I never hit enter. I simply type it, examine it, erase it, and go about my business. Strange behavior to say the least.

Facebook is supposed to be for staying connected with the people you know. Presumably, for the people you hold dear. Why would I go searching for someone I’ve never even met (but thought about countless times)? What would I even do if I found him?

My half-brother, D, is out there somewhere. He has my family’s last name. A few strands of my dad’s DNA. After one look at his high school graduation photo many years ago, I can say that he looks just like my dad too, even more than my actual full brother. Dark hair, thick brows, eyes that pierce straight through you. I know that if I searched for him on Facebook, assuming that he has an account, I could find him no problem. That’s part of the reason why I don’t do it.

My father’s early adult life is one shrouded in mystery, at least to me. Growing up, I picked up on things over the course of a few years, and at some points my dad would indulge me and let me in on a few secrets. He was married at 17 to a woman he got pregnant. His first child, a son, was born somewhere around 1965. Two or three years later, a daughter came. To my knowledge, they lived together in vicious discontent until his wife ran off with their two children to be with another man a short time later.

He’s never told me what happened after that, in any detail that is.

He graduated high school, lived and worked around his home town until 1976, when he met, fell in love with, and married my mother. My brother was born in ’81, and I came a short time later in ’88.

His first daughter, as I mentioned earlier, was actually in our lives for a short lived period of time. I was little when she first came around. She pulled up at our house one day in a beat up Chevy truck with a topper on the back where she kept what looked like everything she owned. We went hiking in the woods behind my house where I took a backpack full of ‘hiking necessities’ like my Barbies and a camera. She told me all about her time in the Air Force. I told her about how much fun it would be if she played popcorn with me on the trampoline. I think my parents still have pictures of this somewhere. When she left, she gave me a handmade photo album, with nothing in it except for a greeting card talking about the blessings that family provide. The outside was adorned with soft, pink fabric (apparently she had learned from my dad prior to her visit that pink was my favorite color at the time), and in the center, was a large gold letter ‘K’. It was beautiful. A gift from one sister to another. She gave me her heavy, camouflage Air Force jacket that swallowed me up at the time, said goodbye, and disappeared.

I haven’t heard from her since. To my knowledge, neither has my parents.

I’ve often sat back and wondered why things are the way they are with my dad and his first two children. Why doesn’t he even TRY to keep contact with them? And it makes me angry when I think about it. How can he sleep at night knowing that he has children out there and wants nothing to do with them? Why are me and my brother different to him? How could he abandon them and live his life as ‘father of two’ all these years?

But then I think, maybe he didn’t turn his back. Maybe they abandoned him. And that has to hurt a whole lot worse.

I’ve seen him write her letters. I’ve seen him call and talk to her. I’ve seen him send emails and get nothing back. Once, I asked him what ever happened to his high school ring. He told me he mailed it to D, his first son. And that was that.

They have never met the father that I have known my entire life. Loving, trusting, dependable, affectionate. To them, they’ve only ever known him as…absent. And that’s nothing that is worth rekindling. I get it.

But there’s something in me that wants to search for both of my siblings on Facebook anyway and see what I can find. They’re well into their 40′s now, probably have families…but I never click ‘search’ and look for them because I don’t want to be the ghost showing up from their past. I don’t want to start a fire that may or may not be easy to put out. Honestly, I don’t even know who those people are. They may as well just be a concept or a dream. I’m sure there was a good reason to them why they decided not to acknowledge our existence anymore. And I should probably just write this off and do the same.

I am just eternally grateful for the family that I have known all my life. For the person that I have turned out to be. My dad, as I know him, has forever been a sturdy rock for me. I almost refuse to believe that he would be anything other than that to the ones he loves. In fact, I know it. He has to have a door slammed in his face before he walks away from it.

Even though it would be nice to know them, not knowing them isn’t taking away from what I have with my dad.

I don’t know that I’ll type their names anymore after this.

I know you’re foaming at the mouth right now waiting to read the facts!

