Third Graduate of SO House 3 – TJ

The third woman graduated from the SO house 3 today. Where do I begin with TJ? TJ entered the house rubbing everyone in her life the wrong way, except for her husband. She had no friends, no social life and she was completely lonely. The phrase that I can best use to describe her is “I don’t know”, that is what her life was full of…I don’t knows. She didn’t know what she did to rub people the wrong way, she didn’t know how to connect with people, she didn’t know she took control of every situation she was ever in and she didn’t know that she made herself the center of attention with no regards to the people around her. I would have to say that TJ was one of the most annoying people I have ever encountered in my life and you have to remember that I was watching her on TV, I wasn’t actually in her presence. TJ came from a life of challenges and I attribute her life of loneliness to that. Not only was TJ abused as a child but she has ADHD and dyslexia. She dropped out of high school because of her disorders and decided to get a GED. She had huge challenges with her housemates when she entered the house. The first day in the house she took control of their first group exercise and totally alienated herself because everyone was overwhelmed by her. TJ’s goal in the house was Learn to Connect and her steps were give up control, face the loneliness, learn the do’s and don’ts of communication and embrace intimacy. TJ overcame a lot of obstacles while in the house and really learned how to communicate and connect with her housemates. I thought that TJ would be the last of the original six women to graduate from the SO house but she made great strides and is a completely different person than when she entered the house. She can now hold a conversation with a person instead of being the entire conversation, she can take into consideration other peoples suggestions and she has friends who know who the real TJ is. On top of that I think that I could be in a room with her for more than two seconds.

Second Graduate of SO House 3 – Allison

After a three week hiatus and SO withdrawal for me, my favorite daytime reality TV show returned to the air with new episodes. The second woman graduated from the SO house 3 today. Allison came into SO house 2, last season, as a breast cancer survivor. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer a few months earlier and had undergone a radical left breast mastectomy for an apple sized tumor. Allison’s goal in house 2 was to Learn to Live. During her stay in the SO house 2 she had to face her “squatters”, representations of how she really felt about herself. Her “squatters” included worthlessness, fat, ugly, deformed and the list goes on. The chemotherapy she had undergone for the breast cancer had caused her to gain a lot of weight and lose all her red hair which grew back black and grey. Not only did she have to face her “squatters” but she was forced to look at her abusive past and how it had effected her. During her stay at house 2 she had genetic testing done to see if she had the breast cancer gene, the test results were positive, which meant she had a 60 to 80 percent chance of getting cancer again. Allison was the final graduate of SO house 2 and left having made the decision to have her other breast, ovaries and uterus removed to ensure she would not get cancer again. Allison returned to the SO house again this year to recover mentally from all the surgeries she underwent between the two seasons. Upon arrival at this years house it was evident that Allison had regressed into her old habits of beating herself up. On top of that, she still had not completely faced the abuse she endured as a child of an alcoholic and she has racked up a substantial amount of debt due to all the medical bills. Allison’s goal in this SO house was Living Large and her steps were learn the art of balance, discover love through self acceptance, get finances in order and clarify vision for the future. She finally faced the abuse and actually held a “funeral” to bury the alcoholism, the abuse, the possibility of having children, the breasts that she will never have and much more…she let go of the past. She also took a look at her financial situation and came up with a plan to conquer the debt. Last but not least, she realized that she was meant to work for a non-profit organization and use her story and strength to help other people. She had the opportunity to go to Texas and help the survivors of Hurricane Katrina weeks after the tragedy occurred and work with the Magic Johnson Foundation and was given a internship with MJF as her graduation gift. Allison is one of the most caring people I have ever seen and I really do believe that she will help many people throughout her life, it’s just what she is meant to do. She has already touched so many peoples lives in the two SO houses she has been in, now all she has to do is be willing to accept the love that she gives to so many others and I believe she is well on her way. I don’t know how Allison is going to do out of the SO house, she still has a lot of work to do but I really do believe that she has all the tools she needs, all she needs to do is use them.

Weekend

I didn’t get anything on my to-do list accomplished this weekend, other than finishing the second season of ER which wasn’t even on my list. Compared to EC my weekend was unproductive. I had two spills that I had to respond to on Saturday so I ended up putting in seven hours of work time on a weekend. We did however get home in time for Boo-Boo to watch the Stinkskins game, which they won so he is happy. I didn’t get to the rose bushes, table or the grape vines. Oh well they can wait, plus the weather is supposed to be nice the next couple of days so maybe I will get home in time to trim up the rose bushes one night this week. Tonight however was not one of those nights. I did however get to my normal weekend chore, washing dishes and it was a laundry weekend. Today I spent all day in Charlottesville working on yet another Phase I and lo and behold I got home at 7:30 pm. I think I have another long week ahead of me.

