Advantages of Smoking Green Smoke Electric Cigarette over Tobacco Cigarettes

Advantages of Smoking Green Smoke Electric Cigarette over Tobacco Cigarettes

I recently switched to Green Smoke and so did my mother and boyfriend. My boyfriend was a pack a day smoker last week. Since he got his he has only smoked real cigarettes maybe five total...It's been three days! I love that it doesn't offend anyone. I love that it isn't polluting me or the environment. It still satisfies the oral fixation of smoking. Creates a water vapor and does have nicotine. If you are a smoker, and you care about your health and the health of those around you, please check this out. You will be so glad you did. No more tar, or 4000 chemicals and toxins, ash, fire risk, carbon monoxide, coughing and choking, trash or high cost of smoking. No more buying cigarette lighters. No more going out in the weather to smoke!

Winter is coming up, and we used to go outside to smoke. Now we don't have to. It doesn't build up on walls and it creates a totally realistic feeling of smoking. It also comes in flavors that you could never get from "analog" cigarettes. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain! There's a 30 day money back guarantee. I'm so thrilled with this product and everything it stands for, along with the integrity of this company that I became an affiliate.

Please go to my website, please check it out. You owe it to yourself and your loved ones!

P.S.

My smoker's cough disappeared right away, within days. I can breathe again. And I still get to smoke! You can even taper down to zero nicotine if you are using it to quit altogether. Check it out!

www.greensmoke.com/zazzydragon

Nostalgia and Pooh Bear

While thrift store shopping yesterday I found something that was priceless. It wasn't some trinket worth millions. In my bargain hunting mode, I scanned the shelves looking for useful things or things that I could resell. My eyes stopped and fixated on something in the toy aisle,and instantly time reversed for me and stood still. I was taken back to two years old, me and my best buddy, running circles around the coffee table, thrilled cartoons were on. It wasn't a sibling or a childhood friend. It was my huge stuffed Pooh Bear that was approximately the same size as me at the time. I know growing up in California, everyone was Mickey, Mickey, Mickey. Not me, it was all Pooh bear for Me.
Despite my mother's unheeded warnings, we rounded the coffee table that one last time and Pooh and I got tangled.I remember falling, I don't remember anything else until coming back from the Emergency room with three stitches where my teeth went through my bottom lip when I hit the corner of the coffee table, just as mother said I would.  I still never let that Pooh bear leave my side, despite my injuries. Stubbornly I held onto him. I am not sure exactly when I stopped carrying him around, but as I saw almost the identical bear in the store, I knew I had to have it.
I'm not sure why people tie memories to items, or to food, or smells. I just know last night, a grown 34 year old woman slept with that huge stuffed Pooh Bear and felt like comfort just like when she was 2 years old again. I touched the scorpion shaped scar on my chin, and hugged my bear. I know it was silly. But I didn't care.I know that bear will not leave my room...and my children will not steal him. It's one of the few times I remember being truly happy.
Even though that day we came back from my ordeal and I sat in my booster chair, thirsty, and my mother not thinking poured me a glass of orange juice. Fresh stitches in your mouth and orange juice..why not stick a hot poker in my eye mom? I remember the pain of that. Now it's a funny story. Not so much for my mother, she thought my face was going to fall off with all the blood there was at the time, but for me. I don't remember the trauma so much, as I remember that bear.

It explains to me why sometimes, a grown woman would pay over a hundred dollars for a Strawberry Shortcake doll that was vintage, or a baseball card of a certain player. It doesn't matter the actual value of what that item is worth because it comes down to the memories tied to it, like a bookmark in our hearts that we can flip to every time we see that item. It makes them priceless. It brings a little of our past that wasn't so bad into our present, and possibly allows us to share those memories with others to be passed on for as long as someone holds the story in their hearts. These things are more than possessions. I've lost everything I own several times in my life, but some things you can never replace. For me, this bear was replaced and  with the memories that came, happiness was restored. May Nostalgia live on in each of us for ever.

