Greetings and welcome. I’m Chris, aka MommyCat. You may be wondering who the heck would call themselves "MommyCat" - it's actually a nickname my son gave me years ago, and it kinda stuck. So, who exactly is "MommyCat." Well, I’m a widow, having lost my husband to cancer a few years ago. So now I'm raising two teens by myself, with plenty of input from family, trying to start a business, and keep family and sanity together. :-? Wait a minute, I lost my sanity years ago. :-)) Guess I've been too busy to miss it!

Now, a little background to give you an idea of what made me who I am today. (Oh, okay, so it's a lot, you don't have to read it all!) I was born into a military family, both parents were in the Air Force. So I grew up a BRAT and I'm proud of it. We moved on average of about every 3 years, so having been in the same town for the last, OMG, 24 years is driving me crazy. I'm more than ready to move. I grew up all over the United States and did a short stay in England as well. In all I've lived in Colorado, Florida, twice, New York, twice, Massachusetts, Texas, England, and Arizona. So when anyone asks me where I went to school, I usually ask what part of what year, especially since I’ve attended 4 different high schools.

During my travels, I’ve gotten kind of spoiled with some of the places I’ve visited. They’ve included the Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, White Sands, Painted Desert, Carlsbad and Sonora Caverns, the Alamo, Tombstone and the real OK Corral, the Florida Keys, Plymouth Rock and Cape Cod, Niagara Falls, the British Museum of Science, Westminster Abby in London, Normandy Beach, the Roman Baths in Bath, Somerset, England, Madam Tussauds wax museum in London, the London Palladium plus various other minor sites around the English countryside and the southwestern US. I just wish I could show my kids all I’ve seen before it changes too much or disappears altogether.

Most of my childhood was spent either growing up by or on military bases. Trust me, it’s an entirely different type of life, and Lord knows I miss it. I really can’t put into words what it’s like to live in a military community, it’s nothing like civilian life, and in a way I still feel out of place out here. I even did a 4 year stint in a military dependent school while we lived in England. Decidedly unlike civilian schools; we had discipline there; no detention because a lot of us lived off base and had to be bussed in, but what we did get got the point across. Forget your gym clothes – sit out, keep doing it – well..chipmunk program, you get to spend that class going around with a escort picking up garbage from campus grounds; minor infractions in class – giving teacher hard time, etc. – deans office for class period; larger infractions such as fighting – step program- step 1..deans office entire class period for x days, step 2..half class in deans office half in class for x days, step 3.. in class whole period on probation for x days. "x" because I can't remember exactly how many days it was. lol During this whole time, no field trips and for time in dean’s office, you better hope you have a friend willing to get your next assignment and take notes. AND if at any time you mess up, back to step one. I don’t think while I was there we had anyone go through it more than once. And for major infractions in behavior (we had 2 guys paint a teacher’s car, windows and lights included) let’s just say life as you knew it was over – the parent(s) in service could lose a stripe/rank level or worse and your tail end was sent back to the states.

Even given that, they were some of my best school years ever, classes were small, friendships were close, and, for most of us at least, race didn’t matter – daddy’s rank did. The two groups I remember where the enlisted brats on one side and the officers’ brats on the other; it wasn’t a line that was never crossed, but it was there.

We wandered around the twin bases, basically without fear, jumping the bus from base to base, hanging in the bowling alley, going to the movies where the anthem was played before the movie, stopping to face the flag out of respect in the morning and evening when it was raised and lowered, getting locked in a building during an alarm drill, basically thinking nothing odd about seeing people running around base either carrying or wearing full gear and gas masks, listening to aircraft revving up in the early hours of the morning or being greeted by the “squawk box” in the morning (if you lived in base housing) giving the time and weather, and going off at various times during the day when needed to announce base happenings and alerts.

And for those UFO buffs out there, we lived there during the Rendlesham Forest incident. My father was one of the people out there, but I’m not allowed to talk about that, even after all these years. I will only say that most of the stuff you hear about it is BS. *turns key on lock and throws key away* Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.

Like I said, Lord I miss it, and it’s not something I can explain to someone who hasn’t lived it. You either loved it or hated it. I even thought of enlisting when I was 19, but I couldn’t get the training I wanted, so …… Actually, being in the military is almost like a family tradition. Both my parents were in the Air Force, my great uncle was Navy, my grandfather in the Army, various aunts, uncles and cousins also served, even my brother managed to get in, if only for a short time due to leg problems. My ancestors have served during the civil war, the revolutionary war, both world wars, Korea and Vietnam and been involved in the Polish underground. My husband’s niece even did her stint as a Marine over in Iraq.