I’m a slacker

I’m a slacker on the whole blogging thing lately. I just haven’t had the time, it seems like my whole life revolves around work lately. Good thing I like my job, right? Because of that nothing exciting has been going on in my life. Of course there are all kinds of things going on in the world; dead miners in WV and the whole mix-up of saying that they were alive and giving the families false hope, more attacks in Iraq and VRE trains derailing in our area. EC when I heard about the last this morning I made sure it wasn’t in your area. Speaking of EC, I was thinking last night about whether or not you still go by EC?

Boo-Boo and I don’t have any plans for the weekend, all I know is that we have to be home in time for the Redskins (or Stinkskins as I call them) game on Saturday. My plans are to finish cleaning up our house and maybe I will be able to see my dining room table for the first time in a year and to trim up my rose bushes in front of the house. I neglected to do this last winter and they were totally crazy during the summer. I had to do all kinds of rigging to keep them from draping across the stairs and grabbing hold of people who tried to come in and out of the house. The other thing I need to do around the yard is trim the grape vines on the side of the house, the only problem is that I have absolutely no clue how to do so. If anyone has any suggestions feel free to add your two cents.

Did anyone watch The Biggest Loser Family last night? I wanted the Samuels to win because of the families story of the father getting laid off and then the mother being diagnosed with kidney cancer a few months later. Regardless of who won, everyone looked great and that is really the point of the show; getting healthy, losing weight, adding years to your life, all that good stuff. Well I am out of here and headed home. I have more episodes of the 2nd season of ER to watch before CSI and the current season of ER come on tonight.

Happy New Year

It’s 2006! We had plans with our friends from WV for New Years but we ended up having to cancel because we were having, what I am going to call, an “inter-family issue”. I am not really going to go into depth about it because frankly it pisses me off. So, Boo-Boo and I played therapists and after that we brought in the new year in front of the TV with Dick Clark. Did anyone else notice that he sounded like crap? I think I recall something about him having a stroke but I am not really sure. They didn’t really keep the camera on him for too long so I don’t know if he looked like crap too. I don’t make New Years resolutions because I don’t ever keep them so I just try and set goals for myself in the hopes that I can meet some of them. I have a few goals that I have set for 2006 and they include: losing ten more pounds to get to my third goal weight since I started my weight loss about a year ago, supporting my husband in pursing his new career, buying a house and paying off my truck.

I watched the entire first season of ER in the last week. I am a huge ER supporter but I didn’t get into ER until, well I don’t know really what season. I didn’t see the first or second season (which I am about to start once I finish this blog) because I watched Chicago Hope which was on against ER and was also canceled because it went head-to-head against ER. There are a lot of differences in the old ER and the new ER and I also got a look into their concept of making the show which is very interesting. The screenplay for the show was written in the early to mid-80’s but got put on hold because when Michael Crichton presented the idea to Stephen Spielberg, Spielberg asked what else he was working on. Crichton said Jurassic Park and of course that is what they concentrated on making. ER got put on the back burner for ten years and then Spielberg though about making it a TV show rather than a movie. They really want to present the show like a documentary so that people got the feeling that they were really involved in what was happening. Hence the moving cameras in and out of rooms instead of just stationary shots. When they presented the pilot to NBC they did not get good reviews because the network was concerned that it was too fast paced, that people wouldn’t be able to follow the action and “form relationships” with the characters. NBC gave them a shot and put them against Chicago Hope to see if they would be able to make it. The pilot aired and of course the rest is history. Anyways, enough about that.

It’s back to work tomorrow. I have a Phase I (that’s the Roman numeral one) that I have to get out this week in order to impress a bank so that they continue to give us business. On top of that I have to get a lot of other things scheduled for upcoming jobs so the homeowners stay happy. I guess this is where I have to let go of the control and delegate some tasks, I think I can do that. Well, I am off to begin watching Season 2 of ER before I watch a new episode of Medium.