It’s going to be hard coming up with 25!

1.) I’m a knitting hillbilly, as the title implies. I call myself that because a.) I knit shit and b.) I live in Kentucky in a trailer and eat grits for breakfast. Those are usually the only things someone needs to know about another person before assuming they are, in fact, a hillbilly. I embrace it.

2.) I was a hair away from never existing. My mother was 40 when a 2nd surprise pregnancy came along, and her doctor advised her to abort. Thankfully, she didn’t. I have to say that I am the most attractive of her two children.

3.) I have two much older half-siblings from my father. A half-brother that I’ve never met. A half-sister that mysteriously came into our lives for a little while and then, just as mysteriously, disappeared. My next blog post will go a little deeper into this subject.

4.) I’m a teen mom all grown up. I got pregnant at 15, married my son’s father (awesome guy, love him to pieces), gave birth at 16 and have been living happily with them ever since. My family is my everything.

5.) Every morning I wake up to my iPhone alarm, prepare to hit the SNOOZE button as always, and without fail I do a double take at the word. Maybe it’s because I’m still in my “half-asleep-borderline-zombie” fog when I see it. But it is a WEIRD looking word. It just never looks right to me. Sometimes I see it as it’s spelled and think it’s weird, other times I see it as SNOZOE or NOSOZE and don’t think it looks any better.

6.) I wrote a scathing email last year to the makers of Starburst asking them WHY oh WHY did they discontinue the sour flavors. I told them that I was angry now because they put 2 sour flavors in a pack with 2 nasty ass sweet flavors. I never heard back from them. I really really like Sour Starburst.

7.) I buy all of my clothes from Wal*Mart or second hand shops. I don’t have the desire or the money to be a fashionista.

8.) My taste in music is so strange because I don’t like any one particular genre more than the other. I have Loretta Lynn right next to Lil’ Wayne on my iPod. And I can go listening from her to him seamlessly.

9.) I often hoard the money that I make. Not to be mean or keep anything from my family (we are well taken care of), but I fear the struggling and hardship that comes with not having enough of it. That’s how I started living my adult life and I never want to go back to it.

10.) There’s a part of my brain, waaay back in the back of my mind behind the logic and reasoning zones, that honestly, sincerely believes that a zombie apocalypse is completely possible. When I find myself thinking about it, I can’t decide if I’d rather try to fight it out with all the guns and badassery I can muster, or just shoot myself in the face and be done with it.

11.) Unlike a lot of wives/girlfriends I know, I am completely 100% okay with and even excited about being home by myself. Not that I don’t enjoy spending time with my guys, but because I enjoy the silence and the time I get to relax and reflect.

12.) I once started tracing my family tree on Ancestry.com, then stopped for two reasons. 1.) I didn’t want to pay $20 a month for the service and 2.) I was afraid of what I might find.

13.) On occasion, I have horribly vivid nightmares about being murdered for no particular reason. Always in a different way. Once I dreamed that someone came along next to me in my car at a gas station and shot me in the head. As I woke from the dream, I can remember feeling the sensation of blood rushing in the back of my head and the shot ringing in my ears. Once my mind pulled itself back into consciousness, those sounds and sensations faded away and I regained myself in the dark silence. It’s terrifying. I don’t know why it happens. It affects me weirdly for the entire next day.

14.) I only write in cursive if I’m writing a check. No real reasoning behind it.

15.) Every time I leave my house, I say a quick silent prayer to God asking him to watch over me, my loved ones, and our homes. To protect us, keep us safe, and watch over us always. I’m not overly religious, but I feel close to God when I do it.

16.) I rarely follow recipes when I cook, unless it’s something I’ve never ever made before. My mother taught me to be a “taste cook”. I eyeball ingredients, taste, add something, taste, add something, rinse and repeat until I get it just right. Most of the time I’m awesome at it.

17.) I’m horribly bad at math. It was always my weakest subject in school. My favorites were English and History. Guess that’s why I blog and watch History’s Mysteries instead of solving quadratic equations in my spare time.