Restoration of a Heart

Today is a good day. Three days ago, I was lost. I have told you about the loss of my grandmother already. She died last year before my birthday...in fact 3 days before. A piece of my heart died that day. Just like the day my Dad left when I was a baby. I lost a piece of it that day as well. I didn't know it then because I was so little, but I suppose my soul and my heart knew. And it grieved. Since the day he left, I have been searching for something to fill that hole. For awhile my step dad filled it. He was indeed a great man. My mother cheated on him and he divorced her. I spent my childhood looking for father figures. When I was 8 years old, I was on a path that was most certainly leading to death. If not physical death, certainly emotional and spiritual death. A path that would only have been paved with shards of broken glass as self destruction would chip away at my soul with each piercing step. I had been sexually molested for I don't know how long by a family member who for a while, I looked to as a father. It broke my family apart that I had then. No one believed me when I was six. Apparently I was capable of lying about this in great detail and for what motive I have no idea. So I isolated myself within the chambers of a great fortress within my heart to keep from self destructing. The psychological games played during the sexual trauma I faced at the hands of a guardian, the betrayal of trust of a child, was slowly decaying me from the inside out. I still tried to find the good. I always tried to find the good. It did get me back with my mother at the time. It was either she come get me or I go into foster care. 

Back to the 8th year of my life, I had friends. But I still spent a lot of time in the company of adults or in solitude. I remember one day I was out in the courtyard of our condo we lived in, and I heard a voice..but not spoken. The intensity shook me like the earth in motion under my feet and I fell to my knees. Frightened, I heard the voice say simply this."You are not alone." It was filled with kindness and love and so many things that I can't put into words. But the power behind the voice, it frightened me. I spoke nothing of this and wondered for the next few years if I was insane and had imagined it or not. I knew I hadn't imagined it, but I was not about to share that. I was known for making up stories often and so I was sure that I would be praised only for my imagination and not believed. 

When I was 11, I heard the voice again. I felt a presence the same as before, only this time the voice was softer, a whisper. A gentle hand on the brokenness of my heart. At such a young age I had already experienced more trauma and more darkness than anyone ever should have to endure in an entire lifetime. The voice once again called to me and whispered to me, embracing my broken heart like a hug, holding me dear and close. "You are not alone".

I had never been to church. I never watched TV or was invited to bible school or anything so I had no idea there was a God or that he loved me enough to personally touch my life. I had never been witnessed to. But I did remember that there was always a bible in hotel rooms. And so my journey to faith began. I got a hold of a copy of the New King James Bible. I read it from cover to cover in several weeks. I devoured it. I read about Christ's love and sacrifice. I dreamt of faith and a love from a Father that would never EVER leave or forsake me. That very day that I finished that bible, I knelt because I had seen it in movies but it felt like what I was supposed to do.  I apologized to God for anything I might've done that He didn't like and I told him that if he was willing to be a loving Father and my best friend as well, that I would welcome Him with open hands, open heart, and open mind. I felt a part of me begin to heal, and trust began to grow again.

Ever since then I have had many spiritual experiences. I have seen people who have passed. I have seen demons. I have seen Angels as well.  I have seen things in the other dimension that only shadow us here. I have been attacked by them physically as well. And I have seen people influenced by them and do things that man is not capable of inventing on his own. 

Off and on throughout my life I was accosted. I physically was pushed down stairs more than once, only to be caught by arms unseen. It sounds crazy, but seeing things others couldn't has become normal. I am sensitive to it. And the spirits who dwell on earth but are no longer a part of the living know this.

I was forced shortly after my brother was born to go and live once again with the family member that had taken my innocence from me because at that time I had nowhere else to go. I didn't understand why I was so unlucky. Why did so many bad things happen to me? I continued to talk to God, like he was my best friend. To others I probably looked crazy. But I felt his presence. I felt his love. It was the only thing that kept me going. I would fear sleep because when I started to drift into deep sleep, I could hear the laughing of something evil. Something was always there lurking in the shadows. I felt like it was waiting for me..waiting to pounce. I've never been a good sleeper. People left you when you slept. Things could change. Bad things happened.

