Snow Drops are Falling on my Head

I'm over it....yes the snow!! I'm f-ing over it. One of my life long dreams was to move to Santa Barbara but as most of you know the cost of living in Santa Barbara is like a bazillion dollars. I don't know about you but frankly I don't have a bazillion dollars and I'm pretty sure I never will. Then I met Moab. No its not Santa Barbara. There is no ocean breeze or pounding surf but it has its own charm and its as close to Santa Barbara as I will ever get. Everyone here that has lived here in Moab for 20+ years assured me me and my mustang would be very happy here. As I mentioned before really anything below 77 degrees is just not pleasant for me. The locals promised me that the cold season was extremely short (approximately 2 weeks) and the rest of the time it was pretty nice.

Funny enough the minute I moved here Moab decided to have winter that was extra long and non stop snow. They even cancelled school for the first time in 30 years. The temperatures have been in the scary teens for weeks and weeks. So there has been no hiking, no main street strolling....nothing that involves being out doors because frankly they don't make winter apparel warm enough for what we have experienced here.

I have started seeing robins and little green sprouting here and there. I was feeling spring in the air and was feeling pretty good about things. Then I wake up to an odd sound. Its my neighbor Bob outside with his leaf blower blowing the snow off my car. Yes...more snow.

Now as bad as I hate the snow my sweet little mustang hates it even more. Hates it so much in fact most of the time she just gets stuck and won't move. The above picture just shows you one such tantrum that left me stranded and in trouble with all my clients who have four wheel drive and therefore thinks the whole world has four wheel drive.

So for those of you who live in Santa Barbara California...just never lose sight that you live in paradise.

Love Lisa

February Update

I apologize for not writing more frequently. When things start getting overwhelming and hectic I tend to avoid writing.

First of all my business seems to be doing well. I opened at a tough time for business due to a very definite tourist season. Even the locals shut down their finances because most of them depend so heavily on the tourist season.

There is obviously a need for a new groomer however. Like Santa Barbara California, everyone here has a dog and they love them. Even though there are no parks here that allow dogs there is still so much BLM land to run your dogs and everywhere you go there are dogs being walked or tied to a post outside while they wait for their owners to finish their coffee at the local coffee houses. Most people have been running their animals up to Grand Junction Colorado which is an hour and a half away. So the locals have been willing to "splurge" for their animals.

As far as my personal life...well its going. Jessie took a break from school to sort out her personal life and stayed in Moab. It was so great having her near me but stressful as always as well. Most of my stress stems from the fact I am not in a position to help her more when she has difficulties in her life which frustrates me and saddens me,. So she either has to suffer or my mother or David have to bail her out and that makes me feel bad because ultimately shes mine and my responsibility even at 24 years old.

The weather has pissed me off as well. I cannot handle anything outside because for most of the time the temperature has been between 14 degrees and 30 and that is NOT Lisa friendly. In fact my perfect temperature happens to be my perfect number 77. So that has meant no hikes or anything outside such as horseback riding etc...

Its funny but I had almost kicked cigarettes again when shit began to hit the fan so I'm struggling again. Smoking believe it or not is just one bad habit from my past I have not conquered yet and I'm pissed at myself. Its a tough time to be addressing this renewed cig interest as my daughters world shakes up and the other stresses that come with that and all while I am cooped up inside with little to do. I have to be busy all the time and if I'm not my pattern has been to smoke. So what to do, what to do?

On top of all of that I have given up my final chemical support which was Prozac. I have no buffer between my emotions and life and it sucks but again I'm pushing past it however ungracefully.

It has not been a comfortable time for me but I am here still alive and kicking and for today thats just got to be good enough.

Love Lisa

Swine Flu

First of all I want to say thank you to the people that responded so apologetically to my last blog. Unfortunately the people that responded with such concern are not the ones I was "blogging" to but that was to be expected. I feel horrible that I had to write such an ugly post but I feel it was a long time in the making and it needed to be finally said. Please know that is not who I am or how I feel about 99.9% of the time. This year has been about healing and personal growth for me and that was all part of my recovery.