18.) I never buy eggs. My parents have free range chickens that produce OODLES of eggs on a daily basis and they give them away to everyone they know.

19.) I rarely drink alcohol. Not that I’m against it (my husband is a loyal Miller Light guy). I just can’t drink very much without feeling sick. And hot and sweaty. Not that sexy.

20.) At times I feel like my flaws define me. Petty, vain, insignificant physical flaws that mean absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. I don’t wear tank tops because I have freckled shoulders and a few faded stretch marks. Stupid shit like that. I’m hoping one day when I’m old and quirky that I won’t put so much value into things like that anymore.

21.) In MY house, toilet paper and paper towels roll over, not under. EVER.

22.) I’ve, been, known, to, overuse, the, comma. But I try to keep this habit in check.

23.) Since being an adult and having my driver’s license, I’ve only pumped gas one time. That’s it. We’re a one car family and that’s just something my husband has always conveniently done. The one time I did, I was driving my mom’s car to the grocery and absolutely could NOT make it home without getting gas. I almost panicked because it felt like everyone was watching me fumble around with the thing like an idiot. It sucked and I almost cried.

24.) As a child I took piano lessons, but not for very long. A year or 2 at the most. Now, I love the soothing sound of piano so much that I wish I had kept doing it. In my defense, my teacher was an eccentric old woman who gave lessons in a little windowless room in the back of a music store. She was nice, but I don’t think the material was stimulating enough to keep me interested. I want so badly to pick it up again and learn my own way. I have the potential. I just don’t think I have the patience.

25.) I’ve never changed a flat tire or had monkey sex with a gorilla.

WHEW. That was a tough one. But I DID IT.

I now tag these lovely people and I can’t wait to read their lists, should they decide to indulge me! Can they top my Freddy Kruegerish nightmares and lack of hot gorilla action? We soon shall see.

Carma @ Carmasez
Nicole @ Nicolisode.com
Melissa @ Melography
Catie @ Catielove.org
Erin @ Caotica and
Kasie @ KasiePea.me

We were eating dinner together, in the living room (because I’m a such a terrible, anti-family she beast!) and he says to me, “You’re not fat anymore, Mom. But you were when I was a little baby in your belly, huh?”

“Yes,” I told him, “and to be honest I’m not all that skinny now either babe.” Was I fishing for some kind of compliment from my 5-year-old? No. Hell, he’s being honest with me, I want to be honest with him. I wasn’t offended in the slightest. I was happy with his honest observations, in fact. The conversation continued…

“Well,” he pondered, “if you’re not skinny now, is that because you eat too much bad stuff for your body like oil and fat?” They’ve been studying the food pyramid at school.

“Yep,” I said, “that’s exactly right. Too much bad stuff and not enough exercise. It happens to grown ups sometimes.”

He took that as a valid point and said, “Well I love you anyways.”

Could I ask for anything better than that? To recognize at such a young age that people aren’t perfect, and that it’s okay to love them or appreciate them for what they are?

Now, there are two sides to being so blunt, and all of us as adults know what that means. I do reprimand him if he makes a too loud comment in the grocery store about someone being big or otherwise different in appearance. I don’t want him to be a little asshole, after all. It’s one thing to talk to me about that because I know he’s well intentioned, but a different thing entirely to do it to a stranger. But at the age he is now, he’s only being inquisitive and genuinely wants to know why I’m not skinny or maybe why the man we saw in the store only has one arm. While it’s not okay to walk up to these people and point out such things, it IS okay to wonder…and we all do it even if it isn’t verbal. I guess that’s what I want him to take away from these little whispered conversations…that it’s okay to talk about these things and ask questions, but it’s not okay to do it in a way that could hurt someone else. It’s my opinion that by silencing kids and scolding them every time they make a not so popular comment about the people or situations in their lives, it only does more harm than good. How will they learn that there’s a right time and place for everything if you never give them the chance to learn the difference?

I guess part of growing up and gaining social skills is learning where this fine line lies.

