yes, I have been doing some soul searching about why this is so.....

All of that being said, I have found that with recent events I am now not only disgusted with the political policies of the left that I see so profoundly stealing my freedoms and ruining the country that I love so much, but I am actually starting to find the people that celebrate these developments to be completely repulsive as well.

Big questions swirl around in my head. 
1)  Questions about why I have been forced on several occasions to try and defend my pro-life stance. 
I have actually been ridiculed in group settings because I simply cannot think of a good enough reason to kill any unborn human being. 
2)  Questions about why there are not more people who think that if you earned it, you ought to be able to keep most of it.  I know so many people who are living off the government in one way or another and I am just sickened by how sad it is that these people will never rise to their full potential.
3)  Questions about what it means to believe in 'the American way'.  If the American way is disappearing, then what is the right place for me?!

I feel as if continuing to expose myself to people who I feel are abusive to my senses is wrong for me.  And yet I don't see myself as some crazy person who wants to be isolated from society. 

If I were somewhere that people were more representative of the feelings of the American people- say more of a 50/50 split, I could at least feel safe to express myself without coming off as constantly defensive.  Don't get me wrong, I have gotten pretty good at getting people to think a bit- even liberals on occasion!  But I am growing very weary of feeling like the only one in the room that sees what's going on with the current administration. 

While it's true that this has never been a perfect country, I really do believe that things are getting worse.  And I want to be around people that are part of the solution, not those who celebrate the demise and what they might get out of it for themselves.

So I ask:
Is it time for me to move on from those who have consistently been unable to hear anything other than what they want to hear?  Is it still important to try to change minds, even those you don't think can ever be changed?  Is it more productive to spend my time with people I think will be part of a solution, rather than be fooled by the demise?

I won't pretend that a person can ever feel connected to everyone on the same level and I know that we must all deal with people of all types and opinions.  I guess I am just wanting to know how much exposure is enough?!  And what should the purpose of that exposure be?!

Some People...

Ever have one of those weeks?!

Yeah, I know.  We all do sometimes.

Dang, sometimes I just don't get people.

Let me tell you about this past week for me....

Fresh off my excitement of finally realizing one great big dream of mine, I was feeling so grateful.  And naturally, I should.  I get that.

I had gotten the call that we had an accepted offer on the Palm Springs, CA condo that my husband and I have wanted so much.  I got that call while I was with a friend that I was helping to liquidate his entire estate.  Talk about a contrast of feelings- to get such happy news while dealing with such a sad situation!  My friend had been going through a home foreclosure, after losing his wife last year.

As luck would have it, my family ran an estate liquidation service when I was growing up, so I knew I could help.  I came as soon as his other friends, who had promised to help, bagged out on the project- and got right to work.  I brought along some of our dance club friends and we all busted our butts for one very long week.

The sale went really well and we made awesome progress on emptying out the entire house.  My friend was to receive $3,000 if he got out and left the house empty by the deadline this past weekend.  An inspector would be arriving at the deadline to sign off on paperwork that would assure him of getting the money.

Things were cruising along and my friends and I were all working together so well.  Everybody really pitched in and did whatever they could.  We were all so exhausted, but kept on moving toward that deadline.  We knew we could do it.  We were not stopping until the work was done. 

At different times during the week this man's siblings would drop by.  They never stayed for long and only occasionally took items away that needed to be stored in a place that his sister had set up for him.  I was a bit frustrated by this behavior, but simply charged on.  There was no time to argue or worry about this.

Then, on the last day before the deadline, as we were all sweeping and vacuuming and clearing out the last of the items a moment came that just made me so angry I could have spit.  (And I think spitting is super yucky!)

My friends sister comes back to the house.  She is supposed to be taking the big pile of boxes from the garage to the storage area.  This is really the last big thing that needs to be done so my friend can be out of the house on time.  Instead of doing what she said she would do and what desperately needed to be done, because of the looming deadline, this man's sister decided that she didn't have time to take the boxes before she needed to be back at work.

To add insult to injury, my friends sister did decide that she would be taking the vacuum that was promised to her that we were still using.

I was not only dumbfounded by this behavior.  I was just pissed off.

After picking my jaw up off the floor and realizing that this man's sister was clearly trying to sabotage his progress, my friends and I quickly changed gears.  We loaded up those boxes ourselves into our own vehicles, rented a storage unit and got the project done.

I can't tell you how happy I was to be able to see the project through just before the inspector arrived! 

Now, I just hope that vacuum cleaner blows up and spreads dust and a stink that won't go away all over my friends sisters house!!!

Helping A Friend Is Good For The Heart And Maybe Lucky For Small Destructive Critters

Last Friday I spent the day helping to clean out and pack up my good friends husbands house.  This was the house of my friend Donna who died one year ago today.  Now her husband is having to add insult to injury as he has lost the house to foreclosure after having no job for two years and not being able to refinance even though he was promised many times that he would be able to, under the it-turns-out-not-so-wonderful-new-government-refinance-program.  (Don't even get me started.)

The poor guy didn't even know where to begin.  He is still grieving (naturally) and he hadn't even touched many things that had belonged to his wife, such as her sewing stuff and personal collections, as he just couldn't bring himself to do it.  Several members of our shared dance club were helping out and he kept saying that he just didn't deserve all this help.  He kept reminding of us of what a gruff guy he had been for so many years while his Donna had been alive.  I know that he was always good to her, if not the most social guy in the room.  And I told him not any one of us is any better than any other and that we all loved him.  He openly cried several times.  I personally felt emotionally exhausted after only 5 hours of working, so I can't imagine how he felt.

As luck would have it, the rest of the weekend turned out to be more than a little irksome for me:  My sister is back in the clink- charges in 3 counties, including a parole violation.  Some evil intolerant person put a virus on the web pages that have information for write in republican candidates for our local election.  And a nasty little mole is wreaking havoc on my front yard. 

But I got to enjoy one of the most beautiful warm Seafair Sundays ever.

Credit: Flickriver.com

And I get to continue helping to make my friends husbands life a little easier by setting up an estate sale for him this week.  Which is much more productive than how much I would love to go all Caddyshack on that damn mole...

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