First Graduate of SO House 3 – Jessica

The first woman graduated yesterday from the SO house 3. For those of you that don’t watch SO, I will give you a little background history on Jessica. Jessica’s mother was her best friend, her confidant, the center of her life and the only person she completely trusted to see her true self. Jessica’s mother was in the second plane that hit the towers on September 11, 2001. Jessica lived and worked in NY when this tragedy happened and unfortunately was very close when everything was happening. When she heard that the second plane that hit the towers was a flight to California she called her father to see if he had heard anything about her mother’s flight. Her father at the time did not know anything other than what Jessica knew but shortly after, she heard the flight number and knew it was her mother’s plane. Since 9/11 Jessica had quit everything she had ever loved, given up on all relationships and shut everyone in her life out. She was completely miserable and was so racked full of grief that she could no longer function in the real world. When 9/11 came around she did everything she could to get away from the reminders of that tragic day, which was pretty much impossible seeing she still lived in NY. On top of that, she felt that her father had betrayed her because he didn’t know how to be there for her and he moved on with his life, he got remarried. Jessica’s goal in the house was Healing Personally through Public Tragedy and her steps were to grieve the loss of her mother, move beyond 9/11, rediscover family and become the center of her own life. I really thought that Jessica would have the biggest challenge and be one of the last of the original six women to graduate just because her story and history are so painful. She poured every ounce of herself into every exercise she was given, no matter how painful. She realized that her mother is still with her and that she did die a tragic death but that the grief was hers, not the whole nation’s like she felt it had become. She spent 9/11 helping to build a home, with Habitat for Humanity, for a family so that they could start over. She had a hard “talk” with her father and his new wife and vowed to be present in their relationship and accept the love that both of them had to offer. Finally she reconnected with her artistic side, she began shooting photography again (her mother bought her first camera and really pushed her to utilize her talent) and made a gallery of photos in the house that merged her painful past with the present day. Jessica also decided that she no longer wanted to live in NY and she plans on staying in LA to start this new part of her life.

We have made a decision on what we are going to do about the Explorer. Boo-Boo took it to the transmission place our friends father recommended for him to give us a quote on what it was going to cost. He asked Boo-Boo to bring along all his paperwork from when he bought it because he said sometimes he can find a loophole in warranties. When Boo-Boo bought the Explorer he got a 24 month or 2,400 mile warranty and we have put well over 2,400 miles on it since we bought it. Well the guy called that evening and said to Boo-Boo “do you know that your SUV is still under warranty”. Boo-Boo was like what are you talking about, the guys said you bought it with 47,000 miles on it and you now have 63,000 miles and your warranty is for 24 months or 24,000 miles. Apparently from the get go Boo-Boo just totally missed a zero, I saw the printout it is easily missed. Now we have our answer, we are going to rebuild his transmission. Heck it isn’t going to cost us anything so we might as well. Plus we had looked into the blue book value for it and there was no way we were going to get what we owe on it if we traded it in. Thank goodness for small miracles.I LOVE BEING A WOMAN! I have had this conversation with my boss multiple times. He says that he would never want to be a woman. I ask him why and his response is always “beside the obvious, the world is my urinal, I pee when and where ever I want”. My response to that is always well at least I don’t have a little soldier running my life and pitching his tent whenever he pleases. Well yesterday my boss called me and my female co-worker and said that we needed to get dirt to a site because the contractor we had hired had yet to do it and the homeowner has been waiting for weeks for the hole in the ground to get filled. He told us to go to the construction site across the street and see if they would give us half a dump truck load of dirt and to let them know we would accommodate accordingly. The guys on site made a bunch of calls and we were told to come back at 4 and the truck would be ready for us. When I called my boss to let him know the dirt would be there late afternoon he asked how much it was going to cost. I told him we didn’t discuss that and they didn’t seem concerned with it but I would offer the driver money (normally in these situations you just pay the driver what he would make to haul the load). We came back, took the driver to the site and he dumped the dirt. I asked him what we owed him and he said “nothing honey, following two beautiful ladies was enough for me.” He then proceeded to offer to bring more dirt and gravel for the driveway if we needed it, again at no cost. This morning the boss man asked how much it ended up costing us, I told him NOTHING. He wanted to know how we got away with that, the answer is simple because we are women. I told him OK, you can pee when and where ever you want but I get shit for free, I think my deal is better.The finale of The Amazing Race-Family Edition was on last night. I was overwhelmed with joy because the Weaver’s 

 

 

 

 

 

did not win. However, I found myself torn at the end when the Bransen’s and Linz’s were neck and neck doing the North America puzzle. I thought that I was completely set on the Linz’s winning…just so you know I have compared that family to what it would be like if me, Boo-Boo, child #3 and child #4 decided to run TAR together…but the closer it got to them finishing the puzzle I really just wanted Wally to pull out all the stops and beat the Linz’s. Wally was hindering his daughters at the beginning of the race but in the later legs he really starting pulling his weight, there were some challenges that they would have struggled to finish if it wasn’t for him. I got over it though and ended up very happy for the Linz’s, does the second place team get a lesser prize like in Survivor?

Has anyone else noticed that it is cold as piss outside? I was collecting samples from groundwater monitoring wells today and while I was bailing the twine was freezing and my tools were frozen to the ground.