In Junior High, a girl in my school came up missing. She was missing for several days when we were notified and this was the days before the Amber Alert. I knew this girl. Her name was Bev Tracy. I wasn't friends with her, but I remembered always seeing her smile at me as she passed. I remembered her eyes were kind. When I heard she was missing, the first day I felt sick...I couldn't sleep once again. I worried. I knew something was terribly terribly wrong. By the end of the first week I had barely slept. I had a room in the attic and I remember lying there staring at the ceiling...willing my eyes to close but being stuck between sleeping and waking. I looked up, and there was Bev's face glowing in a beautiful blue light. She smiled at me looking down. She said I didn't have to worry anymore and that she was safe and then she faded. I knew without a doubt that she was dead. I knew that something horrible had happened to her, but I didn't know what. The next morning we discovered her body had been found floating in the Missouri River where the 291 hwy Bridge park was. Her legs had been surgically removed from her body.

Supernatural things continued to happen to me throughout my life since then. Coming back to the present, or actually about one year ago, I had just moved out of my boyfriends house with my kids into a duplex, and I was incredibly depressed. Our relationship was destroyed, and I was scared to death that I would not be able to maintain my household alone. But I pressed on. I had no choice. We experienced things in this house from the first day. My children experienced things as well, but we didnt' say anything to each other right away because none of us was for certain and we didn't want to sound crazy. But when my children all 3 independently approached me about it, into the second month, I confided in them I had experienced it too. I heard footsteps and doors opening and closing. I heard footsteps in front of my bed and knew nothing was there. I saw something sit on my bed and the bed depress but no one was there. My children experienced it as well. They saw mists form and move independently of any airflow in the house. It was as if it peeked at them, timidly staying just at the edge of our vision.

One night after I had started dating a guy from work, whom I am still with now, I was watching television in my room. No lights were on. I had just hung up the phone and looked up towards the television.  I saw a man walk six steps from my bathroom door to my bedroom door. Then I realized after being startled in the first place at a man being in my room, that I had seen the TV through the man. I jumped straight up. I was not a stranger to the supernatural or the spiritual but I had never seen a full body apparition. i was shaken for a few days.Not scared because the man didn't seem harmful. He had grayed hair that probably used to be dark. He had his hands in his pockets. And in the six steps he took in front of me, He seemed terribly sad and agitated.

The next night I had a dream. I saw him in my dream. He spoke to me but not with voice. But I heard him just the same. He said his name was William but everyone called him Bill. And he deeply apologized for scaring me. After that, I told the kids not to be afraid, I didn't know the man but I knew he was harmless and we even felt like he kept watch over us in this house. I had seen my grandmother the night she died, I had experienced her moving things around as if she's still taking care of me. So I knew there was more than just this man. 

This Ghost I simply called our Bill, he was here almost daily in some way. Non intrusive, but there. Seeming only to observe. For a year he has been here. I never knew who he was. But a few nights ago, which brings me to the title of my post, He stood at my bedroom door, Halloween night. and he wouldn't leave. He anxiously kept pushing at me like he wanted to come in but he stood at the threshold of my room respecting me when i said no, I was tired. I felt this push suddenly. I wondered about my dad. I thought he was still alive. I kept feeling this push, stronger and stronger. I decided to try Facebook first because everyone is on there. But there was way too many people with his name. So I searched the web, fully expecting no results that were usable. I searched with the name of the town i last had been told he resided.  I found an obituary only on a USMC forum. He died. Three years ago He died on my daughter's birthday. My heart sank. And then bells went off everywhere. Our ghost was bill, my dad's name was bill. Could it be possible? I saw that there were surviving family names posted on there including a fiance' and five children, brothers and sisters and his grandchildren. I took a chance since the name of the fiance was pretty unusual. I found her sent a message and anxiously waited. I looked on the friends list also and there were Benson's on there everywhere. I sent a message to my aunt. I remembered my mother saying her name. I sent a message to my brother, and then my other siblings. Did they know about me? I had no idea. I didn't know how they would receive me. I had, after all, been the product of an affair and that couldn't do anything but leave me smudged.