When my dad retired after 21 years, we moved back up to his home state. My welcome to the Mid-Atlantic states after being down in the warm south – our first winter we had snow that got plowed to a height over our heads into our driveway and our car literally frozen to the driveway by icy rain. God I just LOVE it here (please read dripping sarcasm), the only reason I didn’t leave before was I couldn’t afford it. Now there are other reason’s but I still am not enamored with this state – one day I will escape it.

Had big plans on going to college and getting my degree, but I couldn't decide on what. So I first majored in Chemical Tech. and while minoring in Fine Arts, but gave that up to due lack of financing AND deciding I didn’t want to get a degree in art if I had to believe that you must understand somebody’s pshyci in order to appreciate his art (a yellow box on a red background is NOT art, a 3 year old can do that, I don’t care what it means about his mother) and that photorealistic art is not art but somebody dousing their body in paint and withering around on a piece of paper is. *gets down of soapbox and puts it away*. (Love my soap box!)

After a while, I tried business school but wound up not being able to finish that due to developing carpal tunnel syndrome, which stopped me from completing the required shorthand and computer classes. Though before CTS sidelined me I did manage to land a job with a couple of great guys who were Financial Consultants. It only lasted a couple of years, but I really loved that job.

Before and after that I held a variety of jobs from cashiering (I’ll really date myself here, I started before scanners came in) to hotel housekeeping, factory work to working in a bakery and deli, and various retail jobs. Funny thing though, I noticed after a few years though, places I left seemed to close not to long afterwards; MJ Designs, Super Duper, Pleasures & Pastimes, Gold Circle, Perkins (they closed here, but later came back under different ownership), Joann Fabrics (the store I worked at only), our computer store, I believe even Record’s Reserve went out of business… gee only a few places I’ve been at are still around. Wonder if that should be a warning to any prospective employers. :-)

I met my husband at one of the places that’s still around – Harlequin Books, home of the romance books. We were married in 1993. In 1998, we, plus our two children, moved back into my parents house so I could take care of my mother who was recovering from a broken hip complicated by the fact she had progressive Multiple Sclerosis. Not too many years after, my father had to medically retire because of diabetic complications and heart and lung problems. So my husband and I took over most of the care and chores of the house, while I also took care of my mother as her illness progressed. Through the years my parents’ conditions continued to decline and we found out our son had PPD-NOS, ADHD and possible sensory integration problems, later to add OCD to the list. At the same time we found out my husband had cancer. After only 11 years of marriage I lost him to complications of cancer. From time of diagnosis to death was only a matter of months. By Christmas my husband had passed on.

In January, I decided to break my ankle. Now I was the one who needed taken care of, at least temporarily. It only kept me down for a while, and after getting a rolling chair for the house and a cast for the leg, I started taking care of my mother again with help from my father and daughter. For a while I even relied on my daughter to do the laundry. Well, what a way to be introduced to how to do it – I wound up with bleach spotted clothing, we started a new style, lol. But she did her best and that’s all I can ever ask. Heck, I even managed to figure out how to shovel the driveway in a wheelchair, actually got quite good and maneuvering the thing when we went out.

By the time I got back on my feet, my mother’s health was steadily declining till we lost her just after Christmas that same year. Shortly after that my father’s health failed to a point we thought we had lost him too. But, as I keep telling him, he’s too ornery to die. After being on dialysis for only a month, he came off (highly unusual I’ve been told) and he’s finally turned the corner with his health being on an upswing. So we’ve been spending the past couple of years trying to adjust to our new lives with a smaller family unit, still living with and talking care of my father, and still trying to weed through all the stuff our collective families have collected over the years. I'm beginning to think we need to just get a dumpster and a couple of shovels. :-)

Good Lord, shutting up about that now, just rambling on and on and on...... (You can find out more about the illnesses mentioned above elsewhere on my site.)

Now, the reasons for my religious beliefs, I belief in UFO’s, aliens, the paranormal, ghosts etc. and my interest in herbal medicine and organic living are to long and varied to go into here without turning this into a mini book instead of a single page (like I haven't done that already, lol), however, they will be popping up in various pages of my site, so stay tuned. I hope you enjoy exploring my site and remember, I’m a mixed bag of beliefs and never claimed to be normal and I don’t WANT to be normal: