Jon and Kate, I'm irate.

I'm sure many of you follow their show which I feel has gone downhill year after year. I stopped watching altogether last year. I did watch the season premiere this week and my blood boiled over. I have some things to say and they are not very nice. Feel free to run away!

I have absolutely no sympathy for these parents. All my sympathy goes to those beautiful children. Watching Kate whine and moan about how hard her life is made me furious. She is traveling to promote her books, leaving her kids at home, angry at Jon for his choices, and angry at the paparazzi because they follow her and her children. I'm sorry, what about the cameras, staff and microphones that follow around those children constantly by your choice Jon and Kate?? What is the difference? Who is exploiting who?? Your marriage is disintegrating in front of the world's eyes, why would you continue this garbage?? It's easy. Money. How on Earth is Jon going to feel useful as a provider for his family if he's not providing and staying home while Kate gallivants around the country soaking up the fame she so craves. Why would both of you not say "Enough is enough!" Put your family first contract or not and stop this madness. I refuse to watch your show any longer and I hope many others follow suit and do the same. TLC should also be ashamed of their behaviour and do what they need to to drop this show. Of course, that's not going to happen. TLC LOVES this controversy and knows the show is a cash cow for them as well.

I'm sorry my thoughts are all over the place. I'm writing this post at work between calls. I'm sure that my frustrations and pain regarding our attempt at expanding our family has much to do with my strong feelings, so I apologize if this comes off too harsh.

Tulsa Tea Party

Just a quick note regarding the Tulsa Tea Party scheduled for tomorrow at Veteran's Park, 5-7p. John and I plan on being there. I encourage all my friends and family who are sick of the direction our government is taking us to attend whether it's here in Tulsa, or wherever you are in another city and state. If you need help finding a group to attend tomorrow, let me know, I'm pretty good at doing internet research.

Capitalism, not socialism. This is my new motto.

Long live our country, long live the USA!

Bahamian excitement

Well, we are in the home stretch of waiting for our vacation of a lifetime to begin. John and I are like kids, all we do is talk about what to bring, what we need. We keep buying things, looking at pictures, imagining me chickening out of the underwater sub adventure etc.

Isn't our ship pretty? I know you can't see it well, but we'll have a balcony cabin on the 2nd deck down. I can't believe we're actually going to the Bahamas! Whoohoo!!

Here's a little photo of our stateroom. The balcony door is open and there is a little table and set of chairs out there for us to literally hang out over the ocean. Ok, the panic is setting in. Where are the lifeboats?

And finally, the highlight of our trip, (well hopefully anyway if I don't chicken out,) the SUB adventure we'll be doing in Nassau. Yes, my head will just be in an air bubble and the rest of me will be shark bait in the ocean. You can actually drive this thing around. It's like an underwater motorbike. In my case however, it might be an underwater drowning machine.

The bad, bad blues

So I haven't blogged in months. I just haven't had any motivation to do so. I do enjoy reading my friend's and family's blogs, but I just have nothing to talk about. I've been suffering with a very bad case of feeling sorry for myself depression. I have no kids to talk about, no cute pics. See what I mean? My world has collapsed into a little ball. I just want to be with John, the dog and the cats. I'm trying to feel better, be more hopeful about our family expanding, trying to find my faith. My friends probably think I'm nuts as I don't talk to anyone. I'm sorry if I've hurt feelings.
Becky, you inspire me. You keep on trucking and here I am wallowing alone by choice. I love you dearly.

Introducing Annie

Many of you probably don't know that I have another sister besides Christine. It's been something I've rarely talked about. I don't know why and I'm ashamed that I haven't really shared Annie's life with any of my close friends.

Anne has lived her whole life in a state home in NY. She is the daughter of my father and his first wife. Her mother had Rubella while she was pregnant and Anne was born with many problems and is very delayed emotionally. She is close to 50 yrs old. We used to go down to West Seneca to visit her even after my Dad died. I used to go down and sign her out and bring her home for visits on Christmas and Easter. I used to be afraid of her. I was young and dumb, but when I got to be about 17 I realized there was nothing to fear. She makes lots of funny sounds and gets excited looking at fish tanks, glass, sparkly things (just like me!) and bobbly necklaces. Well, for the past 10 years, we haven't seen Annie at all. Her birth mother who abandoned her contacted the state and told them the Fronckowiak's were not to see her. My mother who loved Annie as her own daughter was cut off. I should have done something years ago. I am her sister. They shouldn't be able to keep me away. I regret letting so much time go by, but I was prompted very strongly that it was time to see if we could see Annie again. It just took a few calls to the state of NY and a return call from Annie's social worker. It turns out that another one of my sisters (from Dad's first marriage) is her guardian now that Ruth, the dad's first wife died. Mary agreed to let us visit with Annie. We went to her group home which is in a residential neighborhood and had a great visit with her. Annie remembered Mom and warmed up to Chris and I very quickly. Even though Mary does not visit Annie at all, we still have to be respectful of her wishes. I looked over the house guest book, it goes back about six years. Annie has not had one visitor other than my brother Mark. Mom is so excited to be able to start going back down every two weeks or so and visit with Anne. She loves walks and crocheting. She is so smart but she cannot speak. She cleans like no one else I know and she loves to fold clothes and work with tools. She is always happy and gives great big hugs and squeezes. I have really missed her and I'm so bad our family is complete again with her in our life. I just wanted you all to meet her. You all know my sister Chris. Now meet Annie Fronckowiak, my sister. I love her.

Holy Moly she smoked some Macaroni!

Da da da da!! I made it in finally thanks to the one and only Yames Krieger! A lot of folks think her name is exotic. Well she is, she's Svedish!

Wow, I'm at work so I can't post any neat pics but I'll give a quick update. I work for the huge conglomerate Coca Cola full time now. I'm definitely not getting my adrenaline rush of saving people's lives by selling Coke accounts but hey, it's money and I can stomach it for now.

On a bit of a downer note, most of you know that our boys, Jeff and Matt, have refused to come home. They are living with their Mother at their Grandparents (since she can't take care of herself, why not have the boys full time for her parents to care for) and it's been extremely hard for John and I. The sudden loss of our family has thrown us for the biggest loop in our marriage. All I can say is thank you for all the prayers that have gone up for us and ask you to continue to remember our whole family when you can. We have felt the blessings coming down on us and we are so grateful.

On a happier note now, we do have some good news. John and I have been in the process of adopting for almost a year now. We have jumped thru' all the hoops, taken all the courses, done a mountain of paperwork, had plenty of in home visits by strangers assessing our parenting skills and personalities, been fingerprinted twice, had DNA samples taken (ok I'm kidding on that one) but really, it has been an ordeal! We are waiting for the final approval of our case and at that point we will be able to meet some children. We are hoping to adopt two little ones but we will see who the Lord directs us to. I just wish that all parents have to go thru' what we have gone thru' because it just isn't right that any moron can have children and then those kids have to be taken away from them for terrible reasons. We are adopting thru' the state of Oklahoma. It is absoultely atrocious how many children are in desperate need of loving homes. John and I are honored to be able to do this for these wonderful children. We just hope and pray it happens soon.

Well, phones are getting busy, I better vamoose. I promise to do much better with my blog and get more links up of my family and friends. Yames will have to help me with that.

Love and miss you all.
-Barbra

She says she's going to blog. Barb, you actually have to log in to delete this post....
maybe I should see what pictures I can dig up.....