It turns out they all knew about me. Dad talked about me allot they said. They had been wondering about me and just didn't know how to find me. As I realized my father had been with me this last year, I felt overwhelmed. I could never cross that bridge and find out about him and meet him, and for that I was sad. But instead of one piece filling the gaping and hemmoraghing hole in my heart I had five pieces that more than made up for that wound. Not only that, but for the first time I felt like I belonged. I know that everything is not a fairytale, and there are no real truly perfect happy endings, but I felt the wound in my heart close. I felt the pain of not having him there, melt away. It took him dying to be in my life, but better late than never. And it also gave me family.  I needed my siblings more than they will never know. And I required nothing from them that they hadn't already done. They accepted me and loved me and didn't judge me. For the first time I felt like I belonged. I felt an attachment to the name I've had my whole life.  I felt restored and whole as a person.

There are a lot of people who don't believe in the supernatural or afterlife. To me it's second nature. It's like having xray vision. Many people block it out because life is loud and bright and noisy and if you aren't tuned in you can't see it. I had never been so happy to have the gift of that sensitivity. It had helped me as much as plagued me my whole life. My father pushed me a few nights ago. He pushed me to find him and in finding his passing, to find my family. I don't know where this is going, but it feels so much better in my heart and soul than I have felt ever. I no longer felt like my life was a mistake, and everything in it working against me. Life is still really hard, but now i have family. It is truly a restoration of the heart. I believe that God let him come to me. I feel loved. He talked about me his whole life.  I don't know what kept him from coming to me in life and once I would've been mad at that. But he came to me now. And I don't think he will leave me ever again.  I found a part of myself as well that had been missing. I saw myself in all my siblings, and my heart swelled as it never had before. No matter what happens I love them all. I don't know where this sudden love came from but it's there and it's real and it's stronger than anything I've ever experienced. 

I think because of this, I won't be such an emotional burden on my boyfriend because I will no longer be looking at him to fill so many roles for me. Now he can be my boyfriend and my best friend and I won't drown him in my neediness. thank you Dad. 

I know that I will continue to heal from other wounds throughout my life that I had sustained. when the bible says the greatest of these is love , there is a reason for it. Love is the most powerful thing on this earth and in this life. and it transcends time and space and death. Believe me this is all the truth. I have a great imagination but even I couldn't come up with the string of events that equal my life.

I feel blessed, and with that I hope that I can start feeling peaceful and my mind can relax and I will be able to sleep again. 

Goodnight my friends, and wherever you are remember, the greatest of these is love, and faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains.

Return to Innocence Slideshow

https://cid-1450e6e315967215.skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?resid=1450E6E315967215!188

This link should take you to the power point presentation That I made, However when you share it like this it does not play the song Return to Innocence during the slideshow...so I guess You will have to imagine it. The visuals are still really good. This is to be shared with anyone who wants to know. you click on the ppt document within the link and can play a web version. If you have ms office you can download it and play it and in slideshow mode it should play the music too. Let me know how it works this is new for me.

Love all of you

Melissa

Puzzle Piece Heart

I'm full of so many emotions at this time that I don't know where to start. so I thought this illustration was the best I could come up with. If you are keeping up with the episodes they call my life, you know I recently found out my biological dad whom I never knew died three years ago. I won't rehash the whole scenario. But suffice it to say that i thought the missing piece of my heart that only he could fill was going to be a permanent hole forever gaping and bleeding out. I couldn't have been more wrong. I found out I have three sisters and two brothers. Through the wonder that is Facebook, I reached out to them. I looked at what I could see of their pictures before you are granted access. For the first time in my life, even before I knew if they would accept me or not, I  felt like I belonged. I felt looking at their faces a familiarity I had never known. Though I love my mother and her side of the family, which consequently is the only side I've known, I never felt like I belonged. I felt like my mother's perpetual sin staring them constantly in the face reminding them of my mother's failures and their own.  I felt like the mistake. I never fully felt accepted. My grandmother is Japanese and I always sort of thought she loved me out of duty and took care of me when my mother wasn't around out of that same duty. I love her very much, but I never felt really truly loved. I lived under the shadow of my mother's mistakes. I felt like a mistake my whole life. 

