Against The Rocks

The Evil Inside

 Omgosh!  Where to start?  The past has a way of sneaking up on you when you least expect it.  Anyone who has known me for long knows, I’ve struggled all my life with my weight.  A few of my friends, well actually I guess a lot of people know I struggle with memories from when I was molested.  Normally I can watch shows on TV like SVU, Law and order and it doesn’t bother me most of the time.  However, last night we watched an episode about an adopted girl finding out that her biological mother was raped and she was the outcome.  The mom was 15 when it happened and didn’t remember a lot of what happened, but slowly it all came back.  And just like that, all the memories flooded my mind.  I’m not sure why it upset me, because I really thought I had made peace with what had happened.  My molester is dead and I was doing really good. 

That is not the only thing that has me running from the evil inside.  Since May of 2020 my, our life has been turned upside down, like many people.  Everything was going fine, I organized my day with not having a job outside the house, adjusted to being at home, worked hard at trying to start a business.  I started a podcast, a website but the other thing I was proud of was that I started exercising, running and losing weight.  I fight my evil twin on a daily basis.  She like to eat, not exercise and tells me its okay to be overweight, fat and not healthy.  I guess she has be trapped.  I don’t know how to fight her.  Every day, I start with determination to not overeat, to exercise more, drink more water and just to stay on track.  Every day I weigh and that number just keeps going up.  Since November of 2020, I have gained 50 pounds.  I’ m on antidepressants and I’m just so tired of fighting everything.  I’m doing three different things to make money.  Norman has basically become disabled.  We are looking to see if he can get disability to go with his social security.  I know we will be fine but I’m just tired.  I know I can get this going, I just need a little bit of help.  I just need that one break through that give me that boost, that small step up the ladder.  I’ve been trying to remember how I got started, how I took that first step to running, to getting my exercise going, to jump start my life every day.  

Stress eats away at me, my body and my mental health.  I don’t want to give in, I want to crawl back to the top.  I miss my relocation job before COVID, but just the income.  If I had that we would be fine and the stress would probably drop some.  

So I’m pushing forward, trying to start and if it takes a new start every day until I make it two days in a row, a week , a month and a year, I will succeed.  I will defeat the evil inside. 

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Thanks,
Laura

This is the first episode of Season 3.  We should probably start with what’s been happening and where we hope we are going!

Since my last episode of season 2, there have been some major changes in the house.  We adopted a dog for our dog Sugarbear.  The new dog is a Jack russell/beagle mix named Shiloh.  My husband wrecked his truck and we are down to one vehicle.  My granddaughter started school this year.  

My husband injured his back at some point and has not worked since August.  He had back surgery in October and has been doing physically therapy since then.  His last official day as being employed is 31January.  

I have currently been at my job for over a year.  My best friend from Florida works there as well and we have a good time.  She will complete her one year on 1FEB.  

With all that being said, the loss of my husband’s income has affected us drastically and we are in the process of filing bankruptcy.  There was no other way around the situation.  I am trying to sell Posh which is lotions, anti-aging products, masks, and many other items.  I am also selling crocheted blankets.  When do I have time to do all of this, I don’t but you do what you need to do in order to survive.  We renewed out lease where we are currently living and they promptly raised our rent once we agreed to extend our lease.  

I love my fulltime + job but right now it is driving me nuts.  We are busy and trying to train someone to help takes more time than just working crazy hours and doing it myself. 

Also due to the pandemic and the wreck I had I am just now getting back to exercising and you can tell I haven’t been.  I’ve gained back over 30 pounds in the last year so I’m trying hard to get back to where I was so that I can move forward.  

I know the pandemic has affected everyone in some way or another.  I also know that there are a lot of people that are now battling depression.  I had to start taking something for that myself.  

Its life though and you just have to learn to persevere and move forward. 

We would love to find a sponsor for the podcast.  This season will be about weight loss again and me sharing my goals with that.. Also I will share about the blankets and the posh.  

Please tune in and if so lead, please donate to our podcast to stay on the air. 

Have a blessed day!  Come back and keep listening share with your friends.  And as a reminder, I don’t have a flippin’ filter to keep me from saying whatever comes to mind. 

Thanks,

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1246568/support

Hey there listeners! I hope you liked the episode! We would appreciate your support. Please click the link!

Thanks,
Laura

Recently I learned that the person who molested me at the age of 14 died.  I thought when that happened I would feel some kind of emotion.  I would feel some kind of justice, but I didn’t really feel anything, nothing, nada.  I know this is going to sound bad but I was truly disappointed that I didn’t feel something, some kind of emotion.  I realized that the hate I felt and guilt I felt had diminished.  For years I wished him dead and even recently hoped his death would be painful.  My only thought now is the world is free from the evil and hopefully the damage that he caused to several families can be healed.  

