Acceptance or not

So everyone that has kept up with my blog may or may not agree with my decision a couple of months ago. Some may not even care, and that is alright. What I have ran into is decisions that pertain to my children. Just because we are teaching our children to be tolerant and respect people of this world does not mean we are leading them down the wrong path. What is wrong with teaching our children that it is alright to love everyone? What is wrong with letting them choose what religion if any they want to belong to? Jesus was not apart of one religion and he walked among the worse of the worse. I feel that if he were around this world he would not be judging, but being with the crowd no matter who they were. I just recently reconnected with an old friend, that I have not spoken to in 10 years. I asked him for forgiveness for my ignorance towards his life and decisions. I have realized that life is way too short to be held back by regrets, second guesses, and being angry. I should be more at peace with myself, because I am happy. I am just angry on how people treat other people because they are not following a certain path or not doing what others want them to do. I want others and myself to be happy and that means being in a religion or not than so be it, but do not force views on people.

We have had this conversation many times in our house and with others and we all come to the same conclusion, if people would just accept how others are and not try to change them, the world would be way better. This doesn't just include religion but all aspects in life. As long as a person is not becoming a danger to society like pedophiles, murders, and so forth, let them live the way they want to and not criticize. 

Left out

So for the past four months the husband and I have been trying to figure out what change we wanted. We both were feeling like Utah was not the place for us. It has been hard on our family, our marriage, and everything else in between. We had been looking a different states to start new. We both thought Texas, that is the state we want. No snow, beautiful weather, a place we could call our own. So he started applying to the different police academies down there. I started looking at the different bases I could work at after I was finished with school. It looked really good and promising. We even was planning a family vacation down there just to see what it was all about and get a feel for Texas. I was really excited. I thought I finally figured out what I wanted to do with all this education. I wanted to work with soldiers, their families in dealing with deployment, substance abuse, etc... I thought this is it I have finally decided to do.

Fast forward to this last weekend. The husband receives an email back from the Lubbock academy inviting him in Jan 2012 to start the process of getting into the academy. The whole process would have taken four months to get in and so by May we would have been moving. Overwhelmed at this prospect, I immediately started crunching numbers of how much we needed to start saving for this move. Just for the moving truck, gas, food, and hotel it would have been $3,000. This was not including renting a place. Then he told me of the pay cut he would be taking and how long it would be to get back to what he is making right now. I was still alright with the pay cut, it would have been tight for a couple of years, but we would have made it. We made it on less in the past. We had decided that we were still going to go through with it. Tuesday rolled around and I get a text message saying he has be offered a position as a instructor and this can fast track him in his military career than where he is at now.

Let me back up and give a little history, next year he will be in for 10 years and he just got his E5 this year. So for this opportunity to come about is really good. The fact that he has worked damn hard and earned it is even better. So am I excited for him, but I felt left out. All plans to go to Texas were scrapped. My goal to work on the bases gone. He did not mean to make me feel left out and he fully supports me in my goals and dreams. It was just me and I still feel it. I feel like I do not know where to go or what to do. Utah is not the best place for the degree that I have thanks to the economy, who controls the budget, and that "mormon" feel (as stated from a forensic scientist to me). I also wanted to be out of this state. Do not get me wrong I love my friends, family, and the beauty of this state, but I do not like snow, the mind set of some, or how people are treated. I wanted something fresh and exciting. I wanted something mine.
The other  feeling I got was when is it my turn to have opportunities come knocking. When can I have my chance for good news. I know that sounds selfish, but when you are a mom and a military wife opportunity to accomplish something for yourself gets lost and sometimes it is nice to be recognized for something you worked hard for. I thought this would be my moment to be able to make a difference in someone else lives. I guess just feeling shorted makes a person reevaluate what you really want. I am not excited about staying in Utah, but I can make the best out of it.

Thoughts

As we are approaching the 10th anniversary of 9/11, many thoughts go through my head. Where I was, what I was doing, how this affects my kids, how it still makes me cry to see the pictures and hear the stories and so on. One thing that does stand out is how grateful I am to live in this country. The freedoms that I have and take for granted every single day. I think about the soldiers on the great sacrifices that are made to keep this country free. How they fight hard to keep the bad guys on their turf and not ours.