That sounds horrible, doesn’t it?

A few days ago, she called me up to tell me about the situation. During her last visit to her ‘heart doctor’ (as she calls him), he noticed that her heart beat was irregular and skipped every now and then. His solution was to put her under the knife and insert a pacemaker immediately.

“But Kristie,” she told me on the phone, “I just don’t think I want it. I’m old. This is what happens when you get old. Things wear out and stop working. I’ve already had a heart attack and open heart surgery. I can’t live forever.”

I was both saddened and impressed by her courage. Most people would scramble to have modern medicine cure them of all their illnesses and use such technology for as long as their bodies could handle it. And although I pray that it doesn’t happen any time soon, when it’s time for her to pass away, she wants to bow out gracefully. She’s scared of having another surgery at her age. She’s afraid she won’t wake up again. I can’t really say that I blame her. She wants God to be in charge of her fate, not artificial medical devices.

Over the past several decades, she’s witnessed every one of her 8 siblings either die suddenly (from stroke or heart attack) or waste away in nursing homes. She’s always told me that she doesn’t want to live long enough to experience either. I don’t want her to die, I would be devastated, but I know that dying is a part of life and a very real possibility for her each day that passes. She has the right to choose how she lives out the rest of her life. Wouldn’t it be selfish of me, our family, and especially the medical professionals if we tried to convince her of anything else?

It would be, so I didn’t. Before hanging up with her I let her know that I understood and would support her if she officially decided not to have the surgery.

Yesterday evening she called again to let me know about her doctor insisting on the surgery. It’s probably going on right now as I type this.

I’m angry about it. Leave it to a doctor to insist on something without getting to know the person and asking what they think or feel about the situation. Seriously? This doctor who has supposedly ‘known her for years’ scheduled this surgery without even asking her if she wants it. He insisted all of this knowing (or maybe not knowing) that my grandmother came from a time when women only spoke when spoken to and blindly followed the men in their lives on every decision they made. Of course she isn’t going to object, no matter how much she disagrees with it!

All I can do now is pray that she makes it through. Though I’m still angry about the fact that she’s just another weak, old person to him – another time slot filled, another name on the dotted line, another body on the operating table…what’s done is done. I hope the pacemaker serves her well and that she learns to accept and live with it.

What a lot of doctors possess in knowledge, ability, and efficiency, they lack in personality, patience, and compassion.

I just think I do it all too much.

Like, I seem to be in this perpetual state of ‘waaaaah I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up!’ and quite frankly, I’m starting to annoy myself. I like to have all these plans and big dreams about what to do with my future only to have a bad day sometime and cast them off to the side. I make absolutely no sense. Two steps forward and one step back.

I guess I feel like there’s some mold that I need to be fitting in to at this juncture of my life. As though I need to have x amount of things all figured out to be a normal, functioning member of society. Career choice and finances being at the top of the ‘I should know all this by now’ list. Meh, I don’t.

Maybe that’s okay though. Life has a funny way of taking you places you never thought you’d end up. Maybe my moment of enlightenment is right around the corner.

For example, we’ve been a one car family for as long we’ve been together. Though I do work, I mostly just make enough to pay for groceries/household necessities. I drive my mother’s car to work since it’s not very far, and while I’m thankful for the opportunity to do that, I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about how nice it would be to have my own car. Something that I wouldn’t have to call about and ask to borrow for a trip to the grocery store or to drive to work that day. This job promotion makes us having a 2nd car for the first time ever a real possibility.

But aside from the better income, I’m also so incredibly proud of Josh and what he’s accomplished to get this far in his job. He works long hours and he’s good at what he does. It makes me happy to see him being recognized and rewarded for his efforts. This, in turn, makes me want to take a page from his book. The restaurant where I currently work was never intended to become a permanent thing for me. I’ve been there for three years, and I’ve begun to feel like it’s time for a change. However, the whole ‘not having a car’ thing really got in the way of that before. Yeah, I could still drive my mother’s car like I am now, but I’ve always known that that wouldn’t work out for very long. Full time jobs require a lot of hours…hours that I know she couldn’t go without a vehicle for very long. It wouldn’t be fair to her, so that’s about 50% of the reason why I’ve stayed at my current, 3-day-a-week job.