I started my own family hoping to fill that hole. But though I loved them it never filled it. I thought my husband would fill that part of me that ached so badly to be accepted and loved and never, ever left. I found that he did not. I found that marriage falling apart because of it. Because it was never for the right reasons probably that I was with him. I searched to fill that hole with every relationship I've ever had. I had severe abandonment issues because I felt like my dad didn't want me, my mom didn't want me but supposedly loved me. My mom's side of the family, well, they just never really made me feel like family once I got past the age of six. That's when  I tore their world apart by accusing my step grandfather of sexual abuse. Like a six year old would be manipulative and smart enough to come up with something that devious. None of them believed me. My mother believes me now. I dont' know what my brother and my cousins believe. My Aunt seemed to be the only one on my mother's side of the family who had her act together. But still I didn't feel loved like I should. I never felt accepted. No matter what I did I was the mistake, everything I did was wrong.

I didn't really know how to put into words until today that I wasn't looking for the perfect dad, I wanted MY dad. All I ever wanted was for him to love me and want me in this world. Now I find out that I have siblings. I have my oldest brother Bill Jr, who I guess grew up like me not knowing our father until he was 22. I have my brother Charlie, my sister Rose, My sister Ashley, and my sister Casey. All of them have my last name except Charlie. I'm not sure why. I haven't gotten that far yet. But I found out that they have always known about me. Dad apparently talked about me a lot. Suddenly the void in my heart got just a little smaller. And as I looked at their pictures one by one, I finally FINALLY F I N A L L Y, looked at them and felt like I belonged. Truly and completely belonged. They all look like me. They look beautiful. I saw this without knowing if they were going to know of me, accept me, or see me just as my parent's indescretion. I was so much more than that and I just needed them to give me a chance. I stated in each of my seperate tentative yet hopeful messages that although none of us asked to be here, that didn't mean that we couldn't care for each other. So I hopefully and fitfully waited to see what they each individually would say when they read my messages.

But to my surprise they all knew about me. For the first time in my life my name meant something. It wasn't just a disconnected name after someone I never knew, or knew that cared for me. I don't know where this is going. But something in me says this is the right direction. This is where I should be. Just to know that I was thought of, talked about, and maybe even loved was one of the most profound things I've ever felt so far in my life.I look at each of their faces on their profiles and I see me, I see parts of me. And I realize that the big huge hole Dad left in my heart was comprised of smaller pieces, and on each of those pieces were names. Bill, Charlie, Rose, Casey and Ashley. And no other piece would fit there. I'm not sure if this fills in all the spaces that were empty. But it's one hell of a start. I'm a sister. I have sisters and brothers! I am an Aunt? I am an Aunt! I have so many different emotions raw and raging through me. So much chaos. But out of chaos life was born, and out of that love is found. And out of that I may have found where I belong, found my roots. And for the first time I feel like I've come home.

Ashley

Bill

Casey

Charlie

Rose

Who knew the puzzle piece with my dad's name in it was comprised of so many other smaller but important pieces. These pictures are what those puzzle pieces that were missing are. Those of you who know me, look at these beautiful people, and tell me that I don't belong? Am I right or am I right? 

Even if they don't all love me, and I'm hoping if they don't they will, I love them. for at least showing me what was missing that for so many years I searched so desperately for even though I never knew exactly what it was I was missing.

 I love you guys.

Believe in Miracles? I Do.

I don't even know where to start with this one. My background is this. My mother met my "dad" when she was sixteen in California. My dad was a marine, and married to someone else. My mother had me, my dad split. I was half raised by my grandparents, mom's friends, and I'm positive by a massive amount of Guardian Angels since then. I've had a messed up life. It hasn't been easy. I spent all my life linked to a name I knew nothing about. In grade school I would literally fight to defend a dad I never knew but was constantly told I was like. My mom was the other woman. So he had no reason to stick around. Guess I didn't count for much. When I divorced I took my dad's name back. although I wasn't sure why because at that time it was just a name. I'd considered changing it many times, but something kept me from it.  So, there's the run down of the past.

