I must say I admire this woman on Prosebox who admitted that she not only doesn’t work due to a husband who makes a lot of money but isn’t going to apologize for it either.

Neither am I. I’m not rich by any means, but my husband makes a lot of money and I too wouldn’t need to work if I were able to. Not outside of the house, I mean. Here I work taking care of a large house and two spunky pet rats. Then there’s the laundry, and well, sometimes I even cook. :)

But the point is that just like she was making in her own post, I’m not going to feel sorry or guilty for it any more than I will for any people/subjects that I may bash in my entries. My civil rights were violated once, and believe me when I say it will only be once. My naïveté was taken advantage of back then, but that was then and this is now. I not only have just as much right to hate as I do to love, and to express myself just like any other person out there, but to live the life I see fit to live for me and not what society thinks is best suitable or in the “norm.”

I realize attitudes depend on what’s trending at the time. If it were the 50s I’d be criticized for not having kids instead of being a housewife. These days, though, society has decided I’ve done right by passing up kids, but guess what? I don’t care what society thinks. I do what I think is best for my husband and me, and like anyone else, I try to avoid what I don’t want or like in life. Now I’m not without empathy for the poor. I lived in poverty myself in the past and I’m not about to assume I never will again. If anyone’s learned that the past sometimes creeps up on us and returns to haunt us when we least expect it, it’s me. So I’ll never say never; just that I hope we’re never poor again. We’re doing all we can on our part to help see to it that we won’t be.

I can’t help what people are going to think or how they’re going to react when they read my journal, nor am I going to be responsible for their feelings. If you feel the need to flip out or take offense over what someone else wrote in their journal, then why did you bother to read it???

I also don’t get the automatic assumptions some people make when reading some comments on some Prosebox entries that I’ve read. I don’t know where some people get certain things from this, this, and that, and draw the conclusions that they sometimes draw, yet it seems many people read things into what a person is saying and see things that aren’t even there. Like assuming a woman who’s pissed off is PMSing. Well, admitting we’re depressed doesn’t automatically mean we crave attention. Being angry doesn’t mean we’re losing control. Complaining about one who’s done well doesn’t mean we’re jealous. Admitting we have regrets doesn’t mean we feel guilt. Saying we’re lonely doesn’t make us losers. Pointing out something negative can merely be an observation and doesn’t mean we’re “complainers.” Hating someone doesn’t mean we hate ourselves. Wanting something doesn’t mean we have nothing. Bashing something doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate the good. Praising something doesn’t mean we’re showing off. Admitting we don’t have as much as someone else may doesn’t mean we’re trying to make them feel guilty for what they’ve got.

Yet people seem to think some things go hand in hand together - and sure, sometimes they might - but I don’t think there are any set rules.

Later…

Time for a family and neighborhood report. Tammy's artery isn’t clogged, but they did remove some polyps from Mark and are hoping they’re not cancerous. Tammy will be in the hospital undergoing knee surgery from Monday to Thursday of next week. She will then have therapists at the house for 5 weeks following the surgery to help rehabilitate her.

I woke up to landscaping and sawing sounds. Yeah, old Bob next door was running a circular saw, from the sound of it in his garage. The SUV was parked on the street, and I could see some things he pulled out of the garage and set in the driveway. So much for the bike pump being “all” I’ll hear. I just hope to hell this isn’t a regular occurrence now that we’ve been here for 4 months, as it seems to be the time when good neighbors either move or go bad on us, whether they’ve moved in next to us or we’ve moved in next to them. Once in a while is fine, but more than once in a while would get old. Remember, their garage is just a few feet from the wall of our house. Technically, though, he has the right to do this during normal daytime hours whether I like it or not, just like I have the right to express how much reverse discrimination pisses me off even though no one wants to hear it.

Anyway, I expected it to be noisier at this time of year. Most warm climates are livelier once the winter approaches and it stays that way until the spring.

Even though they’ve been a problem too, since we’re just cursed with neighbors no matter what, I really miss having only female neighbors. They just don’t have the annoying toys males have, you know? Still, to date, they’re our quietest neighbors yet and I hope that doesn’t change.

Although I still prefer houses to condos or apartments any day, I realize that there really isn’t that much of a difference in general. What interior sounds you don’t hear are made up for in exterior sounds. Car doors make up for apartment doors, saws make up for TVs, people chatting outside make up for cabinets closing, and yard work makes up for footsteps. So unless one is out by themselves in the middle of nowhere, one always hears something no matter what they live in.

I won a $79 makeup kit, but it’s not enough to entice me back to sweeping full-time. Not without a win worth $500 or more. The timing was nice, though, as my mascara has dried up. Putting on makeup has become extremely hard for me because I’m so damn blind, so I don’t wear it much anymore anyway. Besides, I’m so damn ugly these days that not even makeup can make much of a difference.