My Very First Post

I always said that I would never have a blog. That changed yesterday when my friend Dave told me that if my blog got enough traffic, I could actually make money blogging. I hear you saying to yourself, "Who is this delusional woman who thinks she is going to make money blogging? What does she have to say that people are going to want to read?" Well, I will tell you.

My name isn't Merna...to a few select people I am Merna but my real name is Amy. Hello...it's a pleasure to have you meet me. I'm going to give you a tasty little bite of my life but I will go into detail, too much detail probably, in my later posts.

I am a single mother of 2 little boys. My ex-husband is an alcoholic loser who as of now isn't having a lot to do with the kids. We'll talk about him later, though he's kind of a depressing subject. Anyway, my kids, my dog Delila and I live in Logan, Utah. We live in a house we can no longer afford because my ex has decided he shouldn't have to pay child support or alimony anymore. He's kind of an idiot that way.

While I was married I was a stay-at-home mom and when I got divorced I suddenly had to find a job. There were a couple of problems with this situation...1) I had been a stay-at-home mom for 7 years, and 2) I have a college degree...in German. People weren't exactly clamoring to give me a job and living where I do made it even more difficult. So after filling out what seemed like a million applications, I finally found a job. At first I was happy just to be employed but more and more I feel like my prodigious intelligence and many talents are being wasted. I'm pretty sure that a trained monkey could do my job, though I've never had the opportunity to test that theory.

Let me take a minute to explain why I have a degree in German. I could never decide what I wanted to be when I grew up because I felt that my true calling in life was to be the ruler of a small-to-medium sized country. Unfortunately, one must always be born into those situations, unless one decides to take over the military and form a dictatorship, which I was hesitant to do. So I started college with no idea what I should study and to make the situation worse, my dad, a professor at my school, who I am only rarely on speaking terms with, signed himself up as my advisor. He had also changed my major from undeclared to Plants, Soils, and Biometeorology. Was this a hint that he wanted me to follow in his footsteps? Who cares? All I know is that I had an advisor that I couldn't speak to without getting into a big fat fight, and, though I didn't know what my major should be, I knew it had nothing to do with dirt. I got my generals out of the way and took German classes because I was already nearly fluent from what I had learned in High School and from living in Germany for a month. After my sophomore year I had the opportunity to go to Germany for 2 months, to an intensive German-language program at a place called the Goethe Institute (more about those 2 months later, I promise). I still didn't have a real major but I kept taking German classes because I was pretty freaking good at them. After 6 years in college I had taken every German class, most of the literature classes, several history and political science classes, as well as billiards and ballroom dance and I still had not decided what to major in. Then I got married...dun dun DUN! (that was creepy music, did you get that?) and my then husband pointed out that if I would just declare German as my major, I would be done. He also said that since I was going to be a stay-at-home mom anyway, it didn't really matter what my degree was in. I was pretty sick of school by this time and what he said made sense to me so I said "I am a German major and I am out of here!" and that was that. I know I said I would take a minute to explain that and, depending on how fast you read, that explanation likely took more that a minute. For that I am truly sorry.

Ok, so I am a divorced single mother with a useless degree and a job that my 7 year old son could do in his sleep. What else would you like to know about me? Oh! I know! I am the youngest of ten children. You may wonder why this is significant to who I am, to what makes me ME. Here are a few of the reasons: my parents are OLD. Most of my siblings are also old. My oldest brother just turned 61...I'm 25 years younger than he is...I'll let you do the math if you want to know how old I am. I have nieces that are the same age as me, one that is my best friend and one that is a huge pain in the ass, which you will hear about in detail later. I have great-nieces and nephews that are the same age as my children. With all of my siblings, their spouses, nieces and nephews and great-nieces and -nephews I am part of a HUGE family. Most of my family lives within a 10 minute drive and that makes it easy to get together a lot...no, seriously...A LOT. Every Sunday we go to my parents' house to gossip, eat whatever candy my dad has bought a case of that week, and listen to my mom yell, "What did she say?!" every few minutes (she's pretty deaf). We get together for every holiday, no matter how trivial. We are, on the outside, a very close family. In reality, we know very little about one anothers' personal lives.

I think that this is probably enough for my first post, and anyway I have to pee.