A year ago, I moved into this duplex. let me preface this by saying that even before this I believe in afterlife, spirits, ghosts, demons, angels, etc..I believe because I have experienced it. Everyone who has been in my house has experienced supernatural stuff. Not bad stuff, Just supernatural. I would hear footsteps in front of my bed, in my room while I was sitting in my bed, and see nothing. I would see my bed have an indentation in it like someone sat down but saw no one. I would hear footsteps upstairs, doors opening and closing and such and no one was home but me...and don't think I didn't check. Because my initial thought was that the kids were skipping school and I ran up there to bust them. And no one was there. So one night I was on the phone with my boyfriend sitting up in bed watching TV. And a fully embodied apparition walked from my bathroom door to my bedroom door quickly, and looking agitated..not angry, but worried...and I startled because for one, I could see through him and see the TV behind him, and two, I could see every detail as if he were here except a bit translucent. I could tell you what he was wearing, head to toe. I startled so badly, not because I was afraid, but because that was the last thing I thought I would see in my bedroom as I looked up to see my TV.

The following night, I had a dream. I dreamed the spirit I saw was speaking to me. Not with spoken words, but words nonetheless. He said his name was William, and it really was just Bill, and he deeply apologized for startling me. I didn't see him for awhile. We've all experienced him since we have been here. Never for a moment did I think this was my biological dad. I thought he was still alive. My step dad removed lived close to Escanaba, Michigan, where my bio dad lived. He told me a few years back that he was working for some furniture company and still an alcoholic and I was probably better off not knowing him. However, He did tell me he could get contact info if I wanted. I passed on it. I figured if my bio dad really wanted to know about me, I wasn't hard to find, ask my bill collectors. But yet this huge hole was inside me, where my dad's spot should have been. I realized I was always going to be searching for a male to fill that spot, when no one else could.

Last night out of nowhere, I got the desire to find my dad, not knowing he'd passed away. I tried Facebook but too many William Benson's came up. So I googled his full name, with Escanaba, Mi. and I found an obit listed on a USMC forum. I was instantly crushed. Not only could I not cross that bridge, it was forever gone, with only a wide deep crevasse where it should have been . I wanted to know. I had to know. I needed to know where I came from. I read the survivors. I read about my dad's fiancée..and read the list of children. I started with his fiancee because she had such an unusual name. I knew that would be easy if she was on Facebook, and she was. And then I saw Bill Jr. My brother. And he was on her friends' list. And I saw the rest of them, Casey, Ashley, Rose, Charlie. My aunt Barb. I had heard that name before. I was an aunt. I had nieces and nephews. I couldn't see anyone's full profile because I was not a friend of theirs on Facebook yet. But they were all beautiful.

With trepidation, I contacted Bill Jr First...not knowing how he would receive the news. Did he know of me? Did he hate me because my mother was the other woman? Did he grow up without Dad like I did? Would he look down on me? I had no idea what his response would be, but I had to try. I got a response and even chatted for a bit on Facebook with him. He did know of me, he'd tried to search for me previously unsuccessfully obviously. He didn't meet our father until he was 22. So he was in the same boat as me on that one. But I also found out I had sisters, Three of them, and another brother. I was no longer alone. I sent them messages too. But I don't know how they will take it either.



Stay tuned and I will continue to update you on this adventure as it happens. I have no idea what direction it will take, but it sure feels better than it did before i knew that at least my big brother had room in his life for me, and he cared that I existed.  Here's to hoping that maybe the missing love of a Father, can be made up five times over, by the love of siblings I never knew I had, but already love.

This is my Brother Bill .

He is the first I found and that has responded to me.

Isn't he beautiful?

America: The Diva of all Countries

Before I start this blog entry today I want to say that we ARE the best country. However, I'm not so wrapped up in being an American to be blinded by the love of my country. Today was election day. I found myself conflicted. I knew I should vote. As an American Citizen, it was my duty to do so. I can't complain about where we are if I don't make my vote, now can I? I don't want to complain but the conflict rose in me as I figured out where I was to vote. I kept asking myself if my vote was really going to change anything. For one, I don't like ANY politician. I think that everyone in Government, public office, or in politics in any shape or form, is self serving. I don't think our government is "of the people, by the people, and for the people" any longer. I feel like every single person in politics is corrupt. The corporations of America have lined the pockets of the public servants of this once great country. We really are Corporate America. Is it any wonder that we are where we are? But how, do we change this? I hardly think my vote is going to do this. There is something inherently wrong with our Government from the very lowest office to the very highest. 

