Goodbye 2020 hello 2021

So quite literally I was supposed to start this blog subject on January 1st. Here we are April 1st and I am barely coming around to say goodbye to 2020.

This new year has began with pretty much what it ended with. Hope. Longing maybe some difference. Got a lot of people with different opinions, different outlooks on what exactly happened with this pandemic. Some people think it was a hoax even though I had a cousin in Arizona who almost died from it. My husband stepfather died from complications that affected his heart. My husband’s entire family tested positive for it and had to be quarantine. The majority of businesses are now open to the public where as before we were having things delivered and staying as far away from each other’s humanly possible. You can imagine that counseling and psychiatrist and mental health workers are in so much demand right now because we’re social creatures. Even if you want to say that we really don’t like each other and we don’t want to be around each other when they’re not allowed to be around each other takes it’s toll. Sitting alone with your own thoughts sometimes is not as comforting as people think it is. So far 2021 has brought me a raise per our CEO of our company. It has taught us to work faster because we’re short-handed and even if we do not have enough people to do our jobs our jobs still have to get done. I am currently writing this post well sitting at the health table my job. Basically from 4:00 a.m. till 7:00 a.m. I sit at a table ask every person that walks in if they have had the following symptoms in the last 10 days fever chills cough shortness of breath or difficulty breathing nausea or vomiting diarrhea muscle or by aches fatigue headache sore throat new loss of taste or smell or congestion or runny nose if they answer no then my next question is have you use medication to reduce a fever in the last 24 hours if they say no then my next question is in the last 14 days has anyone you lived with than lab tested positive for covid-19 or have had been in a close contact with someone who has been tested positive for covid-19 if they say no I make sure that they’re wearing a face mask take their temperature make sure it is not above 100° and allow them to walk through the door. Honestly it’s gotten to the point where they can actually do the self-assessment on their phones before they even walk in the door so they just flash me their phone saying that they’ve taken their self-assessment on their own and all I do is scan their foreheads for the temperature.

This is allowed me to catch up on reading my emails, try to plan things for the weekend for my family, figure out what I’m missing out on in the world since I work overnights and feel like I am sleeping my life away. I also listen to a lot of true crime podcast and scare myself to death listening to things that could possibly happen that haven’t happened but still keep me looking over my shoulder. Sometimes I watch a movie on Amazon prime cuz I have it on my phone and my job has Wi-Fi free so why not. My day-to-day consist of me trying to figure out how to make more time in the day to even just wash my laundry clean my room hang out with my daughter. I hate that it feels like a chore to have to make time. I wish that I could just hang out with my kid and just hang out with my kids.

I know that my husband is trying to hang in there. His DID seems to be getting more unpredictable. On one of his alters that hasn’t come out in a very long time named Patrick, who is a drag queen, surfaced and started telling me things that I wasn’t aware of, about some of the altars in his head. I am a little concerned about this because Patrick hardly ever surfaces. And since the day he told me about what he wanted to say I haven’t heard anything from him I am worried for him. On top of all of that my husband is pretty much in charge of everything. He takes care of kids, he puts up with my mother when she starts ranting. He deals with me when I start ranting. If he’s lucky he gets to go down to this pond by a church down the street and go fishing. I know his plate is quite full. I wish I could tell him how much I appreciate him. How much he does to make my life so much easier and better just being there. He makes my life worth getting up for. It’s been me and him for almost 20 years now and I wouldn’t change a day.

So even though I’m 4 months behind here’s to what 2021 has in store for us. He and I are the original comeback kids life will push us down and kick us while we’re there but we come back up swinging. Go Team Ray!!!

Working during this pandemic.

Having a job right now during this pandemic is a big deal when the country first began the first self quarantining procedures, we where given a piece of paper stating that our job was essential and if we were to be pulled over we had only to hand the paper over to authorities and they would allow us to get to work.

