February 4, 2012 Greetings My Friend, Thoughts at large: The dining room wall has been taken down between the dining room and the kitchen. The dining room ceiling is up. It has planks of boards and looks like a bead board ceiling. I think it fits in with the age of the house nicely. Junior is working in the attic, putting in insulation, wiring the house more and putting boards down so he can walk around easier in the attic. This little behind the scenes thing is so necessary but you can’t see the progress. I wait anxiously for the visible changes. Junior put up a truss so when the wall came down there was the proper support. The truss is in the attic and of course you can’t see that either. There is a huge hole in the kitchen ceiling and I feel the coolness from the attic so hopefully soon he will put up something to cover the hole. I’m thinking it would look nice to put up the planks of wood on the kitchen ceiling like in the dining room only have the boards go in the opposite direction. He seemed to like the idea as well. We will see. Our screened in porch will have a gas stove put in and we can have that as a 3 season room. I like that too. The screened in porch is at the front of the house that faces the street. Right across the street is woods and very little traffic goes down our road so we will have a nice view. We are thinking we will move the family room to the front room in front of the fireplace. Both rooms have a fireplace but the current family room will be a bedroom/office/exercise room. With the futon that makes it possible. The furniture needs to be moved out so Junior can work on putting up the ceiling which will be boards again. We like that a whole lot. As we reshape our home a new thought arises that maybe the screened in porch will become an enclosed porch with windows instead of screens. Then that room can become our new family room….way down the road at this point. This room is larger and we will see the road and the cars come by. Right now I don’t see much of anything due to the way the house is situated. The current enclosed porch will become our storage area with closets and drawers. I also hope Junior will put a bench in with a lid for storage as well. The washer and dryer will go in there and the old laundry room will be a 2nd bathroom. Again our plans change and reshape. As I talk with my son he reminds me that FB isn’t about deep relationships. It is a surface type of friendship. I have noticed that some people accept me as a friend and when I comment on their things I never get a response. I am getting used to this way of relating. I am a person who wants to get heart to heart with everybody so I was miffed when people accepted me and then didn’t seem to want to talk to me. I also see some real mushy stuff. “I love you” between parent and child. I see stuff go around about bullying behavior and the devastating affects it has on people. The weird thing is some of the ones passing this stuff around to me are doing a lot of bullying behavior themselves. The mushy family stuff to me is not real and I believe these people want the world to think that all is perfect in their lives. The thing is I know differently. That brings me to another thought. In the past I had someone confide in me. They told me of the hurt they experienced in a relationship. This person later claimed to be best of friends with the one that has hurt them. When I struggled with the one that hurt them, this person claims they are best of friends. They did not want to hear any of my struggles with the one that hurt them. I was told that I was gossiping. Nope I was not trying to gossip. I was trying to wrap my brain around the offender and how to deal with them and the person who knew them I was hoping they were going to help me in my struggle. The weird thing is I know what happened because they confided in me. To pretend or close the door just doesn’t make sense to me. I have had a couple of times now where I have been chastised about being a gossip. Nope I wasn’t trying to be a gossip. I do find when I can be open and discuss a struggle then I can begin to handle the struggle, the person better. At this point I have pretty much walked away from this relationship. I think I was perceived as too needy and they didn’t want to deal with my neediness. I have found the support I needed and when I was able to voice my struggle I began to move away from the anger and frustration I felt. The older I am getting the more I want to surround myself with people who truly care about me and will let me care about them in the way that I am made. I am also more willing to let go of relationships if necessary. I truly don’t want to be a burden. If that means letting go of family so be it. My question today is….are you tolerant or do you just talk a good game of being tolerant? For me walking the walk is as or more important than talking the talk. May God bless you and keep you, make his face to shine upon you. Love janet