I don't believe a vote will change this. I really believe our country needs a complete and total makeover, plastic surgery, gastric bypass and all. However, since the "people" supposedly own the government, do you think that we the "people" can just go change it? Somehow I think a military force would stop us from doing so. I don't know how, then that we will change this. I know none of it is right and not a single part of our government is doing what it is supposed to be doing or what it was intended to do.

Americans have become so Jaded that we have forgotten what we are and how we started. We have forgotten our roots. We are so hellbent on freedom, that our very freedom is killing us as a country. We were all immigrants to this country, we sought religious freedom for all, but now, we have it.  We are a true melting pot of every country older than us. We have roots in the world. Yet we act like the Divas of Countries. We act entitled. This generation that I am currently a part of, most of us has no idea what it is to earn our freedom or appreciate it. We have become second and third generations. Just as old money doesn't appreciate where that fortune came from, we have "old freedom" and we don't appreciate where it came from and we have nothing invested. So we whine and complain, stick our noses in every other countries' business. We think we have to go out and defend everyone and fix everyone else. Truth is we need to fix ourselves first. We need to know what it means to be committed and invested in our own freedom. Most of us have not had to go and fight for freedom and literally invest tears, sweat and blood into this. We trample on the foundation that our forefathers have built for us, and even take bricks from it to throw at one another.

This is a long winded way to say that I did exercise my right to vote today, but I really don't think it will do any good. Because politicians and government almost always find ways to pervert it, to contaminate it, misinterpret it, use it, exploit it, and use it for self serving reasons. I don't think a vote is going to fix what is wrong with our country or stop our downward spiral. We need to focus on ourselves and fixing America, and stop concerning ourselves with other countries until we get it right ourselves, here at home. I don't believe it will be an easy task, and nor will it be a short one. I am proud to be an American. Deeply. But I look at where we came from, and now we stand for so many different things that I don't even know what the core of America really is. It's so convoluted and diluted and contaminated that I only see bits and pieces. I think Freedom is too easily used as an excuse to do anything we want. Freedom to most Americans seems to represent Anarchy more than actual freedom. Freedom used to mean from tyranny, from abuse, from taxation without representation.  It used to mean something noble, and worth dying for. Now? I am not so sure what it means in present day. I know that my generation didn't begin this downward spiral for our country, and I also know that our children who inherit this mess of a country will not be able to fix it without a  complete restructuring, but will OUR government allow us to do supposedly what the American people have a right to do? I don't think so. And unfortunately future generations will live under this oppression we fought so hard to escape in the first place, and changing it will only be refreshed by blood. So for my future generations, I apologize that we didn't have the strength what you soon will have no choice but to do. I did my best by the power that I have as a citizen. I voted. And I'm still confused and disillusioned as to what that really means anymore. Does anyone else feel like this? I surely can't be the only one. I just can't put blinders on and ignore it anymore. Because I believe the blinders is what got us here in the first place.

I'm still proud to be American, I just wish everyone understood what that truly stood for, and how we got here. History is a powerful thing, but only if you know what that History is. Sadly many don't. They are entitled and not earned and they've no idea why. We are the youngest country. And as such, you could say we are in our adolescence. We would do ourselves well, if we listened to more than our own voice and learned by those around us. We have a lot to learn. We act as if we are know it all teenagers. Eventually we are going to get schooled. I just hope that we do it ourselves, and I hope that it doesn't come from an outside source. That would be so destructive. But we only seem to learn our lessons from tragedy. I pray that it doesn't take that, however by history and experience, it seems that will be the only way we do learn.

God Bless America. For as long as God is still allowed. It seems that everyone else's god or god's or lack of is now more accepted and the founding faith of our country seems to be left out. Freedom of religion? For who? Freedom? Where? We've enslaved ourselves with our own chains. Wake up America, before someone throws the bucket of ice water on us, and does it for us!