Danni wins…

…Danni wins! I have to say that I am very excited that Danni won Survivor last night. However, I am upset that she took Stephenie to the final two with her. I really do think that Rafe deserved to take home the $100,000 second place prize. I understand why she chose Stephenie over Rafe, she pretty much had a 99.9 percent chance of winning once she chose Steph. Oh yeah, and Probst signed a two year contract and will be the host for another two seasons. Thank God, I don’t know if Survivor would be the same without him. Until next time when they are back in Panama but this time it is “Survivor Panama – Exile Island”.

Reality TV

I am a HUGE reality TV fan. Yes I know some people out there think that it kills brain cells every time you watch a reality TV show but I watch them all the time so I guess I have a lot of brain cells to spare. Some of the shows that I watch had their season finale’s this week or are having them today and I feel like giving my two cents. Where to begin… Starting Over: Most of you probably have not heard of this wonderful reality TV show, the reason, it comes on during the day. I got into SO when I quit my first job out of college.

Pretty much it is a house full of women that have their own problem (coping with losing a family member on 9/11, trying to become independent of parent’s at 40, trying to create a life away from stripping, etc, etc) that are there to start their life over and live a more fulfilled life. I find that I get a good life lesson from each show and of course I enjoy the fact that it is a reality TV show. For you buffs out there, check it out, it might strike your fancy.

The Biggest Loser: I was really excited to see another female (Suzy) in the mix and that she came within a pound of taking second place. I pretty much knew that Matt was going to win just because of how great he looked and the fact that he weighed more than Seth to start with. However, I do wonder if he lost the weight in a healthy way. If any of you know a wrestler, it is stuck in their brain to just starve yourself and run and you can lose weight in a heartbeat. Seeing Matt has gotten back into wrestling I do wonder if he lost the weight the way he was supposed to. I guess it doesn’t matter because all of the final three got to walk away with some money. Getting away from the final three I do have to say that I was astonished with both Pete and Doc’s weight loss. Talk about an insane amount of weight and Matt would have had no chance if he had been up against either of them. The Amazing Race: I will post more about TAR next week after the final on Tuesday. Hopefully it will be a good post but that is all dependent on who wins. It is down to the final three families; the Linz’s, the Bransen’s and the Weaver’s. I CAN’T STAND THE WEAVER’S. I think that they are the biggest hypocrites on the face of this planet. They talk about how they are just trying to live a good Christian life and they don’t understand why people don’t like them. Hello idiots, all you do is make fun of people, stab other teams in the back and alienate yourselves. I was through with them when they started making fun of the Paolo family on how they posed in front of a garbage truck. OK, yeah that wouldn’t necessarily be my first choice of where to pose but the father of that family is proud of what he does. He found a way to support his family and has done so for the last twenty years, there is no reason to talk shit about him because he is proud of his profession. So needless to say I don’t want the Weaver’s to win. I would like to see the Linz’s win but I will be OK if the Bransen’s win.

America’s Next Top Model: I am starting to lose enthusiasm for ANTM. More for the reason that my favorite has never won. This season it came down to Nicole and Nik. I really wanted Nik to win because I thought she was more genuine than Nicole. Frankly, Nicole drove me up a freakin’ wall and I wanted to slam her face against that same wall. I really think that this is one show that AMERICA should vote on. It should be like American Idol where they do their shoots and we hear the judges critiques but we, the American’s, vote on who should “continue on in the running to becoming America’s Next Top Model”. Otherwise I think the name of the show needs to be change because America really doesn’t have anything to do with picking their Next Top Model. Anyways, I think that Nicole will be a great model but it just boils down to I didn’t like her and I wanted Nik to win, maybe next year the girl I like will finally win.

Survivor: Oh Lord, what to say about this season of Survivor. Talk about massive stabbing in the back, pretty much thanks to Stephenie. I guess she figured that seeing she didn’t get a chance to make any alliances last year, she would go ahead and try and screw everyone so that she didn’t leave herself a chance to win. So tonight is the final and I am really looking forward to the reunion because that should be full of some heated discussions. I hope that Rafe and Danni stick together and end up taking each other to the final two but who knows what is going to happen. Stephenie seems to have so much influence that she may talk them into voting against each other and ensure herself a spot in the final two, not that she will win. She has made so many enemies, that are now sitting on the jury, that if she does get to the final two I would be shocked if anyone voted for her. I felt so bad for Steph last year but now I really don’t like her. I would be OK if Lydia won but I just feel that she has rode coat tails the whole time and really doesn’t deserve to win, what is a fishmonger anyways? More tomorrow after I see the finale tonight, I just hope it is Rafe or Danni.

Well that is all my reality TV shows that have just ended or are ending soon. However, American Idol starts in January so I will be able to get my reality TV fix until the others start up again. I plan on making an American Idol post weekly to give my opinion on the show and the judges comments. I would have done that for these shows but I started the blog much too late. Till next time…