And I keep imagining all of the good things that could happen from there. I get my own car, and I’m free to go out and really put forth a conscious effort to finding a better paying/more satisfying job. A better job = better income and happier me. A better income and a happier me = even more possibilities. Build our own home? Take some classes? Have the kind of disposable income where we can do more things as a family and provide even better for our son?

My head is in the clouds. And I owe it all to my awesome husband.

However, I’m going to go ahead and make one thing clear…I am NOT a doctor of any kind, so do not use the suggestions in this article in place of real medical advice from your doctor. These are merely my experiences and suggestions about dealing with eczema. Specifically, in a child.

First thing’s first… I strongly recommend taking your child to the doctor before making assumptions about what’s going on with their skin. I had no idea what eczema was before my son was diagnosed, therefore I thought it was just dry skin and that it would go away. You need to be sure of their skin condition before writing it off as something unimportant or something that will disappear over time. Many skin conditions can appear to be similar (psoriasis and eczema are close in appearance) but may be treated in completely different ways.

2. Come to grips with the fact that your child may have (and struggle) with this for the rest of his or her life. It’s tempting sometimes to believe that once the rash clears up, it’s gone for good, so you can stop medicating. In some cases, this is true, as childhood eczema is fairly common and many children do outgrow it. But in others, as soon as you stop treating it, it comes back with a vengeance and getting it under control again is miserable for all parties involved. Better to err on the side caution and keep doing what works.

3. Your child’s doctor will more than likely prescribe an ointment to help clear up the rash, and possibly an oral medication to help ease the itching that comes with it. However, it’s important to find out what triggers the outbreaks (maybe an allergy or stress) and make lifestyle changes so that medication won’t be relied upon entirely. Loose fitting, 100% cotton clothing is best as it allows the skin to breathe, and avoid any detergents and harsh soaps that can possibly cause an allergic reaction and/or dry out their skin even worse.

4. Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize. I can’t stress this enough. Especially in the winter months, when skin is more prone to dry out anyway, moisturizing with lotion may be something you end up doing multiple times a day. I’ve found that fragrance free lotions work best, since some perfumes and ‘extra’ ingredients in some lotions can exacerbate the condition. Another tip, our doctor advised us to stay away from Vaseline (petroleum jelly). Contrary to what some believe, the thickness and ‘goopyness’ of petroleum jelly actually trap the affected area from getting any air, and it really doesn’t do anything to provide the moisture that it so desperately needs.

5. If your child has been scratching an area, it will more than likely be difficult to get them to stop. Even if they scratch to the point that it bleeds, weeps, and becomes raw, the itching sensation can become nearly insatiable despite all of that. It’s important to get them to stop scratching somehow to prevent their sores from getting infected, and there are a couple of ways I’ve found that can be effective: 1.) use cold compresses. I run a washcloth under lukewarm or cool water and have him hold it on the area until it stops itching. If that doesn’t work, I’ve found that Dermoplast first-aid spray is also great for this purpose. It’s an anti-itch/pain relieving spray that can be bought almost anywhere.

6. Once the eczema is under control (either by medication, lifestyle changes, home treatments, or a combination), daily maintenance will be required to keep it in check. Along with moisturizing every day, I fully recommend having your child take oatmeal baths at least 2 or 3 times a week depending on the severity with which it occurs. You can buy what they call ‘colloidal’ oatmeal packets at most drug stores, which is really just oatmeal ground into a fine powder, or you can make your own at home using regular breakfast oatmeal. I actually discovered this method a few weeks ago when I searched online for at-home eczema treatments (my son was going through quite a bad flare-up at the time). I read many stories of adult eczema sufferers that praised oatmeal baths, so we gave it a try and it turned out being one of the most effective treatments. If you’re wondering how to make your own oatmeal bath, all you need is a food processor or blender. Add 1 cup of oatmeal (any oatmeal is fine except flavored) and grind it until it becomes a very very fine powder. Add the oatmeal to your child’s lukewarm bathwater and stir it all around. That’s it! The water should turn a milky white color, and they should soak in this bath for a minimum of 15 minutes (30 is better!). After the bath, pat them down with a towel (do not rub!) and moisturize their skin with lotion. I’ve found that by doing this, our son’s flare-ups are becoming fewer and more far between.