You can feel evil when you are in its presence and I tried several times to ignore that feeling when I was forced to be at the same place that he was in/at, family functions. After I was married it was easier but that evil feeling was still there, just not as strong.  

I have felt that same evil a couple of other times.  Once when my dad died and once when my daughter was small and a man came to the door of the house we were renting, to invite us to his church.   I don’t know if I can explain it or describe the feeling.  It’s just a feeling that crawls over your body and makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck.  

It’s been a long year since COVID put me at home, which was March of 2020.  I started my podcast in August of 2020. It is/was a personal journal. This has been m therapy for the last 9 months.  There were days that if I had not had the podcast as an outlet I would have lost my mind.  I’ve shared a lot over the last 9 months and I plan to keep podcasting.  I just feel like I want to try a different kind of podcast.  I haven’t fully decided yet what I will do, but as soon as it is ready I will be sharing with everyone and until then I will still be recording and sharing on this one.  

I’ve enjoyed doing this and it is a lot of fun.  I like being able to share.  Thanks to everyone that listens, downloads and shares.  Have a blessed day!  

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1246568/support

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Thanks,
Laura

Growing up, I never thought of myself as being overweight until someone called me “Fatty”.  Once that happened, my whole perspective changed.  I was very self-conscious about how I looked and what I wore.  As a teenager, I wore shirts that hung loose and jeans.  Nothing I owned fit tight, was ever tucked in or belted.  As I started high school, my clothes became darker and the funny thing is I probably weighed 150 pounds which is where I’m trying to get now.  My clothes were always solid no prints and never any stripes.  My clothes were dark blue or black.  Sometimes I would have a white sweater or a white peasant shirt, but that was very seldom.

As I started to lose weight and to drop sizes in clothes, I started venturing to other colors. Colors like Army green, light brown, dark red and a couple of white shirts.  

The other day at Wally World I was looking for some extra summer shirts.  Before the weight loss started I bought shirts that were 3x and 4x and was happy when I got down to a 2x, but not I’m in larges and mediums and they look so tiny.  I’m the smallest I have been since 1982.  I still see myself as a 300lb person.  Being overweight is not just physical.  It is emotional and mental.  

Some people that are overweight walk like an obese person.  They walk heavy or sitting down heavy if that makes any sense.  But I was never like that and my arms were never big.  Some people that are overweight are not always overweight all over.  

I don’t know that even if I weighed 125 if I would see myself any different.  The last time I weighed 125 I was a sophomore in high school and my hip bones were they only thing that held my jeans up.  I know this won’t make any sense to a person who has never experienced being overweight.  

There are some people that are overweight and it doesn’t bother them.  They wear tight clothes and two piece bathing suits and never even blink an eye.  I was never able to do that and I still don’t wear a bikini.  I wear a two piece but it has a long top. To me that means they are comfortable with their bodies and I am not and not sure I will ever be.  

I still do not look in a mirror at myself and I don’t walk around naked even in front of my husband.  I know that some of this sounds silly, but for me, it is a matter of not wanting to be noticed.  A lot of people gain weight to keep attention away from them.  Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t.  I think I continue to gain weight because of being molested.  That way I didn’t draw attention to myself.  This is something I continually fight. 

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Thanks,
Laura

 I take any task assigned to me very seriously.  Working in relocation whether it is pets or people, there are a lot of moving parts.  No matter what you do for a living there are always things that can happen, but in people relocation, missing something or making an error on paperwork, doesn’t cost a life.  In pet relocation, if it is not correct an animal’s life is at stake.  I am very diligent about doing things in order, correctly and making sure I check everything before I complete paperwork.  I didn’t have a lot of a training curve when I started this job either.  I felt like after being shown once maybe twice I was supposed to have it down. So I really try to make sure I’ve followed the guidelines and do a good job, so when an error is pointed out, I do get upset.  Some days it just doesn’t seem to matter how hard I try, things are not correct.  There is a new person learning to do the same position as I am doing.  He has been here about three weeks.  It really aggravates me when you ask someone a question and it should be a yes or no answer and you get a dissertation.  I also don’t like it when there are different rules for different people.  I’ve seen that many times over the years in corporate America.    It sucks when you have those people that are treated differently and you are doing the same position and have the same job title.  I hate having to go back and clean up files after someone else has screwed them up.  I’ve been doing that in relocation for most of my life.  You clean up after someone and then they get all the recognition and praise.  I really just want to scream sometimes.  Sometimes I just wonder if it is worth it!  But then reality hits.  I have to have a job.  Money is not everything but without it you can’t have a roof over your head, food on your table or clothes on your back.  Someone once said it is just a job.  That is true, but when my daughter was about 3, the manager at the company I worked for told me that I could not let my personal life cause my work life issues.  I guess I took that to heart.  I try very hard to keep them separated. I worked my way up in the relocation industry from secretary or wait that an administrative assistant now to a senior consultant making good money.  I’m very detailed oriented and I am very good at remembering what someone tells me to do.  I make notes, keep examples and follow guidelines when I’m learning something new.  I started that after that manager stated that I had to keep work and life separate.  I’m very good at time management.  I believe you lay out your day and you work to accomplish each and every task until it is finished before you quit for the day.  If that means not taking a lunch or working a little late, than that is what I do or was doing.  Just like with every job, an email or a call can change your schedule in a heartbeat.  I guess I’m just too old school.  I believe you do a job, you do it right and you don’t make excuses.  If you screw up, then you take the responsibility.  However, I also believe if you were following the directions of someone else and did exactly what you were told to do and there is an error, then that error belongs to everyone.  Then again, I’ve always been very responsible.  I’ve never tried to blame someone else for my error, if it was truly my error.  People are just different now.  I was trust to do my job and I did that job and the only time m

