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Television has always been a mystery to me. Like my great grandmother before me, I still don’t understand how they get the pictures in the box.

My daughter would tell you that I am electronically challenged….which may be a stretch. I can perfectly well set the digital clock on the microwave thank you. I no longer have to on the VCR because we don’t own one any more. Ok, on occasion, I may have to phone her and ask how I get the TV to show the DVD I’m trying to watch, but electronically challenged? PLA-EASE!

I have come to the conclusion that the term “Smart TV” may be the greatest oxymoron of the 21st century. I also don’t understand the criteria used for naming channels and the programming shown on those channels. Most are  paradoxes.

Take, for example, TLC, or The Learning Channel. When we subscribed, I thought it would be a channel I’d really enjoy…learn something new everyday is how I sold my sweetheart on it. How motors work, how styling foam goes from a liquid to a foam when you push the button on the can. It’ll be great!! Brain exercise I said! You know my motto…a day where you learn something new is a day not wasted. Heck, we might even finally be told the secret of how they get the caramel in the chocolate bar!!

Duh!!! As Forrest Gump said, ‘stupid is as stupid does.’

IF I were to chose to watch TLC, which I rarely do, I wouldn’t learn any of those things mentioned above…or, in my opinion, anything else worth knowing, except perhaps for a game of Trivial Pursuit in the category of Entertainment (TV).

Instead, I could learn how to cope with 19 kids, totally irrelevant in my life (blessings come in all forms!!).

I could find out what not to wear, rather than what to wear….something a good honest look in the mirror will tell me if I can be objective enough to get over my love of that flannel lined plaid shirt that my sweetheart calls my “Columiban drug trafficker shirt”…which begs the question what columbian drug trafficker wears pastels?

There is a show called “Sex Sent Me to the ER” that might be interesting…or gross. TMI (Too Much Information) is my biggest fear, so think I’ll take a pass.

Then we have A&E, Arts and Entertainment. I think they forgot the art bit…and yes I know art is in the eye of the beholder and all that, but come on! “Duck Dynasty”? Really? (I know, given the popularity of the show I run the risk of being inundated with hate mail on the comment section of my blog…I’ll take the chance.)

“Storage Wars” (pick your state, town or subdivision and add to the title…they can all be found here). Okay, to give this one the benefit of the doubt, maybe this is where the art comes into play. Perhaps an original Van Gogh, or a Beatles song draft, hand written by one of the fab four, on the back of a cigarette package might turn up. Could happen.

The History channel! Now, we’re getting somewhere! Surely “Canadian Pickers” will turn up treasures of historical value….or not. But there are some cool finds according to dear hubby who follows it faithfully. 

We all know that reruns of one of my favourite shows…”M.A.S.H”. ….are historically accurate, especially those scenes between Frank Burns and Hot Lips Houlihan.

“Ice Pilots NWT” while set in the current day in my town, touches on history, with the shows main character…the DC3 airplane….and of course “Ancient Aliens” is fodder for those of us old enough to remember Roswell and/or Shag Harbour…or Jim Jones and the kool-aid…

Maybe it’s just me, but I want my entertainment TV shows about reality to be fiction. I don’t need voyeurism, classism, or any other ‘isms’…except escapism. Take me away Calgon®! 

I enjoy the Documentary channel, and a lot of what’s on Knowledge and PBS…but mostly I think the TV executives have really dumbed it down. Even ‘news’ programs have taken on the flavour of tabloid ‘journalism’ .

So yes, TV remains a mystery to me, but so does the human need to know what boo-boo Honey is dealing with today,  or why, and how, the Kardashians took over some city…was it a coup(e)…or just a soft top convertible?

Now if you were to ask me how Mork came to earth, or why A.L.F. and Mr. T were so successful, I’d refer you to Q….not with  Jian Ghomeshi…but of Star Trek legend…because I can’t answer those mysterious questions either.

Live long and prosper.

Being a parent isn’t for the weak or faint of heart. Being a parent of a non biological child of divorce comes with it’s own set of challenges. Egos get in the way; slights become magnified; choices become heartache; and anger gets placed where it isn’t deserved. When a divorce is particularly nasty, the new partner may wear the blame for the marriage breakdown….so let’s clear that up right away. A marriage breaks down because of two people: the two that are married. Rather than assume your own part in a failed marriage, it is far easier to lie and tell children that it is the fault of someone else. Well, let me call BULLSHIT on that one right here and now. No matter what your parents have told you…if you are a child of divorce, the divorce was caused by your parents…no one else. And generally divorcing parents don’t chose to leave their children…they choose to leave their spouse.  Big difference.

