Coming Back Onto Blogger

Hello again Friends!


Boy, has time flown or what? I have been very busy with family obligations that I went on a hiatus for awhile. My family has been busy preparing our move from one house to anither. And the new house is in need of much remodeling before we can officially move-in in the next week or two. Chaos is the routine recently! Although thankfully school will be starting aain for the kids and the "old routine" will start again.

Just finished reading some of the Blogs that I used to visit on a daily basis and I see that most are still going strong and have not disappeared, of which I am grateful. Especially the Blog "Feelings."

Well, it's late and I have alot more moving preparations to do so I have to go. I'm hoping to be able to return to the blog scene soon and on a regular basis again.

Colleen

I'm Back! Ladie's Bathroom Shyness?

Hello Blogger Friends,

Wow, time has really flown since the last time I posted, almost a month. I have gotten lazy and I have been reading too many peoples' Blogs that I have neglected mine.

My entry today is a little off the wall but it's an observance that I have been noticing now for several years since I started paying attention to this oddity.

I was in Wegmans (a grocery store chain), the other day and I had to use the ladie's room. At the time that I arrived at the bathroom, the ladie's room was not available because it was being cleaned. Perfect timing right? Anyways, there was another woman there too who was waiting to use the bathroom. Well, fortunately, within a couple of minutes of our arrival, the gentleman who was cleaning it was just finishing up and said we could go in in about a minute. We were both very relieved that he was finishing.

The gentleman exited with his mop and cleaning supplies, and the two of us entered. We picked our stalls, sat down on our respective toilets, and then silence. The two of us stated to each other how desparately we both needed to use the facilities and yet neither of us is going. Why? Well, it seems that one of us is waiting for the other woman to go first before the other will go. I waited, while she too was waiting, and then I broke the silence. And no sooner do I break the silence, she lets loose and now we are making beautiful music!(hee,hee.)

It's so strange. I have experienced this phenomenom over and over and I still don't know if it's something that's in womens' conscience or maybe their subconscience. I don't know, you tell me.

So here it is, I am looking for other womens' experience out there or maybe I'm hallucinating. And men, do you too seem to have a guy shyness too? Please let me know. Actually please share with me any funny, or maybe not so funny, public bathroom stories!

I can't wait to read your stories! Bye for now.

Colleen Vesperman
http://www.colleenvesperman.com

Snow, Ugh!!!

Hello Blogger Friends,

Ugh!!! It's snowing already and I hate it, especially driving in it. Driving the mini-van, which is top heavy, is not the best vehicle to have to be using in the snow and ice. Oh, how I wish that our trusty full-size wagon was available to use. The old girl just needs a new transmission, a very expensive one at that!

Anyways, I can't stand snow and cold! Yesterday morning it was 68 degrees F. and I was loving it! I know positively some day that at least I will move away from here and settle somewhere more moderate as far as temperatures and the seasons go.

I guess I wouldn't be as upset about the onslaught of Winter if it wasn't for the tremendous increases of our home heating bills and gasoline. Our energy usage hasn't increased but our bill for natural gas and electricity has been increased by 30% and yet the utility companies themselves haven't suffered any rate increase from their suppliers. Highway robbery is what I call it.

I can't wait to see our world not be dependent on crude oil and be totally self- sufficient on something we can grow right here in our country. Better for the enviroment, better for our economy, and re-newable. It appears so far that using water as a fuel is probably our best fuel possible and then maybe corn.

Looking towards the future in that respect is at least warming my heart as I have to set the house temperature even lower than before.


Bye for now. More power to H2O and corn!

Colleen Vesperman
http://www.colleenvesperman.com

Being Poor

Hello Blogger Friends,

Today has been a day of reflection for me on my life. I'm also feeling a little melancholy because on most Fridays I see my counselor and we review my life and how to change and improve it.

It is one thing to be financially poor and without money to survive very easily, but almost as tragic is to find myself poor as far as friends and family for emotional reserve and sharing. It's like how will I weather the long storm called life, with so few resources?

Money is extremely difficult to be without, but even crueler for me is having no mother nor maternal part of my family anymore. I know now that they are poisonous to my well-being, but there's a void and I can't fill it with a mentally healthier version of them!

Counseling has been both a blessing, but at the same time it has opened up a "PanDora's " box for me. So many realizations of mental abuse, manipulation, lies, and other ways of treating me that I mistook for love!