Another thing that stands out is how far we have come as a country to stand together. When going through some of the photo essays on Yahoo and Time; I could not help but notice how everyone (firefighters, rescue workers, EMT, police officers, civilians) was helping out. There were no race, gender lines drawn. It was Americans helping each other get out of harms way. They may have looked exhausted, scared, fearful, but they just kept going. It breaks my heart each time I see the pictures or video of the planes crashing, that is one sight that is forever with me.  I do not think this is a day that any of us will forget.

I think about that Alan Jackson "Where were you when the world stopped turning?" I was getting out of bed to get ready for school when I heard it on the radio. They had it breaking news and at first I thought it was a movie for some reason. Then I heard it the second time and my heart dropped and that time it sunk in. I left my room and told my mom who turn on the TV and there it was. I could not stop watching. I will never forget seeing the airplane fly right into the tower and then a little while later the tower falling down. I went to school. I got to my business class and I remember my instructor telling us that he was thanking god for not letting him get into his plane. He was suppose to fly out that morning to New York to do business, but had some things come up that morning that made it so he didn't make it. Classes was canceled for the rest of the day and I think for the rest of the week even. I remember every where I went someone had a TV on and was glued to it. For the rest of the week the news was on nonstop at my parent's house. It seems like a blur now, but back then time seemed to slow down.

I really agree that we will never forget, because once we do the bad guys win.

On going Process

I do not even know where to start with this post. Some of you might find this post offensive and others may not care, but I feel I do best when I can write it down. I have given up on religion. I am done with people judging others, finding fault with one another, not being able to live up to this standard that people themselves cannot even live up to. I am tired of feeling like I am a terrible person for giving up on religion. I have seen and felt the damage. I do want to clarify that I have not given up my beliefs, but just the need to have to belong to one religion or one set of beliefs.

Since as long as I can remember religion has been ingrained in me and up to three years ago it was the center for everything or so I thought. This hasn't been a quick decision or thoughtless choice, it has and will be an on going process. I haven't given up on god and all his goodness, but I see it in a simple light. A good friend's husband once told me that everyone needs to live life with no regrets, do what makes you feel happy. I have not been happy for a long time.About 8 months ago I started to let everything go. I stopped worrying that people could not see eye to eye with me, judging for forgiving my husband, wondering what others thought of me or my beliefs. I just have stopped. A couple of weeks ago I met our neighbors. This amazing woman has changed how I felt, I no longer feel like I am the only one feeling the way that I did. After leaving her house, I thought I am not alone, there are others like me. I could not tell my husband enough that day. He too has been supportive with my feelings. Sometimes I feel like I am beating a dead horse with how many questions and comments I throw at him, but he is patient and answers every single question that I have.

Everything that I get out of this I can exercise my free agency. Yes, there are consequences and I cannot control them, but I can control what makes me happy and what I want to do. I am sure some of you that read this will feel bad, maybe even disappointed, but don't. This choice is mine. Some might say that I do not have a testimony, to those I say you have no idea what is in my heart and only god knows.

Thoughts on the case and verdict.

Disclaimer- Strong feelings have been displayed in this blog, just a warning.


Over the past few days I have been reading what my friends on Facebook have been posting on the Casey Anthony trial and verdict. Some have wanted to commit cruel and unusual punishment on her. Some have said that justice failed. Some are just plain angry. This trail is the perfect example of having the freedoms to speak our minds. To voice our opinions of what we think. In other countries you can be charged for the opinions that we voice. There is no such thing as freedom of speech in other countries. Another thing that has been proven in this trial that the justice system worked perfectly like it should. The prosecution had a job to do and they could not clearly establish how this child died. To this day no one in America other than the one that committed the crime could say how she died. All that the prosecution had to go by was circumstantial evidence and far out technology. How would you feel if you were on trial with that as the evidence that could potentially take your life away. To me, that would be the justice system failing. That would be sending a potentially innocent person to prison or death row.   That would be taking rights away that have been fought for to make this country so great. we are a country that is innocent until proven guilty and the prosecution failed miserably at proving she was guilty.

