Imatjen

Splash Park

nobody@vox.com(Imatjen) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 11:11:42 -0400

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The best birthday game

nobody@vox.com(Imatjen) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 11:05:54 -0400

Okay, it's really challenging to come up with a good game at a one year old's birthday party. Especially when the majority of the guests are older than one. So we decided to play the sippy cup game. I had my husband, and two other dad's at the party grab a princess sippy cup filled with water and see who could finish their sippy cup first. These cups are impossible. You could suck all day and you would be lucky to get a drip, drop out. Baby M's friends daddy said he felt light headed. Baby M's daddy, as strong as he is could not conquer the princess sippy. It was one of the veteran daddy's that reduced his princess sippy cup by an inch....

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Birthday and Cake!

nobody@vox.com(Imatjen) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:59:44 -0400

We celebrated Baby M's birthday on the actual day, Wednesday June 4th, which was also the last day of school.

Then we had her big party on Saturday.

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Father's Day

nobody@vox.com(Imatjen) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:28:19 -0400

For Father's Day I celebrated with my grandpa and dad on the Saturday before. We had a very nice time. We met at the local chicken wing place that my grandpa just loves and had a wonderful visit. Then Sunday we rented a boat for my husbands dad and went boating. G and J were with their daddy. Baby M with her Daddy.

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I scream Icecream!

nobody@vox.com(Imatjen) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:13:04 -0400

IMG_0655

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Kung Fu Panda was sooo Awesome!

nobody@vox.com(Imatjen) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:02:11 -0400

I just went to see Kung Fu Panda with my son and daughter. It was incredibly good. You know from the previews, I wasn't all that excited to see it. I do love Jack Black. Dustin Hoffman's voice was incredible as well. At one point I thought the voice was Anthony Hopkins. The plot was good. The art and music very good. I am always a sucker for those underdog becoming victorious movies. My favorite saying in the movie, "Yesterday was history, Tomorrow's the future, Today is a gift, that is why they call it The Present." Love that saying. I guesss it hit the spot as today is the last day I will see my kiddos until July 2nd. They go to their dad's (my ex-husb) for the first half of the summer.

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1st Birthday Photos

nobody@vox.com(Imatjen) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:19:24 -0400

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Looking back 5 years ago...overcoming Domestic Abuse

nobody@vox.com(Imatjen) — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:54:16 -0400

Do you ever look at your life and wonder, wow how did I ever get through that. I recently ran across some old blogs of mine from 2003. When I read it, I honestly was a little taken back by how firm I stood considering the circumstances. A lot has happened in Five years. I have gotten remarried to a wonderful man. My children are such a blessing. I have been blessed with my soon to be 1 year old. I have a home, (which I never thought I ever would have again). And my wonderful family and friends. Bless You all. Some know this story, some don't.