In the beginning just about every major retail and grocery store, We’re out of everyday items like toilet paper, baby wipes, hand sanitizer, any kind of disinfectant such as bleach,Lysol,peroxide rubbing alcohol. If it was used to kill any kind of germs or to wipe your behind you couldn’t find it anywhere. It became so bad that retailers had to put signs up limiting the amount of products that you could take. People were hoarding multi-packs of toilet paper and sanitizer and selling it on the street marked up of course. Finally Walmart who hasn’t closed their general superstores in over 20 years decided that they would start closing their stores at 8:30 at night, in order for the overnight crew, which is the shift that I work to be able to stock product. Any establishment that was open required all customers and employees to wear face coverings, that covered their mouth and nose. We were also required to keep a social distance of 6 ft from each other as well as having our temperature checked while coming in to the store. Any temperature of 100 degrees for over automatically had to go home.to be able to really discuss what it’s like to live through this endemic we have to actually know exactly what it is from what we can gather it originated in Asia primarily China and it is contracted through saliva and touch. Symptoms are tricky because they are very similar to having a cold or having the flu obviously you have a high temperature of over a hundred, you may also have a sinus blockage or runny nose, I dry cough that that produces primarily blood and not mucus or phlegm, shortness of breath and in some cases nausea. So as you can see we had a hard time pinpointing what exactly we were looking for in this illness. In the beginning people were taking precautions and self quarantining themselves. Restaurants were closed many people were out of work and stuck at home because they had no work to go to. Some people avoided each other some people thought that it was a hoax and that it wasn’t going to happen to them. Our kids went on spring break and March and spring break lasted until the following August. With our children’s education teetering on our ability to teach them. Please let me tell you if you see a teacher today go hug them and let them know that their job is so unappreciated and selfless. Wesley and I found out really fast that we are not teacher material. Honestly Wesley has way more patience than I do but he also has been with Neva since she was a baby so he’s is more accustomed to her learning style.

As I mentioned before my job was considered a essential job as was my mother’s who works for Kroger, my stepfather Derek he works in a warehouse that makes acrylic lenses he’s a graphic designer so he was essential as well. However my sister who is a cook was laid off. She has a family, her off and on again husband, and a thirteen (fourteen now) year old daughter and nine (ten) year old daughter she has a house payment of over 1,000 dollars with of course utilities on top of them. Who this didn’t stop her from going straight to Kroger where my mom works and getting a job. She since had gone back to the restaurant when it reopened it was just fired causing her to take a full-time position at Kroger which thank the Lord above that she was able to get.

However not very many people are that fortunate a lot of people that left Walmart during the self quarantine have not come back and we are actually working at less than a skeleton crew capacity. We’re now closing at 11:00 at night opening at 7:00 in the morning except on Tuesdays when we open at 6:00 for a senior citizen day. Where now going into our very first year anniversary of this global pandemic, all of our children are remote learning. we are all spending less and less time with our extended families I haven’t seen my grandmother in almost a year.

All our emotional baggage is for the most part bottled up and just waiting for the right moment to just explode. We have learned so much about our friends, our family a lot of it not so good. But hey at least for learning the truth. Who knows what tomorrow’s going to bring, we may just come out of this better people but many more toward a crazy, maybe even horrific ending to maybe just too much closeness. We’ll see!!!

Me and my best friend. My Go to tech guy.

I’m not really what you would call or text savvy my daughter factory reset my phone and I didn’t even know how to do that. When she was four years old she got into my password that I thought she would never guess but she paid attention. If I can’t figure something out I asked my husband to figure it out for me A lot of times he can he figures out what’s going on and how to do things but sometimes even he gets a little frustrated with technology. That’s when my best friend comes in. My best friend Rory we’ve been in each other’s lives since we were 13 years old. He was my steady boyfriend which meant we held hands and went over to each other’s houses and hung out. We weren’t fast kids he might have been but I was not. He respected my boundaries and never tried to push me into doing anything I didn’t want to do. I know that above all he was always respectful even when he was getting in trouble. He left me out of the drama. Even today he always has my back. Even when we don’t agree with pretty much anything, he still looks out for me and in time I look out for him. However he really doesn’t need it as much as I do. For the most part even if he wasn’t as tech savvy as he is I am grateful to after all these years still have him in my life. I don’t care what people say.

Richard Cooper Dunivan

Dear Serena,

So the day has come and Yunique has given birth to a beautiful, heathy Baby Boy. Honestly all I can think about is and what your face would look like holding your grandchild. Is completely beautiful. I was technically trolling through Yunique’s facebook 2 to find your grandson’s complete name and I came across a picture of your greystone. Now I went to your funeral I saw what you look like in that coffin it broke my heart. First I already know you and I had a discussion when you lost your baby and your mom passed away that you didn’t want to be buried in the ground that you wanted to be cremated. That scares me more than anything that when I die that somebody is not going to listen to my wishes. Second the post with the picture on Yunique’s Facebook page says it’s hard for her on your birthday. I commented on that post and after I was done I felt like I was being insensitive because I commented that March 10th it’s harder for me then November 10th. Which March 10th has just passed by a few weeks ago. When I think of that day I think of a fight or an argument that we got into that removed us from your life. Something so insignificant that should have just been squashed from the very beginning instead it made it impossible for me to tell you what you being in my life meant to me. It got in the way of us being a family like we were. It was reason we were not there when you needed us the most.