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Thanks,
Laura

I'm just sharing with my new goals for the Month of May - on May 1.  We are going to be making some changes to the podcast.  I'm a going to try to go back to three a week,  it will be a little more work, but I need to get some income from the podcast.  I do this for fun, but its not free.  

Also I weighed this morning and I'm back up to 177 which is 11 lbs more than what I weighed in November so my goal for May is 5 pounds and I will be going back to do Keto.  

Thanks for listening to my podcast, please keep sharing, downloading and please support us!

Thanks,
Laura

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1246568/support

Hey there listeners! I hope you liked the episode! We would appreciate your support. Please click the link!

Thanks,
Laura

All my life I’ve heard the phrase “I’m my own worst enemy.”  I never truly understood that as a teenager or a young adult, but today I can tell you that is true for a lot of people and I am one of them.   For most of my life I have fought an ongoing battle with myself because of my weight.  Just as I started to feel like I was in control, I had a wreck and now six months later, I’m still having issues that keep me from exercising and I’ve gained back 9 pounds.  I can’t run/walk/jog the 2.5 or 2.75 miles that I was doing in the first part of November.  I’m stress eating and like I said I’m gaining weight and my body feels awful.  I know 9 pounds doesn’t sound like a lot, but to someone who fights their weight on a daily basis that is almost the end of the world. 

Now to add to the stress of the weight, I still feel very inadequate when it come to my job.  I don’t feel like I have a true grasp of everything that has to happen to move people’s pets.  Part of the stress in this is knowing that if I miss something or forget something it could be catastrophic. Also, for the first time in over 30 years I am being written up for something that I don’t feel like was totally my fault.

Of course then we come to the podcast.  I’ve had a few supporters which is awesome and I’m so thankful for those few.  I think however to grow more I need to make some changes to the program and see if I can pull in more supporters.  Maybe, instead of changing this one, I start a new one.  This one is my therapy.  I want to increase my listener base and I’m still hoping for that sponsor that is willing to sign a contract and pays on a monthly basis for mentions in the podcast.  

Today, one of my close friends reached out and asked how I was, had I received any job offers/leads and how was work.  My reply was simply, “I’m good.  Work is work and no leads/offers and I guess I’m where I’m supposed to be for now.”  Her response, “For Now.”   She still works for the company where I was laid off. 

I know that God has more plans for me, but some days it is more than I can handle.  I don’t even like leaving the house now.  I cry a lot and for no apparent reason.  My anger flares up and is uncontrollable some times.  I can’t stop worrying about what’s going to happen when we have to move again.  Do we rent and not try to buy?  My brain never shuts down.  I feel like I have let everyone down in my family.  

I constantly try to control my appetite, make money, do the best I can at my job and be a good person.  I go to bed every night feeling like a failure.  Then to make matters worse, I don’t sleep good at all.  

I know I have shared many times about my addiction to antacids.  I was doing well!  I was down to three bottles a week from 14 a week.  No I run out before it is time to buy groceries again.  I eat them and then I hate my inability to refrain from eating them.  It is the same with food in general.

My other daily struggle is dealing with pain.  I have two autoimmune disorders one of which is fibromyalgia.  I’m fine most of the time during the day but at night when I lay down that is when the pain is the worst  My left side is where the pain  is and I don’t understand because it was the front right of the car that had all the damage.  So shouldn’t it be my right side with the pain from the wreck?  I can take pain pills and I can drink alcohol to help ease it at night, but that is not something I want to do.  

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Thanks,
Laura

Hey everyone,   Just sharing some updates on my fitness and life in general. Finally made it walking a mile last week .  That was the first time since the wreck in November.  Still having issues with my left knee and hip.  Next step is an MRI and I don't want to pay out that money. 

We are going to be changing up the podcast some.  Try to do a simulcast in Spanish maybe.  Maybe some true crime stories.