I haven't been in touch for awhile because its been one dramatic event after another but I just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful new year. I know I am looking forward to mine. I am working on a fledgling business that I grow to love more and more. I am appreciating my new friends and family more and more and am so thankful for this healthy group of loving souls that cheer me on as I continue my journey. I look forward to continuing to work on not only healing but also to overcome what I see as personal flaws. I have come so far this year and hope my progress continues.

I am so thankful for the love I have in my life. Life is too short not to recognize and embrace the grace of others. I am indeed fortunate and hope all of you find and embrace as much grace in the universe as I have.

I just did not want the year to end on such an ugly note. As for the Swine Flu....well I got it...it was ugly but I've been sicker from the regular flu in the past. Like so many other things the news likes to blow out of proportion the swine flu is no different. Yes it is definitely something to be cautious with but it is no different then some of the other flus out there. So I feel pretty much back to normal mentally and physically.

Love to all of you

Lisa

To My Virginia "Friends" Back Home

Hello everyone. Long time no talk to to most of you. I have thought about all of you this summer and have gotten so melancholy thinking about what your friendships have meant to me over the years. Some of you I have known since I was 16 years old. You guys have seen me marry twice, have a child, raise that child, go to school and get my degree then to go on and teach then work at W&M. Most of you have been there for me and have cheered me on. I use to thank God for blessing me with such wonderful and meaningful friendships.

Then I learned who my really friends are and WOW!!! There are people back in Virginia that must hate me. So I'm thinking these people were nice to my face while stabbing me in the back. Then I thought hard again about all the under handed bullshit I had to put up with since I married David to begin with. Hell....maybe if I had had better fucking friends David and I would still be married. But who the fuck knows.

In the meantime...to those of you who have decided to start a big smear campaign to destroy what relationship David and I have left....well thanks and oh FUCK YOU!!! You know who you are and so do I so please...those of you who were actually my friends and have said nothing behind my back I apologize for this note. You know who you are as well and if I ever decide to come back to Virginia you will be the ones I visit....everyone else can go fuck themselves.

This petty, childish, hurtful shit is exactly why I became a drug addict then RAN to fucking Utah to get away from. What is your problem?? I mean most of you are my age or older and to be quite frank you people are PATHETIC!!! What the fuck did I ever do to you??? I was always so fucking nice to everyone unless you back stabbed me then I just avoided you. Are your lives so empty and pathetic you feel the need to spread the misery around??

Well thanks guys...it worked. It wasn't like David and I were going through enough pain. The added doses from all of you really topped off the pain and suffering.

I never did or said anything to anyone that I wouldn't have said in front of David. I never cheated on him and if I flirted it was in front of him or I told him about it. Tequila and other narcotics will make you do stuff you might not do sober...like dancing on bar tables and making out with girls. And the funny thing none of that made the gossip grapevine. No...just the mean nasty made up or very exaggerated stuff.

I cannot begin to tell you how much this hurts me but whatever. I don't know why I am even surprised. So Merry Fucking Christmas Mother Fuckers. Tis the season to fuck over more people and make their lives unbearable. No wonder I was suicidal...Jesus H. Christ!!! Oh he'd be so proud of all of you.

So for those of you that had it out for me and told David whatever you told him it hurt me yes...but most of you mean little to nothing to me. David however really was hurt like he hasn't suffered enough. Is this your way of making people feel better?? God all of you need so much therapy Dr. Phil could just set up shop there and be busy til the day he died.

Merry Fucking Christmas and Kiss my ass!!!!

To all my other my other nice friends who have a pulse Happy Holidays and I love you all.

Lisa

Thanksgiving Hike

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend. I had a wonderful weekend. Ron and I went to a great Thanksgiving Dinner for the whole community that was free. It was put on by the Youth Garden Project and Wabi Sabi which a nonprofit group here in Moab. There were two lines; one for carnivores and the other for herbivores so I was safe eating in my new vegetarian state (about a year now).

