I am still here.....

Hey People! I know you thought I was gone but I am still here!!! I have been busy the past couple of weekends so I didn't get a chance to get on here and talk to you!

A couple of weeks ago we went to Monument Valley for our anniversary.....10 years of Holy matrimony! LOVELY!!!! It hasn't been all roses and sunshine I think it is a daily give and take but we are still together 10 years later. WOW who knew. I would have never guessed it, I would have put money on one of us doing time or something... Just kidding!!!:D)

Anyway Monument Valley was amazing, I don't know what was more awesome the views or the stories being told by the guide we had when we went down into the Valley. I was thinking about my dad when we were on our guided tour, I was thinking that he probably would have liked to have seen what we were seeing. BUT my dad is not here now and I wonder if he has traveled through time and space to different places that he perhaps would have liked to have seen when he was living, but didn't get a chance to or couldn't afford to do while he was alive.

Do you believe that when you die your spirit can travel to different places here on earth or even to the moon if that is where you want to go? I wonder. I wonder if you can still visit places and see things when you are no longer in your earthly body? We all know that the body is just a temporary shelter and that when you die your soul and spirit are set free. If you could travel anywhere you wanted to go, where would you go? There are a lot of places that I would love to see while I am yet alive BUT there are some places I do know if I will see, cause 18 hours in a plane just does not appeal to me.....although they do make pills for just such an event. I think we should all take the opportunity to see these United States and then expand out to other places, like Brazil....Jamaica....Africa....France....Italy....Greece....I have a friend who just came back from Italy, I think it would be interesting to see other cultures and experience their food, their sports and how they live....where would you go if you could go anywhere you wanted to go????

Travel safely.....

See ya when I see ya!

Peace! Mattie

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!

Hey People! How are you doing?

I was thinking all day what could I blog about today since it is Mother's Day....I was thinking about the different kinds of mothers people have, good mothers, bad mothers, indifferent mothers, mothers who are no longer here and those mothers who have checked out and left their kids to fend for themselves. AND now-a-days there are fathers who are taking on the role of mothers. Interesting times we are in....BUT right now I am going to go out on a limb and tell a story of a friend of mine who is a mother, and who asked me when she was pregnant if I would be her coach for the birth, and she allowed me to be there when her child was born. AWESOME! I don't have any children so this was the closest I was coming to experiencing this truly BLESSED event. This is how the story goes.....

SO my friend comes to me and she says to me very timidly, "I am pregnant". Dead silence, then I say to her THAT'S GREAT! I think, do you want to be pregnant? OF COURSE! Cool... SO her pregnancy progresses and as time goes on she calls me and she says she is taking birthing classes and she needs a coach. I said SURE I would be happy to be the coach. We start the classes and they are typical classes that everyone has heard about....they teach you to breathe, and to focus and what to expect when you are in the delivery room. Well let's just say that things did not happen in our delivery room like most people. At least I am assuming this is the case since I have never been in a delivery room before I am pretty sure this is not what usually goes on. BUT back to the classes...during one of the classes the instructor tells us that the coaches, are responsible for keeping the mother comfortable and calm and as relaxed as possible, so that she can stay focused on her peaceful place and pushing. RIGHT! So part of doing this is taking a sock that is filled with tennis balls and rubbing them up and down on the back of the mother, sort of massaging her, or rubbing their legs or rubbing whatever is bothering them. I look at my friend and she looks at me and we say at the same time, "I am not touching you like that..." and she is saying "you ain't touching me like that..." and we both start laughing! Classes were cool and the information was good, but it turns out I didn't need any of it. Then the time comes for the baby to be born....

I get a call one morning from my friend's mother, and she tells me they are at the hospital and it is time for me to come over. I get there and go in and my friend is hooked up to these machines monitoring her pressure, heart rate and her contractions. My friend is asleep...I think this is kind of strange since she is having contractions according to the monitors. I asked her mom what was going on and she told me that they have been in and out of the hospital all night and that my friend is just worn out! WOW! So my friend wakes up and she looks at me and she says, "I feel like I have to push get the nurse...." I go out the room and tell the nurse that she wants to push and the nurse says "well we'll just see about that sometimes they think that but its not time." The nurse comes in and she lifts the sheet up...she doesn't say anything but the look on her face says..."OH SHIT!" She goes out of the room in a hurry and then there is a flurry of activity, the doctor comes in and everybody is moving fast but it seems to be slow motion. My friend's mom is in the room and she is trying to get out but there is no time for that now she is stuck in the room for the birth of her grandchild. COOL!