I am not saying that she is innocent, as my opinion I feel that she had something to with death of her child or knows who did it. But to base on just her actions is not enough. Being a liar does not make you a murderer. Going out and partying instead of grieving  does not make you desensitized, if that is the case my husband is the most desensitized person I know. Sure she did not do what we considered the norm for grieving, but that still does not make her a murderer. The alleged computer searches that were done on the family computer does not make her a murderer. Being a criminal justice student and avid true crime reader I am guilty of those searches does that make me an awful person or going to commit crimes anytime soon, No, but if she was to be convicted solely on that evidence there are millions of people including myself that would be in trouble.

Another thing I have seen is pertaining to why she was not charged with child neglect. There was no evidence of child neglect. She built this elaborate story of a nanny, that by the time that she finally told the truth there was nothing that they could have gone on. As a mother, I panic when I cannot see or hear my children after a certain amount of time. I myself cannot imagine going for a month not knowing where or what has happened to them. The thing about this case is she told the lie so many times that she probably started believing it herself. She even had the confidence enough to at full fledged details that made it believable. We believed that Susan smith's children were carjacked by a black man, why would we not believe that a nanny had her child.

Another thing that made this case so sensational was the fact it has been televised since day one. Every single day we have mothers that commit horrendous crimes to their children, but we do not hear it. I did a search on mothers who kill and came up with millions of  crimes that have happened through out the years, but only a handful I actually knew of because of them being televised. I came across one that happened in early 2000 where a mother killed her 25 day old daughter by putting her in the microwave oven. Until that story I thought that was just urban legend. This story just sicken me, but had I not did a search I would have never known.

Another fact is that Casey is pretty and had a cute daughter. Andrea Yates drowned all five of her children, but she was not exactly the cream of the crop.  Beauty is a big thing in our country; you either have it or you don't.

In the end there was no win-win situation. A granddaughter was taken and a daughter will never have her life back. She will be forever branded. In a way she has set her own prison term. She does not have a family now, no friends. She will constantly have to watch her back. She can never go back to how it was before. If she is smart, she will move out of this country.

So much

Wow has it been since Dec was the last time I wrote, time sure does fly. So I have some time to catch up on my thoughts and feelings. We ended up moving our wonderful landlords let their place go into foreclosure and rather than waiting for the bank to kick us out, we found a wonderful place actually a house just a couple of miles from where we were at. I am still feeling shafted over that whole situation. We were basically their cash cow for the last 5 months and had no idea. I will get over it, but over $6,000 for nothing. I cannot wait to own our own place. So it was my birthday a couple of weeks ago, the big 28. I still feel 16, I really do believe age is just a number after a certain point. What really counts is knowledge and maturity. So I have many thoughts running through my head. I just read one of my friend's blogs and got me thinking about my own marriage and evaluating it at this point. I realize that I am terrified that I will become a statistic, so many people are divorcing. I am a fan of celebrity gossip(I know bad habit), it worries me when celebs are splitting up left and right. When I hear of friends getting divorced it just sends me into a tail spin of what if. As many of you know we had an incident of infidelity almost a year ago. I think that it will always be a tender spot for me, it doesn't make me think any less of my husband or wanting to have revenge on him, in fact it makes me cling more to making my marriage work. I honestly do not know what I would do if we did split. He is all the cliches of the movies make. He may not be the most romantic person, which is funny cause he comes from a family of sisters, but he is my other half. I think that if I did not feel this way I would have walked away and not looked back. I think that is what makes it different for us. Almost a year ago my wonderful father gave me a blessing that truly has helped me through this. He told me that after everything was over with, my husband would love me more than he has ever. How powerful is that? I feel that I am not dragging the past, but writing is my therapy. I hope that my words and experiences can help someone that has or is going through the same thing.  I am not angry, but sometimes it still hurts. Especially the thought of everything we have done, made, accomplished, for a fling.

On a lighter note, I should have my bachelor's next year and am thinking about going for my Master's. We are now trying for a fourth, it has not come as easy as the last three, maybe I am getting older body wise. Oh well just keep trying. The kids tell me that they want another sister and then tell dad that they want another brother, smart kids.