My heart is broken. I don’t want to go into particulars because they are too painful. I realize this leaves you with little information to go on, but do you have any advice at all?
Dear Aunt B, I am angry a great deal of the time. I get mad about something nearly every day. It is not always something big, but I’m starting to wonder if this is a normal thing. I don’t like to get mad. It just seems like something always happens.
When I was around seven years old, I wrote a eulogy for a dying cat. I was a melodramatic child who lived out in the country in an area known for dog and cat dumping. The 70s were crazy times. Animal rescue wasn’t a thing. Pets seemed more, well, disposable, for lack of better words. At least, that is the way it seemed to me. Every morning was a new adventure. One day might provide the companionship of a heavily pregnant shepherd mix. The next day could have me wooing timid cats. We even provided a wayward goose with a soft place to land for a few months. We rehabilitated a nestless trio of too young bunnies whose mother had fallen victim to an evil tractor. Though never successfully hatched, there were many fallen swallow eggs coddled under lights, wrapped in the warmth of my mother’s heating pad. My father was not excited by the thought of spending money on feeding animal mouths over people mouths, but we did everything we could to help. Daddy was known to show up at his friends’ homes with a plea to accompany him to the animal shelter where a city address could enable a guy from the boondocks to drop off a collection of mutts no one wanted anymore. I would become inconsolable at the loss of “my” dogs and cats (the goose left town on his own), but daddy would sit me in his lap and tell me the story of Peter Rabbit and how he freed all the pets from the tar pit. “You see, DD,” my father would gently say, “if Peter kept all these animals, he wouldn’t be able to help all the new ones who needed him.” This was all before Emmanuel, though.
As the Executive Director of the Texas Association of Rural Schools and a former rural school superintendent, my insights into how state laws affect local school communities are shaped by my direct experiences. It's from this informed position that I stress the critical nature of the March 5 primary for the advancement of all students in Texas' public education system.
I am doing pretty good. Don’t get me wrong, I have life issues like the rest. Can you help me deal with my adult children’s issues? I thought the terrible twos were bad, but this is that on steroids. I need help.
Anxious all the time Dear Anxious all the time, I need to start this by reminding you that Aunt B’s advice is general advice. It should never be taken as personal therapy. All you are getting is Aunt B’s opinion of things. There are many people that know way more than Aunt B. All this being said, if you need professional help, reach out to someone. Do not consider my advice as professional help. If you are not sitting down with a professional talking one on one in a personal and professional setting, you are not getting that type of advice. I don’t believe you any longer need to be in person. I have heard of some good programs that you might meet with a mental health professional through an online portal. Just be sure and check out the organization and the individual's credentials.
In February 1899, the temperature plunged to -11 degrees causing livestock to freeze to death, and the river froze 12 inches deep.
February 12, 1899, the temperature dropped all the way to minus 23 degrees in the town of TULIA in our Panhandle. Reports from that time say the extreme “norther” that ripped through killed 40,000 head of cattle during that night! That February 11–13 cold spell in the Tulia area (Swisher County) affected all the Southern Panhandle area.
I compare myself to others all the time. I never measure quite up to the ones I compare with. This leaves me feeling like a loser. How can I stop this comparison thing?
We talk incessantly about loss around here. It isn’t that I’m an expert on loss. It is more that I am a student of loss. While not a class I intended on enrolling in, loss, and his partner grief, have proven themselves to be apt professors. See, I still want to see God’s beauty in this cruel world. You may say prayer is the answer. I happen to agree with you. But, how does one use prayer to the fullest in the face of the paramount tragedy, the death of a child? Professors Loss & Grief tell me it is by diving in headfirst. A shrinking wallflower does not an intentional prayer make. Now, I may have forgotten to tell you one important detail. I have flunked this class several times already. Many of my exercises remain nonsubmitted zeros in the grade book. Others have been masterfully plagiarized, nearly to the point of my expulsion. I may or may not have paraphrased a few Edna St. Vincent Millay poems into prayer assignments, but let’s have that remain between us, shall we? During my current enrollment period, I have managed to pass most of the class. I’m now in the do or die phase. Everything rides on this final grade. And, it is the direst assignment of them all. I call it prayer by practice. How do you show up for someone else when you still can’t emotionally handle your own stuff?
Family disagreements are the worst. I don’t even know what everyone is fighting about. All I want is peace in my family. Any ideas for being a peacemaker? I need help.
It’s called the red beetle effect. At least, at the sales seminar I attended, that’s what “they” called it, the powers that be for executive sales training. Isn’t it odd, how much money companies pay to the most random organizations to boost sales? “Our 4th quarter projections are tanking. Quick, let’s call Tony Robbins.” Cue the funky hand signals and lots of high fiving. Maybe your organization needs a psychology expert so you can hypnotize your customers into submission. Perhaps you should invest thousands in diction coaches so everyone can speak like a midwestern newscaster. Is enneagram training what you need, so you know to hire only 7s or make sure your 4s are holed away in a sad office creating the ads? Better yet just get someone to coach everyone on how to move cheese. Bottom line - some folks are cut out for sales, and some are not. I am not. Yet, I excelled in that environment for many years. My personal theory is that I hypnotized my bosses, but that’s not even what we’re talking about today. We’re talking about life and the world and our brains. See? Yep. That’s pretty much it. How do we see? Moreover, do you even? Back to those red beetles.
The dead of winter is prime time for predator hunting. Most seasons are closed, and predators have to stay busy and on the move to make a living.
TIME TO REDUCE PREDATOR NUMBERS
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 936, Forney, TX 75126
Physical Address: 201 W. Broad St., Forney, TX 75126
Phone: 972-564-3121
Fax: 972-552-3599