When I think of my family, I think of my husband and our kids…..not my kids and his kids;  our kids.

Being a ‘STEP’ anything isn’t easy. A step mother, a step father, a step brother or step sister….but you know the conclusion I have come too? It would be a heck of a lot easier if everyone involved would commit to dropping that damn four letter word: STEP.  

Our family is a blended one. I have two biological children, as does my husband. Without going into a lot of details, when my husband’s children were 11 and 16, their biological mother decided she didn’t want the hassle of having kids (and the boyfriend didn’t want them) so she…in a rage…said for my husband to take them. Now let me tell you this: there is not a man alive that I would chose over my children. None.  But she did, and so very quickly we arranged for them to move across the country and they came to live with us. To be fair to the boyfriend, we had also just recently been successful in having the child support payments reduced from $1800+ a month to $1200+ a month so that may have had something to do with it. Of course that didn’t include paying for figure skating, hockey schools, sports and summer camps , but those we paid for directly so the ex never received that money directly and with receipts to prove it, the court lowered the payments.

When we married, my sweetheart knew I was a package deal: me, two kids aged 9 and 10, and a dog. Package. 

I also knew that I would have to help financially  support his two children, as well as support him emotionally as he learned to live without them …a fact made all the more difficult by his ex-wife’s determination to make even phone calls difficult. Visits were never ‘convenient’ and so, literally, for years, whenever he (we) wanted to see them, we had to hire a lawyer to write a letter to her lawyer to get her permission. It was a joke to her, using the children against him…to me, it was pathetic, nasty, mean…and very expensive. But we did it.

The day the ex decided she wanted a man more than her kids, I had no hesitation at all. Although living with us wasn’t part of the original deal, they were a part of my husband and as such a part of me. Of course they would come and live with us!  And so, we sold the house we had just bought two months earlier, and moved into a bigger one.

I don’t think any of us knew what we were getting into, but at that point it didn’t matter. Those children needed a home and a family and it was up to us to provide both.

And so, they arrived, one day in July, a small suitcase each and a box. That was it….wearing shoes two sizes too small, clothes full of holes, and a heart full of pain. In they moved..into a home with an already established family with a father they barely knew and a woman not their mother.

Right away I made it clear that I was not trying to replace their mother (why in God’s name would I ever want to?!) and that they would be treated the same as my own two biological children….with lots of love, but also with expectations and rules to follow. They had been fending for themselves long enough. Time for the adults to assume the leadership role so they could be kids again.

From that moment, they became my daughter and my son. Period. No step, no his kids. MY kids….OUR kids. We had some fun times, but we also had some challenges…boy did we have challenges!

I made some pretty HUGE mistakes. I tried to treat them as I had treated the older two. The difference was twofold: the older two knew without question how much I loved them, and we had a history…I had raised them from birth so they knew me and I knew them. It couldn’t be the same, but in my naivety, I thought it could.

Looking back, they were kids. Their own mother had just said ‘I don’t want you anymore’, they had moved to a home they didn’t know, with a family they didn’t know, to a town they didn’t know and schools where they were the new kids. I was the adult….I knew all this and truly, at the time I did everything I thought was right. It wasn’t. I know that now.

I have another son and daughter that are older. I became ‘Mom’  when they were just turning 7 and 9 years. Again, the word STEP, never entered into it. I love them as my children too. Perhaps because they were younger, or perhaps because I was the new one in the family, that relationship was far easier. When their father and I divorced, the kids and I lost touch. My fault. I didn’t want him to know where I was or anything about my life. I cried myself to sleep many a night I missed those two kids so much. I had remarried and  moved very far away, but the wonderful thing is, we are now we are back in contact and it brings me great joy.

Now that they are all adults, I sit and watch my husband’s two as they form a close bond with their biological mother. Part of me is very happy for them, but part of me rages in anger…how can they forgive the woman who threw them away?! Why are they now closer to her than to me? Why am I the one hurting? E-G-O

Because, she is their mother…and I am not. That’s why. Because I was, am, and always will be the STEP mother.  That is a truth. Regardless of the word.

Sometimes the pain manifests as anger…like going to the high school graduation for your son, and his biological mother is sitting in the seat reserved and paid for by you! The pain turns to protective rage because she could come across the whole country to his graduation, but couldn’t be bothered to attend your  (her) daughters a few years earlier?!

Sometimes the pain just sears your soul….like seeing the biological mother’s name on your son’s wedding invitation but not yours. Hearing your son thank  her for travelling so far to the wedding but not a single mention of me or his father. Seeing her get to have the honour of the mother – son dance. Being introduced as “My STEP-Mom”. I’d rather be just Peggy…introduce me by my name. I don’t need a ‘title’ that causes me pain.