Love can certainly disguise itself in so many ways. So, for over 8 months now I have known that I was poor, but until recently I didn't realize the impact or effect of this poorness.

The most life saving fuel and resource is not money, it's my family and love, which I have found in the family that I created myself through my marriage and the children that my husband and I are raising together!

Although I know I am blessed, I do still long for the family and mother that I used to believe loved me too.

I hope that someday I won't feel as poor as I do presently!

Now I close my eyes, take a deep, long breath, and say a prayer.


Colleen Vesperman
http://www.colleenvesperman.com

Sibling Rivalry

Hello fellow Bloggers,


Sibling rivalry, I just don't get or understand it! It's probably because I am an only child and was never exposed to having to compete for my parents' attention.

I feel at times I've created little monsters the way they can verbally and physically battle each other. I look at their demonstrations as so wasteful and unproductive.

I have done lecture after lecture about how stupid their competititive behavior is and that it doesn't impress me or dad, but it's useless, they don't get or they just love the feuding , I haven't quite figured it out.

Although everyone that I have had conversations with that have come from a family where they have grown-up with siblings, says it's a normal thing.

I guess it will always continue to bother me because I'm viewing this behavior from older maturer eyes and I now realize how precious our time here on Earth really is and that it's pitiful to see kids and adults alike wasting it!

I guess I am getting old if their sibling rivalry bothers me.


Anyways, they do have mostly special times together and I embrace those tightly before another tidal wave of sibling rivalry arrives again. And yes, at times they act the same as a terrible storm! But, I love my children no matter what mode they are in!

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/1/1700_50681

http://kidshealth.org/parent/emotions/feelings/sibling_rivalry.html
Bye for now!


Colleen Vesperman
http://www.colleenvesperman.com

I'll Be Available Tonight!

Attention my Blogger Friends, I will be in my chatroom at 10 pm tonight Eastern Standard Time to talk to my new friends "live."

So, get your kids to bed and clear your schedule tonight for alittle "live" chat to get to know your friends alittle better.

I think this should work out fine. The biggest feat is planning a time that is good for most people. After tonight, I am open to anyone suggesting a different time if 10 pm est. isn't good for most of our Blogger friends!

Looking forward to tonight!

Bye for now!



Colleen Vesperman
http://www.colleenvesperman.com

Live Chat - Try It!

Hello my Blogger buddies!

I'm beginning to see that I have a few regulars that visit my site and to the other people that are frequently coming to my Blog to try conversing in REAL TIME LIVE!

I have had my own chat room for awhile but no one seems to be finding it and using it. My husband and I use it but it's getting alittle boring with just the two of us.

I would like to take this time to introduce to you as well as invite you to use this chat room that is for the moment very private and quiet place to converse live with some of the new Blogger Friends that we have all made.

http://www.colleenschat.com/

Go ahead try it out! I think it has an eye appealling look and cute pictures that you can use to express yourself. Go ahead and make arrangements with some of your Blogger Buddies to meet at Colleen's Chat.

Thank you and your comments on it are appreciated!

Colleen Vesperman
http://www.colleenvesperman.com

The Change of the Seasons

Hello Blogger Buddies!

Here in Western New York one can really tell that Fall has settled in. Only a week ago we were still enjoying and appreciating 80+ degree weather and the sunshine.

But, the past three days in a row have been chilly,(40-55 degrees), it's windier, the trees are brilliantly colored, and the gloomy rainy clouds have settled in.

For me I find the Fall to be quite depressing. I guess because it reminds me that Winter will be here soon and Fall and Winter both remind me of death and ugliness. I hate bare trees and being shut-up in the house due to inclement weather. I also hate snow and high heating bills!

I guess the most positive thing about Fall is that the children return to school after they have been complaining to me about their boredom.

The days are shorter and the nights are longer, although thankfully the new episodes of my favorite TV shows begin again!

I guess there's Halloween to look forward to, which puts alot of smiles in my childrens' hearts and Halloween candy in their tummies. I can bet dentist's favorite celebration is Halloween because it's good for business!

Fall in Western New York really excites football fans, especially our own Buffalo Bills, which haven't done very well for years now.

The Fall is good for quite walks without sweating and I enjoy the smell of my neighbor's woodburning fireplaces.