I hope this article proves to be helpful to sufferers of eczema and/or the parents of sufferers who may be too little to understand what’s happening to them and don’t know what to do about it. It’s an ongoing struggle for us, but with these few things in mind it makes it a little more bearable.

I love the ring and here’s the kicker…it’s not big, there’s no diamond, or any outrageous personal engraving. It’s a simple, white gold, standard ring. I’m not a fancy girl. I don’t like diamonds and I hate the idea of spending a lot of money on something so superficial in the long run. It’s the symbolism that matters most to me. He lovingly slipped it on my finger while we sat in the car in the Best Buy parking lot. To a geek girl like me, nothing could’ve been more romantic.

It reminds me of my mother’s. Happily married to my dad for 30+ years, she eloped with him in Georgia back in 1976 and she’s worn the same ring ever since. Simple, plain like mine. I once asked her to take it off when I was little, so I could see how it looked on my finger…she wouldn’t.

I look forward to many more anniversaries. I love him with all my heart.

The funny thing about trying to ‘creep’ anywhere is that seemingly innocuous sounds produced by walking, standing, or breathing, are amplified tenfold. That door never creaked that loudly before did it? Since when did the floor moan and groan so loudly when stepping on it tiptoed? Clearly the forces of the universe were working against me. I slowly, carefully opened the door to my son’s bedroom last night and peeked my head in. I saw him there in bed, mouth open and snoring. Perfect conditions to pull off this stealthy toothfairy operation. I crept to his bedside and paused, froze in my current position for a few seconds to be sure that the displacement of the air that I caused in his room wouldn’t wake the neighborhood. All was still and quiet…well, besides the snoring coming out of this kid that would put even my easy-chair napping dad to shame. My hand was under his pillow, fumbling around for that little white envelope, everything perfect, when it happened.

A stirring. A cough. This child that has no problem sleeping through thunderstorms and loud t.v.s was going to wake up and catch me in this compromising position. Did I mention that everything was illuminated by the light from the t.v.? So it’s not like I could just stand there in the dark, unnoticed. I snatched my hand back, with the envelope, and ducked down as quietly as I could on my hands and knees. I felt like I was in some sitcom where the boyfriend sneaks into his girlfriend’s room at night, then when the parents come to investigate, he has to hide somewhere, usually in some stupid place like down beside the bed or behind a curtain with his feet sticking out.

His noises and rooting around subsided, and it was safe to assume he was back fighting with his army men and Indiana Jones in dreamland. The exchange was made quickly – tooth out, money in, closed the envelope. I slid it back underneath his pillow and held my breath. Nothing. I came back from which I came and made my husband acknowledge my accomplishment and congratulate me on a job well done.

And it was all worth it. When he discovered his dollars this morning, he was amazed. It was like magic. He proceeded to go to school and show everyone what he got for now having an empty tooth hole.

I am nothing if not an expert at personifying imaginary beings.

Cute, cuddly, and rockin’ some sweet socks, this little guy (aptly named Squidward by Dylan) is one of my favorite things I’ve ever knitted. He was actually finished about a month ago, but photo opps have been few and far between. I managed to catch him lounging on the couch this morning.

Though I’ve been knitting for over a year now, oddly I’ve never knitted a scarf. This is my first and I’m excited about completing it. Pretty basic, but still fun to work on.

By far what I’m most excited about, this is yet another beanie being knitted for The Preemie Project. Can’t go wrong with stripes. (And I made one for a girl, too!)