Personal Growth

It not good keeping your emotions locked away, other wise you become numb.
Healing my heart and soul is what this adventure is about.

I have felt like a injured soul not truly knowing the sum of who I am.
It has been hard to see the positive things in my life.

I know that I'm loved by the Lord, and that I am a child of God. That I have been blessed with a family that loves me.

My mother, bless her heart, tells me every day, "Anita I love you more than anything, and don't you ever forget."

Every one in my family has their own way of showing me they love me. For instance, Logan, my son, is more vocal, so every time he passes by me he says, "Mom I love you." Some day that can be every five minutes and very annoying, but I am grateful that he expresses his love for me.

The way Ashley expresses her love for me is more in what she does for me.
She makes sure that I have eaten something that day, or will make me a sandwich.
She usually run to store to get me a Diet Dr. Pepper. Ashley often tells me that she loves me and I do love hearing her voice.

Samantha is a lot harder at telling me she loves me. I know she does love me, but I have not heard her actually say "I love you Mom". Honestly I don't know when those words were last spoken to me.

When our children were little one thing I made sure of, is they knew they are loved. Knowing you're loved was important to my parents, and they always expressed their love to me growing up. I wanted my children to feel the power of love like I had known through out my life.

My top priority when my children were first born was to show them my love. I would often take their sweet little spirits into my arms to show them. By rocking and singing to them and telling them how much I loved them.

Samantha and I have always gotten along until she became a teenager. As a working full time mother I missed out on spending time with my children. Lately they never seem to let me forget how bad of mom I was because I was always gone. When I got home I usually fell right to sleep because of my illnesses. Most of the time I slept until the next morning, and then we would go through the same routine again.

I was m.i.a in their lives. That was never something I did on purpose. I often wonder if my doctor really even looked for the causes. I was in his office all the time due to illness, and it just makes me wonder why I was never diagnosed before March 2009.

I probably will never know the answer, I'm just Thankful that Dr. Becker helped me find the medical conditions that were killing me.
The longer I went with out surgery or medication, I would not be alive today.

Now I have a grandson, Gunner, to live for, and a new grand baby due in December. Hopefully I will make up with Sammie, and she will see that I'm not such a bad
Mother after all.

There is so much room in my heart, and I hope and pray I can share that with my family and my grand children
I'm not out to change who I am, I'm looking for positive personal growth

Beware of Pride

I spent the last couple of days reading, and re-reading this article that my Missionary daughter Ashley had given me to read on Pride. My heart has been so heavy these last few years and more so since I've had no contact with my family.

Sometimes it is as if she knows my heart and soul better than I do. I've been struggling these last couple of years with the death of my father. Then the loss of my sisters and brothers, no they did not pass away, they had told me to not contact them ever again.

Let me explain a little more in depth. When my Dad was alive our family always flocked to the home where we were raised. Nothing was better than spending time with Mom and Dad. It was the weekend family meeting place, and Dad was the glue that kept our family together.

Through good or bad times, dad was always the man with answers, and if he didn't have the answers there was an amazing comfort that he would always offer. Dad and Mom made going back home to visit a loving place. Their home was a soft place to land.

Being the youngest girl, I had a special bond with my father and mother.
In 1999 Dad was diagnosed with Cancer. When the doctors found out he was in stage 4 already.

It was hard on me because about 4 years earlier I moved to Southern Utah.
I drove down every single weekend for eight months while Dad was sick. He only lived for that eight months, and during that time my Mother, who was like a Saint, waited hand and foot on dad until his last days.

After dad passed Mom got out of the house because she could no longer live there, and there were too many memories of the man she loved for almost 50 years.
She lived in the Clinton area for awhile, and then one day she asked me if she could come live with my family in St. George. I was only too happy to have her, and we spent all waking moment together.

Then my brother, John, moved down and they suddenly became room mates.
That is when contention with my family went from bad to worse.
This is when the jealousy and family fights started.

I was blamed for bringing my Mom down to St. George. I did bring her, but she asked me to. Fighting and bickering began happening with the family that lived up north toward Salt Lake.
All the fighting with my family cause me grief to a point where I became physically ill.

The last time I had spoken to my family was before my nieces wedding. It has been three years, or more since I have spoken to any of my brothers or sister.

Quoted from Ensign Article,
Ezra Taft Benson, “Beware of Pride,” Ensign, May 1989, 4
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"Most of us think of pride as self-centeredness, conceit, boastfulness, arrogance, or haughtiness. All of these are elements of the sin, but the heart, or core, is still missing.