Hey girl this past year I have been able to be apart of Seth and uniques lives without really being in their lives without a rooting them and forcing them to care about us. Honestly you need told me she couldn’t remember what they were right Seth had to call me on a face chat so that he can remember my face. What scares me more is I hope that they never forget yours. I hope they never forget your voice. I hope that in all the mistakes that we made that’s hey grow from them and make their own mistakes and live their own lives.

Seth and Yunique were the first children that I loved unconditional, that where not blood related to me. My experience with them is the foundation of my parenting tactics. The funny thing is, that Wesley has shown to be far more patient than I am with our kids. Is excellent at explaining more difficult subject matters in a less complicated manner. I wish you could have met my daughter Neva. She is a trip. Sometimes things come out of her mouth and I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or slap the taste out of her mouth.

Left in the dark yet again.

My family has been left out of something that we should have been made aware of. Our nephew William has been having fainting spells to the point where his younger brother felt the need to text my father-in-law for help. Now my sister-in-law and my brother-in-law both have alienated my father-in-law and their sons lives yet their son felt the need to reach out to him for help because he had no idea what to do. Our nephew is going to turn 15 years old tomorrow . He is the oldest out of the group. As a child my husband and I where very much a part of his life and his upbringing and then suddenly we were blocked out of it.

I hate more than anything for children to be used as weapons to hurt 🤕 someone who otherwise could benefit their lives. We are not monsters, we have mental health illnesses that and no way stop us from being decent human beings. We’re parents, Uncle and Aunt, a brother and a sister to an extension of family and friends, and still we are threatened as second hand people. Not at all okay 😠

Hope my Boys know how much Aunt Momo loves them. Both of them Kaleb Noah and Kenneth William Ray. I will ride for both of you boys Til the Wheels fall off. Believe that.

Presidential Election

So many people have lost their minds during this 2020 election. As most people know our president for the last four years has been Donald Trump. now Donald Trump is not a politician he has never held any type of office in any kind of political aspect however he is a businessman. Running a country and running a business although they have a lot of things in common with one another are not the same. as I have said in the past I do not dislike Donald Trump I have spent years and years of my teenage and adult life watching him entertain the country but that’s where it ends with me. In 2016 I did not vote for him but I also did not vote for his opponent which was Hillary Clinton I didn’t agree with either one of their politics I didn’t agree with anything that they were willing to bring to the table and most importantly I had no faith in either one of them. They thing about political parties is that their initial goal is to promise inconceivable things that the other party is not willing to offer. In the end they both are lying to themselves and to this country.

So when it came to the 2020 election the two parties involved were Donald Trump and Joe Biden. I’m going out here now to tell you that I will not disclose who I voted for or who I didn’t vote for in hindsight I honestly should have researched a little more on the other two candidates that were on the ballot. Normally I would do just that but I did not and my vote was counted and from here on it is what it is. If we have learned something from this election it is that we can be told several times something and we choose to ignore what is most important and we find out how easily people who find out that you don’t agree with what their politics are can just drop you and act as if they can not associate with disagreement.

In all honesty we also dealt with a president who would not take losing as an option. It is completely one thing to want and honest outcome, stemming from what you believe is the right answer, yet this is not what occurred. What happened was this man refused to face the fact that maybe people didn’t like him as much as he thought they did. He can’t just walk up and say whatever you want to say and expect the entire nation to agree because you said so. You have to have valid proof that what you are saying is in fact the truth. We are in the middle of a global pandemic which in the last few weeks has mutated into something that we have not been prepared for. All we can honestly do is continue to try and protect ourselves and the people around us. Our leaders should be at the forefront of this notion.

Love and Marriage (I know you where singing the Married with Children Theme, When you read that)