This weekend I got together with Ron and my wonderful friends Rodger and Dana who are nurses here. I met them when I was working at The Peace Tree. We first went and saw some great petroglyphs that Ron knew about. They were pretty cool and included an owl.

After we found the owl we decided to go hiking up Moonflower trail to try and find a Mastodon Petroglyph Ron had been trying to find about a year. I frankly didn't believe it existed. This isn't an area you would expect to see any evidence of Mammoths but we all indulged Ron and

went on an adventure becaus

e it was a beautiful day and we were all just excited to be outside. So off we went and we saw many wonderful petroglyphs but no Mastodons. We found one canyon that had a very small waterfall remnant. I can't wait to see it during the rainy season here (we're in a desert so I use that term lightly).

From this picture you can see how vast and majestic this countryside is. If I went out every weekend to go hiking from now on I would probably not be able to see all there is here. But I'm going to die trying.

Here is that little waterfall and oasis we found. I'm thinking a great place to skinny dip!!

After a long hike with no Mastodon in site I thought I would take my new hiking boots and find an easy trail back down off the cliffs. I had Indigo the sweet dog walking with me and off I went. Well I discovered over and over everything ended off a cliff with no way to get down. After a while I noticed I was alone. No Indigo....no Dana....no Rodger....no Ron. Hmmmm. Okay so I realized I was on my own. Now mind you a mere few months ago I was terrified of heights and cliffs and rocks ....you get the picture but I'm feeling pretty brave in my new hiking boots so off I go. The only thing I was worried about was I figured Ron would be pretty worried about me. I finally found a jeep trail down and I walked the long way back to the car. On the way I looked over in a field and the three cutest Donkeys were following along beside me. So I stopped and made friends of course

.

These are the cutest faces!! The Donkeys...not Rodger and Dana...well actually they are pretty cute too!!!

Finally Ron came jogging up to the car. We found Rodger and Dana and went off to shovel banana splits in our gut.

The next day Ron and I went one more time to try and find that stupid Mastodon but now we had to find a Bear as well. Ron talks to locals at the coffee shop next door to my studio and they always have these tall tales of this and that. But I was fine because once again it was a beautiful day. After a fairly short hike there it was......the MASTODON!!! What the hell?? Maybe there were Mammoths down this far.Then when we were ready to give up on the Bear (yes I was a believer by this time) there the Bear was. These two petroglyphs are so unique in this area and

very exciting to see.

Reflecting on What I Am Thankful of

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I sit here so full from my dinner and am waking up from a food coma having coffee. Ron is next to me but on his way out. He's been on call this weekend (he is a psychotherapist) and he's had several calls. It just shows how many of us struggle during the holidays such as this one. I know I too have been there so many times and to be quite frank was terrified of this one. I am pleased to tell you that its been a wonderful day.

Ron wrote an article about the alarming trends in anti-depressants and the amount of people taking them. I being one of them. I always swore I would never go on them but eventually gave up the fight last year as suicide seemed to be looming ever closer at my door. I have wanted off them for a while now but my doctor here in Moab wants me to wait just a bit more than I will go off them gradually. With all the ups and downs and continued stress I am undergoing she just didn't feel it was safe.

I was wondering if Europeans or South Americans or Canadians had the same statistics about anti-depressants or is this a North American phenomena. I know our health system has become a legal drug pusher program. Doctors don't even touch you anymore or look in your nose or anything. They sit down in front of their computer screens and print out a prescription without making eye contact anymore. Is is like that all over the world or is it just here?

As I read what Ron wrote he basically brought up ideas on how to move past the saddens and embrace the wonder of life. I have been learning to do that for the first time this summer and I love it. Don't get me wrong...I oftentimes suck at it. For those of you that know me know I can be a bit doom and gloom at times because lets face it....thats just been my life experience. But reading what he wrote made me think on my life and for the first time in my life ever I really feel blessed and am beginning to love who I am. Yeah...I know I'm weird and attract strange people in my life and have weird taste on almost everything but I am who I am and I'm beginning to see that its not such a bad thing. I add color to this already very colorful town called Moab and that suits me just fine. I don't even stick out.