I have never heard my biological children, now that they are grown, or when they were younger, use the word STEP when referring to my husband. He is their Dad….they call him by his name, but always have refered to him as their Dad. It warms my heart. I have never heard either of them refer to their siblings…any of them…as STEP. They are their brothers and sisters. Perhaps it’s because we have been together since their birth and they know that giving birth does not make you a mother. Donating sperm does not make you a father. Loving unconditionally does.

At my daughters high school graduation, she walked toward her two Dad’s…my husband and her biological father…and said with a huge smile “Which one of my two Dad’s wants the honour of the Father-Daughter dance?” Both beamed with loving pride at this beautiful young woman. My husband deferred to her other Dad and said, “You had her first, so you get the first half”. At her wedding, she only had one Dad present in the physical form, but she made room for the other…leaving an empty chair with a single white rose on the seat…right beside her other two parents, my husband and I.

The night that my children’s biological father died, my son said something that resonated with me, and does to this day. “I was so blessed to have three parents love me so much” He was 18 years old… The word STEP is not part of their vocabulary.

Part of me says it’s the way it should be…they need to forgive her to move on. Part of me is angry, because with all the mistakes I made, I gave them a home when she didn’t want them. Part of me just wants to be recognized. Even if it’s just as Peggy….I don’t want to be STEP anything. The biggest part  of me is jealous that the ex is the one they are close to. E-G-O

And so, in light of distance, time, healing and love, I have consciously stepped back. I am trying to keep my pain…and mostly my ego…in check, for in the end, all I want is what’s best for my children…all six of them. 

But the good news is that with  the next generation, I am not STEP…now I am just Gramma, the same as I am to the other three grandchildren…and to my youngest daughter….I say thank you for that.

2014. Ahhhhhh, I like the sound of that.

Fresh starts, new outlooks, better choices: none need wait for the start of a new week, month, year. However, other than a new fallen snow, is there anything so fresh as the turn of the calendar page from one year to the next? It’s like the world just gave us blanket permission to wipe away all the trials, tribulations, sadness, pain, hurt and failures, and to awake to a whole new chance.

January 1st always seems like a magical date to me…and this year with a new moon, it will hold extra special magic…in fact, it seems with another new moon on January 30th, 2014 is set to be a stellar year, full of promise, balance, compassion, joy and courage. But we must be mindful and pay attention to what each of our paths will bring.

Weeks ago, a friend, Dana over at http://thebeautifulreal.com , (a site I encourage you all to check out – she’s on Facebook too) issued a call to take up the “One Word” challenge. I’d read about this before, and there are several sites and books based on the premise, which, in short is, rather than take on a list…or even one new years resolution, you select one word to focus on for the coming year.

Never in a calendar year did I think this would be such a difficult challenge!. In fact, I never thought it would be a challenge at all! After Dana threw this right in my path where I had to trip over it, I agreed to make something I’d been unconsciously doing for a few years, more, hmmmm…well ‘formal’.

I will hold tight to last years’ word ‘gratitude’, for it has held me in good stead as I meandered my way through many months of pain, turmoil, confusion and anger, until, ultimately GRATITUDE lead me to a place where I was in the best head space of recent memory. I can’t let that go….and so,  I struggled for weeks on a new word to add for 2014.

My list kept getting longer, but one word keep showing up…in conversations, in writings, in my heart…and so, here it is…the word that choose me. I hear a lot, but sometimes I forget to pay attention…to the words NOT spoken; to the rustle of my intuition; to the stirring of my heart, to the movement of the Northern Lights. And so, as we enter this promise of a spectacular year, here, with gratitude to the beautiful woman at The Beautiful Real,  is my word:

Listening is to hearing, as seeing is to looking, and so, I will continue to be grateful and add something each day to my gratitude jar, and I will do my utmost to listen….really listen. To my husband, to my children, my grandchildren, my friends, and yes even to my dog.

I want to stop missing out on what the world around me is saying. I want to attune myself to the messages the universe tries to continually place in my path; to the whispers  God the Creator sends my way each and everyday. I don’t want to sleep through the music of life anymore.

And so, dear friends, on this, the purest, freshest day of a promise filled new year, this is my  wish for you: may you each find truth wherever your search takes you; may you receive enough smiles and hugs to sustain you through your alone times; if you can’t write a great novel, may you read at least one; may your heartache be tempered with memories of joyous, loving times; may your words be kind and your deeds kinder; may you get back tenfold of what you give; may your dreams be sweet; and may your health be appreciated and never taken for granted. But most of all, may you walk in the light every one of the next 365 days. Blessings.