Also trying to figure out what is the next step in life.  It is busy in pet relocation, just like people relocation, summer time gets busy.  

Please listen, download and share with family and friends!  If you would like to support us, please click on buy me a cup of coffee. 

Have a blessed day!

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1246568/support

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Thanks,
Laura

Fairy tales that start with Once upon a time are not really fairy tales of love and happily ever after.  They are tales of distress, entrapment and normally some horrible outcomes. Some of the outcomes are death, life imprisonment or suffering cruelty at the hands of someone with more power or more money.  Power and money don’t always belong to one person.  Sometimes one will possess the power and another possesses the money.  Occasionally those items are both controlled by one single entity.  

Evil exists in all places in this world.  Sometimes it is so bad you can feel it when you walk into a place or up to a person.  It is a feeling that you can’t wash off or back away from.  You have to leave and get away as far as possible from the person or the place.  I’ve felt that a few times in my life and I should have gone with my gut feeling.  There is always hindsight in those situations.  What do you do?  How do you act?  How do you get away?  I’m not sure I have those answers.  In one such situation, it was only after several weeks of heartache and problems, did I finally find the courage to say no and leave.  Sometimes the cruelty we suffer at the hands of another person is not physical but mental.  That is the cruelty that is the hardest to recognize and the hardest to break away from and most of the time there is guilt felt by the victim and not by the abuser.  There is no hero on white horse to come save the fair maiden.  There is no hero to slay the dragon and sometimes, with no hope insight, the fair maiden will decide to make the ultimate sacrifice instead of enduring the abuse.  

Sometimes with the sadness and despair become too much, the victim doesn’t see any other way to get away.  They will take the poison, plunge the dagger into their own heart, or jump off the ledge.  They don’t have any hope left.  They’ve waited and waited for someone to help them.  They don’t know how to ask for that help or where to find the help that they need to escape.  As a last resort, they believe their only hope is to seek death by whatever means that might be for them.  Breaking a glass, using a knife, taking the pills, drinking the poison, jumping off the ledge or in some cases they attack the abuser hoping they will get angry and kill them.  It is a sad and bleak day when the news has to be broken to a family that their loved one has died either by their own hands or at the hands of an abuser.  

Suicidal thoughts are not as uncommon as some people would think.  There have been a couple of times that I have thought about it, but I’m too much of a coward and could never do it.  There are people that are past the point of caring, hoping and feeling or they feel too much.  If you are someone you know has those thoughts or you know they need help, reach out to them or call someone to get them some help.  

The suicide hotline is a toll free call:  800-273-8255.  If you feel like you are in a situation where you can’t win or get away and you think the only way out is death, make the call.  If you can’t make the call because of the situation, get a message to a family member or a friend.  Go to someone you do feel you can trust.  And if someone tells you to get a restraining order against your abuser, remember that is just a piece of paper.  It won’t stop anyone who is hell bent on hurting you. 

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Laura

Life or death?  Those two words have a lot of meanings separate or together.  Sometimes one person can hold another person’s life and death in their hands.  It is said that over 150,000 people die roughly a day across the world.  How does that break down?  That is 6,250 people per hour, 104 people per minute and 1.74 people per second. Let that sink in?  How many people do you know that have lost someone.  Over the last year, lots of people have lost love ones to the Covid 19 virus.  

So let’s take this one step further.  How many people die each day at the hands of another person, like being murdered?  400,000 homicides per year, 1096 homicides per day, 18.2 homicides per minute, .30 people per second are murdered.

The question now is how many of those go unsolved.  How many unsolved murders are there in the world, in the United States, in Texas and in your city?  It is estimated that there are about 250,000 unsolved murders in the world and that number increases by about 6,000 a year.  According to Project Cold Case there are 15, 050 that are unsolved for Texas.  

So how long does it take before a case is deemed a cold case?  That is defined by the agency.  A cold case is a case where probative leads have been exhausted. That could mean a case that is only a few months old can be deemed as a cold case. The oldest unsolved cold case in Texas, took place in Denton, Texas at the campus known today as Texas Women’s University in June of 1948 and is yet unsolved.  

Many of those familiar with Carpenter’s case speculate that she might have been a victim of an unidentified serial killer. Known as The Phantom Killer of Texarkana, the serial killer attacked eight people, five of whom were killed, in the Texarkana area in the span of several months in 1946. Interestingly enough, Carpenter did know three of the victims of this serial killer. To date, the Phantom Killer has never been caught or named.

Serial killers have always been an interest to me since the movies about Hannibal Lecter who is totally fictional.  So how many serial killers have been identified in Texas?  There are at least 17 that I have been able to find and we are going to be exploring those over the next few weeks and other unsolved murders and ghost stories.  

My niece’s murder is considered a cold case.  I will try to do one on her case but I’m not sure I can as it causes lots of emotions and heart ache.   

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Thanks,
Laura