Here is a blog from 2003: 11-03-2003, 11:53 PM

I was the victim of Domestic Violence. I had been married to my second husband for 10 months. The honeymoon was over literally on honeymoon night. I should have seen the warning signs. Why does love blind a person. You see what you want to see, you hear what you want to hear and meanwhile you think you are in love and you look over all the signals to run as far away as fast as you can. I was helping my husband to be move out of his apartment and into my home when he flew into a rage about the cleaning process. He called me every name imaginable and threw his keys at me. I remember crying and telling him I was not going to marry him and of course I felt like maybe I provoked him so I ended up appologizing and putting us back together. On the night of our honeymoon he again was very nasty. Looking back I can't even remember what we were fighting about but I almost left him in North Carolina. ( I live in Ohio) When we got back home we had some good times. I tried to justify everthing. He picked on my son from my first marriage and was a little too friendly with my daughter from my first message. He began tearing me down and calling me very degrading names. At one point I confronted him about all the name calling and I said, "you know I think you've managed to call me every name in the book, I ran down the list...b*tch, whore, ****, etc..." "I don't think there is anything left for you to call me"...."and you know what you are good for... .." I said to him...."YOU ARE GOOD FOR NOTHING"....NOTHING.... Things got worse. He began threatening to hit me, he would shove me, he tried to strangle me when I was in the bathtub. I can remember barracading myself in the bedroom with my two children and sleeping with a knife in my hand. The breaking moment for me was Superbowl weekend when we went to my son's basketball game. The morning was great. We woke up, made love, had breakfast and went to my son's game. My mom was there and my daughter went too. We conversated and laughed. We decided to go to McDonald's afterward. When we got to McDonald's, I accidentally had pulled into a parking space that was reserved for handicapped. I had no intent of parking there, and when I realized what I had done, I backed up. My husband went crazy he began cussing and screaming and saying I always try to break the rules and how I thought I was better than everyone else, and how dare I park in a handicapped spot. Words cannot describe how enraged he was over this minor mistake. I was so shocked I told him to calm down and that myself and the kids were going inside to eat and play. He stayed in the car. I was not going to let him spoil our fun so we played for 2hours. He still remained in the car. When we got ready to leave, he continued to go on and on about me parking in the spot. I asked if we could please drop it. I proceeded to drive when we reached the intersection I pulled out into traffic making a right hand turn he took his sunglasses off and smashed them on the dashboard of my car. I said, "Why are you doing this?", he said, "I broke my glasses and next I'm going to break your f**king face you b*tch"....he struck me while I was driving with my two kids in the back of the car. I could have killed us all. He ended up blacking my eye and breaking my teeth. When they took the police report, they asked me how many times he struck me...I was too in shock to know. I had him arrested and he was place in jail on a $3,000. bond with no option to post for 10%. Later that day the bridge we had just crossed when he hit me fell into the creek. I pressed charges and have a restraining order for the full term allowed in the state of Ohio. I later found out he had abused his first wife as well resulting in her miscarriage of two pregnancy's that had gone 7mos to term. I tell all of you to get out while you are still alive. There are shelters and there is assistance. You are a fighter. you are a winner, you are beautiful, You can make it. Ask for God's help. I pray for you!.... I thank Jesus...I'm one step closer to being free.
Get out stay alive.

I had responded to a woman that was in an abusive relationship and this was my response:

The more you talk about it the better, women have a way of justifying everything. We are peacemakers so when the stupid men in our lives won't admit to fault we take the blame. GET OUT, STAY ALIVE. There are women's shelter's everywhere, look in the local phone directory under victim's advocate, ask for shelter information. They will help you with everything. restraining order's and your protection, they will supply you a place to stay, food, and job assistance. Take that leap of faith and RUN, GET OUT, YOU CAN DO IT, IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT. You are beautiful, strong, and a fighter....Talk about it. Tell people, otherwise you will stay in that bad situation, lying to yourself that things will get better, no they won't, it is not a sin...Better yourself...crawl, run, jump, stand up and get out while you can still draw your last breath....I pray for the strength you need...

I responded to a blog from a girl that cuts herself

Hey there ?,

I was once in your same relationship situation. The only thing that concerns me is that it sounds like you are motivated by your boyfriend and not by yourself. You know you are in control. Not your boyfriend. I'm glad he cares so much about you. But you are a beautiful person. I can give you a top 10 list of why you should love yourself and not hurt or harm yourself. Ready:

10. You are alive today
9. You feed yourself, you do not require a food tube
8. You don't wear diapers, you have control of your body functions.
7. You got to see the light of day.
6. You saw something in nature, like a bird or some kind of wild life.
5. You saw the sunset,
4. You saw the moon,
3. You are talented. There is something you are good at and no one else's talent
compares.
2. You are artistic and appreciate art.
1. Your post struck my fancy, I took time out of my busy work day to say I think you are pretty damn cool and I really hope this touches your life the way you touched mine....

You are in my thoughts, Chin UP!