The proud make every man their adversary by pitting their intellects, opinions, works, wealth, talents, or any other worldly measuring device against others. In the words of C. S. Lewis: “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. … It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.” (Mere Christianity, New York: Macmillan, 1952, pp. 109–10.)

I know that I have been guilty of being prideful, and I promise that I'm not boastful or conceited. But I have, in sense, made my family my adversary, or they have made me their adversary.

I know the hatred won't go away until we all realize we are family. What disservice are we doing to our mother by not allowing each other be together.

I have tried to reconcile and remedy the situation, but I was told that I am taboo.

I'm Not A Superhero Now.

I have always had certain qualities about myself that were always able to carry me through anything. At least anything that life would throw at me, and I could handle it. I always felt confident, and courageous like I could do just about anything the world offered me.

I have to admit when I started to lose my abilities to handle every little thing when I started working at the hospital. I was sure of many things: I was great at math, at making IV's, and I just felt positive about myself. I was even asked by the Director of the Pharmacy to help the Dixie Applied Technology College to open up a Pharmacy Technician program. The same day I was asked, I was hired, and I was on cloud nine for the entire day.

But that is when it all started to happen, I was asked to help do this program over many existing technicians that he already had.

That is when the new employee becomes at odds with existing "women" employees.
From my first day I was fighting an up hill battle that would go on until I was no longer a problem. That pretty much was 7 of my 8 years working there.

You try to be a hard worker, make friends, but there was that one person in particular that always has it out for you.

There were days when I went home crying from this one tech. which I will call Lisa. The other names I could, or should call Lisa are not appropriate for this blog.
From what I heard Lisa has bullied many previous employees, and they would eventually quit.

I have to ask myself, I did many times, what sort of Director lets this type of person run his pharmacy? I stood up to Lisa many times when she would try to start a incident with me. I think that is what Lisa did not like most about me.
Nobody else there stood up for themselves. Honestly, I was at my wits end.
I would speak with the Director many times, and it always made me look bad.
Other people who were hired with me could not take it either and they would quit also.

The really sad thing is that I stayed with that job until I got sick.
I think even though I endured weekly battles I still rose to the top of that pharmacy. I still showed Lisa that I was not going to be her personal slave.
The stress, and the feeling of hate that drive a person insane.
If you stay in a negative situation long enough you loose a part of your soul, and I should of left when I got the college program off of the ground because even though I was making good money, and had full benefits what is it worth if you don't have your health? Or if you now doubt who your are, and don't feel like the superhero you once were.

Reinventing Anita

Reinventing Anita, small woman, big shoes...
The reason I came up with this title is because I feel like through this last year I lost a part of myself.
I'm hoping through this blog I may be able to find myself again. I'm not actually lost, or my memory is not gone. I've just had so many changes this last year both emotionally and physically.
Having almost died, or coming close to dying makes you want to stand back and look at your life.
Some times I feel like I'm looking into a window, into someone else life.

It's Five O'Clock Some Where...Just not here!

I think my body has lost all sense of time. Last night I went to bed about 9-10 pm and I fell asleep for a whole 3 hours, then I woke up. I get up and eat a bowl of Cereal with milk, sitting in front of the t.v. I'm watching infomercials about male enhancement pills. Oh the stuff they peddle at this hour. I started falling asleep again. This is good, no more infomercials. Back to bed...sa-sweet. I'm feeling good about falling to sleep again. However, I'm really picky about my bed...if it is messy I can't sleep. I'm anal about a made bed, even if I'm laying in it. Quickly I fix it, then I jump back into bed...its so cold.
I'm laying there and this time the neighbor has his car running and for some reason its making this loud clacking sound. I'm so frustrated because I haven't slept for three days now. Ugh!
I'm just laying there listening to this loud clacking sound at 4 am.
Thinking...Why me? I get up. I log into my computer, log in to Facebook.
This is the first time I've ever been all alone on Face book, everyone else is sleeping, lucky peeps.
I'm searching for something to help me relax, reading helps me relax.
Finally I start getting sleepy again...I've only wasted a hour. I make sure that awful noise is gone. It quite once again...I look out the window and noise offenders car is gone from the neighbors yard. I shut my laptop...
hurry go to restroom, jump back into bed...I'm ready to dig my heels in and sleep .
Blankets are perfect, pillows are fluffed again. I put my head on my my soft pillow.
Close my eyes, they fill like sand paper...no immediate thoughts in my head but sleep.
Then here that sounds starts all over again.
Ugh! Why me?
I'm about to open the window and yell at the neighbors...then instantly it is quiet again. I'm sure it's Five o'clock somewhere....but, just not here.