Yet, the finest thing for me about my local Fall weather is the fact that New York apples and cider taste their best and I usually am not particularily fond of apples, except for in the Fall!

Yet, soon I won't have to tend to my flowers anymore and my lawn will soon be going dormant and I won't have anymore yardwork to do anymore until next year!

http://www.westernny.com/

Colleen Vesperman
http://www.colleenvesperman.com

The Loss Created by Estrangement

Hello My Blogger Regulars and Welcome to Anyone New to My Blog!

I'm feeling both angered and saddened due to the fact that my eldest daughter who is 16 has been estranged from me and my family for almost 1 1/2 years now. It hurts because some of its her willfulness that has led to this situation, but it's mostly due to my mother's jealousy of my life and wanting to destroy my happiness.

I don't understand how a mother can stop loving their own flesh and blood and then attack this child until she's literally beaten into the ground. What makes a mother turn against her own child? I'm looking for some possible answers.

I'm questioning if my mother even ever loved me at all? Maybe what I learned from her was never love at all! I view today as lies, controlling situations, holding me to "perfect" standards, and guilting me do things based on how it would personally affect her. I really used to think that was love. How could I have been so gullible?

Unfortunately, I believe "the sins of the mother" must apply here, because what I had learned from my mother I was using to some degree what I learned from her. And here's the worst part of my maternal part of the family, since Ashley has willfully decided to live with her Grandmother, she too is starting to become more and more like my mother!

I feel powerless to stop this DISEASE because my mother is in total control of Ashley's life and of her contact with me! I already see a counselor and that helps the pain disipate briefly, but what else can do? Suggestions anyone!

Ashley's my first teenage daughter and she is a habitual liar and at times doesn't even seem to realize what the truth is anymore. How does a mother pursuade her daughter to join her in family counseling?

Better yet, how does a mother re-connect with a daughter who says she wants to re-build a relationship but does nothing to demonstrate this, not even a return phone call? Is she just lying again to me, or is she being manipulated by my mother, like I was my entire life?

I feel desperate in finding out what's going on in her head and I'm so afraid of losing her forever due to her looming 18th birthday, where she will be officially be recognize as "free from me."
Will she be lost forever, or will we form a stronger bond because she may grow-up in maturity? Or will we continue to stay estranged?

Help me with some of your suggestions and/or personal experiences! I'm really at a loss at what to do and I can't let go and pretend she dosen't exist. I long to hold her in my arms again, close my eyes and have the ability to correct everything that so far has gone wrong!

I will be existing in dark, desolate, feelings of lonliness and abandonment by two people who used to profess love for me. Maybe I don't know what love is anymore? But, I must persevere.


Colleen Vesperman
http://www.colleenvesperman.com

They Can See the Golden Arches!

Hello Bloggers,


Boy, can we all use some levity in our lives from time to time? This piece today is all about humor and laughing once in awhile. Please don't think this article is meant to mean anything significant or promoting any particular product line.

Today I witnessed again something I think to be amazing about our animal world. It began at McDonalds, after I went through the drive-thru and parked in a parking spot to eat my lunch;
I was nearing the end of my fries when I noticed some small little birds hopping about the ground and looking a little hungry. So, I had a few fries that I didn't care to eat anymore and I began to toss them out the window. The little birds excitely gathered around the fries, but then hopped away.

Scratching my head I figured that maybe the fries were just too big for such little birds to manage, but low and behold, here came a throng of the all too familar and pesty sea gulls. They dive bombed at the fries, driving the little birds into a retreating submission. Violently they played "tug-of-war" amongst each other for the few fries on the ground. Then, some more joined the bunch and began chasing and pecking at each other aggressively, until as the most assertive and the strongest won the prize.

He was the strongest and the proudest and did a pretenscious dance of strutting back in forth before my eyes. He also glared at me with his beady black eyes as to say, "Is that all you're going to give me?" Dissappointed again at the chaos these creatures always seem to create wherever they go, I rolled the van's window up and returned to finish the rest of my lunch.

I don't know how they do it! I purposely looked around to see if any of the pesky birds were around and saw none. I don't know what it is , they must have some type of "food radar" built in them that immediately alerts them to food being thrown out to other creatures. How else can I explain it? Maybe they too, can see and are drawn to the "Golden Arches?"



Colleen Vesperman