My friend starts pushing we do the count and she lays back down....waiting for the next contraction and the next time to push. I am wiping her forehead and giving her ice chips so I am not really paying attention to what is going on...until I try to give her the ice chips and I notice she is asleep. I look at her mom and I said she is sleeping in the middle of her delivery she is asleep...who does that?! Turns out that my friend had come down with a bronchitis just prior to going into labor. Since she was coughing so much the doctors had told her that the hard coughing was causing her to have contractions, but she was not really in labor. They gave her some cough medicine with codeine to calm the cough and easy the pain. They also gave her some other kind of pills or medicine to stop the contractions and sent her home, only for her to come back later that night with the same pain and coughing. When they finally decided she was in labor they gave her MORE medicine for the labor pains.

Now my friend is in labor and this is how the labor goes... contraction hits...she WAKES UP sits up and pushes for the count and then falls back and goes to SLEEP! Contraction hits....she WAKES UP sits up pushes and then falls back and goes to SLEEP! She basically slept through the delivery. I was always told that labor was the most incredible pain you could ever experience, NO MAN would live through it, and some women die during it....but my friend would sleep. Now granted she was drugged up with the different medicines they had given her, but it was just unbelievable to me that she could sleep through this....WOW! It was the most incredible thing I have ever seen, to witness the birth of a child. I was trying my best not to look but the doctor had glasses on and you could see the whole thing in his glasses. INCREDIBLE! A little baby girl was born....eighteen years ago and now she is graduating from high school. CONGRATULATIONS mom! Congratulations baby girl!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!


See ya when I see ya!Peace! Mattie

Just wondering.....where are we going....

Hey People! I am getting on a roll here this makes three in row and you know the saying, 'third time is a charm'!!!! We will see if that is the case here....

SO I was talking to this lady where I work and I said to her, 'you know this is going to offend you in so many ways but are you Navajo?' She is Native American and her tribe is Navajo. Now don't get me wrong the fact that the person I was talking to is Navajo was not offensive, I just thought the question would be offensive as most people don't like to discuss their heritage. I was hanging up a Navajo rug in my cubicle area and I wanted to confirm what I was told about the design on the rug. I asked was this symbol or design that of family? I told her that's what I was told when I bought the rug from this man who was selling it for his daughter who was trying to raise money for graduation. The lady told me she believed it was but she she couldn't say for sure. Then she said to me, "I should know more about my heritage but I don't, my grandma tried to teach us weaving and things like that but we would sit there for an hour and then we would take off. We didn't want to learn we just wanted to play outside and run around. I don't even know how to speak the language." She went on to tell me that each rug is different because the concept and design of the rug is what you the weaver create in your mind, you have to see the rug as you are making it and that's why no two are the same. WOW! I didn't know that, but that does explain why they are so different, and makes you wonder when you look at them how did they come up with that. I told her don't feel bad about not knowing your heritage, I am not that sure of mine. I am hoping Africa is in there somewhere and I have no doubt there is some White people in there as well. Sadly, there are a lot of things that should be passed down from generation to generation, that is falling by the way side, kids don't want to learn and parents don't have time to teach.

My mom won't teach me how to cook she says she doesn't use recipes, she does everything by taste and feel, so she can't write anything down for me AND she gets mad when I ask her to. SAD that things like your native language, cultural cooking and family stories aren't being passed onto the next generation. I am pretty sure there are some who will think this is a good thing and some who are fearful that we are slowing 'blending' into a melting pot of people of whose national origin you cannot differentiate. This could be a good thing or it could be a bad thing....GOOD that finally people are being seen as people and not Black people or White people, etc. but just PEOPLE! But the bad thing would be what is lost along the way like 'southern cooking', weaving baskets and rugs, making pasta and sauces, braiding hair and story telling.

We are all in such a hurry these days to get to where we are going....but I was just wondering...where are we going??!!!!

See ya when I see ya!

Peace! Mattie