I have been reflecting the last week on what is really important to me. I find prestige and affluence is not super important. As long as I can pay my bills without having to have my mother help me out all the time would be super great. That is coming more and more. So instead I am very thankful for my mother. She has sacrificed countless hours of sleep worrying about me this summer and all the help she has had to give me. Two such huge examples of that is she paid for my gall bladder surgery and then she invested in my business and has supported me until I could support myself. I hope one day I can make all of this up to her. I try to tell her I see all she does and I am so appreciative but I will never be able to express to her what that support has meant to me.

I am thankful for my daughter who is my best friend. She and I have been through so much together and have learned and grown and fucked up together so much. We've never really been mother and daughter. Sisters is more like it but sometimes shes my mom and sometimes I'm hers. Sometimes its love/hate and sometimes its a love that is indescribable. I am proud of her for surviving the adversity life has continue to throw at her. She has grown into a beautiful woman with a fabulous future in front of her in the world of Culinary Arts. She is beautiful, intelligent and the funniest person I know and I know she puts on a tough act but her heart is three times too big and she does what she has to to protect it.

I am thankful for my Ron. He is one of the most intriguing and genuine people I have ever met. He has forced me to be honest about myself to myself and to him. We love our time together just sitting and reading, talking, driving or hiking. I could just gaze into his eyes all day and I love to make him smile. I have never felt so loved and safe in my whole life. Since we have come to know each other I have been able to wrap his love around me like a warm safe cocoon and I have blossomed under his care. I can't imagine how I survived this long without him. Its funny though since I have met him I am stronger now than ever. Anyway this kind of love and bond is as close to unconditional love as one could ever hope to find.

I could write for hours on all that I am thankful for but those are the big ones and for the first time since I was 7 years old I can say I am really happy. Genuinely and truly happy. I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and can look around you as I have done and find yourself surrounded with love and peace.

Love Lisa

A Long Hard Summer

I thought I would write a brief synopsis on what I have been up to. I think most of you know I have been heading for the mid life crisis of the century for quite some time. Well I found it June 13th and have been pretty much been dealing with the ups and downs of that decision for quite sometime.
I left my marriage of 12 years. That was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done but I want everyone to know (and this is really important) I didn't do it to hurt David. I did it to save me. He and I are still good friends and living with the pain I have put him through is something I struggle with daily.
I have struggled with depression and all that went with it for years and I pretty much had decided the burden of living was just too much. I planned my final act of checking out when just hours before I was going to do it a friend called and offered to talk. That saved my life and I have never been more sure about living than I am now. I just needed to see life from a new perspective and I for once needed to put me first and do what I needed and wanted to do. Unfortunately the "needs"and "wants" aren't alwys so clear.
Okay so I live in Moab and I have just started my own grooming business called Holistic Pet Grooming Studio. I do Animal Reiki and Dog Training as well and I love it. Its so nice to be working with animals again because anyone that knows me knows I love animals and I pretty much think people suck for the most part.
The sad thing is I lost Elliot (my beloved gelding) the end of August two days before I lost gall bladder. Of course this was after I was told I had a lump in my left breast. Something that I need to keep an eye they said. Two weeks before I opened my business I lost my best friend Alexandra the Greatest. I don't think I recovered from these losses yet and I'm not sure when I will be okay again.
In the meantime I have made wonderful friends here in Moaband have a wonderful man in m life. That very friend that saved my life early in the summer. His name is Ron and he has given me a new lease on life.
For now that is what I have but you will hear from me daily as I continue my journey for better or worse.

Today I am grateful for Ron.
Today I am grateful I hve such a bond with animals.
Today I am grateful I am still breathing.