But man how true it is. Today I was dealing with two seperate situations. First of all one of my friends that I literly just came in contact with after almost 20 years. She and I where so close at one time we would tell people that we where sisters. But years have gone by and we lived seperate lives, seperate families. And today she took the first step in changing her entire life. She has decided to walk away from her unhealthy marriage. She is ready to make her life her own. Love and Marriage may go together like a horse and carriage however, they are far from the same thing. Being in love doesn’t always mean that you put up with being threated like you are less then important then your counterpart. It’s a give and take. It actually becomes more complicated at times. We are all guilty of thinking that everyone thinks like us. That they know your struggle, your pain and emotional ups and downs, when we get upset because our family and loved ones don’t read our minds. We also make facial expression that confuse one another, express different body langage and before you know it we are mad, sad, and in mid-confrontation, before you realize you have no idea why you are mad, what started all this. But what happens when you get to the end? To the point where there is no turning back. How do you go about starting over? Sometimes people think that it’s simple, yet they haven’t walked in the person’s shoes who they are talking about. My husband and I only faced one time when we thought that our marriage was at an end. And honestly it was because we were not communicating or being honest with each other. We also were having an issue with our drug addiction at the time and we were dealing with life-changing occurrences. There was a point in our marriage when I didn’t understand where he was coming from, and I thought that he was being unreasonable and accusing me of doing something that I wasn’t doing. He was confused because he didn’t understand why I wasn’t seeing what he was seeing and it stemmed from two people that we thought were our friends we considered them family and they tried to drive a wedge in between us tried to make us mistrust each other. Honestly I’m not for sure what their end game was, but they were hell-bent on us being apart. half of the people that I worked with and my second job thought that my husband was controlling and that he was hurting me. which was not true. People at my first job said that they saw him standing around a corner looking around checking on me making sure that I was at work or doing something I was supposed to be doing. When in reality he was making sure that I was okay he was making certain that those two people were not at my job harassing me or saying things about him. This was the time in my life when I let my husband down, I didn’t have his back, I believed other people who’s intentions were not good. And I am extremely sorry for that. Wesley and I have never had the type of relationship where we were jealous, didn’t trust, and we have never lied to each other. We never had a reason to. Even after Wesley was diagnosed with DID, we should have handled that situation a lot better. But we became stronger for it. Our family is more important than anything else in this world. Us going forward together is what matters.

My second friend, moved back to our home state from Arkansas with her husband of 12 years and his three children. But I can honestly say that the situation my friend went through was something entirely different than I have ever seen I have never had Wesley or any of the 37 personalities in fact speak to me the way my friends husbands spoke to her. He went as far as telling her that she ruined his life and he should have never trusted her. He also let her children speak to her like she wasn’t a grown adult. I do realize that they are living their life that what their marriage consists of is not my business but I just don’t understand how there are still women in the world who put up with things like that. I mean this is one of my best friends she is literally on the million dollar question blog that I have written about my best friends I have known her for pretty much most of my life half of my life at least we grew up in the same neighborhood went to the same High School matter of fact my mother actually let her stay with us when we were teenagers when she and her father or stepfather were having issues getting along and it floored me to see her letting first of all teenage children talking to her however they felt like they could and watching her husband not taking the initiative to make them mind or stop is this just me or is Love and marriage becoming so much different than it should have been.

I was raised in a single parent home. My momma took care of ever aspect of our lives. She held it all together without missing a beat. Without assistance from either of our fathers, or the government. She taught us to own our destiny and not depend on someone else to save us.

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

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Happy Birthday Son!!!

Hey my son turns 31. Now I know how that sounds since I’m only 42 and my husband is only 5 years younger than me. Our son is our foster son he actually is one of my husband’s cousins and when he was younger he had a hard time getting along with his mother’s boyfriend. To the point where she would drop him off at our home on the weekends so she didn’t have to deal with him. I know that sounds really harsh because how could a mother just drop her child off but in her defense Jordan was a handful. He came to live with us when he was a teenager and he has called us mom and dad ever since. I am proud of the man that he has become. He never was lazy, he for the most part is polite and courteous. He is an amazing person and a good individual, he always tries to get whatever in his life needing to get accomplished and owns up to his shit. I don’t think we could have ever had a better son if we had him on our own he also is the reason we went into the fostering program which started us helping teenage boys that needed us.Being a part of these boys lives was one of the best thing I ever had the honor of being a part of. Jordan was our first official, but before him we had Chris, and right after Jordan we had Paul, Alex and Dillion and I can never say in words how proud I am of all five of my boys.

Happy Birthday Jordan we love you so much son

Rosemary Gonzalas -Nana

So my brother called me today to tell me to call my dad.This could be a number of things. My dad could be ill, my stepmother could upset about something. Someone in my family could have passed away. Whatever the issue I am the last always to be informed about what ever is happening. So When I call him back I find out that my Stepmother has tested positive for Covid-19. She was hospitalized for five days and is now quarintined at home. She also had a throat infection and pneumonia. I am actually really concerned for her because, she has been having a hard time. She has had both her kness replaced and has had to retire from work.

Update I know it has been a while since our first post but am glad to report that my stepmother is doing well after testing positive for covid-19 she is now clear and doing well.