I responded to a blog from someone else who was experiencing domestice violence. I have attached their blog so my response will make more sense

today is my day off from work and all i wanted to do was be with my husband. well first of all he accused me of talking to someone else. and left this evening around 6:30p and hasn't been back. i believe it's the other way around and he wants to have his icecream and eat his cake too. basically i just want a divorce from him. because he's too controlling and he's 14yrs older than me. he likes to fight me all the time over stupid stuff, but once again he tells me that's love. i don't think so. :unsure:

That is not love. Read the Bible, Love is patient, Love is kind, it does not boast, it is not rude, Love never fails...so if it feels like it's failing it's not love...One year ago to the date of your incident my husband of only 8 mos had an absolute fit over the dog peeing in the floor, he grabbed the dog by the head and then put it on me. He said I was so stupid, and that the dog was stupid because of how stupid I was. He was hurting the dog, when I begged him not to hurt the dog, (he was doing all this right in front of my kids) he threw the dog down and turned to me. He grabbed me by the throat and pinned me against the wall. I tried to get away from him and I grabbed his face, I scratched his cheek and drew a little blood, he then told all of his family that I had attacked him and that he wouldn't be attending Thanksgiving because of what I had done to his face. Things got worse from there. More abuse, physical, and verbal. Then on Superbowl weekend last year, that was the last straw. We had had a great morning we went to my son's basketball game and afterward we went to McDonald's. I had accidentally pulled into a spot reserved for handicapped people. He went crazy, he started screaming, yelling, cussing, saying how stupid I was. I appologized and told him I didn't mean to pull into that spot. I took my son and daughter inside to eat and left him there in the car. I thought I am not going to let him spoil my time with my kids so we ate and played inside in the tube area for almost 2 hours. He stayed in the car. When we went back out to the car, I couldn't believe he was still sitting there. He continued to scream and yell. He took his sunglasses off and smashed them on the dashboard. It scared me to death. I was driving and had pulled out into traffic, I asked him why he was doing this? He said, " I broke my glasses and next I'm going to break your f-ing face, you b---...He struck me while I was driving and blacked my eyes and broke my teeth. I was in shock. I pulled over into the emergency lane and told him to get out of the car...he refused. I drove as fast as I could thinking maybe I would get pulled over, no such luck. I thought to myself, If I go home he will kill me. So I drove to my grandfathers which is about 4 neighborhoods before mine. I ran up to the door and he wasn't home. I was in desperation. One of the construction workers went to the neighbor of my grandfather with me and just as we approached the driveway. There we stood at the home of Officer Ben and Officer Ben's garage door went up and there he stood in full uniform getting ready to go to work. God was really on my side that day. I couldn't have been more lucky. I had my husband arrested and have a full restraining order. I haven't seen him since...Pray my divorce will finalize soon.

Some of this repeats due to journals and responses.

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Mother's Day

nobody@vox.com(Imatjen) — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:54:36 -0400

For Mother's Day I wanted to treat my mom to a very special day. She has not been feeling well and I wanted to make her feel like a million bucks.

I worked until noon and then drove over and picked her up about 1pm. Our first stop was at a juice bar where I forced my mom to do a shot of Wheat grass and then bought her a Banana Orange Smoothie to wash it down.

Then we drove to my suburbs Historical area and had lunch at a little French Restaurant. We had Cream of Spinach Soup with some kind of Leek Souffle' that I could never pronounce. Mom treated us to dessert. I had a coconut macaroon and she shared her Napoleon. We then drove back to my house and visited for a little bit. Hubby had brought Baby M home from the sitter and he wasn't feeling well, so we continued our evening with Baby in Tow.

Our next stop was the local spa where Mom was treated to a full pedicure with paraffin wax treatment. After her pedicure she was given a Hair cut with one of the top stylist. After her spa treatments, Baby started to get tired. I had hoped to have dinner at an Irish restaurant in Olde Dublin but instead we opted for a car picnic of Chicken fingers, cole slaw, fries and Texas Toast. We ended our evening at 10pm, at which I drove her home.

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Visit to Grandparents

nobody@vox.com(Imatjen) — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:27:07 -0400

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